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28 February, 2006

IN BRIEF

Drug companies refuse to import abortion pill: "Abortion pill RU486 will not be freely available to Australian women, despite this month's emotional Federal Parliament debate. Major pharmaceutical companies have informally advised their peak industry group, Medicines Australia, they have no intention of importing the drug. They have decided the move would be too costly and controversial. This month's rare conscience vote, releasing MPs from the constraints of voting along party lines, stripped Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott of his veto over the pill. More than 150 members and senators spoke on the Bill during the five sitting days it took to pass through both houses of Parliament. It was hailed by supporters as a breakthrough giving all women access to the drug - particularly rural women who might not be able to easily obtain a surgical abortion. But given the unwillingness of Australian-based drug companies to get involved, the dream of Federal MPs who voted for RU486 - that it be readily available across the pharmacy counter - is unlikely to be realised. Well-placed sources said the decision not to import RU486 was based on two factors. The first is that the market is limited and the elaborate approval process would not make commercial sense. But the second reason is more important. Pharmaceutical companies understand that their industry is not particularly well regarded by the community and they believe it is not worth stirring up a high-profile campaign against them by the pro-life movement".



Christians singled out, says senator: "Christians are seen as fair game when it comes to poking fun at religious icons, while Jews and Muslims are seemingly off-limits, Family First senator Steve Fielding said on Sunday. The Victorian senator has called for the Federal Government to ban an episode of US cartoon South Park titled "Bloody Mary" for its depiction of the Virgin Mary menstruating. SBS Television has decided to "defer" the airing of the controversial episode, because of the "current worldwide controversy over cartoons of religious figures". Overseas riots in reaction to newspapers publishing satirical cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed led to the death of nearly 30 people. "How come Christians are such easy targets? How come it's okay to make fun of symbols at the heart of Christianity, such as the Crucifix or the Virgin Mary, but people seem to think twice before having a go at the Star of David or the Koran?" Senator Fielding said.



Australia: Gun ownership explodes: "Gun ownership is on the rise in Queensland with evidence the tough restrictions introduced after the Port Arthur massacre nearly a decade ago are losing their effectiveness. Despite bans on certain types of weapons and a successful buyback and amnesty, police figures show there are more firearms in the community now than three years ago. Police Minister Judy Spence yesterday foreshadowed possible changes to the Weapons Act, to be reviewed this year, saying she was 'aware of some operational suggestions from police and these will be considered as part of this review.' Queensland police Weapons Licensing Branch manager, Inspector Mike Crowley, said gun ownership applications had increased 30 per cent since 2002. Up to 11,000 of last year's 26,000 applicants were first-timers. 'There has not been a decrease in the number of firearms, but an increase. It shows they do not really depreciate and are a resilient commodity,' Insp Crowley said."



Health insurance price rises not as bad this year: "Private health fund premiums will climb an average of 5.7 per cent from April 1, adding $3 a week on a typical family policy. But the increases - which will fall to an average weekly slug of $2 after the federal Government's 30 per cent rebate - are the lowest annual price hikes for five years. Health funds say increased payouts to members, which rose 8.1 per cent to almost $5.9billion for hospital benefits alone in 2004-05, are one factor behind the rises. Other drivers were said to be a 20 per cent rise in payouts for prostheses and the popularity and spread of "gap cover" products that in some cases paid the doctor's entire fee. Private health fund membership is increasing. There are now about 8.8 million Australians with hospital cover - 43.1 per cent of the population - and 8.6 million with ancillary cover. Almost all the increase is among people aged more than 60, who place the greatest pressure on health funds."



Paramedic shortage in Queensland: "A paramedic shortage has forced the Queensland government to search interstate and overseas for ambulance staff. The Department of Emergency Services today launched a major advertising campaign in newspapers throughout Australia and New Zealand to fill 144 paramedic positions. However, Queensland Emergency Services Minister Pat Purcell said he was not concerned by the staff shortage and the need to search beyond the state. "Paramedics are not coming here at the moment so that is why we are going elsewhere with the advertising," Mr Purcell said. "I don't know why they wouldn't want to come and work here as it's the most professional (paramedic) service in Australia." [Pay?] The positions needed to be filled throughout Queensland by September next year, he said.



Andrew Bolt reflects

The Currency Lad has a transcript of the speech and questions at the recent launch of Andrew Bolt's book. A few excerpts:

"I am not brave but I am not here on my own. The things I write about are expressions of a wider culture. I first started in journalism and learnt through asking. An example of how we have group thinking - I exempt the Herald Sun - is when I first started at the Age. What woke me up to that? I was a boy from the country, from a migrant family. John Leahy, a lovely and experienced journo, went to cover a women's protest at Pine Gap with all its street theatre and mother earth stuff. Leahy thought it funny and wrote a piece on how funny and silly it all was, and the journalists at The Age including some leading prize-winning journos, doyens of the profession, signed a petition and posted it above the staff book attacking him and ordering him to be silenced. I thought it was so professionally shocking. That was an obvious manifestation of the group-think.

When I started at the Herald Sun as industrial correspondent, Piers Akerman (one-time editor in chief of The Herald) was taking on the Kennett government. Our office covering IR was in the Trades Hall. That is an intimidating environment, if you don't go along with the agenda. I was singled out, `Look at that great booby!', but not intimidating for the journos captive of Trades Hall. It was supposed to be unbiased coverage. It was an unstated assumption that Trades Hall is where our sympathy was.....

I would be still (nowhere) except someone gave me a job and a page, namely Peter Blunden at the Herald Sun. I began a campaign early during the controversy over injecting rooms for addicts. The Liberal government approved of one room and the Labor government then came in and said we should have five, and everyone was behind the concept. Dr David Pennington and his expert committee claimed often that injecting rooms have been tried overseas and had cut the death rate by up to 95%. I thought it would be checkable and where I checked , eg on the Swiss experience, the claim was false; the opposite happened. During five years from introduction of injecting rooms, the death toll trebled. You would have thought people would have stopped making the claim but The Age kept running it.

There was lobbying at high level to have me apologise and legal action was threatened. This was the first campaign I had mounted and Peter Blunden for the first time wondered what was going on and asked me, `Are you sure?'. That was the only interference I have had in 7-8 years. I said, `I am sure.' I won that one. You must imagine how much pressure that man Blunden comes under. Sometimes I get complaints copied to me (cc'd). Many people have been lobbied at the Herald Sun to `pull me into line'. But not once has Peter Blunden ever said to me `don't'. It is quite funny, Peter is so worried of being seen to steer me, he normally says nothing....."



Top boys' school accepts goods in lieu of fees

Anything to escape far-Left government schools



Private schools are allowing financially stretched parents to pay fees with cows, valuable art collections and even the embryos of livestock in lieu of cash payments. And with the ongoing drought having a major impact on the ability of many rural families to pay their children's fees, some schools now allow parents to pay when a crop comes in or a herd of cattle is sold at the market, education experts say.

The Council of Catholic School Parents executive director Danielle Cronin said the barter of goods for fees is one of several flexible payment options available. "Country families can often pay according to their crops or when they sell their cattle," Ms Cronin said. "There is even payment in kind being made to schools. If the school has an outdoor education centre, the family may give them cattle."

As well, rising school fees have caused an increasing number of people to dip into their home mortgages. "They might get a second job, they might dip into savings they have put aside for things other than education, and they may also consider dipping into the equity in their home," Ms Cronin said. "Fees can be a major cause of stress and concern for parents, particularly when there's a degree of uncertainty around how much they will increase each year."

Among the Sydney schools to consider the alternative and often creative payment options is The King's School at North Parramatta. "Any Christian and compassionate school has to be open to reasonable suggestions," headmaster Tim Hawkes said. "With the best will in the world people's financial situations change often for reasons that are out of their control, like drought. This time last year 120 families were seriously affected by drought. They asked the school to show creativity and compassion in handling the situation. "Some parents are cash poor but asset rich. So sometimes payment in kind is seen as an option. We have agricultural studies and the school has its own farm. We can introduce cattle there. There has even been an incident in the past where the school was offered cattle embryos." Dr Hawkes said any alternative payment arrangement had to be conducted carefully. "We can't have a wholesale defection to payment of school fees in kind," he said.

It is not unusual for schools to accept other items of value. Victorian school St Leonards College had accepted part of a valuable art collection from a family in lieu of a student's fees, Dr Hawkes said. He stressed that the most common outcome when a family was struggling financially was to waive part of the fees. "We also have a range of scholarships and bursaries available and we have increased those over the past few years." A fee deferment system may also be put in place to continue after the student has graduated.

NSW Parents Council executive officer Duncan McInnes said many top private schools would once not have considered such flexible fee options. "Schools are becoming more accommodating to family situations," Mr McInnes said. "I think it's healthy. Rather than being embarrassed or ashamed of their situation parents should be opening up to schools." Cranbrook School headmaster Jeremy Madin said: "The school dispenses about $1 million in financial aid a year. Schools are very human places; we have to be understanding."

Source



27 February, 2006

More official realism about Islam

Preachers of hate were targeting vulnerable young Muslim men, posing serious problems for Australia, the federal Liberal frontbencher responsible for multiculturalism said yesterday. Throwing strong support behind Peter Costello's call to Muslim Australians to obey domestic laws or else, Andrew Robb said only education and jobs would stop the young male Muslims from falling prey to extremists. Responding to angry retorts that Mr Costello's comments reflected an anti-Muslim bias, he said the Islamic community should not ignore its problems.

Ahead of an inaugural meeting of the Government-appointed Muslim reference group, Mr Robb painted a grim picture of a vast pool of idle, isolated young Muslim males being targeted as potential terrorists by radical preachers. "Fifty per cent of the 300,000 Muslims in Australia are [aged] 24 or less, and in some areas have very high unemployment," he said. "These are the young guys who are potential targets. We know there are radicals out there looking for vulnerable young men. "We need to identify how we get these young blokes into real jobs. That's how you get real tolerance and understanding."

Mr Robb said he had a message for the "99.9 per cent of the Muslim community who are as quintessentially Australian as the rest of us". They needed to acknowledge there was legitimate anxiety in the community following the bombings in the US, Bali and London, which were the work of fringe elements in their communities. "We don't solve problems by sweeping them under the carpet," Mr Robb said. "Islam has been, is, and will be here in Australia, so it is very proper to confront the extremists. But it is very wrong to demonise the religion."

The 14-member Muslim Reference Group will meet for the first time on Monday and Tuesday in Canberra, to look at ways of stamping out extremism and fighting the terrorism threat. Mr Robb said he fully expected to be tackled by members over Mr Costello's comments, but said the Treasurer was only reflecting a majority view held by Australians in the wake of terrorist bombings. In his opening remarks, Mr Robb will tell the group they have a great responsibility to come up with a plan of action to rein in extremist imams. "They have been chosen to help develop an action plan, they have been chosen for their different perspectives."

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has also responded to Government calls to fight extremism by calling Muslim religious leaders to a summit next month. The aim is to develop a code of conduct to muzzle inflammatory statements by Muslim clerics. Controversial Melbourne-based preacher Sheik Mohammed Omran has defied his fellow imams, saying his community did not have the power to restrict his sermons.

