New law to control cyber data

The Gillard government seems to have sneaked through the sort of internet laws that have been rejected even in Europe.  The scope of the laws is however limited so they appear not to have rung any alarm bells.  That the laws can be abused, however, there can be no doubt

NEW laws will allow authorities to collect and monitor Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails.

But the laws, which will specifically target suspected cyber criminals, do not go as far as separate proposed laws designed to retain every Australian internet user's internet history for two years in the name of national security.

Under the laws passed yesterday, Australian state and federal police will have the power to compel telcos and internet service providers to retain the internet records of people suspected of cyber-based crimes, including fraud and child pornography. Only those records made after the request will be retained, but law enforcement agencies will be prevented from seeing the information until they have secured a warrant.

It is believed that while some telcos and internet service providers keep data for up to a week, others routinely delete users' data daily, frustrating the ability of authorities to gather evidence against suspects.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the laws would help police track cyber criminals globally and give authorities the power to find people engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography and infringement of copyright and intellectual property. They also will allow Australia to join the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, which has 34 members.

"Cyber crime is a growing threat that touches all aspects of modern life," Ms Roxon said. "It poses complex policy and law enforcement challenges, partly due to the transnational nature of the internet."

But Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said the laws went further than the European convention, and that the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were necessary.

The European convention states that the treaty is not focused on data retention but on targeting law enforcement.

Australia's new laws mean information can be kept at least until police get a warrant.

Senator Ludlam was particularly concerned the laws would allow data that implicates Australians in crimes that carry penalties of three years or more - including the death penalty - to be collected and analysed.

"The European Treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does," he said in a statement. "It also leaves the door open for Australia to assist in prosecutions, which could lead to the death penalty overseas."

The deadline for submissions to a parliamentary inquiry into the separate proposed national security laws closed on Monday and a parliamentary committee will report on the issue at a date to be decided.

Those proposals would allow the telephone and internet data of every Australian to be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

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Empty education promises from the Federal Left

Who could ever deny our children the best education possible? It is of critical importance and Australia can offer no greater commitment to ensure the prosperity of the nation and its next generation.

But in this week's blizzard of words over the future of the Gonski report into education funding, the government is pulling a cruel hoax on Australia.

The government does not have the $26 billion required over a forward estimates period to cover its airy promises of better teachers and no school being left worse off in real terms.

All we have is a government addicted to making big announcements and locking in spending like there is no tomorrow, when in reality, all it is offering is false hope.

Recent history in Britain is a prime example of such false hope. The former Labour government led by Gordon Brown left David Cameron's government a crushing legacy of unfunded commitments with a series of unachievable promises.

Labor here are following the lead from their cousins on the other side of the world. Take, for instance, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, promised Labor would deliver. What Gillard and Labor have actually done is announce four NDIS trial sites. This is a long way short of committing the $8 billion that will be required to adequately service the NDIS every year.

If the government has really launched the NDIS, as it claims to have done, then the cost is not accounted for in its budget. Labor's only financial commitment is $1 billion for trial sites.

The best we get from the Prime Minister is an admission the government will have to make "substantial savings" to achieve her outcomes.

It was hard not to laugh when she said on Sunday "you've got to be prudent with every dollar, and we are". This is a Labor government that has made waste and mismanagement an artform, such as in the failed border protection policy that has incurred a $4.7 billion blowout or the $50 billion national broadband network that is a massive drain on the nation's resources.

The truth is that Labor will have no choice but to raise taxes to pay for its gargantuan promises. The Labor senator Doug Cameron said as much a fortnight ago when he said it was "inconceivable that this amount of government expenditure on building a good society could be funded from existing revenue".

In effect, the Treasury Secretary, Martin Parkinson, and now his predecessor Ken Henry are in agreement; Labor cannot continue checking expenditure against the nation's credit card. In the end, someone has to pay the bill.

With an election not due for possibly 15 months, the Coalition will not be making promises it cannot keep.

If a Coalition government is elected we have pledged, based on present information, a budget surplus in our first year and each year after that.

Unlike Labor, the Coalition is not hiding from funding its promises. Savings measures such as a reduction in the number of public servants have already been announced, with many areas of policy already costed and ready to deliver at the appropriate time. And if we are elected, a commission of audit into government finances will immediately begin a top-to-bottom review of government administration, identifying areas for immediate cuts to put an end to government waste and mismanagement.

Labor wants us to believe it will deliver a budget surplus in 2012-13 - a wafer thin $1.5 billion or just 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product. Contrast that with their record; just a year ago they forecast a $23 billion deficit for the 2011-12 financial year, which then turned out to be $44 billion. Four programs alone - schools funding, the NDIS, border protection and new submarines for the Australian navy - account for almost $75 billion in unfunded government promises.

Much rests on what will be revealed in the mid-year economic fiscal outlook due in November, and more importantly the budget in May.

Labor has introduced or increased 26 taxes since it came to power - including a carbon tax that was never supposed to happen.

Now the public has to suffer the indignity of a government providing nothing but false hope, for genuinely needed government programmes that have been promised but remain unfunded.

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Australian public broadcaster  on "crumbling" climate  scepticism

This article, by ABC's environment editor, Sara Phillips, encapsulates all that is wrong with the national broadcaster's treatment of the climate debate. Written, as always, from a position of belief, and institutionally critical of any dissent, Phillips attempts to show that scepticism is crumbling in the face of ever-mounting evidence to the contrary:

American physicist Richard Muller is one climate sceptic who has recently changed his mind after reviewing the evidence.

Muller crunched a bunch of numbers to do with global temperatures and announced in the New York Times that he is a "converted sceptic". It was this opinion piece in arguably the world's most influential paper that set tongues wagging about climate change all over again.

Muller had previously been claimed by those unconvinced by the science as one of their own, because he questioned the validity of Mann's 'hockey stick' graph, used by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth.

Muller was never a sceptic, and there are plenty of rusted on believers who have problems with both Mann's hockey stick and AIT, which is nothing more than a propaganda film. Muller's subsequent evidence-free claim of attribution to human causes has led to widespread ridicule from within the warmist community.

She then attempts to frame Bjorn Lomborg as a convert from scepticism, using some highly selective quotes from past newspaper interviews:

Bjorn Lomborg is another high-profile climate sceptic who changed his mind after reviewing the evidence. He now believes climate change is real, but that it won't be the calamity predicted by some.

However, Lomborg directly addressed his alleged switch in a Guardian article cited indirectly:

He reiterates that he has never denied anthropogenic global warming, and insists that he long ago accepted the cost of damage would be between 2% and 3% of world wealth by the end of this century. This estimate is the same, he says, as that quoted by Lord Stern, whose report for the British government argued that the world should spend 1-2% of gross domestic product on tackling climate change to avoid future damage.

He has never doubted the role of CO2, but has rightly questioned the cost-benefit analysis of the proposed solutions. Phillips then describes Alan Jones as "frothing" to David Karoly. Whether you agree with Jones or not, Phillips would never describe a consensus climate scientist as "frothing", a highly inappropriate term to use. But it just helps to paint the picture of "deniers" as being deluded and crazy.

Of course there is a spectrum of views on climate - as she points out - which range from outright disbelief that temperatures are rising at all to acceptance of a measurable human signal in the global temperature record. However, she portrays this range of views in a very simplistic manner in an attempt to ridicule those who dare question the consensus.

Her conclusion appears to be that scepticism is on the wane and that "denial" is harder to sustain. But her view, distorted as it is by the prism of belief in AGW, fails to appreciate that the majority of sceptics accept the role of CO2 and that there is a human contribution to warming.

However, the reality is that there are problems with the surface temperature record, and there are problems with feedbacks in climate models, and there are serious questions to be answered regarding the proposed mitigation policies in response. Nothing in Muller's alleged conversion changes any of those issues.

More importantly, she completely ignores the fact that, due in part to an endless barrage of scare stories which have failed to eventuate, scepticism of the alarmist claims of The Cause™ has increased substantially over the past decade, to the point where a significant proportion of the public are now highly suspicious of the pronouncements of climate scientists and government advisers such as Tim Flannery.

Unfortunately, the article is just the latest in a very long line of examples of ABC's climate groupthink, where the utterances of climate scientists are beyond reproach and questioning of the consensus is frowned upon. That is not how science works: the motto, which the ABC, our taxpayer-funded and supposedly impartial national broadcaster, would do well to remember, is "question everything".

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Queensland Parliament passes bill to cut mining red tape

A BILL that cuts mining red tape has passed in Queensland Parliament, despite criticisms about the length of the consultation period.

The Mines Legislation (Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2012 was put forward by the Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Andrew Cripps on Wednesday night.

Some aspects of the bill loosen restrictions around infastructure for coal seam gas mining.

Shane Kunth, the member for Dalrymple and a member of Katter's Australia Party, hit out at the consultation timeframe and said some key stakeholders, such as farmers and the agricultural industry, only had four days to submit their views on the bill's complex changes.

Mr Kunth read out in Parliament a submission by General Manager of Agforce, Drew Wagner, which said he believed the consultation timeframe was 'tantamount to negligence'.

