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[Mr. Tone]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/revealed-doctors-outrage-over-unsafe-refugee-patients

A group of doctors has revealed the shocking standard of medical care they are made to provide asylum seekers at the Christmas Island detention centre in a 92-page “letter of concern” given to their employer in November.

The forensic report, written by 15 doctors and obtained by Guardian Australia, is the most comprehensive document yet on the failings of medical procedure inside detention centres and is a damning indictment of the Australian government’s care for refugees.

The report documents “numerous unsafe practices and gross departures from generally accepted medical standards which have posed significant risk to patients and caused considerable harm”.

It paints a vivid picture of the indignity of detention through distressing and detailed case studies.

The doctors claim:

· asylum seekers are examined while exhausted, dehydrated and filthy, their clothing “soiled with urine and faeces” because there are no toilets on the boats

· patients are “begging for treatment”

· asylum seekers must queue for up to three hours for medication. Some have to queue four times a day

· antenatal care is unsafe, inadequate and does not comply with Australian standards; there is an ultrasound machine on the island but rarely anyone who knows how to use it

· there is a high risk of depression among children and no effective system for identifying children at risk

· basic medical stocks are low; drugs requested by doctors are not provided

· long delays in transferring patients to mainland hospitals are leading to “risks of life-threatening deterioration”.

 

[Dead Man]

That can't be right, the great and wise Julie Bishop was just there and she was quite pleased with the standards she saw:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-19/an-bishop-says-nauru-better-than-mining-camps/5168144

Foreign Minister Julia Bishop has described conditions at the Nauru immigration processing centre as being better than those of most Australian mining camps.

Ms Bishop's comments follow a damning UNHCR report last month, which said the centre was not appropriate for asylum seeker families and their children.

Ms Bishop visited the centre as part of a three-day bi-partisan tour of the Pacific, which also included Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

She maintains the living standards are high for the more than 700 asylum seekers currently on Nauru.

"They were certainly better than mining camps in Australia," Ms Bishop said. "The standard of medical care and services I thought was very high.

"We met with a number of the doctors. We talked to them in detail about the services that they're providing. They themselves described the services as comparable to those that would be received in a significant regional centre in Australia."

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young recently toured the facilities on Nauru and says the conditions are inhumane and completely inappropriate for children.

"It's in the middle of the island in the middle of the mine, a quarry. There is no grass, there's no forest, there's not even really dirt. It's just rock and gravel," Ms Hanson-Young said.

She is especially concerned about the conditions for more than 100 children detained on the island.

"There are children as young four years old in the camp there, up to the ages of 18. There is a number of unaccompanied minors," she said.

"It really struck me on the way home when I was reflecting on the visit that I'm going to spend the weekend buying Christmas presents for my daughter and these kids have nothing, absolutely nothing. And they just kept pleading with me the entire time: 'Why are we in this prison, and what have we done wrong?'"

Ms Bishop says she did not see any asylum seeker children while touring the facilities, but maintains conditions are appropriate.

"They do have schooling. They have been going to the local school," she said.

"I also went to recreational facilities; I saw opportunities for them. So I think that there are plenty of things for them to do there.

"It may be different from their home country, but most certainly the Australian Government is spending a significant amount of money on services, including recreational facilities".

Well as long as Australia is spending a significant amount of money, those filthy urchins should be happy for what they get.

Edit: Ah, the doctors were on Christmas Island? Not even Nauru? Bloody hell, that is where there are supposed to be resources since it's been running for so long. Jesus, what a fucking mess.

 

[roosters93]

"Foreign Minister Julia Bishop has described conditions at the Nauru immigration processing centre as being better than those of most Australian mining camps."

I can't even deal.

 

[Tommy DJ]

That's a comment that's bound to backfire with a decent number of the Australian public. They don't seem to be very good at this PR or diplomacy thing...

 

[markot]

Maybe let the media in to the camps if they're so great?

 

[roosters93]

But then they wouldn't want to leave.

