Merchants of hate rally for another protest

Projection again:  In the heading above and in the text beneath, behold a sustained outpouring of hate from Leftist journalist Paul Syvret, drawing heavily on his imagination.   Compare the respectful treatment given by the mainstream media to the Leftist "Occupy" movement.

From the placards you can see that the people  Syvret hates are in fact  principally  anti-tax, similar to the U.S. Tea Partiers.    The "Juliar" placard refers to the fact that Prime Minister Julia Gillard promised before the election that she would not introduce a carbon tax.  But she did anyway



MEMO to all readers who are not angry, self-righteous, middle-aged white people with deep wells of bile and resentment:

It is probably advisable that you avoid the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra a few weeks from now.

For on March 12, the malcontents and fringe-dwellers who brought us one of the great fizzers from 2011's political calendar, the Convoy of No Confidence (or No Consequence as Anthony Albanese dubbed it), are trying to get up an encore performance of sorts.

Rather than the stage-managed cavalcade of crackpots of 18 months ago, this looks like being more of a trickle towards the national capital - a Convoy of Incontinence, if you like.

This time around it is the "Rotten to the Core Rally", brought to you by the same bunch of climate-change deniers and ratbags who were bellowing about the carbon tax and waving "Ditch the Witch" and "Bob Brown's Bitch" placards.

The carbon pricing battle (what carbon tax?) having been lost, the focus has shifted to union corruption and, of course, the AWU.

This is all proof positive - although nothing has been proven unless you channel your news from the likes of Larry Pickering or former shock jock Michael Smith - that our Government is corrupt and democracy in Australia is dead.

Keynote speakers are to include Bob Kernohan, a former AWU Victorian vice-president.

At the time of the alleged fraud in the early '90s he was at war with the left faction of the union as part of a protracted internal power struggle and has made various allegations about Prime Minister Julia Gillard that have not been substantiated in the course of nearly 20 years. No axes to grind there.

Also on the soapbox list is David Flint, one time head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, good mate of 2UE's Alan Jones and chair of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy.

In between keeping Australians who don't believe in an Australian head of state informed with febrile updates on what Old Liz's corgis are up to, his Flintiness also heads CANdo - a far right group created by Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi that wants to become an "Australian Tea Party" and believes gay marriage could lead to Muslim polygamy.

He and the organisers of the Rotten rally, the grandly named Consumers and Taxpayers Association - with a whopping 461 Facebook "likes" (including one from yours truly, so I get the updates) - are clearly a meeting of minds.

Both seem to think the furore over Jones'  "died of shame" comment regarding the Prime Minister's father were an over-reaction. CATA spokesman Jacques Laxale maintained last year that poor, hard-done-by Alan was a victim of cyber-bullying.

One of the principal organisers this time around appears to be one Anita Donlon, who writes: "This is our day to ALL gather in mass to show how we feel ... to turn the media around from being blinded by the truth ... we need the media around the globe to say 'CRIKEY!!!' there's an uprising in Australia against the government!!"

Yadda, yadda, yadda ... "Love peace and mungbeans. See you in Canberra!"

I've been in the media a long time and I can honestly say I have never been accused of being "blinded by the truth", mungbeans or no mungbeans, but never mind.

Donlon's a bit of a favourite of 2GB afternoon shock jock Chris Smith, who will broadcast his show live from the Rotten rally next month in an effort to whip up even more divisiveness and hate than he can normally manage from his Sydney studio.

The corrupt Prime Minister baloney aside, judging by the various web pages it is the usual shopping list of talk-back radio gripes that this Petri dish of intellects will be taking to Canberra for next month's world record whinge attempt.

"Illegal" immigrants, foreign workers, foreign aid, foreign investment, foreign imports and Muslims just about covers the White Australia element.

Poofters, dole bludgers, single mums, druggies, deliberately barren career women and lazy blackfellas ticks another box.

Then there's taxes, big government, government spending, government waste, government interference, government ...

And that's before we get to the real evils of corrupt union thugs and red raggin' commo greenie terrorists. And the United Nations.

What we obviously need - as the likes of the CATA people feel the need to constantly remind me via email - is an ELECTION NOW, because one that doesn't install their preferred version of government is obviously undemocratic and illegitimate and we need to keep voting until we get it right.

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Aldi cheese is tops

Little guys cheesed off

AUSTRALIA'S artisan cheese and dairy producers are up in arms after a global supermarket chain wiped the floor with them at the annual Sydney Royal dairy awards.

Aldi, based in Germany but with stores across Europe, the United States, Britain and Australia, picked up 49 medals, including eight gold, and was named the most successful dairy produce exhibitor at the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW 2013 Cheese and Dairy Produce Show awards.

The results have prompted local crafters of fine cheese, butter and yoghurt to call for an overhaul of the judging system that would pit generic brands against one another only, while boutique producers would compete in separate categories.

Pepe Saya, who supplies butter to Neil Perry's Rockpool, Aria restaurant and Qantas first class, said while he fully supported the work of the Agricultural Society to grow the dairy industry, he personally stopped entering the awards after Coles started entering its generic brands.

"I don't believe that a non-manufacturer or a non-producer should be allowed to leverage off the Sydney Royal brand," he said. "Here's a brand that's been given to the philistines like Aldi, Coles and Woolworths. [But] what does it mean to have a gold any more? This is the disappointment. This is the heartache."

Michael McNamara, cheesemaker at Pecora Dairy in Robertson, NSW, and treasurer of the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers' Association, said the awards should be changed.

"The awards have become a parody of themselves if what they're taking is big, industrial products and putting them in the same category as hand-made, artisan products," he said.

"The [Royal Agricultural Society] is shooting itself in the foot."

Pecora Dairy won a handful of medals at this year awards and he insists his criticism is not sour grapes.

The RAS was not supporting rural communities to thrive by granting the same medals to cheap, mass-produced cheese and expensive, hand-crafted products, Mr McNamara said.

"It doesn't help farmers and it doesn't help create a vital, small producer industry in agriculture out there," he said.

A society spokeswoman said she was unable to contact the key dairy show award organisers and judges yesterday and Aldi Stores, based at St Marys, did not return calls.

The RAS, which has been judging dairy produce for more than 150 years, acknowledged Aldi's strong showing in its first year.

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Magic-gas Discovery in Australia

It has been discovered that Australian coal has a magical property – it is one of a small group of coals which produces an invisible gas with super-natural properties.

This magic gas, carbon dioxide, first became famous for its claimed ability to warm the whole world, thus removing the threat of a new ice age. The British academic who reported this magic power claimed that winter snow would become “a very rare and exciting event”.

Then an Australian guru predicted that just a tiny addition of magic-gas to the atmosphere would abolish floods, and billions of dollars were spent constructing water desalination plants to combat his forecast of never-ending droughts.

Then after massive snows in Britain and huge floods in Australia, it was widely reported that magic-gas could produce both heatwaves and snowstorms, floods and droughts and even bushfires, cyclones and tornadoes, depending on the way the political winds were blowing in that country.

Strangely, only a few countries are able to produce “magic-gas”. A special exclusive club called the Kyoto Club was formed for these lucky countries. Membership fees are stratospheric, but members are rewarded with invitations to lavish UN conventions at top tourist destinations. However, many founding members have allowed their membership to lapse, leaving only EU, Australia and New Zealand as fully paid up members.

Coals burnt in Russia, India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Canada and USA produce carbon dioxide but their gas apparently lacks the magic climate-altering properties of Australian magic-gas. Amazingly, these properties are lost if Australian coal is burnt overseas – once loaded on a ship the magic disappears.

There are a few unpatriotic Australians who think the whole “magic-gas” thing is a big con, and just an excuse for a new tax.

Worried that the world may become sceptical of the magic-gas story, CSIRO has been charged to re-educate these dangerous and deluded sceptics. Vast sums are also being spent by academics to invent more climate-bending properties for carbon dioxide, and regular dramatic announcements are expected on the ABC and the BBC.

By email from the satirical Viv Forbes [forbes@carbon-sense.com]





Coal-generated power here to stay in Australia: study

Coal will be a significant part of Australia's power generation mix for at least another 20 years, according to a new study.

University of Queensland researchers say coal-generated power could be halved without compromising the country's power supply, but they argue it will take decades of "orderly transition" to completely move to clean energy production.

"It's not possible to make a transition where the lights don't go out without easing coal down fairly gradually," UQ Professor of Economics and study co-author John Foster said.

"At the moment, over 80 per cent of our power is generated from coal [and] in the context of our report, Australia is what we call a non-resilient economy in terms of its power - it's very heavily dependent on one source."

Mr Foster added that if Australia is to meet its 2050 emissions targets, the time for action is now.

"When you look into the engineering and all the details, you realise what a long time it takes to make these transitions - 20, 30, 40 years is the kind of time scale that you're talking about," he said.

"To get 80 per cent [clean energy] by 2050, we'd have to be starting right now with a fairly dramatically important shift.

"If it was nuclear, we'd have to start right now, you'd have to put more into carbon storage.

"So most of our scenarios, we just wouldn't get to 80 per cent by 2050."

