Project SafeCom News and Updates 6 April 2008 =A4 - In this Edition - =A4 1. Named: the wharfies' deep throat 2. Chaser's APEC case may be dropped 3. Sexual harassment still alive and hurting 4. Poorer families left stranded 5. An idea is the first step to real change 6. Eyes right, left and centre 7. Pressure for Rudd on legal aid 8. Haneef: nine AFP staff still on his tail 9. Haneef inquiry 'risks being toothless' 10. Antony Loewenstein: A nonexistent Iraq 11. Australia 'reverting on climate change' 12. ACCC after 'inconvenient grocery truths' 13. Get used to being greener, poorer 14. The planet shows us who's got the power 15. Garrett steps in to protect ancient Pilbara rock art from mining 16. We put it there, so let's go first in cleaning up 17. Granted an island home 18. Ombudsman questions 'pay for time' asylum policy 19. Ombudsman's Report on Detention Debts 20. Immigration Dept needs to improve detainee debt arrangements: review 21. Immigration to lift game on debt 22. Thanks for the enemies 23. Illegal guards still common after clean-up 24. Immigration becomes hot issue in NZ election 25. A timely question Rudd should raise 26. Chinese human rights activist jailed 27. Tibet: An Eyewitness Account 28. Tibet: The Path of Most Resistance 29. Tibet: The Perfect Torture -|| This is the Project SafeCom Article - published since 2001 -|| as the 'Project SafeCom Daily News and Updates'. -|| -|| To enjoy a continued subscription to the Article, -|| you need to be an approved, a registered and paid-up Member of -|| Project SafeCom's Association. You can become a Member -|| through this page: -|| -|| To Purchase online to this Article or to manage your subscription, visit -|| online.htm Named: the wharfies' deep throat Morning Herald Andrew West April 5, 2008 ONE of the most enduring mysteries of the epic dispute that convulsed Australia's waterside has been solved. John Coombs, the former national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, has revealed to the Herald the identity of his source inside the bosses' camp. The source, who Coombs called "Friend No. 2" and who was dramatised as a deep throat in the 2007 mini-series Bastard Boys, was the former army officer Paul McTernan. He kept Coombs aware of developments inside a new stevedoring company that the businessman Chris Corrigan had established to break the wharfies' union. The company, Fynwest, employed non-union labour drawn from the ranks of former soldiers - many from the Special Air Service - and had been set up by Corrigan's Patrick Corporation, backed by the Howard government. Around midnight on April 7, 1998, teams of security guards - along with Rottweilers and German shepherds - took over 17 Patrick-owned docks around Australia. The unionised workforce was sacked, then locked out, beginning a month-long stand-off that would end only when the High Court upheld the workers' right to union membership. But Coombs had known about the plan for almost six months. In December he had exposed a secret plan to train 75 union busters in the Persian Gulf port of Dubai. He knew every move of Fynwest, Patrick and the National Farmers Federation, which joined the conspiracy in early 1998, from the beginning. That is because his key contact, McTernan, was a leader of former soldiers. "He was definitely the leak, Friend No. 2," Coombs told the Herald this week. "Why he decided to white-ant the whole thing, only he would know. I didn't waste my time contemplating a second agenda [by McTernan] because it was obvious from the start that he was trying to bomb the whole thing." McTernan remains guarded about his role. In two telephone interviews with the Herald on Thursday, McTernan, who prefers not to disclose his location and says he records all his phone conversations, said he could "not really comment in regards to what's been stated", then denied he was the second friend. "I've never been called Friend No. 2," he said. "It's a glorification to make for a good read." But if McTernan denies being the man behind the code name, he acknowledges having regular contact with Coombs from the beginning of the Patrick conspiracy in November 1997. While McTernan's contact with Coombs has been documented, in articles by Pamela Williams in the The Financial Review and in Helen Trinca and Anne Davies's book Waterfront, Coombs has - until now - guarded Friend No. 2's identity. He insists he still does not know the identity of "Friend No. 1," - the "well-spoken" senior federal official who tipped him off about an advertisement in an army newspaper seeking personnel for Fynwest - but says McTernan proved the most useful throughout the crucial month of November 1997, as the recruits were readied for Dubai. "He was making life very easy for us," Coombs said. "We were destroying the conspiracy that Patricks and the Howard government were trying to implement. I cannot recall a single occasion when Paul gave me information that turned out to be of no value." Having concealed McTernan's identity for a decade, Coombs now says a full history - to be published this year by Dr Chris Shiel - demands the disclosure. "Ten years has elapsed," Coombs said. "Clearly it was always our intention to ensure that history was accurate =85 and it is appropriate to now make available some of the information that was withheld from previous efforts to document it." The dispute between Coombs and McTernan centres not on whether McTernan initiated and maintained contact but on whether McTernan accepts the moniker of Friend No. 2. After Waterfront was published in 2000, he says he contacted the authors. "I said I was never called Friend No. 2," he recalled. "My name is bloody Paul and I spoke to John Coombs as Paul. I introduced myself as Paul McTernan and gave him my number. I didn't have anything to hide. I thought this was all just fanciful language." Coombs agrees that McTernan never tried to conceal his identity. But Coombs, a master tactician, was not about to trumpet the name of his key leaker. McTernan says he contacted Coombs after receiving a phone call from "a friend in Canberra". This squares with Coombs's account of Friend No. 1 telling him that communication was getting too dangerous and he would put him in contact with a new source, who would become Friend No. 2. McTernan says he contacted Coombs in early November, well before the Dubai scheme was exposed, to win the MUA man's trust and co-operation. McTernan believed Fynwest would be a rival, not a replacement, workforce on the docks and says his experience in management at the security firm Mayne Nickless had underscored the importance of co-operating with unions. "All I did, from a business management perspective, was to make enquiries," McTernan said. "It was to make a formal introduction to say that we're coming into competition. I thought I'd rather get the unions on-side than off-side." But McTernan acknowledges that, in asking questions of Coombs, he was also revealing information to the union. "Exactly," he said. "During our conversation, I was testing him out and obviously he was testing me out." McTernan also claims to have told his boss at Fynwest, a former SAS officer, Peter Kilfoyle, about his first phone call to Coombs. "Peter hit the roof and said: 'What did you do that for?"' Yesterday Kilfoyle told the Herald he did not know about McTernan's November tip-off and said he did not authorise any contact until the following February. "If I had known he was speaking to Coombsy that early on, I would have sacked him on the spot," he said. Kilfoyle also insists that McTernan, and every other recruit, knew they were part of an operation to replace, not compete with, unionised workers on Australia's waterfront. But among the information Coombs says he got from McTernan on November 27, days before the former soldiers were due to depart for Dubai, was a motherlode of employment contracts, the first proof of the conspiracy. They were delivered to Coombs's colleague, Col Davies, at the Ettamogah Pub, north of Brisbane. McTernan denies handing over the documents but says he knows who did. Three months after their first phone contact, Coombs and McTernan would finally meet, at the Ibis Hotel in Melbourne. The Dubai operation had collapsed, Fynwest had walked away from the deal and a Farmers Federation company had stepped in to take over the management