Mother turned away by public hospital - so baby born by road

The hospital had a midwife and obstetrician on duty but it was still preferable for her to give birth by the side of the road, apparently. There's nothing like that "caring" socialist medicine

A WOMAN gave birth on the side of the road after a hospital forced paramedics to put her back in an ambulance and take her to Nepean Hospital owing to a shortage of medical staff. The 35-year-old gave birth to her third baby on the Great Western Highway at Glenbrook about half an hour after being examined by a midwife and obstetrician at Blue Mountains District Anzac Memorial Hospital.

An ambulance spokesman said that when the woman was picked up from her Katoomba home at 5.41am on October 9 her waters had broken and contractions were a minute apart. Maya Drum, network director of women's health and newborn care at Blue Mountains Hospital, yesterday said the woman had phoned to say she was on her way, was 10 days overdue and had been in labour for three hours.

The Herald understands the woman was distressed at being told she could not deliver at the hospital because there was no anaesthetist available and that paramedics had argued against taking her to Nepean because her labour was so advanced. It is also understood that the baby, delivered by a midwife in the back of the ambulance, needed to be ventilated until they reached Nepean Hospital.

Ms Drum said the woman arrived at Blue Mountains at 6.10am and was judged to be "high risk". At that time, the hospital "could not provide anaesthetist cover due to unavoidable staffing shortages and the clinical decision was made to transfer the woman immediately by ambulance to Nepean Hospital, where more comprehensive services were available to provide specialist services to mother and baby", she said in a statement. "During the transfer at 7am, the midwife, assisted by the two ambulance officers, successfully delivered the baby in the ambulance on the side of the Great Western Highway at Glenbrook." She said the mother and baby returned home from Nepean the next day and were well.

There was a public outcry after pregnant women in the Blue Mountains were given just a few days' notice that the birthing unit was closing temporarily on July 21 because of a lack of obstetricians, anaesthetists and midwives. It was reopened on September 1 but had since closed temporarily at least twice because of staff shortages. The State Government has promised before to maintain birthing services in the Blue Mountains but yesterday the Health Minister, John Della Bosca, appeared to back down. "The decision about the continued operation of the service is one for clinicians. The minister will rely on advice from expert staff at NSW Health and the area health service," a spokesman said. The incident highlighted the difficulties in attracting medical staff to some regions.

Meanwhile, expectant mothers in the Bega Valley have also been left in limbo after two of the four Pambula GP obstetricians said they would not deliver babies at Bega Hospital from mid-December. They are angry at the Greater Southern Area Health Service for insisting they travel to Bega after birthing services at Pambula were closed about a month ago because of midwife shortages. A spokeswoman for the area health service said there were no plans to reopen a birthing service at Pambula.

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More global cooling

Note that it now well into Spring in Australia

RECORD cold temperatures have brought snow to the Blue Mountains and southern tablelands in NSW and wet and windy weather to the state's coast.

Temperatures dipped to three degrees celsius near Blackheath, west of Sydney, early this morning but wind gusts brought the mercury down further to minus two degrees and pockets of snow fell in Leura and west of Katoomba at Oberon. The Bureau of Metrology (BoM) said snow was also reported in the southern tablelands at Cooma and in Bombala, near the Victorian border.

An unseasonal cold front from the southeast extends to just beyond the ranges and is moving north. Thunderstorms and wind gusts of up to 70km/h have brought rain to the eastern part of the state and abnormally cold conditions to most of NSW. BoM forecaster Jane Golding said average temperatures in the Blue Mountains for October ranged from seven to 18 degrees.

In Sydney today, the temperature is forecast to be 15 degrees, an October temperature which has only been seen twice in the past 14 years, Ms Golding said. Average maximum temperatures for Sydney in October are around 22 degrees.

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Another government computer project bites the dust

Back to square one ofter wasting a lot of money. When will governments ever learn that they should buy "off the shelf". There are many commercial database programs available for a comparatively trifling cost

The South Australian government has pulled the plug on its $5 million records management system project, ending a five-year saga plagued by repeated cost blowouts, delays and confusion. The project, commissioned by SA's Department of Families and Communities (DFC) in September 2003, was originally budgeted at $2 million but increased to $4 million after the South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT), which was funding the project, granted a request to double the spend.

However, SAHT froze the project in mid-2007 when the department requested an additional $1 million for the project. Subsequently auditors KPMG was called in to evaluate whether any components of the project could be salvaged, but in May this year the firm recommended the records management system be scrapped altogether and that the department start from scratch.

Details of the project's demise emerged during a government budget and finance committee hearing earlier this week. It remains unclear who is responsible for the failure of the project as there were two groups directly involved in the project - Housing South Australia and the department. Housing SA runs services on behalf of the Housing Trust and had a service agreement with the department. "There were a number of changes (to the project's management)," Housing South Australia corporate services director Dennis Huxley said at the hearing. "At one stage it was in the Housing Trust, then it transferred to DFC, then we changed it back to Housing. "A number of changes occurred over that time. The project has been floundering for some time," Mr Huxley said.

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DYSFUNCTIONAL EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA

Three current articles below

Literacy skills shock for NSW public schools

Only North shore (affluent area) kids do well. Once again "modern" methods fail the poor

One in five children at NSW public schools is at or below minimum literacy levels, with little real improvement despite a large increase in Government spending, a new report has found. And children in country areas generally fare worse than their city cousins, with the gap increasing. "Compared to 10 years ago, the NSW Government has spent over three times more money on improving literacy and numeracy, yet there has been little real improvement," NSW Auditor-General Peter Achterstraat said in his report. "The problem is that children that are at risk are not being adequately identified and are difficult to track through the education system."

The report found that the NSW Department of Education should have a greater focus on the child at risk, not on the school in which he or she is enrolled, and that there needs to be better training for teachers of those children most at risk. "Our children are the most important asset that our society has, and if we don't focus more closely on them now as individuals, then we are failing in our responsibility to the next generation," Mr Achterstraat said. "Just as importantly, we have a responsibility to the community in planning a better future for NSW."

The report found that the percentage of students below the minimum level for literacy was 14 per cent for western NSW, the worst in the state, followed by 12.2 per cent in New England and 11.4 per cent in both the Riverina and on the North Coast. The best area for literacy was northern Sydney's 1.4 per cent, in contrast to 10.8 per cent in the city's south-west.

With numeracy, the percentage of students below the minimum level was 13.5 per cent in western NSW, while the best was 2 per cent in northern Sydney, and 10.8 per cent in the south-west of the city. In broad terms, indigenous students were two to three times worse than other students.

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Out of control schools in poor area

Nothing that old-fashioned discipline wouldn't cure.

UP to 22 students a day are suspended from a school in Brisbane's south which can't cope with soaring levels of violent and extreme behaviour. The Queensland Teachers' Union made the shocking claim as 3000 of its members continued rolling strikes to highlight disadvantage at 54 Logan-Albert-Beaudesert schools. [A lower socio-economic area]

The union said inadequate funding contributed to escalating violence at schools in the region where students regularly assaulted or threatened staff and their peers. Smoking, drugs, truancy, abusive language and unsafe behaviours like tackling were other common triggers for suspension. The Courier-Mail recently reported suspensions were up 25 per cent at Gold Coast and Ipswich schools, which includes those in Logan and Beaudesert, since 2005-06.

"A Logan high school has had up to 22 suspensions a day," former Logan teacher and QTU organiser Penny Spalding said. "For some of those schools it's not uncommon, so (an administrator's and teacher's) workload is tremendous. "It's getting worse and I think society understands teenage behaviour is getting more challenging."

QTU president Steve Ryan said this week's strikes, which end today, were aimed at drawing an additional $40 million from the Government in a "needs-based" approach to unique problems facing Logan-Albert and Beaudesert schools.

Education Queensland said yesterday it could not confirm nor deny that a Logan school handed out 22 suspensions a day because it had no school-by-school data. A spokeswoman for Education Minister Rod Welford said he recognised the challenges of schools in low socio-economic areas. She said the department had invested $1.7 million to tackle truancy and improve outcomes at large state schools in economically disadvantaged areas.

It is common practice to put suspended students into out-of-school Positive Learning Centres, where trained behavioural teachers implement behaviour modification programs. However, when a student's behaviour disrupts the class but does not warrant suspension they are often sent to what Education Queensland has dubbed Responsible Thinking Classrooms. "Schools are having to beg, borrow and steal to run them," Ms Spalding said. "They are the lifeline of some of these Logan schools."

The union claimed the region's schools needed more behaviour management resources and staff, particularly for Prep to Year 3 and Year 8 classes. A Queensland Teachers' Union spokeswoman said the parents of some Logan/Beaudesert region students spoke little English and were not involved enough in their child's education, both traits associated with low socio-economic areas.

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Leftist bigotry in schools

At one of Sydney's best private girls schools, Year 8 geography students opened their term three materials on changing global relationships to read the following definition: "Globalisation is what happens when you lose your job in Brunswick, Bankstown or Elizabeth because the company for which you work has been bought out by the Australian subsidiary of a Dallas-based transnational company that has decided to relocate its production of T-shirts to Mexico because of cheaper wage costs and lower health and safety standards."

Assuming it was a scholarly attempt to provoke robust debate, I searched the students' materials for the other side to the globalisation and free-trade story. Alas, there wasn't one. No facts explaining how globalisation and trade have lifted millions of people out of poverty, improving living standards, mortality rates, education, training and the like.

The geography teacher who stands in front of his teenage students is surely entitled to his view that globalisation is an evil force. He is not, however, entitled to use his position to indoctrinate his young charges. And that is why, as his students edge towards their final school years, facing assessments and exams that will determine their future, they should have a copy of Mark Lopez's The Little Black Schoolbook tucked away in their schoolbags. Launched last week in Melbourne, Lopez's book is aimed at exposing the bias within the classroom so that students can turn it to their advantage rather than bombing in exams by courageously trying to tackle the received political wisdom in schools and universities.

Expect howls of derision from critics who deny that teachers express and impose political orthodoxy in the classroom. But Lopez, a high school tutor, has seen many of his students submit brilliant work only to receive mediocre marks because an essay did not accord with their teacher's views on a subject. Just as I, and many parents, have watched in disbelief when students have crafted thoughtful opposition to orthodoxies such as Al Gore's position on climate change, only to be marked down for no other reason than the teacher's personal views.