While the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) agrees that Australia's use of renewable energy will have to ramp up considerably to remain on target, it believes that the production of adequate levels of renewable energy can be achieved within 20 years.

"In the last year alone, solar power has dropped in price by 45 per cent and 75 per cent in the last three years," ACF climate change program manager Tony Mohr said.

"And that's led Bloomberg New Energy Finance to conclude that wind power and solar power are both cheaper than new coal fired power plants in Australia right now.

"So I'd say that really, we're seeing a much faster shift towards renewable energy than we would have thought of even just a couple of years ago.

"In South Australia right now, in September last year, there was a couple of days there where wind power was contributing 55 per cent of South Australia's total energy supply and in Spain they've had records set of about 60 per cent.

"Now that's what we can do today, so it's realistic I think to expect we'll be able to do much better in 20 years' time."

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Gillard in  poll slump as Abbott surges

Gillard was largely an unknown at the last election.  It is now clear to all what she is: a smooth talking meddler and waster of public money

Senior Labor MPs concede the latest opinion poll results should be a "wake-up call" to the party, warning that continuing speculation about a possible return of Kevin Rudd is hurting the Government.

The Nielsen poll, published in Fairfax newspapers, shows Labor's primary vote has dropped five points since December to 30 per cent, while the Coalition's has risen four points to 47 per cent.

After preferences, the Coalition has a thumping election-winning lead of 56 per cent to 44 per cent.

Labor frontbencher Simon Crean concedes the results are terrible news for the party just seven months out from the next election.

"It's a wake-up call isn't it. You can't gild the lily," he told Fairfax radio.

Fellow Labor Minister Greg Combet agrees: "There is no sugar-coating it, it's a bad poll today, there's no doubt about it".

The figures reveal a dramatic reversal in who voters would prefer as prime minister.

Support for Tony Abbott has jumped nine points to 49 per cent, while Julia Gillard's support has dropped five points to 45 per cent.

Asked this morning what has gone wrong, the Prime Minister declined to comment on the latest poll results.

"If I spent my time worrying about and commentating on opinion polls, then I wouldn't have the time to get my job done," Ms Gillard told Channel Seven.

According to the Nielsen poll, a significant majority of voters prefer Kevin Rudd over Ms Gillard as Labor leader, although that is largely driven by Coalition supporters.  Among Labor voters, Ms Gillard remains more popular.

Even before today's poll, there was a sense of despondency within Labor ranks over the Government's performance, and internal tensions over the possibility of a Rudd comeback.

Yesterday, Mr Rudd said: "It's time this debate was put in cryogenic storage. Frankly, it ain't happening."

Mr Crean, who last week suggested Mr Rudd was doing "some good" for the party through his increased public profile, says internal issues have detracted from the Government's work.

Asked whether he thought Mr Rudd should "shut up" in the interests of the party, Mr Crean replied: "I don't think it's a question of telling him to shut up."

"I think it's a question of ensuring that he stays on the issue rather than just having the perception that it's a thinly disguised effort to promote him as the alternative leader.

"I think that, with one or two exceptions last week, that's what he was doing. I mean it was the fifth anniversary of saying sorry (to the Stolen Generations)."

Liberal frontbencher Joe Hockey says the poll results confirm the sentiment he has been hearing from voters, that Labor needs time in the "sin bin".

"Whether it's state Labor, federal Labor - everyone is saying they need time out. They're more focused on themselves that they are on us, the people," Mr Hockey told reporters on the New South Wales Central Coast.

"The Labor Party's come back from these numbers before, but this time it's clear the problem is Labor.

"Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd. Tweedledumb, Tweedledumber. I mean, it doesn't matter.  "The bottom line is, it's Labor and their policies."

The Nielsen poll shows more voters disapprove of Mr Abbott's performance than approve, but the margin has narrowed to 13 points compared with a 29-point gap two months ago.

More voters would prefer Malcolm Turnbull to be opposition leader over Mr Abbott, although his strongest support comes from Labor and Greens supporters.  Among Coalition voters, Mr Abbott is more popular.

The poll was conducted a week after the Government revealed the controversial mining tax raised just $126 million in its first six months, well short of the $2 billion forecast for the 2012-13 financial year.

Since the last Nielsen survey in December, the Prime Minister has announced the election date, there has been a Cabinet reshuffle, and former Labor MP Craig Thomson was charged with fraud-related offences.

Nielsen's research director John Stirton says they are all likely to have been factors in the latest results and confirm a change in fortunes for Labor.

"This is the fifth poll published since the beginning of February that shows movement away from Labor and towards the Coalition," Mr Stirton told ABC News.

"So that means that there's been a change in the trend. There was a trend running from about May to November last year showing steady improvement for Labor.

"This one, along with the other polls released since the beginning of February, confirms that that trend has stopped and, in fact, [is] moving back the other way."

However, Mr Stirton says it is not impossible for Labor to win the election, pointing to John Howard's 2001 victory.

According to the Nielsen survey in April 2001, the Coalition was facing annihilation at the ballot box, with Labor leading 60 per cent to 40 per cent after preferences.

However, a series of events helped shift public opinion, including Mr Howard's decision to freeze petrol tax increases, the Tampa asylum seeker stand-off, and the September 11 terrorist attack in the United States.

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Wilders denies he's the devil



CONTROVERSIAL Dutch MP Geert Wilders has delivered a message to Australia ahead of a controversial series of speaking events across the nation: “I am not the devil”.

The anti-Islam campaigner has been allowed to enter the country after the Federal Government relented and agreed to give him a visa, claiming it did not want to make him a cause celebre by continuing to block his trip.

His inflammatory views have created fiery debate in Europe for years and he is set to deliver the same message in Australia after being invited by the Melbourne-based anti-Islamisation Q Society.

The 49-year-old told News Limited he was not a “monster from Mars”, a bigot, an extremist, a racist, a far right-winger - nor anything else he has been labelled.

“I represent one million people in one of the most tolerant and oldest democracies in the world and I address real problems for real people which are ignored by the political elite, and say things about the nation of Islam; for me this is very normal, that is what I am,” he said.

Mr Wilders said he is a one-man mission to warn Australia of the dangers of Islamic immigration and loss of national identity.

“I hope you can learn from the mistakes we made about immigration and the lack of guts to define Islam for what it is,” he said.

“I am not talking about the people [Muslims]. I’ve met very friendly and hospitable people in Arab and Islamic countries. I am talking about the ideology of Islam.”

Wilders said he knew of the ANZACs story but warned the spirit that propelled our nation years ago was at risk of being lost.

“I believe Islam and freedom and incompatible and I think we should be awake to this terrible ideology that is coming to our countries and societies and getting stronger, stronger, stronger and we are not fighting it we are appeasing, appeasing, appeasing and we lost track of what we really are and what we should be and what our grandparents, also in Australia with the ANZACs, what they fought and died for to liberate Europe,” he said.

Wilders, who controls the balance of power in the Dutch parliament as leader of the fourth-largest political party, is scheduled to speak in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

The Islamic Friendship Association has said the Muslim community have the right to peacefully protest the speaking events but recommended people simply ignore Mr Wilders visit so as not to draw further attention to his extremist messages.

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Miners criticise Gillard's jobs package

The mining industry has taken aim at the Federal Government's new jobs package, saying it will only increase the regulatory burden on the industry.

Unions have largely welcomed the plan, which includes new legislation to ensure major projects give local companies early notice of contract opportunities.

Projects worth more than $2 billion will also be forced to have an Australian Industry Opportunity officer in the workplace.

Ms Gillard says the plan is designed to keep the local manufacturing industry competitive, despite the high Australian dollar and other economic pressures.

But the Minerals Council has described the measure as unnecessary, unwarranted and inefficient.

David Boas from the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association agrees.

"We're a bit concerned that it does involve a bit more of regulatory creep with the provisions in there for Australian industry plans," he said.

A series of new manufacturing precincts will also be established to develop new products and skills to break into new markets.

The Government plans to fund the jobs package by removing a research and development tax break for the country's 20 biggest companies.

Ms Gillard predicts the plan will inject $1.6 billion into the economy.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the package deserves popular support, not nitpicking.

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Victorian revival highlights lost ground on child welfare

Compulsory school attendance was introduced in Australia during the Victorian era in the later-nineteenth century. The Victorians were the first to recognise that the state had a role to play in promoting child welfare by requiring parents to ensure that their children received a minimum level of schooling. This was part of a broader movement to encourage respectable standards of behaviour by people of all classes.

The effort to bring about social improvement had largely succeeded by the early-twentieth century. Working class communities had embraced ‘middle class’ notions of respectability (work, marriage, sobriety, and thrift) that had proven conducive to the formation of functional families. A marker of respectability was the ability of parents to send clean, well-fed, and properly dressed children to school each day. A marker of un-respectability was enduring the shame and stigma of having one’s children rounded up by the truancy officer.

For a hundred years, society traded on the legacy of the Victorians, but things began to change in the aftermath of the social revolution of the 1960s.

