More contempt for the voters from Gillard

JULIA Gillard's Malaysian solution is close to being signed despite polls showing two-thirds of Australians now wanting the deal ditched before it is done.

A Malaysian government source told Fairfax newspapers today the Government has agreed to the final text of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries.

The plan to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 officially recognised refugees is now more unpopular than the carbon tax.

A Galaxy poll conducted exclusively for The Daily Telegraph revealed 66 per cent of voters were opposed to sending boat people to a nation which still canes refugees.

But the figure is likely to be higher now with the national poll conducted over two days before it was revealed children would also be part of the human swap.

Almost half of those polled were strongly opposed, with only 5 per cent claiming to strongly support the plan. Just 26 per cent showed any form of support at all.

The Prime Minister now faces significant public hostility to the two main areas she promised to fix after rolling Kevin Rudd for the prime ministership: boat people and climate change.Galaxy CEO David Briggs said there was now overwhelming opposition to the Gillard government's plans on a number of fronts.

A total of 58 per cent surveyed were opposed to the carbon tax.

The government is now under intense pressure to drop the deal with high-profile human rights activists conceding John Howard's Pacific Solution was more humane.

Ms Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen have struggled to explain how the policy will deal with unaccompanied minors, first admitting they would be included, before claiming they would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

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Leftists can't stand the light

Communications Department spends $268,000 on lawyers to fight FOI requests

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy's secrecy-obsessed department has spent more than $268,000 on lawyers to challenge Freedom of Information requests. The services of a prominent law firm over just five months since the end of January included one matter which cost taxpayers $77,000.

Waste Watchers in an ongoing campaign in The Courier-Mail to track how your taxpayer money is being spent by all levels of government, after a recent poll showed 70 per cent of Queenslanders believe governments are wasting money but none of our politicians admit to getting it wrong.

The rollout of the $36 billion National Broadband Network and the $308 million set-top boxes scheme are among projects overseen by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Opposition communications and broadband spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said Mr Conroy and his department were using the outside law firm to challenge the release of information.

"Stephen Conroy seems to be sparing no expense in trying to avoid scrutiny," Mr Turnbull said yesterday. "That's what they're doing."

A department spokesman said staff made decisions about the release of documents but $268,000 was spent to "provide legal advice and related legal services to DBCDE staff involved in processing requests and making decisions."

One Government contract showed $22,000 spent on legal services in just one day on February 11 but the spokesman claimed it was a clerical error with the services provided over several months. It was unclear if any of the Freedom of Information requests were for the NBN Co.

The Government had exempted NBN Co from Freedom of Information laws but the Greens won an amendment to allow for the scrutiny. "If the NBN Co were a publicly-listed company it would be vastly more accountable than it is today," Mr Turnbull said. "Because it is owned by the taxpayer, there is a complete lack of transparency."

A spokeswoman for NBN Co said a Freedom of Information officer had been employed and applications would be answered from the middle of this month.

The Greens said NBN Co would be subject to the same Freedom of Information requirements as Medibank and Australia Post.

The FOI stoush is the latest setback for the much-criticised $36 billion fibre-optic rollout slammed by the Opposition and regularly attacked by the likes of retailer Gerry Harvey as inefficient. Even Brisbane City Council claims the network could rip off customers.

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Quis magistros ipsos docebit?

Teacher graduates face test before registration

ASPIRING primary school teachers are expected to face questions about animal groupings, energy and literacy processes in Queensland's controversial teacher test.

Sample questions of what teaching graduates could face in the nation's first teacher pre-registration exam have been placed on the Queensland College of Teachers website.

The test, which hopeful primary school teachers will be required to pass before they can attain registration in Queensland from the end of this year, will examine a graduate's literacy, numeracy and science skills.

One sample question asks graduates to place a kangaroo, tadpole, echidna, emu and lizard into its right animal grouping - fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds or mammals.

Another in the science category requires graduates to use their knowledge of sound and heat energy to answer a question.

Under numeracy, graduates are asked when a train is scheduled to arrive if it leaves Mount Isa at 1.30pm on Monday and the trip takes 20 hours and 40 minutes.

In literacy, one question asks which word is a preposition and another asks graduates to sequence the typical behaviours of a child learning to read.

It will also test their knowledge of course content and teaching.

The test follows a recommendation by Professor Geoff Masters in a review of how to lift Queensland students' literacy and numeracy standards, after the state came second last in the first national tests in 2008.

The Queensland Teachers Union and Queensland Deans of Education Forum initially said the tests were offensive to universities and a double-up of what was already being taught.

QDEF chair Professor Wendy Patton said extensive consultation had been undertaken on the exams and while there were still some concerns, they were waiting to see the actual tests before making any further judgment.

The Queensland College of Teachers (QCT) website reveals aspiring primary school teachers will face two 90-minute exams with 60 questions each on literacy and numeracy and one 60-minute science test with 40 questions.

The computer-based exams will take place in designated testing centres across Queensland at the end of the year. Teaching graduates will be able to sit the exam as many times as needed to pass and attain registration.

"The purpose of the QCT pre-registration test is to ensure that aspiring primary teachers meet threshold levels of knowledge about the teaching of literacy, numeracy and science and have sound levels of content knowledge in these areas," the QCT website states.

QCT director John Ryan said the tests would not be a panacea for proficiency but would ensure graduates teaching in Queensland schools met a minimum standard.

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Safety fencing 'art' cost Victorian Council $7000



A MAYOR has turned on his own council after it spent $7000 on public artwork made from orange plastic safety fencing. The artist said yesterday the aim of the art was to create confusion. But the mayor blasted his council officers for approving the project.

Moreland mayor Cr Oscar Yildiz said he couldn't believe that so much was spent putting the orange mesh on buildings, power poles, and around trees in an Oak Park shopping strip. "A bit of mesh that utility companies use to cordon off areas - to call that art is a load of rubbish," he said. "I've got a seven-year-old daughter and she could have done this for free and done a better job."

Cr Yildiz said that he found out about the project only on Friday, and it was too late to cancel it. "It literally is the biggest waste of money that we've done under my leadership at council, and I'll certainly be ensuring that this doesn't happen again," he said. "People thought that mesh was there to cordon off a tree or an area for some electricity lines or concreting or something."

But deputy mayor Cr Alice Pryor said the Permeable Barrier series by artist Tim Craker was deliberately installed alongside council roadworks at the Snell Grove shopping centre. "Public art installations create public discussion, raise questions, and engage passers-by in the new works being done," she said.

Mr Craker, in Turkey on a self-financed arts residency, said he wanted to create confusion about "what's art and what's function - to make people think about something that we would see and not look at. But some might say 'Hang on, that's not normal safety fencing, that's had something done to it, and what's it doing up on a wall on a building?' So that sort of controversy is good from one point of view."

Mr Craker said the amount he was paid was minuscule compared with the cost of the roadworks, and "the idea is to focus a bit of attention on Oak Park, which as a shopping centre could do with some attention".

Cr Yildiz asked why $7000 was paid to Mr Craker when the materials would have cost a few hundred dollars. "Surely this guy didn't spend $6500 on labour for sticking a couple of things around a couple of poles?"

Ratepayers Victoria president Jack Davis said Cr Yildiz should protect public funds by dumping the project and recouping the cash.

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Julia Gillard feels the heat over carbon tax backlash as voters call for new election

AUSTRALIANS are demanding Julia Gillard call a fresh election, saying she has no mandate for a carbon tax. With less than a third of all voters now claiming to support the tax, the federal government is facing a nationwide backlash if it proceeds.

An exclusive Galaxy poll commissioned by The Daily Telegraph has revealed 73 per cent of people claim they will end up worse off under the tax. Just 7 per cent believe they could end up better off in some way.

More fatal for the Prime Minister, however, was the overwhelming support for an election to be called on the issue - confirming widespread anger over her broken election promise not to introduce a carbon tax. A total of 64 per cent said they wanted a fresh election. Only 24 per cent believed the PM had a mandate.

And in a growing sentiment that the tax would not help solve the climate change problem, 75 per cent believed it would have only a minor impact on the environment - or no impact at all.

The devastating poll results, showing total opposition now at 58 per cent, confirm the government has so far failed to make an effective case for its tax.

They also reflect Liberal Party internal polling showing support for Tony Abbott's campaign to force the government to an early election, despite analysis showing the Coalition's alternative direct action plan would be even more costly.

Galaxy pollster David Briggs said opposition to the tax was entrenched. "The problem for the government is that most voters believe the personal cost outweighs the environmental benefits," he said. "Such is concern over the carbon tax that the majority of voters believe Julia Gillard should call an early election to seek a mandate for the tax rather than have the legislation passed in this parliament."

The federal government is expected to announce details of the tax within weeks. It will not only set the carbon price - believed to be between $20 and $30 per tonne - but also the level of compensation households will receive to offset the cost of living rise that will accompany the tax.

The carbon tax is only planned to be an interim measure before a transition to a market-based price - an emissions trading scheme.

Opponents of the scheme have succeeded in casting fears that the price is likely to rise significantly no matter what is set in the short term. The government has tried to assuage fears by assuring people that lower and middle-income families will be compensated for the associated price rises - particularly around electricity bills, which could rise by between $300 and $500 a year in Sydney. Ms Gillard has said the political fight over climate change policy was "a long game". The poll was conducted between June 1 and 2, based on a national sample of 500 voters.

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Illegal immigration: Has there ever been a policy fiasco this bad?

