March 2008 Articles, Thoughts & Resources

Indigenous Affairs / Porn in the NT / Incomes of the Poor / Euthenasia in Victoria / Brendan Nelson speech to National Press Club / Reality Bites for PM / Relationships Register - Victoria / Bligh calls for Summit of New Mayors / Gamling / The Christian Vote in 2007 Election / Homelessness / John Howard defends his legacy / Carers lose bonuses / Ratifying international treaty against torture / No to radical left agenda / Social Inclusion Group / UK Archives: Social Exclusion & brain function / Tony Blair's approach to Social Exclusion / Tony Blair & intervention before birth

Your help needed to fight euthanasia

28/03 Australian Christian Lobby | Greens’ Senator Bob Brown has introduced a bill to reinstate the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws and to restore to the ACT and the NT the ability to legislate on euthanasia. The Rights of the Terminally Ill (Euthanasia Laws Repeal) Bill 2008 has been referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee, which has called for submissions by 9th April 2008. More information is available here

Please write to the Senate Committee expressing your opposition to euthanasia. You can write a simple one-page letter or a longer submission if you have more to say. At present, the majority of submissions are short letters from people supporting the ‘right to die’. Even if you only write a short letter supporting the right to life it would really make a difference.

You might make a selection of the following points in your own words:

Labor Rollback on Indigenous Affairs - PORNOGRAPHY to be available in NT via Subscription TV

24/03 Sharman Stone, Full Media Release | Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs, Dr Sharman Stone, was stunned to hear Labor backbencher Daryl Melham admit in Parliament today that Labor’s Northern Territory Intervention measures were to be ‘rolled back’. Dr Stone said Mr Melham’s comments were offensive to all Australians who have insisted that the sexual abuse of indigenous children be seriously addressed.

“Daryl Melham says Labor is ‘rolling back’ the Howard Government’s changes which allowed ordinary access to the public places and shops in Northern Territory indigenous towns, and which banned pornography in the prescribed indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

“The Northern Territory inquiry, Little Children are Sacred, reported that rampant access to seriously degrading pornography was being used to groom children for sex. Children had become so desensitised to this material, that they thought sex with children and violent sex was normal human behaviour. In the overcrowded housing with little privacy, pornography was continually seen by the youngest children and teenagers.

“The Rudd Labor Government has decided that pornography on subscription television will now not be banned unless it exceeds 35 per cent of the content over seven days or the community asks for it to be banned.

There is no more heinous crime in human society than child sexual abuse. I am appalled and saddened that Labor has decided to allow a main source of pornography into these communities to continue.

“I am also concerned that the re-instatement of the permit system will once again shut down scrutiny in these communities Walkley Award winning journalist Paul Toohey has handed back his award in protest against the Government’s decision to once again ‘lock up’ these communities.

“There was already evidence that the Howard Government’s Emergency Response was making life safer for women and children in the Northern Territory prescribed areas. The Labor Government should not ‘roll back’ and so weaken this response”, Dr Stone said

Source:

Incomes leap for low-paid

24/3 Stephen Lunn, Social affairs writer - The Australian | The incomes of the nation's poorest households rose more dramatically than those of the richest Australians in the final years of the Howard government, buoyed by rising wages and bulging welfare payments. While lone parents, indigenous Australians and the disabled still struggled, overall the poorest households have enjoyed the largest rise in income over the past six years.

Media should jump off Rudd bandwagon

Labor finally adopts Coalition policy on fast tracking 457 visa application

VICTORIAN LABOR

Euthanasia bill to bar 'death tourists'

20/03 The AGE | TERMINALLY ill people wanting a doctor to help them die would have to live in Victoria for at least 12 months to prevent "death tourists" from flying into the state, under a private member's bill. The bill, which could be introduced into State Parliament as soon as next month, would allow doctors to prescribe a liquid medication to assist in a patient's death, but they would not be permitted to administer a lethal injection.

One of three drugs could be prescribed — pentobarbital, secobarbital and amylobarbital. The drugs are all barbiturates, which work by depressing the central nervous system. The bill, put forward by Liberal MP Ken Smith, also says that at least two doctors would have to deem the patient was suffering from "intolerable pain" and had an incurable illness before medication could be prescribed to help them die. Only patients could request the medication and they would be able to change their mind at any time.