 

[wonzo]

 

[Mondy]

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/fed...s-trial-instead-of-launch-20131219-2zo03.html

In the hurly-burly of new government policy there was a change to the national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) late last week. The Abbott government quietly announced it would cease using the word ''launch'' and start using the word ''trial''.

This makes a huge difference. It suddenly puts the entire NDIS in doubt in the long term and raises questions about whether the Abbott government really is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities finally get their opportunity to live with dignity and independence.

The Gillard government slipped up fundamentally when it renamed the NDIS DisabilityCare Australia. It did so without realising how patronising the language of dependence is to people with disabilities. Then shadow minister Mitch Fifield understood this and promised to change the name back. In fact, this was the only disability policy that the Coalition took to the September election.

The new government has repeatedly assured the disability community that the NDIS will be rolled out as planned. But there has been real uncertainty about whether the scheme will continue, and, if it will, whether it will continue in the original form. For the disability community, many of whom live in very difficult circumstances, this has long been a major concern.
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Now, just when Mr Fifield's assurances were starting to bite, Treasurer Joe Hockey has taken aim at the NDIS as part of his budgetary savings. No specifics were given, just reference made to a ''slimmer'' version.

Many thousands of people with disabilities, and their families, who had hoped there might be light at the end of the tunnel are suddenly back at the beginning. Mr Fifield is also back to where he was before the election: few believe that the Coalition government will deliver the NDIS as promised. The Treasurer, in trying to score a political point on the budget has dashed the hopes of many people, and overspent political capital that barely existed.

What Mr Hockey has missed is that the Productivity Commission gave the NDIS a very favourable cost-benefit analysis. For every dollar spent supporting people with disabilities through the NDIS, Australia's economy will grow many times.

All new schemes take years to bed down. It is almost impossible to predict the minutiae of large projects like the NDIS. Remember the NDIS is a totally different way of approaching disability support. Instead of one size fits all, packages will be tailored to support each individual to their greatest possible independence. Each package must be individually designed.

For most recipients of the scheme this will be the first time someone has asked them what they want their support to look like. Naturally, this has taken longer for people to visualise and describe than the bureaucrats expected. But no one in the disability community is surprised. In fact we all expected and predicted it.

Nor should anyone be surprised that people who have had very little, if any, vital support will need more than the anticipated average to get established. This will settle down over time, but initially there are a lot of people starting from zero.

Trialling the scheme won't resolve the critical shortfall in disability services and supports that was identified by the Productivity Commission. Launching the scheme, and just getting on with it, is the only way to do this. Of course, there will be some tweaking needed as things get going.

Already launch sites are reporting back to other states about what they are learning and improvements are being made. This will continue for many years until the full scheme is in place in 2019.

Saving money now will actually cost a lot more in the long run. The best option is to get on with it as soon as possible and start reaping the economic benefits as more people with disabilities become far less dependent, become part of the workforce and part of the consumer economy.

The NDIS is not a trial. It can't be discontinued if the first year or two are not perfect. The NDIS is launching and there must be no going back. The NDIS can and should be a driver of economic recovery.

So it begins.

 

[Myansie]

I have a brother who is 31 years old and disabled. He has a rare syndrome known asBardet–Biedl. Basically that means he's blind, mentally retarded, had a kidney transplant among many surgerys, has dinner with a bowl of pills and urinates through his stomach into a bladder that is a plastic bag. The repercussions on my family for the last 31 years, particularly on my Mum, are something Tony Abbott will never understand.

My family is 3 boys, Mum and Dad. I voted Greens, everyone else voted Libs (Including my disabled brother) It gets a whole lot more ironic, but then I'd be getting way to personal. Ok there is one more detail, my parents are in Antarctica as I type this and have been for the last 6 weeks on holiday.

To say I feel like throwing in the towel with this anouncement would be like saying stop to Kurt Cobain. Not that I'm suicidal, I just have no interest in this train. I've already leapt. Now I just want to know how to fight.