Greg Sheridan

Cane with dignity and respect cartoon. Picture: Bill Leak Source: The Australian
IS the Malaysian solution now unravelling in the same way as the East Timor solution, bearing witness to the astonishing amateurism of Julia Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen in international diplomacy?

Among a bewildering plenitude of chaos and confusion in the asylum-seeker/illegal immigrant imbroglio the Gillard government has created, one acute operational dilemma is obvious. How can it send unaccompanied minors, boys and girls, to an uncertain fate in Malaysia, with all the risks to them that this involves?

Yet if the government grants an exception for unaccompanied minors, it will create a massive incentive for people-smugglers. If a family sends a son or daughter on a boat, perhaps with secret supervision of an uncle or cousin on the boat, the kid will probably get permanent residency in Australia.

This will entail in due course, in fact probably in short order, the right to sponsor the rest of the family to come to Australia. In terms of the business model of the people-smugglers, this is the gold jackpot. Come on down, send the boats and send the kids.

This is an astounding mess the government has created. As soon as it announced the Malaysian solution, politicians and journalists asked about children. The government responded with customary contemptuous bluster, and refused to answer the question.

But it was always a critical question and it cannot be fudged. It now turns out that the government, in a positive rapture of incompetence and amateurism, had not even decided its own attitude to the question.

It certainly had not sorted out the matter with the Malaysians. It finally deigned to answer the question on the children only when confronted with a leaked draft agreement by the ABC's Lateline. Then the hapless Bowen said yes, kids would be sent to Malaysia. Cue the predictable outrage from the Greens, the illegal immigrant lobby and even sections of the Labor Party. And the Tony Abbott-led opposition, with Scott Morrison landing heavy blows at every turn, was able to contrast the superior human rights guarantees in its Pacific Solution and in the Nauru detention centre the Howard government ran.

So lickety split, Bowen started on his familiar confused retreat. Only some kids would be sent to Malaysia after all. There was nothing automatic about it. Kids in danger would be individually assessed and perhaps not sent.

Meanwhile the boats still come, the people-smugglers having worked out that this government is all bluff and no delivery. Since the government announced the deal with Malaysia a month ago, about 200 boatpeople have arrived. A quarter of the Malaysian solution has already gone, and the Malaysian solution does not yet actually exist because no agreement has been finalised.

Why did the government publicly announce the Malaysian solution before the details were negotiated and the framework worked out?

Surely not because it had to announce at the same time that the East Timor solution was finally dead? Surely not because there had just been a series of riots, fires and assaults in the detention centres, and it needed to look as though it was doing something? Surely after the slow-motion debacle of the East Timor solution collapse, this government could not possibly have been stupid enough to put spin, and an attempt to win one day's good media coverage, ahead of important diplomatic matters of real substance?

The contradictions in the government's position abound. Gillard fiercely assured the parliament the Malaysians would not have power of veto over which 800 individuals were sent to Malaysia.

Problem was, this contradicted the Malaysian government's view. And a moment's thought bears out the reasonableness of the Malaysian position. No government welcomes people to its soil without any power of choice, without even knowing who they are, leaving the choice to another government.

The Gillard government's inability to finalise the deal with Malaysia suggests it may be falling apart, and will certainly discourage other nations from engaging in such deals with it. At first there was some interest from the Thais and even the Indonesians. After all, it was a five-for-one swap to Australia's detriment, and Canberra was willing to splash out any amount of money to buy a result.

But the Thais and Indonesians saw how Malaysia's good name has been dragged through the mud in Australia on this business, and suddenly they lost interest.

The Malaysians should brace themselves for months, perhaps years, of relentless negative publicity and attack in Australia and internationally if this deal goes ahead. Because suddenly every aspect of Malaysian policy on illegal immigrants will be seen by the media as Australia's business.

I'm sure that's not what Kuala Lumpur had in mind when this deal was first broached with them, but it's what they'll be putting up with if the deal goes ahead.

At the same time the Malaysian opposition is starting to get serious about criticising its government on the deal.

But wait, there's more. The Gillard government did not even tell the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of its plan to send unaccompanied minors to Malaysia, and now the UNHCR says it can't support the deal.

Has there ever been a policy fiasco as comprehensive as this? Will they teach it at the Harvard Business School as the definitive case study of mismanagement?

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, sensibly, left for Europe and the Middle East at the weekend. This humiliating fiasco belongs to Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen.

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Anna Bligh presides over more than 4000 extra bureaucrats, public service wage bill $320 million

MORE than 4000 extra bureaucrats are strolling Brisbane's George St since Anna Bligh was appointed premier. An analysis by The Courier-Mail has revealed a 12 per cent spike in non-frontline State Government positions over the past three years. The blowout has forced up the taxpayer-funded wage bill by about $320 million annually.

In an effort to rein in wage costs, the Bligh Government will now spend $250 million on lucrative golden handshakes to convince 3500 non-frontline bureaucrats to retire.

The hiring of about 4300 additional public servants since 2007 coincided with the global financial crisis, which wreaked havoc on the Budget and forced the sale of state assets.

Ms Bligh yesterday conceded "backroom" positions had grown but it was critical to get the balance right. "Non-frontline staff are essential to carry out jobs like filing police reports and maintaining patient records in our hospitals, and operational duties like cleaning and maintenance," she told The Courier-Mail. "The highly trained medical staff should be treating patients not filing paperwork."

But Liberal Nationals Leader Campbell Newman said the figures exposed the "reckless financial management" costing Queenslanders. "This is why the Government is so busy raising taxes because they are desperately looking for money to pay for this out-of-control organisation," he said.

The Government has consistently argued that the growth in the public service has been driven by additional frontline positions, particularly doctors, nurses and police. But Queensland Public Service Commission statistics show the percentage of employees in positions classified as frontline has remained static.

In 2007, there were 179,872 public servants in Queensland, with 79.85 per cent classified as being in frontline positions. The remaining 36,244 employees were predominantly doing department desk duties.

By 2010, the latest figures available, the public service surpassed 200,000 full-time employees with 79.72 per cent serving on the frontline. This leaves 40,561, meaning more than five extra non-frontline staff were employed every working day over the three-year period.

Ms Bligh said the percentage of non-frontline staff would fall under voluntary redundancies.

Mr Newman also promised to rein in administration and instead deliver frontline services such as doctors and nurses.

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In Queensland, 335 robbers were convicted last year but 100 of them escaped jail

ARMED robbers are walking free from court as angry Queenslanders say they have had enough of lenient sentences for violent crimes.

Of the 335 adults and juveniles convicted of armed robbery offences last year, 100 were let loose with no time behind bars.

The startling figures come as an overwhelming 91 per cent of people told a Sunday Mail Queensland Speaks survey they were concerned our courts were too soft.

Many offenders who were locked up got out early after judges gave them partially suspended sentences.

Attorney-General Paul Lucas yesterday said he would ask the new Sentencing Advisory Council to look at abolishing suspended sentences as part of a crackdown on armed robbers.

In an epidemic that has officers, retailers and victims demanding action, there have been at least 394 armed robberies in Queensland in 2011, latest police figures show.

In an interview with The Sunday Mail, Chief Justice Paul de Jersey said drugs were at the root of most armed robberies and violent crimes.

"It's either because the person committing the offence is under the influence of drugs, hence the lack of fear ... or they're after money to purchase drugs for themselves, or they're after money to pay off drug debts," Justice de Jersey said.

Some people "will never think sentences are severe enough" but judges had to balance deterrence with rehabilitation and each case differed, he said.

"If there is clear evidence that the frequency of ... a particular category of crime is significantly increasing, the Court of Appeal could be asked to ratchet up the level of sentencing for that particular crime," he said.

Southport District Court judge Clive Wall is already on a collision course with appeals judges after declaring in April that armed robberies were so bad in the region he would start increasing sentences.

But lawyer and civil liberties spokesman Terry O'Gorman said it was a myth courts were too soft. He said sentencing figures were misleading because they may involve minor incidents.

Citing a series of recent cases of armed robbers going to jail, he said prison or detention should be a last resort.

"It is not the sentence that armed robbers think of when they're committing an offence. It's the likelihood of apprehension," Mr O'Gorman said.

But the Queensland Police Union and the United Retailer Federation want mandatory jail time for armed robbers.

"When you're at the other end of a gun, you don't know if it's a replica or real, irrespective of how 'minor' courts make out an armed robbery was," union president Ian Leavers said.

"Letting people off with a lenient sentence for threatening violence because they're a juvenile is telling them their behaviour is OK. We're pushing them into a life of crime."

Queensland Homicide Victims' Support Group manager Ross Thompson said there had been long-standing concerns about sentencing.

"They need to get the message across to these people committing these offences that they will not be treated lightly," he said.

Victoria recently abolished suspended sentences for serious crimes including armed robberies in a move met by strong resistance from the judiciary.

Queensland's Sentencing Advisory Council is already examining serious crimes that could be subjected to minimum non-parole periods and will ask for public submissions from later this week.

Bond University criminologist Wayne Petherick agreed the community was fed up with armed robberies but urged authorities to focus on the causes.

"You've got to look at it and go 'we've got a drug problem or a self-esteem problem and that's where you've got to focus your efforts'," he said.

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Australia's high prices

Australians visting the USA certainly note the difference in prices there. Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich finds it is similar in Germany

It was in a busy shopping street in the city centre of Lübeck where I spotted them. Glowing in bright yellow, the fruits at the market stall looked exactly as I remembered them from Australia. But when I saw the price of 79 Euro cents per kilo (approximately AU$1), I wondered whether they were really bananas.

