WHK Horwath has verified Abbott & Co policy costings? G'arn!

Doesn't bluddy bode well. One of the only concrete things Abbott and Co actually do in the middle of all their campaign spin is to sidestep the Australian Treasury and contract the frequently rebranded accounting firm WHK Horwath (which is a listed company and the member firm representing Crowe Horwath International throughout Australia and New Zealand) to run a calculator over their policy costings.
"We aim to establish strong relationships with our clients, becoming an integral part of their organisation, adding value every step of the way through our proactive approach and driving their success." sez Horwath.
Gawd, I 'opes not!
In 2006 as Horwath & Horwath this company settled a claim "made in respect of 6 audits conducted by Horwath & Horwath as well as in relation to the preparation and verification of various financial reports pursuant to certain provisions of the trust deed. In particular the claim relates to the way Horwath & Horwath reported on, and failed to conclude that the provision for bad and doubtful debts in Geneva's financial statements was materially understated. It also concerns their failure to report on how Geneva did not have in place and maintain a satisfactory system of internal controls, as a result of which it followed poor lending practices."
And in its current manifestation it's into online footy tipping!
In 2010 WHK as it's now known may have agreed to honestly report on Coalition costings, but really, what in earth was it thinking to land the accountancy group in the middle of this particular political pottage.

"So what": the face of not-so-good governance on the NSW North Coast

Last weekend a copy of Clarence Valley Council's June 2010 Budget Submissions Summary was doing the digital rounds much to the enjoyment of local cynics.
Of particular note was this answer to one concern raised about the fact that after 6 years council still had not reconciled a $1.2 million deficit brought into the amalgamation process by Grafton City Council: "So what".
But what really had locals opened mouthed was this answer to concerns about lack of transparency and accountability:
"As the 'senior administrator' who recommended that CCRT funding be used for lifesaving services, I (Rob Donges) have taken responsibility for including Iluka and will take responsibility should a higher authority determine that this funding arrangement is grossly negligent or some such thing."
That last line comes after a previous entry which goes:
"LPMA representatives have verbally raised concerns as to the funding of this service from CCRT and staff have provided our reasoning. Nothing more has been heard. If the Authority were to formally advise that the funding is inappropriate, we would recommend it be funded elsewhere i.e. General Fund."
The merry cynics are now laying bets that the Land and Property Mangement Authority won't be amused when it learns that its attempt to informally manage the problem of past misallocations of what could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in Clarence Coast Reserve Trust funds has been seen as something council staff can brush aside - especially as it was a resident's complaint which first brought the matter to light and council management has been very careful not to consult with the NSW Department of Lands itself just in case it wasn't left with anymore wriggle room.
Clarence Coast Reserve Trust Budget 2010/11

Minister for Aging Justine Elliot shines a welcome light on aged care facilities

The Federal Minister for Aging and MP for the NSW North Coast Richmond electorate, Justine Elliot, promised last year to name and shame those aged care providers who were not meeting standards set for residential aged care.

Since then there has been a steady trickle of media reports on nursing homes which were found to be sub-standard in some manner. However, it is the Dept. of Health and Aging which has published the official non-compliance lists.

List by state and current as of 4 January 2010 (details of notices of non-compliance remain on this list until such time as a sanction is imposed on the relevant approved provider or the provider has addressed the non-compliances):

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

Northern Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Tasmania

Victoria

Western Australia

Archived Notices of Non-Compliance list aged care services, by state and in alphabetical order, which have remedied the problems within their facilities.

Although the low number of currently non-complaint facilities and the growing list of those which have fixed sub-standard practices is reassuring, it is of some concern to note that issues of reportable assaults and patient malnurition feature in details concerning some of these nursing homes.

I am sure that there would be many in the aged care industry who would not agree with the Minister's course of action.

Just as I am equally sure that families who have a member in aged care would be reassured that residential facilities are being regularly monitored for compliance -especially families faced with the limited choice rural and regional Australia has to offer.

