Australi, austra, austri....dammit - Oztria!

Travel World website on 23 January 2010
Click on image to enlarge

General info about Australia
Once the center of power for the large Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria was reduced to a small republic after its defeat in World War I. Following annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and subsequent occupation by the victorious Allies in 1945, Austria's status remained unclear for a decade. A State Treaty signed in 1955 ended the occupation, recognized Austria's independence, and forbade unification with Germany. A constitutional law that same year declared the country's "perpetual neutrality" as a condition for Soviet military withdrawal. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and Austria's entry into the European Union in 1995 have altered the meaning of this neutrality. A prosperous, democratic country, Austria entered the EU Economic and Monetary Union in 1999.

I don't know who should be more insulted at this sloppy confusion - Australia or Austria.

A Saturday walk on the arts side

Voyager
Tamasin Pepper



Arctic Meander 2009
Suvira McDonald








School of Fish
Mark Gibson
















These artists can be found at Visual Arts Network

Make your own schools league table for the NSW North Coast - everyone else is!

What with many newspapers already publishing regional school performance lists from the Rudd Government's My School website (and one coyly pretending that by creating tables containing only 6 high schools & 22 primary schools it wasn't giving a quick start to local schools league tables), we all might as well join in.
Here are links to official comparative information on many (but not all) NSW North Coast schools:

Clarence Valley Anglican School
Clarence Valley Anglican School, Clarenza campus
Grafton High School
Grafton Public School
St Mary's Primary School
Westlawn Public School
Bishop Druitt College
Casuarina Steiner School
Coffs Harbour Christian Community School - Coffs Harbour Campus
Coffs Harbour Public School
Coffs Harbour Senior College
John Paul College
Narranga Public School
Orara High School
St Augustine's Primary School
Tyalla Public School
Westlawn Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Tweed Heads Public School
Afterlee Public School
Kyogle High School
Kyogle Public School
St Brigid's Primary School
Evans River Community School
Richmond Christian College
Biala Special School
St Joseph's Primary School
Ballina High School
Alstonville High School
Woodburn Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Broadwater Public School
Cabbage Tree Island Public School
Wardell Public School
Coraki Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Empire Vale Public School
Rous Public School
Wyrallah Public School
Tregeagle Public School
Emmanuel Anglican College
Ballina Public School
St Francis Xavier Primary School
Alstonville Public School
Alstonville High School
ALESCO Learning Centre - Northern Rivers, Lismore
Caniaba Public School
Lismore High School
Lismore Public School
Lismore South Public School
Modanville Public School
St Carthage's Primary School
St John's College Woodlawn
Trinity Catholic College
Wilson Park School
Wyrallah Road Public School
Vistara Primary School
Summerland Christian College
Blue Hills College
Modanville Public School
Caniaba Public School
Kadina High School
Richmond River High School
Goonellabah Public School
Wooli Public School

Update:
On 30th January The Sydney Morning Herald released PDF download files of an A-Z list of all NSW school scores and 2 league tables containing Top 50 NSW High Schools and Top 50 NSW Primary Schools.
According to these media-produced tables:
Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School came in at an equal 49th in the reading skills section. Otherwise North Coast high schools just didn't rank highly in this particular league table.
Wilsons Creek Public School (Mullumbimby) came in an equal 9th in the reading skills section,Tweed Valley College 22nd, St Mary's Primary School (Belligen) 48th in the same section and that was the limit that our primary schools rated a mention in this league table.

I can't believe it's a leader! Australian climate change policy responses

The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that the Federal Coalition under the leadership of the Liberal Party's Tony Abbott is considering raising the price of cigarettes to help fund the so-called environmental programs he is proposing to establish in lieu of creating an emissions trading scheme and a price for carbon.

This tax increase on tobacco is apparently part of Abbott's supposedly wide range of options on the table to replace making big polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.

From 15-21 January 2010 in just seven days Victoria produced 1.895 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (via electricity from coal, natural gas and petroleum), New South Wales produced 1.970 million tonnes from the same sources, Queensland 1.592 million tonnes, and South Australia 330,000 tonnes. Without any real requirement for business to curb these gases and without the Coalition having any intention of imposing any such requirement should it return to government.

So when that internal light bulb lit up, Tony Abbott had a brilliant idea - let's tax smokers instead.1
After all each cigarette must give off at least 15mg of carbon monoxide, plus the flick of the Bic!