But as the finer details of Mr Smith's private member's bill emerged, the Government indicated it would not support the bill, making it unlikely MPs will have the chance to debate it ... Mr Smith, the member for Bass, said he hoped the bill could be introduced in the lower house in April. He was discussing the timing with the leader of government business, Peter Batchelor... He said the bill would not make reference to euthanasia but would be deemed "physician-assisted dying". .. Doctors would have the right to refuse to help patients die if they felt morally opposed to it..

VICTORIAN LABOR

Relationships register - Victoria

20/03 Saltshakers | The Victorian Relationships Register has now had its second reading in the Legislative Council (13/3/2008 by Justin Madden). It will be debated in the Legislative Council SOON.

The NEXT sitting week starts on 8 April (dates: 8,9,10 April. Then 15, 16, 17 April.)

PLEASE: 1. If you live in Victoria, contact your FIVE Legislative Council Members and ask them to vote AGAINST the Relationships Bill 2007. Contact details here

Saltshakers have added a 'Briefing paper' and a 'Key Arguments' paper to our Campaign website on the Relationships Bill:
See

Plastic bags: punish the polluter, don't flog the family

Reality bites for PM

19/03 Editorial - The Australian | IT has been quite a honeymoon, but now reality bites. Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations and signed the Kyoto Protocol in style. Banishing Work Choices booklets to the pulp mill, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard turned the "rip-off of working families" into high emotion in parliament. Industry Minister Kim Carr is off on a mission to distribute buckets of money to needy multinationals keen to manufacture a green car. Environment Minister Peter Garrett has declared war on plastic bags. And the Prime Minister is alarmed about the "epidemic of binge drinking across the country".

To date, the Rudd Government's symbolism has been rewarded with record opinion polls, with Brendan Nelson struggling to hold double figures. At some point, though, voters, as well as history, judge governments for lasting achievements. It's too soon for the Rudd Government to have long-term runs on the board, although it is generally doing well keeping the Northern Territory intervention on track. Already, however, the Government has made one lasting mark on the reform process: it is the only government in 30 years to wind it backwards.

Elected on a promise to abolish Work Choices, the Government will have to deal with the inflationary and unemployment consequences of doing so. Undoubtedly, 25 years of industrial relations reform under the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments swept aside restrictive work practices and helped drive jobs growth. Yet so cowed is the Rudd Government in the face of union muscle that it won't even proffer an opinion on a responsible figure for a rise in the minimum wage.

FEDERAL OPPOSITION

The Hon Brendan Nelson Address to the National Press Club

18/03 Speech | "... I was the beneficiary of a Menzian dream and a Menzian envision and I didn’t appreciate it in my young life but I do now. I don’t forget as a young medical graduate doing my post graduate training in public hospitals. You don’t forget delivering your first baby and you don’t forget your first cot death. You don’t forget your first suicide and you don’t forget your first successful resuscitation of someone who’s had a cardiorespiratory arrest. And I don’t forget desperately trying to intubate and resuscitate an eight year old boy whilst his mother, screaming, is being restrained by nursing staff and orderlies. And at the same time a political environment in which the then Labor Government of the day chose to denigrate the medical profession on the basis of so called motives of greed and self interest. I don’t forget in 1987 going along to the bank and getting a second mortgage on my house so that I might establish a medical practice, which ultimately, along with the second one, would employ a more than two dozen people.

I don’t forget those women getting out of their cars, generally Holden station wagons with three children on the backseat, being dropped off by their husbands to work in the practice that we had established as receptionists and administrative staff, knowing that their jobs and feeding and clothing and housing their children relied on our sacrifices and risks that we had taken, and at the same time having increases in government regulation, government taxes and the unwelcome and uninvited intrusion of unions into our workplace.

... There was a change of government last year and there were three principle reasons for it; there are many others. The longevity of the Government itself and John Howard whom I regard as Australia’s greatest Prime Minister. Eleven and a half years in the modern era is an eternity. The second reason there was a change of government is because in 2006 when in government we made a mistake and we did something that was wrong. We changed for the right reasons workplace relations laws because we knew it was important to Australia’s future – to make sure that young people, mine included as the father of two apprentices, had a greater prospect of getting jobs, particularly in the future. But in hindsight we should have kept the no-disadvantage test and we recognise that, and that’s one of the reasons there was a change of government and we’ve moved to change that. The third was our approach, particularly in 2006 when in government, to climate change and the things which were of most concern to Australians as they saw dams emptying and rivers drying up and they weren’t able to water their gardens and their laws.