of the non-union labour. The secret plan had already been blown. Coombs was accompanied at the meeting by the then ACTU assistant secretary, Greg Combet. "I had never clapped eyes on Paul but I can tell you I picked him walking through the pub," Coombs said. "He wasn't huge but he looked like someone who could look after himself. Maybe it was the expression on his face. These army blokes are pretty dominating. I mean, they fight wars." Chaser's APEC case may be dropped April 03, 2008 11:13am Article from: AAP MEMBERS of ABC TV's satirical Chaser team should know by the end of the month if charges of breaching APEC security will go ahead or be dropped. In the Downing Centre Local Court today, a representative of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said the director's office had just taken over the case. Marianne Carey said the DPP was now considering from lawyers for the team and she was hopeful a decision would be made by the next court listing. "I will endeavour to have a decision by that date," she told Deputy Chief Magistrate Paul Cloran. After putting the case over to April 29, Mr Cloran said, "I just don't want to have this matter rolling over." A two-week hearing beginning on July 7 has been scheduled for the charges against 11 people involved in driving a convoy of three cars into APEC's high security zone on September 6 last year. The Chaser team of 10 men and one woman, aged 25 to 47, face charges of entering an APEC restricted area without justification. The case has been adjourned several times amid speculation the charges may be dropped. All 11 accused have pleaded not guilty and none appeared in court today. Sexual harassment still alive and hurting Age Carol Nader and Ben Schneiders April 5, 2008 "CAN you come in here for a shag?" The question would seem unequivocally inappropriate in any workplace. But it's the young woman's first job. She needs the experience and the money. Complaining about the boss's "joke" would make her office job untenable, so she puts up with it. Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick was told the story this week. In another case, a woman who lives on the site of her workplace in remote Australia, told how male colleagues would knock on her door, asking, "Is it my turn tonight?" Ms Broderick says it is extraordinary that, as Australia approaches the 25th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act next year, such blatant sexual harassment still happens at work. She says that while the legislation is strong, she wants a review to ensure it is up-to-date with changes in technology. Ms Broderick also says employers should be giving the issue as much attention as they do profits. As finally settled a very public claim of sexual harassment and discrimination by former partner Christina Rich last week, the case has exposed the blurred lines around sexual harassment. Among claims that her company had a "boys' club" culture and that some partners had told her she won work because of her breasts, Ms Rich also complained about being kissed on the cheek. As the boundaries between work and play dissolve, partly due to the ubiquity of new technologies, the definition of what constitutes sexual harassment is becoming fuzzier. When can a platonic kiss on the cheek be interpreted as an expectation of much more? When does asking out a colleague that you fancy cross the border into inappropriate propositioning? Ms Broderick says social networking sites such as Facebook =97 where many people are "friends" with their colleagues =97 and the profusion of mobile phones and BlackBerries add to the confusion. "A lot of people are carrying work in their handbag." And men are worried too. They ask her: "Can't I ask someone out on a date in the workplace? Is it possible to flirt in the workplace?" Her response is: "If you ask someone on a date and they say no, and you ask them again and they say, 'Please don't ask me again,' and you continue to ask them over shop or text and continue to harass them, that's when it's turning from acceptable behaviour to non-acceptable behaviour." Harassment can also be in the form of unwelcome cards or gifts, or constant questions about a colleague's boyfriend. And it's all about context. "If you have a relationship with somebody in which you do share jokes and topics of conversation and it's mutual, that's fine," says Fiona Knowles, chairwoman of the workplace relations section of the Law Institute of Victoria and a senior associate at Holding Redlich. "Giving somebody flowers can be in a completely innocuous and non-sexual way, but then there can be giving somebody flowers in a romantic way. That can be the difference." Andrew Stewart, professor of law at the University of South Australia, says that as people spend more time at work they inevitably socialise together more. Throw alcohol into the mix, and things become even more confused. "If you're in a well-lit office, where there's plenty of people around, where everyone is sober, that's far less of a breeding ground for harassment than the pub after work." Ms Broderick says that often women do not complain about what they have experienced. "Women are scared of victimisation." A common refrain is that complaining would mean career death, or the person making the complaint might be forever labelled "unhinged". Sometimes it is in the eye of the beholder. Sue Barnes, a partner at workplace lawyers FCB, says the person themselves needs to find that conduct offensive. That was highlighted by the Rich case, where she complained about being kissed on the cheek by her boss. "A lot of women wouldn't necessarily find that offensive," she says. Ms Barnes says there are still an "awful lot of complaints" about sexual harassment. But in most cases, it is not known whether they are proven, because they are either not pursued or are settled out of court. In most cases the payouts are between $5000 and $15,000. The person making the complaint needs to prove damage =97 that they went to a psychologist, they were stressed or developed anxiety or depression. High legal fees =97 which for business can often reach between $80,000 and $100,000 =97 means about 75% to 90% of cases are settled, she says. But still, the response from business has been patchy. "There are companies with thousands and thousands of employees who have never addressed the issue." Ms Broderick says harassment is something she encountered herself, and it was a classic power imbalance. She was a junior lawyer. He was a senior manager of a client who persisted in asking her out to lunch, even though she had made it clear she wasn't interested. It went on for several weeks. "I remember during that time feeling uncomfortable, and unsure about how best to handle the situation," she says. In the end, she dealt with it in her own way =97 "by being very definite in my refusal". SEXUAL HARASSMENT CAN INVOLVE: =95 Unwelcome touching, hugging or kissing =95 Staring or leering =95 Suggestive comments or jokes =95 Sexually explicit pictures, screen savers, posters or internet sites =95 Unwanted invitations to go out on dates or requests for sex =95 Intrusive questions about an employee's private life or body =95 Unnecessary familiarity Insults or taunts based on your sex =95 Sexually explicit shops or SMS messages =95 Physical and sexual assault =95 Indecent exposure, stalking or obscene communications =95 In all those cases, the behaviour must be unwelcome, of a sexual nature, it must be such that a reasonable person would anticipate in the circumstances that the person who was harassed would be offended, humiliated and/or intimidated. SOURCE: SEX DISCRIMINATION COMMISSIONER Poorer families left stranded Age Eli Greenblat April 5, 2008 THE "tyranny of distance" was once an apt description of Australia's edgy feeling of geographic isolation from the rest of the world. But today that term best fits the predicament of hundreds of thousands of home owners stranded on the fringes of the nation's capital cities away from the better jobs, services and infrastructure. Experts say the new phenomenon could create ghettos where homes close to the CBD become the exclusive playground of the rich, while those at the bottom rung are pushed further and further out. "Left to its devices it can become a force for social division in our city," says Melbourne-based