The Sixties ethos of personal liberation undercut the Victorian behavioural code, which was fashionably dismissed as so much ‘bourgeois’ uptightness. Complacency also set in. Official enforcement of respectable behaviour seemed unnecessary. Rarely-needed truancy laws appeared ‘harsh’ and anachronistic.

In the modern era of free-flowing welfare, however, these attitudes have become socially disastrous.

Social norms have collapsed in a significant underclass of welfare-dependent and dysfunctional families, and the failure to regularly send children to school symbolises the breakdown of behavioural standards.

The response to rising levels of chronic truancy has been feeble. Woolly-minded sociologists have offered lame excuses about ‘poverty’, and the self-serving welfare industry has demanded higher government funding for ‘more support services’ to help ‘struggling’ parents. Meanwhile, educational faddists have prattled on about making school ‘fun’ so kids are ‘engaged.’ Too little attention has been paid to the best interests of children denied an education due to parental neglect.

Our thinking about child welfare now appears to be slowly coming full circle.

The Victorian Government has just announced plans to make it easier to fine parents whose children miss more than five school days a year without a valid excuse. This follows embarrassing revelations earlier this year that not one fine had been issued for truancy under new laws introduced in 2006.

The renewed, if much belated, attempt to revive the specter of the truancy officer and crack down on absenteeism is welcome. However, the need to punish parents who don't send children to school highlights the truly appalling amount of ground we have lost over the last 40 years.

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Black Australian politician sparks race row after saying prison is good for Aborigines as 'it means they get to spend time with their families'

Rather sadly, the lady is right.  Young Aborigines are very prone to extreme alcohol abuse.  And they are often locked up for committing crimes whilst intoxicated

An Australian politician has sparked a race row after saying prison is good for Aboriginies as 'it means they get to spend time with their families.'

Bess Price, an MP for the sitting Country Liberal Party made the comments after the Legislative Assembly agreed to changes in mandatory sentencing for violent offenders.

Price, an Aboriginal Australian activist,  was responding to the Labor Party's opposition to the law changes, which they said would see prison numbers increase significantly.

The member for Stuart argued that jail had benefits for young Aborigines.

'While they are being imprisoned, they don't get to drink, they don't get into trouble, they are fed three times a day,' she said.

'They are in there with their family members.  'They sleep in their language groups and they all come out of prison much healthier.'

Labor's Member for Nhulunbuy, Lynne Walker, said Price's comments were a 'sad indictment it is, of where our system is,' reported TNT magazine.

'When the Member for Stuart says that our families want our young people locked up, because prisons; they're safe places, it's where people can dry out for three months, it's a safe environment and where, sadly, a lot of family members are in there, so they're not alone.'

She told Parliament she was saddened by Ms Price's statement and said it painted a disturbing scenario.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) says the comments by Ms Price reflect a sad state of affairs according to ABC.

Several people took to Twitter to voice their annoyance at her comments.

@NATSILS who describe themselves as 'the peak body for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Legal Services' wrote on their Twitter page 'Bess Price how wrong you are. Symptoms of the real issue. Poverty.'

One user wrote 'What a tragic, simplistic and scary view' while another accused her of creating 'an apartheid.'

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Well intentioned but fiscally ludicrous

Well, the fiscal chickens have come home to roost. The government’s Wage Connect policy has proven so successful in finding businesses with their hands out that the ALP has been forced to place the program on hold until 1 July.

Wage Connect is a program designed to assist job seekers, who have little to no recent work experience, get back into a job. The program is restricted to those who have been unemployed for over two years.

Employers who offer full-time positions to inexperienced staff, providing them with on-the-job training, can receive subsidies to the tune of $5,900 per employee for six months to assist with training costs. This averages out to roughly $230 per week, equivalent to that of the Newstart Allowance.

The government had originally committed $85 million out of the 2011-12 budget to fund the program over the next four years. But since the budget, long-term unemployment has grown by 23,000 people to a total 253,000. Predictably, Wage Connect has proven popular with businesses eager to get their hands on some easy money.

The program has laudable objectives. The long-term unemployed often lack the skills and experience necessary to find even entry-level jobs, so any program that increases their chances of gaining employment ought to be considered. However it was entirely foreseeable that this program would burn a hole through its budget.

Many businesses in low-skilled industries regularly employ inexperienced staff. Offering these businesses subsidies simply pays them to hire employees they might already have hired.

Of course, many of these subsidies would have gone to the intended recipients; businesses weary of hiring inexperienced staff would have seen the subsidy as a just reward for taking a risk on inexperienced staff.

But there is a better way to get the long-term unemployed back into jobs, with no impact whatsoever on the government’s budget.

To give businesses a greater incentive to take on the long-term unemployed, the government could provide a six-month exemption from the minimum award wage.

This would give businesses six months to provide training, without the cost pressures imposed by minimum award wages. After six months – the same duration as the Wage Connect subsidy – the employee’s wage would go back up to its regular level.

This way, the long-term unemployed would have higher job prospects, employers would have an incentive to hire them, and the government would reduce the number of long-term unemployed job seekers drawing income support.

Scrapping Wage Connect subsidies in favour of a minimum wage exemption should be a no-brainer for any government wanting to stem the growth in long-term unemployment, particularly one struggling to produce a budget surplus.

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Crash victims rescued from Lawyers

CAR accident victims will no longer be left waiting for years before being paid for injuries and payouts will be made without expensive legal fees under sweeping reforms of NSW's greenslip scheme.

The reforms, which the state Government believes will see premiums fall up at least 15 per cent, will set defined benefits for injuries and remove the need for victims to prove which driver was at fault.

Under the proposed reforms, a victim will bring the claim to their own insurer as with comprehensive motor insurance, rather than making the claim through the at-fault driver's insurance company.

The O'Farrell Government aims to ban ambulance-chasing lawyers from profiting from broken compulsory third-party insurance scheme.

The move will come as a welcome relief to the state's five million car owners, who now pay an average of $518 a year for a greenslip, up 70 per cent since 2008.

Premier Barry O'Farrell said the compulsory third party scheme had turned into "a lawyer's picnic", with less than half of the money from motorist's greenslip finding its way to accident victims.

"These proposed changes will drive down costs by ensuring the system is foc- used on those who are injured, not ambulance chasing lawyers," he said.

Compulsory greenslips supplied by private insurers NRMA, Allianz, CIC-Allianz, GIO, QBE and Zurich are the most expensive part of motor vehicle registration.

A review of the third-party insurance by the Motor Accidents Authority has found that since 1999, more money has been spent on lawyers' bills than on medical treatment and care for road accident victims.

This is because a person injured in a car accident must prove who is at fault in an accident, which often leads to lengthy court battles.

The unpredictable nature of claims also means insurers demand higher premiums.

Some examples of waste:

* A pedestrian hit by a car was awarded $6000 but legal bills topped $60,000 after a seven-year dispute.

* A person hit by a car got less than $30,000 for injuries while legal, investigation and medical expenses topped $190,000.

* A motorcyclist involved in an accident due to the road conditions was denied compensation but left with a $30,000 legal bill.

Minister for Finance and Services Greg Pearce said the NSW system was the least affordable in Australia.

Insurers last month asked Mr Pearce to approve 10pc increases which would add an extra $50 to bills.

"The majority of compensation is paid out between three and five years after an accident and often it's the lawyers who walk away with more money," he said.

"A 'no fault' scheme would reduce costs, create a more competitive CTP insurance market, and get money to those who need it the most, rather than lawyers, insurers and investigators."

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Royal Darwin Hospital "shocking", AMA says

PEOPLE will die if a severe bed shortage at Royal Darwin Hospital is not addressed, the Australian Medical Association said.

The situation was so bad this week that two beds were crammed into many emergency department cubicles, admitted patients were left in corridors and nurses were running into the waiting room to treat people.

AMA NT president Dr Peter Beaumont said the situation would get worse unless governments increased health funding.

"People's lives are at risk under these circumstances,'' he said.

"Overcrowding leads to omissions.  "People will die.''

Australian Nursing Federation NT branch secretary Yvonne Falckh said the condition of the emergency department was shocking.

"I'm absolutely appalled that two patients were put in to each cubicle,'' she said.  "There is a lack of confidentiality and privacy.

"What if one of them needed to use a bed pan or a bottle or even speak to the doctor?'

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Free speech problems

Part of an opinion article by Richard Ackland is reproduced below in the interests of full and fair public discussion.  Ackland is a Left-leaning Australian lawyer and the article below reflects the ambivalence many Leftists feel about hate-speech laws.  They fear  that such laws could ensnare them in the heat of political disagreements. But Ackland appears to think that some expansion of such law is needed and that the conservative impulse to get such laws expunged is wrong.

His argument against the conservative case put by Tony Abbott is however both "ad hominem" and misleading.  The matter Abbott went to court over was a libel case -- in response to false and scurrilous allegations published about himself and a woman not his wife.  It was not a case brought under anti-discrimination law. 

