Green tape makes the poor poorer

An extreme illustration of what a shortage of building land leads to can be seen in the house pictured below. It is a former workman's cottage in an inner Western suburb of Sydney, is infested by termites, has no floor and is uninhabitable. It has just sold for $800,000



According to English humourist Auberon Waugh, the urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women.

Perhaps Julia Gillard recognised this in abandoning the cash-for-clunkers scheme. Designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this was to give new car buyers a $2000 rebate to scrap pre-1995 cars.

Premature scrapping of serviceable older cars creates a used-car shortage, and this raises the prices of used cars that are mainly bought by younger and poorer people. Giving cash for clunkers would have allowed politically powerful people to parade a phony environmental sensitivity while getting others to pay the cost.

It is not the only example of such hypocrisy. Self-selected political elites also use environmental concerns to prevent housing developments. Even though urban land comprises only 0.5 per cent of Victoria, and even less for Australia as a whole, regulations restrict city growth.

This creates housing land shortages, increases the cost of land for housing and inflates new house costs.

People without their own homes lose out. But existing homeowners benefit from increased house prices and can therefore have much to gain from supporting planning restraints in the name of environmentalism.

Last week, the think-tank Demographia released price data for detached housing in 325 housing markets in seven countries. Prices in Melbourne and the rest of Australia were, except for land-starved Hong Kong, the highest among the countries examined.

The analysis showed that to buy the average Australian house in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth required 7.1 years of the average household's income (nine years for Melbourne). For comparable US cities, it is 3.3 years, and in Britain, where houses are smaller, 5.1 years. For the sample of 82 world cities with populations over one million, Melbourne's house prices are the 79th highest (Sydney's are 81st).

Demographia demonstrated that government planning restraints creating a scarcity of housing land were the overwhelming cause of Australia's high prices.

Self-proclaimed housing experts have denied that high housing prices in Australia result from our planning and regulatory system. Some have said high prices in Australian capital cities are seen in all seaside cities. Yet house prices in US coastal cities like Houston and Tampa are a third of Melbourne's. Inland Bendigo's house prices are actually double those of Houston, the world's space research centre.

Some said high Australian house prices stem from low interest rates making them more affordable. Yet interest rates are far lower in Britain, the US and Canada, but houses are cheaper.

Others blamed high house prices on demand pressures from immigration. But low house prices in cities like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta are accompanied by far higher immigration levels than in Australian cities.

The Demographia analysis shows the high Australian house costs are overwhelmingly caused by the high costs of land. For a block on the Melbourne outskirts planning regulations, on my reckoning, add $80,000 to the cost of a new house.

Government intrusion in our lives reduces overall prosperity and often the poor face particularly adverse impacts.

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Some babies' brains damaged by mothballs

So they want to ban a very common and very effective household precaution. Why do we all have to suffer for the benefit of a few? Should not the at-risk groups be responsible for avoiding whatever is harmful to them? And whatever the do-gooders suggest in place of napthalene will undoubtedly be found to be also problematical eventually (as with trans fats). I'm going to stock up on mothballs. I have been using them to good effect for decades

EXPERTS have called for a ban on the sale of mothballs containing the chemical naphthalene, warning that they pose a risk of severe blood problems and even brain damage for significant numbers of Australian babies.

About 5 per cent of Australians of Asian, African, Middle Eastern or Mediterranean descent have an inherited enzyme deficiency, and affected babies can suffer blood-cell breakdown if placed too close to fabrics stored with naphthalene mothballs.

In severe cases this causes jaundice and the yellow pigment linked to jaundice, called bilirubin, can build up in the brain. This causes a condition called kernicterus, triggering neurological problems and sometimes brain damage, The Australian reports.

Australians of predominantly Anglo-Saxon or indigenous background are less commonly affected, but naphthalene can also cause red cell breakdown in those without the G6PD deficiency.

In a letter to the Medical Journal of Australia published today, three pediatric experts from Sydney and one from Christchurch say at least three babies suffered from the brain complications in the past three years. One of them died.

William Tarnow-Mordi, director of the Westmead International Network for Neonatal Education and Research at the University of Sydney, said affected babies could develop massive breakdown of their red blood cells within hours of being wrapped in clothing stored with mothballs containing naphthalene.

"The lifetime costs of caring for a baby with kernicterus are many millions of dollars," Professor Tarnow-Mordi said.

The European Union banned the supply of naphthalene products in 2008, and Professor Tarnow-Mordi said he and other experts were working with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to see whether similar action should be taken in Australia.

"Health authorities in Australia already inform parents about the dangers of mothballs with naphthalene. Without further measures, more babies could sustain brain damage or die," he said. "A total ban on mothballs with naphthalene may now be the safest course."

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Health professionals stymied by bungling bureaucracy

HUNDREDS of health professionals have been stuck in limbo after a bureaucratic bungle stripped them of registration and insurance. Some Queensland medicos have been banned from working for weeks because of delays and paperwork disputes with the new national registration system.

Dentists and psychologists in Queensland, and physiotherapists and nurses in Victoria and NSW, who have been caught up in the drama, have been Warned by Medicare to stop bulk-billing.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, the [Leftist brainchild] new independent national registration body that began in July, was yesterday still scrambling to fast-track applications.

AHPRA said it had no choice but to strike off medicos for failing to renew their registration but some health professionals across Australia say they were never issued the paperwork and their phone calls and emails went unanswered for days.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon and state Health Minister Paul Lucas told The Sunday Mail they were taking the matter seriously, but federal Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said the “shambolic” system needed immediate fixing.

Brisbane psychologist Hayley Webster, a doctor for nine years, was told by Medicare on January I8 to immediately stop bulk-billing because she had been deregistered. Dr Webster, who now cannot legally practise, said: “Every day, I’ve got to ring up seven or eight clients and tell them about the mix-up and I have to cancel.”

She said she never received paperwork with a log-in and password to allow her to renew her registration. AHPRA on Friday increased the operating hours of its call centre and has published on its website the fast-track application form.

The above report appeared in the Brisbane "Courier Mail" on Feb. 6




Yet another government computer bungle

Have they ever heard of beta testing?

THOUSANDS of shooters are furious they can't get firearm permits because of problems with a $6 million computer system introduced by the State Government to "streamline" processing.

Queensland Police Service implemented the Weapons Licensing Management System in late November with a switch to an online service expected to save $7.5 million in staff "efficiencies" over five years.

After more than two months, shooters and dealers said it was still not working. Delays have led to staff lay-offs and now threaten to send businesses to the wall. The state's largest firearm dealer, the Qld Gun Exchange in East Brisbane, has 800 customers waiting for permits and more than $800,000 worth of stock in limbo.

"Customers can't collect their guns unless they have a permit and we can't get paid until they collect their guns," owner Dave Augur told The Courier-Mail. "We have had to put off seven of our 24 staff and things are looking pretty grim."

Mr Augur said Permit to Acquire applications for those in the system and seeking extra firearms used to take two weeks to gain approval. This had blown out to months.

More than 100,000 firearms are registered to Queensland sporting shooters, hunters, professional shooters, farmers and security companies.

Shooters Union of Queensland president Graham Park said firearm owners were angry they had been hit with a 150 per cent fee rise and told changes would improve the process. "We were initially very supportive," Mr Park said. "But they have taken our money and not delivered on their promise of greater efficiency. This backlog is unacceptable."

Mr Park said the old process of collecting an application from police and faxing or mailing it to the Weapons Licensing Branch usually got a result in about a week. Now, it could take two months "if you were lucky".

QPS admitted there had been teething problems with "data migration" and additional staff had been assigned to "catch-up". A spokeswoman said there were about 4000 Permit to Acquire applications to be processed.

"Extra staff and extended work hours are being implemented to reduce the delays and to have applications processed as quickly as possible," she said. "It is anticipated that the applications will be within standard tolerances by March."

SOURCE

Milk Fascists

Why can't the do-gooders let people take their own risks if they want to? I drank raw milk for a time in my childhood with no visible ill-effects. It did taste better. Most of us kids got TB from it but hardly noticed. We were all healthy country kids so it was just another childhood illness akin to flu which came and quickly went -- leaving us immunized against TB for the rest of our lives. The milk was a very pleasant vaccine.

Dairy inspection standards are now however much stricter than the negligible ones of my far-off childhood so any infection these days is a tiny risk -- and we all take risks

The thirst for raw milk straight from the cow's udder has created a clandestine market among consumers who say it is healthier and tastes better. However, food authorities are determined to stamp out what they say is a highly dangerous and illegal practice.

Peter Melov, of Bondi, was recently fined $53,000 for selling raw milk and raw-milk products through a now-defunct organisation, Global Sov. The products were sold online and at an organic food market in Bondi Junction. "Everyone was coming in asking us for raw milk, and a few shops in Bondi had it, so I thought 'I'll just sell it'," Mr Melov said.

Selling unpasteurised milk and cheese for human consumption is illegal, but it is available to buy under names like "bath milk" in certain health-food shops and markets. The Sun-Herald understands some raw-milk aficionados have exploited this apparent loophole, buying "bath milk" for drinking. Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said companies selling raw-milk products were putting lives at risk. "There is sound scientific evidence pointing to the risks associated with consuming raw milk," he said.

Mr Melov, who was found guilty in Downing Centre Local Court of 43 breaches of the Food Act, said he had received no complaints from customers, and the NSW Food Authority had not warned him that he was doing anything wrong. He would not risk selling raw milk again, he said. "It was like we had been dealing drugs. "If we had just got a phone call, we would have complied completely with the Food Authority."