Keep up the good work, Ms. Elliot.

** Aged Care Providers' Financial Data for 2006-2008 here. This is de-indentified data broken down by generic categories city and regional.

Photograph from Google Images

Stoush in Liberal MP's electoral office

Alex Hawke (Liberal), the Federal Member for Mitchell, allowed his electoral office to be used as the venue for a meeting of Young Liberals.

Do other groups, say the local Greens, also get to hold their get-togethers in the office?

NSW police dismissed as a media stunt an attempt to drag them into the internal faction wars of the Liberal Party (ABC News).

The Herald reported that Hawke, who was described as a megalomaniac by a Liberal source , was desperate to shut down potential threats to his position in the party.

Hawke called police to his Castle Hill office in Sydney's northwest around 6pm on Wednesday after he said a mob had stormed into a meeting of the Baulkham Hills and Hills Young Liberals branches.

A Liberal source said the people standing outside were aspiring new Young Liberals and that Hawke barred them because he realised he didn't have the numbers inside to reject their applications.

The source said Hawke was reluctant to let the branches grow because new members, who may be aligned with his inter-factional enemy and former boss NSW upper house Liberal MP David Clarke, could end up threatening his position.

"It's all about a power struggle between himself and David Clarke," the source said.

"He sees David as the old school, and he wants to be the person down in Canberra that calls all the shots, and he doesn't want anyone to get in his way."

Fellow Liberal Party member and radio announcer Gareth McCray dubbed Hawke a "young upstart" following the fracas, which his two children were caught up in.

McCray said his daughter Laura, 20, and son Jacob, 18, had recently joined the Young Liberals and were trying to attend their first branch meeting.

"Alex Hawke had denied them access ... and one or two of his heavies were standing at the door preventing these people from coming in at all.

"Obviously, there was some sort of factional issue that Alex was paranoid about.

"For him to ask no more members to come in, clearly there must have been something going on that I wasn't aware of that had to do with the different factions within the Liberal Party - I'm assuming."

McCray denied the confrontation had been about to descend into a brawl.

"There was no reason to ring the police, because there was an orderly assemblage of 20 members trying to get into a meeting.

"There was no shouting or carrying on at all."

McCray said the incident had left him so incensed that he was thinking about renouncing his Liberal Party membership.

"After last night's fiasco with this young upstart, who I thought six months ago had some potential, I'm quite prepared to tear my membership up if the Liberal Party is not prepared to take some sort of disciplinary action against this man," McCray said.

Hawke wants an investigation too, but of a different kind.

He's asked the party's state director, Mark Neeham, to inquire into Liberal Party members who were present and their behaviour.

"(And) it is my hope that those persons who orchestrated the events of last night are dealt with swiftly by the Liberal Party and authorities," he said.

A police spokesman said a number of people were spoken to by police at the scene but no arrests were made.

No further action will be taken by police at this stage.

Sources: ABC News and The Sydney Morning Herald

Did you hear the one about the chamber of commerce?

Something you don't hear all that often.

A certain Clarence Valley chamber of commerce has got itself in such a fix that it has apparently allowed its incorporation to lapse, doesn't remember exactly how many financial members it has and, is in the rather strange position of being financially viable but otherwise up the creek without a paddle when it comes to effectively representing local business in the town.

Just how transparent is the expression of interest process for sale of council land in Maclean?

The Clarence Valley Council business paper for today's ordinary monthly meeting lists three businesses interested in leasing/purchasing public space in Maclean which is currently being used as free public car parking.

Expressions of Interest have been received from:

• Holder Baker Enterprises

• Woolworths Limited

• Buildev Development (NSW) Pty Ltd

But who is Buildev Development representing?

This is what this company says about itself:

The Buildev Group has extensive experience within all spectrums of the property development industry.

We manage the development process including recognising opportunities, securing development sites, approval processes, right through to marketing, finance and construction.