Libel has always been recognized as not protected free speech in the USA despite their first amendment protections of speech so Ackland's apparent conflation of libellous speech with free speech is tendentious and misleading.  He would seem simply to be making a snide point motivated by a need to discredit conservatives rather than by any intention of making fair comparisons.  It is unworthy of Mr Ackland

Travelling on public transport can be traumatic. Particularly if you're the ABC newsreader Jeremy Fernandez with his young daughter on a Sydney bus, subjected to the racist rantings of an unhinged banshee. A French woman singing on a Melbourne bus was subjected to a similar tirade, but in that case it seemed to be more of a mob onslaught.

The law says people are not supposed to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate because of someone's race, colour or ethnic origin - in public, of course; at home you can pretty much be as vile as you like.

The previous attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, had been howled down because she suggested in an "exposure draft" of a new anti-discrimination bill that those terms should apply across the board in all cases of discrimination by means of "unfavourable treatment".

Free-speech champion Tony Abbott has promised to repeal this part of the Racial Discrimination Act in its current form.

The new Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, says he'll be agonising over getting the balance right between free speech and "protecting the community".

The ABC chairman, James Spigelman, said in a speech in December to the Human Rights Commission that words such as "offend" and "insult" go too far, that they impinge on freedom of speech in ways that words like "humiliate" and "intimidate" do not.

Presumably he means the free speech protection goes a notch higher if the basic requirements of anti-discrimination protections are at the humiliation and intimidation end of the nastiness spectrum.

We're playing here with the English language and the distinctions are not always visible. In every case the line between insult and humiliation may not be clear.  But Spigelman is surely right when he says, "there is no right not be offended".

The long-serving Melbourne media lawyer Peter Bartlett recently said in an interview that "the present anti-discrimination legislation we've got is a significant problem for the media". He told the Gazette of Law & Journalism (interest disclosure: publisher is moi) that he's had to deal with discrimination complaints claiming that articles on paedophilia vilify all Catholics.

A newspaper report about a Turkish man's run-in with police has prompted a complaint that all Turks are vilified.

The Australian Financial Review had complaints from Italians in Melbourne over a drawing by Michael Fitzjames of the map of Italy which he called Berlusconia with the major cities given names like Necappi, Ponzi, Pestilenti, Spivi and so on.

It went on an on and cost the paper an enormous amount of time, energy and money. Interestingly, this case was brought under Victorian legislation, which deals with hatred and serious contempt - not offence or insult. Even at that higher standard, it still took ages to reach settlement.

Bartlett said: "Some of these complaints are ludicrous. There are more and more of them. Regulatory authorities are not looking at them and saying 'This clearly has no merit and should be dismissed.' It is very frustrating."

It's probably an unreasonable expectation that the number of ludicrous complaints will drop off if the law gets rid of "offend and insult" and just sticks with "humiliate and intimidate". Maybe, the Italians, Turks or Catholics will feel the humiliation rather than the offence.

While Abbott has pledged to get rid of "offensive" he, in his own defamation case with Peter Costello and their wives against Random House over the Bob Ellis's book Goodbye Jerusalem, was happy to be compensated for an even lower level of grief - "hurt feelings".

Hurt feelings are enough for Abbott to go running to the law but he won't allow anyone to seek a remedy for being offended or insulted.

In his free speech address last August he thought that the ancient common law offences of "incitement and causing fear" should be enough grounds for a racial vilification case.

It's not certain but he seemed to be saying that racial vilification should be left to common law, which means unelected judges.

More HERE 





Burn-off policy outrage in Tasmania

A GROUP of Tasmanian farmers say their livelihoods are being threatened by bureaucratic red tape stopping them from burning off on their land and putting their properties at risk of further catastrophic fires.

Lobby group leader and owner of Redbanks at Nugent, Sorell councillor Lindsay White, was due to take part in a teleconference last night with the NSW Volunteer Firefighters Association to give advice based on the issues facing Tasmanian farmers after the Lake Repulse, Forcett and Molesworth fires.

"Our group believes that farmers' property rights have been eroded over the past 30 years to appease the wishes of government departments," Mr White said.

"Farmers are unable to effectively manage their own properties because of the quagmire of red and green tape," he said.

The group has now met with Emergency Management Minister David O'Byrne and Tasmania Fire Service chief Mike Brown to voice their concerns and demand change.

A Facebook page has also been set up called "It's Our Land Too" calling for supporters, and Mr White wants to hear from other landowners struggling to deal with bureaucratic red tape.

The group says the Forcett fire would not have exploded into such a catastrophic event if Parks and Wildlife adhered to their reserves management plans and the Tasmania Fire Service "heeded the advice of local fire chiefs and farmers".

The TFS says it will work with farmers to address their concerns.

But Mr Brown said it was important to note that while the Forcett fire burned with the same ferocity of the deadly 1967 bushfires, there was no loss of life and far less property damage.

Carlton River farmer Leigh Arnold lost a shearing shed, wool shed and house in the Forcett blaze and says it was the final straw after hundreds of acres he planned to subdivide on his property were locked up after being deemed "potential foraging ground" for the swift parrot.

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An extreme contrast between electric cars and V8s

Governments are pissing into the wind with their "green" car initiatives.  Virtually nobody wants them. 

Holden has revealed the V8 muscle car that will take on the American car industry at its own game.

The SS Commodore will form the basis of a $200 million export program that will see the car sold as a Chevrolet alongside the iconic Camaro and Corvette muscle cars.

The car will also take to America's oval race tracks, becoming Chevrolet's entrant in the Nascar series, which ranks second only to the NFL in television ratings.

Holden moved forward the unveiling of the new Commodore because the export version will be shown to the American public for the first time tomorrow, as part of the lead up to the legendary Daytona 500.

The car will have one of the most powerful V8s ever fitted to a locally-produced car and Holden will only sell the most powerful – and, likely, thirstiest – version.

The move flies in the face of the Federal Government's controversial Green Car Innovation Fund, which has pumped money into the local car industry to make it more environmentally friendly.

In an era of downsizing and more fuel efficient vehicles – Holden has invested tens of millions of dollars into the new Commodore to reduce weight and improve fuel economy by about 10 per cent - the country's newest export is also its thirstiest.

The export car will look almost identical to the recently-revealed VF Commodore SS-V, albeit with Chevrolet badges and – possibly – bonnet scoops to give it a more aggressive look.

However it's expected to get a 6.2-litre V8, which will outgun the Holden version that makes do with a 6.0-litre V8.

Holden has said it is looking to sell between 3000 and 5000 to Chevrolet in the US, where it will be sold as the brand's flagship performance sedan, the SS.

It will likely sit between the locally-designed Camaro two-door and the Corvette flagship as a four-door performance hero in the Chevrolet range.

However Holden insiders have suggested those sales estimates are “very conservative” and that executives on both sides of the Pacific hope to achieve higher numbers, reinforcing the demand for V8 sedans.

Even the Corvette – a purebred sports car – sells in far higher numbers; it has regularly accounted for more than 30,000 in annual sales and even since the global financial crisis has accounted for more than 10,000 sales annually.

In Australia sales of V8s are strong, too, with about one-third of all Commodores sold fitted with a V8.

The figures show that despite a global push towards fuel efficiency, Australians are reluctant to sacrifice power for fuel economy and environmental concerns.

Despite significant media coverage and new arrivals last year, fewer than 200 all-electric cars were sold in 2012, whereas more than 25,000 V8-powered cars were sold in Australia.

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Unnecessary deaths in Aust emergency rooms

More than one-third of patients in Australia's hospital emergency rooms are not being seen in the recommended time, a report has found.

That can translate into "unnecessary deaths", according to the Australian Medical Association (AMA).

Last year, 66 per cent of patients categorised as urgent at public hospital emergency departments were seen within 30 minutes - the time recommended by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.  That fell below the national performance target of 80 per cent.

AMA President Dr Steve Hambleton says there is strong local evidence that people are at risk of injury and even death if hospitals don't have the capacity to meet patient demand.

"If there's insufficient beds in the system and we can't get people out of emergency it does cause harm," Mr Hambleton told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

"We do see unnecessary deaths that we do want to protect against."

The 2013 AMA Public Hospital Report Card found that despite a 10 per cent increase in federal funding since 2008 to 2011, there was no improvement in the performance of the nation's public hospitals.

The lack of improvement is a result of federal and state governments "playing the blame game", the AMA says.

"We've seen a lot of state governments withdrawing funds," Mr Hambleton said.

"And we've seen the federal government doing the same thing.

"We need to focus on solving the problem and not blaming each other.

"The fact is when you're sitting in emergency with your mum, you want to make sure that we've got the capacity to see her on time and have that chest pain sorted out."

Federal health minister Tanya Plibersek said the report card showed that work was required to improve emergency waiting times and elective surgery waiting lists.

"This report reminds us that we cannot slacken off; we need to be professional," she told reporters in Sydney.

Ms Plibersek said it was essential that federal and state governments worked together financially to enhance health care.

"Extra money has to come with better management, not just from the commonwealth, but also the states and territories," she said.

"Improving our health system has to be a partnership."

Ms Plibersek refused to be drawn on whether the states were responsible for the poor report card, telling reporters: "I'm not blaming anyone."

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Nothing to fear from me, says Geert Wilders

CONTROVERSIAL right wing anti-Islamic Dutch politician Geert Wilders says Australia has nothing to fear from him when he visits the country next week.