Medical microbiologist Dr Vitali Sintchenko, of Westmead Hospital, said there were sound reasons why selling raw milk was banned. "There are potential pathogens and toxins present in raw milk that can be life-threatening," he said.

Cheesemaker Will Studd has advocated changes to the legislation banning raw milk. "If we have such a healthy dairy industry, what is everybody so concerned about?" he asked. "Why aren't consumers allowed to enjoy milk in its natural state?" With the right regulation, there would not be any alarm about consuming raw milk and its products, he argued.

Fellow cheesemaker Franck Beaurain does not think it is necessary to relax existing regulations. "I really believe you can do a good job with pasteurised milk. I can't say it [raw milk] tastes better than pasteurised."

SOURCE






Melbourne council flies "gay pride" flag instead of Australian flag

ST KILDA'S council is fending off flak over its decision to hoist a gay pride flag in place of the Australian flag. There are three flagpoles on most of the council’s town halls, but this week, while it kept flying the local and the national Aboriginal flags, the Australian flag was taken down. “The gay pride flag replaces the Australian flag, which is at the highest mast head,” City of Port Phillip mayor Rachel Powning confirmed this morning.

In a feisty interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell program today, the mayor denied suggestions it was degrading the Australian flag. “It doesn’t reflect in any way a view by council that does not think the Australian flag is an important national symbol,” she said. But not everyone agrees, with the council accused of pandering to minority groups by flying the gay community flag above other town halls.

Port Phillip Council's move to give the rainbow flag priority in the lead up to Sunday's Pride March in St Kilda has sparked outrage. RSL state president Maj Gen David McLachlan said councils should realise that they represent all Australians and not one particular community group.

“Whether people are heterosexual or homosexual or alternate they are Australians and the primacy of the flag in protocol is the Australian flag and that should be flown before all other flags," he said.

British Australian Community president Barrie Hunt said the move was insulting to the majority of Australians especially as two indigenous flags had been allowed to keep flying. “I can't see why they can't leave the Australian flag up," he said. “Take down the indigenous flags and put up the gay pride ones and the Australian flag. What's wrong with that?"

But Port Phillip Mayor Rachel Powning said the only protocol issue was that no flag could be raised above the Australian flag. “So what we do is take down the Australian flag temporarily prior to the Pride March and raise the rainbow flag," she said. “The important thing is that we always have the Australian flag on display in the council chamber which is the most important area in any town hall."

Cr Powning questioned why the flag issue was only raised when the council honoured the gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex and transgender communities. “It makes me wonder why people raise the issue at this time because we replace the Australian flag on United Nations Day, Sorry Day and Naidoc (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) Week," she said.

Cr Powning confirmed that the Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag were still flying in the lead up to the Pride March. “We think this is a very important event to support,” she said.

She said the council was following its own protocol on the issue, which allowed the Australian flag to be taken down in exceptional circumstances. “The protocol states that the Australian flag will be flown from the highest pole on every day of the year from all of our town halls, with the exception of a number of events including … pride march.”

A similar exception applied to United Nations day, Sorry Day and NAIDOC week, she said, although the policy was silent on how long those flags could be flown instead of the Australian flag. “Many of our residents are in fact gay people. And what we’re doing is sending a message to our residents that diversity is very important to the City of Port Phillip.”

She said the Australian flag continued to be unfurled in the council chamber.

The Pride March, held from noon this Sunday, February 6, from Fitzroy St to the Catani Gardens aims to support the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex community.

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Greenie ideology hurts kids

Air conditioning causes global warming so must be stopped, you see

PARENTS from hundreds of schools have resorted to paying for basic resources such as airconditioning, even while the federal government's Building the Education Revolution has spent millions on new "green" classrooms with only natural ventilation.

As temperatures reached 42.2 degrees in Sydney yesterday – and after a record run of extremely hot days – the NSW Parents and Citizens' Associations said families were commonly being asked to fund cooling that should be publicly funded.

"It is a serious health and safety issue," said NSW Primary Principals Association president Jim Cooper. He said more buses and trains had airconditioning than classrooms, but children and teachers had to endure six hours in the heat, not half an hour. "The bottom line is it's very difficult to concentrate and focus when you're in a room with a temperature of 35 degrees-plus."

But parents were asked not only to buy the airconditioners but to fund their maintenance and contribute to the power bills, said Sharryn Brownlee of the Central Coast P&C.

Only 30 per cent of public schools have air-conditioning provided by the Department of Education. Just 20 per cent of new classrooms built under the BER have air-conditioning systems. The Department of Education only provides airconditioning in heat zones with a mean January average temperature of above 30 degrees.

But the NSW Teachers Federation president, Bob Lipscombe, said airconditioners should be installed in all classrooms. "It’s extraordinary in this day and age, when just about every public building and every private building requires airconditioning, that classrooms do not get it as a matter of course," Mr Lipscombe said. "The Department is being unreasonable to expect teachers to work in temperatures in the high 30s."

The NSW P&C president Helen Walton said: "It’s not just heaters and airconditioners. We are talking about raising money for everything from providing boxes of tissues in classrooms to paying for extra staff. That’s completely unacceptable." Her association estimates several hundred schools have self-funded airconditioning over the past few years across NSW.

Mr Cooper, from the Principals Association, said funds raised by parents contributed to the purchase of six new airconditioners at his school in Albion Park, near Wollongong. "It was a lot of money for us but it was regarded as a high priority for the children," he said.

Berowra Public School, in Sydney’s north, and Havenlee Public School, near Nowra, have both raised thousands of dollars to put towards airconditioning. A survey by the Australian Education Union found 92 per cent of NSW schools had engaged in fundraising in the past year. "The [schools] which are most affected are the ones which sit just outside the designated heat areas and aren’t eligible for air conditioning despite having very high temperatures throughout summer," Mr Cooper said.

Mosquitoes in the state’s north meant "teachers can’t leave the doors and windows open for ventilation so conditions just become stifling".

Classrooms designed under the BER use passive temperature control techniques such as insulation and natural ventilation.

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Responsible management of "stimulus" funds 'may have prevented flood levy'

Mismanagement of the government's controversial school halls program has resulted in $2.6 billion of taxpayer-funded waste that could have struck out the need for a temporary flood levy, says the federal opposition.

Speaking in a Senate hearing yesterday, Liberal frontbencher Brett Mason said cost data for the Building the Education Revolution scheme showed billions could have been saved if state-run projects had been completed as efficiently as those done by independent or Catholic education authorities.

"Based on the taskforce's own data, if the state governments in NSW, Victoria and Queensland were as efficient in achieving the same price per square metre as the independent school authorities in these three states, the taxpayers would have saved as much as $2.6bn," Senator Mason said.

"If they were as efficient as the Catholic authorities, the saving could have been around $1.5bn and now, because she has wasted so many billions of dollars, Ms Gillard is forced to slap people with another tax."

Queensland, NSW and Victoria account for roughly 70 per cent of school hall projects under the BER scheme, with 19 per cent of the 23,714 total projects nationwide yet to be completed. Cost per square metre was about 50 per cent greater in state schools than independent ones and about 30 per cent greater in Catholic schools.

The Gillard government has announced a $1.8bn flood levy, budget cuts and project deferrals to pay for flood reconstruction.

Head of the BER implementation taskforce Brad Orgill, who fronted the Senate hearing yesterday, did not dispute the figures but put the disparities down to "good and bad systemic differences". These included access to a school board and greater parental involvement between independent, Catholic and state-run schools.

"I suspect the differences between the government's ability to produce value for money as opposed to Catholic or independent schools goes to the fundamental differences between the three authorities," he said. "I stand absolutely by the data . . . but there are systemic differences . . . which I think are important."

SOURCE

Limits on advertising dangerous for democracy

By Andrew Norton

Earlier this week, the Australian Electoral Commission released figures on political expenditure for 2009–10. Australia’s miners reported spending $22 million on their campaign against the mining super-profits tax. In 2007–08, the union movement spent a record $28 million on their fight against WorkChoices. Both the miners and the unions succeeded in getting policies altered.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, columnist Peter Hartcher concurred with a 2007 Liberal Party view that spending on this scale is a ‘dangerous development for democracy.’ He feared that interest groups could veto policy, making it harder to implement needed reforms. Views of course differ on the merits of the mining tax and WorkChoices. But if governments launch major policy attacks on sections of Australian society, it can hardly be dangerous for democracy if their targets respond noisily and forcefully. This is what democracy is all about – differing views being expressed, with the public ultimately deciding who is most persuasive.

The real dangerous developments for democracy are the various attempts by governments to curb these protests. New South Wales has already imposed a state election campaign spending limit of just over $1 million for groups not standing for office. The Queensland government proposes an even more restrictive $500,000 for its state election campaigns. A promised federal review of election laws will almost certainly canvas similar political expenditure controls. Governments are protecting themselves from their critics.

What could be left uncapped is government propaganda. The AEC’s disclosure system does not apply to government, and so misses our biggest source of political advertising. Labor budgeted nearly $40 million for a campaign in favour of the mining tax, and the Coalition spent an estimated $55 million of taxpayers’ money promoting WorkChoices. Restricting non-government spending without controlling government advertising would further imbalance the political system in favour of the state.

