R.G.Menzies above

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Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

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20 November, 2009

Ignorant scientists again: Say "Hobbit" was distinct species

They say the female "hobbit" was too short to be a modern human but, at 3'6' tall, there are Australian blacks alive today of that height. These "experts" are just ignorant of basic physical anthropology -- which is what they are talking about! They obviously know nothing of Australia's pygmy race. I come from the area where they survived and have had them walk right past me in the street. And Australia is quite close to Indonesia

Researchers have added new weight to theories that a prehistoric "hobbit" found by Australian and Indonesian scientists in Indonesia is an unknown human species. Bones belonging to a mini-human and believed to be about 18,000 years old were unearthed on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004, sparking theories about our ancient relatives. Since then, scientists have debated whether Homo floresiensis was a descendant of a known human species suffering from some sort of genetic disease which caused them to be so small, or whether they belonged to a new species.

A new study of the bones of a female "hobbit" (several skeletons were ultimately unearthed at the site) by American scientists William Jungers and Karen Baab has given fresh impetus to the theory that floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease.

Their study, published in the December issue of Britain's Royal Statistical Society magazine Significance, was based on a detailed examination of the individual's skull and other bones which led them to estimate her weight and height. Their analysis suggests it was unlikely she was a relative of Homo Erectus or other known human species and was instead "probably derived instead from an even more primitive hominin species".

They found her brain was "remarkably small" compared to living humans, including modern pygmies, and more similar to those of chimpanzees and ancient hominins like the bipedal "ape men" of Africa. While some scientists have argued the hobbit's head was unusually small because she suffered from a disease, Dr Jungers and Dr Baab found no resemblance between her brain shape and that of modern humans with abnormally small heads.

They suggested the hobbit was not a dwarfed descendant of Homo Erectus but a different species "with already-small bodies and smaller brains when they arrived on Flores".

Dr Jungers and Dr Baab also reconstructed the hobbit's body shape and size and found it to be unlike any modern human because of its shorter thigh and shin bones. They estimated she was much smaller and stockier in shape to modern humans, even when compared to the smallest living people. [Rubbish!]

She was just 106cm tall and weighed 30-35kg, suggesting a "very non-human body shape for our hobbit, in the sense that a relatively large mass is being distributed over a relatively small skeletal frame". "This is not a pygmy human," Dr Jungers, who works closely with the Australian scientists who discovered the skeletons, said.

The Australian Research Council is providing funding for a five-year project so Dr Jungers and Australian scientists can continue their work on trying to establish the hobbit's status.

Dr Jungers said the team would return to Indonesia to examine sites near to where the skeletons were found and where tools dating back one millions years have been unearthed. "We will focus on finding skeletons that go with the tools," he said. "If we dig up bones of H Erectus, the diseased dwarf theory will gain credibility. "But if there are bones like Lucy's (Australopithecus afarensis, a 3.2 million-year-old set of fossils found in 1974) or H Habilis, our hypothesis that this is a more primitive human than H Erectus will gain more support."

SOURCE




Unbelievably brainless waste of taxpayer's money

$600k for 'sub-standard hot-box' house that is totally inappropriate for the tropical climate and for the people concerned. Open timber houses were needed. The most any aborigine would do with such a house is sit outside it



SMALL brick houses with no airconditioning, no fans and no landscaping are costing taxpayers $600,000 a pop to build in remote communities. Kennedy MP Bob Katter has condemned recent federally-funded community housing "slapped up" on Mornington Island, saying it cost $4 million to build seven tiny homes that local contractors have since valued at being worth less than $300,000 each. And the high building costs do not include the "hundreds of millions" blown on the government administration of community housing projects - all to provide indigenous communities with "substandard hot-boxes".

"The house I stood outside of was a hot-box that you couldn't even swing a cat in - it was a bloody disgrace," Mr Katter said. "And they set the taxpayer back about $600,000 apiece."

And indigenous mayors from the Cape met in Cairns yesterday to debate land leases tied to future funding. The proposed 40-year lease system will see indigenous communities sign over their land in return for a share of more than $1 billion in social housing dollars in the next decade. "To me, this is the Federal and State governments saying, 'We're going to give you a fair trial, then we're going to hang you'," Mr Katter said. "They are telling these people they aren't capable of running their own affairs.

"When it (housing) was controlled by the council, they were getting 10 times as many houses built for infinitely less, but if you compare the (Federal Government controlled) Northern Territory to Yarrabah, then I think it will become clear who is doing the better job. "This is just blood sucking for white fella bureaucrats."

The caucus of mayors, who labelled the 40-year-lease as ransom bargaining, unanimously called for the State Government to extend the December 11 deadline for four months to allow the communities to pursue their own legal advice in regards to the land sign-over bid.

"Communities are in dire need of housing, but the delivery should be one of consultations, not predetermined policy and those who must benefit most are those on the ground, not only for this generation but for the generations to come," Cherbourg Mayor Sam Murray said.

SOURCE




Australian conservatism less divided than its American countertpart

By Hal. G.P. Colebatch

AUSTRALIA'S conservative intelligentsia may have a lot to complain about, but there is one thing at least that they should be grateful for: the Australian conservative movement has almost entirely escaped the toxic division, which in the past few years has bedevilled much of American conservatism, into so called neo-conservatives and paleo-conservatives.

This is probably largely due to John Howard's position that the Liberal Party is the bearer of both Australia's liberal and conservative traditions, and the fact that Howard himself has taken, and continues to take, far more interest in the intellectual content of Australian conservative thought than any other Liberal prime minister. It also owes a lot to the fact that most of those associated with Quadrant, Australia's most important anti-left intellectual journal, including long-time editor Peter Coleman, the late P. P. McGuinness and present editor Keith Windschuttle, have not been concerned with expending their energy fighting their own allies, or exposing alleged traitors and heretics in the conservative ranks. Further, since its foundation they have kept Quadrant and its circle free of the "anti-Zionist" ratbaggery that has crept into some American paleo-conservative work.

This anti-totalitarian ethos may owe a lot to Quadrant's founder, Richard Krygier, a Polish Jew and former social democrat and its first editor, the Catholic poet James McAuley. After more than 50 years this ethos seems firmly established.

Certainly there are crank groups on the Right but in terms of serious political and intellectual debate they are of little relevance.

This is in considerable contrast to the situation in the US, where attacks on the so-called neo-cons - and Israel - have become major pre-occupations of Patrick Buchanan, former Reagan speech-writer, former hopeful Republican presidential candidate and founder of the grotesquely misnamed American Conservative, and much of the American conservative circle.

Recent effusions by Buchanan include attacks on the pre-World War II Polish "regime" (his term) for provoking World War II by not giving Danzig to the patient and reasonable Adolf Hitler (a line also taken up recently by some Russian militaristic, ultra-nationalist and anti-Polish circles), and claims that, in effect, the countries liberated from Soviet occupation at the end of the Cold War have no right to self-determination because they lie within Russia's sphere of influence. The fact that tiny Estonia, the victim of countless Soviet atrocities, moved a war memorial erected by the Red Army from the centre of its capital has been described by Buchanan as a reckless provocation to Russia. The American Conservative, as well as all its other attacks on Israel and Zionism, actually published an article after Buchanan left the editorship insinuating - with obvious implications - that Israel had prior knowledge of 9/11.

Buchanan's work is also pushed on a website run by Greek multi-millionaire Taki Theodoracopulos, another ceaseless critic of the neo-cons and of Israel, from a so-called paleo-conservative position. One article published on the Taki website earlier this year, "Little Miss Zionist Gossip Queen", was a self-congratulatory account of how the Palestinian author, one Adam Kharii, had intimidated and chased away a lone Jewish girl in a nightclub: "I shouted at her, 'Don't be here when I'm back.' She was not even worthy of all the insults I'd hurled at her." Such, it appears, are the heroisms of self-styled US paleo-conservatism, descended more or less from the isolationist, anti-Semitic-tinged America First movement of World War II. I doubt it is a conservatism that Ronald Reagan, William Buckley or John Wayne would recognise.

One Australian-sourced attempt in The American Conservative to blame an alleged collapse of Australian conservatism on a neo-con takeover left its author lamenting that no notice had been taken of it. Among the alleged neo-cons listed there were Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt, and the late Frank Devine. The same author lamented elsewhere that his application to edit Quadrant had been, for some reason, rejected. He further described Howard as: "a semiliterate school prefect, haunted (to an extent remarkable even for antipodean statesmen) by what Mencken would have called the nagging fear that someone, somewhere, might be free", a description which, whatever one thinks of Howard, is simply off the planet. The big battle facing conservatives in Australia at present is against the expansion of government power and control in the name of environmentalism and here neo- and paleo- divisions are also irrelevant.

Mike Carlton recently attacked "shameless neo-cons" in The Sydney Morning Herald. His rogue's gallery included Tony Blair, who far from being any sort of conservative is probably the most socially radical prime minister Britain has had.

It appears most Australian intellectual conservatives think that what unites them is more important than what divides them. Most of them also seem to think that Israel is an island of democracy and civilisation, to be supported rather than attacked. On the potentially divisive questions of the war in Afghanistan and attitudes to Barack Obama's America in general, there is little they can do anyway but wait and see.