Independant Member for Nicklin Peter Wellington levelled similiar criticisms at the bill and said he was "so disappointed that so many Queenslanders are not seeing what's happening in this the 54th Parliament".

"If this is standard of consultation this government is happy with, look I shake my head," Mr Wellington said.

Many members of the Liberal National Party defended how the bill was introduced, pointing out that the Bligh Government introduced parts of the bill in its early stages in November 2011.

"In these early months of government it would not be feasible to give a six month consultation period to every piece of legislation before tabelling it for debate," the member for Maryborough Anne Maddern said.

In his closing statement, Mr Cripps hit back at the member for South Brisbane's criticims of the bill, pointing out that Jackie Trad hadn't atttended a previous consultation on the bill and was therefore 'hypocritical' in her criticisms of the community consultations for the bill.

The bill focused on the tenure adminstration system and aims to reduce the time taken to decide tenure.

"Current resource tenure processes are antiquated, inefficent and impose unneccessary adminstrative and regulatory burdens on industry and on government. This needlessly wastes considerable government and indsutry time and resources,' Mr Cripps said.

Mr Cripps said MyMinesOnline, a website put forward by the bill, would streamline tenure management, bringing it into 'a more transparent online environment'.

"The admendaments in the bill will help transform tenure management from an outdated manual, paper-based system into a faster, modern and more transparent online environment, through MyMinesOnline," Mr Cripps said.

The bill was introduced into Parliament on August 2.

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Queenslanders no closer to truth of dams management during 2011 flood

The truth is plain.  The dam was mismanaged by using the flood compartment for water storage.  There would have been no flood otherwise.  Everything else is buckpassing

QUEENSLANDERS are still no closer to learning whether the southeast's dams were managed properly during the 2011 flood after the $15 million flood inquiry's final firework turned out to be a damp squib.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission yesterday said a flaw in the dams' operations manual in use at the time could easily have explained apparent inconsistencies in flood engineers' evidence to the floods inquiry.

The CMC said it would be "oppressive" to mount a prosecution of three engineers whom the commission referred to it in March after allegations in the inquiry's final report that they concocted their official accounts of the event.

CMC chairman Ross Martin, SC, told The Courier-Mail the crime-fighting body had not been asked to look at the "critical issue" of the engineers making huge releases on January 11, "which was the event that triggered the actual flooding".

"The flood inquiry had its own terms of reference and it was the flood inquiry's task to pursue that and I make no criticism of that," Mr Martin said.  "We were given a much more narrow and specific focus and we've done our job."

Mr Martin said the CMC had pointed out the problem to Seqwater, who said the flaw over the definition of the "W2" strategy had been fixed.  "The revision 9 of the Wivenhoe Manual was reviewed ahead of the 2011-12 wet season and has improvements in terms of clarity and explanation of the different strategies (ie. W1, W2, W3 and W4) and the transition and decision making process between them," a spokesman said.

Seqwater said it remained "acutely aware of the impact of the floods and the devastation caused which is ongoing for so many in our community" but it was "important not to lose sight of the magnitude and rarity of the January event".

The Courier-Mail first revealed problems with the manual of operations for Somerset and Wivenhoe dams in May 2011.

The newspaper reported dam expert Max Winders in January as saying the manual was still flawed despite revisions following the flood inquiry's interim report the previous August.  Yesterday Mr Winders said the manual the engineers had used was "pathetic . . . but it wasn't those poor buggers' fault".  "The new manual is just as bad because it's not optimising flood mitigation," he said.

Mr Winders said there was a governance problem in the management of water infrastructure.

With Premier Campbell Newman ruling out any further royal commissions into the floods, victims and taxpayers now face only the uncertain prospect that civil litigation will test whether the State Government managed the dams properly.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn has registered interest from 4000 people in a suit against the government, with 2000 "committed".

IMF, which is funding the action, said it was pressing ahead and the CMC decision had no effect.  IMF's John Walker said reports from US experts had been held up by State Government delays but their findings, mapping who would not have been flooded if the dams had been managed differently, were now expected by the end of next month and would be made public.

The engineers, John Tibaldi and Terry Malone of Seqwater, and Robert Ayre, previously of SunWater, all declined to comment. Friends and colleagues said the men were deeply relieved after a stressful period.

John Ruffini, a flood engineer who gave evidence at the inquiry but was not referred to the CMC, told The Courier-Mail yesterday that he felt for his colleagues.

"I've spoken to the guys and they're all very relieved," he said. "I've known them for a long time. They're very honest."

Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney said the engineers had been made "scapegoats" by the previous government.  He said he remained troubled that former Bligh government ministers "got off scot-free" in the aftermath of the devastating flood.  [Correct.  It was the Bligh government at fault for ordering the wrong use of the flood compartment]

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Man jailed over Facebook page that rated women's sexual performance

Victoria has some very oppressive laws about speech.  This is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  Crimes of actual violence sometimes earn no jail time.  One hopes this verdict is overturned on appeal.

PARENTS are being warned to tell their kids they could face criminal convictions for online trolling after a Victorian man was sentenced to jail for making an offensive Facebook page.

David McRory, 22, pleaded guilty in Bendigo Magistrates' Court yesterday to using a carriage service to offend and publishing objectionable material online.

The court heard McRory and a friend, Joshua Turner, 22, started a Facebook page that rated the sexual performance of women from Central Victoria.

The defence counsel said in court that McRory - the Facebook page creator - did not mean to cause long-term harm.  But he was still given a four-month jail term, which the magistrate said would send a strong message to the public about what was acceptable behaviour online.

Law Institute of Victoria spokesman Robert Stary said the rare ruling was becoming more common and warned parents to educate their kids now.  "The law has always been behind the rapid change in social media," Mr Stary said.  "But we are in a new era when the law slowly catches up with reality.

"Any parent would see as a result of this case that they have a responsibility to intervene and monitor what is being said online by their child."

Mr Stary said the number of cyber cases being prosecuted would continue to rise and said parents needed to act now.  He also called for better education in Victorian schools to drive home the risks to teens.

McRory's lawyers said they would appeal against the sentence.

Turner faced court in July and was given a wholly suspended six-month prison sentence and was also banned from using Facebook for two years.  His case is currently under appeal.

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Police expected to smash CSG blockade

RESIDENTS in a Hunter settlement who have been blockading a coal seam gas (CSG) drilling site expect police to evict them on Wednesday.

More than 30 people gathered at Fullerton Cove, north of Newcastle, early on Monday morning to protest against Dart Energy's proposal to drill two CSG pilot wells. The group blockaded the site through Monday and Tuesday.

Dart has said the protesters were trespassing and preventing trucks from entering the site near Stockton Beach.

Lindsay Clout, a spokesman for the Fullerton Cove Residents Action Group, said Dart had asked police to intervene.

"NSW Police have informed Fullerton Cove residents that they will be moving in to evict them from their peaceful blockade of a coal seam gas drilling site on Wednesday," Mr Clout, a 20-year resident of the area, said in a statement.

"The residents have indicated their intention to maintain the community blockade until a proper Environment Impact Statement has been developed for the proposed gas drilling.

"We are incredibly disappointed at the heavy-handed approach they have taken to this issue by sending in the police against concerned residents."

Dart has argued that the project had been subject to a comprehensive environmental assessment from both the state and federal governments and was sustainable.

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Christians in Australia have been warned to expect more intense opposition from some same-sex marriage activists following  U.S.  Chick-fil-A  episode

Mr Cathy last week stated in a radio interview that he supported the biblical definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.  “We are a family-owned business. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families,” Mr Cathy said.

Government officials from three U.S. cities responded by stating they would ban Chick-fil-A from opening restaurants in their municipalities, despite the fact that the company issued a statement saying it strives to “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.”

Chairman of Liberty Counsel Mat Staver said it was “the height of stupidity and ignorance” for public officials to threaten denial of a right to do business because the president of a private company supported natural marriage.

“Each generation faces different issues and challenges, but our standard must always be measured by God’s word. I appreciate the Cathy family’s public support for God’s definition of marriage,” veteran evangelist Dr Billy Graham said.

In Australia, some same-sex marriage activists made loud calls in June for a boycott of coffee chain Gloria Jeans following news that the company gave $30,000 to the Australian Christian Lobby.

NSW Council of Churches President, the Revd Dr Ross Clifford, said it was regrettable that globally some public officials and others felt obliged to take extreme measures to support same-sex marriage and stifle public debate.

“We support freedom of speech. We want a reasoned, civil debate about marriage without the threat of punitive action by those who happen to disagree with us,” Dr Clifford said.

“We sense the need to warn churches and businesses led by Christians of the likely intensification of opposition to Christian values as same-sex marriage activists see their public support slipping away.”

“Extreme statements and actions by advocates of same-sex marriage, along with a growing awareness of the dangers of their radical social experiment, only serve to weaken their case and turn public opinion against them.”

“Australian church leaders have been unjustly accused of homophobia, bigotry. Virtually every week the ABC program QandA features one or more questions on gay marriage, even when the theme has nothing to do with marriage, as we saw last Monday when the program focused on sport and the Olympics,” Dr Clifford said.