QUEENSLAND LABOR

Bligh calls summit of new mayors

017/03 Sunshine Coast Daily | A day after new Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot expressed concern about further state interference in local government, Premier Anna Bligh has announced she will host a summit of all new mayors. Ms Bligh said today she would extend formal invitations to all Queensland mayors to attend the summit, which will be held on March 27 at Parliament House.

... Mr Abbot, who was elected as mayor of the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council on Saturday after winning more than 70% of the total vote, is concerned that the state government will try to create more control over local government. "I've got a great fear that the next attack on local government will be in the planning sphere and I think they (state government) need to look very closely at what the communities are saying about how they want to be managed in the future as regards to development,” he told a Brisbane newspaper. "Any further attack on local government in the development sphere would create another Gold Coast highway koala corridor type fiasco for the government – and would bring them down."

VICTORIAN LABOR

Relationships Bill 2007

Archbishop Denis Hart has written to all Victorian state parliamentarians expressing his unequivocal opposition to the Relationships Bill 2007 :

Men and women with same sex tendencies must be accepted, as all persons, with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Similarly, they, as all persons, should not be subject to discrimination.

It is our view that discrimination in relation to adjustment of property interests was dealt with by the 2001 amendments to the Property Law Act 1958 and to approximately 60 other Victorian Acts.

We are opposed to the Bill in its current form and believe it is not necessary to overcome discrimination which was dealt with by the 2001 amendments.

Open Archbishop Hart's Letter (PDF) to Parliamentarians on 12 March 2008 ...

VICTORIAN LABOR

Some government moves to curb gambling - at last

14/03 Saltshakers |We congratulate Prime Minister Rudd for starting to put pressure on States to reduce their reliance on poker machine revenue.
 
It is also good to see Victoria’s Premier John Brumby doing an about turn and stating he will remove ATMs from in or near gambling venues. We hope this is just an initial step to protect Gambling addicts, because much more needs to be done.
 
The sad fact is, this is still too little, almost too late. It is also very disappointing that it will take up to 4 years to put their words into action. This is far too long, but is typical of the States intransigent attitude on this issue which is only surpassed by that of the owners of these vile machines who are now outraged that this move might affect their profits. Too many people have already been snared in their trap and drastic action is needed – not wallpapering over the cracks.

On a swing and a prayer

The religious affiliation of swinging voters played a more decisive role in determining the 2007 election outcome than any other single factor

08/03 Christopher Pearson, The Australian | JOHN Black is a former Labor senator from Queensland. These days he leads a demographic research and marketing group called Australian Development Strategies ... He's just produced his profile of the 2007 Australian Election. The most surprising of his findings is that the religious affiliation of swinging voters played a more decisive role in determining the outcome than any other single factor...Plainly commentators who've blithely assumed that religion is an increasing irrelevance in Australian politics will have to think again.

Black says: "The strongest correlate of the swing to Kevin Rudd's new Labor Party was Pentecostal churchgoers, alongside Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Lutherans, Salvos, Seventh-Day Adventists and the Uniting Church. "With the Uniting Church included, these activist religions represent 10per cent of Australians in total and they were located in the best possible areas for Labor. In fact, 12 out of the top 20 Pentecostal seats in Australia are located in Rudd's home state of Queensland and (he) won five of them.

While the blue-collar workers provided the grunt with the national swing, the religious activists provided the leverage and the key seats ... Where former Howard battlers overlapped with churchgoers, the Liberals were blasted out. The pro-Labor swing went up to 14.4 per cent in Forde, one of the many Queensland seats with high concentrations of former Howard battlers and churchgoers."

... If, as I expect, Black's analysis is accepted pretty much at face value by the factional warlords in caucus, it will have a markedly restraining influence on government policy. We have already seen Rudd flirt with the idea of breaking his word to the Australian Christian Lobby over allowing gay marriage in the ACT. At the first sign that ACL head Jim Wallace was prepared to tax him with betrayal of a pre-election undertaking, Rudd climbed down very fast indeed. That particular lesson won't be lost on the cabinet or any of the groups Black calls religious activists. That Labor is riding high in the polls at the moment is no guarantee of victory in three years. This is a Government with a small majority of seats. Unless Wayne Swan's management of the economy is unusually deft, its survival at the next election may well depend on how assiduously Rudd cultivates the Christian vote in the meantime.