Just as we have read about it in this newspaper, where educators such as Kevin Donnelly have exposed education bureaucrats politicising school curriculums by requiring a "critical-postmodernist pedagogy".

Refreshingly, Lopez's book is not a whinge about the classroom being infected with Marxist, feminist and postmodern perspectives. Instead it offers up constructive lessons for students to beat the bias in the system. That means more than learning conventional study skills. It means being street-smart enough to recognise the limitations of some teachers. And it means knowing that some teachers will ask for a well-argued essay but reward essays that reflect their own biases.

One of his Year 12 students was asked to do a research essay on Lenin's New Economic Policy. His first draft was a well-researched, well-argued essay that received a C. Lopez told his student to go back to his notes, work out his teacher's understanding of the topic and then redraft the essay to omit everything that differed from his teacher's opinions. The teacher awarded the redraft an A grade.

In many respects, Lopez's book is a depressing read. We should not need a book that advises students that "your campaign for straight As must begin by establishing a psychological profile of your examiner. Make your teacher's bias your friend, because if you do not it will be a formidable enemy."

We should not need a book that explains the continuing effect of the 1960s counter-culture on teaching and school curriculums. Or a book that draws on real-life experiences within the education system to help students identify how political ideology affects the examination and assessment, how to hunt for clues from prescribed reading materials and decipher questions to work out what answer would align with a teacher's views.

Or a book that helps students identify the politically correct answers: if you are asked to take a side in the "women in combat" debate, argue in favour, using feminist grounds of equal opportunity. "In a dispute between animal rights groups and duck hunters, if you side with the hunters you are a dead duck," he writes.

But students do need precisely such a book. Better to be aware of the realities and learn to play the game. Those who have used Lopez's advice have used it wisely. "Rather than being buffeted by fate, these students took responsibility for their education and succeeded," he writes.

Neither should we need a Senate hearing into academic freedom. But, again, reality trumps hope. In his submission to the inquiry a few weeks ago, historian Keith Windschuttle revealed why he is detested by his academic opponents. There is no emotion, no hyperbole from Windschuttle. Just a devastating list of facts, quoting academics to prove the politicisation of scholarship and skewering any pretence of objectivity. He cites Australian historian Henry Reynolds, who admits that his first major work, The Other Side of the Frontier, "was not conceived, researched or written in a mood of detached scholarship". And this from Reynolds: "History should not only be relevant but politically utilitarian."

Windschuttle exposes feminist historian Marilyn Lake for admitting "the writing of history is a political activity". He reveals how the search for truth was abandoned by academics who treat the alleged genocidal activities in Australia as equivalent to the Nazi Holocaust. Name after name, extract after extract, the bias of history teaching by prominent Australian academics is laid bare.

The inquiry is a Stalinist exercise, say critics. Wrong. Windschuttle is no fan of government intervention. He told The Australian that it is a fundamental tenet of Western civilisation that institutions must remain independent of the state. The purpose of the inquiry, like Lopez's book, is to expose political orthodoxy in the education system. Sunlight, after all, can be a powerful disinfectant.

We should name and shame academics who breach their scholarly duty to objectivity. And university vice-chancellors with spine should do more to promote intellectual diversity rather than caving in to the rigid orthodoxy of political academics.

That said, overzealousness won't help the cause of exposing classroom indoctrination. Nitpicking over trivial episodes won't either. It will only serve to undermine the genuine cases of blatant political bias that should be exposed.

In an ideal world, the classroom and lecture theatre would not be used as tools of indoctrination. In the real world, it happens too often. Students may as well know about it, understand why it exists and learn how to play the game to win. If that process improves the education system by reminding educators that they, too, are being assessed for their intellectual rigour or lack of it, so much the better.

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Lockstep Leftism in Australian academe

Have a different opinion? Think again. The debate is over. A highly politicised ideological bias exists in academia - one harmful to students, damaging to standards and which threatens intellectual diversity - according to the majority of submissions to the Senate's academic freedom inquiry. In nearly all cases, this bias comes from one direction - the left. A prominent academic, Mervyn Bendle, in his submission says it "dominates research programs, publications and textbooks at all levels and therefore influences every aspect of education in Australia".

Pick any controversial issue today - Work Choices, anti-terror laws, Israel-Palestine, or climate change - and in academia these issues have been decided. There is only one accepted view on each - no debate is allowed.

Ask the Cardinal Newman Society at the University of Queensland. Earlier this year it had stalls outlining pregnancy-support options for women - a move that contradicted the student union's policy of safe, free abortion on demand. The Catholic student group was reprimanded, threatened with disaffiliation and faced formal disciplinary proceedings.

Heaven help anyone on campus, academic or student, who dares to question what Dr Bendle calls a "radical orthodoxy", characterised by "theories associated with neo-Marxism, postmodernism, feminism, radical environmentalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, and related ideologies". Bendle argues this entrenched left-wing culture has its roots in the counterculture of the 1960s. Yesterday's radicals are today's establishment, and now they will tolerate no dissent. Resistance is futile. You will be indoctrinated.

No recent research has been conducted into the ideological leanings of Australian educators, but in the US a 1999 study found more than 70 per cent of academics identified as left wing, compared to only 15 per cent as conservative. In some humanities departments, conservatives are outnumbered by up to 30 to one. The situation is so bad the University of Colorado recently debated creating a "chair of conservative thought" in a desperate attempt to restore some balance.

The scarcity of conservative intellectuals explains the barrage of attacks that emanated from academia during almost the entire term of the former government. These criticisms were on a wide range of different issues, from immigration to industrial relations. Some were justified, yet were almost always from a critical left-wing perspective. This lack of balance demonstrates the much-touted commitment to "diversity" mouthed by all academic institutions is only skin deep. Gender, ethnic and sexual diversity are all the rage, but intellectual diversity is ignored.

Many Australian educators are activists masquerading as academics, agitating for radical far-left causes well outside, and profoundly hostile to, the values of mainstream Australia. One example is Damien Riggs, of the University of Adelaide, who heads an association of academics that seek to "expose and challenge white-race privilege in Australia and elsewhere". His area of interest is "what it means to speak as a white queer person in a colonial nation".

Academics, like any other citizens, are perfectly entitled to their political opinions, however bizarre. The problem arises when these political views influence the content of their teaching. Take the former education union president Pat Byrne who in 2005 boasted that so-called progressive educators "had succeeded in influencing curriculum development in schools, education departments and universities".

Then there are the hundreds of subjects in the humanities, most of which reflect the Marxist obsessions of their lecturers. One subject on tourism "explores travel through themes such as gender, class, race, imperialism, war and . sexuality". Another on design considers "how architecture perpetuates the social order of gender".

One former trainee teacher, Beccy Merzi, told the inquiry: "I became so fed up and disgusted by the continual barrage of criticism of mainstream values, the lack of focus on practical ways of teaching, and the continual focus on minority groups, postmodernism, gender, queer and other studies that I abandoned my teaching degree. "

But it's not only the course content that is biased - it's lecturers' conduct. Submission after submission documented educators using their classrooms to promote their political views and belittling or marking down students who disagreed. "I have been abused and mocked by a lecturer in front of others for refusing to acknowledge the 'genocide occurring in Lebanon' during the Israeli-Lebanese war," one student, Joshua Koonin, told the inquiry.

It's high time that educators learnt that the principles of academic freedom apply equally to students as they do to their lecturers.

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Unbalanced history teaching in Australian schools

A column about Australia by David Dale. (For non-Australian readers, witchetty grubs were traditionally regarded as a delicacy by Aborigines; 1770 was the first landing on the Eastern Australian coast by the British)

Think the unthinkable and say the unsayable. That's this column's readers. In recent days, they have advanced these propositions: 1) The best way to make school history lessons more interesting is to teach less about boomerangs and witchetty grubs and more about the Chinese communist party; 2) the best way to make the planet healthier and happier is not eating more kangaroos but eating vegans, ideally with ginger and black bean sauce. Yes, that was vegans, not veggies.

The way this column works is that we raise questions about national identity, and the readers answer them, usually by shredding conventional wisdoms. When I observed that Australian history, as traditionally taught, was likely to leave students with the impression that they lived in one of the most boring countries on earth, 57 readers replied.

Many urged the inclusion of more information about the people who were here before 1770. But Kate, who finished high school in 2005, complained: "Every year between year 3 and year 10 it was witchetty grubs, boomerangs, dispossession or reconciliation depending on how old you were. These are all very valuable topics and should be studied, but on and off for SEVEN YEARS? The statement that we were about to study either Australian or Aboriginal history was usually met with a groan.

"My favourite topics were the Cold War (and the Cuban Missile Crisis), the historiography (not history) of the Crusades, China under the CCP and the Industrial Revolution. Everything I've learnt in those subjects I've used a hundredfold since entering university. No one has asked me about witchetty grubs though...."

More here







More "boat people" headed for Australia

Take a bow, Mr Rudd

Australia's Opposition says the Government should re-examine changes to Australia's immigration laws after the arrest of 20 Sri Lankan and Indonesian nationals in East Timor.

East Timor authorities say the men were arrested as they prepared to board a fishing boat bound for Australia. They are said to have admitted they planned to travel to Australia without proper documentation.

The Opposition's Immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone says she's concerned that immigration authorities have now intercepted four boats since the Government made changes to immigration regulations earlier this year. "I have got no doubt people smugglers have taken great comfort and they are having a good hard look at whether all of this is worth while making the quick short rush to Australia," she said.

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Tasmaniam Premier rebuts Greenies over forestry

TASMANIAN Premier David Bartlett has sided with the forest industry in a fierce debate with conservationists about whether old-growth forests should be protected as reservoirs of carbon. Mr Bartlett told The Australian that calls by the conservation movement to suspend old-growth logging, because of evidence they might be more valuable as carbon sinks, were nonsense.

"This is bulls**t - this is just not true," the Premier said. "They can make that claim at the moment because Kyoto Protocol accounting for timber got it totally wrong. "When you chop down a tree under Kyoto and you burn it, or you alternatively turn it into a high-value coffee table, it's accounted for in exactly the same way. And that is clearly false. "If you burn a tree, obviously the carbon is realised. If you turn it into a coffee table, that carbon is sequestered for life or for a very bloody long time."

Australian National University researchers recently found that old-growth forests in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania stored up to three times the amount of carbon that was previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The research - criticised by industry because it was funded by the Wilderness Society, but strongly defended by the ANU - concludes that old-growth forests are more reliable as carbon sinks than as plantations because the latter are more vulnerable to fire, disease and disturbance.