Our disciplined approach to site investigation and risk minimisation combined with an intuitive ability to realise development opportunities ensures positive outcomes for clients and stakeholders alike....

The Buildev Group is a growing force in the Australian property industry. A Newcastle based property investment, development and construction company investing in communities throughout New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.........

The value on completion of current projects undertaken by The Buildev Group stands at over $1billion in Queensland

Key personnel

This is how ASIC describes this company:

Extracted from ASIC's database at AEST 08:28:49 on 30/09/2008
Name BUILDEV DEVELOPMENT (NSW) PTY. LTD.
ACN 115 089 122
Type Australian Proprietary Company, Limited By Shares
Registration Date 01/07/2005
Next Review Date 01/07/2009
Status Registered
Locality of Registered Office Raymond Terrace NSW 2324
Jurisdiction Australian Securities & Investments Commission

North Coast Voices has previously reported that Buildev Development (NSW) Pty Ltd has made political donations to the NSW Government and Crikey reports that this company donated $40,000 to the NSW Liberal Party.

Due to the fact that not all councillors appear to have declared their 2008 campaign contributions to the NSWEFA yet, the Clarence Valley electorate has no way of knowing if Buildev or either of its two fellow competitors made political donations to councillors.

The way in which corporations and/or their clients having business before council are described in business papers/attachments are a test for the newly-elected shire councillors who are meeting for the first time this morning.

Transparency demands that Clarence Valley residents and ratepayers be fully informed about all entities seeking to benefit from the lease/sale of public land.

They deserve to know if Buildev is acting on behalf of its shareholders, has another managed investment fund up and running or if it has been contracted by another party altogether.

If there is another party, is that party Coles or Target? If so, what would happen to the Coles and Target outlets at Yamba (which is only a 25-20 min ride away from Maclean) if Buildev were successful?

This is what Buildev proposes for Woolgoolga:

Clarence Valley Council Business Paper, 30 September 2008

Attachment giving summary of community opinion concerning sale of public space/car park

"More than ever, the great challenge of our time is economic management" Malcolm Turnbull

New federal Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, is becoming very serious about the economy.

Gone are the factitious comments about inflation, now we are facing "great challenge".
Why we may even have to arrange for the Australian Government to organise a US-style bail out of financial institutions.

According to The Australian:

Mr Turnbull had suggested the Government back financial institutions with liquid assets....

On Sunday Mr Turnbull said banks were finding it harder to refinance mortgages.

``In other markets, the government, particularly in the US, is taking a role, proposing to buy some of these securities, in effect to provide additional liquidity to take the pressure off mums and dads,'' Mr Turnbull told the Nine Network.

``That's something I'd like to talk to the Prime Minister about to see if we can agree on some bipartisan measures.''

Hold on, the only big collapse which sent so many mums and dads to the wall happened when HIH folded years ago and Malcolm Turnbull was smack in the middle of that mess along with Adler and Co.

Yes, credit is drying up as everyone speculates about what will happen next.

However I can't help but wonder if Turnbull's urging of federal government intervention is more to protect the value of his own holdings and that of his business associates.

If a global recession really hits then Treasurer Wayne Swann's intervention will mean little to those same mum and dads.

Turnbull is also quoted as saying in an article at News.com.au:

Mr Turnbull, a former merchant banker and partner of Goldman Sachs Australia, said he agreed with US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson that there was plenty of blame to go around for the current financial mess.
"I agree with those legislators in the US who say that executives of financial institutions should not be rewarded – indeed they should get nothing out of this," he said.

He goes on to try and distance himself from the present debacle by saying that he only worked in the corporate advisory side and not in an area of investment banking.

How he thinks to get away with such hairsplitting when the whole of Australia knows that he was a managing director, partner and major shareholder in JB Were Goldman Sachs (Australia) during the 1990s through to early 2000, when his investment bank was so clearly in the area he now denies.