It’s pretty obvious why political parties want to nobble their opponents. But I cannot understand why political expenditure laws get so little criticism from everyone else.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 4 Feb. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.




Australia’s familiar past

By Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich

Magic happens in old books. The thoughts and observations of writers long deceased come alive at the turn of yellowed pages. Deciphering antique fonts, touching dried-out leather covers and smelling aged paper, there is no more sensual bridge to the past.

It is surprising, however, how much of this magic still sparkles even in an electronic copy. Thanks to the digitalisation of the world’s great libraries, little treasures are now available at a mouse-click from your home computer.

A Swiss newspaper recently asked me to write an essay on the cultural relationship between Australia and the Old World. During my research, I stumbled on this book about Australia on Google Books. Written by an obscure German author and published in Leipzig in 1870, it got me hooked after the first few pages. The excitement was not so much because the book had opened a window into Australia’s history. It was rather because the past sounded so much like the present.

The author reports almost breathlessly about Australia’s remarkable economic achievements of the previous decades. The country is in the grip of a commodity boom, although the term for it at the time was ‘gold rush.’ Australia’s bustling cities are growing fast and are described as world class by the German visitor.

It is fascinating what the writer has to say about Melbourne in the last 1860s. Though only really established some 30 years earlier, the city already shows many of the landmarks of today’s Melbourne. The main newspapers are called The Herald and The Age; the State Library and Parliament House had just opened; and there was Chinatown in Little Bourke Street.

The Australians in the book come across as practical, hard-working and civic-minded. After the catastrophic floods in the Nepean district in 1867, Sydneysiders donated large amounts of money to help with the reconstruction. Apparently, the event was followed by a long discussion about building dams to prevent any such events in the future. At least Australians of the time escaped an extra tax to pay for them.

A dip into Australia’s history, seen through the eyes of a foreigner, is revealing. The pragmatism and egalitarianism so closely associated with Australia today are certainly not an invention of our times. Australia has obviously changed over the past 140 years, but perhaps not quite as much as we think.

As for the magic that is happening on yellowed pages, I couldn’t resist ordering a physical copy of the book from an antiquarian dealer.

Fortunately, some things have changed since the book was published: I won’t have to wait three months for it to arrive from Europe.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 4 Feb. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





Gillard dumps Rudds health reform

JULIA Gillard is preparing to dump Kevin Rudd's plan to make the Commonwealth the dominant funder of hospitals, favouring an alternative model so unpopular among states that any hope of reaching a national health reform agreement appears lost.

After 12 months of wrangling with the states and the signing of a historic health funding agreement in Canberra last year, the Federal Government is developing a new model to deliver its funding directly to hospitals, and without the states receiving promised funds for expenditure growth and capital works, The Weekend Australian reports.

In an attempt to finalise the new health funding agreement before the meeting of state and federal leaders in Canberra on February 14, the Federal Government has put forward a tough new proposal from Treasury and Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The aggressive action threatens to cost states that do not agree $15 billion in new funding with almost $5bn slated for NSW, $3.8bn for Victoria and $1.7bn for Western Australia.

Ms Gillard's new position was relayed to state officials by Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Terry Moran at Melbourne's Sarti Restaurant and Bar on Thursday night. Somewhat pointedly, it happened without the involvement of Department of Health head Jane Halton.

Mr Moran reportedly said the Prime Minister's position was not negotiable - something the states took as a sign Ms Gillard was adopting a "crash or crash through" attitude - and would be outlined in a commonwealth paper at the next Council Of Australian Governments meeting on February 14.

While interpretations of the Gillard model differ, several state government sources told The Weekend Australian there would no longer be any clawback of the GST - a key sticking point for Victoria and Western Australia - but, in return, the Commonwealth would revert to its original position of funding only 40 per cent of the health system.

Mr Rudd - after initially threatening to take over state-run hospitals if he could not achieve reform - struck a deal that would have made the Commonwealth the dominant funder, taking 60 per cent responsibility, including future growth, in exchange for roughly 30 per cent of the states' GST payments.

Furthermore, the Commonwealth contribution would no longer go into state pools to be distributed to hospital networks, but directly to the planned hospital networks themselves, perhaps from a national pool or via a Medicare mechanism, which has previously been questioned by Western Australia.

Last night, sources in one state said the Gillard model was "about a finance grab, not about health reforms", while others remained unsure of the detail and whether Mr Moran was acting with the imprimatur of the Prime Minister.

Ms Gillard would not comment, Mr Moran could not be contacted, and Health Minister Nicola Roxon's office would only say that the negotiations, which some described as fast-moving, and ever-changing, would continue ahead of COAG.

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Corporate advertisers insist on rigid political correctness

Christopher Pearson

GRAHAM Young is the founding editor of a well-regarded e-journal called On Line Opinion, and is a regular contributor to The Australian. I'd describe him as belonging in the centre of the political spectrum, perhaps tending to mild conservatism.

In December he published a piece arguing the case against gay marriage by the pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits of the argument. It was not the first article he'd run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney Croome, a gay activist. Nor were most of the essays run opposed to gay marriage.

Young commented on the blog in mid-December. "The On Line Opinion approach is one that many find difficult to accept, and we are currently under attack from a number of gay activists because we dared to publish [Muehlenberg's essay] which is mostly a pastiche of comments by gay activists, even though the majority of articles I can find on the site support gay marriage. And by attack I mean attempting to intimidate me, sponsors or advertisers. How ironic . . . when we are sponsoring the Human Rights Awards."

When I spoke to him on Wednesday, Young said it wasn't the first time advertisers had made life hard. A group called Ethical Investments had objected after their ads sometimes appeared on pages alongside articles questioning anthropogenic global warming.

On account of the Muehlenberg piece, Young told me two major advertisers had just pulled out: the ANZ Bank and IBM. Comparing this year's January gross ad sales with last year's, he calculated that revenue from his main category of advertising had fallen by 96 per cent. Young is worried that these bizarre decisions will adversely affect other websites as well as his own and could even lead to some of them closing down.

Courts might construe that as the result of an indiscriminate secondary boycott, in contravention of the Trade Practices Act.

That's because Young and a group of other political sites have formed a network called The Domain, to bundle up their readers as a more attractive package for advertisers. The sites are very diverse in terms of ideology, from the ultra-leftist John Passant, to the more mainstream centre-Left Larvatus Prodeo, Club Troppo, Andrew Bartlett, skepticlawyer and the likes of Henry Thornton and Jennifer Marohasy.

Obviously I don't agree with much of what some of them say and the tone of some is more virulent than you'd find in the letters page of The Australian. But clearly they have a right to exist and issues of principle are at stake here that go to the freedom of political debate in this country and the character of our civilisation.

I share the view most editors and journalists once took for granted. Almost any rational argument, no matter how abhorrent, deserves a run.

Aside from advocating terrorism, the only exceptions that come to mind are pieces casting doubts on the existence of the Holocaust and apologias for legalising sex with children or animals.

If anyone is proposing to compromise the freedom of political debate on Australian blogs, it shouldn't happen without a full debate and, like most people, I'd rather it weren't big corporations making the decisions.

So I approached the public relations people at IBM and the ANZ Bank, to find out whether the decision to punish an article against gay marriage by withdrawing their ads was corporate policy.

It seemed inherently unlikely that those organisations would want to express a view either way on such a contentious social issue, let alone in doing so to make decisions that put the survival of other, independent political blogs with a range of positions on the issue in some degree of jeopardy.

It also occurred to me that the sums were small enough - thousands of dollars a month, rather than tens of thousands - so that the decisions might have been taken at one remove, perhaps by the delegated authority of an advertising agency which might be trying to exercise some "soft pink power". In 20-odd years as a magazine editor, I sometimes encountered that sort of malarky.

The initial responses from the PR people in both corporations was that it was news to them and they'd get back to me before my deadline. The ANZ's Stephen Ries replied first. "ANZ does not advertise on any opinion-type websites that may cause offence or segregate any individuals or group. In this instance our advertising was placed through an automatic advertising placement service and once we were alerted to the content we removed our advertising.

"The removal of our advertising should not be viewed as a violation of free speech; it's simply that we choose not to advertise on blogs that do not align to our organisational values."

Oh, brave new world! Apparently anything less than uncritical endorsement of gay marriage no longer aligns with the ANZ's organisational values. What's more, the loss of ad revenue to all the blogs in the Domain network, irrespective of each site's stance on the issue, is neither here nor there and has nothing to do with their freedom of speech.

It's also worth noting that despite the blanket assurances of not advertising on opinion websites, the ANZ was advertising on [Leftist] New Matilda on Friday.

IBM's Matt Mollett's reply was more gnomic. "To optimise reach with its target audiences, IBM continuously reviews and refines its advertising strategy based on a range of considerations, including demographics and content."

Young suspects that the peg on which to hang the internal decision to withdraw advertising within both organisations was a code developed by IASH, the Internet Advertising Sales Houses, which he declined to sign.

The code is a triumph of political correctness gone mad, and badly needs rewriting. Schedule C provides that IASH Australia members "are forbidden to place advertising on sites containing barred content - in other words, any of the inventory defined below - in any circumstances. Content articulating views intended or reasonably likely to cause or incite hatred of any race, religion, creed, class or ethnic group. Content articulating views calculated to cause offence to or incite hatred of any individual or group."

The last sentence is the loopiest in the schedule. It forbids anything that might offend anyone. This would neuter not just contentious articles but the free flow of comment on them that gives blogs their character. As Young says, this section threatens any Australian discussion site. "No newspaper could sign up to this and have discussion threads that were anything other than anodyne."