 

[Shaneus]

Yeah, "trial" smacks of the whole "Oh look, we tried this for a month or so, CLEARLY it doesn't work so now we're ditching it completely" shit that budget-slashing governments are known for.

No idea who the fuck voted them in, but I'm sure glad I don't know anyone who cares for the disabled. If I did, I'd likely be wielding some kind of weapon and driving up to Canberra by now.

Edit: Fuck, Myansie. I'm speechless

I don't think I've ever witnessed a government so blatantly fuck over so many corners of the community in such a short time. Refugees, disabled, kids in schools... what else is left? Oh wait, I forgot the whole internet thing as well.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

My worthless, cynical and possibly naive gut instinct is that they wouldn't dare touch the NDIS. They might not have displayed the strongest grasp of macroeconomics but we know they don't earnestly believe their own chicken little story or they wouldn't have produced the troll job that was their election costings (unless they thought they needed to deceive in order to be elected in order to save the country from the emergency...). My guess is that this will be similar to how after Pyne's second backflip on Gonski they were crowing about how they "found" the money for the extra states that the stingy Labor party had hidden under the floorboards or something. Make vague threats about the NDIS, then look like heroes when it emerges relatively unscathed through austerity round one.

Or they're going to gut it and tell everyone it'll be good enough/ just as good/ better/ more affordable/ within their means/ governments must learn the lessons of household finances except not households with disabled people in them cos boy do they get it rough.

 

[Dryk]

Interesting that the federal government keeps doing things that SA voters hate just before an election the Liberals aren't a shoe-in for.

FLIGHTS will land at Adelaide Airport at 5am from April in a decision which has angered western suburb residents but received praise from officials who say it will boost tourism.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...r-cathay-pacific/story-e6frg6n6-1226787590671

The repercussions on my family for the last 31 years, particularly on my Mum, are something Tony Abbott will never understand.

He understands, he was opposition leader for four years.

 

[Shaneus]

He understands, he was opposition leader for four years.

Bravo.

 

[Arksy]

I love the NDIS. You're getting no argument from me.

In other news I sent a letter to Scott Morrison today, and signed it as a member of the liberal party....basically saying in the nicest way possible that I completely abhor his tactics.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

I love the NDIS. You're getting no argument from me.

In other news I sent a letter to Scott Morrison today, and signed it as a member of the liberal party....basically saying in the nicest way possible that I completely abhor his tactics.

Thanks for that, hope it makes an impact. Though I thought the rumour was that Morrison was just following orders from above (Abbott/Credlin) and was actually frustrated about how little he was allowed to say?

 

[Myansie]

He can always pass the letter on. Looks like a good idea to me.

 

[Mondy]

He can always pass the letter on. Looks like a good idea to me.

Or feed it to his shredder, which is something Morrison would very likely do.

 

[Dryk]

"This letter is now an operational matter and cannot leave this office"

 

[Myansie]

Or feed it to his shredder, which is something Morrison would very likely do.

Careful now. Cynicism is the rights most powerful tool.

 

[Mondy]

Careful now. Cynicism is the rights most powerful tool.

I wouldn't even call it cynicism. It's the sad, pathetic reality of our politics that stretches back as far as Keating, who first introduced mandatory detention (the one black mark on his record, as far as I'm concerned).

At some point in the early '90's, maybe even earlier than that, politicians discovered that elections are won and lost in this country by appealing to the bigotry, xenophobia and just flat out racism of one electoral region.

Someone needs to explain to me how it came to be that the most valuable seats in the Parliament, all of which are extremely marginal, all congregated in the same white upper middle class region of the country, which also happens to be the single most indignant and inward looking community that any Aussie could name.

Of course, I'm talking about Western Sydney. Those poor, unfortunate suburbanites. There they are, being squeezed together like sardines from every angle by Lebanese, Asians, Muslims and any other fresh off the boat ethnic minority that happens to be the flavor of the month for some 80 to 100k a year suits disdain. The same people that the working class and lower middle class majority in every other region of Australia would rather piss glass shards than associate with. These people are deciding who governs us each and every election.

