A brief history 29 January 2009 to 15 March 2010:
Super clinic site
Super clinic for Grafton 29 January 2009
Provider chosen to run GP super clinic 15 July 2009
Super Clinic site a secret 17 November 2009
Site announced for new GP super clinic 13 January 2010
No methadone for super clinic 23 February 2010
GP says support for local doctors needed 24 February 2010
Sth Grafton calls for medical clinic 11 March 2010
Last Friday NBN Television reported on Clarence Valley Council's attempt to turn back the coastal tides:
"The Clarence Valley Council is undertaking erosion control measures on the banks of the Clarence River at Iluka.Thursday 18 March 2010
The Mural Hall, Parliament House, Canberra, 8.30am – 12.30pm
Universities Australia is the peak body of all Australia's universities and is committed to engaging with Parliament on issues of great national significance, and to informing social, political and commercial responses to those issues.
The UA Forum on Climate Change will focus both on the scientific evidence, and the certainties and uncertainties of that evidence, as well as the challenges of communicating the science and of bridging scientific knowledge and public policy.
The program will comprise three sessions each with a series of brief presentations covering:
Session 1: Climate change in Australia today – the evidence
Session 2: Australian research that reveals the future of climate change – certainties and uncertainties
Session 3: Responding to climate change: the social and economic impact
The speakers will include research leaders in climate science and the impacts of climate change including: Nathan Bindoff, Roger Jones, Amanda Lynch, Roger Stone, Snow Barlow, Marie Keatley, Janette Lindesay, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, and John Quiggin
Some of the issues that will be covered are:
For more information visit www.scienceinpublic.com.au/blog/ua
For more information and to register please contact Niall Byrne, Science in Public Ph: 03 9398 1416, Mobile: 0417 131 977
Email: niall@scienceinpublic.com.au
Just as the Rudd Government has two bills before Parliament which would a) allow the Australian Taxation Office to hand secret taxpayer information to other government agencies to "prevent or lessen" a serious threat to public health or safety and b) establish a national database containing every citizen's personal residential and health information in the face of serious continuing doubts concerning data security and function creep, as well as intending to sanction the non-consensual handling of personal information to facilitate research in the public interest, not just for medical and health research, the Australian Law Reform Commission releases a series of recommendations which advise government to weaken criminal sanctions in certain circumstances for improperly disclosing information.
In the face of evidence that Medicare, Centrelink, the Tax Office and certain other government agencies all have a long history of spying on individual client records and that theft and sale of health information is not unknown internationally - do we really need to see criminal sanctions watered down for any form of unlawful information sharing?
Of course the principal motivation for establishing this national database is not just installing an e-Health program, it also appears to be a desire to create a backdoor citizen identification scheme similar to those proposed in relation to the Australia Card and Access Card, so this haphazard approach to the security of a citizen's personal digital information is perhaps par for the course.
ALRC media release on 11 March 2010:
The final report of the Australian Law Reform Commission's comprehensive review of Commonwealth secrecy laws, Secrecy Laws and Open Government in Australia (ALRC Report 112) was tabled in federal Parliament today. The report is the product of a 15-month inquiry and makes 61 recommendations for reform. It sets out a new and principled framework designed to reinforce open and accountable government while ensuring adequate protection for Commonwealth information that should legitimately be kept confidential......
Prof Croucher stated that a key focus of the ALRC report was to "wind back" the use of criminal sanctions, for the unauthorised disclosure of information, including the repeal of s 70 of the Crimes Act 1914, which has attracted consistent criticism over the years. "Criminal sanctions should only be imposed where the unauthorised release of information has caused, or is likely or intended to cause, harm to identified public interests."
ALRC Report 112 Secrecy Laws and Open Government in Australia
Figure 1. Cross-section of a sandy beach showing the significant difference in the volume of sediment eroded in high-magnitude storms (1:100 year) compared to seasonal erosional events.