SOURCE




The Dog on the Tuckerbox

This is indeed a famous Australian song but many people these days don't know why. What is notable about a dog sitting on a tuckerbox? Explanation: The original version, as sung by shearers and other such profane folk, was "The dog shat IN my tuckerbox"



He has always been five miles from Gundagai but now the nation's most famous dog and his tuckerbox are to be relocated to lure tourists to the town. In the legendary original version of the 19th century poem, the dog sat on the tuckerbox "five miles from Gundagai".

Historians are outraged at the idea of moving the iconic statue from its spot of 77 years, just off the Hume Highway, to the far end of town to drag tourists through it, The Daily Telegraph reports. The town is split between those who want tourist dollars funnelled into their drought-stricken tills and those outraged at the changing of history. A consultant has been paid $20,000 by the Gundagai Shire Council to survey the community and find the cost of moving the pup. A report is due soon.

"We're a little town in the bush, doing it tough, and we have a great Aussie icon five miles out of town only benefiting the multinationals," pub owner Peter Lot said. "You come into Gundagai and it's a ghost town. Our biggest enquiry is, 'Where is the dog on the tuckerbox?' People don't realise they've already passed it."

National Trust advocacy manager Graham Quint blasted the move, revealing that the Trust is considering listing the dog on the National Trust Register, which would save it from being moved. "This is probably one of the most well-known and celebrated roadside monuments in Australia," Mr Quint said. "It was dedicated to the pioneers and bullockies who made the highway of today possible. "The very location 'five miles from Gundagai' is part of the Australian psyche and moving the monument to Gundagai would make nonsense of its historic setting and severely degrade its historic significance and purpose."

Mr Quint said the site was chosen five miles from Gundagai rather than at the nine-mile mark in the original poem because it was closer to Gundagai. Town mayor Len Tozer said: "I'm sitting on the fence on this one."

SOURCE





19 November, 2009

QANTAS again (1)

Who gives a damn about passengers? They were made to wait 90 mins. on the plane for nothing and then just dumped over an hour's drive away from their destination. No help. No explanation and no apology

Disgruntled passengers say Qantas deserted them at the Gold Coast Airport last night after their flight into Brisbane was diverted due to bad weather. The QF 665 flight was also struck by lightning during its descent into Coolangatta.

Passenger Denis Gailey said the plane landed about 7.50pm but passengers weren't allowed to disembark until 9.35pm.

A Qantas spokesman said the airline didn't have engineering support at the airport, as it was no longer a Qantas port, and had to wait for an engineer from Brisbane to arrive. "That explains why people had to stay on board for that long. "They stayed on board in the expectation we'd get them up again. But unfortunately the plane was declared unserviceable by the engineer," he said.

But Mr Gailey said there was no communication. "When we got off, we were told to follow the staff in yellow safety vests and that buses were on their way. But we never saw anyone in yellow safety vests. "Passengers found their bags themselves. There was no co-ordination," he said. Some passengers organised hire cars while others waited for buses which arrived after 11pm. "We had no food, no direction and no-one to ask.

Qantas spokesman admitted passengers might not have had access to shops or food between the meal served onboard at 6pm and arriving in Brisbane after midnight. "The opportunity to provide refreshments just didn't eventuate unfortunately. "I think our focus would be on getting our passengers to Brisbane as quick as possible," he said. [It was obviously a "focus" that didn't succeed]

Mr Gailey said Qantas crew avoided the group of passengers after disembarking and refused to make eye contact. "The cabin manager had a moral obligation to take control of (the situation) and stay with us." There was no apology or offer of compensation, he said. "It was a complete sham," Mr Gailey said.

The Qantas spokesman said "cabin crew essentially did their job for the day when the flight landed". "Ultimately the crews have responsibilities as far as the flight was concerned and they hand it over to ground crew once they're on the ground. He said he would talk to the customer care department about compensation, but said the event was unavoidable due to the weather conditions. "We certainly regret any inconvenience the incident might have caused our customers but our focus was on getting our customers to their destination as quickly as possible.''

SOURCE

QANTAS again (2)

Cost-cutting has undoubtedly hit maintenance, as well as customer service

A QANTAS passenger plane taking off from Hong Kong was brought to a screeching halt after a pilot heard "a loud bang" from the engine. QF30, a 747 Jumbo with 313 passengers onboard, was heading to Melbourne from Hong Kong International Airport at 9.55am local time yesterday (6:55am AEDT yesterday) when it came to an abrupt halt.

Clasina Cue, a Melbourne grandmother and former airport worker, was aboard along with her friend, Lisa Taliana, also from Melbourne with both returning from a Hong Kong holiday. Both say the plane was nearing taking off speed. “The plane's nose was a bit up in the air,” Ms Cue said. “There was a big bang and a shudder. The pilot slammed the brakes and stopped the plane. It had been close to the point of no return.”

Both Ms Cue and Ms Taliana said they could smell smoke in the cabin. Ms Cue believed it was from the “screeching” tyres. Ms Cue and Ms Taliana both praised the pilot. “It was the pilot’s quick thinking. We could have gone up in the air. It could have been a lot worse,” said Ms Cue. “I’m just thankful we’re not dead,” said Ms Taliana. “The pilot did an awesome job. Not taking off was the best thing he could have possibly done.”...

The Qantas spokesperson said there had been no cockpit indications of engine failure but it was later found that the engine needed new compressor blades. The spokesperson could not say why there was no cockpit indicator of a problem before the bang alerted the pilot.

Qantas planes have been bedevilled with numerous incidents over the past couple of years. There have been union claims that safety is being compromised with maintenance work being outsourced to overseas terminals. The Qantas spokesperson however said the plane in question had been maintained in Sydney.

SOURCE




School defies parents; kills boy; no penalty

Sounds like teachers getting full of themselves again. Maybe a big civil lawsuit will get some questions answered and the guilty parties identified. You don't send your kid to school to have him come home in a coffin. My son is not a good swimmer. It could have been him. But I was told when he was due to swim and was there to watch him

THE parents of a Tasmanian student who drowned say they had no idea he had been going on a school excursion. "We had no knowledge of any excursion to Bells Parade, no permission slip was signed," Sera Levi, the mother of Latrobe High School teenager Rene, told The Mercury. His father Laupule said he had told the school his son was to be excluded from school trips. "He was not a strong swimmer and we did not encourage him going in the water," Mr Levi said.

Tasmania Police spent a couple of hours with the family yesterday afternoon, but Rene's parents were still unsure exactly what had happened at the Mersey River near Devonport on Monday afternoon.

"There were five teachers with 120 students," Mrs Levi said. "Some of the children were swimming. They went under the trees when it started raining. "A boy saw splashing, but no one was there," Mrs Levi said.

Rene's parents did not know their son had drowned; they only knew he was late returning from school. "We went looking for him and turned up at the school, and no one had anything to say," Mrs Levi said. "I was asked to wait for the principal. Phil McKenzie said he was sorry. I asked what for and then ran from the building screaming. "When we arrived at Bells Parade there was no sign of life. He had just been found and he was dead."

Tasmania Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the teenager's death. The Department of Education, he said, would be asking Latrobe High School staff some more probing questions about the incident in days to come.

SOURCE




Big watchdog bungle -- at the taxpayer's expense

THE corporate regulator has suffered a crushing defeat and been left with a $35 million legal bill after its pursuit of One.Tel founder Jodee Rich and former finance director Mark Silbermann was yesterday thrown out of court.

After one of the biggest cases ever brought before the NSW Supreme Court, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission was criticised for running a civil suit that was "too wide" and "produced an excessively long and burdensome proceeding". The regulator had wanted Mr Rich and Mr Silbermann to pay $92m in compensation for allegedly misleading the board about One.Tel's true financial position ahead of the telecommunications company's collapse in May 2001. It also sought orders banning the pair from managing corporations. Instead, ASIC was told it had "failed to prove any aspect of its pleaded case".

Judge Robert Austin said he did not agree with ASIC's submission that businessman James Packer - a director and financial backer of One.Tel - was "an impressive witness".

To add to the injury, ASIC will pick up Mr Rich's legal bill, which is more than $15m. ASIC is believed to have spent a further $20m during its eight-year pursuit of Mr Rich. Justice Austin said in his mammoth 3000-page judgment that "ASIC's contentions have a superficial appeal". "But time and time again they were shown to be unpersuasive when the underlying financial detail was investigated," he said.

Mr Packer and businessman Lachlan Murdoch, a director of News Corporation, publisher of The Australian, gave evidence in the case, which ran for 232 days from September 2004 to August 2007. Mr Packer's PBL and News Limited, News Corporation's Australian arm, were majority shareholders in One.Tel and jointly invested close to $1 billion in the company. The pair, who proposed a $132m rights issue to recapitalise One.Tel in May 2001, claimed to have been "profoundly misled" about the true state of One.Tel's finances before its collapse.

"Essentially Mr Packer Jr appeared to misunderstand the purpose of cross-examination, and treated it as an opportunity to attempt to `put his side of the story' by argumentative and non-responsive answers, and even occasionally evasive answers; and that was coupled with an inability to recollect important matters," Justice Austin said. The judge said Mr Murdoch had a "poor recollection" of the events, and his evidence should therefore be "treated with caution". He made no adverse findings against the pair in terms of their credibility.

One.Tel's special-purpose liquidator, Paul Weston, said yesterday he was likely to launch legal action against Mr Packer and Mr Murdoch over the collapse of the company within weeks. With interest, Mr Weston said the claim would now top $230m.