Source



Playing politics puts mothers' and their babies' lives at risk

The tragic case of baby Natalia Lalic, who died five days after being born at Camden Hospital in 2003, should serve as a warning of the potential consequences of political and ideological meddling in childbirth. The increasing demands by feminist ideologues for "women-centred" birth centres with midwives providing exclusive care neatly dovetail with the desire by the State Government to cut health costs while appearing to deliver new facilities in marginal seats.

Natalia was born five days after the 2003 state election in Camden Hospital's new $3.5 million maternity unit, which had been opened with great fanfare six weeks earlier. Camden was a marginal seat, and the only seat the ALP won from the Liberals. At the time, then health minister Craig Knowles, member for the neighbouring seat of Macquarie Fields, was under siege from whistleblower nurses. Though Camden was just a 20-minute drive from Campbelltown Hospital's fully staffed maternity unit, which could have done with the extra money, the Government opened the new ward against the advice of the South Western Sydney Area Health Service board, which was concerned about duplicating resources and a shortage of specialists. When no anaesthetists could be found for Camden, a bureaucrat was flown to South Africa to recruit. No expense was spared.

But, as the NSW Medical Tribunal has heard, there was no pediatrician on hand to resuscitate Natalia when she was born without a heartbeat after a difficult labour in which the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Some anaesthetists on roster lived 40 minutes away and pediatricians 30 minutes away. Crucially, the hospital required 69 minutes to set up an emergency caesarean section. So even when it was clear the baby was in distress, the obstetrician on duty made the decision that it would be faster for her to be born by assisted vaginal delivery. She died five days later.

The doctor has since endured three debilitating years of blame for the judgement calls he made that terrible morning. The Health Care Complaints Commission alleged he should have organised a caesarean and called a pediatrician earlier. Last week the obstetrician, whose name has been suppressed, was cleared of any wrongdoing by the tribunal. There was no guarantee the baby would have lived if a caesarean had been ordered.

But an anaesthetist who works in northern Sydney says Natalia might have had a better chance in a bigger hospital. When an emergency caesarean is needed, the ideal time from "decision to incision" is less than 20 minutes, not 69 minutes, he says. At a hospital such as Royal North Shore a woman can be on the operating table in 10 minutes.

And yet, a recent review of maternity services in the Northern Sydney Central Coast Health service area has recommended fewer births at RNS (down 15 births a month to 200) and more at smaller, less-resourced units, such as Mona Vale and Ryde. The anaesthetist says health bureaucrats want to reduce the 2400 annual births at RNS by 600 or 700, for budgetary reasons. The amalgamation of northern Sydney with the Central Coast in January, he says, has led to a transfer of resources from northern Sydney's budget to the Central Coast, where, he cynically points out, Gosford is a marginal Liberal seat that Labor is targeting. "Politicians use obstetric services as a vote-winner," he says.

The review has not addressed specialist concerns about safety at small units and makes only politically palatable recommendations, he says. While it states that duplication of obstetric services between Manly and Mona Vale is "not sustainable", it advocates the "development of shared positions across the two sites". Specialist doctors also feel the review report was released stealthily, on January 2, "when everyone is on holidays", with comments due by January 16. The report states that "volumes of births across the seven sites are not sufficient to support seven traditional maternity units" with full services of obstetricians, anaesthetists and midwives. But it does not recommend closing Ryde and Wyong obstetric units, as many specialists think should happen.

If the safety of mother and child were paramount, common sense would dictate that you would make most use of hospitals such as Royal North Shore, instead of using every means to reduce births there. And just because there is an anaesthetist across the corridor ready for an emergency caesarean or to provide pain relief, doesn't mean a mother can't have a drug-free natural birth. It just means she has a choice.

Source



The real (unmentioned) stupidity below is having women police doing a man's job



Police Minister Carl Scully yesterday swung into damage control following the shooting of a female police officer, who was staffing the counter of a police station in a high-crime region on her own. He has ordered Police Commissioner Ken Moroney to conduct an immediate safety review after Constable Elizabeth Roth, 34, was shot at point-blank range at Wetherill Park police station yesterday. Her assailant jumped the counter, grabbed Constable Roth's service revolver, shot her and then ran away. A hunt is under way for the man, who is known to police.

Mr Moroney said Constable Roth, a former bank officer, raised the alarm over police radio and alerted a highway patrol officer, who was in the station at the time. She was taken to Liverpool Hospital where her condition was described as stable after she had surgery to remove bullet fragments from her abdomen. Mr Moroney, who visited Constable Roth in hospital, said she was in good spirits and would return to work when she had made a full recovery. A security audit, by NSW Police Director of Security Julie Wills, was ordered as senior police and the State Opposition reacted angrily to the circumstances of the shooting.

Coalition leader Peter Debnam said it was "unbelievable" that the female officer was on her own at the counter, especially because the station was in a high-crime region. Police have confirmed that a second officer was on the premises at the time but he was in a back room.

NSW Police Association president Bob Pritchard said: "The female officer is very lucky to be alive. "It's just good luck that this incident wasn't worse. We could have had a real tragedy." Mr Pritchard said he would be calling on police bosses to install security screens at the counter of all police stations, but especially those that have minimum overnight staffing. "We've had a half a dozen incidents in recent times, which could have been prevented if screens had kept assailants at bay," he said. "We've got to protect our people who are face-to-face with the public. We believe security screens offer the best protection - people can't jump the counter and assault on-duty officers. "Screens have been fitted at a few stations but there is a big rigmarole including risk assessment before they can be installed. I think we should just forego that process and start fitting them in every station." Shadow police minister Mike Gallacher said the incident showed that NSW police were "overstretched and under-resourced". "It's alarming that, in a high-workload area like Wetherill Park, an officer was left alone overnight to man the counter at the station," he said. "If more officers were present, the situation could have been better controlled or even avoided."

Mr Scully said the top-level inquiry would examine the circumstances of the incident as well as policy procedures and training of officers. "The review will also look at whether any further steps need to be taken in terms of the safety and wellbeing of officers," he said. Mr Moroney said a full-scale hunt was under way to find the attacker, who was described as being armed and dangerous. The 32-year-old Bonnyrigg man is described as being of Asian appearance and, when last seen, was clean-shaven and dressed in black....

More here



Greenies take on the bottled water nonsense

Drinking water must be one of the most harmless things people can do so I think the Greenies should be aiming their fire elsewhere (at soil erosion and uneconomic farming, for instance) but I do think they have got a point about what a lot of nonsense bottled water is

Australians' love affair with bottled water may be making healthy-living advocates happy but environmentalists say it's taking a heavy toll on the planet. With 65 per cent of plastic drink bottles ending up in landfill, environmentalists are calling for better recycling services to stop an increasingly popular healthy drinking habit from wreaking further damage. The popularity of buying water from a shop fridge is rising at a rate of 10 per cent a year as consumers become increasingly aware that staying well-hydrated is healthy. About 550 million litres of bottled water were consumed in 2004-05, the Australian Beverage Council said. Most purchases were in addition to consuming soft drinks rather than replacing them, it said. But the plastic containers are becoming a big environmental hazard because they use valuable fuels to manufacture and create mountains of rubbish when thrown away, environmentalists say.

Environmental scientist Tim Grant said it was "counterintuitive" that bottled water was such a successful product. "People pay $2.50 for something that's [otherwise] free," Mr Grant said. A recent report by the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute found that the global consumption of bottled water had risen by 57 per cent since 1999 to 154 billion litres in 2004. Much of the growth came from countries such as Australia, where most tap water was as high quality as any water that could be bought. The report's author Emily Arnold said bottled water worldwide required 2.7 million tonnes of plastic each year for its packaging. She said the manufacture of plastic water bottles used 1.5 million barrels of crude oil in the United States alone. "In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels."

More here



26 February, 2006

IN BRIEF

Another cowardly Muslim gang attack: "Two men are being questioned over an attack on a man in Melbourne's CBD this morning. The men were arrested early this afternoon but have not been charged, police said. The alleged attack involved a group of men kicking an unconscious man, 26, as he lay in the gutter. A second man tried to intervene but the group then turned on him, police said. Doctors today operated on an injury to his hand. The first victim was taken from St Vincent's Hospital by his parents before doctors could treat him, hospital spokesman Mike Griffin said. Mr Griffin said the victim was conscious when he arrived at hospital, but was believed to have been unconscious for two or three minutes during the attack. The attack happened on Elizabeth Street, south of Little Bourke Street, about 6am (AEDT) today. Members of the group were described by police as being of Middle-Eastern appearance and left the scene in a yellow car.





Bloody Australia: "Tourism chiefs in Australia have ditched the country's highbrow sales pitch to attract foreign visitors in exchange for a more rustic approach: swearing. "So where the bloody hell are you?" is the new slogan, which was announced yesterday as part of a $180 million campaign that will appeal to people in Britain, Europe, the United States and Asia. The "bloody hell" advertisement replaces the "Australia - a different light" campaign of 2004, which featured Australian artists and British celebrities such as Michael Parkinson. It was artistically acclaimed but was a marketing flop. The latest advertisement marks a return to the use of rustic Australian idioms made famous by the actor Paul Hogan's "Throw another shrimp on the barbie" campaign of the 1980s. It begins in an Outback pub with a man saying, "We've poured you a beer". Then follows a sequence of idyllic images including a boy at the seaside saying, "We've got the sharks out of the pool", and partygoers watching Sydney harbour fireworks saying, "We turned on the lights". A traditional Aboriginal dancer says, "And we've been rehearsing for more than 40,000 years". The advert ends with a bikini-clad young woman stepping out of the sea asking: "So where the bloody hell are you?""



Good old Arthur Tunstall is still as straight as a die: "Controversial sports administrator Arthur Tunstall has done it again - this time he risks managing to offend everyone on the planet who doesn't speak English. The outspoken official who in the past has ruffled the sensitivities of Aborigines and the disabled, today said one of the best things about the coming Commonwealth Games is that "everybody" speaks English. The former Australian Commonwealth Games boss said the lack of language barriers and need for interpreters was one of the big advantages the Games had over the Olympics. Tunstall and his wife Peggy will be VIP guests at next month's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne at the invitation of Melbourne 2006 supremo Ron Walker. "When you get to the Games you are able to converse with people from many, many different countries who speak the same language," said the 84-year-old, continuing a career-long disregard for political correctness.... Tunstall is noted for the controversies he has caused.... The greatest stir he caused was four years later in Victoria, Canada, when he criticised track star Cathy Freeman for carrying an Aboriginal flag and questioned the inclusion of disabled athletes at the Games...."