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Gillard's very costly disability scheme

Late Friday afternoon, Treasury released a report it commissioned by the less-than-famous Australian Government Actuary (AGA) into the Productivity Commission’s costings of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) requested the report under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to confirm the projected cost of the NDIS, which has been the focus of my research here at the CIS.

The AGA report was also picked up by the Australian Financial Review, which reported on Saturday (19 August 2012):

The cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme could blow out to $10.5 billion a year by 2018–19, partly due to the industrial umpire’s decision to award big pay increases to community workers.

The warning from the Australian Government Actuary, in a document released by Treasury under freedom of information late on Friday, highlights further budgetary risks associated with big ticket spending items flagged by both sides of politics.

Reviewing the Productivity Commission’s costing of the NDIS, the actuary said that though the methodology was sound, it contained some risks.

‘Factors that have the potential to increase the estimated cost include the wage case for social and community sector workers, possible overstatement of offsets and the treatment of the psychiatric disability group,’ the actuary said.

The Productivity Commission estimated that the cost of the NDIS in 2018-19 would be $15 billion gross cost ($8 billion net). But this estimate is for the NDIS if it existed in 2009-10 and uses 2009–10 prices, population and costs. However, the NDIS will not exist until 2018-19, so there is at least nine years of population growth and price inflation missing from the commission’s $15 billion estimate.

The AGA has done the estimates to fill this gap in the public’s knowledge and found that the gross cost of the NDIS in 2018-19 will be approximately $22 billion and the net cost $10.5 billion.

The public has been poorly served in the debate surrounding the NDIS with misleading facts and figures. Hopefully, with better information, we can have a proper debate on what is promising to be Australia’s next public sector leviathan.

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Opposition to multiculturalism emerges  in  in local elections

NICK FOLKES doesn't object to people learning a foreign language, or even dabbling in ethnic cooking. But call other cultures equal? That's "madness", he says.

"Our culture is better than the Muslim culture, it is better than the African culture," he said. "At the end of the day, why did they come here? There must be something wrong with their culture.

The Australian Protectionist Party firebrand joins a growing number of controversial far-right candidates chasing the xenophobic vote at next month's council elections.

Australia First, the anti-immigration party hoping to fill the political void left by One Nation, is running 23 candidates across western and south Sydney and the Blue Mountains, up from 15 at the last council poll.

The party's website takes aim at the Channel Ten program The Shire and its sprinkling of ethnic characters, labelling it "media contrived assimilation". Several candidates attempt to link urban sprawl and rate increases to immigration.

The artist Sergio Redegalli, who painted the controversial "Say no to burqas" sign outside his Newtown workshop, is making a first-time bid for Marrickville Council as an independent.

Mr Folkes, 42, an industrial painter from Rozelle, wants Leichhardt council declared a "sharia-free zone" and would scrap council grants to multicultural groups.

"There is a vacuum in politics at the moment. We believe that a lot of people, in time, will definitely vote for us," he said.

History indicates that day is a long way off. Mr Folkes attracted 289 votes, or 0.6 per cent of the vote, when he ran as an independent for the seat of Balmain last year.

A University of Western Sydney immigration expert, Kevin Dunn, said only 12 per cent of Australians held negative views towards cultural diversity and that anti-immigration candidates typically polled badly.

But their agendas could influence council decisions on issues such as building mosques or religious schools, especially during times of national unrest over boat arrivals.

"The general nature of debate at the national level has a direct effect locally in terms of community relations, attitudes and local politics," Professor Dunn said, and racist attitudes "fade or flourish" depending on public discourse.

Ready to counter the racial supremacists is the Unity Party, a multiculturalist group that has shifted its gaze to local government since its federal and state ambitions faded five years ago.

The party, which has two elected councillors, promotes cultural diversity and respect for religion and has fielded 40 candidates across NSW, the party's founder, Peter Wong, said.

"I think Australia is a lot more broad-minded since Pauline Hanson's time," Mr Wong said. "I don't really think those candidates will make great headway."

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Federal aid to private schools still an issue for some on the Left

It's just gone 50 years since what is now called the Goulburn Schools Strike. On Friday July 13, 1962, six Catholic schools in the Goulburn diocese closed and instructed their pupils to enrol the following Monday in the government school system. Some 2000 Catholic pupils applied for entry into the public school system, which had only 640 vacancies.

The immediate cause of the protest was the refusal of NSW health authorities to install additional toilet facilities at Our Lady of Mercy Preparatory School in Goulburn. It was driven by members of the Catholic laity who were frustrated that they received no government support for the funding of the Catholic school system, which had been formed at the end of the 19th century.

The story of the Goulburn School Strike is documented in Michael Hogan's book The Catholic Campaign for State Aid (1978) and in the Commonwealth Education Department's publication entitled A History of State Aid (2006). The incident attracted widescale national media attention. Yet it was not successful, and within a couple of weeks, the Catholic school children returned to their original schools.

In her speech to the Independent Schools National Forum yesterday, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, referred to that "first, famous Menzies science laboratories program which gave so many independent schools a historic boost". Correct. The reference was to the decision of Robert Menzies's Coalition government, on the eve of the 1963 federal election, to commit the Commonwealth to provide financial aid for the establishment of science blocks in both government and non-government schools.

This did not happen by chance. The Menzies government had achieved only a narrow victory in the 1961 election. It was saved by a strong first preference flow from the Democratic Labor Party, which had been formed as a consequence of the Labor Split of the mid-1950s. B.A. Santamaria (the president of the Catholic lay organisation the National Civic Council) and others convinced the Coalition of the need to make a gesture to the largely Catholic DLP voters.

The tactic worked in 1963. So much so that it was tried again four years later. In 1967, the Victorian Liberal Party premier Henry Bolte was worried that he might lose seats to the Country Party. This time Santamaria, working with the DLP, sent a message to Bolte that the DLP could well preference the Country Party ahead of the Liberals if the Liberals did not make a gesture to DLP supporters.

Bolte got the message. In 1967 the Liberal Party announced that, if re-elected, it would provide a form of per capita payments to children attending non-government primary schools. By the end of the 1960s, the principle of government assistance to non-government schools and students had been firmly established. Soon after, Labor, which had long opposed assisting non-government schools, came on board.

From time to time, sections of the left have tried to change the policy. Before she became Labor premier of Victoria, Joan Kirner was active in the Defence of Government Schools (DOGS) organisation - which was really an attack dog aimed at non-government schools.

Appearing on Jonathan Green's Sunday Extra on Radio National last weekend, Ben Eltham declared that the $6.5 billion annually needed to fund the Gonski Report "would easily be found if private schools, the elite private schools in particular, were not receiving any funding at all".

Apparently Eltham is unaware of the message of Goulburn half a century ago. If government funding to non-government schools ceased or was significantly reduced, there would be a movement of students from the private to the public sector. This would amount to a significant cost to the Commonwealth and state budgets.

Then there is the politics. Many families in the suburbs and regional centres - where most of the marginal seats are located - want their children to attend moderate-fee, non-government schools. Mainstream Labor understands this, even if many inner-city leftists do not.

The hostility of the education unions to private schools turns on the fact that some non-government schools challenge the public sector model. Quite a few private schools have larger class sizes than their public school counterparts. Moreover, all give principals the right to hire and fire teachers and to terminate poor performers. The teachers unions, on the other hand, frequently defend the incompetent and the lazy among their members.

In the United States, Britain and now Western Australia, governments are establishing "charter" or "free" schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently from the education bureaucracy. The Coalition, led by Christopher Pyne on this issue, is beginning to embrace this initiative.

Prime Minister Gillard has performed well in standing up to the education unions and introducing such initiatives as the My School website. Her support for independent schools is in this tradition.

The real test, however, will turn on funding. Her speech yesterday did not resolve this issue.

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Welfare housing under scrutiny in Victoria

Public housing is set for an unprecedented overhaul under the Baillieu government. Three public documents have set the scene. In March, the Auditor-General declared in a special housing report that the "social housing" system was financially unsustainable. In April, the Housing Minister, Wendy Lovell, released a discussion paper, Pathways to a New Victorian Social Housing Framework, declaring "the status quo is not an option".

Pathways was accompanied by the canvassing of alternative financial models for the future of the sector by private consultants KPMG.

Critics such as Swinburne University lecturer Terry Burke say that all three reports are flawed in their own way. The Auditor-General's narrow financial snapshot disregards the federal cuts to housing spending and also the social background of people who rely on public housing. The department's report fails to examine how its own policies have transformed public housing into welfare housing. The third paper, he says of KPMG's work, airs impractical financing options.

"This is a problem in Australian social housing. Governments think they can employ private accountancy firms to come up with some magic bullet formula which will allow them to fund public housing without any subsidy. That's just nonsense."

Burke says the history of public housing and the failure of the private market to house low-income earners has been forgotten. Simply, he says, some low-income earners will require a housing subsidy. The real question is what form that subsidy takes and who provides it?

Opposition housing spokesman Richard Wynne says the government seems intent on "the easy road of selling off housing stock and raising rents on the poorest in our community."

Workers in the social housing sector - which includes the Office of Housing and low cost accommodation run by non-profit agencies - say the government's thinking points to privatisation, higher rents, short-term leases and less secure tenure for residents, an end to the "home for life" culture of public housing.

