Labor strains

Just about everyone else in these parts seems to have expressed an opinion on the matter of tomorrow's ALP leadership, so, for what it's worth, here's mine.

I believe that  Kevin Rudd was shabbily and grossly unfairly treated when he was deposed in 2010. I find it hard if not impossible to believe, not so much the stories about his alleged poor management practices, quick temper etc, that nobody close to him, especially his then deputy Ms Gillard and treasurer Mr Swan, could muster whatever it might have taken to put him on notice to change his way or at least do something to address them..

In a week of intemperate comments and backtracking Mr Swan's stand out. Michelle Grattan : Michelle Grattan in The Age on Friday put it well:

Ministers are not only tearing Rudd to shreds, they are destroying their own credibility.Take Treasurer Wayne Swan. He said on May 18, 2010, just a month before he was party to the coup that ousted Rudd: ‘‘Kevin Rudd has a deep commitment to Australia, a fantastic work ethic, and a very good record to put to people at the next election.”

On Wednesday this week, in his brutal attack on Rudd, Swan said: ‘‘The party has given Kevin Rudd all the opportunities in the world and he wasted them with his dysfunctional decision making and his deeply demeaning attitude towards other people, including our caucus colleagues.’’

Was Swan telling the truth when he was  serving under Rudd, or is he telling it now? Swan explains discrepancies in his comments by saying he has ‘‘been a team player all of my life’’.  He can’t say he only became aware of the Rudd negatives in retrospect. He was one of the gang of four that ran the government under Rudd. He tried to get change, he says, but Rudd’s ‘‘behaviour then became increasingly erratic and that is why the leadership changed’’. Yet remember how late in the piece Swan was still praising Rudd.

Since Swan's tirade he seems to have kept his mouth shut, and other Gillard supporters have generally been more measured in their comments. IMO far and away the best statement from either side has come from  Anthony Albanese , about whose position http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/albanese-integrity-puts-colleagues-to-shame-20120225-1tuvb.html"> Michelle Grattan says

Albanese is using this ballot to register a retrospective protest over the 2010 coup: he believes it was wrong that it happened, and the manner in which it was conducted was equally reprehensible...By his decision, Albanese is also contesting his colleagues' argument that Rudd is too dangerous and shambolic to be in charge of a government. Albanese was a senior minister through the Rudd period; as leader of the House he worked very closely with the then PM. Even if Rudd is a difficult character, Albanese is saying, by his support, that Rudd's personality defects are not so great that he should never again be let near The Lodge.

I concur.

Despite this, and polling which confirms that Rudd is the popular choice to win the ballot, it is widely agreed by commentators that tomorrow will see Prime Minister Gillard confirmed by a substantial majority of the caucus, who on this occasion, in contrast to 2010, will disregard the polls.

Whatever happens it will be very hard to pull the ALP into shape to put up a reasonable fight in the next federal election. One of the few silver linings is that the election need not, provided the independents hold firm, need not be held until 2013. Many Australians would like to see that happen sooner rather than later, and I am inclining towards that view.

Former PM demoted to Foreign Minister, former Finance Minister lands good job

Photo taken today in a local car park. A reminder of how things change. Without necessarily remaining quite the same.

Today Prime Minister Gillard announced her new ministry , which includes Mr Rudd as Foreign Minister. I find it odd that the Kevin07 who led Labor to victory and then, in the opinion of the party's backroom people, had to be deposed because he ineptly took his party to the brink of defeat, has been restored to a senior cabinet position, one where the very qualities he was supposed to lack - ability to listen, consult and communicate effectively - must surely be mandatory.

At least the longwinded Mr Oakeshott hasn't accepted the cabinet post he so unwisely angled for and even more unwisely even thought - for several days - about accepting. A letter writer in today's Australian offered this suggestion "stick a wind turbine in front of Rob Oakeshott's mouth. His long-winded responses will secure our power supply for years to come."

And Mr Tanner, who was Finance Minister until a few days ago has wasted no time in securing a very good position in the private sector. This stinks. He should have to wait for at least a year before doing this.

Resolution?

The Independents have spoken (Mr Oakeshott at great length) and we now have a Labor minority government with Julia Gillard confirmed as Prime Minister (and Mr Abbott, despite his disappointment, graciously acknowledging this).

Expert opinion is divided as to whether the government will last a full three year term. Mr Windsor has stated that a major reason for his decision to support the ALP was that he thought a Coalition government would be more inclined to call - and to win - an early election. We can therefore assume that he and his locquacious colleague Mr Oakeshott's survival instincts will prevail. Whether the new regime (or "paradigm")'s conditions such as weekly meetings with the PM will, as the ALP's election campaign mantra put it, enable the country to move forward is another thing.

Election 2010

I'm not trying to be the last Australian blogger to comment on the election which Prime Minister Gillard has called for 21 August (or "August 21" as she called it, North American fashion, on Saturday). I'll follow the campaign with interest though expect that most of my comments (and I'm not proposing to make many) will be in short form ie Twitter (@Pathfinder79).

For now I'll just say (and I'm certainly not the first to do so) that it's a long time between now and then yet on present indications, viz opinion polls and today's decision by the Greens to direct their preferences to Labor, the government will be returned.

Backroom machinations lead to change of PM

As The New York Times put it succinctly

Party officials decided to replace Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with his deputy, Julia Gillard, who becomes the nation’s first female prime minister.

This came as a surprise. The Rudd government has clearly been in trouble with public opinion lately but I'd have thought (and hoped) that he and his inner circle would have been put on notice to improve. What has happened is a cabinet reshuffle with Mr Rudd ruthlessly dispatched (to where isn't quite clear) by a combination of Labor Party and union machinations with Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan etc moving up a notch or two.

I watched events unfold on TV, alternating between the ABC and Sky. The ABC had more people on the ground and in front of the camera (Kerry O'Brien a noteworthy exception); Sky used more voiceovers but, perhaps because it's used to covering events like this, IMO it gave the public broadcaster a good run for its money.

Both networks seemed to cover the day's major events, including Kevin Rudd's farewell speech. His family stood by his side as he worked his way slowly, and with several lengthy pauses, through his notes. It left a bitter taste in my mouth: I tweeted suggesting that someone should pull the plug on him, not to stop him speaking but as an act of kindness if not mercy. While his words quite properly referred to what he considered his achievements, the images on the screen often reminded me of those of someone found guilty at a show trial in a dictatorship such as Stalin's Russia.

Has the combination of party factional and union ruthlessness and the media's hunger for good images brought us to this?

Honours recipients support republic

Today is a public holiday in South Australia, ostensibly for the Queen's birthday.

As far as I can tell nobody who's entitled to the day off has refused the offer because of their republican principles. I expect that people (an increasing number) who rely on casual work may have opted to spend a day or part thereof at the coalface (or waiting on the bistro table) to help make ends meet.

Nor, to the best of my knowledge and belief, has anyone who was awarded an honour in the Queen's Birthday honours list which was published today rejected their award. But this hasn't stopped several of them from criticising our current constitutional arrangements .

It's easy to suggest other names who could (perhaps should) be included in the Honours list. Yet what strikes me, without naming recipients' names, is that it's easier to receive an award if you are either a prominent business person or a longserving officeholder in a (usually non profit) community based organisation who has acquiesced in the changes (supported by all major parties) which have made it easier for private sector (and often offshore) organisations to come in and take over government funded for services eg employment placement.

Perhaps it's time to create a Wiki Honours list where people can nominate prospective recipients without having to go through the labyrithine processes required to get one's name in the paper on Australia Day or the Queen's Birthday.

Honours recipients support republic | Adelaide Now

Can I just try that again, it's a little bit jumbled?

On Friday South Australian ABC TV Stateline viewers were short changed by a sudden (and unexplained) truncation of a debate between Treasurer Foley and Shadow Treasurer Griffiths.What went to air (including presenter Ian Henschke's apparent lack of awareness of what had happened) can be viewed here. .

Despite the ABC's ineptitude, what it did screen was interesting for a number of reasons, not least that Mr Foley sounded more like a Liberal than a Labor politician. Mr Rann hardly got a mention, though the Premier did appear in some introductory material (at 1:35). What was more surprising was that Foley praised Mr Howard and Mr Costello (eg at 6:30), and said that he was happy to engage some of their former staffers for the $2.5m budget review body which he plans to set up after the election. To cap it all, when the mild mannered Mr Griffiths took issue with one of his points, the Treasurer accused him (at 8:17) of acting like an old style Labor treasurer!

While Mr Foley had none of the makeup malfunction which may have lessened the Premier's impact during the Leaders' debate earlier in the week, he wasn't always on top of his material. At one point, when trying to explain the effects of the GFC on the state's finances he recognised that he'd lost it and asked (at 4:59) "Can I just try that again, it's a little bit jumbled?". A little later (at 7:23) he had a Mrs Malaprop moment: "We haven't prescripted [sic]anything".

And Mr Griffiths? He may not have scored many points but in my opinion he didn't do himself or his party too much harm. Check out the video and decide for yourself.

Update 8 March

A longer version of the debate, presumably the one which was intended to go to air on Friday, is now available here . It has cut out some of the preliminary material and appears to include the full original debate. It also makes my timings above inaccurate. It shows Mr Foley in full attack mode and Mr Griffiths, who stumbled over the names of taxes, more defensive.

I can't find any reference on the ABC website to the fact that this was not the version shown on Friday. This is inexcusable (and Orwellian). I'm not saying that the first version should stand but that the ABC, whose fault it was, should point out that what viewers saw on Friday night is not what internet users can see now. If it means two versions so be it.

Update 9 March

This is now on the SA Stateline website:

This debate failed to air on the program due to technical difficulties. The version here was screened in Stateline's Saturday repeat timeslot.

It is wrong to claim that the debate "failed to air on the program". Also the "version here" implies that there are other versions. I know of at least one other version, but how many are there?

There is still (6.00pm CST) no transcript. Wonder why.

Further update 10 March

In today's Crikey (scroll down until you reach the item) Alan Sunderland, Head of National Programs ABC News replied. He conceded that Friday's Stateline was "interrupted by technical difficulties" but claimed that the ABC "fixed the problem and the full show aired the following day in the normal repeat timeslot".

He then added "Although it is indeed standard practice to add an Editor’s Note explaining any changes from the program that went to air, we would not routinely note that a technical glitch had occurred. However, to remove any confusion or uncertainty during an election campaign, an explanatory note is being added to the program website."

The explanatory note is now on the program website:

Foley v Griffiths on SA economics

Source: Stateline South Australia

Published: Friday, March 5, 2010 8:58 AEDT

Expires: Thursday, June 3, 2010 8:58 AEDT

Treasurer Kevin Foley and shadow treasurer Steven Griffiths debate economic policy for the March 20 poll in SA. This debate failed to air on the program due to technical difficulties. The version here was screened in Stateline's Saturday repeat timeslot.

This incorrectly states that the program “failed to air” – only some of it did -and shows that the boundary between the technical and editorial matters can easily become blurred, especially during an election campaign.

Other ABC News Sites state when stories are updated: why can’t Stateline’s?

Oh, and there's still no transcript online. Due to "technical difficulties", Mr Sutherland?

Court rules in favour of David over Goliath re copyright

"Film industry loses iiNet download case" reports ABC News.

The case against iiNet was filed in the Federal Court by a number of applicants including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network.

The legal action followed a five-month investigation by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft. The companies claimed iiNet infringed copyright by failing to stop users engaging in illegal file sharing.But today the Federal Court in Sydney ruled in the internet service provider's favour.Justice Dennis Cowdroy said it was "impossible" to find against iiNet for what its users did.

The case, which appears to be one of, if not the first, of its kind has already attracted a lot of international attention, not least from Boing Boing "Awesomely awesome Australian copyright news: scrappy ISP beats Hollywood fatcats".

There is of course the possibility of an appeal, as Fairfax , News.com.au and a < href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/04/2810520.htm">later ABC reportallude/

Disclosure: I am an iiNet customer/ subscriber

Police reaction to Indian student protests damages Australia's reputation

Video of the - to put it mildly - vigorous police response to the protest by Indian international students in Melbourne against race motivated assaults has gone around the world.

Unfortunately the official response from authorities here has been deficient. Last night on ABC TV's Lateline Simon Overland came across more like PC Plod than the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner:

SIMON OVERLAND, CHIEF COMMISSIONER VICTORIA POLICE: There were other people who became involved, most of them weren't Indian, they were there for their own reasons, and I think the whole thing just got hijacked and got out of control.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: With international attention on his officers, Simon Overland was there this morning and personally entered the crowd.

SIMON OVERLAND: We'd been in discussions with them for a long time. It got to the point where we needed to clear the intersection. So as I say, if they've been injured, I regret that, but in terms of what I saw, the police action was entirely justified and appropriate.

.....

SIMON OVERLAND: They've made their point, they've made it very powerfully. It's a point we already understood, but they've made it to the rest of the community, and I think the rest of the community understands it. If they're not careful they'll overplay their hand and the support for them will quickly evaporate.

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have condemned the attacks which gave rise to the protests but it's taken until tonight for the Foreign Minister to get out of the blocks and announce the establishment of a taskforce to investigate the issue . Commissioner Overland is not a member.

Better late than never but a lot of damage, some of it unnecessary, has been done to Australia's reputation as reports in, for example, The Hindu , Al Jazeera and the BBC attest.
.

If it happens you read it here first...

From the June Adelaide Review

Innocent abroad?

The ABC reports

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Government worked hard to help secure the release of Victorian woman Annice Smoel, who spent time in a Thai prison after being accused of stealing a bar mat.At the same time, Victorian Premier John Brumby has accused Thai authorities of overreacting in the case.

Ms Smoel, 36, was greeted with hugs and cheers by her four daughters and other relatives when she arrived at Melbourne Airport this afternoon.She was released late yesterday after pleading guilty to stealing a bar mat almost three weeks ago. A Thai court suspended her six-month jail sentence after the Governor of Phuket paid her $38 fine.

Mr Rudd said the Department of Foreign Affairs did a lot of work behind the scenes to secure her release.

"Helping the family, helping the individual, and negotiating quietly with the Thai authorities to make sure that this can be dealt with," Mr Rudd said. "And they've done a very good job, and I congratulate them.And I would say to the family concerned, that we're pleased that the little ones have that anxiety removed."

Mr Brumby, meanwhile, says the Thai authorities "gravely" infringed Ms Smoel's human rights when they charged and jailed her.

"To be honest, that message did get through to the Thai authorities and they saw common sense and that this was a trivial matter, that there'd been an over reaction and that a woman's rights had been gravely infringed," he said.

However Mr Brumby says he hopes the relationship between the two countries will be repaired.

Despite his propensity to bang the populist drum , I thought that Andrew Bolt had a pretty sensible take on the matter before it was resolved.

"Next time, pack some manners" was the headline of his comment after it was all over . One succinct sentence is IMO a fair comment on our times:

It strikes me that our public manners in fact no longer meet the standard required in most other countries, and improving them might make us a lot safer when we travel.

Perhaps this point could be emphasised more on the DFAT General Travel Advice web page.

Clarification 25 May 11am

The title of this post is not meant to refer to the book by Martin Indyk about peace talks in the Middle East which was the subject of an item on ABC RN Breakfast this morning.

Alben who? Is this really history ?

Today's Australian reports:

World War I ended when the Treaty of Versace was signed. True or false?

Have faith, most high school students -- at least those about to hit television screens as contestants in a new history quiz show -- do not attribute the 1919 Treaty of Versailles to an Italian fashionista.

The quiz show Histrionics will be launched on Sydney community television this week, and high school students look certain to show up their parents in the home buzzer stakes.

A collaboration between the NSW History Teachers' Association and the University of Western Sydney's School of Communication Arts, the quiz show is based on the NSW history syllabus and is being billed as a creative way of inspiring students to engage with the curriculum.

The show was launched by former NSW premier and noted history buff Bob Carr yesterday, who threw at his audience some curly trivia challenges he felt sure that nobody could answer.

He was right. Nobody at yesterday's launch, academic or student alike, knew who Harry Truman's vice-president was.

I'm a history buff too, albeit nowhere near as noted as Bob Carr, yet I can't see why 21st century Australian history students should be expected to know who Harry Truman's vice-president was. If "the quiz show is based on the NSW history syllabus and is being billed as a creative way of inspiring students to engage with the curriculum" I'd like to know the contents of that syllabus and the degree to which it emphasises kmowledge of facts as opposed to understanding of broad historical changes.

Bob Carr claims elsewhere in the article that when he was Premier of NSW he, unlike his more acquiescent counterparts elsewhere, resisted pressure to abolish history as a discrete discipline. For that he deserves recognition, and perhaps even a little indulgence for promoting what looks like a frothy diversion.

PS. The Oz doesn't answer the question it poses about Harry Truman's vice-President. I didn't know the answer: if you are curious it is here .

Criticism of tender continues

The discussion (mostly critical) continues.

ABC TV's Insiders showed some clips of Minister for Employment Participation O'Connor (a title which is looking more Orwellian by the day) stumbling over some answers to questions about the tender outcomes.

Elsewhere on the ABC website Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has a succinct and IMO incisive analysis of the situation. Worth reading it all, but here's a longish extract:

The previous government privatised the Commonwealth Employment Service to create the Job Network - by outsourcing its services to a mixture of community based non-for-profit organisations, Australian based for-profit companies and one or two international for-profit companies. In 2002 a Productivity Commission into the manner in which Job Network services were being outsourced concluded that this was not an efficient way to run a tender process.

The Rudd Government has continued the outsourcing of these services this week - now re-badged as Employment Services Australia - but the process now seems to have gone totally off the rails. The decisions on these contracts announced in the last couple of days show neither rhyme nor reason. It is fair enough to change providers if a quality service is not being provided but this does not seem to have been the basis for the decision making of the Government. Some of the highest rated providers (4 and 5 stars) have been overlooked, and in some cases have seen their services handed over to other providers from different regions whose services have rated poorly (1 or 2 stars). We have also seen a couple of large overseas commercial providers brought in - including A4e from the UK.

The community sector is understandably upset by the inequity and lack of logic of the outcomes - but the thing that has rankled more has been the manner in which the process has been run. Having had to submit complex and time consuming submissions, there appears to have been little cross-checking of claims and evaluation of the capacity to deliver a particular service in a particular location, and service quality.

Over the last two weeks, organisations have struggled to get any useful information from the department - they have not been contacted and informed about the status of their applications and have been given the run around when seeking information. Many are still struggling to get an understanding of exactly what the on the ground impacts of these decisions will be. This makes things particularly difficult when they are bound to give staff advance notification of whether or not their jobs will soon be terminated.

The whole process has undermined the relationship between the Government and the community sector right at the time when this relationship is crucial to their ability to tackle the impacts of the financial crisis on those most at risk. It has undermined their trust and is likely to have derailed the discussions of a 'compact' with the sector ... and left their much vaunted 'social inclusion' policy in tatters.

This is the kind of ignorance that can only creep into government departments which have spent over a decade managing contracts rather than actually delivering services. It is clear that DEEWR hasn't engaged in or simply doesn't get the 'whole-of-government' approach to 'joined-up-policy' and 'wrap around services'.

The results of the tender process demonstrates that the values underpinning the tender focused much more heavily on the false God of the market rather than the values of equity, sustainability and community, despite Mr Rudd's recent comments.

How else could you decide to redirect your funds away from your best performing employment services at a time when the nation is sliding into recession and unemployment rates are expected to go through the roof?

As unemployment rises dramatically, these services will be at the front line. Local community based providers are best placed to develop the innovative programs that will be needed with high unemployment and few new jobs.

Well put!

Elsewhere The Australian and Indaily report the opposition's call for a senate inquiry.

2,500 jobs lost in network revamp

The results of the Job Services Australia tender have been announced. They should be available online here though at the moment the official website is down just as, The Australian reports, it was yesterday at a crucial time:

Hundreds of employment service providers across Australia have lost their government contracts under a $4 billion overhaul of the Job Network, forcing up to 2500 staff to join dole queues with their clients.

But an embarrassing crash on the website of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, which was to list the successful tenderers for new employment services, angered the providers, with some still unsure of where they stood last night.

Major church providers of social services have called for an independent review of the process for allocating the contracts, following the release of the Jobs Services Australia deals.

"Today's decision challenges the nature of the relationship between the Government and the non-profit sector, which increasingly provides outsourced social services," said Frank Quinlan, director of Catholic Social Services Australia.

More than a quarter of the job agencies -- up to 100 businesses -- missed out on contracts.

The biggest losers were the Wesley Mission, the Salvation Army, Sarina Russo Job Access and Mission Australia, which between them will slash several hundred jobs.

The Government's claims that two new British providers would take only 2 per cent of the market were blown away after it emerged that a US job agency in the system, MAX Employment, increased its business share.

The Age and the ABC have also reported the decision(s). Misha Schubert in The Age comments

Staff at two top-rated agencies in the electorates of those driving Labor's shake-up of services to help the jobless find work are heading for unemployment themselves.

Shock waves were felt across the industry yesterday as hundreds of workers, including those at the Salvation Army and Wesley Mission, were told their agencies had lost contracts in the shift to the new system devised by the federal Government.

But Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard insisted that staff whose agencies would fold would be in great demand by other firms that had won contracts to train and find work for the jobless in their local areas.

.....

Djerriwarrh employment and education services acting chief executive Trish Heffernan was also stunned after telling 36 workers — 26 of them permanent — that they would have to look for jobs.

"The staff are incredibly disappointed and concerned about their futures," she said.

Lisa Fowkes, chief executive of Job Futures, a network of community-based groups in the sector, said many agencies with strong track records that had not been awarded contracts in a "flawed process" that relied too heavily on paperwork and not enough on results.

"I can only imagine that what has happened is that the reliance has been on words on a page rather than the reality of service delivery in the community," she said. "I think that in future, it will be really important to test the claims of tenderers in terms of whether they have those local connections, grassroots knowledge and connections to make the services work."

Asked if she was comfortable about any job losses, Ms Gillard sought to reassure staff.

"Of course there will be some change, but for people who work in a service now and that service hasn't succeeded, there will obviously be new opportunities in their locality for the services that have succeeded in the tender round," she told ABC2.

But Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull was scathing about the process, which he deemed a "colossal bungle".

"What a shambles that is," he said. "Hundreds of people being thrown out of work, instability in the whole employment services area precisely at the time where you need continuity and commitment. Again, one bungle after another."

I know a bit about Djerriwarrh, a lean, not-for-profit organisation with a considerable track record of serving job seekers and other disadvantaged people in outer western Melbourne. I'd like to know on what criteria they failed to measure up to the other applicants. Probably having a strong connection to the local community was not one of them.

GG under scrutiny again

In The Australian Malcolm Colless reports that some eyebrows have been raised by the Governor-General's recent activities .

Kevin Rudd may feel comfortable with an interventionist governor-general but this view is by no means unanimous within his ministry.

In fact a number of ministers are known to be not just concerned but angered by Governor-General Quentin Bryce's involvement in the affairs of government. The fact that no one has apparently conveyed this to the Prime Minister is more a reflection of the autocratic way Rudd runs his ministry than the level of concern about politicising the role of Australia's head of state. "Voicing disapproval of the Prime Minister's judgment on this issue, even in private, would be tantamount to committing political suicide. But it is nevertheless outrageous," one senior minister told The Australian.

Reluctance to buy into this may have also been influenced by persistent rumours in Canberra that Rudd is likely to reshuffle his ministry after thebudget.

Attention is at present focused on Bryce's 10-nation, 19-day lobbying tour through Africa to drum up support for Rudd's push to gain a non-permanent seat for Australia on the UN Security Council. But ministers are still bristling over the unprecedented private briefing she ordered in February from the heads of the departments of Foreign Affairs and Treasury and the head of the defence forces, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston.

Presumably the relevant ministers signed off on these security briefings and received the Prime Minister's blessing before they took place.

But after media reports about the meetings at least one other senior minister issued a blunt instruction that any request from Yarralumla for departmental briefings should be unambiguously declined.

Whether this justifies calling Ms Bryce an "interventionist" G-G is questionable.

Regarding Ms Bryce's trip to Africa, the program on her website isn't detailed enough to draw many firm conclusions from.

An itinerary including fuller details of all meetings etc would have helped.

Many of her appearances, eg laying a wreath at a war memorial in Dar es Salaam, receiving Botswana's Senior Female Minister and Minister for Local Government (one and the same person) and attending a morning tea with "prominent Kenyan women", seem to be the sort of things you'd expect the Queen to do. Therefore it should be appropriate for our G-G, as the Queen's rep here, to do the same.

But of course it raises other questions such as why the representative of our "real" according to the Constitution) head of state rather than the head of state herself should be making such a tour. A (minor?) anomaly in our current constitutional arrangements.

Australia to become "bleeding edge" in employment services delivery?

In today's Australian Nicola Berkovic and Dennis Shanahan report that other voices, notably Tony Abbott, have weighed into the debate about the next round of Job Network tenders

The Coalition has urged the Rudd Government to consider suspending its $2 billion Job Network tender, warning that thousands of people would miss out on retraining and assistance in finding work as the dole queues lengthened.

Opposition community services spokesman Tony Abbott said many of the 600,000 clients of the Job Network would miss out on crucial services because of government bungling.

"A very large percentage of Job Network sites are going to be closing down in the next couple of months," he told the Ten Network.There will virtually be no Job Network services in these sites in the three months it takes to close the existing ones and the further six months to start up new sites."

In the past week, some of Australia's biggest and best-performing job agencies have been told they have lost their government business to provide employment services to the unemployed, as two new British providers enter the market.

Employment Minister Julia Gillard yesterday defended the Government's handling of the tender, saying it was being conducted at arm's length and that it would be improper for her to interfere.

"I'm not interfering with the tender round," she said."It's being done properly, at a distance from political figures like me."

On ABC RN Breakfast this morning Sally Sinclair, CEO of the peak industry body NESA , held her cards close to her chest as she was interviewed by Fran Kelly (can be heard here )

At one point Sinclair said the current system was"mired in red tape". Later she asserted that Australia was at the "leading edge" in the provision of employment services then, in an unfortunate choice of phrase given the likelihood of redundancies among workers in the industry, that it could be "the bleeding edge". Hmm.

Note:Ms Sinclair recently delivered a presentation at a conference in Vienna in which she spoke in favour of stronger business involvement in employment services: see here and here .

Shambolic security

The Australian asks more questions about the deficiencies in airport security revealed by events at Sydney Airport:

Why were police notified of the deadly bikie brawl only after receiving a 000 call from a member of the public?

Given the density of closed-circuit television cameras scattered throughout the airport terminal - supposedly one of Australia's most secure - why did the first police officers arrive after the 15-minute brawl was over and most of the attackers had fled?

And, crucially, why were no police on hand at gate five to escort the bikies away as they arrived off a Melbourne flight? It's now known Qantas cabin crew had expressed concern about the potential for strife during the flight to Sydney.

Respected security analyst Alan Behm thinks he has some answers. There was a security failure on Sunday; a man was killed at the airport, he says. But deploying more police to the airport is simply a knee-jerk reaction to a more complex problem, Behm tells The Australian.

Airport security at Sydney and most other capital cities across Australia is geared to prevent an act of terrorism on board a plane, he says. It all depends where you want to put the focus of your security measures: on the air side of the passenger security screening barrier or the public concourse.

"I think the solution really is to maximise the protections you've already got with the (screening) barriers by having the police on the air side rather than the public side, if not apprehending, then intervening, before those thugs got on to the public concourse after getting off the plane," Behm says.

Security protocols for an aircraft captain to radio ahead and warn of an onboard incident exist, which raises concerns about why this was not put to good effect on Sunday.

"It's a question of whether the message was put into that system. Did the purser say to the aircraft captain, 'We have a potential issue here, could you warn security?' I suspect not," Behm says.

There are suggestions police should have apprehended the bikies in the passenger departure area, but this would have posed a serious danger to the public.

"Police can't just get their weapons out and start shooting. They can't go throwing tear gas and stuff around, and even if the police went up against 12 blokes wielding these big steel bars, there's every chance they would have got beaten s--less."

Behm and fellow terrorism expert Clive Williams, of Macquarie University, agree with Keelty that police response times, on being notified of the incident, were acceptable. But it is unrealistic to expect unarmed Qantas security staff to intervene in a bikie brawl, Williams says.

At least one Qantas security official did have the presence of mind to record the numberplates of taxis departing with fleeing gang members, he says.

"He did the right thing. The police arrived essentially after these people (bikies) had fled," Williams says.

"The problem with this bikie violence is that the kind of violence these police at the airport are trained for is terrorism related and not so much gang violence. Obviously there's going to be a need to look at bikie violence more generally, not only in an airport context but the kinds of activities they are engaging in nationally, where there are wars going on between their factions."

.....

Concerns about security at Sydney airport are not new. In 2005 Allan Kessing, a former Customs airport security officer at Sydney airport, was convicted for leaking a highly damaging report about serious security breaches to this newspaper. The report dealt with a range of security concerns including the criminal records of baggage handlers, luggage theft and drug trafficking.

His actions spurred the Howard government to implement a far-reaching probe into airport security, the Wheeler report, which resulted in more rigorous security measures being implemented across the country.

But the bikie brawl has again raised concerns that more needs to be done.

AFP officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say one area requiring immediate attention is better agreement on airport policing functions involving the AFP and their NSW Police counterparts.

"State police don't want to listen to advice from the AFP; they want to run their own race," one AFP source tells The Australian.

While the AFP has prime responsibility for security at Sydney airport, that does not include the monitoring of the CCTV cameras, a state police role.

The issue of agreement on police roles is a problem, says former Sydney Airport Corporation chief executive Tony Stewart. The AFP believed its main role was counter-terrorism, while NSW Police focused on other areas of crime, he told ABC radio.

"The weak link is the demarcation between whether this was an anti-terrorism incident or a crime incident and somebody was probably looking at the rule book, saying it's the other guy's problem," he said.

In his first comments on the airport violence, Kevin Rudd yesterday pledged "zero tolerance" for bikie crime.

"This sort of behaviour by bikies and others engaged in organised criminal activity is unacceptable in Australia, absolutely unacceptable," the Prime Minister said soon after arriving in Washington, DC. State and commonwealth attorneys-general would discuss a co-ordinated response to the bikie menace at their next meeting, he promised.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus says the federal Government has ordered an investigation into the adequacy of the AFP's response on Sunday in addition to a national audit of police officers deployed at airports.

"Probity and confidentality agreements" hide government approval of Brit carpetbaggers entering employment services industry

"Local job agencies lose out as Brits court Canberra" is is a headline in today's Australian:

Several of the nation's best-performing job agencies are about to be stripped of their government contracts as two new British players enter the market.....Job Futures, a significant consortium with 100 sites nationwide, has been told by the Department of Employment & Workplace Relations that it has lost the tender for most of its Tasmanian and some Victorian operations...However, two British firms without any prior interest in Australia, A4e and Reed Employment, are being encouraged to enter the market.A4e and Reed , neither of which is linked to Therese Rein's British business, have been told they will be given business to enter the market.

Yesterday's Age was on the case earlier with a similar, though more accurate, headline: "Local job agencies jittery as Canberra looks to Britain"

The Salvation Army and other high-profile job agencies are preparing to shed jobs as the Federal Government looks to overseas firms to provide employment services.The Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations last week contacted several agencies to tell them they had become "preferred providers", with those existing providers not contacted now worried that their services have been rejected or significantly reduced.The Age believes from industry contacts that The Salvation Army Employment Plus, the largest Australian job provider, has yet to be contacted by the department and management has told some Victorian staff their jobs are likely to go. Management at the Salvation Army refused to comment yesterday, citing strict probity and confidentiality agreements signed with the department.

.....

David Thompson, chief executive of Jobs Australia, said yesterday a number of small not-for-profit centres who had received strong performance ratings over the years are also in limbo and expect to cut staff.

Industry sources said yesterday highly rated agency Jobs Futures and Direct Recruitment, and another Victorian firm, Ostara, have not received notification. Nationally the NSW not-for-profit Wesley Uniting Employment, the South Australian firm Jobs Statewide and Western Australian indigenous employment specialist Bridging the Gap, also highly rated, are unsure of their future.

.....

It is understood that two large British providers, A4e and Reed Employment, have been told they will be offered contracts and are in negotiations with the department.A spokeswoman for the Federal Minister for Employment Participation, Brendan O'Connor, said the minister could not comment because of probity and confidentiality agreements.This is the first time employment services have been fully tendered since 2002.

Since 2002 the not for profit employment services sector has been cut back by the Federal government's (actually governments') policy of competitive tendering. Neither The Age nor The Australian has pointed this out. perhaps they should listened to this week's ABC RN'sCounterpoint discussion about the diminishing role of the not for profit sector.

More deficiencies in airport security exposed

Yesterday's attack at Sydney Airport has, apart from alarming many people , predictably produced a rapid response announcement of a review into procedures:

The NSW Police Gang Squad has been more than doubled and the Australian Federal Police have launched a review after a man was bludgeoned to death in front of horrified passengers in a gang attack at Sydney Airport yesterday.

Four men will face court this afternoon charged with affray after the 29-year-old western Sydney man was repeatedly pummelled in the head with a metal pole, used to keep passengers in line during check-in, at the domestic terminal.

Police say the brawl started when motorcycle gang members flew into Sydney from Melbourne and were met by members of a rival gang about 1:30pm yesterday.

Witnesses say security staff and police were slow to act as the brawl between at least 15 rival bikies spilled from the airport's secured section into the check-in area, where they bashed each other with poles in front of up to 50 witnesses.

The buckpassing has already begun:

Despite the attack generating headlines internationally, Sydney Airport Corporation, which owns and operates the airport, says the attack is nothing to do with them and has referred any questions to Qantas.

Qantas is offering counselling to staff who witnessed the attack but is otherwise happy with how its security staff dealt with the brawl.

Both organisations point to the Australian Federal Police as responsible for overall law enforcement.

Of the media comments I've read so far today's Crikey editorial (subscription required) has summed up one of the major issues forthrightly and succinctly:

If one thing is proven beyond doubt by the bikie brawl at Sydney airport it is that the gestures of the past decade toward airport security are nothing more than a highly expensive, inconvenient public relations posture.

More controversy about euthanasia

The Weekend Australian ran a story by Julie Anne Davies variously headlined "Death drug delivered by mail" (print edition p1) / "Suicide drug of choice in mail" (online) .

Australians are illegally buying the euthanasia movement's lethal drug of choice on the internet from Mexico and receiving it by post without being detected by Customs authorities.

The person running the Mexican mail order business told The Weekend Australian he had successfully sent eight bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal to Australia in recent weeks.

The buyers had learnt about his service from euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke's latest version of his banned book, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, published by Exit International.

Yesterday and today the Oz has printed several letters, which can be read here and here. All of them support a relaxation, if not radical overhaul , of the existing law and its enforcement.

Monday: one letter published

The increasing number of people who are prepared to defy and break Australia’s ridiculously unjust laws that try to stop Australians ending their lives when they justifiably want to is proof of that.

It is many years since either suicide or attempted suicide was a crime in Australia.

The number of Australians who queue for Philip Nitschke’s workshops, and his growing number of admirers, are additional proof that the laws are not working. They are bringing the law into disrepute.

Nitschke is to be congratulated for what he does. However, as your interviewees remind us: breaking a law, even a bad law, can have serious consequences. A recent tragic manifestation of this was the NSW criminal trial and conviction of Caren Jenning and Shirley Justins followed by Caren Jenning’s suicide.

The stories reported in the article duplicate the thoughts and contemplations of my wife and I about what might be our future. We are elderly and neither enjoys good health. It is a taboo subject, but we, too, have contemplated in some way or another the South American option or of flying to Switzerland

Kep Enderby
Balmain, NSW

Today (Tuesday) - 4 letters published. Extracts from two of them:

...Independent opinion polls consistently show that more than 80 per cent of Australians want law reform and most want doctors to assist them to die with dignity.

Illegal importation of Nembutal risks a maximum penalty of 25years’ imprisonment or a $550,000 fine.

Contrast that with Washington state in the US, whose citizens have the right to request a legal prescription from their doctor to end their suffering if they have a terminal illness.

Oregon introduced this option 10 years ago and took care to include many safeguards. Its Health Department reports annually on how the act is working.

It does work well and the 2008 report, like those before it, puts to rest the fear-mongering that suggests people will be bumped off against their will.

Indeed, the number of people with terminal illness asking for assistance in Oregon remains low and half of those who receive a prescription do not end up using it.

This suggests that having the means to control the timing of one’s death and the assurance that the end will be peaceful has great psychological benefits to people faced with death.

Palliative care provides relief and often death but physical and psychological distress in many terminal illnesses is not relieved by this care and the dying person usually has no say in its timing.

Surely having the means to end one’s life before suffering becomes intolerable is a fundamental right that ought to be available to all Australians rather than tough penalties.

Law reform is inevitable—let’s get on with it.

Lyn Allison
President, Dying With Dignity Victoria
North Melbourne, Vic

....I am an 83-year-old World War II veteran and it would give me great peace of mind if I could get medical assistance to die in a dignified manner if I should lose quality of life.

It is my firm opinion that enforced prolonged life when quality of life is lost is a fate worse than death.

I fear degeneration far more than I fear death.

It is inhumane to leave those who have lost quality of life, whether it be a terminal illness or deterioration, to an extent that they are left confined to a nursing home suffering from dementia, incontinence and/or Alzheimer’s.

I would strongly recommend that everyone prepare an advance directive and appoint an enduring guardian, so that he/she has the authority to liaise with the doctor in the preparation of a health care management plan when quality of life is lost.

The health care management plan should provide that you not be subjected to any medical intervention or treatment aimed at prolonging life, and that any distressing symptoms (including any caused by lack of food or fluid) are controlled by appropriate analgesic or other treatment, even though this may shorten life.

For those wishing to avoid prolonged confinement in a nursing home and distress to loved ones, I would strongly recommend that they take this action while they are still of sound mind...

Bill Alcock
Port Macquarie, NSW

Last night ABC TV's Australian Story also dealt with the topic. For the next few days it can be viewed online and the transcript is here Worth a look (and the second part screens next week).

My view generally concurs with the passages quoted above. I'm confident that change will occur: the major unknown is when.

Update 18 March

Today's Australian publishes two letters replying to those of the last two days, all of which supported euthanasia. One is from Philip Nitschke, this (and the first to support an anti-euthanasia position) is the other :

Just when I was about to enjoy St Patrick’s Day, the bleak outlook of people wishing to take their own lives or have others do it for them (Letters 17/3) cast a real cloud, making me wonder just where this country is heading.

How about some hope, people.

John Kelly
Tranmere SA