Clinton snubbed: "An army of senior golfers have shot down a former US president in the Battle of Medway. Maidstone's Medway Golf Club refused former president Bill Clinton a round of golf on Thursday because the crowded course was hosting its midweek championships. The rejected Mr Clinton instead played at Sanctuary Lakes Golf Club at Point Cook, where he happily signed autographs and posed for photos. The incident has left Medway red-faced, but yesterday members were standing firm on their presidential snub. "We can't deprive the paying members of their golf, even for an ex-president," said 62-year-old member Wendy Alley. "But it would have been a buzz for the ladies. There's no Monica Lewinsky here -- we're better." Ms Alley's regular golf partner, Lorraine Bramley, agreed: "We would have played with him -- golf, that is." Head club pro John Dixon took the phone call from Mr Clinton's people, but thought it was a hoax. "Being our midweek championships, I politely told him we didn't have room," Mr Dixon told the Herald Sun".



AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC EDUCATION IN TROUBLE

Three reports:

Militant Islam invades NSW school curriculum

A radical Muslim thinker who inspired al-Qa'ida is being served up as subject matter for high school students in NSW. Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian militant hanged in 1966 but still a powerful influence on violent Islamists, and the Pakistani fundamentalist Sayyid Maududi are the only two modern Muslim thinkers on a revised syllabus for studies of religion.

Experts this week condemned the prominence of political Islam in the new syllabus, and especially the inclusion of Qutb. "I am surprised and dismayed that the NSW religion syllabus narrows modern Islamic thinkers to its totalitarians," said Daniel Pipes, whose US-based Middle East Forum agitates against Islamic extremism. "Islam has a rich intellectual tradition. To pick these two writers is like representing modern German culture with Marx and Hitler."

Under the revised Higher School Certificate syllabus, students can choose to examine the "contribution to Islam" of Qutb and Maududi. Others they can study include two wives of the prophet Mohammed, legal scholars and Sufi mystics. Qutb figured as a "teacher and interpreter" in the old syllabus.

NSW Board of Studies president Gordon Stanley said experts and community leaders had had plenty of opportunity to comment on the syllabus. He was surprised to hear of criticism and offered a parallel: "If you study the Holocaust you've got to know something about Hitler, but that doesn't mean people are concerned about students becoming Nazis."

Catholic educationist John McGrath defended the syllabus, which he helped write: "Qutb was a significant figure in 20th-century Islam. "(His writings are) one expression of Islamic revival. We're not suggesting that he's representative of all Muslims."

But Ahmad Shboul, chair of Arabic and Islamic studies at Sydney University, said political Islamists did not fit easily within the study of religion. "Qutb has contributed to modern commentary on the Koran, but the influence of (Qutb and Maududi) has turned out to be more on the political side," he said, adding that Qutb was simply too controversial and complex a figure for study at school.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, commentators have pointed to Qutb as the intellectual inspiration for violent campaigns against the West and Muslim states seen as corrupted by modern values. Among those influenced by Qutb's writings is Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen as the intellectual force of al-Qa'ida. But Professor Shboul doubted Qutb would have approved of al-Qa'ida's violence.

In Pakistan, Maududi founded an Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, with the aim of making society and state wholly subject to Islamic law. His critics say he left a legacy of extremism; his followers say he opposed violence. Abdullah Saeed, director of the centre for the study of contemporary Islam at Melbourne University, said Muhammad Abduh, an Egyptian reformer, would have been a safer choice for the syllabus than Qutb. "Especially in the current political climate and context, the inclusion of Qutb presents more problems than it solves," Professor Saeed said. "When this becomes public I guess there would be various groups - Muslim and non-Muslim - who would feel very strongly about this."

Source



NSW report card ban challenged

Far-Left teachers resist the requirement to identify differences in achievement. All kids are equal, don't you know?

A ban by teachers on new report cards which grade students from A to E will be challenged by the Government in the courts on Monday. Premier Morris Iemma yesterday pledged to take public school teachers to the industrial relations commission. He accused teachers of "holding parents to ransom" over the issue, saying every family was entitled to performance data on their children. He also claimed that the NSW Teachers Federation was putting $3.7billion in Commonwealth funding at risk by breaching the National Schools Funding Agreement, which includes the new reports.

About 430,000 primary school students should have received an A to E grade for academic performance this year. But the Teachers Federation has advised its 50,000 school-based members to "continue to use their own reporting system". General secretary Barry Johnson [Stalin was a General Secretary too] said in a memo to members: "Many of the reporting requirements being foisted on schools are professionally and educationally unacceptable."

But Mr Iemma said the Government would protect the right of parents to receive clear and concise information. "The NSW Government will take the issue to the Industrial Relations Commission to have it resolved as a matter of urgency," he said. "I absolutely reject the position put by the federation. "It is the right of every parent to have this information and we will not allow this to be compromised by a blinkered and politically correct over-reaction. "We will not allow NSW parents to be held to ransom."

In August last year, the Government released the format of the new reports which provide detail on:

* A CHILD'S overall achievement rated in bands from A to E;

* MORE detail on how they are performing in English and Maths; and

* SIMPLER information identifying strengths and weaknesses and details of their social skills and development.

"The reports make it easier to track the progress of students and provide greater consistency," Mr Iemma said. "Every parent has a right to information that tells them in plain English whether their child is progressing well or falling behind and in need of help."

The federation said it had grave concerns about the philosophical underpinnings of the new report cards. Mr Johnson said it opposed the Federal Government's imposition of "simplistic and regressive" student reporting requirements as a pre-condition for continued federal funding. Mr Johnson said the new reports also had potential to greatly increase teachers' workload.

Source



Australian private school student numbers soaring

Australia's private schools have recorded record enrolments with an exodus of 200,000 students from the public education system in the past decade. The trend is strongest in Year 11 and 12, where 41 per cent of teenagers now attend private schools. Despite rising fees of up to $20,000 a year, new figures confirm a shift towards private schools since the election of the Howard Government in 1996. The Australian Bureau of Statistics' School Census yesterday revealed the number of children enrolled in private schools has jumped by 22 per cent in the past decade. The growth continued last year, with enrolments at independent and Catholic schools jumping by a further 20,000 students, to 1.1 million students.

John Howard, who once blamed the exodus from the nation's public schools on the "politically correct" attitude of the public system, last night welcomed the figures. Despite challenging the "university or bust" culture in Australia and urging teenagers who are offered a job or an apprenticeship to consider taking up the opportunity, he also welcomed an increase in retention rates. The census data also show the proportion of 17-year-olds enrolled as full-time students increased and the number of indigenous students enrolled increased from 87,200 to 135,100. "The figures show a strong increase in retention rates," the Prime Minister said. "I am particularly pleased with the very significant increase in the number of indigenous students. That is something to be very warmly welcomed."

Since 1996, the Howard Government has doubled spending on private schools, from $2.3 billion to $4.7 billion last year. Private schools now secure more taxpayer-funded grants than Australia's publicly funded universities. However, the proportion of male schoolteachers has continued to decline over the past decade. Almost 80 per cent of teachers in primary schools are now women. [I am surprised that ANY male teachers risk it] Despite recent data suggesting a surge in enrolments in public high schools in NSW, the figures confirm the 10-year trend away from public schools.

Source



25 February, 2006

John Howard

This Thursday, John Howard will have been Prime Minister of Australia for 10 years. In his unassuming way, he dominates Australian politics. I have therefore added his picture to the top of this blog. Some excerpts from an Editorial in "The Australian" newspaper:

When John Howard marks 10 years in office this Thursday, he will be celebrating a decade during which his leadership dramatically changed Australian society. Be it politically, economically, or culturally, the Prime Minister has - for both better and worse - transformed the way this country operates. Yet for all his success, Mr Howard may be one of the most misunderstood politicians of all time: his opponents, regularly confounded by the Prime Minister's underlying pragmatism, native understanding of the Australian psyche, and always-on campaign style, resort to crude stereotypes of Bible-thumping conservatives who want to take Australia back to the 1950s. This is unfortunate, because this failure to grapple with Mr Howard's true nature and style has a tendency to bleed over into the national conversation. Like his opponents on the other side of the aisle in Canberra, the authors of the vast number of books published about the Howard government almost always manage to get things spectacularly wrong. ....

The obvious place to begin any assessment of the Howard decade in office is to examine his economic stewardship. And on the face of it, he has done extremely well. Though he had the good fortune to take office after Bob Hawke and Paul Keating set the economic reform ball in motion, it is hard to quibble with unemployment rates that have fallen from about 8 per cent to just 5 per cent, and with inflation and interest rates have taken similarly impressive nose dives. Indeed, the economy's success has been so dramatic at enriching individuals all along the economic spectrum that it has been taken up as a cudgel against Mr Howard by commentators who seem to resent such widespread material prosperity.

But this economic growth, which has been borne of booms in the housing and resources sectors, has not been the result of any sort of vicious dog-eat-dog economic rationalism, as his critics complain. No, the success of the Howard economy has been accompanied by some fairly populist tactics, namely the creation of a vast middle class welfare state where a family made up of a mum, dad, and two kids can earn up to $56,000 a year and effectively pay no tax. Family payments ranging from the baby bonus - which pays $3,000 to any woman who has a child, even if her name is Gretel Packer - to the Family Tax Benefit Part B, all bind households to the government in ways that, say, a small fortnightly windfall from a reduction in income tax cannot do. And it has not just been family payments: all told, social security and welfare payments have risen from 35.4 per cent of the federal budget in the last year of the Keating government to about 42.5 per cent today. These social benefits have come at the price of a punishing tax burden, and some mischievously point out that Australia's top marginal tax rate has long been far higher than that of next-door New Zealand, where the hard-left Helen Clark has been in charge for nearly as long. In 2000, the 10 per cent GST was supposed to lessen Canberra's bite on income tax - instead, the bite has never been larger.

Underlying these seemingly wet economic practices is a far more important cultural change, one which goes to the heart of how Mr Howard has managed to transform Australia. For where once this country was fiercely divided between warring tribes representing labour and management, today economic class warfare is largely a thing of the past. This can be directly traced to Mr Howard's leadership in creating an entrepreneurial "ownership society", where very often labour and capital are the same person. Amusingly, this shift has disturbed many Howard-hating cultural elitists - if the studies that claim it's not wealth that makes you happy, but your wealth relative to everyone else, are true, then the paroxysms of outrage from leftists in their lovingly restored inner-city terraces and coastal retreats are totally understandable. Some of the joy of settling down for an evening of SBS in a cramped Victorian-era lounge room must evaporate when you realise that the plumber who just fixed the one and only loo is driving home to watch an evening of cricket on a flat-screen plasma TV in his own home theatre room with dedicated WC. In what are often called the "culture wars", Mr Howard's instinct has always been much closer to those of the plumber, because they are his own - earned the hard way working at his father's petrol station in Sydney's inner-western Dulwich Hill. And these instincts have served him well, even if they have meant a rising tax burden....



At least Australia has a government that stands up to the Muslim thugs

Prime Minister John Howard has defended Treasurer Peter Costello's comments about Islamic extremism that have angered the Muslim community. In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night, Mr Costello said anyone not prepared to accept Australian values, and who had citizenship of another country, should not remain an Australian citizen. He said anyone who believed Islamic sharia law could co-exist with Australian law should move to a country where they felt more comfortable.