"Unlike private rental agreements, public housing tenants effectively have open-ended leases," says Pathways, meaning tenants can remain for decades even if their personal circumstances change significantly. Rents are capped at a maximum of 25 per cent of tenants' income. In fact, few pay that much.

The government talks of tenants moving out of public housing as their employment and economic circumstances improve. Expressions like "public housing has become a destination and not a pathway" suggest that long-term tenure will be reviewed.

But the Council for Homeless Persons, in its response to Pathways, says that compared to the general public, public housing tenants have "more disabilities, poorer health, lower levels of education, lower incomes and poorer work histories". The major barrier to employment was poor health, particularly mental health problems.

A government spokeswoman says over the five years to 2011, more than a third of people leaving public housing moved into the private rental market. "Although the private rental market is tight in some areas, it has absorbed a number of tenants who have moved out," she says.

The spokeswoman added that long-term tenure would continue for those for whom a way out of public housing was not feasible, such as age pensioners, or people with severe disabilities or mental health issues. No decisions have been made about the proportion of tenants who may be able to move into the private market, she says.

Citing the tax review by former Commonwealth treasury secretary Ken Henry, the government argues public housing is unfair, since those who occupy it are manifestly better off than people of similarly modest means who rent privately.

An unemployed couple, for example, receiving a $439 fortnightly Newstart allowance would pay at most 25 per cent of their income in rent. Renting privately would consume 55 per cent of their income. The review said the higher average level of assistance to public housing tenants was not "targeted to need".

But critics reply that it is precisely targeting to greatest need that has helped to create chronic underfunding of public housing. Conceived in the 1930s as a means of housing low-income working families who could not afford private rents, it has transformed into an extension of the welfare system.

Eighty six per cent of residents rely on Commonwealth welfare benefits. Increasingly they depend on disability pensions as well as age, veterans pensions and other benefits. In government-speak, they are people "with high and complex needs" who are economically and socially disadvantaged.

In its response to Pathways, Jesuit Social Services was sceptical at the possibility of large-scale movement into the private sector. "For some, but clearly not all tenants, capacity might be built so that they can enter employment and transition out of public housing. It is important that the expectations about the potential for this outcome are realistic … [age and disability] pensions are the primary source of income for a large majority of public housing tenants. Individuals in receipt of these benefits have been assessed as unable to work."

The Jesuits say strong evidence shows only a very small number of tenants successfully move out for the long term. If the government knows this, its ambitions seem to disregard it, as if it views securing a public housing unit as the battler's version of winning Tattslotto, only with better odds.

"You do wonder sometimes if people know who they are talking about, if they get inside the skin of the very people they are making decisions about, that are really dramatic and life-changing [decisions]," says Jesuit Social Services chief executive Julie Edwards.

Pathways suggests that fairness might improve with regular tenancy reviews so residents would need to demonstrate that they were still deserving of a place. Short-term leases are another option, as the report expressed it: "to reframe some public housing as a time-limited intervention that responds to an immediate need".

Swinburne University's Terry Burke says the government's ambitions defy the facts. "They don't seem to understand their own data, which shows that the bulk of their tenants are on Centrelink benefits, and on incomes which require a full [rent] subsidy."

Few residents, he says, pay anything like the rent the private sector would demand. "They are expected to pay 25 per cent of their incomes in rent and for many tenants that's too high, so any discussions about getting a higher rent from them is enormously problematic."

Burke says encouraging tenants to move out may not help if all it means is they churn through homelessness and the social housing sector.

THE government says its problems are compounded since much of its housing stock was built for larger working families, yet its longest waiting list is for single-bedroom units.

"This inflexibility in the system is leading to longer waiting lists … as tenants wait for an appropriate [dwelling]," according to the government's report.

Perhaps too much should not be made of this since the waiting list for three and four-bedroom accommodation remains substantial, at 8068 families. The government's rhetoric, however, creates the impression of a generally dysfunctional system.

Lower rental income is limiting the ability to maintain housing stock, the government says. The auditor's office says that the $56 million gap between rental income and operating costs caused by targeting to greatest need is expected to grow to $115 million in 2015.

Viewing the housing deficit from another perspective, Fiona Kranenbroek says that at present it is almost matched by the annual subsidy for the formula one Australian Grand Prix.

The government's report paints a bleak picture of public housing. The government also asked consultants KPMG to propose future ways of supporting the sector. KPMG suggested public-private partnerships as a way of renewing housing stock, transferring government housing to non-profit agencies, or privatising government housing to lease back from investors.

Burke says none of these options will do much to increase the supply of affordable housing. "Whether it's housing bonds, public-private partnerships, all of them require the ability to service some sort of debt, and with incomes so low, public housing agencies do not have the ability to provide a viable interest repayment on bonds, a viable return to PPPs, unless they are subsidised," he says.

"The big problem for all the states is that the national affordable housing agreement, which largely funds public housing, does not supply enough money, and that started really with the Howard era," says Burke.

"We should just see housing as a merit good in the same way we see education, transport and healthcare, where government puts in a subsidy in recognition there are going to be some people whose incomes are too low to live in the private housing market."

He says there may be a place for shorter-term leases but the debate the government has begun neglects two important things: that federal funding cuts are the core of the problem, and public housing's relationship to the wider housing market. Greater security for private-market tenants, and rejigging negative gearing to foster investment in new dwellings rather than existing housing, have a role.

"You need solutions in the wider housing market to deal with problems in public housing," says Burke. "You can't look to internal solutions, refinancing, to solve the problem if you don't deal with the Commonwealth and the failure of the private sector to supply affordable, appropriate housing."

The government spokeswoman says no decisions have been made about alternative funding, including PPPs, but it is necessary to explore possible financing models.

"We have inherited a public housing system in crisis as a result of the poor management of the housing asset portfolio over a number of years," she said. Despite that, already new houses had been delivered in Westmeadows and Norlane, in Geelong, with more to follow.

Opposition spokesman Richard Wynne responds that both Westmeadows and Norlane were begun when Labor was in office. He says the Baillieu government has contributed no new funding to public housing in its two budgets.

"The financial challenges Victoria faces are the same as those confronting every housing authority in the country," says Wynne. "That's despite the fact that every year in office Labor committed funding above its obligations to the federal government, including a record $500 million in 2009, the largest one-off injection by a state government ever."

SOURCE

Private schools to get more funding

With 40% of Australian teenagers going to private schools, this was a no-brainer.  The parents concerned also vote.  The Labor party has obviously not forgotten Mark Latham's rout over private school funding.  It was a conservative government (in 1963 under  Menzies) that initiated Federal funding for private schools and conservatives have owned the issue ever since

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will today reveal that every independent school will receive an increase in government funding regardless of its wealth.

The announcement, a significant victory for the private school lobby, goes beyond the government's previous pledge that no school would lose a dollar under funding reforms.

It is designed to head off the Coalition scare campaign that private schools would have to increase fees because their funding would not increase in real terms under the long-awaited overhaul of school funding.

At an independent education forum in Canberra today, Ms Gillard will say there should be government support to educate every child from the poorest and most remote school to the best known and best resourced.

"Every independent school in Australia will see their funding increase under our plan," she is expected to say. "This plan will lift school standards, not school fees.

"No matter how rich or poor your parents are or where you go to school, our nation should provide a basic degree of support to your education."

Speaking to the Herald this month, Ms Gillard signalled she wanted to swing the national debate back to Labor policy strengths such as education, disability and industrial relations.

Today's funding pledge is a massive departure from former Labor leader Mark Latham's notorious private school "hit list", which would have resulted in 67 of the nation's wealthiest schools losing funding.

Labor has been determined not to antagonise the private school sector after the "hit list" was one of the policies blamed for its 2004 election loss.

David Gonski, who chaired the first major review into school funding in 40 years, was given the task of ensuring no school would lose a dollar as a result of its recommendations. But Ms Gillard will today go a step further and say every independent school will receive a funding increase.

The states and independent and Catholic education systems have raised concerns that modelling showed 3254 schools could lose out if the Gonski model was strictly applied. This includes 227 Catholic schools, 720 government schools and 103 independent schools in NSW.

However, the Gonski modelling assumes government and Catholic education systems would redistribute funding to ensure no school was worse off.

The federal government's final response to the Gonski review was initially expected this week but is now expected next month.

The review recommended the federal and state governments boost spending on education by $5 billion a year, with the majority to go to public schools.

The model aims to address disadvantage by allocating a standard amount per student, with loadings for students with a disability and those from low-income, indigenous and non-English speaking backgrounds.

The Commonwealth is expected to tip in $3 billion - double the amount the Gonski review suggested - with the states also required to contribute.

However, the funding will be conditional on schools submitting a performance plan on how they would improve student results and more training and annual performance reviews for teachers.

SOURCE




Carbon pain registers for businesses

STRUGGLING small business owners are reporting a hit to their profits from the carbon tax - but are unwilling to pass increased costs on to customers because of the tough retail environment.

A national survey of 186 small firms has found 50 per cent are reporting carbon tax-related price hikes to power bills and other supplies. But only 33 per cent are making their clientele pay.

With many high street retailers experiencing slow trading conditions, a mere 8 per cent favoured the carbon tax, according to a News Limited survey.