Is Tony Abbott turning into yet another Clayton's leader?

1 Just for the record I don't smoke

Aussie flag fuss

Now here's a man who shows some old fashioned commonsense.
David "Bangers" Bancroft, editor of the Daily Examiner in Grafton giving his Australia Day view on the fuss about flags.

THIS might sound 'unAustralian', whatever that means, but I wouldn't be disappointed if I never saw or heard another Australian flag flapping from a car window.

It might not be the right thing to say on Australia Day, but I can't stand the things.

No doubt those who buy the flags are being patriotic, and good luck to them.

But to me they are more jingoistic than a demonstration of national pride and are unnecessary.

This new addition to patriotic fervour has all the hallmarks of a commercial campaign aimed at getting the gullible to feel they aren't demonstrating properly their support of Australia unless they adorn their vehicle, their home and any other display area with an Aussie flag.

This, to me, is more at home in America than Australia, where the Stars and Stripes have always been part of the national psyche.

Such outward demonstrations of nationalism have never seemed necessary in Australia, and aren't now.

Sure, support Australian sporting teams, throw a barbecue with a few mates and feel pride in living in the best country there is. But try not to fall for the commercially motivated need to put a flag in your car window.

And at the risk of raising the ire of rampant nationalists, how about getting rid of the emblem of another country from the top corner of our flag?

You don't need a flag on your car to prove you're Australian.

Couldn't agree more.

Upriver Bill

Northern Rivers

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

DBCDE is sending out emails on Conroy's mad Internet censorship scheme

A short, snappy (and blatantly untruthful) version of the Rudd Government's plan to censor the Australian Internet from an email sent out last week by the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy.

Better be careful what you say about Stephen Conroy on Twitter then. No more threatening to set his undies on fire or vote him out of the Senate! ;-)

My School website: now that's a league table in the making

Well, the Rudd Government's comparative assessment of Australian schools (like to like, overall, government vs private) is now available on the website My School for the very first time today.
This is the message currently showing after any attempt to use the Find a School search:

"An error has occurred. Please try your request again at another time."

Nuff said!

First Blog Quote of the Month for 2010

Just as Keneally has exposed the power of the Right's faction bosses in all its bankruptcy, so has Abbott's ascension exposed the bankruptcy represented by the old guard of the Federal Liberals.
No Going Back post in The Piping Shrike post on 23rd January 2010

e-Health: something's rotten in the State of Kevin

"The End User Security Reviews clearly found that there are instances in which particular users may share user credentials (whether they be passwords or tokens) to facilitate their obligation to patient care.

In situations such as a hectic Emergency Department or a large onsite trauma situation, the adherence to business processes which promote unique identification and authentication of users of the HI Service may not be practically possible.
The security controls and awareness levels found in these assessments have been varied." {NEHTA - HI Service Security and Access Framework 13/11/09 PUBLIC}

The Medicare smart card and national health information database rolls on.
According to the National e-Health Transition Authority this is its board which is facilitating the progress of this giant collection of the nation's most personal information:

David Gonski AC - NEHTA Chair
Australian public figure and businessman.

Dr David Ashbridge
Chief Executive of the Northern Territory Department of Health and Families.
Mark Cormack
ACT Health Chief Executive.
Dr Peter Flett
Director-General of the Department of Health of WA.
Jane Halton
Secretary of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.
Prof Debora Picone AM
Director-General of NSW Health.
Mick Reid
Former chief of staff for Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon, now the Director-General of Queensland Health.

David Roberts
Secretary with the Department of Health & Human Services in Tasmania.
Dr Tony Sherbon
Dr Tony Sherbon is the Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of Health.
Fran Thorn
Secretary of the Victorian Department of Human Services.

Notice the complete absence of anyone from a consumer health lobby group in the key positions of importance?
No, the board is full of former bankers, accountants, bureaucrats, and gawd help us, a couple of individuals who helped drive the North Coast Area Health Service into the dismal state it's in today.
It is only in a list of organisations invited to attend the NEHTA Stakeholder Reference Forum that one consumer health group is invited inside the tent.
I imagine it's no coincidence that this single consumer organisation in that 33 strong group is an organisation which is firmly guided by government, receives funding from the Dept. of Health & Aging, was actively engaged in creating a so-called consumer demand for e-health and remains committed to the database scheme regardless of emerging concerns.
Even this feeble form of consumer protection is not participating in each internal working group.