Mr Bartlett is unconvinced. He said the current round of global climate change talks should ensure the carbon-storing abilities of forest products were factored into carbon accounting. "I don't think the logging of old-growth forests is necessarily related to climate change," Mr Bartlett said. "Tasmania emits 1.2 per cent of the nation's emissions and Australia emits 1.5 per cent of the global emissions. And 86 per cent of our old-growth forests (in 2004) remain locked up, never to be touched. "I don't think stopping the logging of old-growth forests in Tasmania is really pivotal to world history when it comes to climate change."

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"Prenuptial" rights for same-sex and unmarried couples

I think this is rather a good idea. You should not have to get married in order to have a financial agreement between cohabiting partners

UNMARRIED and same sex-couples may soon be able to sign "prenups", giving de factos many of the same legal rights as those who are wed. Reforms to the Family Law Act before the Senate would allow agreements to be drawn up by de factos to cover spousal and child maintenance, as well as the division of property in the event of a relationship breakup.

The principal of Nicholes Family Lawyers, Sally Nicholes, said the proposed financial agreements were similar to official binding financial agreements or prenuptials as they are widely known.

The bill was circulated in Federal Parliament on September 18 and is awaiting consideration by the Senate. If the legislation is passed, it is expected to be enacted by March. A de facto relationship can be heterosexual or homosexual and can exist even if one of the people involved is legally married to someone else or has another de facto partner. The legislation will also mean that a court can force a partner out of the home if they are violent or acting inappropriately to the other person. "This is pretty dramatic stuff and it is a big change," Ms Nicholes said. "It is going to be huge, particularly with the spousal maintenance. "What I have often found amazing is that someone could be in a de facto relationship for 30 years and have no obligation for spousal maintenance. But you could be married for one year and have more rights."

She agreed that the amendments may make marriage a less attractive prospect for some couples. "It just depends on how legally minded a couple are," she said. "[But] some will come back to romance - to actually get married not for legal reasons, but romance." Ms Nicholes said financial agreements were already common in second marriages or in the case of de facto relationships where people had been married before and were "burnt" by the divorce. Agreements may also be necessary in cases where clients expected large inheritances or to avoid family conflict when one partner comes from greater wealth.

Prenups have been in force in Australia since December 2000, although public perception has changed greatly since then, Ms Nicholes said. "Prior to the introduction of the laws in 2001, public perception did attribute prenups to American legal shows in the realm of Arena Becker from LA Law," she said. "The profession has seen a request from average Joes who simply want to control their affairs and determine their destiny rather than [allow] a court [to]. "They may have seen friends or relatives at the end of a harrowing divorce litigation and knowing such agreements are in force, chose to enter into them to control their affairs in the event of a relationship breakdown."

Under the legislation, courts will determine whether a couple are involved in a de facto relationship by taking a number of factors into account, including the duration of the partnership, whether they are living together, whether a sexual relationship exists, the degree of financial dependence and the ownership of property.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG comments on the Labor Party rout in the NSW by-elections.





I am guilty as charged of bias and prejudice

By Peter Slezak

Sleazy Peter is not joking in the article excerpted below. He is indeed a far-Leftist bigot, though one with a nice voice. He is even one of those most execrable characters: An anti-Israel Jew. But everything he says below is reasonable -- on one condition: That viewpoints opposed to his are also frequently presented to students. That does not happen, of course. If he really believed in the sorts of things he advocates below, he would be preaching conservatism and reaction to his students -- because no-one else is. When will his students hear a lecture from Peter on the good points of the old White Australia policy, for instance? There is a philosophically-sophisticated lecture outline for him here. Such a lecture would be a REAL Socratic challenge to authority

I should probably be writing under a pseudonym. If submissions to the Senate inquiry into bias and academic freedom are taken seriously, I'm in trouble. As a university lecturer, I confess my teaching and publications are thoroughly biased, riddled with prejudice and entirely lacking in even-handedness.

I am undeniably guilty of the sins the submissions warn against. My reading lists are not representative of all points of view. My lectures not only criticise but sometimes ridicule views I regard as misguided and pernicious nonsense - often the views of other colleagues. I vigorously assert my prejudices without any pretence of neutrality. I confront my students and provoke them to defend their views, especially when I disagree with them, which is most of the time. In short, I am precisely the kind of academic who some submissions propose to deal with by means that include disciplinary procedures and even sacking.....

Like regular charges of left-wing bias against the ABC, the moral panic evident in submissions to the Senate inquiry rests on a certain implicit, though questionable, assumption - namely, that only deviation from prevailing orthodoxy constitutes bias. Conventional views are presumed neutral, and the possibility is never entertained they may be invisibly, systematically biased in the other direction. It follows that the regular complaints of bias and proposed remedies are a form of harassment designed to maintain doctrinal conformity....

However, the highest educational ideals require precisely the reverse attitude - that is, encouraging the exploration of alternatives to preferred, taken-for-granted views. As Bertrand Russell remarked, education should make students think, not to think what their teacher (or government) thinks.....

In his classic 1859 essay On Liberty, J.S. Mill famously articulated the principles at stake: the need to protect and, indeed, encourage unpopular opinion against the "tyranny of the majority". This tyranny may be "more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since... it leaves fewer means of escape .... enslaving the soul itself".

Mill argues counter-intuitively that preventing opinions from being heard because they are regarded as not merely false but immoral, impious or pernicious is the case that is "most fatal", for "these are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes, which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity".

Socrates and Christ were put to death for challenging authority. Mill says their executors were not bad men; on the contrary they were "men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and people".

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'Activist' academics black-list under fire

Academics named as militant left-wing ideologues in a black list tabled in federal parliament claim they are victims of a Young Liberals "witch-hunt". While many of the black-listed academics admit that humanities and social science faculties are dominated by progressives, they say bias is not a serious problem in Australian universities. The list of more than 30 academics who are described as "unashamed activists for political and ideological causes such as radical feminism, animal rights and gay rights" has been published on the Young Liberals' website. It was submitted to a Senate inquiry on academic freedom in schools and universities.

Among those on the Young Liberals' list are controversial philosopher Peter Singer, feminist and activist Eva Cox, former ABC Four Corners producer and now journalism lecturer Peter Manning, and UNSW's Sarah Maddison. [What? The openly Communist Hannah Middleton is missed out?]

"The way they've gone about this has the smell of a witch-hunt," said Dr Maddison, senior associate dean in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of NSW. "They don't want to create public discussion about the quality of education, they want to score political points." Dr Maddison - an expert in women's rights and indigenous politics - said "there is probably a grain of truth" in the notion that humanities academics are more left-wing than the general population. Regular student feedback surveys and existing grievance policies already protected against bias, she said. [How?]

UNSW deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Richard Henry said he had full confidence in the independence and integrity of his staff. "It's ironic that in the name of academic freedom people have created a black list that decreases academic freedom." He said the Senate inquiry into academic freedom - due to report on November 11 - was a waste of taxpayers' money.

Young Liberals national president Noel McCoy, who compiled the list from student complaints and his own Google searching, disagreed. "We don't want a dependent society of zombies who have only had the opportunity to hear one set of ideas," he said. Mr McCoy said that 49 out of the 68 submissions to the inquiry argued that bias was a problem in Australian schools and universities.

Wendy Bacon, program director of journalism at Sydney's University of Technology, said the list was about "mud-slinging and branding", not academic freedom. [Wendy comes from an old Communist family and has been far-Left as long as anyone can remember]

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WA coroner's call to kill free speech

Evelyn is out of her depth. The old "D notice" system dealt with this problem. It just was not used

Western Australia's deputy coroner says police should be given powers to suppress news reports that may compromise their investigations. But media experts have attacked the proposal as an affront to free speech that would put WA in danger of becoming a police state.

The calls for new police powers follow a year of scrutiny of Perth media, including a raid on the Sunday Times newspaper by armed police in an attempt to find the source of a story that embarrassed the previous Carpenter government. The Corruption and Crime Commission has also used its extraordinary powers to grill six journalists in private hearings in the past two years in an effort to identify their sources.

Deputy coroner Evelyn Vicker made the recommendation while handing down her findings into the death of convicted murderer Simon Rochford, who committed suicide in his Albany Prison cell just hours after seeing a television news report in May 2006 naming him as the new suspect in a high-profile murder case. Rochford became embroiled in the 1994 Pamela Lawrence murder after a police cold case review discovered a previously unidentified palm print from the crime scene. Andrew Mallard's 1995 conviction for the Lawrence murder was quashed by the High Court in 2005.

Ms Vicker found that the ABC television news report naming Rochford "precipitated" his decision to commit suicide. Ms Vicker recommended that the Government consider giving WA police legislative power to seek an order suppressing information that might seriously compromise an ongoing investigation into a serious offence.

But Joseph Fernandez, a journalism lecturer at Curtin University, said the proposal was disturbing. "I fear that what we are witnessing is the laying of foundations of insidious creep of control over freedom of speech in general and the media's freedom to investigate and report on matters of public interest," he said.

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance state secretary Michael Sinclair-Jones said such powers would be an affront to the public's right to know. "WA is in danger of becoming a police state where the public right to know is treated as a crime," he said. "Police are already in serious trouble over the wrongful jailing of Andrew Mallard for 12 years. Now authorities want greater secrecy. It's absurd."

He said senior police had every opportunity to ask the ABC's crime reporter, Sue Short, not to name Rochford as a suspect and to warn prison authorities that Rochford would be named in the news bulletin. "Had police taken either step, Mr Rochford might still be alive," he said.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said he would consider giving police new suppression powers. "As far as the recommendation that legislative action is required, I am open minded to such an approach and will seek further advice on how such legislation might be effected," he said. "There is a balance that must be found when it comes to freedom of information on the one hand and the need for police to conduct operations out of the public eye, on the other."

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said he would seek legal advice on how police powers to suppress information would work and whether such powers would be in the public interest. "Ultimately the decision to grant police such powers rests with the Government," he said.

Ms Vicker found that police did not directly ask Ms Short not to name Rochford. She recommended that in the future police formally request a story not to be published when it believed the information would seriously prejudice an investigation. Recommendations were also made for police to use a more collaborative approach when dealing with the media. It was also recommended that police inform prison staff of significant events in the investigation of sentenced prisoners.