Apart from making hay with the issue of free speech, I expect the other blogs will kick up a huge fuss, online and in court, about being incidental victims of a secondary boycott. Skepticlawyer blog's Helen Dale, with expertise at the bar and a gift for self-promotion, should have a field day.

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Victoria's Education Minister Martin Dixon launches new bid to restore order in classrooms

TEACHERS will seize back control of their classrooms from unruly students under a bid to restore discipline in Victorian schools. The new Baillieu Government will next week push for new laws allowing principals to search students, lockers and school bags for weapons and other dangerous items.

Education Minister Martin Dixon also wants to reverse students' declining respect for authority. He wants to put a stop to bad language, sloppy dress and mobile phones in class.

It follows a surge in schoolyard violence, with Victorian schools now reporting more than 12 assaults every week. Over the past decade, the number of students aged 10-14 committing violent acts has jumped by 80 per cent. "Put simply, violent behaviour in the school yard will not be tolerated," said Mr Dixon, a former principal with 15 years' experience.

"These new powers will ensure principals and teachers have clear authority to maintain order and safety in schools. "We want to send a strong message that we will protect that authority."

Mr Dixon said restoring respect was his top priority. "There's a growing number of parents that have got a lack of respect for any level of authority, whether it be police or school principals," he said. "(And) there's an increasing use and threat of violence in schools. "Assaults, verbal or physical, on teachers and principals used to be unheard of, but they do occur now. It is an issue. We've got to protect principals from that too."

Under the legislation to be debated in Parliament next week, principals would have the power to order students to open lockers and school bags, and turn out their pockets, to prove they were not carrying weapons. Any potentially dangerous items - including glass bottles, sporting equipment and trade tools - could be confiscated.

The legislation would not permit teachers to conduct body searches, but would legally protect them for handling prohibited items, such as knives or guns, before handing them over to police.

Mr Dixon said he was personally opposed to mobile phones in classrooms, sloppy dressing and swearing in school grounds. But principals would set the rules and penalties in their own schools.

Victorian Principals Association president Gabrielle Leigh said the move would make schools safer.

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Latham slams Gillard's childlessness

Latham could have a point, despite the derision below. He is a devoted parent himself and you don't get to be leader of the ALP unless you have a few brains. Character is another matter of course

If we were armchair psychologists, we might think Mark Latham had issues with women. In particular, women in power, and even more in particular, the woman who outraced him in talent and tenacity to become Prime Minister. It's never a good look to follow a trend set by Bill Heffernan, but alas, that is what Latham has done, by relating the Prime Minister's perceived deficiencies directly to her childlessness.

In his latest assault on journalism, the former Labor leader takes issue with Julia Gillard's leadership style, in his column "Latham's Law", published by The Spectator Australia. Reading it is like watching someone have a fit - you wince because you know it's going to get much worse before the ordeal ends. Latham opines that Gillard appeared wooden when interacting with locals after the Queensland floods. He says she is "not a particularly empathetic person - displaying, for instance, noticeable discomfort around infant children".

OK, you think, fair enough, but then he delivers this portent of doom: "The femocrats will not like this statement but I believe it to be true … " And so you brace yourself. "Anyone who chooses a life without children, as Gillard has, cannot have much love in them," he concludes. As opposed to Latham, of course, who is known as a great spreader of love and a favourite of little children.

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A Green ivory tower inhabitant

Ian Lowe is President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Professor of Science, Technology and Society and former Head of the School of Science at Griffith University

Prof. Ian Lowe has let the cat out of the bag. He makes a telling statement in arguing for renewable energy instead of nuclear energy in Why vs Why: Nuclear Power, Pantera Press, Sydney, 2010.

He claims that the 2030 energy demand can be met by wind (50%), solar (40%), hydro, tidal, and geothermal (10%). He then states:

“Altogether, the area needed for energy supply would be about 1.3 % of the Earth’s land area.”

Doesn’t sound much, does it? Trouble is, this amounts to almost 200,000 sq. kilometres! To put this in perspective, this amounts to covering every square inch of VICTORIA with renewable energy collectors.

This is bigger than many nation states. And this would be based on putting the best case forward for renewables, so the real amount would be much larger.

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Solar power fail in South Australia

Difficult to maintain

A SOLAR power station in the state's Far North has been idle for more than a year. The station has been out of action for four of the past seven years.

The Government-owned $3.7 million power plant at Umuwa, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, was upgraded in 2008, but was switched off just over a year later because of safety concerns.

Originally built in 2003, it also was shut down in 2005, for three years, before receiving a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded upgrade.

The 715MW hour station was built to cut the community's dependence on diesel and was supposed to save 140,000 litres of diesel and 400 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Opposition MP Steven Marshall, who is a member of the Aboriginal Lands Committee, said the Government needed to fix the problem before "moving on to the next photo opportunity".

"This is an example of complete ineptitude, wrong priorities and tokenism ... combining to leave Aboriginal people at a disadvantage," he said.

Uniting Care Wesley indigenous policy officer Jonathan Nicholls said he had been "frustrated" a request for information on the project's status last year from Aboriginal Affairs Minister Grace Portolesi had been unanswered. "We accept it is difficult to repair and maintain certain things in remote communities, but we are not comfortable with this sweeping things under the carpet," he said.

Ms Portolesi said the plant had been out of action because of "complex issues relating to meteorological conditions," including electrical storms and wind-blown dust. She said maintenance of the plant had been the responsibility of a private company which went into administration about a year ago.

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Dam management needs to be weather-savvy

By Andrew Dragun, an adjunct professor at Griffith University and the editor of The International Journal of Water.

With cyclones now queuing to get into Queensland, it is timely that the Premier reminds us that "preparation is our best defence".

Certainly it makes sense to batten down the hatches and move vulnerable people away from potentially dangerous locations. Hopefully, with such proactive initiative, no one will be hurt and with a bit of luck the storms will abate early. Clearly, positive preparation is a good way to manage a potentially catastrophic situation.

While the present spate of cyclones is thankfully sparing already flood-ravaged southeast Queensland, it is the case that the effects of weather over the past six months have been more severe in the southeast than in most of the state. The Bureau of Meteorology confirms that the intense La Nina weather pattern will persist for a few months yet; just because the present cyclone track is a bit further north does not mean the southeast should become complacent.

Unfortunately, we are in the wettest month of the year, February, when there have been twice as many floods in southeast Queensland since 1840 than in January. Heavy weather systems seem to ambush the region from every direction and are compounded by sea surges and king tides.

Being prepared in such uncertain and risky circumstances would seem to be good defence and proactive policy, as Anna Bligh has suggested. The management of Wivenhoe Dam surely fits into this box.

Risk management of a large dam should be a dynamic consideration, so it is important to consider how circumstances have evolved and been managed over the past nine months or so as weather systems and supply levels have changed. This allows us to focus on the main risks confronting dam management at this time.

Wivenhoe Dam reached a low of about 15 per cent in August 2007 during a long dry spell dominated by El Nino-type weather systems. This implies a high risk of running out of water and no risk of flood. Subsequently, after several years where the Southern Oscillation Index was mildly positive for lengths of time, Wivenhoe reached full supply level of 98 per cent in March 2010. Hence there was a low risk of running out of water and a low risk of floods. The dam was, however, maintained at FSL despite advice from the BOM that a very strong La Nina had been established as early as July 2010, which meant there was low risk to water supply and increasing risk of floods. The dam was held at FSL following three minor flood events in October and December 2010, when there was a low risk to supply and a high risk of floods. The dam levels were not reduced in the week before the Brisbane floods, despite public warnings of a heavy rain incident in southeast Queensland from the BOM and an increasingly high risk of floods.

There was no release of water from the dam in the early phase of the flood, leading to the need to dump the 645,000ML on January 11, which may have been the biggest contributor to the flood. This at a time when there was no risk to supply and exceptionally high risk of floods. Following the flood and with the phase of king tides over, there has been no move to reduce water in the dam, even though the threat of further heavy rain has not diminished: that is, there is a low risk to supply and moderate risk of further floods.

Over time it is obvious that the risk of running out of water abated while the risk of flooding increased dramatically. However, the management of the dam has remained the same throughout, despite radically different weather outlook, supply situation in the dam and flood outlook.

Since the dam managers say they have managed by the book, it should come as no surprise to find that the operating manual for the dam does not contain guidance to managing risk, there is no calculus for determining the FSL and there is no methodology for taking into account changing weather.

The flood monitoring and forecasting system at the dam takes account of river and rainfall data collected from a radio telemetry network of 100 field stations within the catchment and predicts scenarios of dam inflow based on forecast and potential rain in the catchments. That is all. Simply put, the operating manual enables the operator to respond to actual changes in the Wivenhoe Dam level according to exact measures of those changes in the prevailing weather incident.

To put this in context, a cyclone heading into Brisbane from the east may be halfway up the Brisbane River before it begins to make an impression on the Wivenhoe catchment, which is then picked up by the radio telemetry. Presumably the forecasts and potential rain then kick in to yield a prediction that the dam might begin to fill. But until the scenario heights get triggered the dam stays shut.

And then it really begins to rain on Brisbane, as it can do. The dam is filling rapidly and big dollops of water need to be released to save the dam. Of course the cyclone is also causing a sea surge and a king tide is running. Unfortunately, the dam release takes about 36 hours to get to Brisbane and out to sea.