Mr Wilders, speaking on the ABC's Lateline on Wednesday, said he was on a global jihad to preserve freedom.

He said he wants to warn Australia against allowing the mass immigration of people from Muslim countries "because Islam and freedom are incompatible".

"I believe with mass immigration into our free societies, those societies will change, and they will change for the worse," Mr Wilders said.

The leader of the Party for Freedom holds the balance of power in the Dutch parliament after receiving around 10 per cent of the national vote.

He wants to tell Australians that we must learn from the mistakes they made in Europe and be vigilant of Islam.

"It is not a religion of peace - it is a totalitarian ideology," Mr Wilders said.

He conceded that the majority of Muslims living in Europe were moderates but their religion of Islam was totalitarian that has no room for anything but Islam.

Mr Wilders said that when he visits Australia next week he not only wanted to talk to people who agreed with him but to those who did not.

"I am a lawmaker not a law breaker," he said.

When asked if he would be accompanied by Dutch Security Service he said that he could not talk about security arrangements or he would make himself more vulnerable.

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Don't rely on the police for anything

Even a real bad egg is of no interest to them

Police handling of a violent criminal who repeatedly breached parole was grossly negligent, a coroner said.

The man went on a destructive rampage in July 2009, which ended when he shot himself during a siege.

Shane Andrew Robinson, 32, stabbed a police officer on the Barrier Highway in South Australia and stole the officer's car.

He had been pulled over for questioning about suspected criminal activity.

Robinson ran over a pedestrian with the police car, then went to a homestead near Yunta and held a 75-year-old woman hostage.

She was bound and assaulted during the siege, before Robinson shot himself.

Coroner Mark Johns said Robinson's violent actions could have been prevented had police done their job properly and pursued him when he started behaving erratically weeks earlier.

Parole Board executive officer Kevin Hill told the inquest the Correctional Services Department failed to immediately tell the board about a serious breach a month earlier, when Robinson tried to strangle his girlfriend and failed to report to his Corrections officer.

The inquest heard police were alerted, but follow-up of the domestic violence report was inadequate and no attempt was made to identify the parolee involved.

The coroner was told Robinson was not adequately monitored because a Corrections staffer was on leave.

"This is an unsatisfactory situation and has resulted in significant changes within Community Corrections since and because of Mr Robinson's death," Mr Johns said in his findings.

Robinson's mother Jacqui attended the inquest and publicly apologised for her son's horrific crimes.

She said she felt the system let her son down.

"I would like to apologise to the victims of this terrible crime, leading to my son's death. I feel that the system has let my son down, let my family down and let the victims and the police and the community down," she said.

The inquest heard Robinson failed to complete anger management, alcohol abuse and domestic violence courses recommended by his parole officer.

He failed to make appointments with a psychologist, despite counselling being a release condition.

In 2002, Robinson took hostage a teenage boy at a house at suburban Netley, threatened him with an axe and held a knife to the boy's throat.

Robinson was shot in the neck by a STAR Force officer during that siege.

He spent time in hospital, then was sentenced to six years in jail with a non-parole period of four years.

The offender was released on parole in December 2007.

The Coroner concluded there was gross negligence by authorities involved in Robinson's management, particularly SA Police.

"There were opportunities to intervene in the management of Mr Robinson in a way that might have prevented the events culminating in his death, thus saving not only his life but the serious sexual assault of an elderly lady and the serious stabbing wounding of a member of the police force," Mr Johns said.

He said Robinson should never have been allowed to live with his partner and her teenage daughters, given his convictions for serious child sex offences.

Mr Johns also was highly critical of the SA Police call centre's handling of the report Robinson had attacked his partner.

"In my opinion call centre operators and their supervisors must be provided with domestic violence training, which instructs them on how and when to deal with allegations of domestic violence and emphasises that, where it is not known that the victim is actually safe and that cannot be ascertained adequately on the telephone, a police patrol should attend," he said.

"The failure by anyone at the SAPOL call centre to bother to inquire as the identity of the perpetrator of the domestic violence allegation is profoundly disturbing.

"It shows a lack of interest and commitment to the job of policing and keeping South Australians safe. It shows a narrow focus on the immediate task and a desire merely to get rid of a problem with a minimum of effort."

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Abbott backs plans to build more dams

A horror moment for the Green/Left

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Australians need to get over their "dam phobia", amid reports the Coalition is considering a multi-billion dollar plan to build up to 100 dams across the country.

Mr Abbott says there have been too few dams built in recent years, and it is time to throw off the "green extremism" that has prevented new projects going ahead.

"What we want to avoid is the dam phobia which has afflicted our country for at least a generation," he told reporters this morning.

"We currently use about 6 per cent of our available water resources. Nine per cent is the international average.

"If we could lift our utilisation to the international average, our agricultural productivity would be massively increased."

The idea, contained in a draft discussion paper, has the enthusiastic support of the Nationals, but there are differing interpretations within the Coalition of what status the plan for more dams has.

The Coalition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt this morning said no decision had been made on any particular dam proposal, suggesting some may not be viable.

"We have no proposal for 100 dams as such," Mr Hunt told ABC NewsRadio.

"Those are initiatives which other people have suggested to us and we've simply chronicled the submissions."

But Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce has rejected suggestions the draft discussion paper was just a pre-election thought bubble.

"This has been worked on for nearly two years, travelling the countryside, examining sites over the past couple of years," Senator Joyce told reporters in Canberra.

"This is certainly not a thought bubble. This is a key policy.

"It goes to show the Australian people that whilst we have been in Opposition we can be diligently doing our homework and preparing ourselves for that opportunity if it comes, the honour of government."

The Coalition's plan for more dams was initially leaked to News Limited newspapers, prompting ridicule from Labor.

"This is a story about water, dams and leaks," Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson told reporters in Canberra this morning.

"Mr Abbott has had three leaks in three weeks. This is a strange way to release policy."

Dr Emerson says the Coalition now needs to explain how it is going to pay for the mutli-billion dams plan.

"The Australian people expect the release of fully costed policies, so that they know about the policies of both parties, and... where the money is coming from."

Mr Abbott says new dams would only be built after a thorough cost-benefit analysis, but argues many projects would not need government funding.

"The proponents would fund them because the spin-offs - in terms of agricultural development, in terms of hydro electric power, in terms of flood mitigation - are just really too good to ignore," he told Macquarie Radio.

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Carbon farm funding arrangements questioned

The Federal Government has been questioned about why it did not demand a management plan before funding a carbon farming project in the Northern Territory.

Henbury Station in Central Australia was purchased by RM Williams Agricultural Holdings in 2011 for $13 million, of which the Commonwealth contributed $9 million.

It was pitched as Australia's biggest carbon farming project.

The plan was to destock the 5,000 square kilometre property, about 125 kilometres south of Alice Springs, and return it to its natural state to earn carbon credits.

After a change of project management late last year, there was talk of incorporating some beef production in the plan.

A draft methodology on running the property was submitted to the Government but this was returned to RM Williams Agricultural Holdings, with a request for more information.

No carbon credits have been earned by the project so far.

This week, National Parks Director Peter Cochrane was questioned about the project during a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra.

He said a management plan had not been required before the contract was signed.

Mr Cochrane told the hearing a Carbon Farming Initiative methodology has still not been approved.

National Party Senator Fiona Nash described the situation as appalling.

"The whole process seems to be a bit of a shambles and there really is a real lack of transparency," she said.

"To give $9 million of taxpayer money to a private company to purchase a property and not expect something as transparent and basic as a final management plan before that money was handed over, I think, is just an extraordinary state of affairs."

She says running cattle on the property would be a complete breach of the funding agreement.

The Environment Department has been asked to report on what will happen to the Commonwealth money if the project fails.

A spokesman for RM Williams Agricultural Holdings says there is a detailed interim management plan in place at Henbury Station.

SOURCE

University focus as Rudd marks apology anniversary

Rudd is Australia's Obama in terms of saying stuff that sounds good but is totally empty of any contact with reality. 

Blacks have had preferential access to universities ever since the Abschol sceme was set up decades ago.  But very few of them are bright enough to handle university.  And those that do get to university are, in my experience, just waved through regardless of their abilities

Thousands of people around the nation are marking five years since the formal apology and Mr Rudd has spoken of the need to boost tertiary access for Indigenous Australians.

Campaigner Brian Butler has been working to help Aboriginal people affected by forced removal of children from families over six decades.

He says the initial hope Mr Rudd gave Aboriginal people has long disappeared.

"Whether it's Kevin Rudd or anyone, no single politician is going to be able to make promises to the Aboriginal people because that's never happened before, things haven't progressed," he said.

"There might have been native title, there might have been a few payouts but it's still not reaching those people that are in this impoverished situation."

Mr Rudd was the keynote speaker at a breakfast held in Adelaide to mark the fifth anniversary.

The former prime minister said the latest Closing the Gap focus needed to be achieving university placements.

He said too few Indigenous students reached higher education and urged work to achieve a target of 10,000 extra Indigenous students going to the nation's universities.