I don't care if they're the most densely populated electorates. Those seats need to be narrowed down in a big way. Think of it as the reverse of gerrymandering. It's high time the concerns of South Australia, WA, Tasmania and QLD are better heard in Parliament.

 

[roosters93]

Think of it as the reverse of gerrymandering.

Merrygandering. It's meant to be.

 

[Jintor]

I preferred the immigration minister song, to be honest.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

I definitely trust the writers of the Australian to recognise when the media is giving undue coverage to the inconsequential mistakes of a government.

 

[Dead Man]

Unfair focus on its mistakes? What else is there to focus on?

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Unfair focus on its mistakes? What else is there to focus on?

Its strong legislative record? Sorry, just remembered that's not a valid metric for judging a government by. Look at the last lot, they passed a record number of bills but we all know they were a shambles and parliament was a chaotic farce that the Australian people had lost all confidence in. I keep forgetting that.

 

[Dead Man]

Its strong legislative record? Sorry, just remembered that's not a valid metric for judging a government by. Look at the last lot, they passed a record number of bills but we all know they were a shambles and parliament was a chaotic farce that the Australian people had lost all confidence in. I keep forgetting that.

Hah

 

[Arksy]

Its strong legislative record? Sorry, just remembered that's not a valid metric for judging a government by. Look at the last lot, they passed a record number of bills but we all know they were a shambles and parliament was a chaotic farce that the Australian people had lost all confidence in. I keep forgetting that.

No no no. You've got it wrong. It is a valid metric, it's just the other direction. A government's worth is inversely proportionate to the numbers of bills passed.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

In the spirit of the season, here is RBA Governor Glenn Stevens thanking the Government for the $8.8 billion Christmas present to the Reserve Fund:

CHAIR: "Had there been much improvement in 2011-12 when Treasurer Wayne Swan decided to deplete thefund further by taking out half a billion dollars?"

Mr Stevens: "He did not deplete the fund. That is, with respect, not quite right. The Treasurer cannot deplete the RBRF. The way this works is, and the balance of powers are, that the board has to get the Treasurer's approval, as the shareholder, to retain earnings to put into the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund, but once they are in there the Treasurer cannot take them out; the board can. The board has the prerogative of using the RBRF to absorb losses the bank faces, but the Treasurer cannot do that directly. In fact, he cannot put money in the fund directly either."
...
"The scenario you paint, in which the cupboard is so-called bare, is one that we gave thought to, because with not too many more cents on the exchange rate at one point the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund would indeed have been a negative number. The advice from the accounting professionals and the auditors was that the bank carries on in that world and, as I said, there are central banks who have negative capital, but I do not think it is a good look. I think that in that world there is the risk of uninformed commentary suggesting the RBA is broke or something, which would not be true but would not be helpful in sustaining the credibility of our institution."

Truly a vital and real government expense and not deceitful accounting trickery designed for little more than political point-scoring.

No no no. You've got it wrong. It is a valid metric, it's just the other direction. A government's worth is inversely proportionate to the numbers of bills passed.

Well in that case I guess you're dreading the day Labor and the Greens lose the balance of power in the Senate

 

[Arksy]

Well in that case I guess you're dreading the day Labor and the Greens lose the balance of power in the Senate

Bingo.

 

[Dryk]

In a move that none of the feuding bodies involved asked for, the Federal Government has written to the World Heritage Committee to reduce the size of the Tasmanian heritage area.

 

[bobnowhere]

So basically dig it all up, cut it all down, fish it all out, send it all overseas for slaughter, liberate all the skilled jobs, piss off all the neighbours etc...

 

[Mondy]

So basically dig it all up, cut it all down, fish it all out, send it all overseas for slaughter, liberate all the skilled jobs, piss off all the neighbours etc...

Conservative Capitalism, ladies and gentlemen; where the working class are nothing but useful idiots.