planner Marcus Spiller, a director of SGS Economics & Planning. "That's because those people who are in socio-economic groups that are reliant on jobs, or migrant groups and people who haven't had opportunity to secure good education and quality jobs, the only housing they can access is going to be at a point distant from the central city areas." Within planning circles it is also referred to as "distance decay" and it worsens as cities get bigger. "And from a generational point of view, their kids will be growing up in areas which have significantly lower quality job and educational opportunities," says Mr Spiller. "There are practical limitations to how far you can travel, and place-specific disadvantage starts to reinforce itself because people just set their aspirations to the local standard and not to the metropolitan standard." This feeds into lower school retention rates, poorer health outcomes and a greater dependency on welfare payments. Figures collected by The Age reveal that properties located more than 30 kilometres from Melbourne's CBD =97 which takes in suburbs such as Seaford, Cranbourne, Lilydale, Sunbury and Melton =97 are not enjoying the same appreciation in value as their inner-city counterparts. A typical home bought in Berwick would have risen only 95% in value between 1979 and 2006, whereas a property in St Kilda or South Yarra shot up 273% over the same period. Properties in Melbourne's traditional "mortgage belt" in the south-east increased by 137%. Statistics, partly sourced from the Reserve Bank of Australia, underline the fact that while median house prices for Melbourne went up 25% last year not all home owners are experiencing the same increase in their net worth. RBA head of economic analysis Dr Anthony Richards says the greater run-up in closer-in and waterfront suburbs suggests that as the income and borrowing power of households has risen, there has been greater competition for housing viewed as more desirable. "In four of the five major capitals, average annual growth in house prices within five kilometres of city centres has been about 2 percentage points higher than for houses close to the edge of the cities. The exception is Adelaide where the difference is smaller." Such a difference might look small at first glance, but compounded over nearly 30 years it translates into a 70% boost to the value of a home. An inquiry in 2004 by the Productivity Commission also discovered a marked variation in the rates of price increase both between the capital cities and within them. "For example, over the past decade, annual real rates of increase in individual Melbourne suburbs have ranged from minus 3% to 16%," the report said. Mr Spiller says one solution to distance decay and the ghetto-isation of Melbourne is to relocate high-paying jobs to the outer suburbs and create secondary CBDs elsewhere. He cites a plan to revitalise central Dandenong, a 20-year project involving $290 million in State Government spending and up to $1 billion in private investment. The aim is to turn it into the capital of Melbourne's south-east growth corridor. There also need to be opportunities for less wealthy people to live in more affluent suburbs and participate in the robust local economy. Victorian Council of Social Service spokesman David Imber says: "There is increasing evidence that people in outer suburbs are being excluded from the economic activity that people take for granted. "We think it is critical that we have a Melbourne and a Victoria where all Victorians have the opportunity to participate and live in a liveable city." VCOSS's state budget submission calls for a number of policy commitments including delivering housing for people close to work opportunities, and better public transport for those in outer suburbs and regional locations to access employment. An idea is the first step to real change 2020 Summit does matter as it will ensure voices are heard. The Age Hugh Evans April 5, 2008 CRITICS of the 2020 Summit gatherings are overlooking an important point: ideas matter. When 100 young people and a thousand other Australians wash up on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin this month, Canberra =97 nay, the nation =97 will never have seen a gathering like it since Federation. Though we all hail from different backgrounds and ideologies, we are unique and bound by our common devotion to a better Australia by 2020. Cynics and nay-sayers have already dismissed both the youth and major summits as "talk fests". But they are overlooking a critical point: ideas matter. Words contribute significantly to the challenges before us and are most valuable. Dialogue defines us; what problems we are facing and what kinds of solutions we have for them. Cynics are half-right: ideas without action are meaningless =97 but action without thought is positively dangerous. Having a better Australia in 2020 begins with a country that empowers more of its people to imagine and to act on their imagination. Ideas can and do shape reality =97 good ones as well as bad. A powerful idea can radically change our nation's future. It is no accident that the youth summit is being held a week before the major summit. We are the generation that has to face up to the compelling challenges of tackling climate change, indigenous health, global poverty and mental health. These are more than key areas =97 they are critical moral issues that warrant recognising and acknowledging the truth and coming up with a clear long-term plan of action. These problems are not going to be solved by special interests, but by people with creative ideas committed to using government to enhance each person's ability to live a better life. The responsibility is on us to come armed with a fresh set of eyes in looking at these burning moral issues. "Think globally and act locally," the saying goes. But I would also say all participants attending the summits have to think and act globally. Every action, even the smallest one, has value in the wider world. Nowhere is this more forcibly felt than in the fight against climate change. Challenges surrounding pollution stabilisation, carbon reduction and creating clean jobs are all before us. It is an urgent, daunting and unprecedented challenge for our generation and now a question of life and death. The science tells us we are facing a fried future that threatens our very existence. If we don't stay in the two-degree warming range, Australia will face a crisis because our nearest regional neighbours are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Global warming and global poverty are morphing into one issue. By 2020 Australia should be among the world leaders in achieving the global blueprint to make poverty history. We have the plan, we have the resources, we just need the will. It is in our own interests to ensure stability and growth in the countries that surround us. There is a greater capacity for Australia to help, at relatively low cost and with the potential to reap benefits of our own. At home, there is no more important national task or a more telling measure of our strength as a nation than ensuring all 460,000 indigenous citizens have access to the same quality of health care as other Australians. This is their human right and our collective responsibility. The Rudd Government's recent plan to tackle indigenous life expectancy is important. But we have to ensure it goes far beyond health. We need to break down the barriers between health, education and employment. Another area where ideas and action are desperately needed is mental health. Here in the lucky country, seven people (mainly young people) take their lives each day. That's too many lives lost and needs urgent attention. The World Health Organisation says depression could soon be our leading disability, costing more people "the chance for productive lives" than almost any other illness. The stigma attached to mental illness is slowly being eroded. We now know that understanding mental health is the key to alleviating Australia's extremely high suicide rate. The future does not belong to those who coast along, but those who reach out to the challenges ahead with new ideas and pursue them with unbounded energy. Let's not allow the reductionists to prevail. Let us focus our minds on change that is possible. The youth and major