Muslim leaders hit back today, calling on Mr Howard to censure Mr Costello over his remarks. But Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting the Treasurer's comments were similar to some of his own and Mr Costello should not be censured. Asked why not, Mr Howard said: "Because what he said was fundamentally accurate." "He's not trying to stir up hostilities with Islamic people any more than I was when I made some comments three days before the Cronulla riots," he said. "I made some comments to the effect that there was a section of the Islamic community, because of its extreme views and its rejection of the fundamentals of our society that posed a problem," he said. "I also expressed a concern about the attitude of some, I stress some, in the Islamic community towards women. "I thought both those statements were perfectly acceptable."

Mr Howard refused to be drawn on whether those who advocated sharia law - society run according to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic teaching - should leave the country. "I think what Peter was doing was to make the point that a belief in that would be inconsistent with Australian values," he said. Mr Howard said he supported multiculturalism if it meant simply showing respect and tolerance for other people's cultures. But he said Australia could not have a federation of cultures. "Over the years at its zenith the more zealous multiculturalism base said that this country should be a federation of cultures," he said. "You can't have a nation with a federation of cultures. "You can have a nation where a whole variety of cultures constantly influence and mould and change and blend in with the mainstream culture."

Mr Howard said Australia had a core culture as an offshoot of Western civilisation with a heavily Anglo-Saxon identity and Christianity as the great moral shaping force."

Source

Below is a report of Mr Costello's speech:



"Peter Costello has called for a tougher US-style citizenship oath that demands loyalty to the Australian "compact" as he outlined his vision for a more muscular nationalism. Lambasting the spread of "mushy multiculturalism", the Treasurer has bluntly called for hard-line Muslims and others who don't observe Australian values to be stripped of their citizenship. And he said people coming to Australia should have the same respect for Australian values as visitors to a mosque who are asked to take off their shoes.

In another provocative speech by a senior Government figure, Mr Costello warned of a second generation of immigrants from the Middle East living in a "twilight zone", unable to properly distinguish between the values of their parents' old country and Australia. "To deal with this we must clearly state the values of Australia and explain how we expect them to be respected," he said. "I suspect there would be more respect for these values if we made more of the demanding requirements of citizenship."

Addressing the Sydney Institute last night, the Prime Ministerial aspirant again criticised those who wanted to live under sharia law, saying Australia's citizenship pledge should act as a "big flashing warning sign". "A person who does not acknowledge the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance," he said. "As such they do not meet the pre-condition for citizenship." He said Australia would have a problem if a second generation of immigrants lived "in a twilight zone where the values of their parents old country have been lost but the values of the new country not fully embraced".

To address these concerns, Mr Costello suggested the Government may consider toughening up the citizenship oath. "I suspect there would be more respect for (Australian) values if we made more of the demanding requirements of citizenship," he said.

The Treasurer's speech, coming on the eve of the Coalition's tenth anniversary in power, shows him trying to broaden his image. The speech will appeal to conservative elements in the Coalition, amid concerns that MrCostello needs to shed his "small-l" image. His comments come just weeks after angry Muslims rioted when the prophet Mohammed was depicted in cartoons in Europe. In a veiled reference to these riots, Mr Costello said he did not like "putrid representations" like Piss Christ, the controversial photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine that was displayed in Melbourne in 1997.

Laying down a template for religious tolerance, Mr Costello said he did not think galleries should show such displays. "But I do recognise they should be able to practise their offensive taste without fear of violence or a riot. "Muslims do not like representation of the Prophet. But so too they must recognise this does not justify violence against newspapers, or countries that allow newspapers to publish them."

Mr Costello's speech comes just days after The Australian published comments by John Howard, who also railed against fragments of Muslim society that were "utterly antagonistic" to Australian values. Yesterday, the Prime Minister hailed Australia as the "least-discriminatory country in the world". "We welcome people from the four corners of the earth. The only thing we ask of them is that when they come here they become Australians before anything else," he said."

Some support from the Left as well:

"NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma has backed federal Treasurer Peter Costello's calls for immigrants who do not support Australian values to leave. Federal Labor has criticised Mr Costello for saying people who are not prepared to accept Australian values should not remain citizens and those who want Islamic sharia law should move to other countries. But Mr Iemma, whose western Sydney electorate of Lakemba contains a large Islamic population, today said Mr Costello's comments were reasonable and practical. People moving to Australia from overseas should "leave the disputes, leave the extremism and leave the fights behind,'' Mr Iemma said. Mr Costello's proposal should apply to people living in Australia on long-term visas as well as those applying for citizenship, he said. "It shouldn't stay with just those taking out citizenship, there are many people in this country who are on visas, long-term visas, and he ought to look to make it apply to them as well.""



IN BRIEF

Pauline Hanson calls for action as well as speeches: "Former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said Treasurer Peter Costello's comments that people who come to live in Australia should show loyalty to its values were a vindication of her own views. Ms Hanson said she was "crucified" and called a racist during her political career. "I could foresee what was happening to our country," Ms Hanson told ABC radio. In a speech last night to the Sydney Institute, the Treasurer said people who wanted to live under Islamic sharia law should move to a country where they would feel "more at ease". He said anyone not prepared to accept Australian values, and who had citizenship of another country, should not remain an Australian citizen. Ms Hanson called on Mr Costello to follow through with his claims. "If Peter Costello is wanting to be a future prime minister of this country he needs to take a tough stand on this," she said. "He needs to deal with it harshly. "He needs to throw these people out of this country who do not embrace Australia".



Howard backs nuclear power: "Prime Minister John Howard has reignited the nuclear energy debate in a wide-ranging interview to mark his 10th anniversary next week as prime minister. Mr Howard said he "had no hang-ups at all" about taking advantage of nuclear energy when it was economically viable. "I can't for the life of me understand why (Opposition Leader Kim) Beazley has categorically ruled it out," he said. Mr Howard said he did not think there was any argument that continuing to use fossil fuels and making them cleaner was more in Australia's long-term interest than renewable or nuclear energy. "That doesn't mean to say you stop the other two, but you can't ignore market forces," he said. "But we also have vast supplies of uranium. The economics of nuclear energy might change and if it does, well, we'll take advantage of it. But I have no hang-ups at all about nuclear energy."



NSW police manage to arrest a few more Muslims: "One of New South Wales's most senior detectives has warned Cronulla's rioters they have a week to come forward or face being hunted through the national media. Strike force Enoggera has already arrested 54 people in connection with the December 11 riot and the reprisals that followed. Enoggera boss Superintendent Ken McKay yesterday revealed he has another 50 in his sights. If they do not give themselves up in the next seven to 10 days, 25 of those will find their faces splashed across the national media. The blunt warning came after police announced 10 more arrests - seven yesterday in dawn raids across southwestern Sydney. These seven people of Middle Eastern appearance, aged 19 to 23, allegedly pelted police and ambulance officers with rocks and projectiles at Hashem's car park in Brighton-le-Sands on the night of December 11. Supt McKay vowed those whose pictures will be released will be identified and arrested." [The Muslims will get off with a slap on the wrist, of course]



Negligent NSW police (surprise!): "A Sydney magistrate yesterday lashed out at police inaction over a group of alleged rioting ringleaders. A group of men were yesterday charged almost three months after they allegedly pelted police with projectiles and verbally abused the officers called in to quell unrest at Brighton-Le-Sands on the night of December 11. As one of those arrested, Ahmad El-Ahmad, applied for bail in Sutherland Local Court, magistrate Paul Falzon expressed disbelief why the police arrested the men that night, took their details and then released them. "Wouldn't it be better to stop the civil unrest by putting them in the back of the truck?" Mr Falzon said. "[Police] let them go at the height of what was happening, then 2 1/2 months later you go and arrest them." When the prosecution asked him to refuse bail, Mr Falzon said El-Ahmad was unlikely to flee the jurisdiction or commit further offences, and so granted him bail. El-Ahmad will reappear in the same court on April 5."



24 February, 2006

IN BRIEF

"Jobs for the Girls" comes unstuck: "A rogue lawyer has ignited a major stoush with Queensland Information Commissioner Cathi Taylor, and is applying for her to be "committed to Her Majesty's correctional centre at Wacol for her contempt of court". Paul Henderson, who has infamously taken on the Queensland Law Society and had a close shave with a carving knife wielded by one of its executives, is waging a fresh battle with the equally controversial Ms Taylor. Ms Taylor is the senior public servant in Queensland responsible for reviewing Freedom of Information decisions. Mr Henderson's legal action stems from the Information Commission's handling of one of his FOI applications for material from the Crime and Misconduct Commission. It appears the rebel solicitor is determined to tie Ms Taylor - whose office has itself been dogged by controversy since her arrival a year ago tomorrow - in a morass of litigation and FOI applications.... The battle between Ms Taylor, whose appointment provoked a furore because of her lack of legal qualifications and closeness to the Beattie Government, is continuing in the Supreme Court, where Mr Henderson is seeking her imprisonment".



Honest Leftist kicked out by his party: "A former federal Labor politician has been expelled from the party after leaking information about alleged irregularities in a branch campaign fund to the Queensland Opposition. Brian Courtice - the former MP for the Bundaberg-based seat of Hinkler - received a hand-delivered letter earlier this week informing him he had been expelled from the party on the grounds he had brought it into disrepute. He had been a member for 32 years. The decision came after Mr Courtice raised the ire of the party hierarchy last year when he claimed his wife Marcia had missed out on pre-selection for the state seat of Bundaberg in October because of a "dirty factional deal". He then leaked financial records about the defunct Bundaberg Electorate Executive Committee - which allegedly showed $7000 was missing - to state Nationals MP Rob Messenger."





Bolt now in a book: "Few things in life are as illusory as the power of the press, according to someone who should know -- the Herald Sun's controversial columnist Andrew Bolt. "If I was to write tomorrow that Mark Latham is the leader we have to have, nobody is going to listen to me," he said. "The point is, you don't get power when you are a columnist; you don't have any influence unless you write something which strikes a chord, something which the reader agrees with." Bolt was speaking at the first of two sell-out literary lunches at Crown to launch his book, The Best Of Andrew Bolt -- still not sorry, a collection of his columns over the past seven years. And the first two questions from the audience were: do you get many threats and do you fancy a run at politics? Bolt said legal threats were more of a problem than the other kind. "When people start screaming and lose control it's a sign that they've lost the argument.... And it wasn't insults, such as being called a racist, that annoyed him as much as making a mistake. "It kills me when I make a mistake, even a minor spelling error causes me misery for weeks."



Cultural snob replies to his critics

David Williamson is a much acclaimed Australian playwright. He also revealed himself as a colossal snob in an article he wrote about his cruise on an ocean liner in the company of a lot of ordinary Australians. He had hardly a good word to say of any of them and heaps of contempt instead. He was roundly and rightly criticized for that (See e.g. here and here and here). Apparently after a long period of smouldering, however, he has now got up enough steam to reply to his many critics. It is difficult to excerpt his reply however as it consists of little more than a collage of bromides about how people are all different etc.