NEHTA's Stakeholder Reference list:

Jurisdictions

ACT Health Department

Department of Health and Ageing

Northern Territory Department of Health and Community Services

NSW Health

Queensland Department of Health

South Australia Department of Health

Tasmanian Department of Health and Community Services

Victorian Department of Human Services

Western Australia Health Department

Industry Associations and Peak Bodies

Aged Care IT Council

Allied Health Professions Organisation (AHPA)

Australian Association of Pathology Practices (AAPP)

Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM)

Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in HealthCare (ACSQH)

Australian General Practice Network (AGPN)

Australian Health Insurance Association (AHIA)

Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA)

Australian Medical Association

Australian Medical Association (AMA)

Coalition of National Nursing Organisations (CONNO)

College of Nursing (CON)

Consumers Health Forum (CHF)

HCF Australia

Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) and Coalition for e-health

Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA)

National Coalition of Public Pathology (NCOPP)

Pharmacy Guild of Australia

Private Hospital CIO Forum

Private Hospital CIO Group

Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP)

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS)

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR)

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)

Federal election campaign information 2010: Who is funding Australian hospitals?

By now no-one is in doubt that this is an election year across Australia and, if Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce, Joe Hockey, Stephen Conroy, Jenny Macklin and Nicola Roxon are any indication, this will be a year filled to the brim with politically motivated misinformation.

Although I (like many others) have come to expect a high degree of doublespeak and obfuscation from those elected to federal and state parliaments, it is not something the electorate should tolerate.

The 2007 federal election campaign demonstrated that NSW North Coast candidates for elected office had not always factored in the possibility that voters would use the Internet to check the 'facts' they presented. At least one of these local candidates had obviously hoped that his face and a soundbite would last longer in voters' minds than the truth - needless to say he was spectacularly unsuccessful in his bid for a parliamentary seat.

Hopefully this year's local candidates will be mindful of that salutary lesson and stick to factual accounts and realisitic promises.

The public hospital system is a constant source of concern and debate on health will likely form part of the election campaigns of all major political parties during the 2010 federal election.
To offset at least some of the inevitable mudslinging, here are excerpts from The state of our public hospitals:June 2009 report (C'wealth Dept of Health & Aging) with regard to beds, funding sources and basic costs.

How many hospitals were there?

At June 2008, Australia had 1,314 hospitals, of which 58 per cent (762) were public.

There were 742 public acute hospitals in Australia, ranging from small remote hospitals with a few beds providing a narrow range of services, to large metropolitan hospitals providing a wide range of specialist services.

How many beds were there?

The number of available beds indicates the availability of hospital services. An available bed is defined as a bed which is immediately available for use by a patient and may include same-day beds, neonatal cots, hospital-in-the-home and overnight beds.

In 2007–08, the total number of available beds nationally was 84,235.
In 2007-08, the number of available public hospital beds was 56,467 (67 per cent). This means there were around 2.5 beds per 1,000 people.
The number of available private hospital beds was 27,768 or about 1.3 beds per 1,000 people.

Who funds hospitals?

Australia spent an estimated $94 billion on all health care in 2006–07 (the latest year for which this figure is available). More than a quarter ($27 billion) was spent on public hospital services. Almost 8 per cent ($7.1 billion) was spent on private hospitals.

The Australian Government funded around 40 per cent of public hospital services expenditure ($10.8 billion) through public hospital funding, rebates for private health insurance, hospital services for veterans and direct expenditure such as payments for blood products, specialised drugs and grants for diagnostic equipment.

State, Territory and Local Governments contributed 53 per cent ($14.3 billion) of public hospital services funding. Private sources contributed 7 per cent ($1.9 billion), these included private health insurance benefits and out-of-pocket payments from patients.

In comparison, more than 70 per cent (nearly $5 billion) of private hospital expenditure came via private health insurers. Of this, over 23 per cent (nearly $1.7 billion) was provided by the Australian Government through health insurance premium rebates and 47 per cent ($3.3 billion) came from premiums paid by contributors and other revenue to insurers. These figures do not include funding provided by the Australian Government through the Medicare Benefits and Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedules or for blood and blood products for patients in private hospitals.

What was the cost of an average patient?

The average cost of a patient treated in a public hospital in 2007–08 was $4,232 (excluding depreciation). This cost covers nursing and medical staff, supplies such as surgical dressings and support services such as meals, cleaning and security.

Salaries for medical and nursing staff represent 50 per cent of admitted patient costs.