summit offer a chance for us to renew our commitment to sensible, constructive and creative changes that by 2020 will make a profound impact on people's everyday lives. A torrent of ideas will no doubt flow out of both summits. Some of our greatest ideas could come from unexpected places. Despite what the critics will argue, those ideas will and do count. Such a result would honour our legacy as a hopeful nation. Hugh Evans is a former Young Australian of the Year, recipient of the Sir John Monash Post-Graduate Scholarship and the co-chair of next week's 2020 Youth Summit. Eyes right, left and centre Age Michelle Grattan April 4, 2008 Kevin Rudd's emerging foreign policy is ambitious, but he risks tripping over detail as he attempts to cover all bases. THE European leg of Kevin Rudd's grand tour is showing the ambitious reach and sometimes nature of the Prime Minister's emerging foreign policy. Rudd has declared he wants a new era of closer relations with Europe. "The new Australian Government is committed to building a new positive partnership with Europe =97 a new economic partnership, a new security partnership, a new development partnership and a partnership on climate change," he told a Brussels audience. He also said he would depart from the "normal past practice" of Australian prime ministers and ministers who arrived in Brussels to shout at the Europeans over trade; he was about talking and working together. In part, Rudd is distinguishing himself from John Howard, as he is wont to do whenever he gets the chance. Howard's political attitudes to the Europeans were set in the 1970s when he was Malcolm Fraser's special trade negotiations minister and got beaten up by them. (It wasn't only Howard who had run-ins with them over trade.) Much later, European attitudes to the Iraq war irritated him. As the Doha negotiations struggle on, there may be method in Rudd's conciliatory approach on trade. But in general, the Europeans are not that responsive to language on trade, tough or soft. Rudd's big reach out to Europe also reflects his desire, laid out on the eve of this trip, for his Government to engage in activist middle-power diplomacy. Issues such as climate change demand Australia seek a coalition of allies; they also resonate in Europe. On the other hand, the emphasis on Europe rather goes against Labor's more traditional regional perspective. The contradiction is resolved by the fact that Rudd has his eyes everywhere =97 which then raises the risk of being able to watch nothing properly. But it is hard to see a serious downside coming from the fresh attention to Europe. Rudd's high profile on Afghanistan =97 represented by his appearance at the current NATO summit =97 is more controversial. He is the first Australian prime minister to go to a NATO summit. Rudd's message is that all countries must pull their weight in Afghanistan and there needs to be a better co-ordinated strategy linking military and civilian efforts there. "It will be a long-term commitment," he said in Brussels. The case for his high-profile role is that Australia has 1000 troops there =97 the largest non-NATO contribution among the 47,000 contingent =97 and that we should try to influence events. Indeed, Rudd could be accused of if he did not. The is that by playing such a prominent political role, Rudd could simply be getting Australia more deeply involved in what many believe is an unwinnable conflict. In being a spear-carrier at NATO, Rudd is pursuing the American line. Hugh White, of the Australian National University, suggests there is an implicit quid pro quo: that one reason why the Americans accepted so readily Australia's plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq was that the Labor Government was willing to spruik among the allies the need to do more about Afghanistan. "Australia has no interest in NATO other than via the US. Rudd is at NATO in order to do Bush a favour," White says. Here is the whiff of the again. Howard used to do Bush favours, now Rudd is doing them. White believes it is "a bit rich" for Australia to be lecturing Europeans on their role in Afghanistan when we account for such a small proportion of the force and our casualties have been very light compared with those of some countries. He also warns that Australia is "highly likely to end up being pressed to do more". Rudd has said he has no plans to increase the troop commitment. He reaffirmed this when questioned in Brussels on Wednesday: "We believe that that commitment is sufficient." Some critics think the military commitment is too large. Amin Saikal, director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at ANU, urges a major change in Australian strategy. He says Australia should recalibrate its effort towards civilian aid, particularly for public administration training, education and health. "We should try to leave the military side to the Americans and the Europeans. We could make a more useful contribution if we put greater emphasis on the civilian side," Saikal says. Saikal says that dealing with Afghanistan must involve getting the right system of government. The present system of a strong presidency has one winner and too many losers, he says. There is a certain optimism about Rudd. It came out this week in his upbeat assessment of the Doha round's prospects, about which many observers are still pessimistic. One feels that he thinks, despite warnings to the contrary, that Afghanistan will be all right in the end if we just go about things in the right way. Maybe he's right. In the short term, the NATO summit will get more troops from France, and a declaration from countries participating in Afghanistan of "a firm and shared long-term commitment", promising to "support each other in sharing the burden". The long run is more problematic. Labor used to criticise the Howard government for not having an exit strategy from Iraq. Recently Rudd was asked what the exit strategy from Afghanistan was. He didn't have a very convincing answer. If Rudd misjudges Afghanistan, it will become a black mark against his prime ministership, just as Iraq and Vietnam left stains on the record of former PMs. Michelle Grattan is political editor. Pressure for Rudd on legal aid Morning Herald Joel Gibson Indigenous Affairs Reporter April 4, 2008 MORE funding for the struggling Aboriginal Legal Aid services could be a key to economic development in remote indigenous communities, says a criminologist, Chris Cunneen. The comments by Professor Cunneen, the New South Global Professor in Criminology at the University of NSW, add to pressure on the Federal Government to increase the budget for indigenous legal services. The Herald revealed on Monday that the Government had offered no extra funding in real terms in negotiations with the Aboriginal Legal Aid services, despite a Labor promise to do so. In NSW services such as a hotline for indigenous people in custody and family violence officer positions were to be cut by June unless funding was increased, said the administrators. In the latest issue of the Criminal Law Journal Professor Cunneen and a co-author, Melanie Schwartz, say heavy workloads have left indigenous legal services incapable of dealing with the civil and family law issues needed to build economic infrastructure in remote Australia. The legal aid providers are supposed to cover all legal services, but have to limit their focus to criminal matters because federal funding has not kept pace with inflation since 1996, and states refuse to top it up. "Indigenous people in remote communities do not have access to adequate information, let alone advice or representation about =85 civil law matters, such as housing, consumer rights, credit and debt, employment law, negligence, corporations law and so on," the article says. More funding is needed to stem jail rates that have risen by more than 20 per cent for men and 30 per cent for women since 2000, and to tackle the related rise in indigenous victims of crime, it says. Haneef: nine AFP staff still on his tail Morning Herald Tom Allard National Security Editor April 4, 2008 NINE federal police staff members are still working full-time on the Mohamed Haneef case as the investigation of the Indian doctor - and the bill to taxpayers - keep ticking over. The cost of the investigation into Dr Haneef's alleged links to