And it is too late to be proactive and take precautions with the next Brisbane flood. The dams may be gone and Brisbane could be transported out to Moreton Island.

So why take the risk? At this stage the risk profile of Wivenhoe Dam and the Brisbane region can be summarised as follows. There is a high risk of cyclones, rain and flooding on the Queensland coast for the next couple of months. There is a high risk of being ambushed by heavy weather systems from all directions. There is a high risk of sea surge with coastal cyclones. There is a high risk of king tides after February 17.

There is no risk of drought next week, or even much of one this year. There is no risk of running out of water for about five years, even if there is no rain. All the regions' dams are full to overflowing. The regional grid is operational. An additional capacity of 200,000ML has been added at Hinze, and the new desalination and water recycling infrastructure has been commissioned (to be immediately mothballed).

It looks to be a no-brainer, really. All the risk looks to be on the flood side of the ledger and it is hard to see the value of a few hundred thousand more megalitres of supply water in Wivenhoe at this stage of a dire rainfall-heavy weather cycle

The lack of action in these circumstances is difficult to fathom. It may be that changing operating conditions on the dam now may be considered an admission of error and thus too risky, given the potential for class action suits arising from the January floods.

Preparation is our best defence and a little political leadership to get down Wivenhoe Dam to manageable levels would be a proactive and low-risk step in saving the Brisbane Valley from another devastating flood.

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Labor party tax claims deceptive

Julia Gillard is facing a make-or-break year. This is the last year of leeway before the federal budget has to be in surplus. In 2012-13 the Gillard government has to budget for a surplus, and deliver it too.

Gillard gave a rather strange speech to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia this week. She made all the usual noises: world-class education and Australia's a great nation and so on. She also claimed her government was a low-taxing government and that in 2011-12, this coming fiscal year, commonwealth revenue as a share of gross domestic product would be lower than for every single year of the Howard government era.

While the literal meaning of Gillard's words is true, the meaning of her statements is fundamentally misleading. Treasurer Wayne Swan has been telling anyone who will listen that government revenue has collapsed due to the effects of the global financial crisis. The Rudd-Gillard government has been "low-taxing" because its efforts to be high-taxing have more or less failed; revenue sources dried up during the GFC.

The then Rudd government did promise in its first budget to keep taxation as a share of GDP below the 2007-08 level.

But for the "small" problem of the budget deficit, it looks like the Rudd-Gillard government has met that promise. Budget deficits are deferred taxation - the money will have to be paid back at some point through increased taxation.

The Howard government tended to run budget surpluses, which are either deferred spending or deferred tax cuts. A government that runs a surplus is taxing too much, while a government that runs a deficit is spending too much or, perhaps, taxing too little. Of course Gillard would have us believe the Howard government generally spent too little, although not even Rudd, who famously said, "This reckless spending must stop", thought so at the time.

In order to compare like with like, it is necessary to adjust the revenue figures over time, taking into account over-taxation and under-taxation.

To that end I had a look at commonwealth receipts as a percentage of GDP and subtracted surpluses and added deficits. It quickly became apparent the current and deferred tax burden under the Gillard government in 2011-12 will be higher than in any year during the Howard era. Debt and deficit is being used to claim superior economic management when the increased tax burden has simply been shifted to future years.

Yet Gillard couldn't resist the temptation to pillory the Howard government for excess spending in its last term of office. Indeed it was high, and the Gillard government has committed to a spending cap of about 2 per cent growth. Yet we are invited to believe that the Rudd-Gillard government has been disciplined in its spending.

Over the life of the Howard government spending grew, in real terms as measured by CPI, by 3.54 per cent on average each year. The equivalent figure for the Rudd-Gillard government, including over its forward estimates, is 3.32 per cent. When I look at real spending in non-farm GDP deflator terms, Howard government spending grew only by 2.9 per cent while the Rudd-Gillard government equivalent is 3.3 per cent.

We can't even conclude they're as bad as each other. The Howard-era data is historical; most of the Rudd-Gillard-era data is forecasts. If the Gillard government is as disciplined as it hopes, it will be as bad as the Howard government was. But fiscal discipline has been foreign in Australian public finance for some time.

Why is this year particularly difficult? This coming fiscal year requires the federal government to cut spending in real terms (as measured by CPI). All governments like to decrease the rate of spending and claim that as a budget cut. That won't be enough this time. Tax receipts are more or less at the long-term average while spending is way above the long-term average. A claim that the government is low-taxing is clearly the start of a campaign to butter up the electorate for increased taxes. We have already seen the flood levy, and the carbon tax and a bank super-profit tax are not far behind. These taxes will breach the Rudd government's first budget promise.

Government spending over the past few years has been undisciplined. Rather than being timely, temporary and targeted, the spending has gone on too long and too indiscriminately.

Swan, who foolishly promised that "come hell or high water" the budget would be in surplus in 2012-13, needs to deliver. Given the original promise of a cap on tax receipts, the surplus can only be achieved by spending cuts. We will know on budget night whether he can deliver - anything less than real cuts of about 1.1 per cent of GDP will indicate yet another broken budget promise.

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Research achievements among Australian universities

Detailed ratings here. As a graduate of the University of Qld., I was pleased to see it ranked third. All three of the universities where I have studied made it into the top 10, in fact. The big surprise was a former technical college (QUT) squeaking into the top 10

Note, however, that there is a large element of subjectivity in the whole exercise

JANUARY 31 was a landmark day for Australian universities. With the release of the first national report of the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative, we have, for the first time, a comprehensive evaluation of our research achievements against those of our global peers.

The picture is impressive. In total, 65 per cent of units were assessed as performing at world standard, including 21 per cent above and 13 per cent well above the rest of the world.

ERA draws together rich information about discipline-specific research activity at each institution, as well as information about each discipline's contribution to the national landscape. It was a huge exercise. ERA took into account the work of 55,000 individuals, collecting data on 333,000 publications and research outputs across 157 disciplines. In all, 2435 areas in 40 institutions were assessed by committees comprised of distinguished Australian and international researchers: that is, those who know the field interpreted the data. The committees had access to detailed metrics and a range of other indicators (including results of more detailed peer review of individual works held in online repositories).

Australia has lagged behind its international counterparts in the implementation of a research evaluation system. South Africa has been evaluating researchers for more than 20 years, the British exercise was first introduced in 1986 and the New Zealand exercise in 2003. Because of a long gestation, we have been able to use an Australian Bureau of Statistics classification system designed for Australasia and learn from problems elsewhere, consulting the best available expertise to assist in the design of the initiative, as well as using the latest advances in information tools and technology.

This has enabled us to deliver the exercise in a cost-effective manner. Compared with international equivalents, ERA should be seen in the context of an annual investment in research in universities of more than $2.5 billion.

So, what does it mean for government? ERA enables the government to assure the public its investment in our universities is producing quality outcomes. Planning for future investment to build on strengths or develop new areas, encourage collaboration and allocate critical research infrastructure will now have a much stronger basis.

For universities? Leaders can also use ERA outcomes for planning and to guide investment. Potential research students and staff will be able to make informed choices about the best places to go, with the strength of the area, not just reputation or geography in mind. Business will also be able to find the universities with the best of the expertise they need.

ERA 2010 shows the strong research areas in Australian universities include astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, geology, electrical engineering, history, and health and medical science (including cardiovascular medicine, human movement and sports science, immunology, oncology and pharmacology). These complement areas such as marine and climate science, food science and agriculture, where the lead is taken by our science agencies such as the CSIRO.

There is a strong correlation between excellence and areas that have won competitive research funding. The strength of medical science is not surprising, given these areas have had a separate funding council, a history of strong leadership and many successes (including most of our Nobel laureates). Other areas such as geology, plant biology and electrical engineering have support from the Australian Research Council, other government programs and from industry.

The picture for the humanities, arts and social sciences is more complex. ERA has recognised in a formal way for the first time the work of the many talented creative and performing artists doing research in our universities. Traditional disciplines such as history have both depth and breadth. In others (such as psychology, cultural studies, banking, accounting and business) the excellence is concentrated within a smaller number of institutions. The Australian National University aside, there have been fewer opportunities for scholars in these areas to devote themselves substantially to research in the way that has been possible for some areas of science, medicine and engineering. The drive to collaborate to access infrastructure (and the necessary government funding) has also helped many of the areas in science and technology develop the necessary concentration and scale needed to sustain world-class research teams.

ERA has had its critics. A view that applied research would not be recognised has not eventuated. Crop and pasture production, materials engineering and resources engineering and nursing all performed well. Similarly, newer interdisciplinary areas such as environmental science, nanotechnology and communication and media studies have demonstrated excellence despite predictions to the contrary.

Finally, the assumption that measuring research quality will improve what we do has often been challenged. This underestimates our competitive culture. On receiving his results, one vice-chancellor reflected that he was reasonably happy with the outcomes for his university but confident they will have improved by 30 per cent in the next one.

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Total negligence from yet another public hospital

Mother nearly bleeds to death

REBECCA Cooksey experienced every expectant mother's nightmare on Friday. She was sent home from hospital only to give birth two hours later in a parked ambulance. Ms Cooksey then haemorrhaged after delivering daughter Hayley and lost 3.5 litres of blood.

She and fiance Scott Andrews are demanding answers, claiming a member of hospital staff told them "having a home birth was a nicer experience".