And in more bad news for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, backing for Labor among small businesses has plunged.

Only 7 per cent said they would vote Labor at the next election. Eighteen per cent voted for the ALP at the 2010 federal poll.

About 66 per cent of the businesses surveyed - including bookshops, cafes, shoe stores, automotive outlets and other retailers - say they have absorbed the tax and have taken a hit to their profits.

Some businesses claimed the effect of the tax is so bad they may have to close some operations.  "We have to consider closing one business down to keep the other business open because of the carbon tax," said Doug Cush, the owner of Bellata Gold Pasta, in the northern NSW electorate of New England.

Adrian Sykes, owner of the Autosmart vehicle cleaning products business at Rathmines, on the Central Coast, estimated a 5 per cent increase in wholesale costs with half a dozen suppliers lifting prices within a week of the carbon tax commencing.

"People are using the carbon tax as an excuse; there hasn't been enough time for there to be a real impact," Mr Sykes said.

Small Business Minister Brendan O'Connor is more upbeat and said business angst was dissipating. "The overall cost impact is negligible. Treasury has confirmed the cost (of carbon tax on energy) is 0.2 per cent to overall costs of business," he said.

Mick Carroll, who owns a plastics moulding firm in Victoria with annual revenues of about $1 million, has recently been told that his electricity rates are going up by 47 per cent from September 1.While the carbon tax is only responsible for some of this hike, Mr Carroll said he would find it hard to make further savings to offset the increase in his $2500 a month power bill.  "I'm already to the bone in terms of our margins. This will be the final nail in manufacturing as I know it," he said.

The survey was conducted across 10 electorates in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT, regions which are held by those who helped introduce the scheme.

These include Ms Gillard's seat of Lalor, Treasurer Wayne Swan's seat of Lilley, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet's seat of Charlton and the two NSW seats held by independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor.

While worried about prices, small firms said the carbon tax has had only a marginal impact on cutting paperwork.  But this has done little to allay concerns about the tax's impact.

One Canberra bookshop owner believes his prices will increase by "at least" $10,000 a year, mainly due to extra power and rent.

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Furious fishermen protest government plans for marine park plans and Coral Sea fishing

HUNDREDS of angry fishmongers and trawlers rallied against Federal Government plans to introduce new marine parks yesterday, voicing fears of a dramatic increase in the proportion of imported seafood on Queensland plates.

Also in their sights were proposals to shut down significant sections of the Coral Sea to fishing.

The rally was organised by Hamilton seafood identity Kristina Georges, who operates Samies Girl Fresh Seafood Market.

Industry members descended on Shorncliffe to express their concerns.

Moreton Bay Seafood Industry Association net delegate Dave Thomson said recreational and commercial fishermen would be hurt by the proposed changes.

"I've been in this industry all my life and I'm 62 years old," he said.  "It's just sad to see that the whole thing is getting eroded away. Eventually, it's got to stop. Let's just continue with the sustainable fishing that we've got.  "They're trying to raise issues that aren't really there."

Mr Thomson said the "green push" driving the changes would lead to changes in importation levels.  "There's going to be less local seafood available," he said.  "Eventually, we're going to have to feed the place. I'm struggling to understand the actual reasoning behind it all."

Prawn trawler couple Sam and Steve Anderson attended the rally with the hope of sending a message to the Federal Government.

"That's the most important thing," Mrs Anderson said.

"There is going to be no fresh seafood, there's going to be no Australian seafood. Where are we going to get our seafood from? It's going to come from overseas."

SOURCE





Students troubled by role adults play in school bullying

AS SCHOOLS struggle with the problem of bullying, the role that adults play is often overlooked.

According to students who previewed a confronting new American documentary on the subject, threatening and violent behaviour gets worse when adults ignore it, condone it or just play it down as "kids just being kids".

"It was just scary because of how the adults reacted to the bullying that was happening," said Ashley Colaco, 15. "They just didn't do really anything about it.

"They tried to make the children sort it out for themselves and there was really no support there for the kids."

The film centres on five troubling cases in middle America: a lonely boy whose bus trip to school is a violent ordeal, a girl who is ostracised when she comes out as gay, a teenager who fights back by pointing a loaded gun at her taunters and the grieving families of two boys driven to take their own lives. They are reputedly among more than 13 million American students bullied every year.

The class seemed stunned by the violence shown in American schools compared with the "safe haven" of their own.

For Rachel Djoeandy, 16, it was confronting seeing a boy being strangled on a school bus and others being pushed into lockers.

"A lot of bullying that exists is nowhere near that kind of standard but it obviously starts at a very small stage and just gets magnified and magnified," said Nick Iliadis, 17.

And while the latest CensusAtSchool survey suggests Australian students are more concerned about reducing bullying than any other social issue, the Caringbah class say they are taught how to handle it.

"They definitely give us options of who to speak to," said Ashley Colaco. "They definitely tell us 'ok, if something is happening, go to … the welfare adviser or your teacher or your parents', so that you're not just alone. I have friends who'd support me through anything so I'd definitely go to them as well."

The school's year adviser, Craig Cantor, found himself getting angry at the adults in the film, including a senior school official and a police officer who gave little support to the victims. He believes schools have improved how they handle the issue, with less of a "boys will be boys" attitude and more understanding that bullying can be psychological rather than just physical.

For the school's welfare teacher, Rosie Miller, it was troubling that parents and teachers in the film were putting the responsibility on children to solve the problem.

But she found the toughest part was "the raw grief" of parents whose children had taken their own lives.

SOURCE

Union corruption: Julia Gillard lost her job after law firm's secret investigation

This revelation could well be the beginning of the end for her as PM

JULIA Gillard left her job as a partner with law firm Slater & Gordon as a direct result of a secret internal probe in 1995 into controversial work she had done for her then boyfriend, a union boss accused of corruption, The Weekend Australian can reveal.

Nick Styant-Browne, a former equity partner of the firm, broke a 17-year silence yesterday to reveal that the firm's probe included a confidential formal interview with the Prime Minister - then an industrial lawyer - on September 11, 1995, which was "recorded and transcribed".

In the interview, Ms Gillard stated that she could not categorically rule out that she had personally benefited from union funds in the renovation of her Melbourne house, according to Mr Styant-Browne.

She said in the interview that she believed she had paid for all the work and materials, and had receipts, which she later produced.

Mr Styant-Browne's revelations today mark the first time that anyone among the former and present partners of her employer before she started her political career has spoken on the record about matters that have controversially dogged Ms Gillard since 1995.

Mr Styant-Browne, now a Seattle-based lawyer, said the partnership "took a very serious view" of these and other matters, "and accepted her resignation".

The legal entity that Ms Gillard began to establish for Mr Wilson from mid-1992 was used by Mr Wilson and his then friend, AWU bagman and West Australian branch head Ralph Blewitt, to allegedly corruptly receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from large companies.

The companies were told their money would pay for safety and training of AWU members on major work sites. However, the funds were allegedly siphoned off for purposes including the personal use of Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt.

 Mr Cambridge called on the federal Labor government to establish a royal commission into what he regarded as serious and criminal rorting by union officials.

Ms Gillard has repeatedly and strenuously denied that she had any knowledge of what the association that she had set up was going to be used for. She has also denied receiving any benefit from the funds. She has repeatedly rejected claims made in parliament that renovations to her own house in Melbourne in the early-to-mid 1990s were part-funded by money allegedly siphoned off by Mr Wilson.

More HERE





Bosses' rights to sack workers for drug and alcohol use go up in smoke

BOSSES are being warned they may breach anti-discrimination laws if they sack workers for alcohol or drug use - and this may include smokers.

The latest legal advice to Queensland and NSW small business has raised concerns that the warnings may also apply to smokers.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland president David Goodwin accused smokers of costing the state "millions and millions" of dollars in lost productivity each year, and questioned why industrial relations laws defied common sense.

"They (smokers) can't always make it up in their own time," he said. "If you miss that sales call because you're outside smoking, you've cost your organisation."

Cancer Council Victoria recently cited research that found smokers who took four 15-minute breaks daily spent 1.2 years smoking on the job over an average working life.

Mr Goodwin said he believed business could dismiss an employee for ignoring smoking policies after verbal and written warnings, although the legal advice had raised some questions.

The Australian Business Lawyers and Advisors, which provides in-house counsel for Queensland and NSW's chambers of commerce and industry, urged firms to introduce smoking guidelines that were well explained.

However, it flagged the potential for discrimination.

"A decision to dismiss an employee on the basis of alcohol or drug use may infringe various pieces of federal and state legislation that prohibit discrimination on the ground of impairment and/or disability," it said. "Recent case law has established that drug and alcohol dependency can be characterised as an impairment ... (and) the use of drug and alcohol policies against an employee must be carefully considered to ensure that discrimination laws are not breached."

Australian Council on Smoking and Health professor Mike Daube said smokers had no entitlement to special consideration in the workplace.  "They can manage without cigarettes on aircraft, in cinemas, churches and in a whole host of circumstances," he said.  "Work is no different. Staff are employed to work."