I am currently on vacation in Germany. As usual, it’s a trip down memory lane to the country where I grew up. But this time, I am more puzzled than ever before. Though I always knew Germany as a country of penny pinchers, it had never struck me as cheap as it presents itself to visitors from Australia today.

And it’s not just bananas. Swiss chocolate bars, offered at a premium price in Australia, are selling dirt cheap at discount shops. You can stay at five-star hotels at rates that would just about get you a grubby motel room in East Maitland. And the other night, I had a large beer at a local microbrewery for the equivalent of $2.50. In Germany, it seems to be happy hour all year round.

Part of the phenomenon may be explained by the Aussie dollar’s dazzling exchange rate and the Euro’s ongoing crisis. However, that’s not the full story. Germany may be exceptionally cheap, but Australia has become very expensive.

Nowadays, Australian politicians seem physically unable to deliver speeches without paying homage to either hard-working or forgotten families. Yet from this lip-service, little concrete action ever follows.

Bananas are a case in point. After cyclone Yasi destroyed three-quarters of Australia’s banana crop, prices skyrocketed and may soon reach up to $17 a kilo. But even this extreme price increase was not enough to loosen restrictions on banana imports from other countries.

Tragic as the cyclone disaster was for Australian banana growers, the world market price for bananas has barely budged, as German prices demonstrate. Germany of course does not grow bananas and so there is no need to protect local farmers.

Talk is cheap in Australia. Everything else is not. I better enjoy my affordable bananas while I am still on holiday.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 3 June. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.

Gillard's Malaysia plan falling apart

Labor now urged to revive Howard's Pacific Solution by refugee activists

LABOR'S support base on border security is crumbling, with a key critic of the Howard government's Pacific Solution calling for its partial revival in preference to Labor's "nightmare" plan to send unaccompanied children to Malaysia.

Marion Le, a refugee lawyer, last night urged Labor to reopen the Nauru processing centre - the same facility she demanded be shut in 2005 because of concern about the treatment of asylum-seekers.

She was backed by human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who accused Labor of failure on refugees and said asylum-seekers would receive better treatment in Nauru than Malaysia.

Meanwhile, in Western Australia, 14 state Labor MPs signed a petition condemning the plan to send unaccompanied minors to Malaysia as part of the refugee swap.

Opposition to Julia Gillard's Malaysian solution hardened yesterday after news that a draft agreement over her plan to exchange 800 boatpeople for 4000 confirmed refugees processed in Malaysia excluded any reference to human rights.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen guaranteed the final agreement would address human rights concerns, but further inflamed his critics by revealing he would send unaccompanied minors to Malaysia.

Labor announced its plans to transfer asylum-seekers to Malaysia last month as a means of discouraging people-smuggling. It argued that if asylum-seekers knew they could be sent to Malaysia once they reached Australia they would be less likely to risk the voyage. But refugee advocates and the Australian Greens have condemned the deal, noting that Malaysia did not observe UN protocols for handling refugees and, in the past, asylum-seekers had been publicly caned.

Yesterday, Ms Le said it was time for Labor to "bite the bullet" and reopen Nauru, which was mothballed in 2007 after Kevin Rudd took office. Her position puts her in agreement with Tony Abbott, who has demanded the Prime Minister "pick up the phone" to the government of Nauru.

"The place itself is not the problem . . . the situation on Nauru is much better than on the mainland and in Malaysia," Ms Le told The Weekend Australian. "The detention centre needs to be operated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Reopening Nauru would be far better than all the nightmare ideas this government has put forward."

Ms Le, who visited Nauru in 2003 and 2004, said children and unaccompanied minors on the island were properly fed, taken to school and given access to sporting activities and fishing. According to the UNHCR, child refugees in Malaysia do not go to school and are not housed in refugee camps, surviving instead in low-cost flats.

Mr Burnside said if it was a choice between Malaysia and Nauru, he would choose the latter. "Nauru is certainly the less worse, but both are unacceptable." Mr Burnside said Labor should be ashamed of the "scandalous" Malaysian deal, which was "as bad as the Pacific Solution".

"In one way, it is worse because we know Malaysia has a bad track record in its treatment of asylum-seekers," he said. "The idea of sending unaccompanied minors there as well makes it more disgraceful. This is being driven by raw politics. They're behaving like the Howard government."

Mr Bowen said the final agreement with Malaysia would reflect Ms Gillard's insistence that there must be proper regard for the human rights of asylum-seekers. "Let's see this agreement play out," Mr Bowen told ABC radio. "There will be a range of protections to operationalise the commitment given by the Prime Minister of Malaysia about respect for human rights."

Mr Bowen said he was not prepared to make exemptions for children because this would encourage people-smugglers to entice children on dangerous voyages to Australia in leaky boats.

He said the use of Nauru would not break the people-smugglers' business model. "If you go to Nauru, you would end up back in Australia - that's what happened before," he said.

In 2001, there were 44 unauthorised boat arrivals in Australian waters carrying 5516 people, including the Tampa. The Howard government then brought in the Pacific Solution, and in 2002 there was just one unauthorised boat arrival carrying one person. From 2003 until 2007, when Labor won power, there were 17 boats carrying 287 people. As of last night, there were 5976 people in immigration detention in Australia. There have been 25 boat arrivals this year.

Former Howard government immigration minister Philip Ruddock said Labor had attacked the Pacific Solution and was not prepared to "lose face" by reopening the Nauru centre. "In my judgment, they should have simply pocketed their pride and said, 'We made a mistake in criticising the Howard government and the approach they took. We now have to put all of those measures in place to bring this insidious people-smuggling trade to an end'."

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young declared Labor was providing no leadership or compassion. "I think compassionate thinking Australians are sick to death of being taken down this false road of a race to the bottom with no true leadership," she said. "I would be suggesting no one is sent back to Malaysia. That's the Greens' position."

Labor faced criticism on the issue from 14 West Australian Labor MPs, with frontbencher Ben Wyatt saying he was appalled and embarrassed by the federal government's position.

"Federal Labor has lost its way by now making the decision to brutalise and penalise children caught up in terrible circumstances of asylum," he told AAP. "I'm a former army officer, and I fully understand and support strong border protection policy . . . but this is an appalling decision and I'm embarrassed."

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Australian National University Warmists moved to safe location after threats

The proposed carbon tax is threatening a lot of jobs so it is no wonder some workers are angry

A CANBERRA university has increased security following death threats to its climate scientists, some of whom were moved to a safer location. The Australian National University has received a large number of e-mails with threatening and abusive language directed at some of its scientists.

The Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professor Ian Young, said staff should not have to put up with such behaviour.

"Obviously, climate research is an emotive issue at the present time, but these are issues where we should have a logical public debate," Professor Young told ABC News 24. "In fact, it's completely intolerable that people be subjected to this sort of abuse and to threats like this."

Professor Young said the threats had unsettled the scientists. "Academics and scientists are actually really not equipped to be treated in this way," he said. "The concept that you would be threatened for your scientific views and work is something that is completely foreign to them."

The Australian Federal Police said it had not been contacted by the university although it was aware that threats had been made.

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Nifty Nev knows where the NSW ALP has gone wrong

It has lost touch with the workers it claims to represent

NEVILLE Wran, the Labor Party's most popular and successful state leader, says the ALP has "lost its way" and no longer represents its traditional voters.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Wran, 84, said the problem stemmed from his party's failure to field candidates with life experiences that reflected those in the wider community.

"We've developed the political career path," he said. "On our side, it is university, union, ministerial or MP's office and then stand for an election. "This path keeps the new practitioners away from the reality of life of those they hope to represent. If you've been in that cloistered world, how can you expect to know what the real world is like, what issues the real people face and the aims and aspirations of those real people?"

Mr Wran's first cabinet, sworn in on May 15, 1976, included a former bricklayer, a car salesman, a rail worker, a teacher, a pharmacist, a fitter and turner and a professional boxer. Today, many of these occupations and professions are more at home in the conservative side of politics.

"If you look at the last election," Mr Wran said, "those who produced the Barry O'Farrell tsunami came from professions and occupations that 20 or so years ago would have been logical Labor candidates. "Those people are now conservative representatives and we have to get them back as Labor representatives."

He also criticised the use of focus groups and polling in policy development, arguing that Labor's factions were now more focused on "internal power rather than policy development".

Mr Wran, who was NSW premier from 1976 to 1986, spoke to The Weekend Australian about his political career, how Labor could rebuild in NSW and the recent national inquiry into the Labor Party. The interview was to mark the 25th anniversary of his resignation from politics.

Mr Wran supports internal Labor reform and said last year's national review into the party by former premiers Steve Bracks and Bob Carr, and Labor senator John Faulkner, "was heading in the right way". Mr Wran co-authored a report on party reform with former prime minister Bob Hawke in 2002, which was largely ignored.

In his first public comments since NSW Labor lost power in March, Mr Wran said he told former NSW premier Nathan Rees in 2009 that he had no chance of winning the next state election. "I said simply that the time was up," he said. "I don't think Nathan appreciated it, but it was how I felt.

"Also, scandal after scandal portrayed a government that had lost its way and was far more focused on itself than the people it was supposed to represent. The electorate had turned off from the government, and you can't have any success if that happens. The electorate was just waiting for election day to show their displeasure -- and they did in an unprecedented way."