The 22-year-old mum said she had been in "full labour" when she presented at Kaleeya Hospital in East Fremantle at 4pm Friday. But at 6.15pm she was told to return home to Yangebup a 25-minute road trip. "She could barely walk when we arrived at hospital," Mr Andrews, 23, said. "The hospital actually told me that having a home birth was a nicer experience. "They were full, but said Bec's contractions weren't close enough. She was having up to six contractions in 10 minutes. "I was very pissed off. I literally thought I was going to have to deliver this baby."

Mr Andrews said they had made midwives aware of difficulties during the pregnancy and also the fact that his partner had haemorrhaged after the birth of their first child, 22-month-old Bella.

The couple were only home for 20 minutes before Mr Andrews had to call an ambulance because Ms Cooksey was in considerable pain. He had tried, without getting through, to phone Kaleeya Hospital for advice. The ambulance tried to get Ms Cooksey to King Edward Memorial Hospital, but the baby arrived as the vehicle was parked near the Narrows Bridge about 8pm.

Both the Cooksey and Andrews families demand answers to why the hospital failed to properly care for the young mother. "If Scott hadn't called the ambulance when he did, she would have bled out on the couch," Ms Cooksey's mother Deidre Livesey said last night.

Mr Andrews' mother, Robyn, believes hospital staff showed poor judgment.

A Kaleeya Hospital spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on the details of individual patients, but Ms Cooksey's case would be reviewed.

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Australian Govt. has power to deport Afghan illegals to Afghanistan

The Federal government insists it does have the power to deport failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan under a new agreement with the Afghan government. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen signed the deal with Afghan Refugee Minister Jamaher Anwary earlier this month.

Mr Bowen hailed the deal as a major breakthrough in border security. But Dr Anwary appeared to back away from the deal in comments aired by the ABC on Tuesday. Dr Anwary says the deal does not allow Australia to involuntary deport failed asylum seekers back to Afghanistan and claims to the contrary are propaganda.

But Mr Bowen on Tuesday insisted otherwise. "Of course, it's the preference of the governments of both Australia and Afghanistan - and the United Nations High Commissioner - that these returns be voluntary wherever possible," Mr Bowen's spokeswoman said. "But the MoU does provide for involuntary returns."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the agreement appeared to be unravelling after just two weeks. "Just like the never-never East Timor solution this is another foreign affairs mess in asylum policy," he said in a statement. "It remains an open question as to whether the government will now follow through, especially given the confusion surrounding the Afghan agreement."

The agreement, which is not legally binding, has been condemned by rights groups that fear returned Afghans will be put in danger.

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Unionist wreckers on the march

THE preoccupation with deficits and monetary policy has drawn attention away from yet another problem area of economic management, this one almost entirely brought on by the federal government's decisions.

The Fair Work Act was the government's response to Work Choices and was built on the premise that the economy had nothing to fear from an activist trade union movement. Giving unions more power in the workplace, it was argued, would not be followed by greater militancy or by an inflationary push for higher wages and better conditions. We may be about to find out just how wrong these assumptions have been.

On behalf of the Australian Mines and Metals Association, I have been analysing the results of a survey of industrial relations personnel within the mining and resources sector.

The resources sector is the one area of the economy that has had more than just a return to normal economic conditions. Looking at the sector allows us to make judgments on the effect of the new IR arrangements on a host of workplace issues in the one growth area of the private sector.

And the reason for choosing a survey instrument was to ensure the results spoke for themselves without the need for high-end interpretation. The questions were designed to find out what was taking place at the workplace and to gauge whether conditions were improving, unchanged or getting worse.

The first question simply asked, "How would you describe your current workplace relations environment?", and in interpreting this result it is important to note that this has been the second survey conducted, not the first. The first was undertaken in April last year just after the Fair Work Act came into effect. At the time the result showed a very encouraging index level of 75.9 out of a possible 100.

There was, thus, before there had been much familiarity with the new system, a general willingness to see the new arrangements in a positive light.

We now find, only six months later, that the index level has fallen to 65.1, a fall of more than 10 points. As more has been discovered, there has been a widespread and unmistakable deterioration in the overall level of satisfaction.

And in looking at the survey results and the comments made by respondents, it is not hard to see why. Start with the "right of entry" provisions. The act allows union officials to enter work sites whether there are members on the premises or not. All that is needed is potential members present. The result is, as was undoubtedly intended by those who framed the act, a far greater presence in the workplace of union officials across the industry.

And the effects of this union presence are showing up in the data. Bargaining has become more difficult. Workplace flexibility is being diminished. Industrial action is harder to deal with. Direct engagement with employees is being restricted.

The survey portrays an industry facing more difficult times in making workplace adjustments just as the demand for the products of our resources sector is picking up. Reducing the industry's ability to respond to increased demands for its products will make a return to high rates of non-inflationary growth an even greater challenge than it already is.

It is possible to argue that the resources sector is exceptional. But what makes this survey particularly important is that the problems being faced in this area are the same kinds of problems that are going to be faced by each and every industry as they begin to pick up momentum.

The AMMA survey results should, therefore, be seen in the context of the results of the January 2011 ACCI survey of investor confidence. What that survey showed was that wage costs were the single greatest constraint on business investment.

These figures dovetail perfectly with the results of this survey of the resources sector, since we are now looking at the consequences of an industrial relations system that, as the AMMA results show, is increasingly unable to hold the line on the growth in wages and other labour costs.

Moreover, the data suggests that the industry may also be increasingly unable to make the workplace changes necessary to respond to the economic adjustments the recovery process will demand.

You can say it is a new system and that things will be fine once everyone gets used to the act and what it requires. That is one possibility.

The other possibility is that the act has opened up the potential for serious industrial relations harm and that the inflationary pressures that have been contained until now are about to undermine the sector before spilling across the entire economy.

A serious review of the act, to ensure this none of this happens, must be an early item on the government's agenda.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG mocks the corruption in the NSW Labor government





How out of touch can a Leftist economist get?

Ross Gittins, below, wants Australians all to say "Sieg Heil" and "Heil Gillard", apparently. He wails that his Fuehrer can't get no respect. He is totally oblivious of the fact that respect has to be earned. And a government that (for instance) is pigheadedly determined to waste $46 billion on a fibre broadband network that hardly anybody wants deserves no respect whatever

Gittins proves once again that all Leftists are Fascists at heart

So alienated have we become from the work of government we regard it as a giant soft cop - a magic pudding, where the idea is to take out as much as possible ("I've paid taxes all my life .") and put in as little as possible. How is this circle squared? Who knows, who cares?

But there's more to this affair than just our pathological objection to paying more tax. It's a dramatic demonstration of the way Australians are losing the ability to fall in behind a leader.

All of us know the nation's problems won't be overcome without decisive leadership. We regularly bewail our politicians' lack of courage and conviction, their reluctance to risk their personal survival in the country's best interests.

Yet we give our leaders so little loyalty. The announcement of a government decision is taken as the occasion for the outbreak of dissent. All those with a reason for objecting cry out and their criticism is amplified by the media, whereas those who agree fall silent. No one feels obliged to actively support the leader, even if just because she is our leader and someone has to accept ultimate responsibility for deciding what we'll do and how we'll do it.

Of course, no one wants to live in a country where the leader's will is never challenged. We each have the democratic right to oppose all government decisions by all legal means. But we also have the democratic right to support, defend or even just acquiesce in the judgment of the people we elected to lead us. [Who questions that right? I think Gittins really meant "duty" -- in the best Fascist style. Hitler called it the "Fuehrerprinzip"]

Why are we becoming so much more prone to arguing the toss than falling into line? How do we imagine making leadership so much more difficult for the leader of the day will leave us better governed? Why are we training our governments to timidity?

Part of the explanation is partisanship - our willingness to put loyalty to party ahead of loyalty to our community and its need for effective leadership. I didn't vote for these people, so I'll regard everything they try to do as illegitimate.

Trouble is, there is little partisanship running the other way. Consider the deathbed bastardry of Labor's own Kristina Keneally in objecting that NSW taxpayers deserve special concessions under the levy.

No, there's more to this than partisanship: there is a general loss of loyalty and respect for whoever is our leader. The government is always and everywhere fair game. Consider the lack of public censure of the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, for his utterly obstructive behaviour.

Having narrowly lost the last election, he's behaving like a spoilt child, refusing to support any policy proposed by the government, whether good, bad or indifferent.

More HERE





New rules to give NSW women equal representation

The last shriek of a dying Leftist government. Hitler saw evil in the over-representation of Jews in the top levels of German society. His socialist successors see evil in the over-representation of men in the top levels of modern Western societies. The routine Leftist inability to look at people as individuals rather than as group members is the same

Women will make up half of new appointments to New South Wales government boards and committees by the end of next year, the State Government says.

In a bid for gender equality, Minister for Women Jodi McKay announced the package which includes an "if not, why not approach" to equality, at the Rural Women's Awards last night. "Women comprise over 50 per cent of the NSW population yet currently only 38 per cent of all NSW government board and committee positions are held by women," Ms McKay said. "We want to make sure boards and committees better reflect the communities they serve as well as provide improved access to the benefits of a wider talent pool."

The new rules mean agencies will need to regularly report on progress, and more resources will be made available to encourage women to nominate for positions, including how-to guides, information sheets and case studies. "We'll also provide quarterly public reporting on how we're tracking towards the 50 per cent target," Ms McKay said.

A review will take place in 2012, which will consider whether further measures should be introduced, such as legislation, to increase the rate of progress towards gender equality.