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Abbott: I'll revive Howard's golden age

Tony Abbott has promised to return Australia to the "golden age" of the Howard government under his "incoming Coalition government".

In a speech to the South Australian Liberal Party yesterday, the federal Opposition Leader emphasised the connection between the Coalition under his leadership and the government of John Howard, which was voted out in 2007 after 11 years.

The tradition of the Howard government would live on, Mr Abbott declared, in no small part because of the similarities between his frontbench and Mr Howard's ministerial team.

"Sixteen members of my frontbench were ministers in the Howard government," Mr Abbott said.

"We won't have to learn on the job because we have done the job before. There won't be questions about the judgment of an incoming Coalition government because an incoming Coalition government has shown good judgment in the past and that's where there is going to be such a contrast between an incoming Coalition government and the government that we currently have."

The number of former Howard government ministers on the frontbench could increase after the next election if Mal Brough, who served as the minister for indigenous affairs, is successful in his bid to return to federal politics.

Mr Abbott, who once described himself as the political love child of Mr Howard and the Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop, has previously been criticised for the number of long-serving MPs he has kept on his frontbench at the expense of up-and-comers.

Many of the names mentioned as being at the forefront of the next generation of Liberal Party politicians were aides in the Howard government years, such as Kelly O'Dwyer and Josh Frydenberg.

Despite his sustained lead in the polls, Mr Abbott has stressed his team must remain disciplined and focused to win the next election, due in the second half of next year.

Mr Abbott's vision for the next Coalition government, as outlined in his speech, made it seem as if the two terms of Labor government were no more than an inconvenient blip on the radar of political history.

Last week, the federal government all but reinstated the immigration policies of the Howard government, one of the most defining and controversial features of its time in office.

"If you want to get John Howard's results on border protection, you've got to show John Howard's resolve on border protection," Mr Abbott said.

"That's why the longer this government lasts, the better the Howard government looks and that's why the Howard government now looks like it created a golden age of prosperity, which is lost."

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Federal tax bullies meet their Waterloo  -- again

The Wickenby enquiries are notorious for their shallow reasoning, lack of scruple and low success rates.  They are just scalp hunters

TWO high-profile targets of Project Wickenby have scored a major victory after the New South Wales Supreme Court found their right to a fair trial had been so compromised by authorities' handling of material against them that criminal charges should be permanently quashed.

The ruling raises questions about whether other Wickenby prosecutions have also been compromised.

Lawyer Ross Edward Seller and Patrick David McCarthy were charged in March this year over an alleged tax fraud, which involved a Scotch whisky operation, and their links to the Wickenby-targeted Swiss-based firm Strachans, run by Richard and Philip Egglishaw.

The pair, in a Wickenby operation code named Operation Polbeam, were compulsorily examined by the Australian Crime Commission in 2007 over their business dealings in 2001-02.
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The men's appeal centred on material obtained during the crime commission hearings - transcripts of their examinations that were forwarded to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, and also the role of a key witness in the coming trial. The expert witness had been seconded from the Australian Taxation Office and had observed the men's crime commission examinations.

A "very happy" Mr Seller said he would "let the judgment speak for itself [about his opinion of the Wickenby investigations]".

"The relevant thing is if this is [happening] on other cases. I think it's an issue that flows."

When asked about seeking compensation, he said: "These things are being mooted at the moment, but I think it's early days yet. We have to see if there's any appeal."

Justice Peter Garling yesterday found the "conduct of the Crime Commission, in conjunction with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, has deprived them of the protection which the law ensured. Any trial would not be fair."

He noted that charges were only stayed by courts in "extreme" circumstances, as there was a strong public interest for criminal allegations to be prosecuted.

But he said it would offend the "administration of justice for the applicants to be confronted by prosecution authorities who have had access to material ordinarily caught by the privilege against self-incrimination, but which has been compulsorily obtained".

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Hospital coverup in Canberra

A Canberra Hospital nurse almost killed on the job by an electric shock says she has exposed serious flaws in the official report into her accident, saying the mishap ended her nursing career and plunged her into financial crisis.

Nurse Kate Virtue has come forward for the first time to say the publicly released ACT government report wrongly claims she returned to work after just three days.

Two years after being thrown up to three metres across a room by an electric shock, she has confirmed she never resumed work at the hospital.

She told the Sunday Canberra Times she was still on cardiac medication and suffers from other serious ongoing medical problems. She has had to rely on financial support from her family to support her two children.

"I feel they tried to sweep this case under the carpet," she said. "[It is] as if they're trying to avoid recognising the significance of the accident."

Ms Virtue said she attempted three return-to-work programs at Canberra Hospital, the first of which was several months after the accident.

These failed to get her back to work at the hospital where she had worked for most of the past 19 years as a registered nurse.

To make matters worse, Ms Virtue said she had temporarily reduced her working hours to eight hours a week because of family reasons.

She was due to return to at least three times this amount of hours the week following the accident.

The fact she was working fewer hours at the time of the incident meant her weekly payments from Comcare - which has not paid her a lump sum - were considerably less than they could have been.

In July 2010, Ms Virtue was working in the surgical recovery unit when she received an electric shock, believed to have been caused by exposed wires in a power cord.

Staff heard a loud bang and saw a blue flame. The report into her accident, which claimed she returned to work after three days, was written by an investigator from the Justice and Community Safety Directorate as well as the ACT Work Safety Commissioner.

Ms Virtue said she was not interviewed by investigators.

Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne will be taking Ms Virtue's complaint to ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell who tabled the report in the assembly.

"There's an apparent attempt to minimise the seriousness of the incident if not a straight cover-up," Ms Dunne said.

Ms Dunne said there had been not enough follow up by the hospital into Ms Virtue's health.

After the report was tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly, Ms Virtue complained in an email to a senior manager at WorkSafe ACT in August last year.

Work Safety commissioner Mark McCabe said there was no point interviewing Ms Virtue because the facts about what happened were easily established and not contested.

Mr McCabe said the inaccurate information provided to his office about when she returned to work did not change his assessment of the accident as being in the most serious category.

A Health Directorate spokeswoman said she could not discuss Ms Virtue's specific case. However, injured staff were encouraged to return to work as part of a planned rehabilitation program when appropriate.

SOURCE

Australia's Banks Are Now Worth More Than Europe's -— How Is That Possible?

Some additional background not mentioned below here

We finally know the real winner of the euro crisis. It's Australia.

Would you believe it if I told you that Australia's financial sector is worth more than the eurozone's financial sector? Well, it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. It's true. The technical term for this is "jaw-dropping." The chart below, from Cullen Roche of Pragmatic Capitalism, puts it all in rather stunning picture perspective.  It turns out that depressions aren't so good for banks.



A big chunk of this shouldn't surprise us. European banks loaded up on subprime debt. Australian banks didn't. European banks made their own bad real estate loans. Australian banks didn't. And European banks are sitting on top of piles of dodgy sovereign debt. Australian banks aren't.

But this doesn't really make sense. It explains why Europe's financial sector fell much more in 2008 than Australia's financial sector did, but it doesn't explain why Europe's has kept falling and Australia's hasn't. The answer, as always, is that it's about the economy. Commodity exports -- thanks, China! -- have powered Australia, while the eurozone has self-immolated in a crisis of the common currency. What does that have to do with banks? Well, financial contracts assume that incomes will steadily go up. When incomes -- and the economy -- do not grow as expected, debts that should not have gone bad go bad.

Something incredibly bad and incredibly rare has happened to Europe's periphery since 2008. The total size of their economies have fallen. So-called nominal GDP, which is just inflation plus real growth, usually increases 5 percent a year -- and that's what banks count on when they make loans. If the economy grows less than that, otherwise creditworthy borrowers will have a harder and harder time paying back their debts. Including governments.

The chart below looks at nominal GDP "growth" (or lack thereof) in Australia and Europe's periphery since 2008. As Evan Soltas said, Europe's problems are nominal.



Australia's nominal GDP has grown at a healthy rate. Europe's has not.  That simple fact explains why Australia's banks have rebounded from the financial crisis and Europe's banks have not. Until or unless Europe gets its nominal GDP back to something close to trend, its financial sector will keep falling behind Australia's (and everybody else's).
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In other words, Europe's banking crisis will only end when Europe's economic crisis does -- which in turn is being held back by its banking crisis. It's a never-ending cycle of awful that only the European Central Bank can break. Maybe they will.

SOURCE






Industry taskforce points finger at carbon tax

A TASKFORCE comprising trade unions and manufacturers has cited the carbon price as adding to the pressures on the struggling industry sector in a report to government containing more than 40 recommendations, sources say.

The report by the manufacturing taskforce, a tripartite body established last year by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is believed to recommend a raft of measures ranging from creating a sovereign wealth fund, buying more Australian-made cars and giving tax breaks, to bolstering the export potential of the local food industry.

Ms Gillard established the taskforce to explore ways to help the manufacturing sector, which has been suffering from the pressures of the high dollar, high labour costs and other pressures of the mining boom.

Sources familiar with the report say despite the involvement of the Labor-aligned trade union movement - the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the Australian Workers Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Unions - the report cites rising energy costs caused by the carbon price as having an additional impact in an already competitive environment.