And the sad thing is that he has learned nothing from his critics. As far back as 2003, the economics editor of The Australian, Alan Wood, attacked Williamson for not sticking to the facts about global warming but Williamson is unrepentant. He continues to spout standard Greenie boilerplate with no apparent awareness of how contentious it all is scientifically. He is clearly out of his depth when it comes to the real world. He should stick to writing fiction. He does that well.



Leftists whine at getting what they agitated for

They say that there is no such thing as right and wrong and then get all high and mighty over the idea that more people are acting that way

Straining for relevance, The Sydney Morning Herald has had a true William Tell moment and drawn an extremely long bow to demonstrate its new-found thesis that Australians are meaner now than they were before the Howard Government came to office 10 years ago. The first example veteran feature writer Tony Stephens offers as evidence of "our new mean streak" in an article yesterday was the quality of the sledging offered by the cricket crowd to champion Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan. "No one blames the Prime Minister," he wrote, "but such behaviour wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. "It reveals a mean streak in Australian society."

The use of the hoary "no one blames" line is about as loud a dog whistle as this old dog will ever hear but such a shallow illustration better exemplifies the problem faced by the unfortunate Fairfax organisation's ideologically-blinkered editors as they strive to play the name-and-blame game, then finger John Howard as the person responsible for some imagined increase in the national meanness quotient.

Robert "Crash" Craddock, The Daily Telegraph's illustrious cricket writer, and the ABC's sagacious cricket commentator Jim Maxwell were quick to provide evidence of past examples of crowd sledging that were, in their day, as disgraceful as anything the Sri Lankan (an accused chucker) ever received. These Solons of the wicket traced the emergence of the unfortunately more vigorous crowd participation to the younger, more vocal crowd that was attracted to one-day matches in Australia in the 1970s and '80s. The call of "Hadlee is a w. . .er" which so tormented the New Zealand captain and bowler (now Sir) Richard Hadlee in the mid-80s is a case in point, as is the reality there is now a Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, despite the 1981 underarm ball at the MCG in 1981 masterminded by Greg Chappell, delivered by Trevor Chappell and roundly condemned by Ian Chappell.

But, as an ICC survey found a few years ago, the Melbourne crowd's base behaviour was pretty much on a par with that of the mob at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg and the masses attracted to Eden Gardens in Calcutta, not that it makes for an attractive sight at any venue.

The trans-Tasman rivalry has long brought out the worst in Australian crowds and our Kiwi cousins have historically copped far more sledging than teams from the West Indies, Pakistan or India. The disgusting sledging of the South African team at the WACA in Perth seemed largely to come from a core of former South Africans whose use of the Afrikaans language showed why some Yarpies can be such boors.

But poor behaviour is no new phenomenon. English captain Ray Illingworth took his team off the field at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1971 after a drunk grabbed fast bowler John Snow. Indeed, it may well be that when the Barmy Army turns up to cheer the Poms next year, the Australian sledgers may meet their match. There is also evidence that many cricket fans are showing a distinct lack of willingness to be part of any meanness by increasingly staying home, as crowds at the Melbourne one-day games have been well down, possibly because of a reluctance on the part of the aficionados to be part of that atmosphere or because they are bored by the repetitious nature of the one-day game.

In his bid to prove a decline in all that is good about Australia in the 10 years of the Howard Government, Stephens stitches together a peculiar argument that embraces the rather curious notion mateship is a symbol of radical nationalism once owned by Labor (tell that to the Anzacs) and has left a legacy of a growing inequality that "threatens the prospect of an underclass that throws up teenage girls who kill taxi drivers". Unfortunately any examination of Australian society today, as compared with the spiteful years of envy politics that eventually torpedoed Paul Keating's government a decade ago, shows that there is far greater harmony between such groups such as Protestants and Catholics, straights and homosexuals, even Aboriginal Australians and others, where friction traditionally existed.

There may well be teenage girls who kill taxi drivers but it is too much, even for the politically correct latte-lappers at The Sydney Morning Herald, to blame the Howard years for society's decline. It might be easier to make a case against those who, since the Whitlam years, have denigrated those who find comfort in religion, scorned traditional parenting and undermined the basic canons of education, for the problems that beset Australia.

The numbskull hypocrisy of the argument is staggering. For much of the past 10 years, Fairfax has argued that John Howard has tried to drag Australia backwards to a past era. That era, it now believes, was of greater civility. The Howard years have been marked by increases for those on welfare (to the chagrin of many conservatives), increases in immigration from non-Anglo countries (counter to the wishes of many Anglo-Australians), and greater grants to the arts than past Labor governments. With that sort of a record, the comments by the Fairfax press reflect the true spirit of mean.

Source



23 February, 2006

IN BRIEF

A Leftist who really backs the troops: "Sending 200 more Australian troops into Afghanistan was the right thing to do to battle terrorism, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today. "I think it's the right thing to do. Afghanistan is terror central," Mr Beazley said n Perth today. "We got involved in Afghanistan after the 9-11 events and we evoked the ANZAS alliance and we sent troops." Prime Minister John Howard yesterday announced deployment of a 200-member Australian Defence Force provincial reconstruction team (PRT) into Oruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan. The announcement came as General John Abizaid, commander of the US Central Command, warned Mr Howard of a rising tempo of violence across southern Afghanistan.



Students out to quench flag-burners: "Some University of Queensland students aim to put a dampener on moves to set fire to an Australian flag. The university's Liberal Club president Julian Simmonds says he has several buckets of free water available today to anyone who objects to "the madness". Youth Socialist group Resistance has been selling $5 flag-burning kits in the Great Court of the university's St Lucia campus. "We have seen them around, they have been selling them but no-one has lit up any flags yet," Mr Simmonds said. "We are just trying to show people this isn't the way to go. "So, if someone exercises their free right to burn the flag, we will exercise our free right to throw water around." "They haven't been game enough to burn a flag yet, but we will be watching them." The Federal Government, the Opposition and the RSL have denounced Resistance's plan to sell the kits."



The ultimate public-service job: "The [NSW] State Government faces intense pressure to dump a scheme in which hundreds of "displaced" public servants are paid full salary even though they have no job to do and which costs taxpayers more than $17 million a year. An audit of the Government's finances is expected to heavily criticise the displaced person's list when it is released tomorrow. Almost 300 public servants who have left or been sacked from their jobs are employed by the Premier's Department under the displaced persons list. More public servants feature on similar lists in other departments but the Government has so far refused to reveal how many. Heavy-hitters who were on the list include: the former RTA chief executive Paul Forward, who spent two months on the list on a $342,000 salary before receiving a payout from the Government; and the former Housing Department chief Terry Barnes, who was sacked last month and was on a salary of more than $290,000. Sue Sinclair, who resigned as Sydney Ferries chief on Friday, is on leave but will go on the unattached list if the Government does not find her a job on her return. She is on a salary of $265,000. The list, also known as the unattached list, was introduced by the Carr Government in 1996.



Blacks choose the dole over work

Pretty logical from their viewpoint: Why work when you don't have to?

Australia's peak indigenous land management body wants the welfare rules for Aborigines tightened, after revealing more than 40 per cent of its workforce is white because Aborigines are refusing regular paid work. The Indigenous Land Corporation, a taxpayer-funded body charged with buying land and businesses to support indigenous entrepreneurs, has put forward a "get to work" plan after years of frustration at trying to recruit and retain workers from Aboriginal communities. The situation is so dire the ILC has had to recruit backpackers to run some of its eight cattle properties and tourist resorts, which are intended to provide work opportunities and hope for indigenous Australians.

ILC chairwoman Shirley McPherson will meet Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough next week to present the plan, which she warns is vital to "breaking the welfare dependence trap" of young Aborigines and islanders. In an article published in The Australian today, Ms McPherson said the dole and mutual obligation programs, offering part-time, mostly unskilled labour under Community Development Employment Projects, were regarded as preferable to hard work. "It's time to look outside the square," she told The Australian. "The board of the ILC believes that if an indigenous person is fit to work and lives within travelling distance of a job vacancy, paid unemployment should not be available. "It is incongruous that a major indigenous corporation, with strategically placed land holdings, the capacity to pay good wages and an active policy of training, supporting and hiring indigenous workers, is sometimes forced to rely on overseas backpackers for its workforce."

Ms McPherson said the size of the welfare payments had exacerbated the ILC's core problem in not being able to retain indigenous workers. "The problem is there is no penalty for forsaking full-time or seasonal work for CDEP or unemployment benefits," she said. The ILC proposal appears to have already won in-principle support from the Howard Government, with Mr Brough yesterday confirming he intended to canvass the issues with ministerial colleagues, including Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews, who oversees the CDEP program. "It is unacceptable that any able-bodied Australian moves from permanent employment to any form of welfare unnecessarily," he said. "It's not the Australian way." Under the ILC plan, six properties would be identified across northern Australia as centres to make the transition from welfare to regular paid work. They would include the tourism resort of Home Valley Station, 120km west of Kununurra, Western Australia; the cattle property of Roebuck Plains Station, 20km east of Broome, Western Australia, and Murrayfield, a sheep station on Bruny Island, south of Hobart.

The move to toughen dole and mutual obligation tests follows the Howard Government's efforts to end the era of "sit down" money for Aborigines in remote communities. Until last year, about 8000 indigenous people were exempt from the mutual obligation programs.

Source



The Sydney riots show that multicultural brainwashing in the schools has failed to lead to the "tolerance" that was preached

Cultural diversity is uncritically celebrated in the classroom, while our Anglo-Celtic heritage is thoroughly repudiated, writes Kevin Donnelly

If there is one positive thing to come out of the violence in Cronulla, it will be a long hard look at how schoolchildren are educated about Australian culture and what they are taught about their responsibilities as members of a civil society.

Judged by the age of many of those involved in abusing women, the mob violence at Cronulla beach and the subsequent destruction of personal property, many would have been of school age during the 1980s and '90s. While Al Grassby and Gough Whitlam sowed the seeds, this was a time when governments under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating spent millions on the multicultural industry. With the support of left-liberal academics, teacher unions and curriculum writers, the prevailing orthodoxy uncritically promoted cultural diversity, denigrated or ignored Australia's mainstream Anglo-Celtic tradition and taught children that our society is riddled with racism, inequality and social injustice.

The national Studies of Society and Environment curriculum developed during the Keating years argued that children must be taught "an awareness of and pride in Australia's multicultural society" and "develop an understanding of Australia's cultural and linguistic diversity". The 1993 Australian Education Union's curriculum policy argued that children must be taught that they "are living in a multicultural and class-based society that is diverse and characterised by inequality and social conflict".

Not only was the then academically-based school curriculum, especially in subjects such as history and literature, condemned as Eurocentric, patriarchal and socially unjust, but examinations were seen as favouring rich, white kids and culturally biased against recent migrants. Fast forward to more recent years and little has changed. The 1999 Australian Education Union policy on combating racism argues that government polices "are founded upon a legal system which is inherently racist in so much as its prime purpose is to serve the needs of the dominant Anglo-Australian culture". The AEU also states that racism in Australia is both overt and covert and that "both forms of racism are still widely practised in Australian society", especially as a result of the school curriculum supposedly being based on "the knowledge and values of the Anglo-Australian culture".