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Big retreat from Greenie schemes in NSW

Kristina Keneally is promising to axe electricity bill rises of $100 in a $1.5 billion bid to calm voter anger over power prices. The Premier also flagged she would soon announce an electricity rebate for households earning less than $150,000 a year. The moves come after months of revelations and campaigning by The Daily Telegraph to ease the pain on working families around the state.

"I can't make bananas any cheaper, I can't make the cost of petrol any cheaper but I can do something as the Premier of this state about electricity prices and that's what I'm doing," she said yesterday.

Ms Keneally said the Government would pay the entire cost of its $1.5 billion solar bonus scheme, until 2016, rather than all electricity users being charged. To pay for the promise, the Government will strip its Climate Change Fund almost entirely of money for green projects until 2020, including scrapping its long-running rainwater tank rebate. The policy change will spare the average electricity consumer a $100 rise in 2011-12 and $50 a year after that.

The Premier will announce today that all uncommitted funds for the Climate Change Fund, which is already paid from electricity and water bills, will be redirected to pay for the Solar Bonus Scheme. The Climate Change Fund would be increased by 1 per cent from 2012 - the increase to be funded by industry.

Ms Keneally said the announcement was the first of several measures she would announce soon to cut prices. Measures would include rebates and delaying the infrastructure spending of electricity companies, and would cut into the projected 30-42 per cent rises IPART has authorised over three years.

Ms Keneally said the Government had extended its rebate scheme on electricity bills "to all healthcare concession holders" but was "mindful there are a lot of working families doing it tough". Those families included households earning up to $150,000 a year, she said.

"The [federal] family tax benefit cuts in at about $150,000 ... and on paper that might sound like a lot but in reality when you're facing rising mortgage prices, rising food, childcare and electricity, it starts to get tough," she said.

Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell will come under pressure to back the promise - the second backdown on the solar bonus scheme.

Yesterday was the deadline for bids for the second tranche of the state's electricity assets - none were received after revelations last week the Premier would not proceed with the sale before the election.

SOURCE






Climate looters

Climate alarmists join looters in exploiting flood tragedy

Disasters bring out the best and worst in humanity. For most, it's a time to set aside petty differences and unite in a common cause. Altruism becomes the norm and genuine heroism common. For a rancid few, however, the temptation to take advantage of tragedy and chaos cannot be resisted. As always, the recent floods have been accompanied by a smattering of looting and price gouging amidst overwhelming acts of selflessness.

Nor has the looting been restricted to property and purse. Some have seized the chance to blame climate change and push the alarmist agenda. They are what might aptly be described as climate looters. To their credit, the majority of proponents of global warming have not attempted to claim the floods as due to human induced climate change. However, for a few it seems the temptation was too great to resist and, as might now be expected, the media have afforded them prominent coverage. Also not unexpectedly, the ABC has been prominent in propagating this blatant alarmist opportunism.

Interestingly, both here and overseas the alarmists who have attempted to promote the idea that these floods are due to human induced climate change have taken such a noticeably similar line of presentation one might be forgiven the impression they were following an agreed upon approach. They first cite a brief disclaimer stating that the cause of individual weather events such as this cannot be known with certainty. This is immediately followed with the suggestion that, of course, increasing incidence of extreme weather events is exactly what we should expect from climate change. The remainder of the discussion then accords with the assumption that this is the cause.

The ABC was a first responder along this line in a news story dated Friday, December 31, 2010 and titled, "Climate expert says more extreme weather likely". To assure the viewer received the desired message it was helpfully sub-titled, "Nobel prize-winning scientist David Karoly says Australia's current extreme weather is evidence of climate change."

This was followed up by a similar item on the Midday Report of 20 January 2010. This one featured Prof. Matthew England of the UNSW Climate Change Centre speculating on the role of CO2 in the floods.

Not to be outdone by the similarly named Oz network, the American ABC ran a similar story on 13 January. In this one Derek Arndt of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center and Richard Somerville from Scripps, UCSD were interviewed. This report went for a Hat Trick in which the floods here, in Sri Lanka and in Brazil were all attributed to GW with the recent blizzards in the U.S. tagged on for added impact.

Another example in the same vein appeared in The Australian of 11 January. It featured an interview with Professor Will Steffen, the executive director of the ANU Climate Change Institute. In it he said, "... there was no direct link between global warming and the tragic flash flooding in Toowoomba.." ; but, then went on to say that climate change would lead to heavier, more frequent rain. However, the headline was, "Global warming will cause further extreme weather patterns, climate change chief says" and the subtitle, "One of Julia Gillard's top climate change advisers has warned that global warming may cause more extreme rain events."

As to any possible merit to these claims, let's briefly consider but a few important facts. The Bureau of Meteorology has posted on its website a most interesting document entitled, "Known Floods in the Brisbane & Bremer River Basin, including the Cities of Brisbane and Ipswich". For Brisbane it shows 10 previous major floods since 1840. Eight of these were in the 60 years from 1840 to 1900. Six of these were higher than the current flood. The record for Ipswich shows 21 major floods with 9 between 1840 to 1900 and the longest period free of major floods being the past two decades. If an increasing greenhouse effect is having any influence on the frequency and height of floods in this region it would seem we might benefit from more of it.

Another most important consideration with regard to the frequency and intensity of floods in this area is the major and now well documented influence of natural climatic cycles, specifically El Nino/La Nina and the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). In particular Dr. Stewart Franks and colleagues from the Newcastle University School of Engineering have published a series of studies on this. They have clearly demonstrated a strong correlation between the frequency of severe flooding and La Nina events occurring in the negative (cooler) phase of the IPO. As the phase length of the IPO is about 3 decades and the positive (warmer) phase has just recently ended, it should be expected that over the next few decades increased flooding is likely. (For more on these studies click here, here, and here.) For a recent (24 January) ABC radio interview with Dr. Franks click here.

Despite multiple publications in peer reviewed journals, the climate alarmists must be either unaware of this whole body of highly relevant work or have chosen to not mention it. It would seem that if their expertise is not lacking, their honesty must be. The only apparent reason for ignoring key evidence offering significant capacity to predict the broad pattern of frequency in flooding events is that it is founded on natural cycles and thus does not support the claims of the climate alarmists.

The attempt to attribute these floods to global warming is only a rerun of a similar attempt with tropical cyclones after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Since then several years of below average storm activity plus statistical studies showing no recent trend of increase have left the warmists looking for a new alarm. The floods have provided it, if they can just insert GW as the suggested cause and keep ENSO/IPO unmentioned....

Regardless of all this, for GW to remain credible temperature must keep increasing. It's pretty hard to sell catastrophic warming when millions of people all over the world are suffering from bitterly cold weather. At this point all we have is a purported 0.7 degree C increase in average global surface temperature over the past century. This is about the same increase as may be encountered in moving a hundred miles closer to the equator or while eating breakfast on many mornings. It is, however, not nearly so certain.

The global temperature record is fraught with multiple uncertainties. These include poorly maintained and badly sited stations, an increasing sampling bias in favour of urban over rural weather stations and unexplained "adjustments" to data. All of these have contributed to warmer readings over time irrespective of any change in the actual climate. Not only is the margin of uncertainty larger than the purported warming, but there is also no means to determine what portion of any warming trend might be due to natural variability and what, if any, is due to human influence. Worse yet, there is good reason to suspect that much, if not all, of the claimed warming trend is an artefact of deliberate selection and manipulation of data such as has been found to have occurred in the fabrication of the infamous hockey stick graph and just recently in the New Zealand national temperature records.

Although the claimed warming is highly uncertain, the unadjusted raw data from numerous rural stations demonstrate no clear warming trend and those from urban areas show a distinct warming with increasing urban growth. Whatever contribution increased atmospheric CO2 might be having on a global scale, it must surely be very small.

The expenditure on and level of concern about climate change has been out of all proportion to the barely detectable and highly uncertain warming trend of the past century. Attention and resources have been diverted from the very real and dangerous natural variables and events of climate. It has also distracted from the far more urgent political and economic problems now threatening most developed nations. It is time we take a deep breath, get a grip on ourselves and start to reconsider what should be our most urgent priorities. It is also time to begin exercising some healthy disregard for unverified computer models, priggish academics claiming to be experts, ill-informed concerns of urban greens over things they know nothing about and the self-righteous bleatings of sundry activists who presume to know better than we do about how we should conduct our own lives.

The entire developed world is now suffering from a systemic economic malaise. This is already critical and promises only to become worse. The fantasy of clean green renewable energy is a delusion we cannot afford. In actual practice it has proven to be not nearly so friendly as imagined. It has also proved to be too costly, meagre and inconsistent to be a viable solution to our energy needs. The ongoing push to squander billions of dollars and sacrifice our economies on the altar of climate change is dangerous nonsense. Like sundry other isms, Climatism is a triumph of belief over evidence, of righteousness over reason. Whether the prophets of this one are destined to be rendered into harmless fools or dangerous fanatics ultimately depends upon the power we accord them.

More here. (See the original for links)

Another tired old Leftist sneer at national pride

Australians have got a lot to be proud about and the surveys reveal that national pride is widespread in Australia. But the pseudo-humorous writer below has nothing but contempt for people who display the Australian flag on their cars. Flags on cars are mainly flown on Australia day, anyway, which is surely an appropriate day to fly them.