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Climate plan to cause huge unemployment

More than ever, it is all about numbers in the political arena at the moment as the Rudd Government confronts the global market meltdown and the steps needed to counter the dangers of economic recession. Employment statistics, declining economic growth data and billions of dollars pumped into selected community pockets to encourage retail spending are all suddenly news.

Which makes it the more interesting that Climate Change Minister Penny Wong could deliver a 14-page speech last week to the London School of Economics on the Government's emissions trading plans without even mentioning the challenge of implementing the policy while not losing many of the million-plus people employed in Australia's energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries. The speech was delivered far away as the $10.4 billion Rudd rescue package for retailers, via consumer pockets, was being unveiled, so it slipped under the domestic media radar.

Wong found time and space to trot out statistics about Australia's per capita emissions but not to mention that more than 70per cent of the growth in national electricity consumption since 1990 has been business related and facilitated by access tosome of the world's cheapest, coal-fired power. In round terms, power stations in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, which supply most of Australia's power and a large part of generation-based emissions, are burning 20million tonnes more black coal and 21.5million tonnes more brown coal today than in 1990, and this is feeding business demand that is three-quarters more than it was then.

One-third of total electricity consumed is used by the energy-intensive manufacturers, another number that would have provided context to the data used by Wong.

She took the opportunity of the speech, delivered soon after her colleague Wayne Swan had ducked a television current affairs question about whether the global crisis might cause the Government to put off implementation of emissions trading, to strenuously assert the need for sticking to the mid-2010 deadline.

There is another set of numbers that may be of some interest to the Treasurer - and to Kevin Rudd - in the context of ensuring that the community is able to continue to spend enough to sustain the national economy. They are to be found in Australian Bureau of Statistics data on employment and pay in Australian manufacturing industries. The latest ABS data shows that the manufacturing sector employed 1,063,000 people directly in 2006 and paid them $51billion in salaries and wages.

Wong managed to devote almost two pages of her LSE speech to the hypothetical potential for Australia to become a world leader in clean energy, a regional hub for global trading in emissions and a bigger agricultural product power in the world as a result of an aggressive approach to greenhouse gas abatement without even a passing glance for what jobs already exist here and how much they are worth to the economy.

The additional jobs downstream of manufacturing businesses are harder to calculate but, as an example, the pulp and paper manufacturing industry, which employs 19,000 people, mainly in rural and regional communities, has undertaken research that shows it generates 1.3 indirect jobs for every direct one. Which tends to suggest that manufacturers overall could be responsible for another million jobs in businesses servicing their operations.

The "unintended consequence" risks of emissions trading to the economy are well illustrated by the pulp and paper mills. They have virtually no capability to pass on extra costs to customers because they are exposed to vigorous international competition - from countries such as China, Brazil and Indonesia - within Australia as well as overseas. Overseas suppliers have managed to grab 40per cent of the Australian papermarket. As the sector is striving to get across to Wong and her colleagues, if the domestic mills become non-viable and close in the medium term, there is a flow-through effect to tree growers and sawmillers.

Overall, the forest industry employs more than 80,000 Australians. Ultimately, argue the millers, if they fail, fewer trees will be planted (because the growers have less income), less timber will be available to the construction industry (because the sawmillers will be less viable) and more concrete and steel will be used in buildings, involving an increase in carbon emissions.

How much of this information will be on the table when federal cabinet finally comes to make a decision about emissions trading - not just when to introduce it but, even more important, how to support emissions-intensive, trade-exposed domestic industries against global rivals - is anybody's guess. Wong's focus is transparently on positioning the Government on the high ground for the critical negotiations on a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty at a meeting to be held in Copenhagen in 14 months. Who in the cabinet, therefore, has responsibility for ensuring that this ground is not made up of the rubble of the Australian manufacturing sector?

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Only the best will do for Greenies

A government department advocating environmentally-friendly practices used $18,000 worth of paper shipped from Italy to print a report. The highly-awaited draft report of climate change economist Ross Garnaut snubbed Australian-made paper in favour of a better-quality Italian brand.

The printing costs of the report, released in July, left taxpayers with a bill of $70,000 for the 600 copies, a Question on Notice asked by Liberal Party Tasmania Senator Eric Abetz revealed. However, when asked how many "carbon miles" were used to bring the paper into Australia, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said it had not been calculated or offset.

She said her department picked up the tab for printing the report and 9Lives80 paper was used because all "virgin pulp used in manufacture is derived from well-managed forests and manufactured by certified mills". "There were two Australian-made options which were assessed by the printer as being of lower quality," she said.

Senator Wong said Professor Garnaut's travel and accommodation expenses paid by the department had reached $14,000 at August 13. She said the department had also provided him with $200,000 in staffing resources. "The department pays 35 per cent of Professor Garnaut's total mobile phone bill," she said. "As at August 13, $1539.45 has been paid by the Department of Climate Change. "Professor Garnaut has not been provided with a Commonwealth vehicle nor has he chosen to claim his vehicle allowance."

The revelations came as new information revealed that millions of dollars were spent on wages for media management and public affairs by the Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts Department and its agencies. A Question on Notice by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Nick Minchin of the Liberal Party, revealed that about 64 staff have been employed to disseminate the Government's spin. Wages for the staff have reached about $4.5 million a year.

The department, headed by Environment Minister Peter Garrett, directly employed 28 people who were "responsible for communicating and raising awareness of Australian Government policies and programs". The other staff were shared between nine government agencies.

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Elitist advertisements for Australia will appeal to few

It's no-spin name spells it out: Tourism Australia is meant to sell Australia to tourists. Lots of them. But now check Tourism Australia's new Come Walkabout ads: it's decided instead to sell spiritual therapy to urban salvation-seekers. These two commercials, released this week and destined for screening in 22 countries, are invitations to a church, not a holiday. And to a very exclusive, family-unfriendly church, with not even the hint this time of Lara Bingle's famous bouncing breasts.

Sigh. Loosen up, guys. Once again, the taxpayer-funded Tourism Australia has fallen to the modern temptation to preach, rather than please. Forgetting its last disaster, it's spending $40 million to advertise not Australia, but its own chic, green-tinged sensibilities. What's most remarkable is not that director Baz Luhrmann's new ads are the first for Tourism Australia that spend more time on New York and Shanghai than on the country they're actually meant to be selling. It's that the only glimpses shown of Australia are of the very bits few foreign tourists bother to visit.

Forget Sydney, with its bridge or Opera House. The Gold Coast, with its hotels. The Reef, with its resorts. Melbourne, with its MCG. Ha! That's just where the crude crowds in their novelty T-shirts flock by the planeload. This time we're flogging places where few tourist buses go and no trains reach - outback places where jaded urbanites fancy they can commune with the Nature gods of tribal peoples, far from modern man and his buildings.

Luhrmann actually opens one of his two commercials in rainy New York, showing us a chic professional woman, perched over a late-night laptop, and losing it with the stress. Her partner is whingeing to her on the phone: "It's always work. You're not the same person I fell in love with." A hundred years ago, a woman in such existential despair may have consulted a priest. Thirty years ago, she'd go for a shrink. And 10 years ago, she'd go to a life-skills workshop by some guru she saw on Oprah. But this is 2008, and salvation comes instead from a little Aboriginal boy, near naked, whose mere presence turns off televisions, computers and all the electronic machines of busy-busy. He pours sparkling red dust in her hand and whispers: "Sometimes we have to get lost to find ourselves, sometimes we have to go walkabout." How wonderfully mystic! And just how I plan my own holidays, consulting not a travel brochure but a fistful of dirt.

Only then does Luhrmann shift the scene to Australia, with Professional Woman and Whinger plunging into what may look like the pure waters of Katherine Gorge, but is actually Nature's own baptismal font. You see, these urban spiritualists have just been reborn. Professional Woman emerges glowing newly, and the captions proclaim: "She arrived as Ms K. Mathieson, Executive VP of Sales. She departed as Kate." As Luhrmann, director of Moulin Rouge, explains: "The land itself, the place itself, transforms her character." Mine, too, as you can tell.

Lurhmann's Shanghai ad tells of the same awakening. This time it's a stressed, emotionally dead Chinese finance manager who gets dust dropped into his hand, leading him to dance at dusk on a dining table set on a patch of our vast Outback. How marvellously that will play to the kind of privileged professionals who salve their monied conscience by buying Wilderness Society calendars for their en suite and carrying their French brie home in green bags.

But I'm looking at these ads as an ever-eager tourist and wondering, what would my kids be doing while I bathed in spirituality? Where would we shop afterwards? Where would we stay? How much time and money would it take to actually get to these distant places? And what would we do the next day? Oops. Did I just break wind in church? But you see, there's a reason why just 150 foreign tourists a day visit Katherine Gorge, many of them backpackers with skinny wallets not worth fighting over. And there's a reason you'll find tens of thousands at places where there's plenty to see, lots to do and enough Australians around to make them feel welcome. Like reef cruises. Wildlife parks. Big cities. Stuff for the kids.

Most tourists are, after all, more pragmatic than religious, and want to fill their too-few days of vacation with fun and value, rather than ommmms and clapping sticks, with a long and dusty trek afterwards to the airport. I'd have thought Tourism Australia knew that already, given the history of its own ad campaigns.

Paul Hogan's "shrimp on the barbie" ads, after all, remain the most famous and loved, remembered even today by many who saw them 20 years ago. How irresistible was his Australia - of beaches, bikinis, barbecues and an Opera House on the sun-lit harbour. It was an Australia populated by charming people who said "g'day" in charming accents, and not at all like Luhrmann's - at its best without a local to be seen or endured. It worked, of course. Tourism to Australia doubled in the five years Hogan's ads played.

But such happy populism has always had its critics in our creative class. The artist-feeding Australia Council, for instance, said the Hogan ads made it "cringe", and Tourism Australia must have grown equally sensitive because in 2004 it decided to give us more tone. You won't remember most of the ads it shot in that $120 million "See Australia" campaign because half were so bad they were scrapped before they were even released.

One showed Aboriginal artist Barbara Weir, sitting in red dirt in faded clothes, quoting DH Lawrence in her local language and painting dots. Another had poet Les Murray reciting lines from his work: "Shorts in that plain like are an angelic nudity. Spirituality with pockets!" And a third had a Brett Whiteley seascape come to animated life, to the gasps of Michael Parkinson. They may have catered only to our pretentions, but the Australia Council hailed them as "sophisticated, subtle and sexy". Yes, as travel ads they worked. Trouble was, those who saw them wanted to travel fast to any place but where they were, or were watching.