Mr Wran said the 2008 debate over electricity privatisation was highly damaging for the government because it "showed the community how split the party was and engaged in internecine warfare".

For Labor to regain the political ascendancy, Mr Wran said, the party must rediscover its base, carry out internal reform and have "a sense of purpose," as his government did.

He said the 24-hour news cycle and the impact of social media had changed the nature of government so that "too many bad decisions are taken in rapid reaction". "In government and politics, you're expected to have an instant response and an instant answer to every issue," he said. Rather, it was important to "think through issues and problems".

"If I decry anything," he added, "it is the ever-shortening media cycle and the demands on the body politic."

Since leaving politics, Mr Wran has established a successful business career and recently returned from Mongolia, where he was looking at business opportunities. Mr Wran chaired the CSIRO and oversaw an inquiry into higher education for the Hawke government. He has also been an advocate for civil rights and an Australian republic.

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National medical body 'a debacle'

Another disastrous Leftist attempt at centralizing power

THE introduction of a national medical registration body was a "debacle" that resulted in doctors being unknowingly deregistered and losing income and patients being left without healthcare.

A Senate inquiry found the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency failed to notify health practitioners that they needed to renew their licence or that they had been deregistered as a result.

The agency - which took over the registration from 85 different state boards - also spent an "inordinate amount of time" processing applications and did not provide any help to worried doctors who unknowingly had their registration cancelled.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners told the inquiry the transition to the new national agency was "the worst crisis in our workforce in living memory" and the Australian Medical Association described it as a "debacle".

The Coalition-dominated finance and public administration references committee found the COAG-created body had failed to fulfill its primary functions of maintaining a national register to protect the public.

"The mistakes, omissions and poor processes that were clearly evident from the evidence received during the inquiry calls into question the ability of the AHPRA to carry out its primary purpose," it concluded.

"For AHPRA itself to be responsible for the breakdown of the entire system of registration of health practitioners in Australia is a dismal example of policy implementation and public administration."

The committee found that AHPRA's failures went beyond doctors, as patients experienced financial loss because they could not claim Medicare rebates for services provided by deregistered doctors. "Patients of practitioners who were deregistered had appointments cancelled or postponed," the report found. "This was of great inconvenience and concern."

They recommended AHPRA write letters of apology to affected doctors as well as urging all state and federal health ministers to "establish and improve" the accountability of the body.

But a minority report by Gillard government senators on the committee disagreed with the findings, saying it was not a debacle and the conclusions were for "political purposes only".

"It would have been unreasonable to expect such a large undertaking to be without problems in the initial phase," they wrote.

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said the shift from "a myriad of state bodies to one national body" should have been done over time instead of overnight.

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Child protection coverup to be busted at last?

Alleged rape victim wants Heiner inquiry restarted by federal authorities

AN ALLEGED rape victim who was paid compensation but forced to keep quiet by the Bligh Government is set to spark a new federal inquiry into the state's longest-running scandal.

A 20-year controversy involving politicians, shredded documents and "hush money" is set to be re-opened when Senator Nick Xenophon - with Coalition support - moves to open a new probe into what has become known as the Heiner Affair. The victim, 36, will be able to reveal why she received $140,000 in compensation last year for an alleged crime that happened in 1988.

The shock new inquiry into "Shreddergate" means the victim can ignore the confidentiality agreement she signed before receiving the funds because the right to speak to federal senators trumps the agreement.

The Queensland woman alleges she was just 14 years old when on a supervised bush outing she was pack raped. No one was ever charged. At the time, she was a ward of the state at the now closed John Oxley Detention Centre.

The victim met with Senator Xenophon's staff in Brisbane on Friday and revealed she wanted to tell the inquiry her story.

Senator Xenophon and the Coalition will need one more senator to set-up the inquiry, and will likely win the support of outgoing Victorian Senator Steve Fielding. A spokesman for Senator Fielding said that on "face value" the inquiry would be supported but more information would be sought from the Conservatives and Senator Xenophon.

Senator Xenophon, approached by a whistleblower, said new questions needed to be asked about the "hush" money. "This former ward of the state has been gagged by the Queensland Government but the fact is that gag is worthless when it comes to the senate inquiry," he said. "The question Queenslanders may want to ask themselves is that if nothing illegal happened, why was a rape victim paid a six-figure sum with taxpayer dollars for a crime that supposedly never happened?

"And there is a broader issue here. Why would any State Government feel the need to make a rape victim sign a confidentiality agreement?"

In 1989, retired Children's Court Magistrate Noel Heiner conducted an inquiry into issues relating to the detention centre.

The inquiry documents were shredded by the then-Labor Goss Government in 1990 over fears centre staff may take legal action. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was Mr Goss's chief-of-staff at the time.

Several inquiries focused on the shredded documents. No one in the Goss government was charged nor was anyone charged for the suspected abuse against the centre's youth.

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Greenie nonsense leads to bad government

But if it leads to distrust of Greenie policies, that may be a price worth paying

Robert Carling

The rule of law stands as a bulwark against the arbitrary exercise of power by government. As such it is fundamental to fairness, the freedom of the governed, and the success of the liberal market economy – but it is frequently under attack, sometimes from unexpected quarters. Two recent examples spring to mind.

Retrospective legislation is antithetical to the rule of law. It is like changing the rules of the game after it has been played. But governments sometimes resort to it, citing extraordinary circumstances as the justification.

The freshly minted O’Farrell government in NSW is planning to tear up contracts entered into by its predecessor, which had promised to pay participants in the solar energy scheme a very generous 60 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity generated (the ‘feed-in tariff’). It plans retrospective legislation to invalidate the old contracts, cut the price paid, and deny participants in the scheme any legal recourse against the government.

The solar scheme was an atrocious act of public policy, adopted by the previous government in the expectation that the nasty fiscal consequences would be someone else’s problem.

But can an action of one government be so bad that it justifies retrospective legislation by a successor government? Opinions will differ on this, but the avoidance of retrospectivity is such an important principle that the justification should be very strong indeed, and in my opinion stronger than in this case.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 3 June. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





Italians show benefits of immigration, says Gillard

I myself have the highest opinion of Italians and heartily agree with what my Prime Minister has said about them below. As well I might do: Italians are the heirs to TWO great flowerings of civilization: The Roman empire and the Renaissance. And to this day Italy is a powerhouse of culture. So it is NO surprise that Italian immigrants have made a great contribution to Australian life.

But when we look at illiterate Afghans and their primitive 7th century religion, we are at the opposite end of the scale. And it is mainly Afghans who are flocking to Australia as illegal immigrants at the moment. They are a disaster waiting to happen. They should be sent back to their native hellhole

There are undoubtedly many worthy Afghans but those who try to force themselves on Australia are ipso facto unlikely to include many of those

JULIA Gillard says the integration of Italian migrants in Australia shows the strength and the benefits of immigration to the nation.

The prime minister acknowledged the contribution Italian migrants have made to Australia at a dinner marking the 150th anniversary of Italy's unification.

Ms Gillard said thousands of Italians have made the "momentous decision" to sacrifice their home to journey across the globe and realise their hopes in Australia.

"But if Australia was a land of opportunity, it only came at a price," Ms Gillard said at the Italian National Day Ball in Sydney today. "Years of backbreaking labour in places like the Snowy or the cane fields, working two or three jobs, sometimes facing misunderstanding and discrimination. "But in spite of these difficulties, you held fast and saw Australia as it could be."

She said Australia changed for the better as the nation absorbed these migrants. "That is why we must always regard immigration as a source of strength," Ms Gillard said. "Because it renewed and enriched our nation at its core, precisely at the time when the world was opening up and our old insular habits could no longer be sustained.

Ms Gillard said the unification of the city-states into the nation of Italy in 1861 led the way for the prosperous, innovative European country of today.

"Friends, Italy has given many great gifts to the world: her culture, her food, her sense of style - but the greatest gift of Italy has been her people," she said.

"Around 60 million people outside Italy claim Italian heritage. "And for this gift, Australia will always give thanks."

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The latest defence equipment bungle: And it's a big one

THE head of defence acquisition for the Gillard government has admitted that the nation's largest defence project, the plan to build three new air warfare destroyers, is a "crisis" that threatens the reputation of Defence and everyone involved in the $8 billion plan.

The comments, made by Defence Materiel Organisation head Stephen Gumley to defence industry colleagues in late April, directly contradict the Gillard government's public spin this week, which sought to portray the AWD problems as being "not unusual" for such a complex naval construction.

The Weekend Australian has learned that Mr Gumley was only fully briefed on April 20 that the AWD project was in deep trouble, running two years late.

That was about seven months after serious construction problems began to emerge in a Melbourne shipyard and despite the fact that, in February, the project's sub-contractor BAE Systems told the publicly owned Australian Submarine Corporation that flawed design data being used to build the AWDs would ensure further delays and cost overruns.

It is unclear whether ASC failed to pass these warnings to Mr Gumley or whether the DMO head did not act on BAE's claims at that time.

Insiders say that when Mr Gumley was finally fully briefed in April he was stunned by the extent of the AWD problems, describing the situation as a "crisis". He warned that the setback to the flagship project could harm the reputation of the DMO and all other parties involved in the project.

A Defence spokesman confirmed last night that Mr Gumley had described the AWD project as being in crisis in April, but said he was "pointing out the seriousness of the situation in an attempt to get a speedy resolution". "Since then all parties have worked co-operatively to achieve that resolution," the spokesman said.