The body of the report calls for the effect of the fixed $23-a-tonne carbon price to be "ameliorated in the current competitive environment" for energy-intensive businesses and that the industry assistance provided for trade-exposed emitters be monitored and refined if necessary.

One recommendation says "energy prices directly impact on the competitiveness of Australian manufacturers and can be attenuated".

It suggests linking the carbon price scheme to international schemes, something already done, rationalising state and federal green schemes, a process also in train, and reforming energy markets, which Ms Gillard called for last week, and assisting business with implementing energy efficient measures.

The taskforce comprises Ms Gillard, senior ministers, the heads of the ACTU and the other unions, the Australian Industry Group and the chief executives of the companies OneSteel, Boeing, Holden and Kraft.

Today's report has been put forward by the unions, companies and the Ai Group, not the government, which will respond to it over time.

Sources familiar with its contents say the recommendations reflect the individual agendas of the participants as well as broader measures designed to help manufacturing as a whole.

One recommendation is the creation of a sovereign wealth fund which the AWU has argued previously would help take pressure off the dollar and create a savings pool for times of need.

It is also understood there is a recommendation for a full and independent inquiry into why small- and medium-sized businesses are struggling to secure capital, a problem that arose during the global financial crisis when access to credit dried up.

Other recommendations include skewing government purchases on cars further towards Australian-made vehicles, increasing the proportion of Australian goods and services that the Defence Department procures every year with its multibillion-dollar budget, and increasing the level of Australian content used in government spending on residential and commercial construction.

It also recommends an annual dialogue between the unions, government and business.

Chief executives of global companies have met and blamed the carbon tax for creating investment uncertainty.

SOURCE





Stupid woman

Being much in the public eye, she might unfortunately lead other women into similar foolish optimism

IF being fit and healthy were the only conditions needed for a healthy pregnancy then Sonia Kruger would come out on top.

The energetic 47-year-old, who features on the front cover of Woman’s Day this week, told the magazine she is still very open to the idea of having kids.

But being in peak physical condition does not affect your biological ability to fall pregnant, especially when you’re a woman over 40.

That’s the advice of obstetrician and gynaecologist Andrew Zuschmann, who is also a spokesperson for the Australian Medical Association.

“From about 45 onwards a woman’s chances of falling pregnant spontaneously are almost impossible,” Dr Zuschmann said. “Most need IVF or donor eggs to fall pregnant.”

More HERE




Australia risks no growth without productivity boost

And with unions in the box-seat under Gillard, the prospects for productivity growth are slim

One of the world's leading management consultancies says Australia risks a future of no economic growth unless it dramatically improves its productivity performance.

A report by McKinsey Global Institute offers four scenarios for Australia's national income growth to 2017 - in the worst case, where productivity continues falling at the same rate as it has been in recent years and commodity prices keep declining to long-run averages, national income would rise just 0.5 per cent a year.

Even in the best case scenario, where productivity growth returns to long-run averages and commodity prices remain roughly where they are, Australia's income growth is likely to be 3.7 per cent - slower than it was in the pre-financial crisis years.
Audio: McKinsey's Chris Bradley warns of a low growth future (ABC News)

The report estimates a $135 billion gap in national income by 2017 between that best case scenario and the worst case outcome.

"If we don't fix productivity and the terms of trade settles back to its long run level, we could have almost no income growth in the next seven years," said Sydney-based McKinsey principal and report co-author Chris Bradley.

"In the best case where we sustain strong terms of trade and we do well on productivity, even in that case we'll probably have slower income growth than we've had historically."

He says Australia's income growth in the period between 2005-2011 was more about good luck than good management.

"Australia's added about $250 billion of income in the last seven years. About 90 per cent of that is explained by terms of trade, which is a better price for exports versus imports, and by investment, increased investment," Mr Bradley explained.

"When you strip back what's normal and what's not, our estimate is about half of Australia's growth in that era is kind of temporary. So if it weren't for the boom, we would have experienced more like 2 per cent income growth instead of 4."

The McKinsey report singles out productivity as the problem, with a 0.7 per cent annual decline between 2005 and 2011, compared to a 2.4 per cent increase between 1993-1999.

For those who are not sure what productivity measures, Mr Bradley gives a succinct definition.  "Productivity is simply a measure of how well we take our inputs and transform them into outputs," he explained.

"So labour productivity is very simply how much we get per hour of work and capital productivity is very simply how much we get per unit of fixed capital investment. So it is about more for less."

In that effort to get more from less, labour productivity has improved 0.3 per cent year since 2005 and added $17 billion to income - but this is far lower than its growth in the 1990s which added an estimated $57 billion.

However, capital productivity - that is the return businesses are generating from new buildings, plant, machinery and equipment - has been dismal, wiping an estimated $43 billion from national income.

Some of this - Mr Bradley estimates around two-thirds - is related to upfront spending on big mining projects that has not yet yielded a return, but soon will.

However, he says that leaves plenty of scope for businesses to be more efficient about where they spend their money, particularly on the big resource developments.

"The difference we've seen of doing a very, very good job on project design and execution can be 20 to 30 per cent," he said.

"But there's background factors too. You need enough people with the right skills and the enabling infrastructure to be able to deliver these projects.

"And then there's also probably a role for things like planning laws and just making it easier and faster to do projects in the best way."

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Ombudsman slams Victorian University over soft marking allegations

VICTORIA'S Ombudsman has slammed Swinburne University in his annual report.

According to Ombudsman George Brouwer, a whistleblower reported that “a supervisor had directed a teacher to pass all of their students to ensure the university received upcoming federal government funding".

Mr Brouwer referred the allegation to the university for independent investigation, which found the claim was baseless.

However the Ombudsman criticises the process on seven counts, including a refusal by the investigator to address the federal funding issue and because; “the conclusions did not contain any analysis of the facts and findings of the investigation; specifically, there was no discussion of evidence that appeared to support the allegation”.

Although the university revised the report when challenged by the Ombudsman’s staff, “even the revision was inadequate, addressing only four of the concerns I had raised".

"I determined to finalise the matter in any case, as I considered that the outstanding issues were unlikely to significantly affect the outcome of the investigation, especially at such a late stage,” Mr Brouwer’s report states.

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Five Australian universities in world's top 100

The Shanghai Jiaotong University ranking is a respected judgment but all these rankings are arbitrary in various ways.  Still, it's notable that Australian universities do pretty well in all of them.  The Shanghai Jiaotong ranking compares 1200 higher education institutions worldwide

The University of Melbourne has been named as Australia's top university in a prestigious global ranking of tertiary institutions.

The latest Academic Ranking of World Universities puts the University of Melbourne as the top placed Australian institution at number 57.  That is up from 60th spot in 2011.

The Australian National University was ranked number 64, making it Australia's second top-ranked university. It was ranked 70th in 2011.

For the first time Australia has five universities in the top 100, including the University of Queensland in 90th spot, the University of Sydney at 93rd, and the University of Western Australia at 96th.  Nineteen of Australia's 39 universities made the top 500.

Harvard University in the United States was ranked number one.

American universities made up eight of the top 10, with Stanford University second, Massachusetts Institute of Technology third, and the University of California, Berkeley, in fourth spot.

The United Kingdom's Cambridge University came in at number five and the University of Oxford was ranked 10th.

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School has to be cool

TASMANIANS must change attitudes about education, demographer Bernard Salt said yesterday.  Unskilled jobs were evaporating from Australia and skills training was imperative.  "It needs to be cool to stay on and uncool to leave school at 15," he said.

"Every Tasmanian must send the right message to kids, that the expectation is to get some form of training.

"Ten years of focus on this could change the shape of the state." Without a cultural shift, the Tasmania of the future could be a dangerous place, he said, with social discontent increasing as large numbers of people fell into welfare and became disconnected from the rest of society.

"The best thing you can do is make sure kids have some education," he said.

Mr Salt was visiting Hobart yesterday to outline the changing patterns of work and life in Australia to a national workshop of motoring clubs, organised by the Australian Automobile Association and the RACT. "Australia is not a great, bland amorphous place," he told the workshop. "It is a patchwork."

He pointed to fundamental shifts in Australian life, which threw up many challenges. One was the geographic shift of people from country to coast and city.

Within urban areas, two kinds of cities were emerging, with a growing clash of cultures between the inner-city elite and the outer suburban culture of "middle Australia".

The ethnic make-up of large parts of Australia was changing too, with the arrival of aspirational Indian and East Asian students and migrants.

One of the biggest changes was the mass retirement of the baby boomers. Here he saw opportunities for Tasmania.

"The lifestyle and value for money here is appealing to many baby boomers in Melbourne and Sydney," he said.

"Hobart is grooving up. It is becoming quite a metropolitan, cosmopolitan and fashionable city."

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Milk has never been so illegal


Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Perth people bathe in milk regularly, or so they say.  Perth Organics is just one of the companies that sell raw milk; they sell hundreds of litres of it each week.  Raw milk is milk in its unpasteurised natural form -  and it is illegal to sell for consumption.

Perth Organics, run by husband and wife team David and Lisa Bolt and based in Lesmurdie sell the milk for cosmetic purposes.