 

[Shaneus]

Tony Abbott has suggested that we think of those less fortunate who are doing it tough this Christmas. So:
* Those who look after the disabled and will be affected by any change to the NDIS.
* Those stuck in detention centres at either Nauru or Christmas Island.
* Leaders of oppositions.
* People in gay relationships who are unable to get married.

Won't you think of them this Christmas? Tony will.

 

[lexi]

Tony Abbott has suggested that we think of those less fortunate who are doing it tough this Christmas. So:
* Those who look after the disabled and will be affected by any change to the NDIS.
* Those stuck in detention centres at either Nauru or Christmas Island.
* Leaders of oppositions.
* People in gay relationships who are unable to get married.

Won't you think of them this Christmas? Tony will.

To think of those, just once, for a second or two. What a paragon of empathy he is, God Bless Australia.

 

[bomma_man]

One of my house mates just told me that he got hammered with Chris Evans in New York last night. Will see if I can get some back room goss.

 

[Mondy]

Watch Guy Rundle of Crikey drop some truth bombs:

There’s Rupert Murdoch, Clive Palmer and Campbell Newman: mildly sinister, certainly absurd. It’s an Australian political implosion, and there may be no turning back.

So, on a Thursday night in Australia, the proprietor of the country’s largest media outlet gives a lecture auspiced by a think tank set up by the country’s largest shopping mall magnate, which is then broadcast live and in full on ABC News 24, and breathlessly reported the next morning in all the papers.

Meanwhile in Western Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission loses some 1400 votes in a tight Senate election, which will have to be redone in very changed political circumstances … meanwhile plutocrat party starter Clive Palmer dodges questions as to whether he will use his emerging Senate control to leverage advantage for his businesses, currently in a possibly precarious state (though how would we know?), while his Tasmanian Senator-elect Jacqui Lambie — demonstrating a deep understanding of the Westminster system — calls for an inquiry into the Greens (perhaps a revival of Clive’s CIA charges).

And up north, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, with a 60-plus seat majority, takes a problem of criminal gangs — not nothing, but hardly war in the streets — dredges up Joh-era public order laws, and imports “zero tolerance” laws from the United States — the country with among the highest crime rates, highest homicide rate and highest incarceration rate in the Western world.

History, first as tragedy, then as farce, the man said. He forgot to add … “then as a Dukes of Hazzard” episode. Boss Hogg Palmer dun got hisself a posse to find them lost votes probly stolen by some Labor-associated hack, while the governor done give the commencement address at the university and Police Chief Newman won’t let the biys ride, but the kids just want to dance man, the kids just want to dance!

What can explain the state of the nation today, this mix of the mildly sinister, with absurdity beneath it, where billionaires lecture us about elitism, and celebrate the “dynamism of capitalism” reported throughout the news organs they run at a loss of millions a week in order to have a voice?

What can explain the absurd deference to Murdoch’s mix of business magazine platitudes about the country, the world, and the nature of prosperity and the good life? What can explain the vacuum beneath, wherein — absent a major political clash — absurdities such as the Palmer United Party and the microparties can pullulate? The “surplus repression” inherent in Newman’s actions, the determination to bring in all the US problems associated with draconian law — i.e. bikies saying they will stand their ground against cops — where none currently exist here?

What can explain it above all in a country that once had a more involved and pluralist democracy, a contestation of forces that ensured that representation was not aligned with money and power? As so often in these matters, the question is the answer.

Those institutional structures fell away so quickly, were undermined so quickly — far more in the Hawke/Keating than in the Howard years; at the same time as the global economy and culture changed — that the effect was political implosion. Our union movement had always been so top-down (with honourable exceptions) that its winnowing produced no great storm of resistance.

Our great publicly owned corporations were so bureaucratic and distant from general mutual ownership and provision that few shed tears when they were privatised and then sold back to us. Superannuation and other measures profoundly privatised prosperity, and ushered in an era not merely of individualism but of atomisation. Within that, not merely Left traditions, but also classical liberal traditions died as mainstream political causes.