Turnbull also pretends that the Prime Minister should not have left Australia because of the global volatility.

This exposes him as a buffoon comparable with the recently departed leader he deposed.

As though where Kevin Rudd physically is this week will forestall Australia being impacted by the ailing American behemoth.

While his Fraser-style obstructionist stance on bills before the House, personal behaviour in Parliament over the last ten months and his comments about Question Time, show him for the arrant political hypocrite that he is.

This man is all about the 'divine right' of the Liberal party to rule, gotcha politics and posturing for the Question Time cameras.

I never thought that I would see the day that I would become nostalgic about Peter Costello's time in the limelight - Turnbull's performance as leader makes me so.

Costello on the pension ...

Decisions, decisions, decisions!!

Former treasurer Peter Costello must be a worried man. The poor bugger has a dilemma - he has to decide when he will leave the federal parliament.

Peter Martin, The Age's economic correspondent, has taken a look at the options Costello has.

1. As a backbencher, the former treasurer is earning $127,000 a year. But calculations performed by The Age using tables prepared by the Finance Department suggest that if he retired instead, his annual income would jump to $176,633 courtesy of Australia's parliamentary superannuation scheme.

That payment would grow with increases in parliamentary salaries and would stay with the 51-year old for the rest of his life.

2. If he wants, he can halve his $176,633-a-year pension and turn the rest into a lump sum of $1.77 million.

Let's put all that into perspective.

Single old-age pensioners get $273 a week.

Yes, they get $14,196 a year.

Putting it another way, that's "a mere 8% of what the former treasurer will make."

Perhaps Costello is looking for a shoulder to cry on as he contemplates how he'll survive after he departs the Canberra scene.

How do you spell pathetic? Answer: N.R.M.A.

Heard the saying that whatever the NSW Government can do, the NRMA can do better?

Well, the NRMA has proved that saying correct, yet again.

Sydney Morning Herald journo Matthew Moore, who has been on a very admirable mission to expose the NSW Government's shortcomings, nay hypocrisies, in relation to freedom of information (FOI) has revealed, courtesy of one very p*ssed off NRMA member, that the NRMA has been playing games with its so-called information.

In an article titled "Secrets under the hood" Moore does a very nice job for NRMA members to reveal just what a pack of incompetents (although some might say mischiefs, while others might go further and say something a whole lot worse) the current regime at the NRMA happens to be.

Moore writes:

"If you think it is only government departments that have secrecy and spin as the core principles in their mission statements, take a look at the country's biggest motoring organisation, the NRMA.

To understand how it operates, go back to January when its president, Alan Evans, called on the State Government to ditch plans for a cycleway on Epping Road.

Evans issued a press statement headlined, "NRMA plan for Epping Road: Don't bump motorists for bikes". It said the NSW Government was wasting $7.6 million on the Epping Road bike path even though only 25 cyclists used it daily.

Instead of wasting $300,000 a cyclist, the Government should widen the road to make more room for cars and trucks, it said. In the news vacuum that is often part of a Sydney summer, Evans's punchy comments got page one treatment in the papers, which mentioned the full NRMA case was set out in a submission to the Roads and Traffic Authority. One NRMA member and cyclist, Nigel Withers, thought he would like to read that submission and tried to get hold of it.

When he couldn't find it on the NRMA website, he wrote to Evans asking for a copy. Evans replied on January 16 but would not hand over the submission. He offered this laughable excuse: "NRMA's submission to the RTA is now an internal departmental document." Withers wrote back, but this time was ignored. Undeterred, he tried the NRMA's Open Road magazine, explaining he had twice asked Evans for the submission without success. "Perhaps Open Road could print the submission in question," he wrote optimistically. Not likely.

The editor-in-chief of Open Road, David Naylor, replied on February 8, telling him his letter had been passed to the head of "government relations and public policy". Nothing came back, so Withers changed tack.