Chastened, Tourism Australia flicked the switch back to more traditional fare of kangaroos on golf courses and Bingle on the beach wondering: "Where the bloody hell are you?" - perky stuff that saw traffic to its website leap 30 per cent in a year.

But the arts lovers have waited for their chance to seize back Tourism Australia, which seems the last battlefield of the culture wars. And now they have it. The Bingle ads were a bungle, declares new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - "a rolled gold disaster" - overlooking the fact that any dip in tourism had more to do with our dollar having gone up a third in value, pricing us out of many budgets.

So now we have Luhrmann, selling his Church of New Age Australia. What was Tourism Australia thinking? Well, maybe it figured it could double the impact of its tight budget by commissioning ads that tie in closely to Lurhmann's outback epic, Australia, out in cinemas next month. I guess it's banking on the film being a look-at-us smash, even though it stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

But I suspect from the launch ads that Luhrmann may have also given in to the fashionable urge to improve us locals, rather than lure in strangers. In introducing the star of his ads, 12-year-old Brandon Walters, also in Australia, he made a boast that showed his heart of Reconciliation gold: "Our next leading man is about four foot high, (with) long, sort of gold hair, and is an Aboriginal boy." A sweet and noble art-house conceit. But rather unlikely, to be bluntly pragmatic. Which is a lot like the vision sold by Tourism Australia's ads, really, and the hopes that rest on them.

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A disastrously mismanaged NSW ambulance service

After a decade of wall-to-wall inquiries, the NSW Ambulance Service still fails its noble undertaking on care, at least to its own workers. As health mottos go, the NSW Ambulance Service's Excellence in Care is an efficient mantra. But once the service had loftier ambitions. "Together," said its old motto, "we will be the world leader in ambulance services, providing a shield of protection to our community." Now its ability to deliver excellence and protection has been questioned. How can it deliver to the community, when it cannot guarantee a protective work culture for its employees?

The ambulance service has been the subject of 11 inquiries since 2001; the latest, expected to hand down its findings on Monday, has been inundated with hundreds of disturbing stories of abuse, bullying and harassment. Barely 24 hours before the NSW upper house inquiry began in July, a Premier's Department review of the service concluded serious operational and workforce issues were harming the welfare of ambulance officers.

In opening the upper house inquiry, the chairwoman Robyn Parker said it was called in response to concerns "raised by ambulance officers and the community with members of Parliament and in the public domain regarding, in particular, bullying, harassment, intimidation and occupational health and safety issues". Parker said this week that a decade of ignoring the issue had to stop. "I guess what I really feel personally now is that I see an ambulance officer and I want to go up and hug them . We call triple-0 and we expect them to turn up and we don't expect that they're not treated well. "The community holds them in such high regard yet the services and the structure and the government is not matching that with the resources they need to do the job. The ambulance service has got to breaking point."

The inquiry heard tales of officers unable to endure the lengthy complaints management system - criticised by the Health Services Union as being so aggressive it was a form of bullying in itself - who gave up and went on stress leave.Others obtained apprehended violence orders against officers; some committed suicide. For too many officers, management's repeated failure to even address their problems exacerbated their pain.

The service has responded. A harassment taskforce was set up last year, and a healthy workforce summit was held last May. Still, ambulance service research shows 75 per cent of the 3105 paramedics are unhappy and the rate of sick leave outstrips the average for other health department employees, including nurses.

Officers have inquiry fatigue and say significant cultural change in dealing with bullying and harassment will not occur without an overhaul of the executive. They are also critical of the union for apparent inaction. They hold out some hope this inquiry will be different, given its independence from ministers and ambulance bureaucrats, but acknowledge implementation of recommendations depends on government.

Carlo Caponecchia, a University of NSW psychologist, told the inquiry that bullying and harassment were unsurprising, given the stress in ambulance officers' jobs. "Things like fatigue, rostering, being stationed in the country without ever knowing when you are going to leave, lack of career progression - all these kinds of things . need to be dealt with." Caponecchia said there was no evidence to suggest bullying and harassment in the ambulance service was worse than elsewhere. But workers' health and wellbeing were affected, regardless of the individual's personality.

The director-general of NSW Health, Professor Debora Picone, told the inquiry the ambulance service tended to operate on an old-fashioned "command and control type structure from the military" that was at the root of some of its bullying and harassment problems. Picone believes that bullying and harassment are "in pockets rather than widespread". Bullying and harassment are compounded by workplace and operational problems. Officers complained of the difficulty of getting holidays or transfers approved, of the lack of counselling after traumatic events, and how overtime was essential to a satisfactory wage, yet it caused fatigue.

Face-to-face counselling was used 544 times in the past 12 months, but Picone told the inquiry post-traumatic support was employed only once. This raises questions about the adequacy of "debriefing" services, particularly as international research shows stress is one factor increasing the likelihood of workplace bullying.

The ambulance service's chief executive, Greg Rochford, concedes that officers have traditionally been promoted to management without being trained in people skills or conflict resolution. And Picone says it is planned to have all 400 operational managers trained in complaints handling by the end of the year.

But Dennis Ravlich, a Health Services Union official, was scathing at the inquiry about the service's inability to turn things around. "The Premier's Department review and a number of reviews that we have participated in over the previous eight or nine years consistently identify issues that the service needs to do better. Yet no one is accountable, 10 or eight years later." He said that in investigating complaints or disciplinary matters the service's professional standards and conduct unit "has almost institutionalised a rather aggressive approach to staff - indeed, almost to the point of being harassing in itself", and that reports on bullying allegations "drop into a big black abyss".

Parker told the Herald on Thursday: "This has gone for so long, and the chief executive officer [Greg Rochford] and the Government has been clearly aware of this issue for more than 10 years now, and a broom needs to be swept through the service, starting at the top. "Ambulance officers painted a bleak picture of their workplace. It was just so dysfunctional, the morale so low. There was so much unresolved conflict and time and time again we heard about this nepotistic old boys' club; it just has to change."

More here





Labor Party punished in NSW, ACT elections

It might be noted that the Labor party also lost control of Western Australia recently. The widespread losses should keep Kevvy from getting too cocky

NEW South Wales Labor's worst by-election fears have been realised, with massive swings against the state government in three Sydney seats yesterday including a rout by the Liberal Party in the seat of Ryde. Labor is set to suffer swings of at least 20 per cent against it in Ryde and Cabramatta and a double-digit swing in Lakemba.

Liberal candidate Victor Dominello has claimed victory in Ryde, previously held by former deputy premier John Watkins by a 10 per cent margin. It was the first time the north-western Sydney seat has been won on the primary vote. While in Cabramatta the count will go to preferences, the predicted 22 per cent swing to Liberal candidate Dai Le will not be enough for her to wrest the seat from Labor's Nick Lalich. Former minister Reba Meagher held the seat for the ALP with a 29 per cent margin.

Labor's Rob Furolo has retained former premier Morris Iemma's vacated seat of Lakemba. But Liberal Michael Hawatt has eroded the 34 per cent margin previously held by Labor and ended its time as the ALP's safest seat in the state. The Greens also enjoyed success in Lakemba, more than tripling their primary vote from the 2007 state election.

Premier Nathan Rees had expected his government would receive a "kick in the pants'' for its poor performance in the 18 months since the 2007 election. A spokesman for the premier tonight said that was exactly what the government had received. "The voters in these three electorates have sent a very strong message and we have heard their message loud and clear,'' he said. "The people of NSW expect big changes and we now begin the task of rebuilding the credibility in this government brick by brick and delivering the services that they expect.''

Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said the strong showing from the Liberal Party in all three by-elections showed that people want change in NSW. "It's a verdict on the future and it demonstrated that people have voted to start the change - change to open, honest and accountable government,'' Mr O'Farrell said. "One that finally focuses on people's needs, not on the needs of politicians.''

The Liberal's coalition partners, the Nationals, appear to have failed in their bid to reclaim their once-safe seat of Port Macquarie on the mid-north coast. The seat was vacated by former National-turned-independent MP Rob Oakeshott when he made a successful transition to federal parliament. Mr Oakeshott's former staffer Peter Besseling looks set to keep the seat in the hands of the independents, fending off the Nationals' Leslie Williams. With seven independents on the card, the seat will be decided on preferences.

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Most say crime sentences are too lenient

People have been saying this for years but governments would rather hire more clerks than build more prisons. The bureaucrat below tries to spin his way out of the obvious but my own study of the matter is not suceptible to the evasions which are possible when interpreting the simple-minded survey reported below

Two thirds of NSW people surveyed on public confidence in the legal system believe criminal sentences are too lenient, a new report claims. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research's first report on public confidence in sentencing and knowledge of the legal system says 66 per cent feel sentences are either "a little lenient" or "much too lenient".

However, BOCSAR director Don Weatherburn said many of the 2000 people surveyed were also misinformed or "seriously mistaken" about crime and the criminal justice system. "When we analyse the data we found that those most dissatisfied with the justice system are also the most mistaken about crime conviction and sentencing," he told reporters today.

Dr Weatherburn said the high level of dissatisfaction could not be simply dismissed as a case of "public ignorance", as some concerns might be justified. But he said the media, and particularly talkback radio and tabloid newspapers, were responsible for misconceptions. "Most of the influential sources of information about the criminal justice system is the media, that's why it's so important for the media to get the facts right," Dr Weatherburn said. "That's something which I think in my experience increasingly is not happening."

Retired Supreme Court judge John Dunford, who is also deputy chair of the NSW Sentencing Council, told reporters more needed to be done to educate people about the sentencing process and dispel the myths.

Dr Weatherburn said if people did not have faith in the system there was a risk they would take matters into their own hands. "I think it's dangerous for people to lose confidence in the justice system when there isn't sufficient ground to do so," he said. "I think that's the worry, when people start thinking the justice system is not doing its job and they start thinking they should take justice into their own hands."

The survey found 72 per cent of people are "very" or "fairly confident" the justice system respected the rights of accused persons and treated them fairly. Just over half were "confident" or "very confident" that the criminal justice system brought people to justice.

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Public broadcaster reform

The devil will be in the detail. Focusing on board membership is in any case a red herring. The board has little influence on programming. It is the hard-Left staff who are the big political problem

The ABC and SBS face a possible merger and their boards are to be "de-politicised" in sweeping reforms announced by the Federal Government. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy signalled that the ABC and SBS were facing significant challenges and needed better accountability. Among the more contentious proposals is the possible merger of some ABC and SBS operations, including transmission and some operations.