Mr Rich told The Australian yesterday he had twice been close to settling the case with ASIC over the years, and claimed he had been placed under political pressure not to fight it. Mr Rich claimed that in 2001 his father was called by Stan Howard, the brother of then prime minister John Howard. "The PM was sending a message through Stan Howard; it was very important that I settle and didn't defend the case," Mr Rich said. "And I thought that was just extraordinary." Last night, John Howard emphatically denied the claims. "I have no recollection of any discussion of that kind," he said. "I didn't do it and I am absolutely certain my brother would not have done that."

Mr Rich kissed his wife, Maxine, after the verdict yesterday. Both had tears in their eyes. Outside court, Mr Rich said he was "absolutely delighted" with the result. The hardest moment was being in the witness box for 33 days, which Mr Rich likened to "climbing the most amazing mountain".

Mr Silbermann was not in court yesterday but was very happy with the outcome. "It is such a good feeling to kick ASIC in the balls," he said. However, he said the damage to his reputation had been done "years ago". "We were crucified without anybody giving us the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I have lost everything, everything."

Justice Austin made a number of criticisms against ASIC in regard to the arguments put before the court and "aspects of its conduct of this case".

"Amongst the more serious are my views that . . . the scope of the case, endeavouring to prove the financial circumstances of a large multinational corporate group over each of four months, was far too wide and produced an excessively long and burdensome proceeding," Justice Austin said. "In a substantial number of significant ways, ASIC's final submissions were outside its pleaded case."

ASIC launched the court case against former One.Tel chairman John Greaves, joint managing directors Brad Keeling and Mr Rich and Mr Silbermann. Proceedings were settled against Mr Keeling in 2003 and Mr Greaves in 2004.

SOURCE



GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

The usual Greenie people-hatred

Birth control should be used to cut "greenhouse gas" emissions

INVESTING in birth control to reduce population growth could be more effective in cutting greenhouse gas emissions than building wind turbines or nuclear power stations, according to a United Nations report. Taking action to prevent one billion births by 2050 would save as much carbon dioxide as constructing two million giant wind turbines.

The UN Population Fund report predicted that the global population could reach 10.5 billion by 2050, up from 6.8 billion today, unless urgent action was taken to reduce fertility rates. It said that even its medium-growth forecast of 2.3 billion more people by 2050, which assumes a fall in average fertility from 2.56 to 2.02 children per woman, would make it much harder to achieve the cuts in carbon emissions needed to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The report said that reducing population growth would allow the 2050 target for global average emissions per person to be increased significantly above the 2 tonnes recommended by Lord Stern of Brentford, the author of an influential government report on global warming in 2006. Living standards would be higher because each person would be able to emit more CO2.

The report said: "No human is genuinely carbon neutral. Therefore, everyone is part of the problem, so everyone must be part of the solution in some way. Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendents."

The report rejected the idea of Chinese-style laws to control population but said that a similar result could be achieved by promoting contraception and better education for women. It said that 215 million women, mainly in developing countries, wanted contraception but had no access to it. Funding from donor countries for the UN's birth control program has fallen from $723 million at its peak in 1995 to $338 million in 2007.

The report also said that the longer women remained in education, the fewer babies they had. Women who had never gone to school had an average of 4.5 children. Those who completed one or two years of university had 1.7. "Dollar for dollar, investments in voluntary family planning and girls' education would, in the long run, reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least as much as investments in nuclear or wind energy," the report said.

It revealed that, contrary to received wisdom, rates of unintended pregnancies were higher in rich countries than in poor ones. In Europe, the US, Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand, an average of 41 per cent of pregnancies were unintended, compared with 35 per cent in developing countries.

However, most of the projected increase in population would be in developing countries. The population of Africa was expected to double to two billion by 2050. The population of all developed countries was likely to rise only 3 per cent, though this masked big differences, with the US population expected to rise by a third to 400 million and Japan's expected to decline by a fifth to 100million.

The Population Fund acknowledged that reducing population growth in developing countries would have little immediate impact on emissions because their inhabitants have relatively small carbon footprints. But it said that the savings would increase as the economies of developing countries grew and levels of consumption - and, therefore, emissions - rose.

The report said that population growth was only beginning to be recognised as an important topic in international negotiations on climate change. It will not be discussed at next month's UN summit in Copenhagen. "Fear of appearing supportive of population control has, until recently, held back any mention of 'population' in the climate debate."

A spokeswoman for Cafod, the Catholic aid agency, said it did not support the promotion of birth control in poor countries, where the "underlying causes of large families ... are lack of education of women and unequal power relationships between men and women".

SOURCE

Up to 30 conservative parliamentarians may vote against Warmist laws

UP to 30 Liberal MPs and senators are set to defy their leader Malcolm Turnbull on emissions trading, one of the party's prominent climate change sceptics said. More than a third of the party would "probably cross" the floor of Parliament to vote against the scheme even if Labor agreed to Coalition amendments, backbencher Dennis Jensen said. "I don't want to name them but there are 30 MPs," he told AAP.

Coalition MPs and senators were expected to consider the outcome of negotiations presently underway with Labor when they meet in Canberra next Tuesday. A Senate vote was expected late next week and any changes the upper house makes to the legislation would need the support of the Lower House, where Labor has a majority. In the Senate, Labor needs the support of at least seven Liberals to win parliamentary approval for its scheme.

SOURCE

Enterprise is not the enemy

A conservative political advisor looks for a middle ground below

Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister during World War I, said that war is too serious a matter to entrust to military men. In the same vein, the environment is too important to be left to the Greens. Bob Carr made the point recently that the Greens are not the environmental movement, they are a political party.

Environmental issues are mainstream and not a luxury. They go to the heart of how we sustain our growth and living standards in the face of rising population and resource depletion pressures. Environmental costs are not always incorporated in market prices but there is now ample evidence that market approaches, including appropriate property rights, have an important role to play in conservation regimes. They can reduce pollution at lesser costs than regulatory approaches, as the acid rain cap and trade system showed.

There is no incompatibility between private enterprise or capitalism and the environment. The success of capitalism in raising living standards has been used by some Greens to equate it with environmental degradation. The poor state of the environment in Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell demonstrates that there is no corollary between social and economic systems and the condition of the environment.

The Greens have often used environmental issues to peddle an anti-capitalist and populist agenda, focusing on renewable energy sources as good, soft power while rejecting nuclear energy as hard power that is the dirty product of multinational corporations. These attitudes are not shared by many of those who vote Green.

In the previous federal election Labor made a good fist of owning the environment and climate change. In the public mind concern for the environment has come to be equated with action to address climate change. Kevin Rudd focused on the Coalition's failure to sign the Kyoto treaty as evidence of its lack of credentials on environment and climate. The issue was used to define John Howard as backward-looking and not interested in the future.

So Labor now has equity in the issue. Every day that the Coalition spends discussing, and dividing on, climate change is a day lost to other issues more to the Coalition's advantage. The party should neutralise these issues and move on or risk alienating a whole constituency of voters, not restricted to the young, who genuinely feel strongly about these matters but who do not wish to embrace Stone Age living standards.

So does that mean that climate change sceptics should just shut up? No, because scientific inquiry that improves our knowledge and uncovers errors must be encouraged. Scientists should have the moral courage to change their position as ugly facts slay beautiful theories. But as a layman, how do I know who is right in the climate change debate? Is it the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the scientists who claim that the IPCC has been too timid in its projections of global warming? Is it celebrities jumping on the bandwagon or more isolated scientific voices such as that of Ian Plimer?

How is a politician to make a principled decision on such a weighty matter? The French mathematician and religious philosopher of the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, tackled a related issue. He formulated a wager to guide those wrestling with the concept of faith. Because faith was beyond reasoning he proposed that one should weigh the consequences of belief v unbelief. If you believe and hence lead a virtuous life on earth but there is no hereafter, what have you really lost (apart from a good time perhaps)? On the other hand, if you act as if there is no hereafter and God does exist, you have consigned yourself to purgatory and worse. The cost of unbelief is literally infinite compared with the cost of belief in these circumstances.

Applied to climate change, what are the costs of belief v unbelief? If you act and climate change turns out to be the new Y2K, it is true that resources will have been invested in the transition to a less carbon-intensive economy and there is the opportunity cost of locking up our remaining fossil fuel supply. But provided that there is genuine market in emissions trading the carbon price should crash and restore relativities with fossil fuels and other energy sources.

If climate change is genuine, urgent and otherwise irreversible, then early action pays off while late or no action results in mounting economic and social costs. The most rational strategy for a climate sceptic is to short the carbon market and wait for the big crash.

The recent Lowy poll picked up on a slide in the ranking of climate change as an issue of concern to Australians. Securing jobs was the No. 1 issue. This is the real challenge with polls and governing. People want climate change tackled but they want to do it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Howard faced up to this dilemma in the 2004 election when he wrestled with what do about old-growth forests in Tasmania. On the eve of the election his advisers were urging him to tuck away a very substantial compensation package to pay for locking up significant forest reserves. The then-Labor leader Mark Latham had highlighted the issue during the year with a high profile visit to Tasmania and the recruitment of Peter Garrett to run in the seat of Kingsford Smith.

For the campaign, Latham put together a big forests package and according to Tim Gartrell, the then ALP national secretary, it polled well. Howard played cat and mouse with Latham during the campaign.