Politically correct

On reading curriculum documents developed during the '90s, once again, it becomes obvious that all adopt a politically correct approach to issues such as multiculturalism and how we define ourselves as a nation. Cultural diversity is uncritically celebrated and students are taught, in the words of the Queensland curriculum, to "deconstruct dominant views of society" on the basis that the Australian community is riven with "privilege and marginalisation".

In Western Australia, as evidenced by the Curriculum Framework document, students are told they must value "the perspective of different cultures" and "recognise the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important".

The curriculum policy of the South Australian branch of the AEU is underpinned by "five core values". One of the underlying values is that there should be respect for diversity and "no discrimination on any grounds".

The contradictions and weaknesses evident in the way multiculturalism has been taught in schools are manifold. Tolerance, the rule of law and a commitment to the common good are the very values needed if people are to live peacefully together. Cultural relativism and an uncritical acceptance of diversity deny such values and lead to what Robert Hughes terms, in his book The Culture of Complaint, the balkanisation of society.

It's also the case that Australia's legal and political system, while imperfect, best safeguards such values. Instead of denigrating Australian society, students should be taught the benefits of our Anglo-Celtic culture: a culture strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition and from which our laws and morality have grown.

Much of the way history and politics is now taught also centres on the rights of the individual. Instead of emphasising responsibilities and giving allegiance to what we hold in common, individuals are free to define themselves how they will and to act as they wish.

By defining Australian society as socially unjust and divisive there is also the danger of promoting a victim mentality. Whereas past generations felt part of a wider community and believed that hard work would be rewarded, recent generations see only inequality and their right to be supported.

Nobody should condone the violence in Cronulla perpetrated by those wearing the Australian flag or the actions of young Lebanese Muslims abusing women, destroying property and burning churches. But we also need to recognise that the PC approach to teaching multiculturalism in schools in part underpins the recent violence.

As the American liberal historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr has argued: "The militants of ethnicity now contend that the main objective of public education should be the protection, strengthening, celebration and perpetuation of ethnic origins and identities. Separatism, however, nourishes prejudice, magnifies differences and stirs antagonisms."

Source



22 February, 2006

IN BRIEF

Plan to teach Muslims local values: Muslim leaders will call on Australia's Islamic youth to assimilate and refrain from extremism in an effort to prevent a repeat of Sydney's racial violence. A meeting of the nation's imams next month would urge Islamic community and religious leaders to teach "Australian values" and promote tolerance and harmony, conference organiser Munir Hussain said today. The two-day conference, originally scheduled for this week but postponed until March 25-26 because of logistical problems, will be held at Greenacre in south-western Sydney, heart of Sydney's Islamic community. Dr Hussain said the conference, organised by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, would be a crucial step in improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims after the December 11 Cronulla riot and retaliatory attacks. He said Islamic leaders wanted to shun extremism and play a greater role in helping young Muslims to feel connected to the communities in which they lived.





Australian pop singer Dannii Minogue arrives for the Elle Style Awards in London. Elle MacPherson won the Style Icon Award, while Hollywood star Charlize Theron was named Woman of the Year. The awards were held at the Atlantis Gallery in the Old Trueman Brewery, East London





Chicken eggs may help prevent ovarian cancer deaths: "Humble backyard chooks Pippin, Jaffa and Jade could hold the key to developing a simple life-saving blood test to detect ovarian cancer. The clucky trio are also the unlikely base for the fortunes of an $11 million pharmaceutical company. The three chickens share a coop in the back yard of Gynaecological Cancer Research Centre director Prof Gary Rice's Warranwood home. Their eggs, and the protein antibodies within the yolks, could potentially save the lives of thousands of women around the world. Prof Rice has been working for more than four years to find biomarkers. These are the signatures of ovarian cancer in the blood. "We are looking for substances in the blood that change with cancer," he said yesterday. But some proteins in the blood are present in high concentrations and they hinder the search for cancer markers. By immunising the chickens against the proteins, they create antibodies that can be used to remove the interfering proteins from the blood before scientists start looking for cancer biomarkers. "The great thing about chickens is that antibodies are concentrated in the egg yolk, so to collect the antibodies we need we just collect the eggs," he said... If detected early it can be cured, but the disease is usually diagnosed in its late stages after it has spread to the abdomen, colon or other vital organs. There is no early screening test."



Swastika flag-flying to stay legal

It is not an offence to burn the Australian flag. Neither is it an offence to fly the Nazi swastika and the Government has no plans to make it one. But Prime Minister John Howard did say today that there were occasions when displaying a swastika flag could result in prosecution. "Under current commonwealth legislation there may be particular circumstances such as displaying the swastika at a polling place or flying the swastika with seditious intent which may already constitute an offence," he said in answer to a question on notice from Kelly Hoare (ALP, NSW).

The swastika issue surfaced last year when a NSW central coast couple displayed a Nazi flag for a week in their backyard, only removing it after intense pressure from neighbours, Jewish groups and the RSL. Jenni Duncombe told the media at the time she did not know what the flag signified and could not understand what all the fuss was about.

Mr Howard said many people would be offended by display of the swastika, the symbol of the Nazi regime responsible for about 35 million dead during World War II. "I would expect that a substantial proportion of the Australian population find Nazism and its imagery repugnant and that the flying of the swastika would be offensive to many individuals including Jewish and migrant Australians," he said.

Yesterday, the Government ruled out making it an offence to burn the Australian flag. That followed plans by the socialist youth group Resistance to sell flag burning kits during university orientation week activities.

Source



Dumb university teachers

A university graduate student abandoned the institution in frustration after a marking fiasco during which a lecturer told him to produce "more smarter writing". Former Queensland University of Technology Master of Business Marketing student Rohan Duggan, 38, said his nine-month ordeal included seven meetings and hundreds of pages of correspondence, some farcical. The original marking of a 2000-word paper included a comment from lecturer Edwina Luck advising Mr Duggan to present "more smarter writing".

After Ms Luck graded the paper at 65 per cent, Mr Duggan questioned the grade and Ms Luck passed it to another staffer, Dr Yunus Ali, who downgraded it to 35 per cent. In re-marking, Dr Ali questioned the use of the terms "Yin" and "Yang", a Chinese concept of balance, and said they should have been listed as references in the bibliography (a list of the books used as reference material). Yesterday, Dr Ali admitted he had "no idea" what the terms meant and thought they were references to people's names. "We don't go into the deeper meaning," he said.

In response to further queries, Ms Luck sent Mr Duggan a short e-mail which, because her "s" key was not functioning, read as: "I knew you would be di appointed, o what I have done i taken the middle ground. I am uppo ed to take the econd mark, but I did not want to kill you that much. I do hope that you have learned from thi . Not the point of a king for explanation, but that we a lecturer are not totally illy!! Academic writing i difficult. I hope all our comment can be helpful in the future. Edwina."

Mr Duggan then took his complaint to higher authorities and his original mark was restored. Mr Duggan said the restored mark helped him achieve a distinction in the subject, although when he learned that Dr Ali would have been teaching him in second year he decided to go elsewhere and has now completed a Master of Marketing Managing degree at Griffith University.

QUT registrar Dr Carol Dickenson and Business Dean Professor Peter Little said that both Ms Luck and Dr Ali had been reprimanded and made to attend a seminar on Learning and Teaching Issues. They agreed their conduct was "obviously unacceptable". Professor Little said if due process had been applied, Ms Luck would have given the assignment to her (Luck's) head of department who would have selected a staff member himself to do the re-marking. He insisted Dr Ali was "very well qualified academically". [No evidence to the contrary is allowed, obviously]

Source



21 February, 2006

Prime Minister criticizes Muslims



John Howard has strongly criticised aspects of Muslim culture, warning they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program. While he remained confident that the overwhelming majority of Muslims would be successfully integrated, the Prime Minister said there were two unique problems that previous intakes of migrants from Europe and Asia did not have. "I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society, and that is a difficulty," Mr Howard told The Australian. "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or [Christian] Lebanese, or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."

The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. "I think some of the associated attitudes towards women (are) a problem," he said. "For all the conservatism towards women and so forth within some of the Mediterranean cultures, it's as nothing compared with some of the more extreme attitudes. "The second one of those things is a broader problem, but to be fair to them, it's an attitude that is changing with the younger ones."

The comments are contained in a new book to mark the 10th anniversary of Mr Howard's rise to power. Written by The Australian's team of journalists and commentators, The Howard Factor - a decade that changed the nation will be published on February 27 and launched by the Prime Minister on March 2. Mr Howard conducted a series of interviews for the book on December 9, the final sitting day of the parliamentary year for 2005. This happened to be just two days before the race riots in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla.

The Prime Minister did not specify which Muslim source nations he was concerned about. But by placing Lebanese immigrants in the same category as the Italian, Greek, Chinese and Baltic, he appears to have been referring to the Christian rather than the Muslim intake from the Middle East.

The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the conservative Muslims about whom Mr Howard was talking represented only a "tiny fraction". "There is (also) a tiny fraction of Australians who believe in white supremacy," said Dr Ali, who chairs Mr Howard's Muslim advisory group. "I think he (Mr Howard) understands that the large majority of Muslims are like everyone else. "In any society there are immigrants who try to hold on to their traditions, and it takes time to change. My faith is in the following generation - the next generation will be more adaptive."

In the interview, Mr Howard was upbeat about the immigration program. Australia crossed two immigrant thresholds in 2003-04, which is the latest year for which Bureau of Statistics tables are available. The overseas-born population rose to 24 per cent - its highest proportion since the 1890s. And the European share of the immigrant total fell below 50 per cent for the first time. The previous Labor government of Paul Keating had the overseas-born at 23 per cent of the population, and the European component was 57 per cent. Mr Howard seemed genuinely pleased when the numbers were read out to him. "Really? I think what it demonstrates is that we have run a truly non-discriminatory immigration policy." After slashing immigration in his first term between 1996 and 1998, Mr Howard has steadily ratcheted up the intake to levels that now exceed those under Labor's Bob Hawke in the 1980s.

As Opposition Leader in 1988, Mr Howard attacked Asian immigration. He has since apologised for the comment and conceded it cost him his job at the time. His comment in August 1988 was: "I wouldn't like to see it (the rate of Asian immigration) greater. I'm not in favour of going back to a White Australia policy. I do believe that if it is in the eyes of some in the community that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater."

Mr Howard's latest observations on Muslim culture are not in the same category, because they do not suggest the rate of Muslim immigration should be slowed down in the interests of social cohesion.

"The public sometimes mixes up attitudes to immigration with attitudes to our identity and our history," he told The Australian. "I think one of the reasons why people have been accepting of all of this is that they feel they have a government and a prime minister that is in favour of what I might call a slightly less zealous multiculturalism than was practised by my predecessor. "Not a return to assimilation so much, but somewhere in between, which is what people want. "What resonates most with people, I find, is they don't mind where new people come from, as long as they've got skills, and as long as they become Australians when they arrive. "But that doesn't mean they should forget where they were born, that is really what the average person thinks."