Politicians and their staff will be banned from the boards so prime ministers can't make appointments from "Christmas card lists". Senator Conroy said former prime minister John Howard had used his "Christmas card list" in determining who should fill positions on the boards. Board vacancies will now be filled by public advertisements - beginning today. Former politicians and senior political staff will be ineligible for selection.

Senator Conroy yesterday also released a new discussion paper on the "digital future" of the two national public broadcasters, canvassing a range of ideas including that some aspects be shared. Senator Conroy and ABC managing director Mark Scott said potential savings from pooling some functions should be examined. "We think there are opportunities for efficiencies to be made whilst ensuring the independence and integrity of two great public broadcasters," Mr Scott said. "Of course that should be investigated properly."

The position of a staff-elected director to the ABC board will be reinstated and applications for board vacancies will be assessed by a nomination panel set up at "arm's length" from the minister. The measures, based on election commitments, will be outlined in draft legislation to be introduced soon.

A discussion paper on "merit and transparency" to the ABC and SBS boards said public broadcasters needed to have the best-qualified and most experienced members to meet future challenges. "With the expected proliferation of internet-based services, traditional broadcasting may not continue to hold the same degree of influence it had in an analog world," the paper said.

And it means current or former local, state or federal parliamentarians will be ineligible for appointment, as will current or former senior political staff. The prime minister will select the ABC chairman in consultation with the minister of the day. The prime minister will then consult with cabinet and the opposition leader before making a recommendation to the governor-general.

Consultation will allow the public to have their say on the future of the ABC and SBS over the next two months. The Government will consider submissions ahead of the next three-year funding agreement for national broadcasters, which begins in the middle of next year.

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More deadbeat NSW public hospitals

How disgraceful that it takes big publicity in order to get a hospital to pay its bills

Shoalhaven Hospital, on the South Coast, came close to halting all surgery recently because it had just a day's worth of sterilisation solution left due to unpaid bills, a senior doctor says. The head of surgery, Associate Professor Martin Jones, told the Herald the hospital was also put on "stop supply" 10 days ago for cataract lenses - the second time in two months - by a supplier tired of waiting for bills to be paid. "We just haven't paid our bills," he said. "All the sterilisation in theatre was coming to an end and we didn't have the supply to go for more than 24 hours. "The hospital would have to close . because nothing would be sterilised."

He said the bill was paid urgently and the supply ban lifted after he had wasted considerable time chasing management about the problem. "We who are working on the ground in getting the simple operations done to look after the rural people of the health service just don't need that as a frustration," he said. "We do run very close to the bone in a large number of supply goods."

The Herald understands tens of millions of dollars are owed to medical suppliers by four area health services - Northern Sydney Central Coast, Greater Southern, South Eastern Sydney Illawarra and Greater Western. The NSW Health Department has refused to reveal how much it owes and has gagged its area health services. South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health did not respond to Professor Jones's claims.

The state Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said she had been contacted by several businesses over recent months complaining about unpaid bills. One company, Leeton Diagnostic Imaging, confirmed yesterday it was owed $35,752 from May until two weeks ago. Yass air-conditioning mechanic Touie Smith was owed $18,386.50 for accumulated bills from April until the end of August, when they were finally paid.

Roger Christie, who owns Merimbula Taxi Service, said he has been owed $4423.65 since July for transporting patients and blood from Pambula to Bega hospital. As he has the only taxi service in the area he said he felt obliged to continue servicing the health department. "Obviously, I would prefer the money was in my bank and not their's. It's an ongoing thing. I got a call at 1.30 this morning to take blood . because someone had a car accident. It was an emergency so I can't really say no," he said.

The State Government has had to release $11 million urgently in the past few weeks to cover debts to suppliers after many refused to grant credit to NSW hospitals.

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Homosexual marriage issue back on the boil

Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has carpeted one of his own backbenchers as tensions flare in the Coalition over changes to same-sex laws. In a key test of Coalition partyroom unity, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has slammed the proposed changes as "offensive". He said they would make same-sex couples "virtually identical" to conventional marriage.

Amid concerns the Liberal leader is taking the party too far to the Left, several Coalition MPs claim Mr Turnbull's support is driven by concerns about a voter backlash in his inner-Sydney seat. "Malcolm views everything through the prism of how it will play out in Wentworth," one Liberal MP said.

The proposed changes to same-sex laws are designed to ensure these couples enjoy the same financial and work-related entitlements as opposite-sex families. But a Senate committee has raised concerns over the legislative changes, which refer to children as a "product" of a relationship. This has incensed some Coalition MPs who claim the laws will undermine traditional marriage. Senator Bernardi claimed the changes suggested mothers were "little more than an incubator".

Mr Turnbull has been a long-standing advocate of gay rights -- his electorate has the largest gay population of any electorate in Australia. He spoke to Senator Bernardi after his parliamentary spray and sources claimed the talks were robust. Senator Bernardi refused to comment last night. He had claimed the draft laws would undermine traditional marriage, which had taken a "beating" during the past 30 years. "We do not expect the RSL to broaden their membership to include bohemian peaceniks, we do not ask the Country Women's Association to include men and we do not ask the National Rugby League or the AFL to include women in their teams," Senator Bernardi said. "Why is it then that we defy the same sort of logic when it comes to marriage?"

The Liberal senator said he knew he would be called a "homophobe" but other Liberal MPs also worry the Coalition is racing to back the Government's reforms before proper debate. Former Howard government minister Chris Ellison blasted the Coalition's shadow attorney-general George Brandis during a lively partyroom debate this week.

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Greenie crocodile stupidity

There's tens of thousands of them in the far North; probably hundreds of thousands. There is no way they would be "endangered" if all the ones found in close proximity to people were shot immediately. Two separate stories below:



1). A huge crocodile has been terrorising road workers building a bridge in the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland's northwest after a rival male was shot and beheaded by trophy hunters. Wildlife rangers revealed the 5.8m crocodile had become highly aggressive in the aftermath of the illegal killing three weeks ago of its smaller rival.

Police and Environmental Protection Agency officers have been investigating the mystery shooting, which has upset both locals and crocodiles. Officers said the big croc has since been stalking and lunging at construction crews working on the Albert River near Burketown. "He is a monster and he is very upset," said Carpentaria Land Council ranger co-ordinator Kevin Anderson. "He has been hanging around the bridge and snapping and lunging at anything in the water. Those workers need eyes in their backsides."

Mr Anderson said the huge bull croc became enraged when the dead body of the killed crocodile, a rival male living upstream, floated through his territory. Workers at the construction site used a large crane to pull the dead 4.4m reptile from the water. It had a bullet wound in its side. Later that night, an unknown "trophy hunter" cut off its head.

Penalties for killing a crocodile, protected under law, include fines up to $15,000.

Meanwhile, the 4.3m crocodile believed to have taken tourist Arthur Booker near Cooktown two weeks ago will probably go to a crocodile farm. Under the State's crocodile management plan no animal involved in an attack is allowed to be put on display. "It will not be released back into the wild," a spokeswoman said. "As it is an iconic animal, the crocodile will not be harmed or killed."

Two smaller crocs trapped in the Endeavour River near where Booker disappeared will probably be released.

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2). Rangers have released photographs of a 3.5m male saltwater crocodile lurking in the waterways of a Queensland island popular for swimming. The crocodile has mainly taken up residence in the mangroves of Magnetic Island, which is a short ocean ferry ride from the city of Townsville Queensland's far north, the Townsville Bulletin reports.

Outspoken Kennedy MP Bob Katter yesterday slammed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for monitoring rather than removing the large predator from an area frequented by swimmers. The saltwater croc surfaced in the island's Cockle Bay last week, around the corner from the main swimming area in Picnic Bay.

The EPA said there had not been any further sightings of the reptile, however if spotted again in the area, it would be removed if it was deemed a problem. An agency spokeswoman yesterday said rangers believed the croc had moved away from the island again.

However, Mr Katter accused the agency of putting the animal ahead of humans. "It will remain in a situation where it can continue to threaten human beings," he said. "The prevailing attitude is quite extraordinary. "The number of people who would protect crocodiles and not human beings is significant. "If they love this crocodile so much, I strongly recommend they spend more time with it, and less time with the human beings, for which they have no respect at all. "There's been a human being torn to pieces here."

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Football "too rough" for schoolkids

There are many reasons to say that very active sports are good for kids so banning them for everybody instead of dealing with the troublemakers is just cowardice

Touch football and soccer have been banned from the playground at Coombabah State School, as well as rougher full contact games such as rugby league, AFL and rugby union.

Yesterday, a number of outraged students took part in a protest against the new rules. But the school says those students could now face disciplinary action.The blanket ban on all contact sports, which only applies to Year 7 students, comes after reports of fighting during games. The schoolyard games, including football and soccer, which past generations can recall playing every morning tea and lunch breaks, often without supervision, are now being referred to by the school as 'too rough'.The ban will be in place until the end of Term 4, which finishes on December 12. Students will still be allowed to play alternative games during play times, provided they do not fall under the category of those considered 'contact'.

An Education Queensland spokesman from the Department of Education, Training and the Arts said the move was necessary."The safety and welfare of all students is the school's highest priority," he said."The school has been forced to restrict Year 7 students from taking part in contact sports, following a number of recent incidents that have escalated into fights."Coombabah State School does not tolerate bad behaviour, particularly physical aggression between any students."

The department said the ruling by the school had the full support of staff and the school P&C.However, a concerned grandfather, who has a grandchild at the school, contacted The Gold Coast Bulletin yesterday to complain about the new rules.He said he was worried his grandchild might be expelled and did not wish to comment further or be named.

Without the lunchtime games, coupled with the crisis most schools are facing with a lack of volunteer coaches available to supervise team games, some students may miss out on playing contact sports altogether.

Education Queensland said disciplinary action had been taken against students caught fighting and those who showed disrespect to staff trying to manage the situation. "Other students who took part in an unruly protest yesterday against the school directive have been warned they may also face disciplinary action," he said.

The department said the school would be happy to discuss its course of action with any concerned parents.