"We must as a nation see the same number of Indigenous kids at our universities, proportional to their size and population in Australia ... and at present they are not," he said.

Mr Rudd said Indigenous participation in tertiary education should not be seen as "something exotic" but as mainstream.

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Some feelgood tokenism

The House of Representatives has passed legislation recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first inhabitants of Australia.

The bill is considered an interim step on the path towards an eventual referendum for constitutional change.

Its passage through the Lower House this morning came on the five-year anniversary of former prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has described the legislation as a "sign of good faith" that Parliament is committed to righting the wrongs of previous actions.

"No gesture speaks more deeply to the healing of our nation's fabric than amending our nation's founding charter," she told Parliament.

"This bill seeks to foster momentum for a referendum for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."

The legislation passed with unanimous support.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says constitutional recognition for Indigenous people is long overdue.

"We need to atone for the omissions and for the hardness of heart of our forebears, to enable us all to embrace the future as a united people," he told Parliament.

Mr Abbott has paid tribute to those who have worked to achieve reconciliation over a long period of time, including former prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Harold Holt, John Howard and Kevin Rudd.

He has also recognised the efforts of Ms Gillard.

"So often in this place, we are antagonists. Today on this matter, we are partners and collaborators," he said.

The preamble to the legislation notes that further consultation is necessary to refine plans for a referendum and to grow community support for the change.

"The Parliament is committed to building the national consensus needed for the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution," the preamble states.

"The Parliament believes this Act is a significant step in the process towards achieving constitutional change."

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Shale mining coming to Australia

A BAN on shale oil mining in Queensland will be lifted, creating potentially thousands of jobs and providing the cash-strapped State Government with a new revenue stream.

Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps will today announce plans to lift the ban, placing the Newman Government on a collision course with environmentalists.

The decision will mean the Government can count on new royalty revenue from shale oil, liquefied natural gas and uranium in the future.

The shale oil industry has been in limbo since 2008 after a 20-year moratorium was placed over a major deposit in north Queensland and the industry told it must prove its technology before the Government would give the green light to proceed.

Shale oil is a sedimentary rock that can be mined, crushed, heated and processed or heated in place to produce petroleum and other fuels.

The Newman Government's decision will allow one operator, Queensland Energy Resources, to progress its trial plant at Gladstone and seek approval for a full commercial operation.

Other potential operators are likely to kickstart the approvals process for their own operations in coming years, with 90 per cent of Australia's known oil shale reserves in Queensland.

However, the Government will maintain until 2028 the moratorium on the controversial deposit near Proserpine in north Queensland, which critics claim is too close to the coastline and sensitive wetlands.

Mr Cripps said the industry could provide huge economic benefits to Queensland, with the current resource considered capable of producing 22 billion barrels of oil.

"As the world supply of conventional crude oil diminishes, there are strong prospects for oil shale to become the next major source of liquid fuel supplies in Australia, and Queensland is well placed to lead that charge," he said.

Under the new shale oil policy, the Newman Government promised project proponents would have to demonstrate how they would meet high environmental standards.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell stressed approvals would be made on a "case-by-case" basis.

QER chief executive Pearce Bowman said the Government's decision recognised the potential importance of oil shale to Australia's transport fuel future, and QER's achievements in constructing and operating a clean and quiet technology demonstration plant

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Big Federal bungle of "Super Clinics"


IN LIMBO: The GP Super Clinic at Redcliffe.  If you are sick, don't wait for the Federal government to fix you up

REDCLIFFE'S five-storey GP super clinic is nothing more than a shell six years after it was pledged as one of four clinics for Queensland during the 2007 election.

Six super clinics, including those also pledged for Mount Isa, Townsville and Gladstone, still have not opened while four clinics promised in 2010 do not even have a funding agreement.

Delays in the program, which was supposed to bring 64 bulk-billing and late-opening GP clinics to communities around Australia, are exposed in a departmental spreadsheet outlining progress on the $650 million project ahead of today's Senate estimates hearings.

A spokesman for Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said 49 GP super clinics were operational, under construction or providing early services.

Explaining the delays, he said the Government had needed to find the land for the majority of super clinics.

"This differs to other government construction projects where the land is already identified and usually zoned for the intended use," he said.

"All GP super clinics provide bulk billing for relevant Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) services. All GP super clinics also have arrangements in place to ensure patients have access to after hours services."

Three of the clinics promised in 2007 and not yet open were expected to be operational by mid-2013, he said.

They included Gladstone, Townsville and Redcliffe. Wallan and Waneroo were expected to open by late 2014. Construction of the Mount Isa clinic has not started.

Federal Member for Petrie Yvette D'Ath blamed a lack of support from the State Government for the Redcliffe delay.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said it wasn't a state project.

"It is definitely a federal responsibility to get the GPs in there," she said.

The problems could come back to bite Labor at this year's election.

Labor needs to win seats in Queensland if it is to hold on to power. Some super clinics are in marginal or nearly marginal electorates. Mount Isa is in the seat of key Independent Bob Katter.

A consultant report commissioned by the Department of Health on the first seven GP clinics to open found only one GP super clinic was bulk billing all patients and it had to schedule appointments for just 10 minutes to achieve the volume required to make ends meet.

Some clinics had trouble attracting staff and patients because rival local doctors had run campaigns against them.

Opposition primary healthcare spokesman Dr Andrew Southcott said: "The Coalition believes that it would have been better to harness existing general practices and encourage them to expand."

Redcliffe Hospital patient Daniel Mulligan and his wife, Jeanette, said yesterday it was outrageous necessary health services weren't being provided after $13 million was spent.

"It's absolutely disgusting," said Mrs Mulligan, of Caboolture. "It's a dreadful waste of money."

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Teachers at Islamic College of South Australia's West Croydon campus ordered to wear hijab or face sack

SOUTH Australia's biggest Islamic school has warned teachers, including many non-Muslims, that they will lose their jobs if they do not wear a hijab to school functions and outings.

Up to 20 non-Muslim female teachers, who do not wish to be named, have been told they will be sacked from the Islamic College of South Australia's West Croydon campus after three warnings if they do not wear a headscarf to cover their hair.

The order, from the school's governing board and chairman Faruk Kahn, contradicts the policy of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

Mr Kahn yesterday referred The Advertiser to AFIC for comment on the matter. "I have no comment ... I think you better go to AFIC, they are the only ones that are to make comment," Mr Kahn said.

School principal Kadir Emniyet did not return calls.

AFIC assistant secretary Keysar Trad said the policy was at odds with the national federation, but it was powerless to intervene.

"I'm aware there's a policy at that school with respect to the scarf," Mr Trad said.

"The AFIC policy is not to require any teacher to observe the hijab. In SA, the board itself has decided they want to operate in their way and we are not allowed to interfere in the matter.

"We maintain that staff should dress modestly but not be required by the nature of policy to wear the hijab."

Mr Trad said that matters of unfair dismissal resulting from teachers disobeying the school's hijab policy should be referred to Fair Work Australia.

"It's confusing for our children to see their teachers wearing the scarf in school and then they take it off when they are out shopping and the children see them there," he said.

"It is also a respect thing for our staff. If they are not Muslim they should not be forced to dress as Muslim."

One long-term teacher at the Islamic College of SA said a new school board was now "forcing teachers to put hijabs back on".

"There's no discussion ... you wear it or you're fired," the teacher said. "The teachers have always adhered to the policies and we are respectful of that.

"We are respectful of their religion but they are not going to respect us."

The college has about 800 students and 40 staff.

Guidelines from the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils to other Islamic schools do not require teachers to wear hijabs.

Glen Seidel, state secretary of the Independent Education Union, said the union was monitoring the policy.

"Essentially it means female staff have to wear a scarf covering most of their hair, and not have legs and arms exposed," he said.

"In 2012, the requirement was being managed moderately, but with a new principal in 2013 enacting the decisions of a very conservative school board, there is no room for compromise."

Mr Seidel said the union's view is staff should be free to decide whether to wear a scarf.

"The ultimate test would be in an unfair dismissal action to see if that requirement would be considered a `reasonable direction' and the termination therefore being reasonable.

"This is not a matter (in which) religious organisations are exempted from equal opportunity legislation in order to not cause offence to the `adherents of the faith'," Mr Seidel said.

"Non-Islamic staff are not being discriminated (against) in their employment as it is the same code for all.

"Non-Islamic staff can, however, feel rightly aggrieved that they are being coerced to adopt the dress code of a religion to which they do not belong."

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University of Queensland study explores link between conservatism and happiness

DON'T be surprised next time you see former Prime Minister John Howard smiling - locally-conducted research has found those on the right of the political spectrum are happier than those on the left.

A study conducted by a team from UQ Psychology, at the University of Queensland, surveyed 816 undergraduate students to explore the link between conservatism and happiness.

Professor Jolanda Jetten said the findings indicated that conservatives were happier than liberals because of their strong ties to a large network of social groups and a greater access to "social capital."

"In 2008, New York University psychologists Jaime Napier and John Jost were the first to attempt to explain this difference in happiness, arguing that the happiness gap is caused by the difference in ideology between conservatives and liberals," Professor Jetten said.