Mr Gumley's claim to others that he had learned of the gravity of the crisis only on April 20 raises questions about whether the AWD project manager, the AWD Alliance, failed to keep the DMO chief abreast of the series of problems engulfing the project. It is further evidence of a dysfunctional relationship between Defence and industry that has contributed to delays and cost overruns on billions of dollars' worth of defence projects.

The alarm that Mr Gumley expressed to colleagues in private was in stark contrast to the public spin employed by the government this week as it attempted to play down the issue.

The Australian revealed this week that the project to build the three new AWDs had been paralysed by faulty construction and design, poor project management and bitter in-fighting between shipyards.

When asked about the setback to the warship project, the head of the AWD Alliance, Rod Equid, claimed that it was nothing out of the ordinary. "Problems in the early stage of construction for a project of this size and complexity are not unusual," Mr Equid said. "What is important is they're quickly recognised and action is taken."

Defence Minister Stephen Smith also played down the extent of the AWD problems. "We have confidence that it is on track, but we also understand it's a considerable project and there have been difficulties," Mr Smith said.

The minister is said to be privately furious about the delays to the AWD project and has announced a reallocation of work between shipyards in Melbourne, Adelaide and Newcastle in an attempt to reduce the current two-year delay by up to 12 months.

News of the setbacks has not filtered through to the DMO website, which this week continued to state that the AWD project "remains on schedule and budget".

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Orthodox Roman Catholics getting fed up with arrogant clergy who pervert the faith

THREE or four times this year, groups of up to 50 Catholics have gathered to pray outside St Joseph's in Newtown during its gay-friendly Mass.

Sometimes they stop worshippers as they leave the service, demanding to know if they took Communion. If confronted by the parish priest, Father Peter Maher, they recite the rosary. On other occasions, one or two enter the church mid-service, and watch from the back.

A parishioner, Paul Harris, said the incidents affected how other parishioners looked at newcomers. "Any strangers that come along you greet them and welcome them and hope they're there for the right reasons," he said.

Those who are not have been dubbed the "temple police" - orthodox Catholics, either individuals or groups, who report what they see as liturgical abuses to bishops, or to Rome.

Not that all complaints make it to the Vatican. When St Joseph's began sponsoring a school in Pakistan, it was reported to ASIO.

But last month these often anonymous upholders of orthodoxy claimed what might be their biggest scalp when the bishop of Toowoomba, William Morris, was forced to resign, ostensibly for raising issues such as female or married priests.

Father Hal Ranger, an associate pastor at St Patrick's Cathedral in Toowoomba, said most of the diocese was still hurt by the loss of the bishop.

But he believed the influence of this militant minority was experiencing a resurgence in the Australian church, which was preparing to introduce a more literal translation of the Latin Mass that some priests had vowed they would not use.

"It's pretty much what the Scribes and Pharisees were doing to Jesus," he said. "They were saying 'here is the law book … you have just cured a person on the Sabbath day, and the book says you shouldn't'."

A former Sydney barrister, Paul Brazier, who died recently, revealed how effective complaints could be when co-ordinated. Through his now-defunct Australian Catholic Advocacy Centre, in the 1990s he developed a checklist that could be tucked discreetly into a prayer book to track liturgical transgressions in a Mass and used for statutory declarations to be sent to authorities.

These complaints highlighted the "tolerance" of liturgical laxity in the Australian church, which was addressed in a dressing down from the Vatican called the "Statement of Conclusions" in 1998. Rome is still perceived to be suspicious about liberal elements in dioceses such as Toowoomba.

"Little wonder," wrote Mr Brazier's former colleague Michael Baker in an online tribute, "that no bishop attended his funeral at St Mary's Cathedral" last month.

But Richard Stokes, the parishioner most often associated with the term "temple police", told the Herald they were "a figment of the imagination of those priests who may consider that they are a target, for whatever reason".

Mr Stokes, who has visited about a dozen parishes to attend Mass every day, said he did not know anyone who travelled around churches looking for trouble. But his evidence proved instrumental in the dismissal of Father Peter Kennedy as the parish priest of St Mary's in south Brisbane in 2009.

A month after St Mary's refused to hold daily Mass if he attended, he was banned from St Eugene's in north Brisbane by its assistant priest.

"I gathered from his harangue that my 'offence' was 'writing to the archbishop'. The only other words I could follow were 'stupid letter', 'nonsense', 'ridiculous', 'rubbish' and so on," he wrote in the orthodox newsletter Into the Deep.

This Victorian-based newsletter for "orthodox Catholics who have grown tired of seeing the church we love being abused and neglected by those within it, and have begun to speak out," details the successes, frustrations and observations of others such as Mr Stokes.

Such as this about some colourful banners in a regional NSW cathedral: "Either there's a new rainbow liturgical season that I haven't heard of yet, or there's a strong 'gay pride' thing happening in Bathurst diocese."

The editor of Into the Deep, Janet Kingman, used the analogy of reporting a teacher who instructs students in incorrect spelling and grammar, deeming it unimportant. "The real question is, how can a teacher be teaching the wrong stuff? And how can the principal tolerate it, or encourage it?"

But Father Maher said he could justify St Joseph's liturgy to any bishop, though there was no way to engage with the anonymous people standing outside who thought ministering to gay and lesbian Catholics was sacrilegious. "That is obviously horrendously incorrect, but who corrects them?"

As for the new Mass, St Joseph's would use it when it came in in November, Father Maher said. As will Father Ranger in Toowoomba, although he said he would deviate from it should the circumstances warrant.

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Liberal party returns fire over Leftist hypocrisy about abusive language

As ever, Leftists are the stone-throwing glasshouse inhabitants. Due to the swamp in which their major policies are stuck, the Labor party has made a big deal out of a "miaow", believe it or not -- because a conservative politician made that sound while a Leftist politician was speaking. How desperate can you get -- to make a fuss about such a triviality? The Left, themselves, of course, have said much worse

THE most senior Liberal woman, Julie Bishop, has blasted Julia Gillard for making nasty comments about men. A day after Coalition Senator David Bushby was carpeted for a catcall aimed at Finance Minister Penny Wong, federal MPs continued to take swipes at each other.

Ms Bishop turned the attack on the Prime Minister saying she was shocked by her behaviour. "The Prime Minister has the opportunity to raise the level of debate in this country, but she frequently makes nasty personal jibes, never apologises for them," Ms Bishop told ABC News 24's Capital Hill program.

"She's called people fat, misogynist, mincing poodles in the past, and never apologised for them," she said. "The worst I thought was saying Bob Brown did not have a love of family. Now what on earth was she getting at?"

In October 2006, Ms Gillard referred to Liberal frontbenchers as "the misogynist and the fat man".

Her comment in February, 2009, describing senior Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne as "mincing" and a "poodle" was raised yesterday as the Liberals fired back after Treasurer Wayne Swan claimed the "miaow' incident was evidence of the "rudeness and the sexism of Tony Abbott's goons".

Ms Gillard denied calling Mr Pyne a "mincing poodle" and challenged her accusers to check the Hansard record. It shows she used both words in reference to Mr Pyne but never joined them together. It was in a speech after Mr Pyne was given a promotion ahead of Mr Abbott to be then leader Malcolm Turnbull's chief parliamentary tactician and attack dog.

"In a choice between macho and mincing, I would have gone for macho myself, and obviously the Leader of the Opposition faced with the choice of doberman or poodle has gone for the poodle," the then deputy PM said.

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Queensland conservatives won't support carbon tax, says LNP Leader Campbell Newman

QUEENSLAND'S Liberal National Party won't support a carbon tax unless it's part of a global push to act on climate change.

LNP leader Campbell Newman says now is not the time to be imposing a carbon tax when the nation is struggling economically. "We will not at all support a carbon tax at any time unless it's part of a global compact where everyone is on a level playing field," Mr Newman told a business conference on the Gold Coast. "These are not the things we need to do when our state and our nation is in such terrible economic times."

Mr Newman pledged to restore Queensland's AAA credit rating if his party won government at the next election, due by March 2012. "I want to take us away from being the ALP poor-house state to being the economic power house in Australia," he said. "I want Queensland to be number one. The economy will be our focus, it's the way we must go forward to generate wealth and prosperity."

He made the comments as he began to lay out his economic vision for the state.

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Climate smokescreen

Henry Ergas

ROSS Garnaut's new report released this week starts with an episode of enlightenment. "I" the report opens (and suitably so, for the personal pronoun appears to be the professor's closest friend), "was explaining to the Multiparty Climate Change Committee how I had worked out the costs and benefits of reducing emissions.

"The costs come straightaway. The benefits come later. So I needed a way of comparing income now with incomes of young Australians later in their lives and who are not yet born. 'So we had to choose the right discount rate', I said.

"Then I said something that brought back the Prime Minister's attention. 'If we used the sharemarket's discount rate to value the lives of future Australians,' I said, 'and if we knew that doing something would give benefits now but cause the extinction of our species in half a century, the calculations would tell us to do it'."

Triumph! "The smile on the Prime Minister's face became a hearty laugh. 'You've got us there, Ross', she said, as the others were infected by the lift in spirits. 'That's a unanimous decision. We're all against the extinction of the human species'."

Thank God you're here, Professor Garnaut! But had Julia Gillard known any economics, she would have known the claimed demonstration makes no sense.

If an outcome is certain, its consequences should be discounted to the present at the risk-free rate, not at the market rate that has uncertainty built into it.