a British terrorist cell is already approaching $8 million, even though charges against the former registrar at Gold Coast Hospital were dropped more than eight months ago and an independent inquiry has been initiated into what went wrong. That inquiry is expected to start this month, and it emerged yesterday that the man heading it, John Clarke, QC, has rebuffed entreaties from Dr Haneef's lawyers to widen his powers, which do not allow him to subpoena witnesses or documents. Responding to a question on notice in Parliament, the Australian Federal Police said it had nine members working on the Haneef matter full-time, while five others provided assistance to the investigation "periodically". That is roughly equivalent to the police resources devoted to the average murder case where charges are pending or have been laid. "It's extraordinary that, after more than $7.5 million of taxpayers' money and many months after the [Director of Public Prosecutions] said he had no case to answer, my client is still a suspect," said Dr Haneef's lawyer, Rod Hodgson. "If there was anything to be found, it would have been found a long time ago. "I question their motives when they are about to face an inquiry. It's a smokescreen to avoid the scrutiny that the AFP should be subjected to." Dr Haneef was arrested at Brisbane Airport after British authorities told the federal police that he was connected to a botched plot to set off car bombs in Glasgow and London. After being detained for 12 days as police began an investigation into the allegations, he was finally charged with recklessly supporting a terrorist organisation on the basis that he had given a SIM card to his second cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, a suspect in the bombings, eight months earlier. It later emerged that the SIM card was nowhere near the bombings and that Dr Haneef had repeatedly tried to contact British police to assist them before he tried to leave Australia. Dr Haneef was eventually granted bail but then put into immigration detention by the Howard government. After a public outcry he was released and the charge dropped in July. "It looks like they are shopping for a justification for what they did to Haneef," said the Greens senator Kerry Nettle. "But we have all seen so much evidence that he wasn't connected to what happened in the UK." A federal police spokesman said yesterday: "The resources allocated to the investigation are appropriate and proportional to the work being carried out." He would not comment further, but it is understood that much of the work involves liaising with authorities in Britain and India. Mr Hodgson said the investigation meant Dr Haneef was less likely to come to Australia to give evidence to the inquiry, although he would co-operate fully. Mr Hodgson said he had received a letter from Mr Clarke yesterday rejecting calls to expand the powers of his inquiry. Besides being unable to compel witnesses or subpoena documents, the inquiry cannot protect anyone who appears from adverse consequences - such as being demoted - if they give evidence that may reveal the wrongdoing of superiors or colleagues. The Robert McClelland, has said he would consider giving the inquiry powers akin to those of a royal commission if Mr Clarke asked for them. Haneef inquiry 'risks being toothless' By staff writers April 03, 2008 11:39am Article from: ANYONE engaged in wrongdoing during the botched case against Mohamed Haneef is unlikely to be honest at a government inquiry, his lawyer says. Peter Russo said the government inquiry into the case of the Indian doctor needed the powers to compel witnesses to testify, or it would become a =93toothless tiger=94. =93It is reasonable to assume that where there has been government error, those in error are likely to be embarrassed, ashamed, some will be in self-protect mode and some will go to ground,=94 Mr Russo, who successfully fought to have terror charges against Dr Haneef dropped, wrote in an article published on .au today. Mr Russo=92s article expands on concerns expressed by Dr Haneef last month that the inquiry would need =93coercive powers=94. =93I am very pleased to hear that there is going to be an inquiry,'' Dr Haneef said. =93Hopefully it will take the right course. I think there should be powers to compel people to give evidence, otherwise the truth won't be revealed.=94 Mr Russo was writing a guest post on Blogocracy, the .au political forum hosted by blogger Tim Dunlop. =93It is not realistic to expect that such persons are going to voluntarily give an outpouring of candour, particularly if the impeached conduct involves potential government impropriety,=94 he wrote. =93It is also unlikely that such people are going to even acknowledge that things went wrong.=94 Former NSW Supreme Court judge John Clarke, who will head the inquiry, needed coercive powers to be able to receive all relevant evidence and testimony, Mr Russo said. =93Coercive powers are needed to make sure that all relevant documentary evidence can be compelled to be produced and all relevant witnesses can be compelled to attend and be required to answer all questions which are properly within the terms of reference,=94 Mr Russo said. =93Without such powers, the people who should be answering the questions are well within their rights, if they choose, to take the standpoint taken by a petulant child who does not want to do something: =91You can't make me, so there=92.=94 Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty and former immigration minister Kevin Andrews are among the witnesses expected to testify at the Clarke Inquiry. Last July, Dr Haneef was arrested at Brisbane Airport and was held in custody for 12 days before being charged in the wake of foiled terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow. The charges of recklessly supporting a terrorist group were based on him giving a phone SIM card to one of the accused in Britain, a second cousin, eight months before the attacks. Those charges were later dropped. After Dr Haneef was granted bail, his visa was revoked by Mr Andrews on the basis of secret evidence supplied by the AFP that has never been made public. The Clarke inquiry will be asked to report by September 30. Antony Loewenstein: A nonexistent Iraq UNLEASHED Antony Loewenstein Freelance Journalist and Author 3 April 2008, 17:00 More than five years after the start of the Iraq war, the country remains mired in conflict. The Washington Post highlighted the quagmire this week: Attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces soared across Baghdad in the last week of March to the highest levels since the deployment of additional U.S. troops here reached full strength last June, according to U.S. military data and analysis. The vast majority of the Western media has marked the anniversary of the invasion with analysis of the ways in which the war was fought, rather than an examination of the legality or morality of the action. Propaganda becomes accepted truth. "We" are winning. The "surge" is working. Iraqis are "pleased" with our presence. Nowhere were Iraqis featured. Their voices were deemed irrelevant. Armchair commentators, most of whom had only seen Iraq through the eyes of American soldiers, pontificated about the country's future and Iran's allegedly malign influence. The fact that 160,000 American troops and over 160,000 private contractors occupy the nation was ignored. The country remains largely controlled by militias backed by Iran or Washington, Sunni and Shiite death squads tasked for ethnic cleansing. Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell writes that the fifth anniversary could have been a moment of serious media reflection on its own discredited role in the invasion. But alas: In the thousands of articles and television reports marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, nearly every important aspect of the war was probed. Fingers were pointed at the usual Bremer, and Cheney; stubborn Republicans and weak-willed Democrats, among many others=97but conspicuously absent from the media coverage was any soul-searching on behalf of the press, as if there had been no major media slips or tragic omissions over the past five years. With months to plan for the commemoration, the media were ready to take stock of themselves. The recent battle in Basra between US-backed Iraqi forces and cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army was labelled by George W. Bush as a "defining moment in the history of a free Iraq". Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took responsibility for the struggle to crush al-Sadr's militia. It was a dismal failure and Washington quickly backed away from its initial support. "After five years of massive US training and equipment", argues commentator Robert Dreyfus, "the Iraqi armed forces weren't even able to take control of Iraq's second-largest city." Transparency group Wikileaks just released a secret US document that revealed a top Iraqi police general provided al-Sadr's militias with American-made weapons and intelligence. Washington has spent years demonising the Mahdi Army as an Iranian proxy. The Western media rarely explain the complex tribal loyalties of the various Iraqi factions. The "good guys" are not the ones being funded by the West. After an estimated one million Iraqis deaths since 2003, the refugee crisis is staggering in its magnitude. Travelling through the Middle East last year, the issues of the Iraqi exodus struck me while I was in Iran, Syria and Egypt. Millions of displaced people are struggling to find work, shelter and meaning. Colleague Mike Otterman recently met Iraqi refugees in Syria and discovered countless tales of violence against civilians by Americans, al-Qaeda or rogue militias. As one of the finest journalists on the war, Nir Rosen, has said: "Iraq does not exist anymore". On the fifth anniversary, The Australian newspaper editorialised that despite the "poor planning and botched execution", "the justification for the US intervention remains as strong as ever". No price is too high to support Washington's imperial designs. Solomon Hughes, in his 2007 book, War on Terror Inc. writes that "the whole direction of transatlantic responses to the terrorist attacks [on 9/11] relied on profit-making companies." Rest assured that somebody is making a killing from endless war. Australia 'reverting on climate change' April 03, 2008 03:48pm Article from: AAP THE Australian delegation to climate change talks in Bangkok has turned the clock back to the Howard era by failing to back binding greenhouse targets, environment group Greenpeace says. Negotiators from more than 160 nations are taking part in the first round of UN-led talks since last December's Bali meeting to advance plans for a new global greenhouse treaty. According to Greenpeace activists in Bangkok, Australian delegation leader Jan Adams yesterday reverted to Howard government rhetoric of supporting US-style, long-term aspirational goals rather than binding targets. "The Australian delegate suggested that a post-2012 commitment period shouldn't have binding emission reduction commitments, it should be aspirational," Greenpeace spokesman Paul Winn said from Bangkok. "They're still following the line of the US, they still seem to be aligned with the Umbrella Group," Mr Winn said. The Umbrella Group is a loose coalition of non-EU developed countries including the US, Canada and Japan - which has argued against binding targets. Greenpeace said Ms Adams' rhetoric was out of step with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's climate change policies and more in line with those of former prime minister John Howard, who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. "If this is (Climate Change Minister) Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd's line, we just don't know." Ms Adams heads the Climate Change Department's international division and has the title of ambassador for the environment, a position she held under the former coalition government. Mr Winn said much of the international negotiating team in the Howard era had remained under Mr Rudd's Government. "There really needs to be a changing of the guard at some stage." ACCC after 'inconvenient grocery truths' April 03, 2008 04:59pm Article from: AAP THE Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) food pricing inquiry must uncover the industry's "inconvenient truth", chairman Graeme Samuel says. A hearing was held in Brisbane today, with representatives from biscuit, milk and fruit and vegetable producers giving evidence. The inquiry will review all aspects of the grocery industry, including the nature of competition at the supply, wholesale and retail levels. It was closed to the public this morning, but in an address to the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce, Mr Samuel said he had been bemused by the 150 submissions made to the inquiry. "It's been fascinating to see the contradictory claims that have been made by various parties in the industry,'' Mr Samuel said. "It's also interesting to talk to some of those parties privately ... and then to read some of their public comments made in speeches or to the media which seem to be somewhat in contrast.'' Mr Samuel said parties would tell the inquiry their business was making large profits, but publicly claim to be struggling, and call for reform. Some were making "thoughts on the run'', he said. "There's either an inconvenient truth that's being told publicly or there's an inconvenient truth being told to us, or an untruth as the case may be,'' he said. Mr Samuel said the ACCC had been particularly busy since the election of the Rudd Government, which underlined its concern for consumers by creating a competition portfolio. "This has been an absolutely exciting, exhilarating and at times exhausting time,'' he said. But he was pleased the Government had released draft legislation that provides jail sentences for serious cartel activity. Jail penalties were the only way of stopping cartel behaviour, Mr Samuel said. "It's done very deliberately, it's done very collusively, it's done very secretly and it's done with sole self-intent,'' he said. "That fraud is no different to defrauding a bank.'' Get used to being greener, poorer Morning Herald Jessica Irvine Economics Correspondent April 5, 2008 AUSTRALIANS must accept that emissions trading is designed to make them pay more and lower their standard of living, at least where energy use is concerned, the Reserve Bank governor warns. Glenn Stevens said yesterday any attempt by workers to demand higher wages as compensation could increase inflation. There would also be little point in raising the price of energy if it did not result in lower consumption of it, Mr Stevens said. Responding to his comments, the Rudd Government's chief climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, told the Herald the Government could consider a GST-style package of tax cuts to head off calls for higher wages. These tax cuts could be funded by the sale of emission permits. Appearing before a parliamentary committee in Sydney yesterday, Mr Stevens also offered cold comfort for mortgage holders. While for the time being it appeared previous rises in interest rates were working to cool the economy, leading the bank to slightly revise downwards its forecasts for inflation, talk of rate cuts was premature. "I can't even promise really that they might not rise again," he said. Asked about the effect of an emissions scheme on inflation, Mr Stevens said it was likely to present a problem for monetary policy only if workers began to demand higher wages as compensation for higher energy costs. "One of the things the community will have to accept is that this is a reduction in living standards insofar as our purchasing power over things is concerned. We have got to accept that. If we were to try to collectively push up our wages to get that back, that actually would defeat the intention of the policy. "Obviously that would [also] present a second-round problem for us if that occurred." Mr Stevens said the policy would need to be well explained to consumers to head off calls for higher wages. But Professor Garnaut went one step further, suggesting policymakers concerned about calls for higher wages could placate workers with tax cuts similar to those offered with the GST in 2000. "It may very well be sensible for a government to offer tax cuts and then argue before the [pay tribunal] that that takes away the need for wage adjustments, just as they did with the GST," he said. He also said: "In terms of managing inflationary implications, the