In May he submitted a freedom-of-information request to the Roads and Traffic Authority seeking a copy of "the NRMA submissions regarding bikeways on Epping Road". At least the RTA replied, even if it was not what he expected: "There are no documents relating to your request," they said.

How could there be no submission when the NRMA president had released a summary of it and confirmed in writing there was one?

This week I rang the the NRMA's PR team to find out and got the Withers treatment. For days they promised to send me a copy but it never arrived. Still, the excuses were diverting: "We genuinely did not know what submission you were talking about … The guys who wrote the submission were in the country … Our guys were not back in 'til yesterday … "

Finally, the NRMA admitted the RTA was right. There is no submission. The closest thing is a three-page document sent to the RTA in August 2006, 17 months before that press release about useless cycleways.

We still haven't seen that three-page document. Nor have we seen the survey of bike-lane usage the NRMA now says was done many months after the 2006 submission.

If the NRMA expects to be taken seriously, it should adopt the levels of transparency demanded of government. If it is going to quote from "surveys", it should post survey reports online to be scrutinised. The same goes for so-called submissions. An organisation this size should not be relying on misleading press statements alone to influence public debates.

A short word on US 08 from Crikey's Gary Rundle

A slightly off (but rather funny) comment on the monumentally boring US presidential race:
The man who killed, beheaded, disemboweled, and souvenired and ate parts of a fellow traveller on a Canadian bus made no comment during hisarraignment other than "please kill me". He is believed to be covering the 2008 US presidential race.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who finds the whole contest between McCain and Obama a bit of a bore.
The only real difference between the two is their age and the hair colour of their wives.
While that whole Kennedy-Camelot spiel that some Democrats are trying to run makes me want to chunder.
But then, I'm old enough to remember what a political fraud President Kennedy really was.

Wake me up when the whole thing's over - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Another skirmish in the war against bloggers

Excellent post on the Associated Press (AP) move to charge bloggers fees for what appears to be legitimate fair use quotes:
Lauredhel at Larvatus Prodeo.

Of course when the mainstream media takes a breaking news story straight from a blog and syndication has it turning up on multiple newspaper sites (eg., a North Coast Voices blog entry posted at 00.15am AEST on 12 June 2008 about Trujillo's legal letter to Wikipedia) one doesn't actually see them jumping up and down with glee at getting a story for only the effort of rewording the original post and making the odd 'phone call, but I'm sure that editors love such low-cost articles.

The majority of Australian blogs at least acknowledge where their information is sourced from and, for the most part, try not to breach any copyright which might be thought to exist.
I agree with Lauredhel - AP is trawling for increased revenue.

Bucket rating for Associated Press:





Postscript
AP has a history of asserting an incredibly broad definition of copyright.
In 2003 it sent a Cease and Desist letter (found at Chilling Effects) which read in part:
Therefore, any use of AP content on your Internet site, whether verbatim, rewritten or simply as a source for information contained in another story, can infringe AP's copyright, and other legal rights....
AP demands that you remove any and all AP content from your Internet site, including any archives, as well as from any site that mirrors or caches your site, that you cease and desist all use of AP copy -- whether verbatim or rewritten -- as well as all use of the facts contained in AP material, and that you confirm for me that you have done so within fifteen days from the date of this letter.

Warning, warning! Google Health may be injurious to your privacy

Now I'm sure that the good people at Google have no intention of harming a soul with their brand new product Google Health, a free online medical record storage facility.

However, before you plunge into another commitment to supply or store personal details on the world wide web, think of the implications of storing your most personal details out there in hyperspace.