"It appears (from our research) that what makes conservatives happy is not conservative ideology but rather their social and material advantage - the same advantage that makes conservative ideology appealing in the first place."

Fellow researcher Dr Fiona Kate Barlow said it was found that those with a higher social economic status have access to more group memberships and this created greater life satisfaction.

The study was conducted with support from a UQ Mid-Career Research Fellowship and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).


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Multiculturalists bury heads in sand

In a speech in January to the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London, Scott Morrison, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, signalled that if the Coalition wins this year’s election, an Abbott Government will make social integration and the promotion of Australian values its priority.

Morrison also indicated that an Abbott Government would move away from the emphasis that the official multicultural policy currently places on the promotion of cultural diversity. Morrison justified the Coalition’s approach by pointing to growing community concerns about multiculturalism. A 2012 Scanlon Foundation report found that people residing near areas with high-concentrations of residents who are culturally disconnected from mainstream Australian society were more likely to be lukewarm, at best and understandably, about cultural diversity.

Cultural dis-integration is a real issue in South West Sydney. The predominantly Lebanese-Muslim community that lives in and around the suburbs of Bankstown and Lakemba experience a range of social problems, including low educational attainment, welfare dependence, and crime. Religious extremism is also a problem, as was alarmingly demonstrated by the Islamist riot in the Sydney CBD in September 2012.

Morrison’s speech prompted this reply by Geoff Gallop, former Western Australian Premier, now Sydney University academic, which downplayed the significant challenge the Islamist riot posed to the idea of a peaceful and tolerant multicultural society.

Gallop maintained that if social harmony was under threat due to ‘putting differences ahead of unity,’ we should not focus on those groups who practice a self-imposed form of divinely-inspired, anti-Western and anti-women cultural apartheid, but should instead remember the ‘Australian-born and bred nationalists’ who rioted at Cronulla in December 2005.

Gallop ran a familiar multiculturalist line. Multiculturalists have always attributed community reluctance to embrace multiculturalism to racist attitudes among ‘non-ethnic’ Australians. Politicians who pander to so-called ‘populist’ concerns about multiculturalism have always been accused of seeking to return ‘open’ and modern Australia to the ‘closed’ attitudes of earlier times.

The reality, however, is that defenders of multiculturalism who are willing to discuss the disgraceful Cronulla riot, but who prefer to overlook the appalling Islamist riot, are ignoring the real issues of social cohesion that multiculturalism raises for liberal-democratic societies.

By refusing to discuss the significance of the violent protests orchestrated by local Islamists, they are not only burying their heads in the sand about multiculturalism, they are also endangering community support for Australia’s long-running and overwhelmingly-successful non-discriminatory immigration program.

For a mass immigration program to be politically feasible, it must have broad-based community support. Legitimate concerns about immigration leading to ethnic or religious-based social division need to be addressed — not dismissed as racist.

Politicians who seek to reassure the community that government policy is to integrate migrants irrespective of colour and creed into Australian society are hardly seeking to revive the bad old days of the White Australia policy. They are in fact establishing the policy framework that will help build popular support for Australia’s large and ongoing annual intake of migrants from around the world

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The Karate Line?

How are welfare payments supposed to help people? The commonsense answer is that they help people pay for the basics of life, including food, shelter and transport, to name a few. But the recent debate over changes to the Parenting Payment suggests that welfare payments are intended to provide much more.

The changes, which came into effect from 1 January this year, have pushed tens of thousands of single parents of school aged children off Parenting Payment (which pays up to $663.70 a fortnight) and onto the less generous Newstart Allowance (up to $533 per fortnight). These payments do not include the hundreds of dollars that single parents also receive through family tax benefits or the schoolkids bonus.

The policy will generate savings to taxpayers of more than $700 million over four years and provide an additional incentive for single parents to work more. For some, it appears to be working. This article in The Age reports the situation of one parent choosing to work 20 hours a week more so she can pay for her kid’s karate lessons.

Other parents are choosing to cut expenditure. One affected parent complains the changes forced her to pull her son out of ‘footy, guitar lessons, swimming lessons and scouts this year.’ Claims along these lines have made ample fodder for human interest stories and the adequacy of welfare payments more generally.

The debate goes to the heart of the role of welfare payments. Are they to help some people maintain a lifestyle they have come to enjoy, or are they to help prevent people from going hungry and without shelter?

I think it is the latter, but it seems that for some, welfare payments are no longer about keeping people above the poverty line by providing basic support, but about keeping them above a ‘karate line’ — a line at which they can afford to do the things that they want to do while still receiving welfare payments — like sending a child to karate.

SOURCE

Hero soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, to retire

I am sure that all patriotic Australians wish him well at this time.  Photo of him with the Queen is an amusing contrast.  Story here.








Judge Stephen McEwen terms child service officials controls freaks

THE protection of troubled children has been hijacked by obstructive control freaks who rely on psychological advice instead of obvious solutions, a judge says.

Senior Youth Court judge Stephen McEwen has levelled scathing criticism against the Department for Education and Child Development - formerly known as Families SA.

In a transcript obtained by the Sunday Mail, he said the department was paralysed by its reliance on a team of highly paid psychologists. He said dedicated, caring social workers had been handcuffed and vulnerable children left at risk of further harm.

"If this sounds a little bit like a dummy spit, that's because it is," he said. "I'm just sick and tired of that entire department being obstructive control freaks, constantly throwing up pseudo-reasons dressed up in social work speak for refusing to just have a look at the blindingly obvious.

"They hire people who are social workers who are trained and probably want to do social work, but they don't let them because no one will do anything without running it past a bunch of psychologists ... I think it is just utterly pathetic."

Judge McEwen was hearing the case of a boy, 14, charged with trespassing and theft offences.

At a hearing last year, he was told the boy repeatedly ran away from juvenile detention to live with his brother, 15, who was being housed at a different youth facility. He ordered the department to house the boys in the same facility as soon as possible to lessen their chances of reoffending.

This week Judge McEwen was told that had not occurred. Instead, the department's experts were "assessing the possibility" of supervised contact.

"A bunch of probably highly paid experts sat around at a meeting ... seven people all with titles like `senior this' ... and came up with that facile, pathetic nonsense," he said.

"What's happening in that department? I mean, do they have any stationery or do they have to send that to psychological services to decide whether to order any pens and papers? If they had a conference they wouldn't be able to provide coffee or biscuits because psychological services would be deciding what to provide."

Judge McEwen said the situation was shameful.

"Every one of those people who was at that meeting ought to go have a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror," he said. "We can't guarantee that (the boys) living together would work out and magically stop them offending ... but why not have a decent crack at putting them at the same place?"

It is not the first time Judge McEwen has criticised child protection services.

In October 2010, he ordered Families SA to counsel an 11-year-old offender and his parents. The department refused to do so, claiming Judge McEwen had exceeded his jurisdiction. "I don't want to pull rank here, but I will if I have to. Unilateral variation of court orders is, quite frankly, not on," he said.

One month later, the department asked Judge McEwen to cancel that same boy's bail because he had disobeyed it and skipped school.

"You've got a lad here who the department want me to jail - the very same department who did not do what I required of them," he replied.  "I won't put him in custody unless someone from the department shares a cell with him."

SOURCE




GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three recent reports below

Leftist  leader against carbon tax

WESTERN Australia's Labor leader Mark McGowan has distanced himself from Prime Minister Julia Gillard by saying he opposes the carbon tax ahead of next month's state election.

But Mr McGowan says he does support an emissions trading scheme.

A Newspoll commissioned by The Australian newspaper shows voters find Mr McGowan likable and caring but most think Premier Colin Barnett is a better economic manager.

The poll, published on Monday, shows 54 per cent of voters believe Mr Barnett is more capable of handling the state's economy, compared to 33 per cent support for Mr McGowan.

But the leaders are tied at 81 per cent when it comes to having a vision for the state.

Responding to the poll, Mr McGowan said he opposed a carbon tax but was in favour of an emissions trading scheme, and he would support the mining tax only if WA got back the exact share it put in.

"We see Western Australia as being more than just mining, whilst acknowledging the importance of mining," he told News Ltd.

Newspoll has pointed to a landslide election win for the WA Liberals on March 9, putting it ahead of Labor 57 to 43 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt says Mr McGowan's comments show why Labor cannot be trusted on the environment.

He worries Labor could be "opening the door" for its MPs to vote against existing climate change law if it loses the September 14 federal election.

"Is this the first signal that WA federal MPs might not vote to keep this package," Mr Bandt asked reporters in Canberra.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese defended Mr McGowan's stance.

"I notice that he also said that he supported an emissions trading scheme," he told Sky News.

"Of course what we have is a fixed price on carbon evolving into an emissions trading scheme."

Mr Albanese talked up support in WA for Labor, citing big federally-funded infrastructure projects such as the Great Eastern Highway, Perth CityLink project and Gateway project.

Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella said Mr McGowan knew Australians were hurting from increased costs of living because of the carbon tax.