Early on in the campaign in the seat of Richmond on the NSW North Coast, Howard alluded to his dilemma. He was worried about sacrificing the jobs of timber workers in isolated communities with few alternative job prospects. He wanted a fair go for them and the environment. His chance came when Latham finally blinked and went down to Tasmania at the start of the last week of the campaign. The images of him being driven into an underground car park and virtually throwing his plan across the table in a "take it or leave it" attitude said it all.

Howard moved to finalise his policy in consultation with affected communities and in the middle of that week turned up at the Albert Hall in Launceston to announce it. He was rapturously received by the timber workers and their families; he had looked after them and had the courage to meet them and address their concerns. It sent a message to other affected communities on the mainland that Howard was about balancing jobs and conservation.

In a recent welcome development, Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens, and John Gay, the executive chairman of Gunns, have met to discuss the proposed paper mill that has caused no end of controversy in Tasmania. It is good that they are at least talking and perhaps will find a practical outcome to this long-running saga.

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18 November, 2009

The Victorian Human Rights watchdog again interferes with people's human rights

VCAT rejects woman's bid to set up women-only travel service -- but Muslims can do anything, of course

A TRIBUNAL has rejected a Melbourne woman's bid to set up a women-only travel service. Erin Maitland, a former tour guide, applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an exemption under the Equal Opportunity Act to set up her business, Travel Sisters. She argued some women would feel more comfortable travelling in women-only groups and safer than travelling alone.

Ms Maitland said her tours would also be tailored to common women's interests including cooking, shopping and crafts and that women's partners would be more supportive of them travelling if they knew they were with other women. Ms Maitland relied on a ruling two years ago in which VCAT granted an exemption to a woman, allowing her to arrange tours for women only.

But the tribunal must now assess exemption applications in line with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. VCAT president Judge Marilyn Harbison refused Ms Maitland's application, saying she had not shown enough evidence that limiting a human right is reasonable or necessary. "The grant of an exemption may well be convenient and practical to assist Erin in the establishment of her business but it cannot presently be justified on human rights principles,'' she said.

Judge Harbison said there were other steps that could be put in place to ensure women feel safe and comfortable travelling in groups, without having to exclude men.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, which argued during the hearing that the evidence provided was "weak'', said Ms Maitland could enforce standards of conduct, select facilities with separate male and female change rooms, ensure privacy for her clients and encourage people to report safety concerns.

The commission said that even without an exemption, market forces could result in Ms Maitland's business being successful because men would not be interested in it. The ruling comes after a Melbourne party company specialising in dance events for lesbians and bisexual women won the right to ban men earlier this year.

In May, VCAT granted a three-year exemption to an inner western suburbs gym, enabling it to conduct women-only swimming sessions and related programs. Many of the women at the YMCA gym in Ascot Vale are Muslim who, because of their cultural and religious beliefs, cannot take part in mixed swimming lessons.

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Absurd attack on freedoms in Western Australia

YOU don't have to be a civil libertarian to oppose giving police the powers to indiscriminately stop and search people without so much as a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Yet that is exactly what the West Australian government is trying to do with legislation before parliament this week.

Think about it for a moment. You could be walking down the street (or even driving a car) and a police officer, for whatever reason, could stop you, frisk you and go through your personal possessions. If you are a woman that includes rifling through your handbag. No reason needs to be given, no discussion had, no consent.

These are extraordinary powers, unprecedented in this country. West Australian Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan defends them on the grounds that they won't be used unnecessarily. But the legislation is silent on this opaque promise, which, with the sands of time, could wash away. Anyone who values their freedoms should be appalled.

The newly elected state Liberal MP Peter Abetz (when he isn't referring to the actions of Adolf Hitler to improve law and order in fascist Germany) says: "When it comes to the crunch, people prefer to be safe than to have freedom."

But a large component of safety is protection against an all-powerful state. That is why the term "reasonable suspicion" is a bedrock of policing standards across the globe.

The real reason the Barnett government wants to introduce these absurd laws is because there have been recent well-publicised cases of botched "reasonable suspicion" arrests resulting in the courts letting the accused walk free. That happens when police don't do their jobs properly. The solution is to improve policing, not simplistically widen their powers so as to infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

And of course Western Australia now has mandatory jail sentences for anyone who assaults a police officer. If you resist a search you can be pinned against the floor and, if you in any way react, you could be deemed to have assaulted the officer who without reason stopped and searched you. So blokes out there, don't go getting too offended when a cop runs his hand up your wife's inner thigh without reasonable suspicion. It could land you in jail.

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Rudd is treating us like mugs

THERE is an emerging credibility gap in the Rudd government's navigation of contentious policy issues, a compulsion that denies the obvious and rests on the apparent assumption that Australians are mugs.

There are many examples but the issue of asylum-seekers offers compelling evidence. Kevin Rudd invested much time in parliament on Monday insisting that the 22 asylum-seekers who first left the Oceanic Viking were receiving no preferential arrangement. Asked by 3AW's Neil Mitchell last week if there was special treatment, the Prime Minister replied: "Absolutely not." Yet the terms set out by the Minister-Counsellor Immigration in the Jakarta embassy, Jim O'Callaghan, to the asylum-seekers suggests a set of detailed special arrangements. They were authorised by the Rudd government's border protection committee of cabinet chaired by Immigration Minister Chris Evans.

The Australian's Jakarta correspondent Stephen Fitzpatrick reported yesterday that the Oceanic Viking people were quarantined from others because of resentment at their preferential conditions courtesy of the Rudd government.

There are three key provisions in O'Callaghan's document: if the UNHCR has found a person to be a refugee they will be resettled within four to six weeks of disembarkation; if an individual has already registered with the UNHCR they will be resettled within 12 weeks of disembarkation; and if people are not yet registered and are found to be refugees, they will also be resettled within 12 weeks. These provisions are highly generous. It is no surprise they are exceptional within UNHCR Indonesian operations. There are many refugees in Indonesia and none is given resettlement in four to six weeks.

The Australian offer included English language and orientation classes while cases are being processed. A "highly professional" team of Australian officials will work "every day" to assist refugee applications. The Red Cross will assist in tracing family members. The Sri Lankans were told many services will be provided in the resettlement country and these may include "assistance with housing, medical care and counselling, income support, English language tuition and help to find a job".

Rudd has been desperate to persuade the Sri Lankans to disembark in Indonesia. He had rightly drawn a line in the sand; he would not allow the boat to come to Christmas Island and he had a victory yesterday with reports that all Sri Lankans would disembark after the past month's protracted agony.

To grasp the nature of the special arrangement, consider the following: at October 1 there were 1760 registered asylum-seekers in Indonesia and 573 people recognised as refugees by the UNHCR in Jakarta; the typical delay time for processing and resettlement far exceeds 12 weeks and usually runs beyond 12 months. Australia, in short, is fast-tracking the Oceanic Viking people.

Evans said last week that Australia was "more likely to get the larger proportion" as the final destination. The exceptions to this, mentioned by Evans, was "if, for instance, they've got a first cousin living in Canada". Decoded the message is most are headed for Australia. However, this is far from the normal arrangement.

About 1300 people have been resettled from Indonesia to third nations in recent years and Australia has taken about one-third, with the rest going to Canada, the US, New Zealand, Sweden and France. Having rejected force to remove people, Australia had only one option left: it had to persuade them. Nobody should be surprised at the inducements offered. It was the price Rudd had to pay to keep the boat out of our territory. The price is justified. After the shambles of the past month it is a relief that Australia did not have to offer more. The criticism of Rudd is not that he paid such a price; it is that he pretends he paid no price whatsoever. He seems to think almost any line can be spun and will be believed, even when it is nonsense.

On Monday Rudd tabled a letter in parliament from Immigration Department Secretary Andrew Metcalfe to Evans, dated the same day. It was a classic example of recruiting under duress a senior public servant to buttress the government's line. The letter is a study in fact and political evasion. On tabling Metcalfe's letter, Rudd claimed it showed from the perspective of the departmental secretary "that these are not preferential arrangements". The letter shows nothing of the kind. Indeed, it is significant that Metcalfe avoids any such formulation.

He merely says that the group is being treated in a manner "consistent with that afforded to any other asylum-seeker or refugee in Indonesia". He does, however, say that Australia and Indonesia have agreed on "timeframes for the processing", which may imply a special arrangement. Requesting such a letter achieved nothing and the request should not have been made. Yet Rudd persisted in using Metcalfe as a shield and, responding to criticism from Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, he claimed that Turnbull was disputing advice from "the independent Public Service of Australia". On the contrary, it shows the government stooping to use the public service to buttress a bad case.

It is noteworthy that Rudd was not involved in authorising the offer to the Sri Lankans. He told parliament on Monday that he was unaware of the offer's terms and did not authorise it. Turnbull seemed to find this unbelievable. But Rudd's denial was unequivocal. It stands despite his subsequent clarification that the cabinet committee that did approve the offer contained Rudd's staff.

The real point is that the Rudd government authorised a necessary special deal and, embarrassed about its domestic ramifications, tried to deny the obvious.

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New Zealand less corrupt than Australia?

That's a laugh. NZ is the "orchestrated litany of lies" country. The raters just don't know NZ well

Lawless Somalia and war-torn Afghanistan have topped a blacklist of the world's most corrupt countries drawn up by the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International. Australia ranked as the eighth most honest of 180 countries, according to the annual study. New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland were the top five least corrupt countries.