Source



Five-year wait for dentist

Even with very limited eligibility

Waiting times for basic check-ups in Queensland's public dental services can be as long as up to five years, according to the Australian Dental Association. This is despite the State Government spending more on public dental services than any other state, allocating about $132 million compared with NSW, which spends about $100 million. Yet Queenslanders still have the worst teeth in the nation, while the government and councils are engaged in an argument over the provision of fluoride in drinking water.

Figures provided by Queensland Health and Health Minister Stephen Robertson confirm the length of time people were waiting for public dental services. He said that it should be noted that the majority of dental services in Queensland are provided by the private sector. "Queensland has the most generous eligibility criteria for public oral health services of any state or territory," he said. "Around 1.8 million Queenslanders, adults and children, are eligible for free oral health care."

Mr Robertson said consultant Peter Forster's Health Systems Review acknowledged the high demand for oral health services and the difficulties experienced in meeting that demand. "Workforce shortages [Translation: Measly wages for dentists] are a significant issue in meeting demand. The shortage of dentists is a national issue. Queensland Health currently has about 300 full-time dentist positions. In January 2006, 20 per cent of these positions were vacant," he said.

"Patients with dental emergencies are generally seen within 24 hours. Those with non-emergency conditions will wait longer. "It is unlikely that waiting times for non-urgent care will improve greatly in 2006."

Opposition health spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said public dental services were effectively being rationed. "There is a means test and only people with pension or health care cards can access the service," Dr Flegg said. "It would be a pretence for the state government to say we have a universal free dental service because we do not."

Source



Leftists try to teach Catholicism to a Cardinal!

Including the usual Leftist "Nazi" slur. They can't help themselves

A group of leading liberal Catholics has complained to the Vatican that Cardinal George Pell is teaching inaccurate and misleading doctrine. Spokesman Frank Purcell went further, accusing the cardinal of fostering an "Eichmann mentality" whereby people in the church did not think for themselves but simply obeyed orders. (Adolf Eichmann was the Nazi in charge of exterminating Jews in World War II.)

The Catholics wrote in November to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - formerly the Holy Inquisition, and a body on which Cardinal Pell served under the present Pope - but have had no reply. They are calling for the Vatican's direct intervention because they say Cardinal Pell's "explication of Catholic doctrine is inaccurate, misleading, and not true to the Catholic tradition".

The doctrinal dispute centres on the ultimate right of Catholics to make moral judgements based on their individual conscience even if it is in error. It lies at the heart of debate in the church over the use of contraception and on moral and ethical questions surrounding bioethics, euthanasia and abortion. The letter said a number of statements by the cardinal about the role of conscience were difficult to reconcile with the priority church teaching placed on conscience. Given Cardinal Pell's prominence, many Australians took his views as representing doctrine. The letter was signed by 24 Catholics, including Sister Veronica Brady, Professor Max Charlesworth, historian Paul Collins, NSW judge Chris Geraghty and several Melbourne priests.

Cardinal Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, yesterday said: "This is a real hoot. Such well-known defenders of orthodoxy as Paul Collins, Veronica Brady and Max Charlesworth appealing to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." He said what was in dispute was not the importance of conscience, but whether conscience must be oriented to truth, to the word of God.

More here



The Leftist blindness of cartoonist Michael Leunig

Excerpt below from a comment by Piers Akerman. I excerpted on 17th. a comment by "Age" editor Gawenda about Leunig's antisemitism:

Leunig's pitiful attempt to depict a moral equivalence between the Holocaust and the protective barrier the Israelis constructed to block Palestinian suicide bombers from murdering innocent civilians was not the last cartoon rejected by Gawenda on taste grounds. The following year, the ABC's Media Watch host David Marr, who exhibited the rejected Auschwitz cartoon on air and published it on the taxpayer-funded program's website, treated his tiny audience to another of Leunig's dumped drawings and similarly lodged it on the ABC site, while attempting to make Gawenda look like a censorious opponent of free speech.

For some peculiar reason, a search through the files of Media Watch under its serial hosts would indicate that the ABC's spotlight on the media has never looked at the mountains of anti-Western, anti-Semitic material distributed through Islamic outlets in Australia.

Media Watch's latest host, Monica Attard, indicated the program might have published the Danish cartoons which triggered the series of extraordinarily well-orchestrated riots in which more than 10 Muslims died in Islamic countries far removed from the tang of either herring or Danish blue, but "ABC managing director Russell Balding says that we can't". That's the same Mr Balding whose respect for free speech is such that he refused to front a Senate estimate's committee last year and who is now cutting short his contract with the ABC to pick up a more lucrative gig running Sydney airport.

Leunig has told the press from his bushland hideaway that he is devastated to find that his drawing had been entered into an anti-Semitic competition run by the Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri. In an opinion piece, Leunig says has "had more than a gutful of hostility and hate mail in the past three years, all because I have resisted the rise of fascism - the idea of war."

But the cartoon was sent to Tehran by a writer from the puerile ABC program, The Chaser, and although that individual has apologised to the cartoonist, whether he will still have the police pursue this "malicious", "dark" and "sinister" perpetrator is to be seen. You see, The Chaser is not usually lumped in with the fascist conspiracy that obsesses The Age, its stellar cartoonist and its readers.

Curiously, the most obvious fascism around, Islamofascism, does not appear to have made an impression on Leunig nor do the suicide bombers who target the innocent. Maybe the cartoonist, like the Organisation of Islamic Countries which has for the past nine years refused to let the UN define terrorism, doesn't know a terrorist when he sees one.

As for his cartooning, he told an ABC audience in Perth earlier this week that he would never do a cartoon about the prophet Mohammed and neither would he do a cartoon about a deceased Aboriginal because it was offensive to indigenous people, nor cartoons which depicted racial stereotypes, for fear of causing offence. As for lampooning Jesus, however, he enthusiastically said he would, because it was important to do so.

The young Leunig was one of my colleagues and friends on Victoria's now-defunct Newsday newspaper and I still have a couple of caricatures he drew of me which bring back fond memories of those heady days. His selective sensitivities now leave me cold. That his cartoons could slot so easily into an anti-holocaust competition run by a newspaper under the control of a regime headed by a lunatic who has pledged to wipe Israel off the map and who dismisses the deaths of some six million people as a "myth" is something he should be really concerned about, not whether his drawing was sent off without his permission.



20 February, 2006

IN BRIEF



About time!: "Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has ordered two independent reviews into military equipment and spending amid concerns about mismanagement. Soldiers last week revealed problems with equipment including flammable combat jackets, boots that caused serious foot injuries, ill-fitting body armour and camouflage clothing that glowed when seen through night-vision goggles. And questions have been raised in Auditor-General reports about over-spending and deadline blowouts in major military projects. Dr Nelson said while he had been assured by defence chiefs that there were no problems with military equipment being used by troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, he had ordered a review of the supply system. "What I want is a person with specific accounting and financial expertise and probably two people with seniority who are very familiar with defence and defence personnel and their requirements," Dr Nelson told the Nine Network.





The rise and rise of a certain Australian actress: "Australian Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman will return to the Academy Awards stage next month, this time to hand out one of cinema's highest honours. The 38-year-old actor has joined the star-studded list of Oscars presenters at the 78th annual Academy Awards show that will be held in Hollywood on March 5. The star of To Die For, Dead Calm and The Stepford Wives won the best actress Oscar in 2003 for playing British author Virginia Woolf in The Hours. She was also nominated for the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge. Kidman, who first became known in Hollywood as the young wife of superstar Tom Cruise but who is now one of cinema's most powerful stars, will next be seen in The Visiting and Fur. She will join celebrity Oscar presenters including movie legends Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, as well as stars such as Will Smith and Keanu Reeves at this year's show."



Our very own wine lake -- Cheap quaffs coming:: "Good news for drinkers everywhere last week as Foster's lifted the lid on the Australian wine industry. We are the proud owners of a wine lake. If you filled every Olympic pool in Australia to the brim with wine, you would take less than five percent of our total surplus; and this year's harvest has only just begun. Those poor South Australians. Their future swings on the success of the Mitsubishi 380 and wine. Pain as well for investors who poured cash into wine assets over the last 20 years. Take investors in "premium" WA brand Evans and Tate. Evans and Tate was once worth $150million. Today's value is less than $20million. Perhaps much less...."





Slow and steady didn't win this race: "A turtle shell usually keeps it safe from harm - but not on this occasion. These amazing photographs show the moment a monster crocodile emerged from the sea on remote Cape York Peninsula and snapped up its unsuspecting prey. Mine worker Aaron Vickers and his wife Naomi, who captured the image, looked on in wonder as they watched nature at its most brutal. "It's amazing to see something like that," Mrs Vickers told The Sunday Mail. "You don't often see the big ones, so to see him feeding like that was amazing... [I hope the shell gave the croc indigestion]



Officialese: "Pity the person who has to work out what some government grants are for. According the the Australia Council, its grant issued to the group Art Nexus would "provide leadership and facilitation infrastructure for strategic, sustainable development across the developmental, cultural and creative industries in far north Queensland". What? It is just another example of how management jargon is invading our lives - particularly the job market where some government advertisements really need a translator. Language students say the new government-speak is a misguided attempt to appear cutting-edge that instead ends up as gobbledygook. Prospective employees seeking public service jobs as Principal Corporate Governance Officers or Organisational Communication Strategists are likely to be asked to "implement strategic communication" or "provide high-level input into the development of strategic vision". Put simply - have a yarn with their colleagues. They warned management jargon was "sucking the meaning out of words" and providing a smokescreen for governments."



Union rhetoric drives parents from public schools

The community wants its own values taught to children, not necessarily those of teachers, writes Kevin Donnelly

Much of the education debate focuses on issues such as resources, standards and accountability and the respective quality and standing of government and non-government schools. Equally important, evidenced by the way politically correct teacher unions, professional associations and teacher academics define education as a key instrument in reshaping society, is the way the education system is used to promote a one-sided view of society. While it is wrong to say that education should be values-neutral, the traditional approach is one that sees education as impartial and balanced. Education is not indoctrination, and social engineering should not be confused with critical inquiry and searching for the truth.

On reading the 2005 and 2006 Australian Education Union annual general meeting speeches by the union's federal president Pat Byrne, it is clear she is in no doubt on the need to promote certain values and the union's right to shape the social debate and the work of schools. Byrne's 2006 speech attacks what she sees as a federally inspired, backward-looking education agenda, the Government's industrial relations policy and human rights record, the Prime Minister's response to the Cronulla riots, the Government's anti-terrorism legislation and what she sees as its conservative response to the availability of the abortion pill RU-486. Byrne describes 2006 as "the greatest period of social and political change since Australia's federation" and believes the AEU has a special role in influencing Australia's education system and how we define ourselves as a nation. She states: "The Australian union movement has a track record of over 100 years of shaping the very values that we regard as quintessentially Australian" and argues teacher unionists "need to continue to speak out, to fill the growing vacuum in thoughtful public discourse on issues of social justice and human rights".