School principal John Hoskings was not available to comment on the issue yesterday. However, on the school's website, Mr Hoskings' welcome message for parents who have enrolled their students at the school says: "We trust that you and your children will enjoy being a part of our school community and that you will feel confident to join in our school life in whatever capacity you can."It is important for your child that parents and staff have a positive relationship."To this end, we encourage you to make good use of all available channels of communication, thereby providing the best possible support for your child while he or she is at our school."

Coombabah State School was originally built to service the growing population north of Biggera Waters and classes began in 1981.About 850 students attend the school, which is located on Oxley Drive at Paradise Point.

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Update: Publicity works wonders

A Gold coast school which caused uproar when it banned touch footy and soccer in lunchbreaks has now suspended six students for rough play. The entire year 7 level at Coombabah State School has been barred from the lunchtime sports for the term because of bouts of fighting that occur during games. Queensland Sports Minister Judy Spence said yesterday the school might have over-reacted, saying teachers needed to step up playground supervision.

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Grammar returns in English curriculum revamp

Long overdue -- so long overdue that one wonders where they will find teachers to teach it

Basic English and grammar lessons, downgraded decades ago, will be restored in schools to boost students' slipping spelling and writing skills. Traditional lessons are to be reinstated nationwide after complaints that pupils struggle to form proper sentences and don't understand nouns, verbs, adjectives and punctuation. Schools will also revert to a focus on teaching the alphabet through sounding out letters, known as phonics, rather than by showing pictures on a card displaying the word beneath. It was also announced this week that maths in Australian schools will get a makeover.

The National Curriculum Board will today unveil for public comment recommendations to revamp English from kindergarten to year 12. "Pop culture" English that studies soap operas and mobile phone text-messaging is expected to be scaled down. The emphasis will be on classics by writers such as Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, and works by modern authors such as Tim Winton and Peter Carey. The study of literature will be broadened to embrace modern digital technology such as the internet and CD ROMs.

Under proposed changes, bright students in primary school will be given more advanced books to read, and elementary literacy will be reinforced for secondary students falling behind.

It has been revealed that too many students battle to read and write properly. One in five who sat national literacy and numeracy tests in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 this year either fell below the standard or only reached the minimum. Employers, recruitment companies and universities have bemoaned school-leavers' sloppy spelling and writing. "We have to do better," National Curriculum Board chairman Prof Barry McGaw conceded. "Establishing a national English curriculum is an opportunity to raise standards for all young people and to ensure no one slips through the cracks."

The advice is that the subject should be broken into three areas: English as a language, including grammar, punctuation and spelling; literature; and the application of skills to achieve confident and accurate speaking and writing. "A focus on grammar, spelling and conventions of punctuation will be necessary across all stages of schooling," the paper says.

The proposal follows a backlash over the 1970s shift from a grammar-based curriculum. Monash University deems the situation so dire that it's introducing remedial grammar and punctuation classes. The draft says that books, novels, short stories, poetry, drama, movies and documentaries should be introduced progressively from early years.

Education Minister Julia Gillard this week raised concerns about falling reading performance among 15-year-olds. Australian students still score above the OECD average, but have slumped from second to sixth in recent years. The National Curriculum Board is remodelling English, history, maths and science curriculums. The new framework will be introduced by 2011.

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Migration not helping skills shortage

The Immigration Department has admitted tertiary enrolments are failing to meet state and territory demands for graduates in mining, construction and nursing, despite an overhaul of the skilled migration system to meet the labour shortage. The surge in vocational education and training and intensive English-language courses for overseas students was in areas "which appear to be outside those demanded", senior Immigration official Peter Speldewinde told a Brisbane conference.

The skilled immigration category was revamped last year to give greater emphasis to speaking English and developing skills among the tens of thousands of overseas students who now go on to form a key plank of the permanent skilled migration program every year. Registered nurses, dentists, engineers, radiographers, urban planners, occupational therapists, electricians, bakers, bricklayers, mechanics, carpenters and chefs are among the top 20 occupational shortage areas identified by the states and territories.

But Immigration Department data shows overseas students under the skilled immigration category are flocking instead into hospitality management, welfare studies, hairdressing, accounting, cookery and computing. There were almost 11,000 course commencements in hospitality, almost 2000 in welfare studies and almost 1500 in hairdressing, all winning valuable points towards permanent residency.

Mr Speldewinde, the department's skilled-migration director, told educators at the conference last Friday that it was "clear there are not so much loopholes, but areas in which (earning) points probably stimulate people to go down certain paths". "Clearly the Migrant Occupation on Demand List (under which migrants get points toward permanent residency) is driving very, very strongly migrants' choices," he said.

Mr Speldewinde said the system was under review to conform with Immigration Minister Chris Evans's aim of ensuring the selection of high-quality skilled migrants who will more directly address labour market shortages. "The focus is on quality, not quantity," he said.

Two of the key architects of last year's reforms, Monash University demographer Bob Birrell, and National Institute of Labour Studies director Sue Richardson, yesterday described as a mixed success the effort to recruit skilled migrants instead of educating younger Australians. Dr Birrell told The Australian "the surge in skilled migration program is not delivering the skills needed in mining and construction industries, and that's the Government's main concern". "More than half the skilled immigrants are settling in Sydney and Melbourne," not in Queensland and Western Australia where they are needed, he said.

Dr Birrell -- a fierce critic of aspects of the migration program -- said that despite the sobering assessment from Mr Speldewinde, Australia was "likely to get better-equipped migrants and it's a good thing Labor has stuck by this initiative of former (Coalition) minister (Kevin) Andrews". "The acknowledgement the system is not serving the country is quite striking, as is vocational education overtaking higher education because it's an easier and cheaper route to permanent residency," he said.

Professor Richardson told The Australian she was concerned that more than half our population growth was now coming from migration rather than births.

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The high standards of government schools again

No wonder around 40% of Australian teenagers go to private schools. Government education departments don't give a stuff about anything -- except their tea-breaks, of course. I worked in one once so the story below does not surprise me. "Just don't bother us", is their attitude.

It's the poor who have to put up with all this crap, of course. So we see what the "compassion" of a Leftist government really leads to: The opposite of what it claims. They don't give a stuff about the poor. All they care about is sounding good

The mother of a student at a country primary school plagued by years of inappropriate sexual behaviour between its pupils has hit out at the lack of action by authorities. As revealed by The Advertiser yesterday, a country primary school has reported to the Education Department at least 60 incidents of inappropriate sexual behaviour by its students in the past three years. Among the incidents were boys exposing themselves in class, throwing girls to the ground and simulating sex, pulling down other students' pants and underwear, writing sexually explicit stories and the use of threatening sexual language among students. In one case, a student brought a plastic penis to school and sexually harassed another student. The school's plight only became public after the 28-year-old mother complained to her local MP.

The MP used Freedom of Information laws to obtain pages of school incident reports detailing a catalogue of shocking sexual behaviour since 2006. The mother yesterday told The Advertiser her five-year-old son had only been at the school for a fortnight when he was urinated on twice by another student. "This same child later on knocked a toilet door off and asked him to touch his penis, and this same child was also asking my son and other children at the school for sex," she said.

"We reported it to the school. The school counsellor then told us she had already been into the reception classroom a couple of times to talk about inappropriate sexual behaviour. "As parents, we were never told a counsellor had been having sex education talks with our reception-aged children."

The mother said her 11-year-old daughter also had been the victim of violent sexual threats by boys at the school, who had talked of raping her. "Teachers dismissed that as children just learning a new word over the holidays," she said. The mother, who has since pulled her son out of the school, said Education Department officials only took her complaints seriously after she told them she had met with her local MP.

University of South Australia child development professor Freda Briggs told ABC radio yesterday that "this is the tip of the iceberg". "I'm getting desperate parents ringing me every other week about this sort of thing," she said. "We are dealing with teachers ignorance and also ignorance in the department."

Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni yesterday called on Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith to explain what was being done to address the problem. "The Minister repeatedly refused on ABC radio today to reveal what steps the department had taken to protect children and stop the extraordinary behaviour involving children as young as five," he said. "It is not good enough for the Minister to say these incidents happen in disadvantaged schools and blame forms of media. "This is totally inappropriate sexual behaviour and parents want to know what the Minister is doing about it."

But Dr Lomax-Smith accused the Opposition of using children to "score political points". "I have been assured that the school and district have dealt with the incidents immediately and appropriately when they occur, including advising relevant authorities where necessary," she said.

Education Department chief executive Chris Robinson said swift action had been taken, but he remained "very concerned" by groups of students who were "multiple" offenders. He said some students had been suspended, mandatory reports had been made to child protection authorities and students and parents had been counselled. Police have not been involved, he said.

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Deadbeat public hospital getting supplies from a veterinary practice!

It has been known for months that this hospital cannot pay its bills but the problem continues

A doctor has dipped into his own pocket to buy equipment for patient tests as supply shortages reach crisis point at a western New South Wales hospital. The doctor bought the equipment so a diagnostic blood test could be processed at Dubbo Base Hospital, while nursing staff say they are tired of sourcing medical supplies from the local vet.

Dubbo medical staff council chairman Dr Dean Fisher said there had been ongoing problems at the hospital, but patient care was now threatened. The hospital's pathology department had recently advised staff not to order blood tests because the associated equipment stocks were running low. "It is the first time that I'm aware that a doctor has had to buy supplies and that stems mostly from bills unpaid by GWAHS (Greater Western Area Health Service), which stopped supplies being sent up to us to use," Dr Fisher said. "In the past it's been unpaid food bills, unpaid transport bills, now it's affecting patient safety and that's of extraordinary concern."

On Monday, medical staff cast a vote of no-confidence in hospital management. Staff now want to meet with management and ask that NSW Premier Nathan Rees and Health Minister John Della Bosca visit the hospital to discuss supply shortages. "We've had enough of nursing staff having to go down the the local veterinary clinic to get bandages and urinary dip sticks to be able to continue patient care," Dr Fisher said.

"Every six to 12 months we have a crisis here. "We are short from a workforce point of view, both medically and with nursing personnel. They (GWAHS) bring in a external auditor at great expense to look at the problems. That money could be so much better spent."

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) said rural hospitals urgently needed state government funds to boost patient care. "If there are funds available to be spent, rural hospitals should be the first in line," AMA NSW president Dr Brian Morton said in statement today.

Mr Della Bosca, appointed health minister last month, has said previously he planned to visit hospitals in rural NSW. A spokeswoman for his office could not confirm when the minister would visit Dubbo. Mr Della Bosca last month could not confirm reports from Independent Dubbo MP Dawn Fardell that businesses were waiting for $150,000 worth of bills to be paid by the area health service. But he admitted there was a systemic problem and the service had "cash flow problem".

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State health boss pledges to fix "broke" public hospital

The blowhard is "investigating" it. Why not get the chequebook out first so suppliers are paid and can resume supplies?

NEW South Wales Health Minister John Della Bosca has promised to fix a "systemic failure" that forced doctors at a hospital in the state's west to buy their own medical supplies. Mr Della Bosca today said he had launched an investigation into cash-flow problems at the Greater Western Area Health Service which led to shortages of medical gear at Dubbo Base Hospital. "The direct answer is cash flow, and it is totally unacceptable for doctors and nurses to be paying for supplies out of their own pocket,'' he told Fairfax Radio Network. "It is totally unacceptable, if it is true, that doctors and nurses are having to borrow bandaging from local veterinary scientists. "I'm immediately having that investigated as of today.''

Mr Della Bosca said before medical staff went public with their concerns, he had held a meeting with the GWAHS's chief financial officer a week ago. The meeting had led to the payment of about 5000 outstanding accounts. "Those creditors are now satisfied and supplies have been restarted,'' Mr Della Bosca said. '(But) we need to fix the system, there's a systemic failure here and I'm getting to the bottom of it. "I expect to have it fixed and fixed very quickly.'' ....

The GWAHS has brought forward to Monday a meeting with the staff council originally scheduled for next month.

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Australian doctor-training catches the British disease

Britain too turns out thousands of medical school graduates who are given no chance of completing their training. That great government "planning" again, of course

Andrew Hobson isn't bad at maths, a factor contributing to his selection as a first-year medical student at the University of Queensland. So when he compares the 734 students to be awarded Queensland medical degrees in 2011 and the 667 hospital internships on offer in 2012, he worries. The numbers don't compute. Everyone sits there and says: 'Wow.' All of a sudden there's added pressure, almost competition, between the students because most of us know that as of 2012, here in Queensland, we no longer have that guaranteed intern spot."

Hobson is a product of a belated government realisation in the late 1990s that Australia was about to run out of doctors. In the years that followed, it did, to the point where it now draws 36 per cent of its general practitioners from overseas. That figure jumps to 41 per cent in the bush. Canberra was forced into a hasty rethink of its earlier policies aimed at limiting over-servicing by doctors. Its complaints about too many GPs and blow-outs in Medicare billing costs were replaced by a hefty catch-up investment in medical schools. By 2012, 19 medical schools - almost double the number operating throughout the '90s - will struggle with record throughput. Domestic graduate numbers will total almost 3000, an 86 per cent increase on last year's output. But although one problem seems solved, another has emerged.

Australia may have students in the pipeline, but a lack of training places before and after graduation - in hospitals, in general practice and the specialties - threatens to block the workforce flow just as it starts. The country's medical deans warned earlier this year the number of young doctors was starting to exceed the capacity of some clinics, hospitals and medical colleges to give them on-the-job training and access to patients. "The situation is becoming critical," they said.

The cracks first appeared in 2005, however. That year, the Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee concluded the country was short of 800 to 1300 GPs. It was also the year that a Medical Journal of Australia study revealed teaching hospitals in the University of Newcastle medical school catchment had started to fall behind on clinical placements for the next generation of doctors. The school's student population outnumbered patients available on any given day by two to one.

It reminds Australian Medical Students Association president Michael Bonning of the British debacle, where a dearth of National Health Service training positions left thousands of young doctors jobless. "That's exactly what we're worried about," Bonning says. "The situation here hasn't yet reached those dire projections that we've seen in the UK, but what we want to do is learn from the mistakes over there."

After years of importing doctors, Britain earlier this year announced it was shutting the door to applicants from other Commonwealth countries, including Australia. Australia, which also has counted overseas-trained doctors among its biggest imports for many years, could start engaging in its own form of exclusion as soon as next year. Queensland, for example, may have to start limiting hospital internships to Australian graduates of its medical schools from the end of next year, when applicants start surpassing demand, Bonning notes. Bar a change of policy, by the time Hobson graduates, virtually none of the 67 overseas students awarded medical degrees from his and other Queensland universities are likely to find a home at the state's hospitals....

Australian medical graduates aren't able to go into independent practice straight out of university. Instead, they are put through long years of supervised training, first as hospital interns and postgraduate trainees, then through vocational training. The country's biggest vocational training program is one designed to turn graduates into GPs, who provide most of Australia's out-of-hospital health care. The Australian General Practice Training Program for next year, however, is already vastly oversubscribed. As of June 30 this year, there were 600 training spots and 733 applications.

The lack of certainty over future placements frustrates Bonning, who wants another 100 places added annually to the program during the next three years. "I think it's very unlikely and very much out of line with the Government's current push in primary care to think that they won't look at increasing the number of people in general practice," he says....

It's where the commonwealth, eight states and territories and about 20 medical colleges overlap that things get messy. The states and territories provide initial training for medical graduates in their teaching hospitals, in the form of a one-year internship and pre-vocational training. For each young doctor, cash-strapped public hospitals have to find the time and resources to supervise training while tending to their growing patient workloads. The Victorian Department of Human Services reportedly has gone as far as charging for clinical placements for students, according to the deans of the country's medical schools. This year, they called on governments to include explicit funding streams for medical education in hospital budgets as part of the next federal-state health funding agreement, to be signed within three months.

"Public hospitals have been able to shift much-needed funds away from teaching and research to meet the increasing costs of service delivery," they told the commonwealth's health reform adviser. "This has placed an increasing burden on medical schools to ensure adequate and quality clinical training placements."

Bonning, who graduates from UQ in seven weeks, has secured a hospital internship for next year. But his later years of vocational training, which qualify doctors for independent practice, are still not assured. The process of entry to general practice or a specialty involves not just multiple governments and agencies but the medical college that young doctors aspire to join. "It's just more complicated because there are more parties involved and any one of them can cause some problems," Bonning says. The relationship between the different parties has often been a strained one....

Successive federal governments have tried to unclog the bottlenecks and expose doctors to non-traditional practice by expanding areas in which training takes place to private hospitals, community medicine and public health. But the federal Department of Health and Ageing, too, has been overwhelmed bydemand. As of July this year, it had received about 500 applications for the 180 places it had funded for its 2009 program, which aims to give specialists experience working outside of public hospitals.

Bonning says Canberra needs to continue looking for placements beyond state hospital settings if it is to make its grand experiment in medical workforce planning work. "No matter how many students you put into a system, you essentially have to train them all the way through to independent practice," he says. "If we stop or neglect their training at any stage, you won't get the full pay-off that the community demands."

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The Wrong Plan for Australia

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has just unveiled a fiscal stimulus plan worth 10.4 billion Australian dollars ($7.4 billion). At around 1% of GDP, it's bold. Will it work? Probably not as intended.

The plan consists of a set of handouts for politically appealing groups, such as old-age pensioners and families with children. There's also a big boost to infrastructure spending. It's a dramatic change for a government that as recently as May was hewing to the tightest fiscal policy since 1970-71, with a budget surplus of 2.1% of GDP. That budget was designed to put downward pressure on inflation. Taken together with the Reserve Bank of Australia's one-percentage-point easing at the beginning of the month, the new stimulus package points to a major reassessment of economic risks on the part of Australian policymakers. Growth has replaced inflation as the top concern.

Mr. Rudd's plan might look like a solution in search of a problem. Economic growth is set to slow, but Australia's real economy has yet to show significant stress from the global financial crisis. Financial institutions remain sound, and confidence has been boosted by the weekend's coordinated move by Australia and New Zealand to insure deposits. Monetary policy has already responded aggressively and a sharp fall in the Australian dollar exchange rate relative to the U.S. dollar is performing its traditional function of insulating Australia from external economic shocks.

There's certainly room for stimulus measures. But there are risks to stimulus, too. Timing fiscal stimulus measures so they take effect when they are most needed is difficult. Get the timing wrong and these measures could end-up being pro- rather than counter-cyclical.

A case in point is the government's proposal to accelerate its infrastructure spending agenda. Even with an accelerated timetable, work on these projects will not commence until well into 2009, with much of the spending not seen until even later, when Australia may already be through the feared economic downturn. Infrastructure spending decisions made in a crisis atmosphere might not be evaluated to the highest standards. Australia could be saddled with some wasteful rather than productivity-enhancing infrastructure projects.

Other aspects of Mr. Rudd's plan are at odds with what government should be doing in the current environment. The plan provides $1.5 billion in grants to first-time home buyers. It would double the grant amount to buyers of existing homes, while tripling the grant to buyers of newly built homes. The latter measure will be useful in addressing the chronic housing shortage that has driven housing affordability in Australia to record lows and seen rising rents makes a significant contribution to inflation.

The grant to buyers of existing homes, however, will serve only to bid up the prices of existing properties, the opposite of what is needed to improve housing affordability. This will benefit existing home owners rather than new home buyers, and has little value as a stimulus measure because it merely transfers wealth from buyers to current owners rather than encouraging new housing supply.

In other respects, the plan moves away from, not toward, broader structural reforms important to the long-term health of the economy. Consider the lump-sum payment to old-age and other pensioners, scheduled for December. Single pensioners will receive a one-time payment of A$1,400, while couples will receive A$2,100. The government calls this a "down payment on long-term pension reform," but it leaves the long-term future of pension reform an open issue. The focus for future reform needs to be on reducing dependence on the government pension. This means making the pension less rather than more attractive, so as to encourage people to save for their retirement.

Similarly, the government will make a one-off A$1,000 payment for each child in eligible families. While this may have some value as a short-term economic stimulus measure, it does not address some of the long-term issues clouding the family payments system, including the disincentives to labor-force participation.

The biggest problem with the stimulus plan, however, is something that's not in it -- tax relief. That too has been left to a future review by the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry. There had been speculation the government might introduce a one-off tax rebate. Since the government says it is making "down payments" on future reform, a tax rebate would have provided a welcome signal of the government's commitment to this vital policy area. A tax rebate would diffuse more broadly than one-off welfare payments and reward labor-force participation rather than welfare dependence.

Short-term stimulus measures need not conflict with the imperatives of long-term structural reform. The government should have used the global financial crisis to gain increased traction for a long-term structural reform agenda that will provide lasting economic security, and not just a short-term boost to spending. The biggest flaw of Mr. Rudd's plan is all the opportunities it missed.

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