introduction of the emissions trading scheme will be similar in kind, but smaller in scale, than the introduction of the GST." Mr Stevens also compared the effect of a trading scheme with the introduction of the GST, which temporarily increased inflation to 6 per cent. He said emissions trading, planned for 2010, would produce a one-off increase in energy costs that was unlikely to prompt the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates. It is arguable that tax cuts may not worsen inflation if they are funded by the sale of emission permits because the cost of the permits would take more money from the economy than the tax cuts would contribute. The planet shows us who's got the power Age Tracee Hutchison April 5, 2008 WELL, what a difference a week makes. Do you remember? This time last week when we were breathlessly counting down to Earth Hour and how proud we all felt for signing up to candlelit dinners and the turning off of all the non-essential lighting that happily burns its head off for every other hour of the year? Earth Hour was, by all accounts, a tremendous success. Some 40 countries took part including millions of Australians who saved thousands and thousands of black balloon-fulls of deadly carbon dioxide emissions and registered an impressive 11.4% drop in energy consumption in the process. Well done us. And then we switched all the lights back on and carried on burning non-renewable fossils fuels courtesy of the electricity grid. We'd done our bit for the planet, we'd engaged in a national conversation about acting local and thinking global and the planet, we felt sure, would be thankful for the gesture. Or so we thought. In what can only be described as a masterstroke of timing, the Earth decided to show us a thing or two about sitting in the dark and, boy, did the planet deliver. Just days after we'd banked our Earth Hour carbon credits the so-called "freak storm" that wreaked havoc over Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon certainly said a thing or two about the realities of climate change. The gale-force winds, dust storms and rain that resulted in widespread destruction and blackouts across much of the state hit with such ferocity that tens of thousands of homes were still without power 48 hours later. And the people, it has to be said, went a little loopy. It was one thing for us to decide to turn off our lights voluntarily for one hour but it was entirely out of order for the Earth to decide it would teach us a thing or two about a sustainable power supply =97 over several days. Talk-back radio was jammed with the powerless fretting about freezer loads of defrosting chops and the loss of central heating. The powerless need to be patient, I heard one radio broadcaster suggest. The powerless needed to think twice before abusing SES workers who hadn't slept for two days when they come to your house to reconnect you to the grid, said another. The lesson of the powerless, said another, was a compelling argument to introduce conscription into the emergency services. Yes. I heard it. And wasn't it all just a little too ironic that this apparently unprecedented storm occurred on the same day that Sir Rod Eddington laid out his $18 billion plan to make it easier to drive a car in Melbourne? It was a spectacular coincidence. There was Sir Rod jostling for airtime as Mary* (not her real name) from Bundoora banged on about being driven mad by the recorded message from the power company who still hadn't made it to her place. Poor Mary was screeching like a lunatic. And she was powerless. As was Sir Rod =97 powerless, that is =97 to the glaring and exquisite confluence of circumstance that brought these two colliding issues together so effortlessly. But it got better. On Wednesday morning, down in windy Warrnambool, the brunt of the storm upset proceedings at the launch of a new plant. is the process of pumping the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel consumption deep underground and hoping somehow the Earth won't mind. It really did feel like a stroke of genius for the planet to unleash its stormy fury at the precise moment the congratulatory pomp and ceremony was getting under way. Why worry about investing in renewable energy sources when so much non-renewable energy could be consumed and its byproduct buried out of sight and out of mind? Why worry about strategies to get the people off the electricity grid when keeping us reliant on a centralised power supply was so much more lucrative for the powerful? And why give the people the option of sustaining their own power =97 by really embracing the concept of Earth Hour and rebating solar-panels, for example =97 when keeping us locked into the supply grid keeps us all so neatly in our place? Fifty-eight per cent of Australian adults took part in Earth Hour. But if the past few days in Melbourne are anything to go by, very few actually took on board its message. I can only hope by the time Earth Hour 2009 rolls around we've moved closer to embracing renewable power in Australia. Without it I feel sure there'll be many more powerless days ahead. Tracee Hutchison is a Melbourne writer and broadcaster. Garrett steps in to protect ancient Pilbara rock art from mining Age Sarah Smiles April 5, 2008 ENVIRONMENT Minister Peter Garrett has taken a tough stand on protecting Aboriginal rock art threatened by the mining boom in Western Australia by refusing to give the State Government total control of development on the Burrup Peninsula. The rock art of the Pilbara's Burrup, regarded as one of the world's most endangered heritage sites, has been damaged by mining companies since the 1960s. Engravings of humans and animals dating back 30,000 years have been blown up, bull-dozered or moved, including a compound of rocks dumped in scrubland at Hearson Cove by Woodside Petroleum in the 1980s. "I think it's highly regrettable that there's been any destruction of rock art," said Mr Garrett of the engravings which pre-date Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids. "There's no doubt that if everybody had an opportunity to go back 15 to 20 or 30 years and start again (in the Burrup), then there would have been some pretty serious thinking about the best way to ensure that these cultural matters were given real consideration." In an interview with The Age, Mr Garrett said Aboriginal heritage was of equal value and importance as other landmarks such as the Kokoda Trail. Part of the Burrup was listed as national heritage last year, giving the Commonwealth authority over it under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. But the State Government wants Mr Garrett to cede his control to approve development proposals, citing the need to return "red tape". "There's quite a confused legal situation if you like," said Eric Ripper, Western Australia's Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, of the need for state and Commonwealth approval. His Government has drafted a bilateral agreement for the Commonwealth to transfer some of its powers, but Mr Garrett has yet to sign it. "We want to share decision making (about future development)," said Mr Garrett, who is still negotiating the terms of the agreement. He said that negotiations were "constructive" but that the Commonwealth had an "important role to play in matters of national environment significance". Mr Garrett acknowledged the economic potential of industry on the Pilbara, which generates thousands of jobs and billions for the Australian economy. But he said environment and heritage values must be considered at the "front end" of any development proposals to minimise further destruction. Archaeologists estimate there are anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million engravings on the Burrup =97 the world's largest collection of engravings or petroglyphs. They depict images from archaic faces to emu and fish and have remained well preserved because of the hardiness of the Burrup's rock. Former WA premier Carmen Lawrence and resources minister Colin Barnett have lamented the destruction of the art, saying they never fully grasped the significance of the area as it was being developed into an industrial hub. There has never been a comprehensive study of the extent of the art there. The Federal Court ruled in 2005 that native title rights were extinguished