Robert Merkl commenting at Core Economics last Tuesday gave us one scenario:

I’d have to strongly disagree with your statement that there’s no extra privacy implications.
If your doctor gets broken into, maybe a few hundred medical records get stolen. If Google Health gets hacked, millions of health records get stolen.
Furthermore, because it’s all electronic, it’s in a much more easily searchable form.
Here’s a for-instance. Say you’re an intelligence agency, looking for somebody in a large organization to blackmail. With the old system, there’s no way in the world you could burgle every doctor every member in that organization has visited.
Now, let’s rerun our hypothetical with everybody’s medical records on Google Health. Your crack team of hackers breaks in and gets you full access. You do a search for STDs, abortions, mental illnesses, etc. etc. etc on the entire organization, until you find somebody to blackmail.
And, yes, in this case it is entirely plausible to imagine such a technically-adept attacker as an intelligence agency.
Back when I was in the CS department at Melbourne, there were some people doing work on computer security. You might want to consider having a chat to some of them at some point. You may never use internet banking again…

Google Health's own privacy policy also gives pause for thought as it does not completely rule out selling-on some medical data from the site and handing personal data on to law enforcement agencies or third-parties etc:

Google will not sell, rent, or share your information (identified or de-identified) without your explicit consent, except in the limited situations described in the Google Privacy Policy, such as when Google believes it is required to do so by law.

The current Google Health medical advisory board has some interesting CVs on it as well.
I'm not sure that having a history with RAND or Wal-mart, or indeed being a super accountant, is going to make me feel confident in this product.

One of the first entities to 'utilise' this new site will probably be that digital superspy, Server in the Sky.

Kevin Rudd needs to lift his game

A question for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd:

Why is an extremist cult, whose activities break up families, given a wide berth by the Australian Government?

Prior to the November 2007 election Mr Rudd described the Exclusive Brethren as an "extremist cult" whose activities "break up families" and called for investigations by police, the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Electoral Commission and Austrac, the anti-money-laundering agency into the Brethren's activities.

So, Mr Rudd, what's changed? Why are there no inquiries?

Today The Age reports PM Kevin Rudd has rejected the pleas of former members of the Exclusive Brethren for a broad-ranging inquiry into the sect, saying such an investigation would "unreasonably interfere" with their right "to practise their faith freely and openly.

Former members of the Brethren seized on the comments and, in February, wrote to Mr Rudd asking for an inquiry, particularly into its "disproportionately high taxpayer funding of Brethren schools, dishonest political campaigning, their charitable status in relation to rate and tax exemptions, and their well-known intimidatory tactics during traumatic Family Court cases".

The letter was written by former Brethren member Peter Flinn and signed by 33 others. Attached were 13 stories outlining the misery inflicted by practices of the sect, including the doctrine of separation, which keeps lapsed members from contacting their families.

Mr Rudd's chief-of-staff David Epstein wrote in reply last week that the Prime Minister "does not resile from the views he expressed last year," and that he "remains concerned about the reported imposition of doctrines that weaken family bonds" and "prevent children accessing online learning tools".

Mr Epstein also added that religious observance "should not be regarded as a shield behind which breaches of the law can be hidden", and urged anyone with details of criminal behaviour within the Brethren to tell police.

However, he wrote, on religious freedom grounds, the Prime Minister would not be instituting an inquiry.

Mr Rudd's stance suggests the Government also will vote against a motion by Greens Senator Bob Brown calling for an inquiry into the sect, its tax concessions, public funding, and practices that may harm children or families.

Senator Brown tabled notice of the new motion, his third proposed inquiry into the Brethren, in the Senate on Thursday.

Senator Brown described Mr Rudd's position as "appalling", saying his priority "should be the welfare of children and families, and the taxpayers' money that is going to this organisation".

But Mr Flinn told The Sunday Age the Exclusive Brethren could take no comfort from Mr Rudd's response: "Whilst Mr Rudd did not give a specific commitment to an inquiry, he acknowledged the 'moving personal accounts'."

Mr Flinn also pointed out that Mr Rudd reiterated his Government's commitment to "enhancing transparency in the Australian electoral system, with reforms recently announced relating to the disclosure and sources of donations".

"We have no desire to interfere with the fundamental right of any religious group to freely and openly practise its beliefs. We just want to highlight other equally fundamental human rights, such as access to family who remain Brethren members, a right callously denied by the Brethren," Mr Flinn said.