SOURCE





Climate boffins dine out on $1740 taxpayer dollars

A DOZEN Climate Change authority executives dining out at a posh Italian restaurant to get to know each other better left tax-payers with an almost $2000 bill.

The dinner was held so the executives of the outfit created in July to review and make recommendations about the carbon tax and other federal government green schemes could meet in "an informal setting" to better their "collective decision making" capacity.

Executives dined at swish Melbourne eatery The Italian Restaurant and Bar on a $135-a-head menu of New Zealand king salmon, calamari, caprese salad, southern supreme beef, gnocchi with oyster mushroom and vanilla panna cotta with dark chocolate.

The dinner, which the authority planned to spend $1620 on but receipts show a cost of $1740, on November 20 last year was the night before a major board meeting.

"It is bad enough that Labor established a raft of new bureaucracies to manage its carbon tax but now it seems that those bureaucracies are literally dining out on the taxpayer," Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham.

"Many Australians will rightly wonder why the carbon tax they're paying through their higher electricity prices is being used to pay for expensive dinners.

He said the Coalition would scrap the agency if it won the September election.

A spokeswoman for the authority said the meeting was to allow authority members to meet informally.

"We are a newly established agency, we have got nine authority members from diverse backgrounds and locations to date they have had one opportunity to meet informally," she said.

"We wanted to provide them with an opportunity for an informal gathering with both the board members and senior executives to get to know each other a bit better.

"They need to be able to be a collective decision making body so it is important they know each other.
"It was the night before one of our critical board meetings."

Authority members at the dinner included Bernie Fraser, Lynne Williams, John Marlay, Professor David Karoly, Heather Ridout, Elana Rubin, Professor John Quiggan and CEO Anthea Harris, the spokeswoman said.

In its first five months the authority has spent a total of almost $4000 on catering with one bill for a stakeholder meeting with authority staff at Sydney's Sofitel Hotel expected to cost $645.

Catering for meetings at Climate Change Authority offices has varied between $21.80 during staff interviews and $442.80 for a staff planning day in October, an answer to budget estimates has revealed.

SOURCE





CSIRO not scientific when it comes to climate:  Report

Below is a summary of a much larger and very thorough document to be found here

Respected unpaid climate analyst, Malcolm Roberts, of Brisbane, Australia compiled the 'CSIROh! Report' on the invitation of ABC Radio’s Steve Austin. Across 29 pages Roberts details a litany of evidence proving that the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, corruptly and unlawfully misrepresented science, climate and Nature.

Austin asked of Roberts, “Please read through the Australian scientific paper and identify where you believe the CSIRO data has been falsified or is wrong.” To complete his task Roberts engaged in detailed correspondence with CSIRO’s Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark and CSIRO’s Group Executive-Environment Dr. Andrew Johnson; extensive analysis and research of CSIRO reports and discussions with former CSIRO scientists including former chief research scientist Professor Garth Paltridge.

With evidence presented by the above authorities Roberts put Aussie government’s climate science under the microscope to expose how bias and propaganda misled the public to support the government’s tax on carbon dioxide (CO2). Even-handedly Roberts concedes, “CSIRO has many fine people and a proud heritage. In areas outside climate it appears to have capability and credibility. That is threatened by CSIRO’s politicization.” But, critically, his findings reveal that CSIRO had no empirical scientific evidence whatsoever that human CO2 caused warming (see Appendix 2). Instead, the reports shows a dearth of actual evidence but the policies so far enacted are implicated in causing the needless deaths of more than 40 million people, mainly in Third World regions.

Four Failures to Find Fault

The key litmus test applied by the study was the requirement that CSIRO’s science should provide “yes” answers to these four key questions:

1. Is global ATMOSPHERIC temperature warming unusually in either amount or rate

and is it continuing to rise?

2. Does the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in air control or determine Earth’s temperature?

3. Does human CO2 production determine the level of CO2 in air?

4. Is warming catastrophic or even damaging?

Roberts, who also provides research for the Galileo Movement, demonstrates that CSIRO failed to show any actual “causal relationships” to validate even one “yes” answer. On the contrary, Roberts identified evidence that shows CSIRO scientists used taxpayer funds rather to advocate for global governance at United Nations (UN) conferences than evince empirical data to support their position. Roberts says, “This is consistent with CSIRO’s actions supporting implementation of UN Agenda 21, the UN’s campaign pushing global governance. It bypassed Australia’s parliament and people and threatens Australia’s sovereignty and our personal freedoms.”

What the study shows in answer to those four key questions is a very different reality as follows:

1. Global atmospheric temperatures peaked in 1998. Temperatures have since been flat

with every year since colder than in 1998. Since the start of atmospheric temperature

measurement in 1958 temperatures cooled slightly from 1958 to 1976. A sudden small

2. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in air are a consequence of temperature, not a cause.

This is the reverse of UN IPCC, CSIRO and government claims. It applies throughout

Earth’s history and over every duration. It’s true seasonally and long-term;

3. Nature alone determines levels of CO2 in air. This is the reverse of UN IPCC, CSIRO

and government claims. It means that cutting or increasing human CO2 production

cannot affect CO2 levels in air. It’s useless to cut human CO2 production;

4. Warmer periods in Earth’s history are highly beneficial to people, humanity, civilization and the natural environment. This is the opposite of UN IPCC, CSIRO and government  claims. Warmer periods are scientifically classified as optimums.

As a result, this damning analysis, says Roberts, shows that CSIRO scientists are deeply enmeshed in producing corrupt UN IPCC reports. The evidence shows the IPCC colluded with CSIRO to enlist contributing scientists of various rank and to have papers referenced and presumably act as reviewers. Without applying any safeguards, CSIRO endorsed UN IPCC reports despite those reports being demonstrably corrupt and pushing a political agenda. UN IPCC contributors and officials are shown to have bypassed and at times prevented scientific peer-review. “As a method of quality assurance, the process of peer-review is now worthless” says the Roberts report.

Evidence reveals that all four UN IPCC reports to national governments and media—1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007—contradict empirical scientific evidence and provide no logical scientific reasoning for their core claim that human CO2 caused, causes or will cause global warming. “The corruption is pervasive, systemic and driven by a political agenda to achieve a political outcome,” says Roberts. Empirical scientific evidence and discussion in Appendix 4 reveals corruption of ground-based temperature data and of CO2 data used by the UN IPCC and CSIRO.The propaganda relied upon by alarmists is ostensibly that collated by former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore, shows Appendix 3.

Major international banking firm Merrill Lynch is implicated in the climate shenanigans. (Appendix 6). They and other international banks are shown to profit enormously from trading in CO2 credits. This relationship raises perceptions and questions about the opportunity for conflicts of interest.

Evidence Proves Natural Forces, not Humans Drive our Climate

This telling Australian report lays out in black and white that our atmosphere is not warming, much less unusually. “Fluctuations since 1958 reveal modest natural cyclic temperature variation.” While ground-based rural measurements reveal the same since 1890. In Appendix 4 it is shown that the strongest natural factors proven by empirical scientific evidence to control global climate. They are El Nino, La Nina and other regional ocean-atmosphere decadal cycles. Scientists have identified many factors driving climate. These include galactic, solar system, solar, planetary and lunar cycles ranging from 150 million years to 11 years. Strong drivers include:

 *  Solar: (1) variations in sun’s solar output; (2) Output of solar particles; (3) Sun’s magnetic field polarity and strength;

 *  Water vapour: (1) atmospheric water content; (2) Cloud cover;

 *  Cyclic regional decadal circulation patterns such as North American Oscillation and the southern Pacific ocean’s El Nino together with their variation over time;

 *  Ocean: (1) temperature; (2) salinity; (3) currents; (4) sea surface temperatures;

 *  Volcanic activity.

The above natural drivers are either omitted from, or downplayed in erroneous unvalidated computerized numerical models used by the UN. CSIRO has thereby used deception dressed up as science to cede sovereignty over Australian science to an unscientific and corrupt foreign political organisation pushing a global political agenda. “CSIRO is thus abetting systemic and pervasive documented corruption of science,” says Roberts.

Tellingly, the prestigious Inter Academy Council’s (IAC) August 2010 review of the UN IPCC showed that there were “crippling deficiencies” in UN IPCC processes and procedures that should have sounded alarm bells that CSIRO is supporting implementation of UN Agenda 21, the greatest threat to Australian sovereignty. 

Roberts invites readers to examine the evidence on offer in this new study and to verify for themselves that CSIRO has misled the media. He points to three key falsehoods that any objective examination of the available scientific proves. They are:

1. Human CO2 controls and determines global temperature and climate. False;

2. There is an overwhelming consensus of scientists supporting that claim. False;

3. Catastrophic consequences will result at some unspecified future date from human disruption of global climate: sea level rise, extreme weather, floods, drought, snowfall, fires, ocean pH (alkalinity), disease, species extinction, ... All false.

 “Through the National Press Club and media, CSIRO misled the people and parliament of Australia. CSIRO has been actively engaged in UN IPCC corruption of climate and science, “ concludes the Brisbane climate analyst. How Steve Austin, the listeners of ABC radio and other Australian citizens react to these damning findings remains to be seen.

SOURCE