Byrne's 2005 speech also places the union centre stage in the battle of ideas, when she states: "Through well articulated policies, courage, commitment and campaigning over more than a century, we have significantly influenced the way our society functions." In addition to arguing that unions best reflect Australian values, Byrne also contends, as a result of upholding values such as "empathy, responsibility, protection, fairness, fulfilment, freedom, honesty, trust, co-operation, strength, community", the AEU is the true guardian of the public education system.

Wrong on both accounts. Instead of reflecting mainstream opinions, the AEU, according to Byrne's own admission, champions a left-wing view of the world enmeshed in the culture wars against conservative values. In bemoaning the re-election of the Howard, Bush and Blair governments, the AEU president admits: "This is not a good time to be progressive in Australia; or for that matter anywhere else in the world." Anyone familiar with AEU policies will know the teacher union, along with other cultural elite groups such as the ABC, teacher academics and assorted artists and intellectuals, consistently attacks Australian society as socially unjust and champions a range of left-wing causes.

The union also argues that Australian society is riven with "inequality and social conflict" and that education, instead of representing a ladder of opportunity, reinforces privilege and meritocracy. The result? Given the union's commitment to overthrowing the status quo, the school curriculum is no longer impartial or balanced since teachers are asked to embrace a politically correct approach in areas such as gender, ethnicity and class.

Traditional academic studies, a belief in competition and the right of parents to choose non-government schools are all attacked by the AEU as simply ways by which the more privileged in society are able to maintain power and prestige. Equally as facile as the AEU's argument that it best represents mainstream values is Byrne's argument that the union is the guardian of the public education system. Instead of strengthening the government system, the union has been instrumental in causing the move to non-government schools.

By imposing a politically correct curriculum, in opposition to one with a strong academic focus, by adopting feel-good student reports where all are winners and by failing to hold teachers accountable for performance, the AEU undermines confidence in government schools. By becoming politically active in its support for the ALP, by aligning itself with the trade union movement and by refusing to free government schools from provider capture, the AEU also shows that it cares more about politics than it does about education.

Evidence that the AEU's approach to education is counterproductive is found in a survey carried out by Irving Saulwick and Associates. On being asked why they chose non-government schools, "respondents talked about the reduction, as they saw it, in educational standards -- a lack of rigour in teaching the 'three Rs', a lack of discipline and respect in schools, and poor teaching. "They did not think that all state-employed teachers were poor teachers. Far from it. But many did think that they were teaching under difficult conditions, and that some, who were poor teachers, could not be dismissed."

After reviewing NSW government schools, Tony Vinson, a defender of the public system, reaches a similar conclusion: "Some parents expressed doubts about the environment of such schools, the handling of unsatisfactory teachers, and whether sufficient emphasis is placed upon students' acquisition of good values." If Byrne and the AEU were serious about strengthening government schools, the way forward, as in the US and England, is with innovations such as charter schools and vouchers. Empowering local communities by allowing parents to establish charter schools improves standards and builds the types of values embedded in social capital.

Source



A good comment on the post below:

From a reader with a memory

The interesting thing about all the reductions in beds in Qld Health now seems to be a flawed "modelling." If you believe that then I have parking spaces to sell on Sydney Harbour Bridge and Ocean Front Land at the base of Uluru. Two things intrigue me. Why can't the Australian Public have the names of these "modelers?" If we had them we might not be so confident that the same people can get it right this time. If they are not the same people who are they? Are they clinicians -- almost certainly not. The unfortunate truth of Medical Administrators are that they are failed clinicians (at least it keeps them away from the patients) or non-clinicians whose backgrounds are quite suspect.

Queensland two decades ago had an enviable health system [Under a long-term conservative State government]. Now it runs close to a third world country standard. Bundaberg, Caboolture and Patel are merely symptoms of a very sick system created by a "model" (for model read delusion) that we can budget-drive hospitals rather than needs-drive them. Awful language but there you are. Of course we need to have a good eye on budgets but they should be the driving force. With an increasing population in Queensland there should be more beds not fewer. Not really rocket science is it? And if you think that Bundaberg and Caboolture hospitals are bad, just wait for the exposures to come. Unfortunately many of those who could expose the problems are either dead or in the "shut yo mouth" group. Fradulent waiting lists, surgery lists not allowed to proceed even when the surgeons were willing to work on (they were sent to libraries and paid to do nothing), outspoken critics muzzled and threatened, (even the Forster report was flawed as the people "assisting the inquiry" were in some cases the worst bullies in the system), a rise of manager numbers coinciding with a fall in real clinicians (remember a lot of so called clinicians are not hands on clinicians -- which has never come out), the increasing scourge of excessive documentation and reduction in care/ treatment giving, and so on. The bus is moving but without drivers. In all good remedies it is important to realize that the incumbents were and are part of the problem. They will merely change the decor and documentation. They have no real will to work or practice medicine.

Now to medical graduate numbers. Even with the figures looking bad you must remember that now medical school intakes have 50% plus female graduates. There is nothing wrong with female medicos IF they practice full time. Many don't - quite apart from maternity leave many choose now to work 2-3 days a week and even restricted hours at that. Of course they have that right BUT medical graduates are expensive for the community to train, unlike lawyers and other courses who simply need a barn, a few talking heads, and access to the internet (why we don't even need a good Law Library these days - just access to the internet). As to the problem of country needs and medicos, it could be solved simply by giving a 3x factor to medicare rebates for remote areas and defined areas of need and reducing the benefits to urban medicos. I can hear the howls of "unfair and conscription" already.



19 February, 2006

Growing population but shrinking hospitals? -- that's government!

Queensland has almost 500 fewer hospital beds than when the Beattie Government took office in 1998, figures released late yesterday show. Health Minister Stephen Robertson provided the data following questions this week and admitted he had given incorrect information to Parliament on the subject. He said the information supplied to him by his department about bed numbers at the end of last financial year had inadvertently included neonatal cots in the count. So rather than 9994 available beds as Mr Robertson told Parliament, the figure was actually 7017. The number compares with 7515 when Labor took office.

Mr Robertson said bed numbers had been reduced because of health care models that predicted a reduced reliance on overnight hospital stays. "Advice from hospital experts at the time was that less beds would be needed in future because many people requiring simple surgery would be in hospital for a matter of hours instead of occupying beds for several days." Premier Peter Beattie acknowledged last month that the modelling had been flawed.

The Opposition this week attacked the Government for promising to open an extra 66 beds to address problems in emergency departments, when it had shut down hundreds since coming to office. Liberal leader Bob Quinn last night said the figures highlighted why patients struggled to get their surgery on time in Queensland hospitals. "Under this Government, there's been a loss of 500 beds and at one stage they were actually 800 beds down," Mr Quinn said. "When you combine the closure of beds with the exodus of doctors out of the system, you see why people can't get their operation on time, while the waiting lists have blown out and why emergency departments have been closed. "All of this points to how badly the hospitals have been managed by Labor in the past seven years. "This loss of 500 beds has occurred at the same time that Queensland's population has increased by 500,000."

Mr Robertson said the number of available beds had also declined under the Coalition government, falling by 149 in 2« years. But he said bed numbers was "a very poor measure of hospital system performance, because it is subject to significant estimation error". "There is also no way of verifying data from earlier years to determine whether current definitions were rigorously followed.

More here



IN BRIEF





Leisel evolves into a lovely mermaid: "It's a face her mother hardly recognises: Leisel Jones, rosy-cheeked with golden, braided hair, staring out from the cover of a glamour magazine. It marks the 20-year-old Queensland swimmer's transition from precocious talent to confident world beater. "I went and bought it yesterday and showed Mum," the world's dominant female breaststroker said of the magazine. "Mum thought I looked like Paris Hilton. I would like to look like Paris but I would not want to be like her. While Hilton's never been accused of lacking self-esteem, Jones revealed this month that she battled personal demons. After bursting on to the scene at 15 with a silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she failed to fulfil her expectations and grew to hate herself. But that's finished. About three months before she revealed her battle with low self-esteem, she stripped to a G-string and some electric blue orchids for the February-March edition of Aura magazine. "It was a little bit daunting at first. I've never done anything like that before but I really enjoyed it," she said."



Flag burning kits to be sold: A socialist youth organisation wants to sell hundreds of flag burning kits to university students next week .. to highlight anger at the Federal Government. Resistance says the kits contain an Australian flag, a lighter, a fire lighting cube and Resistance material. They'll be sold during university orientation week for five dollars. But National President of the RSL, Major General Bill Crews finds the plan highly offensive. He says the Australian flag shouldn't be a vehicle for protest and burning it should be a criminal offence. [The libertarian view is that they are entitled to burn it if they own it]



Victorian smokers hit: "Smokers have just 11 days before being banned from puffing away at train stations. From March 1, smoking will be banned in the sheltered areas of bus and tram stops as well as railway stations. Public transport ticket inspectors will have the power to fine offending commuters. The new laws, passed by State Parliament last year, will also clamp down on so-called buzz marketing and non-branded tobacco advertising. Smoking, and the sale of cigarettes, will be banned at underage music and dance events. The new bans will extend to all enclosed workplaces, with the exception of licensed premises. Drinkers can continue to smoke with their beer until July next year. Other workplace exclusions include sole-operated businesses not frequented by visitors, inside vehicles, prison cells and exercise yards, immigration detention centres and Crown's high-roller rooms."



Abortion Bill celebration attacked: "Fallout from this week's heated showdown over abortion continued yesterday after supporters of the new law were pictured celebrating their victory. Victorian Liberal MP Chris Pearce criticised a group of female MPs and senators for sipping champagne soon after Parliament paved the way for RU486's use in Australia. Senators Lyn Allison, Judith Troeth and Fiona Nash, and Labor MPs Kelly Hoare and Julia Gillard were among those drinking to their success after the conscience vote. Mr Pearce, who backed the Bill, said it was a tasteless gesture. "Pictures of the women sipping champagne was outrageous and over the top," he said yesterday. "Members and senators had to dig very deep to make decisions on this. That kind of celebratory behaviour is very wrong." With many on both sides of the debate agreeing there are too many abortions in Australia, the Howard Government is to consider a $60 million plan to boost counselling for women with unplanned pregnancies. Medicare-funded counselling and a 24-hour phone hotline are among initiatives to be examined. But Ms Gillard, who said no offence was intended by the champagne, said counselling should not be restricted to abortion".



18 February, 2006

Hooray! Some Muslim gunmen arrested at long last

A primary school's wall was used for target practice hours before a series of drive-by shootings across four suburbs, police have revealed. Officers from Task Force Gain and the State Protection Group closed Canterbury Road at Punchbowl yesterday for more than an hour during the morning peak and raided a house next to Punchbowl Public School. They arrested Mahmoud Ahmad, 23, of Punchbowl, and a 17-year-old youth and seized some ammunition and an air rifle.

Scientific police spent several hours examining a fence bordering the school, from which it was alleged shots were fired into a classroom wall on the night of Sunday, September 11, last year. Yesterday's raid followed a five-month investigation of shootings on September 11 between 9pm and 10.30pm in inner-western and south-western suburbs and for which no one has been charged.

At one of those shootings a 25-year-old man was wounded in Canterbury Road, Campsie, by men who stole his car. The wounded man's home i