The Exclusive Brethren is a wealthy Christian-based group that practises a radical doctrine of separation from the world. Its leaders became very close to former Prime Minister John Howard over many years of lobbying and political activism, and, in 2004, they poured $370,000 into his re-election campaign.

Under Mr Howard, Brethren schools enjoyed similar funding to schools for disabled and Aboriginal students, even though, by their own admission, Exclusive Brethren members are in the top echelon of income earners. Mr Rudd has continued the funding arrangements, worth $50 million over the next four years.

Telstra drops appeal against ACCC now patchy Next G network in place

ABC News yesterday.

 

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says Telstra has dropped an appeal against findings that the marketing of its Next G mobile phone network was misleading.

The Federal Court ruled that Telstra had been deceiving by claiming that Next G gives coverage equal to or better than the CDMA network.

Telstra must now pay the ACCC's legal costs.

 

This is what Telstra now says of Next G with the CDMA network finally closed down since the end of April.

 

Like any other mobile network, Next G mobile telephone coverage depends in part on where you are, what particular handset you are using and whether your handset has an external antenna attached.

When is it okay to plagiarise?

Answer: When you are a university vice-chancellor.

Well, that's what Professor Ian O'Connor of Queensland's Griffith University must think.

The Weekend Australian reports that O'Connor lifted information straight from online encyclopedia Wikipedia and confused strands of Islam as he struggled to defend his institution's decision to ask the repressive Saudi Arabian Government for funding.

In September, The Australian revealed that the Queensland university had accepted a grant of $100,000 from the Saudi Government. Last week, it was revealed that Griffith had asked the Saudi embassy in Australia for a $1.37million grant for its Islamic Research Unit, telling the ambassador that certain elements of the controversial deal could be kept a secret.

Griffith - described by Professor O'Connor as the "university of choice" for Saudis - also offered the embassy a chance to "discuss" ways in which the money could be used.

Professor O'Connor denies that by lifting sentences from Wikipedia he has breached his university's guidelines on plagiarism. The Griffith University council, of which Professor O'Connor is an ex-officio member, considers plagiarism an example of academic misconduct.

It gives an example of plagiarism as "word for word copying of sentences or paragraphs from one or more sources which are the work or data of other persons (including books, articles, thesis, unpublished works, working papers, seminar and conference papers, internal reports, lecture notes or tapes) without clearly identifying their origin by appropriate referencing".

Professor O'Connor yesterday tried to distance himself from the university's standards. "It was not as a piece of academic scholarship, therefore did not follow normal citation methods used in academic publications," he said.

On Wednesday, Professor O'Connor published a full copy of his opinion piece on the Griffith website. Yesterday, the university added references to Wikipedia as footnotes.

Read The Weekend Australian article here.

The global warming fencesitter's dilemma

Playing devil's advocate to win from http://xkcd.com

DESPERATELY NEEDED: A Federal Government that's prepared to take on Exclusive Brethren

Is someone, anyone, in the Rudd Government prepared to stand up and be counted in relation to the continued funding of Exclusive Brethren schools?

The issue is a simple one. Exclusive Brethren schools receive federal government funding that should be directed towards the education of the nation's poorest children.

Funding deals for Exclusive Brethren schools were set up by the Keating government. They continued and were promoted under the Howard government and still operate under the Rudd government.

The Sunday Age (April 6, 2008) reports rich Exclusive Brethren schools are receiving the same generous rate of government funding as the nation's poorest schools, including those in impoverished Aboriginal communities.

The Rudd Government has pledged to continue paying millions of dollars to the religious sect despite the group boasting that its students are "found in the middle to upper levels of the socio-economic group".

Exclusive Brethren schools are being funded as if they are Category 12 schools, which are the poorest schools in the lowest-income communities in the country. In other words, Category 12 schools serve communities which have very low incomes. Does that sound like the communities Exclusive Brethren school students come from?