NSW CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT PARTY

Homelessness

Wednesday, 5th March, 2008, 2:42 pm Gordon Moyes - Questions to Ministers | I ask the Hon. Eric Roozendaal, representing the Minister for Community Services, a question without notice. Is the Minister aware that New South Wales faces a homelessness epidemic reaching to the State’s suburban heartland, with emergency accommodation services reporting unprecedented demands from everyday families who are unable to pay mortgages and rents? Is the Minister aware that hospital and emergency providers are routinely turning away people, many of them parents with young children seeking help? In particular, is the Minister aware that the need for beds is so great that some welfare groups, such as Newcastle’s Wesley City Mission, are giving away sleeping bags to everyday families who are unable to pay mortgages or rents and have nowhere else to go? Will the Minister indicate what new measures and arrangements are in place to address the State’s homelessness epidemic?

The Hon. Eric Roozendaal: I thank the honourable member for his question on this very serious matter and I will refer it to the Minister for an appropriate answer.

Howard breaks silence on election loss

07/03 Business Spectator | JOHN Howard has broken his post-election silence from the other side of the world, defending his ousted government and attacking his successor before an audience of leading US conservatives. ... He entered the room to a standing ovation from the 1,400-strong audience, including former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, Vice President Dick Cheney's wife Lynne, and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.

..."I speak to you tonight as a continuing and unapologetic advocate of the broad conservative cause, but restlessly conscious, as I know you will be, that the battle of ideas is never completely won," he said. "I'm disappointed that Australia's battle group will be withdrawing from southern Iraq in June as one of the new Labor government's election commitments, rather than making a greater contribution to training the Iraqis to maintain their own security.

"The Iraqi people desperately need the time and space created by the surge to sustain the tentative political progress we are now seeing."And it would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by premature drawdowns." Mr Howard criticised the Australian media for concentrating on bad news from Iraq, rather than highlighting advances, and took aim at the Rudd government for regarding Afghanistan as the central front in the war on terrorism. "While it may be politically convenient, this view is profoundly naive and dangerous," he said. "One only has to look at al-Qaeda's own words and actions to know that Iraq is every bit as much a major front in the war against terror as is Afghanistan. We simply cannot afford to lose in either."

READ ALSO:

Former Prime Minister John Howard defends his legacy - 07/03 Herald Sun |
JOHN Howard has broken his post-election silence from the other side of the world, defending his ousted government and attacking his successor before an audience of leading US conservatives.

The former prime minister was in Washington DC to receive a top conservative honour, and used the platform to say he was "disappointed" Australia was withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. He said now was not the time to abandon the Iraqi people, who needed space to capitalise on the advances made by the US troops' surge strategy in Baghdad. "It would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by premature draw-downs," he said.

In several broadsides fired at the new Rudd Government, Mr Howard also warned it was a mistake to scrap the Coalition's workplace laws. "It will be the first time in 25 years that a major economic reform in Australia has been reversed," he said. "In particular, bringing back the old unfair dismissal laws will stifle employment growth among small businesses."

FEDERAL LABOR

Carers lash plans to cut bonuses

06/03 Matthew Franklin - The Australian | ANGRY carers have attacked plans to scrap annual bonuses of $1600, embroiling the Rudd Government in an explosive political furore. The Australian revealed today that the carers payments will be replaced with a higher utilities allowance. But the sick and disabled and their carers will be hundreds of dollars worse off under the cuts which are being planned by the government's razor gang as it seeks budget savings to curb inflation.

As morning radio talkback shows were inundated with callers attacking the planned move, Carers Australia CEO Joan Hughes said she was shocked.“We had no warning of this,” she told ABC Radio. “Many family carers are living below the poverty line and the $1,600 that they had in the last four budgets even paid for some of those very basic bills we all take for granted.

“It's going to be a very tough time for carers.”

FEDERAL LABOR

Rudd says no to radical Left agenda

01/03 Matthew Franklin - The Australian | KEVIN Rudd has assured mainstream Australia he will avoid radical social and cultural change by resisting calls to broaden his reform agenda and by sticking to his election promises.