A disclaimer on their website points out exactly what the milk should be used for.  "Note that unpasteurised milk is sold only for purposes such as bathing milk or cosmetic milk as recommended by the Australian Health Dept.  Those that mention that purchase is for human consumption purposes, will not be supplied," the website says.

The topic is so contentious Mrs Bolt does not even discuss whether she drinks raw milk.  She does however admit that she thinks the matter of whether raw milk can be sold for consumption should be reviewed.

Mrs Bolt said she respected the law that was in place but said it was quite strict.  "You sell a can of cat food and tell people it is pet food, if they are going to eat it, that's their choice, they are choosing to take that risk," she said.

Mrs Bolt said the company sourced the milk from farms in the south-west and there was a big demand for it.  "We sell whatever we can get," Mrs Bolt said.

Some believe raw milk is a healthier option to drinking pastuerised milk because of its nutritional content.

A group called the Australia Alliance for Raw Milk is made up of farmers and consumers who believe they should have the freedom to choose what food or drink they consume, including raw milk.  "We believe in our right to farm our own private land and trade/share the produce with others without undue government or corporate interference," their Facebook page says.

Their page directs people looking for raw milk in Western Australia to Perth Organics.

Associate professor in health sciences Sebely Pal said she recommended that if a person had access to pasteurised milk, they should drink pasteurised milk rather than raw milk.

"If it's not pasteurised it can have bacteria and viruses which children are especially susceptible to," she said.  "It's best not to take chances.

"In the old days there were higher incidences of tuberculosis and other diseases that we think could've been from drinking unpasteurised milk."

Associate professor Pal admitted that people in countries such as India drank unpasteurised milk but there was little research done into the effects of it.

She said it was difficult to assess the rate of disease without comparing people from the same population drinking pasteurised and unpasteurised milk, which would be illegal in Australia.

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Fast-food giants trying to avoid paying teens weekend penalties

AUSTRALIA'S fast-food chains are trying to wriggle out of changes to national wage laws that will soon force them to pay employees penalty rates on weekends.

The move comes as an independent senator attempts to introduce laws that would remove double-time weekend wages, which, he says, are crippling small businesses.

Fast-food outlets, restaurants, retailers and unions have this week filed submissions to a major review of the nation's awards system by Fair Work Australia.

Among the more significant submissions is a push by Hungry Jack's, McDonald's, Red Rooster, Pizza Hut, KFC and other big chains - which together represent 47 per cent of the industry - to remove the requirement to pay compulsory weekend penalty rates.
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The fast-food companies' submission, made on their behalf by the Australian Industry Group, asks the workplace umpire to do away with weekend penalties altogether. Big fast-food outlets such as McDonald's have enterprise agreements, covering thousands of staff, which until now have not awarded penalty rates to most employees.

McDonald's current agreement, which expires in 2013, covers 80,000 employees - about a quarter of them young people. If nothing is changed, from next year it would be forced to pay these workers 25 per cent extra on Saturdays and 50 per cent more on Sundays.

McDonald's human resources director Joanne Taylor has told Fair Work Australia the chain could not enter into a new agreement with staff under the new award, because of the ''substantially higher costs''. Pizza Hut franchisees have also said they could not afford the penalties.

Under the plan put forward by fast-food retailers, workers at all fast-food outlets would get 10 per cent extra if they worked after 10 on any night of the week and 15 per cent extra after midnight.

All obligations to pay extra on weekends from next year would be removed. Penalties in the fast-food industry for most major employers were imposed for the first time in 2010, when the current award came into place.

The national secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, Joe de Bruyn, said the fast-food chains were trying to wriggle out of new conditions they had known were coming since 2008.

The push is part of a wider move by employers to remove penalty rates, particularly across the retail and hospitality sectors. ACTU president Ged Kearney said yesterday that unions would fight hard on the issue.

Meanwhile, independent senator Nick Xenophon is attempting to change workplace laws over double-time weekend wages, which, he says, are costing young people their jobs.

Senator Xenophon's proposed amendment would see penalty rates still payable, but only where an employee worked more than 38 hours in seven days, or more than 10 hours in a day. The changes would only apply to small businesses employing fewer than 20 full-time staff.

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Business-hating "Green" councils  must be  weeded out

THIS is a case study of what is wrong with the O’Farrell government.

Just across the Richmond River from Ballina’s Big Prawn, Bernard and Rikki Grinberg run a caravan park on eight pretty hectares behind South Ballina beach.

They have ploughed their retirement savings into restoring an old camping ground into a low-key, affordable, family-friendly eco-resort.

But now, like property owners all over NSW, their livelihood is under threat, as green-dominated councils use a new statewide planning template effectively to “sterilise” land of human influence.

The Grinberg’s Ballina Beach Village has been rezoned from a recreational zone to the environmentally sensitive category of E2, which is the next stage down from a national park, and forbids tourist activity. While, technically, they are allowed to keep operating their eco-resort under an “existing uses” clause, the reality is the opposite.

Now, every time they want to change anything, whether it is to use crockery at their kiosk, hire a singer to play in their piano bar, renovate the interior of an old shed to turn it into a yoga studio, even trim a branch off a termite-infested tree that might fall on a tent, they have to submit a development application and prove to Ballina Shire Council they are not “intensifying” the use of their land.

The effect is that their thriving business is becoming unviable.

From leafy Sydney suburbs such as Terrey Hills and Frenchs Forest in Warringah to Eurobodalla on the south coast, to Ballina and Byron Bay and inland to Lismore and Kyogle, wherever there is bush and greenies, councils are deciding to impose excessively restrictive environmental zones on private property.

Landowners rezoned to E2 or E3 have found their property values slashed overnight, leaving them unable to improve their land or even farm it effectively. In Ballina and Byron shires as much as one third of agricultural land has been rezoned.

What an E2 zoning does is stop, for example, a macadamia farmer leaving a paddock fallow for a year, a standard farming practice to rest the soil. If he wants to replant macadamias on that paddock, or even switch to mangoes, he has to apply for a DA.

Rezoning land to a more restrictive regime is known as dezoning, but Rikki, 55, and Bernard, 65, describe it as “land theft”.

E2 and E3 zonings are “the exocet missile of green bureaucracy”, they say. Planning laws have “given very powerful weapons to very misguided people”.

A nearby farmer, who asks not to be named, has valuations which show the E2 dezoning has halved the value of his land.

On January 5, 2006, his farm was worth $5.6 million. On February 1, this year, it was worth just $2.6 million.

In their report, valuers Herron Todd White explained: “Ballina Shire Council draft LEP (Local Environment Plan) designates substantial parts of the [farm] as E2 Environmental Conservation zoning. This significantly limits the use (to) which this land can be put.”   No kidding.

So far, the Grinbergs have had to spend $150,000 on lawyers and town planners just to defend their right to conduct business as usual.

They blame the previous state Labor government for imposing a new planning template across the state’s 150 councils. But after 16 months in office the O’Farrell government has done nothing to fix the problem.

Frank Sartor, the former Labor planning minister who signed off on the changes, defends the template, known as a “standard instrument”. It was intended to standardise the confusing mishmash of different definitions across NSW into 30 to 40 standard zonings.

“The template provides a great deal of flexibility. It is absolute nonsense to blame the template for planning problems that are of local councils’ own making,” he says.

But who will protect landowners from rogue councils? Not Premier Barry O’Farrell.

The election of a new Coalition government on a planning platform of empowering local councils has created a perfect storm. The template provides the opportunity for councils arbitrarily to rezone land, and the laissez faire attitude of the O’Farrell government gives them the freedom to do it.

And in case deep greens are applauding at this point, freedom cuts both ways, depending on the ideology of the council involved - whether that is the green ethos of locking land away from humans, or the white shoe brigade’s ideal of the concrete jungle.

NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard is overhauling planning laws but says he is stuck with the template inherited from Labor.

“Where I have had major concerns I have stepped in to excise areas (from E2 and E3 zonings and require councils to) go back to the community and look at the science, look at the evidence,” to determine if land should be locked up, he said.

“It is truly a challenge for state government because we came into power (promising) to devolve more power to local communities ...

“The challenge is to make sure councils properly consult local communities.”

But he questions “whether it is appropriate for state government to take a heavy-handed interventionist approach”.

Why not? Real people are being smashed.

The Grinbergs say the government is just “rejigging” rather than finding a permanent solution.  “You’re just back having the fight with council,” says Bernard.  “The zoning will still be manipulated by councils imposing expensive DA processes and red tape to drive owners off their land.”

They say “scientific evidence” just means council ecologists will pay $150,000 to like-minded environmental consultants to produce reports proving the area is environmentally sensitive.

The Grinbergs have put elbow grease and their retirement savings into the land they fell in love with. They’ve turned a rundown slum into a tranquil ecohaven, accessible to families of moderate means.

“We’re the ideal owners,” Rikki says. “We’re very environmentally conscious, clean living, and non-development.  “Yet we’re the bad guys.”

This is why the NSW economy is still on its knees. The O’Farrell government is squandering a huge mandate with its timid and ineffectual approach. It is more determined to be loved by everyone than to do the tough job it was elected to do: fix 11 years of Labor mismanagement.

We have an insane planning regime which is cutting the value of people’s property in half. Just fix it.

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