TI's corruption index showed how countries devastated by conflict have become overrun by graft, with Iraq, Sudan and Myanmar accounting for the three other states in the bottom five of the chart.

The Berlin-based organisation said that countries whose infrastructure had been "torn apart" by conflict needed help from outside to prevent a culture of corruption taking root. "The international community must find efficient ways to help war-torn countries to develop and sustain their own institutions," said TI's head Huguette Labelle.

Overall, the 2009 corruption list is "of great concern", the organisation said, with the majority of countries scoring under five in the ranking, which ranges from zero, highly corrupt, and 10, which is very clean.

Six years after the US-led invasion and the chaos that followed, Iraq was perceived to be slightly cleaner, with its score rising to 1.5 points from 1.3 points. It also climbed two places in the list. But Afghanistan slid from 1.5 points in 2008 to 1.3 in 2009, giving further ammunition to critics of President Hamid Karzai who has just been re-elected after a vote marred by rampant fraud.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Karzai this week that future financial support from Washington would be linked to steps to tackle graft and said that a culture of "impunity for those who are corrupt" had to end. The Afghan government announced on Monday it had formed a major crime unit to tackle corruption, in a move designed to assuage Western concerns about Karzai who is due to be inaugurated for a second term later this week.

The most corrupt nation on Earth remained Somalia, the impoverished and war-torn Horn of Africa state that has been without a functioning government for two decades, notching up a score of 1.1 points. African countries accounted for half of those in the bottom 20 of the list, including Angola which is now the continent's top oil exporter after emerging from a 27-year civil war.

But it was not just countries riven by conflict that saw their ratings slide. Italy, a member of the Group of Seven rich countries came in at 63rd on the list, from 55th last year. Fellow EU member Greece fared even worse, at 71st, slipping from 57th. [I believe those two rankings]

Seemingly winning the fight against corruption were Liberia - whose score improved from 2.4 points to 3.1 points, shooting up 41 places on the list to 97th - and Gambia, which went from 158 on the list to 106. Other significant improvements were registered by Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Montenegro and Malawi.

The United States inched up from 7.3 points to 7.5, but dropped one place in the rankings to 19th. China's rating was stable at 3.6 points but also fall seven places to 79th. Russia continued to be very low down in the list, coming in at 146th place, although its score edged higher to 2.2 points from 2.1 points.

The five countries seen as least afflicted by corruption were New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland - the Alpine country seen as a bastion of bank secrecy. New Zealand scored 9.4 points whereas Somalia scored 1.1 points. The score is based on perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts.

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17 November, 2009

4th boatful of illegals in 4 days

THE Australian Navy has intercepted another boatload of 41 suspected asylum-seekers near Ashmore Islands as tensions rise between Australia and Indonesia over the influx. The fourth boat to arrive in four days was intercepted by HMAS Broome, after it was initially spotted by RAAF P3 aircraft, operating under the control of Border Protection.

The Rudd government remains under pressure over claims of special deals to get Oceanic Viking protesters off the boat and speculation of a diplomatic snub behind the Indonesian President's decision to cancel a visit to Australia on Sunday at short notice blaming “scheduling difficulties”. Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said Dr Yudhoyono's cancelled visit to Australia showed relations with Indonesia were clearly “very strained”. “The last-minute cancellation of the president of Indonesia's visit is an extraordinary slap in the face for Kevin Rudd and Kevin Rudd's claims to be the great Asia-Pacific diplomat,” he said.

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said Mr Rudd had “botched something” about the visit. But Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said there was still a possibility Dr Yudhoyono could make an a end-of-year visit. Mr Smith rejected suggestions of tension in the relationship, saying the relationship was “very, very good, first class”. “The opposition on this matter should quietly calm down.”

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said today the latest group detected yesterday will be transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo security, identity and health checks. “The Australian Government remains vigilant and committed to protecting Australia's borders,” he said.

Today marks a month since the asylum-seekers still refusing to disembark the Oceanic Viking customs vessel in Indonesia were first detected by the Australian Navy in Indonesian waters. “It is a special, almost unique, circumstances of a search and rescue in Indonesian waters ... and we want this to conclude as a search-and-rescue operation,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told ABC Radio. “We have an abundance of patience ... as do our Indonesian counterparts.”

The Rudd government today rejected Indonesian media reports claiming Australia had agreed to resettle the asylum-seekers as part of the deal to get off the boat, arguing Australia is simply one of a number of countries were they could go if their claims are found to be genuine. While the Australian government has long argued the vessel was detected in Indonesian waters, local media has reported Indonesian military concerns over why the boatload wasn't taken by the Oceanic Viking to Christmas Island.

As spokesman for Mr O'Connor said today that the original vessel in distress was detected 120 nautical miles off the coast of Sumatra. “The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) advised the position of the vessel was in international waters in which Indonesia has primary responsibility to coordinate search and rescue (known as the Indonesian Search and Rescue Region,” he said.

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Public hospital dental clinic used unsterilised equipment

Will the repeated carelessness at Bundaberg never stop? -- even after they have in the past killed people by their negligence?

Bundaberg Dental Clinic patients have been treated with unsterilised equipment, potentially exposing them to blood-borne diseases such as HIV. However Australian Medical Association Queensland infectious disease spokesman Mike Whitby said the risk was "extremely low". One batch of equipment used at the Queensland Health clinic on November 6 was washed with high-pressure water and detergent, then dried, but failed to go through the final sterilisation process.

Queensland Health, which only found out about the error on Friday, has started trying to track down patients who attended the clinic from November 6-13 who may have been treated with the unsterilised equipment. More than 30 people treated on November 6 before the problem occurred have been asked to undergo blood tests for infectious diseases, so Queensland Health can assess the risk to other patients. Most are understood to have agreed to have the test, and results are expected tomorrow.

Dr Whitby said if those tests proved negative for blood-borne diseases, the risk to patients treated with the unsterilised equipment was zero. He said even if one of those patients tested positive, the chances of others treated with the same equipment becoming infected was "very, very small". "Viruses are designed to live inside the human body so even putting them out into the open, into the air, will kill many of them fairly quickly," Dr Whitby said.

"Secondly, if you've had viruses immersed in detergent, the detergent . . . kills it fairly quickly. "Having said that, it's really not something that should happen. There should be checks and balances in the sterilisation process to make sure that that doesn't happen."

Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle described the situation as "shocking". "I can't believe that after the series of blunders we've had in the past four or five years, it just keeps getting worse," he said.

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Federal education boss 'determined' to publish school results

THE Federal Government is refusing to back down on plans to publish online the results of national school tests despite opposition from some principals, teachers and parents. "We are determined to go ahead with this plan," Education Minister Julia Gillard told ABC Radio today.

From next year, the Government's "myschool" website will publish demographic information about a school's population, together with teacher and student numbers and attendance rates. It will also contain each school's results from national literacy and numeracy tests, known as NAPLAN.

Six organisations, including the Australian Education Union and Australian Council of State School Organisations, have written to the minister urging her to ensure the information is not made public.

Ms Gillard said she understood why publishing the information would make some principals and teachers uncomfortable. "But transparency is necessary to shine a light on what is happening in our schools," she said.

Ms Gillard said there would be "moments" for some schools that don't do well compared with schools teaching similar kids.

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British view: Not enough censorship of climate debate in Australia

It's all about double standards and fashions. When Tom Schieffer, the former US ambassador to Australia, interfered in the domestic debate by criticising Labor's Mark Latham in 2003, he was rebuked by some commentators for undiplomatic behaviour. Fair enough.

Last week Baroness Valerie Amos, who recently became Britain's high commissioner, also intervened in Australian politics. She expressed surprise that there was a debate in Australia about whether humans are the principal cause of climate change and added: "In the UK there is a degree of political consensus about what in broad terms needs to be done … You would certainly not see on a daily basis … the kind of negative reporting that you have here."

Amos evoked a modern cliche and suggested that it was time, on this matter, that Australia "moved on". Put simply, Amos wants there to be no debate whatsoever about human-induced climate change and, to the extent to which this takes place, she wants the media to refrain from reporting it. It seems that platitudes are handed down in the British high commission in Canberra.

Helen Liddell, Amos' immediate predecessor, delivered a similar lecture at the National Press Club in April 2007 - not long before the federal election of that year in which climate change was a matter of contention.

How come, then, that Schieffer's comments on Australian politics caused offence whereas those by Liddell and Amos passed virtually without criticism? Well, Schieffer is not only a conservative but a friend of George Bush who supported American policy in Iraq. Liddell was a Labour MP from 1994 to 2005 and became a minister in Tony Blair's government. And Amos was appointed to the House of Lords by Blair in 1997 becoming a minister and, later, leader of the House of Lords. Moreover, both Liddell and Amos believe in the most fashionable cause of the modern age - namely that human behaviour is responsible for global warming.

So it seems that there is one rule for conservative Americans Down Under who want to talk publicly about Iraq. And quite another rule for social democratic Brits who want to talk publicly about climate change. Last September, shortly before she left Australia, Liddell appeared on ABC1's Q&A program and used the occasion to lecture the audience about emission trading schemes. It is most unlikely that the Australian high commissioner in London would appear on the BBC Question Time program and lecture the British on, say, how to run an economy.

The British high commission's lecture-at-large to the Australian population invariably overlooks two central facts. First, British carbon emissions are low because, when Margaret Thatcher was conservative prime minister in the 1980s, the coalmines were allowed to close down. This policy was not continued when John Major succeeded Thatcher.