Government documents obtained by The Sunday Age show Brethren schools in NSW and South Australia receive category 12 funding despite not meeting these criteria.

Federal school funding documents show that the Brethren's multi-campus NSW school, Meadowbank, and the South Australian school, Melrose Park, were funded at the same rate as "special schools", giving them the same per-student funding as Nyangatjatjara College, in the Northern Territory, the Giant Steps school for autistic students and schools for the hearing-impaired.

The Brethren's MET school in Meadowbank does not meet the criteria for category 12 funding: it is in suburban Sydney, has small class sizes, and is financially supported by a community that boasts it has no poverty.

This scandalous matter need to be addressed, and soon!

Is Northern Rivers regional living bad for your health?

The Northern Star published this account yesterday.

"I got there half an hour later and they said 'he's right to go home'; but I persisted because I knew he was not alright," Ms Randall said.
North Coast Area Health Service clinical operations executive director Denice Fletcher rejected suggestions staff at the Casino and later Lismore hospitals did not take Rhys' condition seriously, saying he was kept under close observation in the emergency department while he was at Casino.
"The patient's outward condition did not give cause for major concern," Ms Fletcher said. "Only when the patient's observations began to alter did the medical officer decide it was necessary to transfer the patient to Lismore Base Hospital for further assessment."
Despite the close observation and despite Ms Randall's persistence, it was not until 8.30pm that Rhys was transferred to Lismore Base Hospital for a detailed examination; but his reception there was no better than the one he got in his home town.
By the time Ms Randall reached the hospital, Rhys had already been put on the floor with a thin white blanket strewn over him. At that point he was drifting in and out of consciousness and Ms Randall said he did not appear aware of what was happening around him.
"I don't know if it was the ambulance staff or the hospital that put him on the floor," Ms Randall said.
"There were beds available because there was another woman come in from Casino after us and she got a bed. They obviously thought it (Rhys' condition) wasn't that bad."

This is not the first incident of its kind. It is past time for the North Coast Area Health Service to get its act together and deliver a decent service for everyone living in this region.

I have long been disturbed by the strong hint of inherent racism within the public health system, the indifference frequently displayed to individuals at the bottom of the local socio-economic scale, the moral judgements which flourish, and the marked bias of some staff doctors and private GPs working within the hospital system who appear to see themselves as gate keepers first and medicos second.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that a Northern Rivers resident is more likely to receive prompt, comprehensive assessment and vigorous, effective treatment if he/she is white, reasonably affluent, articulate, established in the community and visibly supported by family.
For everyone else regional health care is becoming something of a lottery.

Daily Examiner apologises for goof up

A very contrite Daily Examiner has today published a page one apology for its goof up yesterday.
Headed "Worker fights for Life" the Examiner says "Late on Thursday night several sources all said he (the worker) had died, but in fact he had been kept alive by the medical team at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney."

What sources? Obviously not reliable ones.

It was then the deputy editor's task to pen the editorial "Sorry for adding to distress" in which the Examiner apologises "to the family and friends of a 33-year-old-man (who was) critically injured in an industrial accident at the Grafton Shoppingworld construction site on Thursday."

Red Faces at The Daily Examiner in Grafton

Grafton's Daily Examiner, which circulates in the Clarence valley, has produced yet another blooper. And, this time it is a really big one!

In its latest stuff-up The Examiner ran a page 1 report today - Friday 4 April 2008 - that said a construction site worker who was injured on the job on Thursday died last night in hospital.

But, hold the presses. The worker didn't die as was reported - he was reported to be still alive today (Friday), but seriously injured.

How did the Examiner manage to produce this monumental stuff up?

Don't know?

Perhaps it's The Examiner's revolving door employment policy, which is similar to that of other rags that come out of APN's stable of publications.

ABC Radio gets top marks. It reported the incident accurately. Read its report here.