The Prime Minister warned that people had "elected the wrong guy" if they believed that once he was in power he would unveil a secret left-wing reform agenda or suddenly yield to pressure from sectional interests.

FEDERAL LABOR

Rudd to sign anti-torture treaty

01/03 AAP | AUSTRALIA is set to ratify the international treaty against torture that was snubbed by the former Howard government. The Rudd Government is also reportedly considering introducing laws to make torture an offence for the first time under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has told Fairfax newspapers the government intended to ratify the UN's Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

FEDERAL LABOR

PM to chair social inclusion group

01/03 AAP | ... a new cabinet-level committee will drive Julia Gillard's ambitious policy agenda of "social inclusion", which aims to improve the circumstances of disadvantaged communities. The Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that the new committee would be chaired by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, with herself as deputy chairwoman.

Ms Gillard will shortly announce the membership of a new board to oversee the Government's social inclusion agenda. It is modelled on a similar program implemented by the Blair government in Britain.

A former Blair adviser, Tom Bentley, has been hired as an adviser on the project, which is being overseen by a unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Ms Gillard said building an ambitious agenda on social inclusion would help Australia maintain its economic prosperity.

UK: LABOUR Archives

Social exclusion 'changes brain function'

09/11/2006 Politics.co.uk | ...Social exclusion causes a change in brain function and can lead to poor decision-making and a reduced learning ability, new research has found. Scientists at the University of Georgia and San Diego State University argue that their study proves that social rejection has a "powerful influence" on how people act.

Using the magnetoencephalography (MEG) technique, the researchers analysed people's brain patterns, discovering that when subjects were made to feel socially excluded there were noticeable changes in the patterns. The participants were then given 180 problems to solve in 25 minutes while the MEG continued to monitor their brain patterns.

"We found that there was a direct link between social exclusion, brain activity and performance," said lead researcher W Keith Campbell. Those who had been made to feel socially excluded had clear differences in activity in the brain's occipital, parietal and prefrontal cortex regions; the parietal cortex is involved in attention, while the prefrontal cortex helps support functioning processes such as working memory and other behaviours that may support self control.

The socially-excluded group also performed more poorly on the maths problems, leading the researchers to conclude that social exclusion actually affects the circuits working in the brain.

UK: LABOUR Archives

'New approach' needed on social exclusion

31/09/2006 Politics.co.uk | ...The government must take a "new approach" to people whose addictions or dysfunctional family life mean they will never achieve their potential, Tony Blair has said ... today Mr Blair admitted that while for a minority of families, simply raising their income was not enough to improve their situation, citing those whose lives were dominated by drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness.

In a keynote speech to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in York, the prime minister said social, health and education services must be better targeted at those who do not want help or simply do not know how to seek it.

... One third of children in care were likely to end up without any training, education, or a job; the daughters of teenage mums were twice as likely to get pregnant in their teens; and boys whose fathers went to jail were three times more likely to go to jail than others.

...He admitted the idea of intervening in people's lives "can sound very sinister", but stressed that in the "great bulk of cases" it simply meant providing extra support, such as parenting classes, drug rehabilitation or more time with a health visitor.

However, Mr Blair said the agencies responsible for this work were currently ill-equipped for the kind of targeted support that was needed, and he called for more cooperation between services, including pooling government and council funding.

UK: LABOUR Archives

Problem kids 'must be dealt with at birth'

31/08/2006 Politics.co.uk | ... The government has a duty to tackle anti-social behaviour among children by intervening in their families' lives even before they are born, Tony Blair has argued.

The prime minister said it was possible to identify households where children were likely to become a "menace to society", and take the steps – whether giving them guidance or involving social services – to stop their toddlers becoming thugs.
You can predict reasonably accurately the kids and the families who are going to be difficult," he told the BBC, in his first interview since returning from his holiday.

He added: "If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children who are growing up, in families which we know are dysfunctional, then the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society."

The state could offer targeted support, he explained – however, if families refused this, it might be necessary to impose "some sense of discipline and responsibility", which could see families losing benefits or even having their children taken away.

The prime minister rejected the suggestion his proposals represented a step too far, saying there could be no "pussy-footing" around such an important issue.

"You either steer clear and say it's not for government to get into or you actually do intervene, and intervene at a very early stage," Mr Blair said. Full ARTICLE FOUND HERE