This was done in the face of opposition from British Labour, the radical leftist National Union of Mineworkers and assorted Guardian-New Statesman reading inner-city luvvies. Had this lot had their way, the British taxpayer would have been forced to subsidise dirty British coal and Australians would have been spared the subsequent moralising of such former Labour parliamentarians as Liddell and Amos. At the meeting of the United Kingdom-Australia Leadership Forum in Canberra in 2006, John Howard mentioned that on his first flight to Britain as prime minister he had watched the film Brassed Off, which depicted the anger at the wind-up of the British coal industry, and joked that he had been impressed by the impassioned speeches delivered by Thatcher's opponents at the time. Tony Blair joined in the humour, declaring that he might have delivered one of these orations himself. By then, of course, Blair was more interested in the reduction of carbon pollution.

The second reason why Britain has relatively low carbon emissions turns on the fact that it has a nuclear power industry. As its Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, announced recently, Gordon Brown's Government intends to begin the construction of up to 10 nuclear power stations.

It is true that there is little debate in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in Britain about the cause of climate change. Perhaps this explains why it is not as high profile an issue as in Australia. Meanwhile, the Americans seemed subsumed in the debates on health insurance and the war in Afghanistan. That's why - contrary to many predictions - President Barack Obama will not take a firm carbon pollution reduction proposal to the Copenhagen conference early next month. Within the OECD, the Australian economy most resembles that of the US and Canada. The US did not ratify the Kyoto Agreement - not even when Al Gore was vice president in Bill Clinton's administration. Canada signed up to Kyoto - but never got close to meeting its targets. Australia did not ratify Kyoto under Howard, but met its targets.

Quite a few members of the European Union have not met their Kyoto targets. Perhaps the likes of Liddell and Amos might have more effect by taking their climate change diplomatic advocacy to Ottawa or Brussels.

The Rudd Government is attempting to get a carbon pollution reduction scheme through the Senate before Copenhagen. If he does, well and good. If he doesn't, Australia's situation will be no different from that of the US. In his surprisingly strident speech to the Lowy Institute on November 6, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had found that it was "90 per cent probable" that humans were responsible for climate change. While there is a 10 per cent doubt, it is unlikely that this debate will be silenced in Australia - irrespective of the views of British diplomats in the Antipodes.

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16 November, 2009

Leftist suspicion of a constellation of stars in the night sky!

Trotskyites, Leftist labour unions and various other far-Leftist groups in Australia have often flaunted Southern Cross ("Eureka") flags but when other Australians use a representation of the same cross, it becomes "racist"! That it is essentially just a geographical identifier (it is not seen in the Northern sky) is too deep for them. A representation of it is included on the right-hand side of the Australian flag



It shines in our night sky. It is plastered across the uniforms of our elite sporting teams and inked into the skin of everyone from pro surfers to supermodels. It was made infamous during the Cronulla race riots and is being stuck to an increasing number of car rear windows. It even features on the Australian flag and the Eureka flag, the latter which first flew in 1854 during a goldminers' revolt. Whichever way we look at it, and whether we like it or not, the Southern Cross has become our de facto national symbol.

But a debate has erupted as to whether the Southern Cross has been commandeered for social and/or political agendas. Many say patriotism should be commended but others point to its complexity and argue that it is more divisive than unifying. As the Australia Day Council launched a campaign last week to ask which symbols and images best represent our country, opinion-makers and public figures were at odds on how to answer the question - variously describing the Southern Cross as everything from "beautiful" to "racist".

While Southern Cross tattoos adorn celebrities such as television tradesman Scott Cam, cricketer Peter Siddle and Bra Boy surfer Koby Abberton, there has been something of a backlash. On the internet community site Facebook, groups have started such as "The Southern Cross tattoo is bogan and racist" and "I'm sick of seeing people with Southern Cross stickers on cars and tattoos".

Australia Day Council ambassador Elka Graham said a website launched last week - aussievault.com.au - is designed to promote debate over our national identity. "You're not just having people of status and wealth talking about what it is to be Australian but you're getting the average person online," the Olympic swimmer said. "I think you're going to find a diverse range of what Australia is."

Tim Soutphommasane, a first-generation Australian and author of Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives, said symbols such as the Southern Cross came to be associated with a new wave of patriotism under the conservative Howard government. "Many Australians have been content to regard all expressions of national pride as thinly disguised racism," he said. "The result has been a surrender of all things patriotic to extreme nationalists."

Soutphommasane said Australians needed to work harder at tying national symbols to civic virtues, such as inclusion and democratic participation. "This is what's frustrating about occasions such as Australia Day," he said. "People often reduce everything that's great about our country to sport and lifestyle - that sells Australia short, it trivialises our achievement. "We have a democratic and egalitarian public culture that is worth celebrating. Symbols such as the national flag should be things that unite us rather than divide us along racial lines. Since Cronulla [in 2005], this has been a challenge."

Dr Russell McGregor, an academic at James Cook University, said if there was a rising perception of the Southern Cross as racist, it's nothing new. "The Southern Cross became famous because of its connection with the Eureka Stockade … The race element is because at one stage [it was used] by the National Front, a far-right organisation back in the 1970s, but before that it was adopted by various communist groups," he said. "It's been adopted by the left, the right and the centre of Australian politics at various stages. I don't think there's any inherent racial [meaning]."

Research shows Australians have become one of the "most patriotic" peoples in the world. International research company the Reputation Institute, last month released a report that found Australia rated highest among 33 countries in self-image. The poll found Australians score themselves 91.9 out of 100 when it comes to the esteem, respect and admiration they hold for their country - although foreigners have a rather lower opinion of Australia, giving it a score of 72.5.

Russel Howcroft, a panellist on ABC TV's The Gruen Transfer , said outside Australia, the Southern Cross was a more distinctive symbol than we have traditionally used. "I think the Southern Cross is really important to how Australians view themselves," he said. "To me, it's far more unifying than the Union Jack … And it's interesting because over time, it has become a key image."

Mr Howcroft said as an advertisement for the country, the national flag failed to promote Australia. "What it says is that we're colonial, because it's basically a colonial design, and it isn't differentiating because there are many other countries in the world … who use that basic structure," he said.

Australians for Constitutional Monarchy national convener Professor David Flint disagreed, saying critics were out of touch with the Australian people and that it was a "pity to undermine the great symbols of the nation". "The fact [the symbols] have been imported doesn't make them any less Australian."

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Honest cop back at work after beating corrupt police bosses -- for now



A OFFICER who exposed cronyism and corruption in the police force has returned to duty after 18 months of being forced to see psychiatrists despite being fit. Sergeant Robbie Munn said he was greeted by "a lot of smiles, handshakes and pats on the back" by other officers at the Maroochydore police station after battling against police bureaucracy.

Sgt Munn, who rebelled against a culture he said deterred whistleblowers from reporting "dirty little secrets" in the service, credited an October story in The Courier-Mail with restoring his career. Only days before the story ran, Sgt Munn was barred from duty but within hours of the story's publication his doctor received a report clearing him for service. "The story was the only reason I was allowed back," he said. "I still think they want me out and will try to medically retire me."

Sgt Munn is working three days a week on a rehabilitation program recommended for him last year but only offered to him after the story appeared. Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said he would meet with Sgt Munn to discuss his concerns, but the meeting has yet to occur.

Sgt Munn was supported by Queensland Police Union general secretary Mick Barnes, Maroochydore's Sgt John Saez, a 37-year veteran, and dozens of Dayboro residents impressed with his services as officer-in-charge in the town.

Sgt Munn, who was in charge of 70 police officers at Maroochydore, said he was smeared in the bureaucracy after exposing that police cheated on promotion exams by plagiarising and paying others to complete their work. He also unsuccessfully tried to reform rosters at the Maroochydore watchhouse after becoming concerned at some work practices. A year later, two officers were charged and eventually jailed for taking advantage of female prisoners.

When he was overlooked for promotion in Dayboro, he appealed to the CMC and won, embarrassing his managers. After having a heart attack, Sgt Munn said he was not allowed to return to duty despite his GP and two psychiatrists saying he was fit. The police service was accused of doctor-shopping for a negative report to keep Sgt Munn from returning.

He was embarrassed to be paid more than $100,000 from a fund for ill police officers while he was on enforced leave. "At least now I have direction. For 18 months I had no direction," he said.

Police bureaucrats sat on a favourable report on his mental condition until after the newspaper article appeared.

Evie, his wife, said her husband had been "honest to his own detriment". Union secretary Mr Barnes said Sgt Munn was a victim of "bastardisation" in the force. "It highlights the mindset within many senior QPS officers who are unable to agree to disagree," he said.

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Australia sends some Sri Lankans illegals home

How come these guys did not get the normal big welcome? As far as I can tell, they forgot to say the magic word "asylum" when first interviewed

THE Rudd government chartered a 100-seat jet to Sri Lanka at the weekend to forcibly remove six asylum-seekers who staged a dramatic eight-hour protest inside the Christmas Islands immigration detention centre last month.

The six Sinhalese fishermen became the first asylum-seekers to be isolated inside the centre's controversial "red block", built by the Howard government, with small metal cells to detain violent or unstable detainees.

They were among 50 Sri Lankans who had been trying to reach New Zealand when their boat hit a reef in Torres Strait on March 28. So far, only 12 have been found to be refugees and granted visas.

Another 29 have gone home voluntarily on commercial flights from Perth, one is in detention in Perth in preparation for returning voluntarily on a commercial flight and the remaining two are in detention on Christmas Island while their claims are resolved.

On October 30, the protesting six, who had been assessed and rejected, refused to board a charter plane from Christmas Island to Perth, where they were expected to join a commercial flight to Colombo as voluntary removals. Instead, one of the men stunned onlookers by swiftly climbing a pole thought to be more than 12m. He stayed there poised to jump for the most of the day while the five others refused to co-operate with people sent to the scene, including a psychologist.

The operation to return the six to Sri Lanka began on Friday when the Department of Immigration and Citizenship chartered a Fokker 100 from the mainland. It brought in guards specially trained in involuntary removals. At 6.30am on Saturday, the Sri Lankans were brought to Christmas Island's airport in two minibuses with guards. In total, 17 guards and immigration workers accompanied the men to Colombo on the airliner. The minders returned to Christmas Island alone yesterday morning.

Yesterday there were 1114 asylum-seekers on Christmas Island and 14 crew. Authorities were preparing for the delivery early this week of the 40th boatload of asylum-seekers intercepted this year. The group of 47 and three crew were spotted on Friday near Ashmore Reef.

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Pettifogging bureaucracy is just creeping totalitarianism

By Miranda Devine

Two Qantas pilots have been suspended after they came close to landing a Boeing 767 at Sydney Airport without lowering its wheels, which was rather forgetful of them. But in the absent-minded department they were not alone, with reports recently of two similar incidents. Two US Airbus pilots were suspended after they did not notice they had flown past their destination in Minneapolis. Another two Delta pilots were stood down when they did not notice the runway they were landing on was blue with a yellow stripe, indicating it was not a runway but a taxiway.

Such incidents may become commonplace as aircraft become more complex and the once-very busy pilot brain becomes underutilised. Put highly trained, intelligent humans in jobs where they have to stare at computers for hours and act only if something goes wrong, and the brain will find something else to do - sleep, daydream or plunge into a fugue. Cash-strapped airlines are solving this problem by employing pilots who are less skilled and cheaper.

The effects of excessive automatism on pilots are a example of what happens to human ingenuity, resourcefulness and independent thought when it is rendered surplus to requirement in a bureaucracy.

The spread of brain-dead supplicants to the state has grown with the rise of the bureaucratic class, which reached its zenith when the former Queensland bureaucrat and chief jargon generator Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister. He may be a perfectly fine human being but he believes in one thing - that systems and processes can solve any problem, that if you have enough meetings, summits, talkfests, reviews, studies, probes, resolutions and facilitations, preferably with some connection to a United Nations body, solutions will miraculously occur without hard decisions being made.

As Rudd's disintegrating policy on asylum seekers demonstrates, this approach rarely works.

His 2020 Summit, stacked with whiteboards and McKinseyite facilitators, was a prime example of bureaucracy syndrome, with much talking and nothing happening.

Bureaucratism obfuscates with jargon that is impossible to understand, making your mind behave like a skittish colt. You finally give up and turn away with a sense of failure, suspecting that if you had tried harder you might have reached the golden truth. Only there is no golden truth. It is all dense verbiage, with no reason to exist except itself.

Bureaucratism operates by adding layers of complexity to a problem so that much time and effort can be spent on assembling the architecture of that complexity and then solving the problems created by that architecture. You become so caught up in solving the human resources issues or occupational health and safety concerns or constructing risk analysis that the original problem is rendered meaningless.

Take the consultant called in recently to define the "strategy and objectives" of a big metropolitan rail network project. He told me he was stuck with senior management who thought safety was their first priority, "ahead of moving an ever-increasing number of people across the network". He told them the only safe train network is one that has no trains.

The Institute of Public Affairs showed recently that state bureaucracies were growing at a rate of 8 per cent a year, as expressed by the cost of state public sector workers. The number of state public servants nationwide has grown from 972,000 in 2000 to 1.2 million last year. They all need something to do, and the results can be seen in the dozens of small ways our lives are burdened with bureaucratism every day.

Try getting a passport renewed at Neutral Bay post office. They will have you back and forward retaking photographs to eliminate a shadow or the hint of teeth. Any deviation and your application can be spiked. You cannot collect the application form from the post office. You must download it from the internet and print it out. But woe betide you if the margins are a millimetre too wide. You will be running back and forward to the printer for days. It is like being lost in a Kafka play. There must be people who enjoy such useless activity.

The main problem with pettifogging bureaucracy is that it puts immense power in the hands of people who are constitutionally unfit for it. It is evident from early years in the school playground that some people are destined to be paper shufflers. But give them power and they become drunk with it, wielding it not only unwisely but unjustly.

It may be tempting to think of over-bureaucratisation as a benign, though annoying, malaise that will pass quickly. But one of its strongest early opponents, the US president Ronald Reagan, argued it was as much a threat to liberty as communism. As his biographer Steven Hayward recently told ABC radio's Counterpoint, Reagan believed bureaucratic government, "undermines self-rule and consent of the governed".

Governments in Australia, the US and Europe "don't have secret police or concentration camps but they do behave arbitrarily and sometimes … even lawlessly, and are not very accountable to voters. So even in our two-party systems in Western democracies we are governed in some important respects like a one-party state."

The great shining symbol of bureaucratism's triumph over freedom is, of course, the carbon pollution reduction scheme, and its elaborate bureaucratic apparatus, which brooks no dissent.

The CSIRO economist Clive Spash, for instance, reportedly has claimed CSIRO management suppressed his research criticising emission trading schemes. Spash said he was not allowed to publish his paper, The Brave New World of Carbon Trading, because it commented on "policies", as if no CSIRO scientist had ever done such a thing.

The totalitarian threat of bureaucratism is nowhere as clear as in the climate change industry's creeping assaults on liberty.

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15 November, 2009

Rudd buys off the farmers. He wants a climate deal at any price

Agriculture now to be exempt from Warmist laws but that blows a huge hole in any effect the laws might have. Rudd is showing his Chinese influences: He is now just trying to save face. He cares about global warming about as much as I do

In a shock move, the Federal Government has decided to exempt all agriculture from its proposed emissions trading scheme, turning up the heat on Malcolm Turnbull's Opposition leadership. The Coalition has been calling for the exemption – and the Government's surprise move dramatically raises the stakes for Mr Turnbull to close a deal with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to pass the ETS in the next two weeks of Parliament.

Yet sections of the Opposition Leader's Liberal Party and the Nationals are likely to remain opposed to any such deal regardless, leaving Mr Turnbull's authority in shreds.

The surprise concession by the Government will be announced by Senator Wong today ahead of the resumption of Parliament this week. The initiative will also isolate the Nationals, who have been using the inclusion of agriculture in the proposed scheme by 2015 to spearhead its opposition to the package.

Senator Wong's announcement is likely to get backing for the scheme from key Nationals constituencies such as the National Farmers Federation, which has been lobbying heavily for such a decision. In another concession, Senator Wong will also announce the Government will develop plans to give farmers carbon credits for any efforts to capture and store carbon as part of their farm practices.

Opposition climate change spokesman Ian Macfarlane has been locked in talks with Senator Wong trying to negotiate a deal to get the scheme through the Senate. By announcing the exemption of agriculture, the Government will be able to say it has made major concessions and Mr Turnbull should now secure the backing of his party room to pass the scheme.

But Mr Turnbull is still likely to face a revolt. A number of Liberals, including Senate Leader Nick Minchin and senators Cory Bernardi and Julian McGauran, along with WA backbenchers Dennis Jensen and Wilson Tuckey, remain sceptical of the idea of man-made global warming and the Nationals are continuing to oppose the ETS outright. A refusal by the joint party room to back a compromise that includes the exemption of agriculture could make Mr Turnbull's leadership untenable. He has previously said he does not want to lead a party that does not embrace the idea of climate change.

The exclusion of agriculture had been presented by Mr Macfarlane as a "deal-breaker" in the ongoing talks. The move by the Government means farmers now will not have to buy permits for their carbon emissions, substantially reducing farm costs.

The exemption is likely to be attacked by economists, who argue that to be effective a carbon emissions system must be broadly based to share the huge costs. If one sector is exempted it increases costs on other sectors, such as energy-producing industries.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has estimated Australia has the potential to store up to a billion tonnes of carbon a year for the next 40 years through improved pasture management and farm practices. The group says if Australia were to capture just 15 per cent of this capacity, it would offset the equivalent of 25 per cent of our current annual greenhouse emissions over that period. Under the new concessions farmers will be compensated for such carbon offsets, opening up new sources of income.

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Ambulances sit waiting for hours before hospitals can take patients from them

Too bad that patients arriving by ambulance are generally seriously ill

MORE patients than ever are waiting over 30 minutes in ambulances "ramped" outside busy Queensland public hospitals because doctors and beds are not available. State Government figures reveal a 26 per cent increase in the number of sick and injured people being forced to wait before being seen by an emergency department doctor. Queensland Ambulance Service staff reported waits of three to four hours were not uncommon before they could hand over a patient.

In 2007-08, the cumulative hours spent waiting in the back of an ambulance were 10,528 across the state's 27 public hospitals. That jumped to 13,269 in 2008-09. Brisbane experienced the biggest jump, from 3879 hours to 5823 – a 50 per cent increase.