His comment on people who want immigration reduced is particularly odious. He implies that they are gun-carrying racists. Since about two thirds of Australians want immigration restraint he must think that he is a very superior person.

The whole piece drips contempt for all sorts of Australians. His fellow haters on the Left will laugh, however

I quite like the Australian flag, and indeed the nation it represents. Certainly it could be improved a bit by the removal of the Union Jack from the corner (though that is an argument for another column), but generally the old girl does a pretty good job of whatever it is that flags are supposed to do.

There is, however, a considerable gulf between a dash of patriotism and national pride, and naked jingoism.

And here we're talking about those bloody plastic flags that flutter feebly from car windows at this time of year, screaming "Look at moi, look at moi!" which (in the world of Kath and Kim at least) rhymes with the equally boorish chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, oi, oi!"

The funny part of this is you're more likely to see the little plastic flags adorning a Hyundai than a Holden ute. This does tend to beg the question of why, if you are so fervently patriotic that you feel the need to advertise the fact, do you drive a Korean-made tin can powered by two rubber bands and an overworked hamster?

Actually, the way motorists choose to decorate their cars can be quite informative, telling you a lot about what sort of driver you are sharing a particular stretch of road with.

Pair up the Aussie car flag with a bumper sticker that sports the slogan "F--- off, we're full", for example, and you have enough character-profiling to deduce that the driver is road-rage incarnate and definitely not the sort of bloke to greet with a single-fingered salute when he cuts in front of you at high speed. In fact there's every chance he keeps his One Nation membership card in the glovebox next to his handgun.

Then there's the shiny new four-wheel-drives with stickers advertising which elite private school the owner's progeny attend and whether said children are rugby or hockey brats.

This just screams out rich Ascot mummy with total disdain for the great unwashed around her, who will tend to wield her vehicle like a German Panzer tank crushing all before it.

Often this species of driver is also sighted with those increasingly ubiquitous "My Family" montages on the back . . . OK, so you've got a partner, you've procreated more often than is probably healthy for the national gene pool and you have two dogs. What do you want, some sort of medal?

This is an "It's all about me" driver who thinks nothing of trundling along at 30km/h below the speed limit in the fast lane and assumes handicapped parking spaces are just that handy.

Baby on board? Another breeder. Bully for you. Line up for your medal behind the My Family brigade.

Another one to watch for are larger vehicles festooned with stickers from exotic destinations like Winton, Birdsville and Broken Hill. If there's a tow bar attached to the vehicle you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to assume it's probably an elderly caravan owner which, by definition, means automotive sociopath: "I've paid my taxes, so it's my bloody road."

More HERE





Should Italian and Chinese lead the new curriculum?

Foreign languages are an enthusiasm of mine and I have some qualifications in three of them -- but I cannot for the life of me see why everybody should study them. Learning a foreign language is a huge task (and really huge if the language is Asian) and that diverts energies from the large range of other important subjects. And for what? I doubt that 1% will become translators as we have plenty of naturally bilingual people in Australia anyway (children of immigrants)

Should all students have to study a second language before year 7 as planned under the new national curriculum? The curriculum will cover 11 foreign languages with Italian and Chinese the first to be developed.

Latin and other classical languages have been left out, raising concern. Language teachers say this is a major omission because a knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek underpins understanding of literature, art and the English language. The sign language Auslan has also been left out, also raising concern.

Italian and Chinese have been given first priority because the national curriculum authority says they "represent languages that cater for the greatest range of learners". "Chinese is a national priority, and Italian is learnt by the largest number of students in the primary years and the second largest number of students enrolments over all." Indonesian, Japanese and Korean are also deemed national priorities as part of the second stage of the language curriculum development.

Traditional European languages including French and German and Spanish will also be included because they are among the most commonly taught languages in Australian schools. The national curriculum authority has included Spanish as a "language of global importance".

Parents are hotly debating these priorities, with some saying the options are too narrow and locking their children into choices too early. Some say they want their children to have wider language choices until at least year 10.

Parents have been telling talk-back radio this morning that they disagree with the national priorities given to some languages over others.

SOURCE






Three years jail for speech??

Prosecutions for speech are mercifully rare in Australia and this one is troubling. Everybody gets abused at some stage. Conservative bloggers get it almost daily. So people have to learn to get used to it. The fact that the abused person was Jewish is of course unpleasant but the abuser was an obvious nut anyway.

A substantial part of the student body at the University of California would have to be locked up under the criteria adopted in this case

The High Court of Australia has found a right to free speech in the constitution so this verdict could be overturned if it is appealed

The Jewish victim of a verbal racial attack that was posted in a video online says a three-year prison term given to the man who called him a "racist, homicidal maniac" outside a Perth supermarket is not enough.

Brendan Lee O'Connell, 40, was sentenced in the District Court in Perth yesterday after being found guilty on Friday of six racial hatred charges.

Chuckling and smiling as the counts were read out to him, O'Connell appeared unaffected by the sentence handed down by Judge Henry Wisbey. O'Connell represented himself before a jury after firing the lawyer who had been defending him against an accusation that he posted an anti-semitic video online.

He faced seven charges related to the posting of a verbal altercation he had with Stanley Keyser and Timothy Peach, who are Jewish, and was found guilty on six.

An argument broke out between the three men at an IGA supermarket in South Perth on May 2, 2009, where a Friends of Palestine group was holding a protest against Israeli oranges. O'Connell was using a video camera at the event and in a video he later posted online, he labelled Mr Keyser a "racist, homicidal maniac". "You have a religion of racism, hate, homicide and ethnic cleansing," he said in the video.

During the trial, O'Connell refused to acknowledge Judge Wisbey when he entered the court and, instead, rose to bow to the jury.

Judge Wisbey said O'Connell showed no remorse and his behaviour "was that of a bully".

About a dozen supporters in the court cheered when O'Connell labelled the proceedings "a kangaroo court" and gave a long, repetitive rant about the King James Bible and the Constitution. As he was led out of court, O'Connell shouted: "Don't forget about the Gazans!"

Outside court, Mr Keyser said O'Connell had forced him to "suffer" for 18 months. "I wish he was in [prison] for longer," he said as he rushed passed reporters.

Family friend Steve Lieblich told reporters it was a "very distressing" time for the Keyser family who were happy to have it over. "I think it was a victory for decency and against bigotry and prejudice," he said. "On this occasion it was the Jewish people who were the target of this bigotry but on future occasions it could be Muslims or Asians or any group, so we we should all be happy about this result."

Mr Lieblich said he hoped O'Connell would have time to reflect on his views during his prison term. He said the internet made it easy to "spread hatred" and it was important to address the issue. "This has got nothing to do with free speech," Mr Lieblich said. "There's clearly a limit to free speech, there's a limit to all freedoms we have in society because we have to consider others. "Words can hurt and cause a lot of damage and people need to recognise that they have to watch their words."

O'Connell's sentence has been backdated to January 24 and he will be eligible for parole, but a date for that period was not specified in court.

SOURCE





Two mental patients killed by Victorian hospital staff

A PATIENT suffocated after security guards restrained him face down on the floor in Frankston Hospital’s psychiatric ward, a coroner has heard.

A hospital analysis of Justin Fraser’s death found two security guards and four orderlies who restrained Mr Fraser, 37, were in a "heightened fight response" and "focused on prevention of further aggression in the heat of the situation". "The wellbeing of the patient was a secondary priority," clinicians found in a report provided to the Health Department.

The clinicians said the staff who restrained Mr Fraser on October 26, 2007, had not been properly trained in the risk of maintaining a patient in a prone position. They therefore could not assess his condition, resulting in "delayed recognition that he had become clinically compromised and acutely unwell".

The court heard that Mr Fraser, a voluntary patient who had schizophrenia, had threatened to harm himself and staff. The security team responded to a nurse’s "code grey" call — used when staff face violence.

After the team restrained Mr Fraser in the ward, he was moved to a seclusion room, where he was found to have stopped breathing. He is thought to have died of positional asphyxia, a form of suffocation that can occur when someone is restrained in a position that stops them breathing properly.

Mr Fraser’s death followed the asphyxiation death of another psychiatric patient - Adam White, 31 - at Maroondah Hospital six months earlier. Coroner Peter White will investigate both deaths because of their similarities.

Senior Sergeant Jenny Brumby, counsel assisting the coroner, said Adam White was an involuntary patient at the time of his death on April 20, 2007. "Mr White … exhibited an episode of violent physical behaviour towards security staff members, which resulted in a struggle and staff restraining him in the prone position on the floor," she said in an opening address. "Mr White stopped breathing while being held in this position and an unsuccessful resuscitation attempt was undertaken."

Mr Fraser's wife, Sharon, said she had dinner with her husband and left him in good spirits in the ward about 8.30 the night before his death. She was stunned when a doctor phoned at 3am to say he had died. "It was a pretty blunt call. I thought it was a prank," she said. "I went in and had my time with Justin and said goodbye to him. I remember the room was bare and he was on two vinyl mattresses. I saw blood on the floor, and his T-shirt was cut."

Senior Sergeant Brumby said the adequacy of hospital policies on restraining aggressive patients and whether staff response to the situation was justified were among issues to be explored during the inquest.

Peninsula Health executive director of mental health, Jan Child, said specific training on the dangers of prone restraint and positional asphyxia were now provided to staff called on to act as "aggression management teams" at the hospital. Policies and training had been strengthened so it was "very, very clear that at all times a clinician should be in charge of the whole response and code grey".

SOURCE