The result? A cautious and evasive Liberal Party, hoping to govern by stealth, a self-involved and complacent Labor Party, a Greens outfit hemmed in by the limits of its class base — and in the vacuum Clive Palmer, Rupert Murdoch, vague waffle of a Promethean nature about our great future, etc, etc. It is all nonsense, of course.

We will live better or worse depending on decisions of governments to come, but we missed the great future. We missed it these last 20 years, when we failed to plug the mineral boom into a genuinely dynamic and world-beating knowledge/science/industry/post-industry base.

While Norway builds a future fund now approaching $800 billion, we built one of $60 billion for a country five times the population. We let our schools decline, our universities rot, and we wasted the talents of a generation through complacent inequality. We gave the run of the farm to big banks, big comms, big services, and thus when ANZ makes $6 billion — $6 billion  — in profit, there is no one to say that maybe they should pay a little more tax, or not charge us $2 to get our money out.

We could have been the Germany of the Pacific. We decided to be the Arkansas. Not hopelessly backward, but a long way from the front foot, too. That this fantasy creed should have been enunciated by the man who did so much to stunt our real development, on a Thursday night in Australia, is grimly amusing I guess. Morale Hazzard indeed.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/11/01/rundle-rupert-clive-and-campbell-in-the-arkansas-of-the-world/

 

[roosters93]

That just depresses me.

 

[Shaneus]

Watch Guy Rundle of Crikey drop some truth bombs:



http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/11/01/rundle-rupert-clive-and-campbell-in-the-arkansas-of-the-world/

How fucking depressing. Makes you wonder just how much better off Australia could have been during/after the GFC given we seemed to get out of it pretty much unscathed.

Sad fact that the majority of people who need to see articles like that are so complacent that there's little chance they will.

 

[wonzo]

Peter Dutton refuses to rule out $5 'GP fee'

The federal government has refused to "speculate" about a proposal to make patients pay a $5 fee for bulk-billed GP visits.

A national Commission of Audit has received a proposal for a co-payment scheme for GP consultations.

Doctor groups and political parties have criticised such a move, claiming it would destroy Medicare and limit access to GPs for some community groups.

Co-payments would see patients pay a fee for bulk-billed GP consultations.

Fucking morons.

 

[Mondy]

Peter Dutton refuses to rule out $5 'GP fee'



Fucking morons.

Blatant cash grab.

 

[AdventureRacing]

Incredibly short sighted policy there. In the short term maybe it makes them some extra money but in the medium to long term it will end up costing us money. Then again that's pretty much what politics seems to be about now.

 

[EatChildren]

To be fair, not introducing pointless fees that slowly dismantle quality of medical services for the population would imply the government has the priority of life quality for the average Australian instead of moneymoneymoney. Gotta be consistent.

 

[Jintor]

By the way, I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but apparently Morrison has stopped holding press conferences per week on the whole operation fuck-boat-people thing and is just sending out a report or something.

 

[AdventureRacing]

To be fair, not introducing pointless fees that slowly dismantle quality of medical services for the population would imply the government has the priority of life quality for the average Australian instead of moneymoneymoney. Gotta be consistent.

And they even end up losing money on increased usage of things like ED departments anyway. Looking forward to have to deal with even more people rocking up to our ED who could have easily went to the doctors surgery instead.

Thanks Obama.

 

[bomma_man]

US minimum wage threads terrify me.

 

[bobnowhere]

US minimum wage threads terrify me.

No kidding, I got mine so fuck everyone else.

 

[wonzo]

US minimum wage threads terrify me.

Sad thing is I've seen and heard plenty of the same dumb arguments against a raise used in this country too.

 

[Dead Man]

US minimum wage threads terrify me.

The way the poor and recently successful buy into the bullshit is what bothers me so much.

 

[bomma_man]

Sad thing is I've seen and heard plenty of the same dumb arguments against a raise used in this country too.

I guess the arguments raised against it do make intuitive sense in the same way that the household budget analogy makes sense, and that's good enough for a lot of people.

 

[hidys]

US minimum wage threads terrify me.

Yep, a really sad state of affairs.