Opposition emergency services spokesman Ted Malone described the waiting as disgraceful and said it was costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year. "The Bligh Government's own statistics prove just how serious this issue has become," Mr Malone said yesterday. "Public hospitals have been in crisis for years and I have repeatedly questioned the Bligh Government to detail the costs of hospital ramping. "Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts has arrogantly brushed my questions aside and refused point blank to detail what the considerable cost is to the QAS."

Mr Malone said the union representing ambulance officers had kept a tally of hours spent ramped outside southeast Queensland hospitals. He said Mr Roberts should have access to the information, but suggested it would embarrass the Government. "This is a critical issue and Queensland taxpayers deserve to know what the dollar cost of ramping is to the QAS," he said.

The Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union said that on one day in September, 11 ambulances were ramped at Logan Hospital for more than two hours.

In an answer to an Opposition question, Mr Roberts said the average off-stretcher time across Queensland was 13 minutes. He said 92 per cent of all patients were in hospital beds within 30 minutes and it was not possible to work out the cost of what officials termed "access block".

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Another Muslim rapist?

A young woman has escaped the grasp of a man during an abduction attempt in Sydney, police say. About 12.30am today the 18-year-old woman was walking along New South Head Road at Edgecliff in Sydney's east when a man got out of a parked car and approached her. He allegedly grabbed the woman and tried to pull her towards his car.

"However, the woman managed to break free by hitting the man before running to the Double Bay CBD to seek help from her friends," police said in a statement. The woman was not injured.

Police were called and officers searched the area but found no trace of the man or his car. He is described as being aged in his mid-40s, of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance, with short black hair. A car driven by the man is described as an older model Ford Falcon, with faded red paint.

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Middle ground not always right

London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, rescued a woman being attacked by an armed girl gang this week by chasing them away on his pushbike and calling them ''oiks''. Johnson, a right-wing journalist and Tory politician, had been riding his bike home when Franny Armstrong, a climate activist who voted for his mayoral rival ''Red Ken'' Livingstone, called out for help.

Despite not sharing his politics, Armstrong, who directed the greenie movie The Age of Stupid, told reporters she was grateful to Johnson for his gallantry, calling him her ''knight on a shining bicycle". And she made this telling observation: ''If you find yourself down a dark alleyway and in trouble I think Boris would be of more use than Ken.''

I would suggest that, when push comes to shove, it is muscular conservatives with the courage of their convictions, of either sex, who are of more use in dark alleys than wishy-washy leftists, or simply people who don't like to get their hands dirty, make a judgment call or risk unpopularity.

If you are worried that someone might think you are a violent, chauvinistic bully if you chase the girl gang, you're no use. If you want to examine the motives of the assailants to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that they mean Franny Armstrong harm, and aren't just asking her to admire their big iron bar, you're no use. If you are a peacenik who avoids all confrontation, you're no use. If you are a post-modernist who believes there are multiple truths, you will be too confused to be of any use.

In this age of cowardly consensus, feigned reasonableness and radical tolerance, the middle ground has been sanctified, no matter how stark the choice between right and wrong. Few are willing to do the right thing because no one will agree what the right thing might be, because that would imply there is a wrong thing, which is supposedly the view only of right-wing extremists.

Thus Kevin Rudd, the king of the middle ground, can hold two contrary ideas on asylum seekers, unpicking the allegedly heartless border-protection policies of the Howard government and replacing them with some sort of "tough and humane" apparatus that seems only to cause more suffering. His "Indonesian solution" of detaining Australia-bound asylum seekers in Indonesian camps will no doubt be harsher than keeping them in Australian-run centres in Nauru or Manus Island, and Australia will have less control over their living conditions.

But out of sight, out of mind, is a good way for the activists of the Howard era to avoid inconvenient truths.

Imagine if it were John Howard presiding over the stand-off with 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking, the Australian Customs ship on which they have been languishing in Indonesian waters for three weeks, and counting. It would have been proof of his racist, xenophobic, inward-looking, 1950s-mired, white-picket-fence narrow-mindedness and meanness of spirit that had turned us into a pariah nation. As for Philip Ruddock, bring on the cadaver metaphors.

Imagine if Howard were prime minister last weekend when a boat of asylum seekers capsized near the Cocos Islands, drowning 12 people, including two teenage boys. It would have been SIEV X all over again. Blood on your hands, little Johnny. Crack journalistic investigative teams would be signing book contracts. Hannie Rayson would whip up another play applauded by chatterers and doctors' wives. The Refugee Action Coalition, Flotillas of Hope, Free the Refugees Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, North Shore Greens, Western Sydney Peace Group and North-West Friends of Refugees would be marching on Kirribilli House.

And yet the criticism of the Rudd Government from our public moral guardians has been oh, so muted. Where are Julian Burnside, Tony Kevin, Malcolm Fraser and Phillip Adams with their fearless commentary? Tom Keneally and his taped mouth? Ian Macphee, Greg Barns, Richard Woolcott, Marcus Einfeld? Oh, I forgot. He's in jail.

The lobby group A Just Australia, which hounded the Howard government over asylum seekers, has issued five press releases this year, of which four have led with attacks on the Opposition, including dire warnings about "a punitive … hardline faction within the shadow cabinet". The other press release mildly reproached Rudd for "disappointing" use of the term "illegal immigration" before moving to familiar territory, lambasting irresponsible "Sharman Stone and other shadow cabinet extremists". Old habits die hard.

Mandatory detention, it is worth pointing out at every opportunity, was introduced by Howard's Labor predecessor, with nary a murmur, even when about 350 children were locked up in 1993. It was Howard who ended the policy of detaining children.

But opportunists who despised Howard and the rednecks who voted for him used refugees as a political bludgeon, without any real attempt to help them. Those who once decried Howard's border protection policies, including the Pacific solution, which had asylum seekers processed in Nauru and on Manus Island, have a much more relaxed take on Rudd's Indonesian solution.

Howard and Ruddock were demonised for their clear, firm stand in 2001 after the Tampa crisis. Yet the results were more humane in practice than the rhetoric might suggest. Boat arrivals all but stopped by 2002 as the criminal syndicates who run people-smuggling rackets got the message that there was no point risking people's lives in leaky boats. The drownings at sea stopped.

Rudd, on the other hand, adopted a soft-talking approach, repudiating Howard's border protection policies and pandering to the activist lobby while attempting to retain border control on the quiet.

In practice his policies may turn out be less humane than Howard's, not least because his rhetoric has offered asylum seekers false hope. But at least no one hates him.

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Australia gives illegals plush treatment while assessing them

They get an island holiday with all expenses paid by the Australian taxpayer

DETAINEES on Christmas Island have access to both fast-speed internet services and mobile phones, raising fears they have may have been encouraging the stand-off on the Oceanic Viking. The Department of Immigration confirmed the internet and phone access but declined to answer questions relating to detainees having made contact with either those on the Oceanic Viking, people smugglers or other family members encouraging them to make the illegal boat trip to Australia.

The department says the use of the 30 computers is "supervised''. However, according to eyewitness accounts given to The Sunday Telegraph, such supervision is minimal if it exists at all. Eyewitnesses say guards on the island told them the computers were filtered for the "usual sites like porn'', but that was all. One person who observed detainees using the two computer rooms on the island said: "It's clear they were able to have contact with the outside world. Therefore it's conceivable they might have been in contact with the Oceanic Viking.

"All they have to tell other refugees is that if you get to Christmas Island you'll spend three months max and then 90 per cent are waved through. You'll do less than three months in good surrounds.''

The department refuses to say whether it has any record of who detainees have been in contact with but "restricted internet access'' has been available since early 2007. "Any monitoring of phone calls or internet use would be under-taken by law enforcement or security agencies in accordance with relevant legislation,'' a spokeswoman said, but she did not say whether any such monitoring actually took place.

According to those who have recently been on the island, detainees are also provided with free yoga, fitness and art classes. All health costs are also paid by the Commonwealth - including free dental care. The spokeswoman would not comment on claims one group of detainees destroyed their footwear to get new shoes after one asylum-seeker, who had no shoes, received a new pair on arrival. Fresh food and vegetables are airlifted into the detention centre.

The department refused to confirm this included freshly baked bread costing $10 a loaf - despite there being a bakery on the island. But it did confirm a vegetarian option was made available on the daily menu. Snacks and cigarettes are also available under a "purchase allowance'' points scheme.

The spokeswoman said the total cost for running the island in the less than three months between July 1 this year and September 9 was just over $11 million. A breakdown of the cost included: $6.68 million for overall services, $2 million for interpreters, $1.3 million for health costs, $330,000 for aircraft charter and $800,000 in wages. Those who have been to the island recently say locals have noted the department spares no expense airfreighting the detainees' requirements, while food and supplies for locals come by boat.

The spokeswoman confirmed all health costs were met by the Commonwealth. One recent visitor observed that many ordinary Australians in the bush could not receive access to free dental care.

The spokeswoman said food supplies were ordered from the mainland. She added: "We have a duty of care to ensure the health and well-being of people in immigration detention, including ensuring access to appropriate physical and recreational activities, such as a grassed area for soccer.''

Meanwhile the stand-off on the Oceanic Viking, moored off Indonesia for more than four weeks, showed signs of thawing when 22 of the 78 Sri Lankans on board left the vessel after the Australian Government guaranteed them a special 12-week turnaround of their claim for refugee status.

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Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.


For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.


Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security


Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.


The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"


UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.


Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.