Moreover, if an action causes certain death, it should be assessed as costing at the very least the entire wealth of the generations affected. It should therefore be treated entirely differently from small or marginal changes in exposure to harm. Thus done properly, the standard analysis works perfectly well. But had Garnaut explained this, he would not have had his story.

And that sets the pace for the economics in this report, in which loose assertions fly thick and fast.

We are told, for example, that so as "to improve the tax system through reducing tax disincentives to work", carbon revenues should be used to substantially increase the income tax's tax-free threshold. But the inevitable consequence would be to raise effective marginal tax rates as the threshold tapers.

Indeed, although this is nowhere noted in the report, Garnaut's proposal would raise effective tax rates in the middle-income bracket by about 5 percentage points, that is by 17 per cent. Such an increase, affecting more than 60 per cent of taxpayers, would greatly reduce incentives to work and save.

Nor does the looseness end there. In discussing the resources boom, the report says that "for each new mine or gas plant, there must be a cut in jobs and investment in other businesses".

Yet that is only true if we cannot import capital and labour, as we have ever since European settlement: but here too, the vital caveat is not added, presumably for fear of spoiling a good story.

Looseness then reaches Himalayan heights in the discussion of innovation, where the report tells us that at a time of large changes in relative prices and in economic structure, private expenditure on innovation falls short of socially valuable levels by an especially large amount, so the case for public subsidy is especially strong. But this unbacked claim is inconsistent with economic theory and with a mountain of studies starting in the 1930s.

Or consider electricity networks, where the report says that "it is clear from market behaviour" that over-investment has occurred because "the rate of return that is allowed exceeds the network's cost of capital". But economists have developed powerful tests for assessing this precise issue. The report does not apply a single one of these tests to back up its airy claims, nor cite any careful studies that do.

And take the question of comparing "direct action" with market instruments such as emissions permits. Here the report is unequivocal: "Using direct action measures would raise costs much more than carbon pricing". Yet growing research shows that (in the words of leading environmental economist Ian Parry) in the presence of market imperfections, "the superiority on cost-effectiveness grounds of permit systems over technology mandates and performance standards could be overturned".

On a matter of such political sensitivity, it would have behoved the report to at least acknowledge those results; it doesn't. And it would equally have behoved it to treat the comparison between alternative policy instruments as an empirical matter; again, it doesn't.

In fact, to do so would be inconsistent with the report's style, which is to demonise its opponents. They are, it says, "spoiling voices" who live in "isolation from reality".

Unlike Garnaut, they have not "joined Jiang Zemin in reciting the Gettysburg Address with the fruit at the end of a meal"; how could they understand China's actions?

As for their arguments about what Australia should do, they do not reflect a genuinely held alternative view of the public interest: rather, theirs are "narrow interests", while Garnaut speaks for " objective truth" representing the "informed centre that has no sectional interest that leads it to oppose the national interest."

Such claims are the hallmark of a fatal pretence: the pretence of embodying the "general will" that alone can soar above the "will of each". But even putting aside their inherent flaws, these claims of disinterestedness would be more credible were the report not knee-deep in proposed wealth transfers, showering largesse on beneficiaries ranging from the solar industry to the climate scientists who have been Garnaut's vocal supporters.

Yet the best comes towards the end. Here Garnaut paints a glowing picture of 19th-century economist William Stanley Jevons, whose 1865 book The Coal Question argued that Britain's dependence on coal meant "the maintenance of Britain's economic position is physically impossible". These words, Garnaut comments, "have a special resonance for Australians, as we face the same choice outlined by Jevons".

But the The Coal Question was entirely wrong. Britain did not run out of coal in 1900: indeed, it is unlikely to do so in 2100. Little wonder The Coal Question is long forgotten. Could its fate be this report's future?

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Construction union hit with $560k fine

The CFMEU must pay $440,000 in penalties and costs, and $120,000 in compensation for six contractors. Herald Sun

A CONSTRUCTION union has been hit with massive $560,000 penalty for illegally blocking access to the building site of the new Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable market.

The building watchdog scored a win over the Construction Forestry and Mining and Energy Union in the Federal Court yesterday over a blockade of the Epping worksite in May last year.

The Federal Court endorsed a settlement between the CFMEU and the Australian Building and Construction Commission under which the union must pay $440,000 in penalties and costs, and $120,000 in compensation for six contractors.

The latest financial hit comes just over a year since the CFMEU and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union were hit with a $1.3 million penalty for their conduct during a dispute on the West Gate Bridge.

Building commissioner Leigh Johns said the Epping industrial action occurred despite injunctive orders banning the CFMEU action. "The blockade sought to force an agreement with the CFMEU instead of the Australian Workers Union," Mr Johns said. "Our industrial relations system allows employers to negotiate agreements with any union that covers their workers."

Mr Johns said union officials attempted to lure kangaroos on to the site to prevent subcontractors removing equipment. They also used cars and 44-gallon drums to restrict entry.

The industrial action continued for about a week after the Federal Court ordered the union to stop hindering access, leading to the penalties agreed on yesterday.

The State Government said the decision highlighted the culture of intimidation and coercion in parts of the building industry. "The CFMEU's history of unlawful behaviour not only promotes defiance of the rule of law, it adds enormously to the costs of construction," it said.

The CFMEU did not return calls from the Herald Sun.

Mr Johns said the decision confirmed that unions would be held to account for the economic consequences of unlawful industrial action.

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In academe, the Left show the totalitarian stuff of which they are made: Larissa Behrendt revisited



Larissa Behrendt claims to be an Aborigine and pretends to wisdom about Aboriginal affairs -- but she is as pink-skinned as I am and has nothing new to offer on Aboriginal policy. She is nothing like a real Aborigine, even if she has some remote Aboriginal ancestry. She is just a conventional Leftist. She is comfortably ensconced with others of her ilk at the University of Technology, Sydney, far away from the day-to-day problems of real Aborigines. Her many awards and honours suggest that her claims of Aboriginality have served her well, however. It's so comforting to give awards to "Aborigines" who are just like us. It helps to hide the real and sad differences that need to be dealt with constructively -- JR

Janet Albrechtsen

This is about a big idea: the human right to free speech. Yet in the academic world devoted to human rights where Larissa Behrendt earns her living, free speech is often scorned. As the poster girl for urban academics, the law professor has done a first-class job of exposing the Left's lack of commitment to free speech.

Behrendt is entitled to her views. But as a high-profile indigenous academic with a long list of public appointments - professor of law and director of research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney, former chair of one of the Australian Research Council's panels that hands out taxpayer-funded research grants and so on - Behrendt is accountable for what she says and does.

If she wants to follow an out-dated agenda of postcolonial guilt, treaties and indigenous sovereignty, she is free to do so. Some will agree with her. Many others will disagree with an agenda best described by anthropologist Peter Sutton as pie-in-the-sky. They will argue that real progress depends on eradicating violence against indigenous women and children.

Yet when Behrendt tweeted that watching bestiality on television was less offensive than watching Bess Price, a strong supporter of the Northern Territory intervention, on ABC1's Q & A, Behrendt clearly rejected the merits of debate. She undermined her own credibility as a defender of human rights when she transformed an important debate about indigenous violence into something petty and personal.

Behrendt's email apology does not hide her deeper contempt for free speech when she defaulted to the Left's standard tactic of trying to muzzle those with different views. Those who stray from the orthodoxy are not just wrong, they are evil - worse than watching bestiality. Ergo, those with evil views should not be seen or heard.

And then there's the hypocrisy. Behrendt and her fellow travellers are using discrimination laws to try to shut down Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt for expressing strongly held views. Behrendt said much worse things about Price.

Just imagine the fatal career consequences had a white academic tweeted in the way Behrendt did. Defending Behrendt and her appointment to the government's review of Aboriginal higher education, chairman of the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council Steve Larkin said the tweet fiasco had nothing to do with higher education.

This is not just about a throwaway tweet. As The Australian reported on April 19 and 20, Behrendt tried to stop the National Indigenous Times from publishing the views of human rights lawyer Hannah McGlade, whose focus is protecting indigenous women and children from violence. While Behrendt said she had had no conversations with Stephen Hagan, editor of the Times, she wrote an email to the newspaper's general manager Beverley Wyner and her husband, John, which noted her distress at discovering McGlade was a likely new contributor.

In the email, Behrendt writes: ". . . I felt that this meant that our paper was giving all her views legitimacy, including her personal attacks on me." What happened to debate, Dr Behrendt?

In fact, Behrendt's disdain for free speech has everything to do with higher education. As naive as it sounds, the heartbeat of free speech should be at its healthiest within our universities. Instead, free speech risks flatlining when a professor of law ridicules and shuts down opponents. Warren Mundine told The Australian: "If you don't have free debate in academia, then where the bloody hell are we going?"

Consider this too. Since 2002, Behrendt has been a director of the Sydney Writers Festival, a cosy, taxpayer-subsidised couch where like-minded people sit and nod in agreement. At no stage has historian Keith Windschuttle been invited to talk about his contributions to history. He's been invited to the Adelaide Writers Festival, the Melbourne Writers Festival. Even Byron Bay luvvies have hosted him. But not the writers' clique in his home town.

There is a devastating human cost here. It is no coincidence that the human right to free speech is the critical driver of human progress. Progress doesn't come from sticking with the herd. In every sphere, the best ideas often challenged the mainstream. Behind every advance, there is a dissident voice, a radical idea, a genuinely curious, bravely independent mind. Yet so many on the Left, who mistakenly wrap themselves up as progressives, have little time for such voices of dissent.