on the Burrup, where the original inhabitants were wiped out in a massacre in 1868. A controversial agreement brokered with corresponding clan groups in 2003 authorised major industrial developments on the southern end of the Burrup. Some Aboriginal groups believe the West Australian Government is approving development without conducting appropriate heritage clearances. Former Greens MP Robin Chapple warns that giving the State Government total control of development would be like "putting Dracula back in charge of the blood bank". He said former governments had not valued the art and the current one should not be trusted. We put it there, so let's go first in cleaning up Age Peter Singer April 3, 2008 It's time to apply ethics and fairness in the climate change crisis. IN AUSTRALIA, we know that water for irrigation is limited, and we are beginning to discuss how best to divide it up. Here's one way of doing it: let those with the biggest pumps take as much as they want, never mind what that leaves for others. Not fair, you say? You're right. But then, why are we doing exactly this method of dividing up a scarce resource right now =97 not with water, but with the atmosphere? Perhaps because we're not used to thinking of the atmosphere as a scarce resource, we don't see how unfairly we are behaving. The atmosphere is a scarce resource because we are already exceeding its capacity to absorb our greenhouse gases without disastrous climate change. The industrialised nations were the first to pump potentially quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and they have kept on doing it. Neither increasing scientific confidence, nor their own pledges at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to stabilise greenhouse gases "at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" have stopped them. If the rule of law had the same clout internationally as it has within national borders, we would already be feeling the cost of breaking that promise. Tuvalu, our tiny Pacific island neighbour, has threatened to sue Australia and the United States because, according to some scientific estimates, most of the low-lying coral atolls will disappear under the waves over the next 50 years. OK, we could treat the cost of compensating Tuvalu's 10,000 residents as a reasonable price to pay for our economic prosperity, but there are tens of millions of people living on similarly low-lying delta regions in Bangladesh, who would have equally good claims, and hundreds of millions of small farmers the world over affected by changing rainfall patterns. Whatever an international court may decide, however, it's hard to imagine the US paying trillions of billions of dollars to people who have been made worse off by climate change. What about self-interest as a motive for cutting emissions? That might work for Australia, which is drying out because of climate change, but it won't work for Canada, or Russia, which could benefit from warmer weather. So, like it or not, for the foreseeable future, ethics =97 and how the citizens of the industrialised nations see it =97 is crucial to averting disaster. At the moment, the centre of the ethical debate over climate change is whether the industrialised nations should cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of any binding commitment from the big developing nations, such as China and India. In the long run everyone agrees that unless these emerging economic giants stop increasing their emissions, cuts by the industrialised nations will postpone, but not avert, catastrophe. But who should make the first, and deepest, cuts? On at least three plausible principles of justice, the industrialised nations should. First, "You broke it, you fix it" isn't a bad rule for teaching kids responsibility. Why shouldn't it hold for nations as well? There's no doubt that the industrialised nations have caused the problem because most of the greenhouse gases they have put into the atmosphere over the past century or more are still there, and still contributing to climate change. So they are the ones that need to fix it, or at least make a start on fixing it. Second, since the atmosphere is a common resource, everyone is entitled to an equal share of it. But on a per capita basis, we are using more than five times our share, whereas the Chinese are using roughly their share, and the Indians much less than their share. So we =97 and citizens of other industrialised nations =97 are the ones who are grossly in excess, and need to cut back first. Third, those with the most should do the most. It is less of a sacrifice for Australians to do without some of our greenhouse gas-emitting extravagances =97 like driving big cars or eating so much meat =97 than it would be for the Chinese or Indians to slow the growth that is moving them to a more modest sufficiency. If these three principles all point in the direction of nations such as Australia taking the first step, it is hard to think of any plausible principle of justice that points in the opposite direction. The fairness of giving every person on earth an equal share of the atmosphere's capacity to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions is difficult to deny. Why should anyone have a greater entitlement than others to use the earth's atmosphere? But, in addition to being fair, this scheme, coupled with tradeable emissions quotas, has practical benefits. It would give developing nations a strong incentive to accept mandatory quotas, because if they can keep their per capita emissions low, they will have excess emissions rights to sell to the industrialised nations. Rich countries will benefit, too, because they will be able to choose their preferred mix of reducing emissions and buying up emissions rights from developing nations. It's the best hope we have of solving an otherwise intractable problem. Peter Singer is laureate professor at the University of Melbourne, attached to the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, as well as professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He is speaking today at the University of Melbourne's conference on "Climate Change and Social Justice". Granted an island home Mercury MARIA RAE April 04, 2008 02:00pm A YOUNG El Salvadorean family who have been fighting to stay in Tasmania can finally call the island home. Nestor Rodriguez, Vanessa Ceren, and their four children Sofia, Katherine, Jeshua and Joseph have finally been granted permanent residency. The couple were all smiles this morning after hearing that Immigration Minister Chris Evans had granted the visa. "We're so happy," Mr Rodriguez said. "It was really difficult years but thanks to many people we never gave up." The family fled the country in 2004 after armed men wearing masks and military uniforms invaded their home. The attack had followed death threats relating to Mr Rodriguez's political links. Denison Federal MP Duncan Kerr said it was a great decision for the whole Tasmanian community who had strongly supported the family. Ombudsman

... Back to listing 44

... Back to article 8610 | SITEMAP | Next to article 8612 ...

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who are kindly providing this unique content, especially to:

office@a3ides.com
olga@bemobile.md
tirlik@brainchildhunter.com
office@bemobile.md
sharuha@causeni.info
info@webconsulting.md
irina.gorea@bemobile.md
office@milieukontakt.nl
igor.romanyuk@bemobile.com.ua
yuri.sekretar@olympia.net.ua
info@tophost.md
webmoldova@yahoo.com
admin@bemobile.md
webmaster@bemobile.md
emil@a3ides.com
olea@bemobile.md
yuri.sekretar@bemobile.com.ua
contact@a3ides.com
info@a3ides.com
vitaliy.lozovskiy@bemobile.md
drugg83@yahoo.com
rector@usm.md
gaugash@usm.md
acad.rudic@mail.md
acadrudic@yahoo.com
veaceslav.vasilache@gmail.com
s.bakker@milieukontakt.nl
katea.melnicenco@gmail.com
mkoe.moldova@vox.md
musteata@doctor.com
renat.buga@ase.md
s.molenkamp@milieukontakt.nl
si_problemme@mail.ru
willem.tjebbe.oostenbrink@planet.nl

Tag cloud:

Australia, climate, McTernan, Australian, because, emissions, Government, inquiry, nations, against, greenhouse, government, between, charges, economic, thousands, indigenous, Garrett, industrialised, development, evidence, Afghanistan, Melbourne, increase, without, harassment, suburbs, questions, greater, Stevens,

Similar listing on: