Thursday 31 May 2007

Shipowners take MUA to court - IR BATTLEGROUND, The Australian, 31 May, 2007. Picture Graham Crouch.



Shipowners take MUA to court - IR BATTLEGROUND: [1 All-round Country Edition]

John Stapleton, Tracy OngThe Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 31 May 2007: 2.
Mr Sorensen said the ship used automated equipment to unload cargo and all that was stopping the crew unloading was the refusal of the MUA to move a hopper a few metres to connect with their own equipment. He said the crew were used to unloading cargo using automated equipment and were compensated through their employment contracts.
Unionists claimed yesterday they would not budge until they won the fight. Chairs were set across the entrance to the dock and picketers waved placards including "Save Our Ships" and "Aussie Ships, Aussie Jobs, No Ships of Shame".
A spokeswoman for Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey said any claim that the Government had somehow orchestrated the dispute was "not just farcical" but "another stunt in the unions' $100 million scare campaign against the Government's industrial relations reforms".

Full Text

Tuesday 29 May 2007

Battlers in Kelly country changing their tune, The Australian, 29 May, 2007.

Battlers in Kelly country changing their tune: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 29 May 2007: 6.
Show highlighting

"Interest rates have gone up, petrol prices have gone up, mortgages, house expenses, everyone is coming in complaining, people don't have money to spend any more," he said.
"The IR laws have gone too far," Ms [Kim Mestroni] said. "I have four children, two are in the age bracket affected by IR, trying to get casual jobs."
Mark Morgan, 39, was begging in the streets of Penrith yesterday. He has been sleeping in his Commodore station wagon with his four children for the past four months. "What have they ever done for me? Bring back Bob Hawke. At least then a blackfella had a go."
THEY'VE been seen as Howard's battlers, but voters in the Liberals' unlikely heartland of western Sydney say the benefits of economic growth are not being passed down to them.
And with local member Jackie Kelly getting out of politics at the next election, the seat of Lindsay has just got a lot tougher for the Liberals to retain without one of Howard's heroes of 1996.
The most striking thing about the interviews The Australian conducted yesterday in the streets of Penrith, in the heart of Lindsay, were the number of people who had previously voted Liberal but would not be voting for John Howard at the election due late this year.
Nima Nicholas, 44, owner of Exclusive Hairdressing, said while politicians talked about how wealthy the country was, small businesses right across the electorate were doing it tough and business had got progressively worse over the past three years.
"The average income around here is about $35,000," he said.
"Many of my customers ring me up and apologise but say they just can't afford to get their hair professionally coloured any more.
"The Government talks about the economy going up, but every day our business gets worse. I have had to drop staff.
"Interest rates have gone up, petrol prices have gone up, mortgages, house expenses, everyone is coming in complaining, people don't have money to spend any more," he said.
"A lot of people say they voted Liberal before, but not this time. I have had enough of the Liberals, I am trying something else and maybe it will get better."
The seat of Lindsay covers an area of 351sqkm across far-western Sydney. It is a bellwether seat, which Mr Howard -- who hailed Ms Kelly as a hero for wresting it from Labor in 1996 -- badly needs to retain.
Margaret Pirret, 68, and her daughter Kim Mestroni, 47, both voted Liberal at the last election, but won't be doing so this time.
"The IR laws have gone too far," Ms Mestroni said. "I have four children, two are in the age bracket affected by IR, trying to get casual jobs."
Ms Pirret said she was not happy about Work Choices, the "shocking" treatment of asylum-seekers or Iraq.
Mark Morgan, 39, was begging in the streets of Penrith yesterday. He has been sleeping in his Commodore station wagon with his four children for the past four months. "What have they ever done for me? Bring back Bob Hawke. At least then a blackfella had a go."

Monday 28 May 2007

Education Geography 28 May 2007 The Australian

MAY 28 2007
John Stapleton
Justine Ferrari
THESE eight boys are all alarmed about the future of the planet; their heads full of concerns about climate change, globalisation, terrorism, the impact of of Western development on the Third World, racism, the extinction of plant and animal species and the numerous threats to arid, wetland and urban environments.
Amongst other things.
They are vying to be part of a team of three that will represent Australia at the upcoming National Geographic Society's bi-annual World Championship, aimed at selecting the world's best geography student.
Each of these boys have topped their state in the National Geographic Channel's Australian Geography Competition.
Today  they will play off against each other in a national final at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, with broadcaster George Negus as compere, for a position in the team, which will travel to San Diego in the US in July.
Teachers have renewed their calls for geography to be made compulsory in the so-called ``middle years'' of high school in light of the poor performance of Australian students on the international stage. Geography has become a ``non-core'' subject in school curriculums across the country over the past 20 years.
While every state and territory offers geography as a separate subject in years 11 and 12, for the past decade it has been taught as part of a catch-all subject called Studies of Society and Environment, along with other areas such as history and economics.
Margaret McIvor, Vice-Chair of the Australian Geography Teachers Association, said geography was the only subject in the school curriculum which linked the humanities and the sciences.
``The geography of terrorism, disease and war are all fundamental to an understanding of the world we live in,'' she said. ``Geography helps us to make judgements about the big issues affecting the quality of our lives and landscapes.''
Tasmanian winner Jacob Atkins, 15, supported the call for geography to be made compulsory again, saying it helped students to understand ``the way the world runs, economically and socially''.
WA winner Patrick Mackenzie, 14, said ``you live here, surely you need to understand there are other values and other cultures out there, and geography helps.''
NSW winner David Vasak, 14, said understanding the world was essential `to make well informed, educated decisions in everything from voting to business''.
Education consultant with National Geographic Channel Anne Chesher said teachers nation wide were witnessing attitude changes in students as they were bombarded with doom and gloom messages about the future of the planet. ``They are all developing green and social consciences, but this needs to be grounded in fact and making geography compulsory would be an excellent way of achieving this.''
  

Saturday 26 May 2007

Pressure forces Kelly out - Federal MP quits politics for family - HOWARD VS RUDD, Weekend Australian, 26 May, 2997.

Pressure forces Kelly out - Federal MP quits politics for family - HOWARD VS RUDD: [2 All-round First Edition]

D.D. McNicoll, John StapletonWeekend Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 26 May 2007: 7.
Show highlighting
CITING pressure on her family from the public spotlight and a desire to spend more time with her children, Jackie Kelly -- the former sports minister and champion for John Howard's so-called "battlers" -- announced her resignation from federal parliament yesterday.
"The unions set up an office across the road from my office and my husband was drawn into the media. He was not a fair target," she said.
"Personally I thought how was our relationship going to weather another three years -- it was a big factor." Asked if she thought politics was too tough a profession for a young mother, Ms Kelly smiled grimly. "Politics is an uncompromising lifestyle, a very disruptive lifestyle. It is a completely non-routine lifestyle and children really need routine.

Friday 25 May 2007

Motel boss's hell after Gillard attack, The Australian, 25 May, 2007. Page One. Picture Alan Pryke.






Motel boss's hell after Gillard attack: [2 All-round First Edition]

John Stapleton, Cath HartThe Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 25 May 2007: 1.
Show highlighting
"It is not how I operate as a person," Ms [JOANN Doolan] said. "We are good people. I need my side of the story to be put, otherwise people would believe what they read. It has been at huge cost to me. I am not the sort of person I have been portrayed as. I am not going to sack you if you sneeze."
"There is a human cost to this story," Mr Hockey said, adding that he would "not pass judgments" on the agreements until the Office of Workplace Services provided him with more details.
Ms [Nerida Corby] said staff had been upset and protective of the Doolans, concerned at the distress the controversy was causing them. "It is not just them affected," she said. "If they don't get the business we don't get the jobs."

Ray Seidler The Australian 25 May 2007

MAY 25 2007 
John Stapleton
ONE of the country's leading experts on drug addiction, Dr Raymond Seilder, has found himself at the centre of controversy following an expose of the state's methadone program on the ABC last night.
Dr Seilder has been working in the field for more than 25 years, has written widely on the subject and is widely respected both within the medical profession and amongst social workers for his philosophy of always treating addicts as individuals.
He is known for taking on cases that many other doctors baulk at.
His surgery at Kings Cross in Sydney is infamous for the startling range of people who enter its doors, from high-flying professionals and celebrities to down and out street junkies.
The ABC program aired complaints from two anonymous informants, one a former patient and one a former nurse involved with Clinic 36 and Regent House, both in inner-Sydney. The clinics are jointly owned by Dr Seidler and a Dr Keith Roberts.
The program also claimed that an internal briefing note from the NSW government found an audit had shown that 34 litres of methadone had not been properly accounted for.
Yesterday Dr Seidler dismissed the story as ``not true'' and a ``beat up''.
The program quoted a male informant who was disbarred from the program at Clinic 36 after he organised a petition raising complaints about its operation. He claimed the clinics were ``full of these people you don't want to be around''. He also claimed that other clients had told him their methadone was being watered down and they had said they had proof of this.
A second anonymous informant, who said she had worked as a nurse at the clinics, claimed the methadone accounting procedures were slack. ``You didn't know how much you should have left at the day,'' she said. ``Accountability is everything.''
She also claimed staff at Regent House were unsympathetic to the clients, describing them as criminals and pathological liars. ``There but for the grace of God goes me or any of my family,'' she said. ``I want to see the clients treated with the respect they deserve and not judged for their past.''
Lawyers for Dr Seilder told the ABC there had been no watering down of methadone, no missing methadone and they had complied with government regulations.
A statement issued by the NSW Health Department said the matters were still the subject of investigation. It said an investigation by the Pharmaceutical Services Branch led to the tightening of licensing conditions in 2006. However Regent House and Clinic 36 were allowed to continue operating because any potential system shortcomings had been rectified and the treatment of 750 former addicts would be jeopardised if they were shut down.

Thursday 24 May 2007

Victoria 'holding NSW farmers to ransom', The Australian, 24 May, 2007. Picture Richard Cisar-Wright





Victoria `holding NSW farmers to ransom': [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, JohnThe Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 24 May 2007: 4.
Show highlighting
"We are running on empty," Mr [Doug Miell] said. "We have as bad a problem as has ever been confronted in the [Murray-Darling], and we've got Stephen Bracks playing politics."
"The drought has highlighted the over-allocation of water in the river system and shown how much we need a unified scheme to fix the problems," Mr O'[Connor] said. "I am disappointed that what seems like a good long-term solution proposed by the federal Government is going to be chopped off by thebloody-mindedness of the Victorian Government."