As Mundine says: "This is about serious debate. Nothing could be more serious than the issues raised by Bess Price in regard to violence against women and children within our society. This really gets down to the very fabric of what our society stands for."

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Damn! Aussies to be fined for swearing

I've got no dog in this fight as I very rarely swear. I can express myself pretty cuttingly without needing profane language. But some people swear all the time. Are they going to get tickets all the time? A lot will depend on how this is enforced and applied

Australians may have a love of plain speaking but new laws are set to curtail some of their more colourful language with police issuing on-the-spot fines for obnoxious swearing.
The country's second most populous state Victoria is due to approve new legislation this week under which police will be able to slap fines of up to Aus$240 (US$257) on people using offensive words or phrases.

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said the penalties, similar to those issued for speeding or parking illegally, would free up police time.

"This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings," he said.

But even the state's top lawyer admitted to swearing sometimes. "Occasionally I mutter things under my breath as probably everybody does," he told ABC radio. "But this law is not targeted at that, it's targeted at the sort of obnoxious, offensive behaviour in public that makes life unpleasant for everybody else."

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Prominent State politician under fire for disrespecting Warmist scientists

THE state government's whip in the upper house, Peter Phelps, has been accused of likening scientists to Nazis in a speech to Parliament.

In an address attacking global warming, Dr Phelps said it should not be forgotten that "some of the strongest supporters of totalitarian regimes in the last century have been scientists". "We should not be so surprised that the contemporary science debate has become so debased," Dr Phelps, pictured, said. "At the heart of many scientists - but not all scientists - lies the heart of a totalitarian planner."

He once compared the former army officer and federal Labor MP Mike Kelly to the guards at a concentration camp. Dr Phelps was chief-of-staff to the then special minister of state Gary Nairn in 2007 when he accused Mr Kelly of using the Nuremberg defence, like the guards at the Belsen concentration camp.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday, Dr Phelps quoted an unidentified writer whom he described as "speaking about the rise of Nazism" and its similarity to "scientists agitating for a scientific organisation of society".

Dr Phelps then went on to say: "One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories. "Now, through the great global warming swindle, they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives; they can, like Lenin, proclaim what must be done."

The Greens MP John Kaye said Dr Phelps had created "a massive political headache" for Barry O'Farrell. "The Premier can either dissociate himself from the remarks made by his whip in the upper house or forever be a party to the most virulent science-denying libel yet seen in the climate debate," Dr Kaye said.

The Labor MP Luke Foley said Dr Phelps had not learnt from his earlier mistakes. "In the 2007 federal election campaign, Peter Phelps became an infamous figure nationally when he compared Mike Kelly to a Nazi concentration camp guard," Mr Foley said.

"The then Howard government was forced to apologise for Dr Phelps's outrageous comments but he hasn't learnt his lesson and he's back, likening scientists who report the facts on global warming to Nazi propagandists."

Dr Phelps last night denied he was likening scientists to Nazis. "This is not an issue of Nazism or Communism but an unhealthy relationship between scientists and governments that can lead to totalitarianism," Dr Phelps said.

A spokesman for the Premier declined to comment.

SOURCE




Sydney peace prize discredits itself even further

IN A move likely to spark another annual round of healthy controversy, the veteran American linguist, social scientist and human rights campaigner Noam Chomsky was named 2011 winner of the Sydney Peace Prize last night.

Professor Chomsky said he was honoured by the award, whose previous recipients include the South African cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Palestinian activist Hanan Ashwari and the Australian journalist John Pilger.

In recent weeks the 82-year-old has been one of America's most-hated men, subjected to "obscenities, intellectual hysteria and death threats" over remarks following the shooting of Osama bin Laden.

The al-Qaeda leader's crimes, he wrote, were vastly exceeded by those of the former president George Bush. "We might ask how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at his compound, assassinated him and dumped his body in the Atlantic."

Professor Chomsky said the ill-considered American operation had pushed the world to the brink of war, possibly even nuclear war. "The commandos who violated Pakistani sovereignty were given orders to fight their way out if necessary. They risked coming into confrontation with the Pakistani army.

"In a society barely hanging together, the military is very stable, very professional. They are dedicated to the defence of Pakistan, which is probably the fastest-growing nuclear power in the world. If confronted it will fight."

Professor Chomsky restated his opposition to war in Afghanistan, where two Australian soldiers died this week. "Americans and Britons, too, are dying … in fact, to make the world more [not less] dangerous for the United States and Britain. And I'd say for the rest of the world."

The announcement of the prize-winner was made by the NSW governor, Marie Bashir. The citation praised his unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights.

Stuart Rees, the director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, said, "Chomsky is one of the West's most influential intellectuals in the cause of peace, the most significant challenger of unjust power."

Professor Chomsky, who receives a $50,000 prize and a hand-made glass trophy, will fly to Australia in November to deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize lecture and attend a gala dinner at Sydney University.

He has visited Australia before, 15 years ago, when he delivered lectures about East Timor refugees at the invitation of the leader, Jose Ramos Horta. This time, he says he hopes to spend more time, catching up with friends, meeting fellow activists, enjoying Sydney's enviable lifestyle.

Meanwhile, he said, peace remained a distant prospect in a world torn apart with wars unnoticed, such as that in the eastern Congo, and wars unwinnable, such as that in Afghanistan.

SOURCE

Government is the partner of organized crime

By Michael Duffy and Bob Bottom.

We have just finished a 21-part history of organised crime in Sydney, for a series to be published in the Herald's new iPad edition. Most organised crime took place in the 20th century, and naturally we found ourselves pondering why.

What we found is that much of it emerged following the introduction of laws banning popular pleasures. America is famous for one big Prohibition: we had a lot of smaller ones.

What happens is that illegal markets are set up to provide the banned goods and services such as drugs and alcohol or gambling and prostitution. The volume of these illegal transactions is enormous, making it profitable for organisational entrepreneurs to move in. They take two forms: the efficient businessmen, such as Abe Saffron and George Freeman, and the standover men who in effect “tax” the illegal businesses, and give permission for them to stay open. Perhaps Sydney's most famous standover man was Lennie McPherson, known in some circles as Mr Big and in others as Mr Ten Per Cent.

One example of this pattern was the 1916 Liquor Act, which made the sale of alcohol illegal after 6pm. It was to assist with wartime productivity, but was not repealed until long after World War II. It spawned dozens of illegal bars around the city catering to everyone desperate for a drink in convivial surroundings after dark. People prepared to supply them, whether Kate Leigh with her sly grog joints in Surry Hills or Joe Taylor's and Saffron's celebrity nightclubs later on, became very wealthy.

You can track the rise and fall of a great deal of organised crime against the legislative history of popular pleasures, with a decline as laws were introduced legalising prostitution and extending drinking hours, and with the creation (and later the extension) of the TAB and the setting up of NSW's first legal casino, Star City, in 1995.

The nature of the illegal pleasures shapes the nature of the organised crime that arises to provide them. Drugs are unusual, historically, because they are not sold or consumed at a relatively small number of locations. This means dealers are harder to locate and tax, making it impossible for standover men to impose a certain amount of stability on the underworld. The profits are enormous and easy, which attracts a continual stream of psychopaths into the milieu to try to rip off those already there.

For these reasons, the drug underworld is far more volatile and violent than the old underworld based on alcohol and gambling and prostitution. The days when McPherson, Freeman and Stan Smith could pretty well run the underworld for decades are long gone.

A final difference is drugs are used by a relatively small number of people. This means police and politicians are far less prepared to take bribes – an important factor in the decline of corruption in recent decades.

What does history tell us about measures that work against organised crime? The biggest success in Sydney was in 1930, in response to the violence of the razor gangs involved in cocaine and other illegal trades. Parliament passed the NSW Vagrancy (Amendment) Act, which made it illegal to be seen habitually with reputed criminals or people with no visible means of support.

Alfred McCoy, in his book Drug Traffic, calls this “one of the most authoritarian and effective measures against organised crime ever passed in a Western democracy”. Police numbers were increased and it became illegal to carry a razor. Within months the level of violence dropped. It took longer – about five years – but the cocaine trade was crushed.

The laws were draconian, but according to McCoy, “In the small-town atmosphere of Sydney in the 1930s it was generally understood who the targets were to be, and there were few abuses of these exceptional powers and fewer civil libertarian qualms.”

Would the law be acceptable today? Justice James Wood noted, during his Police Royal Commission in the 1990s, that the law gave police such extraordinary powers that it eventually became “an instrument for corruption and for the establishment of improper relationships”.

Still, harsher laws can work. One great example of this is America's RICO legislation, which allows someone to be sentenced to a long jail term if they are a member of an organisation that has committed any two of 35 designated crimes. The law has been particularly useful in locking up large numbers of criminal bosses. Writer Evan Whitton has urged NSW to consider such a law, and we think the idea deserves serious consideration.

SOURCE






Crash site 'did not exist', according to arrogant ambulance operator

Ambulance Victoria has apologised to a triple-0 caller who was told by an emergency operator that the crash site he was calling from "did not exist".

Peter Rennie was driving along the Daylesford-Ballarat Road at Dean, about 20 kilometres north-east of Ballarat, when he came across a car that had smashed into a tree on May 23. Another motorist stayed with the injured woman who was trapped inside the vehicle while Mr Rennie ran to the nearest corner - the intersection with Dean-Mollongghip Road - to call an ambulance.

He spelt out the road sign to the operator over his mobile phone, only to be told his location didn't exist. "I didn't know how to pronounce it so I spelt it out right from the start," Mr Rennie told the Ballarat Courier. "When I spoke to an operator, I was told there was nowhere in Victoria called Dean.

"I couldn't believe it. I said the system had no idea, and then I was told to check my attitude. "I said to them: 'What do we do? Do we leave this poor woman in the car to die?' " He said the operator finally found the location and sent an ambulance, before hanging up.

Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Howe today said the organisation had reviewed a recording of the exchange, and had apologised to Mr Rennie. He said the operator had been "dismissive" of the caller, and would receive further training in light of the mix-up. "It was purely a human error on the call-taker side and, listening to it, it clearly wasn't handled by the book," Mr Howe said.

"We didn't follow the correct protocols and we apologised to the person who made the call."

Mr Howe said he believed the tense exchange between the operator and Mr Rennie lasted minutes. "I don't believe that it was a long time, but clearly in a stressful situation anything that's going to add any anxiety or distress is not ideal, and that's what we're certainly apologising for in this case," he said.

"We've got pretty rigorous systems here, we take call-taking seriously. Obviously having over 750,000 calls a year, we investigate any complaints and we also have random audits of calls to make sure that we're following correct procedures."

He said the woman involved in the car crash was not seriously injured and was taken to Ballarat Hospital in a stable condition.

SOURCE





GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Climate report an assault on democracy, says Abbott

TONY Abbott has rejected the latest climate change report from economist Ross Garnaut as an assault on democracy, warning that it proposes to give a committee of unelected appointees the power to set tax rates.

As the Opposition Leader yesterday complained of a "democratic deficit" over Labor's proposed carbon tax, Julia Gillard noted the report rejected Mr Abbott's proposal to tackle climate change through direct action measures such as planting trees.

Delivering his final climate change update report at the National Press Club yesterday, Professor Garnaut said the direct action approach risked entrenching the political culture of vested interests that had resisted economic reform for eight decades.

"The big rewards in low-emissions investments in regulatory approaches would go to those who persuaded the minister or the bureaucrat that their idea was worthy of being included in the direct action plan," he said.

"If not under the government that introduced the direct action policies then under the governments that followed."

In his report, Professor Garnaut proposed the establishment of an independent committee to set Australia's carbon emission reduction levels -- a proposal that could break the deadlock preventing Labor from winning Greens' support for the tax.

Mr Abbott seized on the proposal, warning it would put the power to set tax rates out of the hands of accountable politicians.

"There is a developing democratic deficit here," he said. "First of all the Prime Minister wasn't upfront with the Australian public before the election. Now the idea that taxes in this country should effectively be set by people who are outside the parliament, and who are not accountable to the people, I think, is just odd.

"This just goes to show how out of control the government is on this whole climate change question."

Later, the Opposition Leader continued his attack in question time, noting that the report said: "Australian households will ultimately bear the full cost of a carbon price".

"So how can (the Prime Minister) continue to maintain that her tax only makes big polluters pay?" Mr Abbott asked parliament. "Who pays? Big polluters or households? The truth is: households."

Ms Gillard accused Mr Abbott of misrepresenting the report, and hit back by pointing out that the report criticised Mr Abbott's direct action policy.

More HERE

No pain, no gain: compensation vitiates carbon tax

"Compensation" means that the tax will not have the effect that is its only justification!

ANYONE who thinks the proposed carbon tax is mainly about the environment is mistaken. That may have been where the debate started. But due to political pressure on the minority government, it has morphed into an exercise in wealth redistribution, not environmental action. And Labor has many environmental groups and advocates fooled.

Because Labor can't afford to lose seats at the next election (in fact, it needs to win seats to gain a majority), but also has to be seen to be doing something as a government, it is trying to convince voters it is acting on the environment while also compensating them for that action to a point where the action itself becomes meaningless.

Cate Blanchett is a fine actor, and as Coalition MPs have said -- before launching scathing attacks on her -- she is certainly entitled to her opinion. Blanchett is also entitled to use her hard-earned fame to spruik ideas and policy positions that matter to her. And the third parties that have funded the pro-carbon-tax campaign Blanchett is part of -- GetUp, the ACTU and the Australian Conservation Foundation -- are entitled to approach her to help.

There is nothing wrong with such campaigns. After all, the miners campaigned against the super-profits tax, and retailers and the tobacco industry are campaigning against plain packaging of cigarettes. What's wrong with individuals doing the same?

What I question, however, is the value of Blanchett taking part in a campaign aimed at convincing ordinary voters of the carbon tax's merits. I am not sure an actor of her international standing is the best person to front a campaign that affects the cost of living. It contrasts sharply with the very impressive campaign against Work Choices the union movement organised with voices from real workers under threat from the Howard government's laws in the lead-up to the 2007 election.

For that matter, I wonder whether Blanchett has thought things through. Blanchett is no dummy. She completed a degree in economics before deciding acting was her calling. However, the logical thinking necessary for an economics degree seems to have deserted Blanchett on this matter.

She has been blinded by her passion for environmental action on climate change. Consider the interview she gave yesterday to a rival newspaper.

Blanchett said "everyone will benefit if we protect the environment". Yes, but does a carbon tax do that? It won't if it causes no fiscal pain to consumers, because the whole point of a carbon tax is that it creates a price pressure on the use of dirty energy, thereby encouraging consumers and businesses to change their ways.

But Blanchett also wants to be the people's princess -- in the interview she said her support for a carbon tax was conditional on "generous assistance" for low- and middle-income earners. She has fallen for the trickery of the carbon tax and her own attempt to stay popular when advocating it.

Take with one hand (carbon tax), give with the other (compensation). The result? No price pressure or incentive for people to change their energy use.

Make no mistake, when the carbon tax is applied to businesses, they will pass on that cost to consumers to maintain their profitability. Consumers will tolerate that price rise if they are rich, and go on burning energy but simply pay more. Mainstream voters and the disadvantaged will secure generous compensation from the government (don't believe Tony Abbott when he says otherwise), which will allow them to keep consuming dirty energy without changing their ways.

The government may claim there is pricing pressure, regardless of compensation, because polluting companies will have to raise prices, but the carbon tax would have to be much higher to have a real effect.

What does all of this add up to: wealth redistribution with little impact on the environment unless the compensation is rescinded and consumers are thereby forced to change their ways -- or unless the price on carbon goes up quickly and the compensation packages don't.

SOURCE

"Eco" resort bombs

It got all sorts of awards -- from everybody except paying customers. Nice when Green/Left elitists feel in their hip pocket how out of touch they are

THE Gold Coast's embattled tourism industry has copped another blow with multi-award-winning eco-tourism retreat Couran Cove Island Resort closing its doors.

Hailed as a benchmark tourism facility when it opened 13 years ago, the South Stradbroke Island resort is to be placed into voluntary liquidation. Its owner, InterPacific Group, yesterday announced that it was putting the resort up for sale after a "sustained period of low occupancy" and years of operating at a "considerable loss".

Staff have been laid off, with those eligible provided with redundancy payments and full entitlements. It is understood a skeleton crew has been retained to maintain the sporting and eco-friendly resort's facilities.

In a statement, InterPacific said that, although Couran Cove had stopped operating as a resort, its facilities would remain accessible to owners of the private residences within the resort.

"Over the past 13 years, considerable time, energy and money has been invested to create the premium resort Couran Cove is today," it said. "However, this hasn't been enough to combat a volatile global economy, weak local tourism conditions, a lack of industry support and rising operating and infrastructure costs.

"The resort has been operating at a considerable loss for a number of years and, sadly, despite our best efforts, this is an unsustainable position for any business operation. "This is the most sensible course of action for the business and its shareholders."

Couran Cove's development on a 151ha site was spearheaded by former Olympic runner Ron Clarke before he was elected Gold Coast mayor. Billionaire American philanthropist Chuck Feeney, who bankrolled the project but later had a falling-out with Cr Clarke, reportedly has been propping up the resort - pouring $283 million into it since 1998.

InterPacific is owned by Mr Feeney's Bermuda-based charity foundation Atlantic Philanthropies.

Corporate doctors Ferrier Hodgson will be appointed liquidators today to facilitate its sale.

Industry sources said InterPacific had been unsuccessfully trying to offload the South Stradbroke Island resort for several years.

The resort has won more than 50 domestic and international awards for excellence.

SOURCE

Global cooling hits South Australia

ANYONE shivering in Adelaide this morning had good reason to do so it is the coldest start to June on record. Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Vince Rowlands said the minimum temperature was a chilly 3.7C at 7.24am at Kent Town on the first day of winter. "I think it's the coldest start to a June that we've ever had at Kent Town," Mr Rowlands said.

Elsewhere around the state the mercury dropped to -2.7C in Yunta, -1.3C in Renmark, -1C in Clare and Coonawarra was -0.6C.

"Around Adelaide itself, Elizabeth got down to 4C, as far as the Hills go, Mt Lofty stayed a touch warmer because of the winds but I'd certainly expect the back of the Ranges to be pretty cold Murray Bridge got down to 1C," he said.

Mr Rowlands said the cold was to be expected with winter. "Obviously the atmosphere is a lot colder and then we get the really clear nights like we've had over the last couple of days, there's nothing stopping the heat from escaping into the atmosphere and we get these really cold conditions."

More HERE