Mother fights to stop daughter calling her stepmother 'mum'

The Australian | AN Adelaide mother went to court to prevent her daughter from referring to her ex-husband's new wife as "Mum" or "Mummy" or "my other Mummy". 'The woman, who cannot be named, argued that her ex-husband was deliberately undermining her role as their child's mother, by encouraging his new wife to answer to the terms "Mum" and "Mummy" and "Mummy-D" (D being the first letter of the stepmother's first name.)

The battle has been going on for almost as long as the child has been able to speak. Her parents separated when she was four months old.

Growing number of Muslim men and multiple wives exploiting loophoole for taxpayer handouts

05/03 Herald Sun | GROWING number of Muslim men and their multiple wives are exploiting a loophole to get taxpayer handouts.

Centrelink has confirmed it has investigated up to 20 cases of multiple relationships, including polygamy, in the past two years for payment irregularities. It has forced some families to pay money back.

Polygamy is illegal in Australia, but a Centrelink spokeswoman said it was not the welfare agency's job to police polygamy laws. "It's not our concern if they are a member of a polygamist relationship," the spokeswoman said. "We look at whether they are receiving the correct rate of payment. We treat each couple independently."

But Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria director Joumanah El Matrah said some men were exploiting Australia.

What Price a Child

Lifesite News | Overseas students and workers in Australia on special visas are being forced to abort their babies if they become pregnant.

Last month a major SA hospital reported that a massive one third of abortions are being performed on overseas students (The Advertiser, 3/11/09, p 6).  Unofficial reports from other states suggest a similar situation Australia-wide.

The grim reality is that women who come to Australia on special student or work visas are not covered by Medicare.  Most only have basic health insurance which does not include pregnancy-related items.  Giving birth costs over $10,000 in doctor and hospital fees – compared with about $800 for an abortion in a Sydney clinic or $1700 in an SA public hospital.

“If these women become pregnant, they find that abortion is the only option they can afford,” says Robyn Grace.  “I see their distraught faces every week.”

Robyn Grace gets up very early twice a week and takes the long drive from her home in the Adelaide hills to the government abortion clinic.  Years ago, the Mareeba hospital healed very sick babies – before it was rebuilt in 1992 and euphemistically renamed the Pregnancy Advisory Centre (PAC).  In over 95 percent of cases, PAC pregnancy “advice” is to terminate the life of a healthy unborn infant. 

Christian Schools are angry over the banning of the teaching of Creationism

03/03 SMH.com.au | Australian Christian schools will campaign against what they see as the thin end of the wedge - a decision by the South Australian Non-Government Schools Registration Board to effectively ban the teaching of creationism.

Under policies published in December, the board said it required ''teaching of science as an empirical discipline, focusing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis''. The board said it ''does not accept as satisfactory a science curriculum in a non-government school which is based on, espouses or reflects the literal interpretation of a religious text in its treatment of either creationism or intelligent design''.

Queensland kids rescued from child porn industry

02/03 Brisbane Times | Fifteen Queensland children subjected to sexual abuse have been removed from their homes in the past year, police have revealed.

Ten of the children were discovered in relation to one case, while four were connected to another individual investigation.

The children - mostly aged in their early teens - were rescued during investigations into online pedophile activity, including the creation and exchange of child pornography. At least one had been raped, police said.

Detective Superintendent Peter Crawford, of the Child Safety and Sexual Crimes Group, said new sophisticated software had allowed police to locate and track down men exploiting the children.

Queensland: Top students 'filmed dealing drugs in CBD'

02/03 Brisbane Times | A television network claims it has evidence students from some of Brisbane's top schools are openly dealing drugs in the CBD. The pictures, obtained in secret by Channel Ten, will go to air tonight and are said to have "shocked and appalled" the schools involved.

The network filmed an alley off Elizabeth Street over a period of two weeks, capturing vision of teenagers dressed in school uniform passing items to one another in a clandestine fashion.

WA : Spray link to birth defect

01/03 Perth Now | A TOXIC herbicide widely sprayed on food crops across the state has been linked to a shocking birth defect that is on the rise in WA.

Doctors at a Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine conference have announced a correlation between exposure to the agricultural chemical atrazine and gastroschisis - a rare congenital birth defect in which a baby's intestine grows outside its abdomen.

Research by the University of WA and King Edward Memorial Hospital shows cases of gastroschisis have been steadily increasing in WA over the past decade.

Since the mid-1980s, the WA Department of Health Birth Defect Register shows children born with the defect more than tripled from 15 between 1984 and 1985 to 48 from 2005-08.

Atrazine is recommended by the WA Department of Agriculture for use on crops such as maize, sugarcane, lupins, peas, wheat, potatoes and canola to control weeds.

Training tomorrow's leaders

There is a great need in this nation to assist those students and recent graduates who demonstrate a high potential to become influential leaders for Christ across strategic areas of our nation including politics, law, media, science, education, arts and philosophy.
The Compass program, an eight-day course in Christian worldview, aims to address this need.

The inaugural program kicks off this Sunday with 40 students at the University of Queensland. For more information and to register interest for 2009, please go to www.compass.org.au .

Lyle Shelton
National Chief of Staff , Australian Christian Lobby