Gun laws fail safety test: Greens

THE latest domestic violence murder-suicide in Sydney should cause the Premier, Nathan Rees, to change gun laws immediately so that women [people] at risk from their estranged partners are better protected, the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said.

Mr Rees met the National Coalition for Gun Control yesterday after agreeing to review gun laws that had made it easier for [people] men who had been the subject of apprehended violence orders to regain their licences.

"We've had a very useful discussion that canvassed a wide range of matters. We'll give a considered response to the Coalition. But I have agreed to keep up contact with them and meet with them on a regular basis," Mr Rees said.

Under NSW law, anyone who became the subject of an AVO had to wait 10 years after it expired to reapply for a gun licence, but an amendment moved by the Shooters MP Roy Smith, and approved this month, waived the 10-year waiting period.

Ms Rhiannon said although John Kudrytch, 39, who shot his former wife, Melissa Cook, 29, at a BP service station in Casula on Tuesday, did not appear to be a registered gun owner, Mr Rees needed to overturn the amendment.

[If John Kudrytch did not appear to be a registered gun owner, then why is he being used here as an example to some law that won't change his circumstances, either before or after the fact that he killed his former wife with a gun? Why not clamp down on illegal guns? Or gun use in general? Also if Kudrytch didn't use a gun would he have killed his wife with something anyway?]

Ms Rhiannon: "The Premier's review of gun laws should ask why laws put the onus on the AVO subject to surrender his/[her] gun to police rather than require police to proactively seize the firearm. Tragedies like this are becoming more prevalent with the increasing number of firearms in circulation."

[The premier should review why the man had a gun and put the onus on the illegal gun owners to surrender his/her illegal gun.]

Ms Rhiannon: She said the weakening of gun control laws by the Shooters Party, with the support of major parties, could result in more accidents, deaths and suicides from guns.

[Either Ms Rhiannon and the Kudrytch murder suicide is being exploited by the Sydney Morning Herald or Ms Rhiannon?]

[Yesterdays headline from the SMH would strongly suggest media manipulation by SMH: Police probe how killer husband got gun - Breaking News - National ...17 Dec 2008 ... Police investigating the murder of a woman gunned down by her estranged husband will investigate how he got hold of a gun. - 14 hours ago -]

Quote: The weakening of the Sydney Morning Herald's article in relation to the gender blame game is preventing their ability to a balanced article in relation to solving the problem at the root. For some reason they seem to think only men commit crime using guns? Why is that? Then they go on to use the wrong example to attack gun laws? Why is that?

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Amnesty: 334 Taser Deaths Since 2001 And back in the United States, Amnesty International is calling for new limits on the use of taser stun guns by law enforcement officials. In a new report, Amnesty says 334 people have been killed by taser weapons since 2001. 90 percent of the victims were unarmed and did not appear to present a serious threat. Some of the people to be shocked by taser weapons include schoolchildren, pregnant women and an elderly person with dementia.

Wong announces $1.4b climate change fund

"This is a very substantial investment in small businesses and also community organisations to enable them to move to a low-pollution future." (File Photo) (From Little Things Big Things Grow.)

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says small businesses and community groups will get $1.4 billion over five years to help them adjust to the introduction of an emissions trading scheme.

The money will be available to businesses and groups purchasing energy efficient equipment through a Climate Change Action Fund.

She says there will also be grants for developing long-term energy-efficiency plans.

"This is about the Government delivering on its commitment to ensure that the monies raised from the scheme are invested back into Australian businesses and Australian households to enable everyone to make the transition to a low-pollution future," she said.

"This is a very substantial investment in small businesses and also community organisations to enable them to move to a low-pollution future."

Updated: 12:34pm (AEDT)

Rudd locks in 5pc emissions cut

The Federal Government has also promised around $6 billion a year in compensation and a 2.5 per cent rise in pension rates to help households cope with expected price rises when the carbon pollution reduction scheme begins in 2010.

It is estimated there will be a one-off rise in inflation of 1.1 per cent with the introduction of the scheme, and growth will slow by just 0.1 per cent a year to 2050.

The details of how the scheme will work and its expected cost to homes and businesses has been outlined in the Government's white paper released today.

The paper says by 2020 Australia will cut its emissions by 5 per cent of 2000 levels even if no progress has been made to finalise the next international agreement to reduce global emissions.

The 5 per cent cut is likely to anger the Greens and environmental groups who have been calling for a much stronger mid-term cut in emissions.

But it is closer to the level some business and industry groups were lobbying for.

The Government has left the door open to cut Australia's emissions by up to 15 per cent if other major economies also agree to significantly reduce emissions and advanced economies take similar action on cuts.

It has also reaffirmed its commitment to cut emissions levels by 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050.

The Government says it agrees with its climate change adviser Ross Garnaut's recommendation that a 25 per cent cut in emissions is in the national interest but that international agreement on a larger cut at international talks next year is unlikely.

"Australia's commitment of a 5 -15 per cent reduction by 2020 is a serious and credible commitment to the global action required and is realistically attainable in the current circumstances," the paper says.

Household compensation

The Government says around $6 billion a year will be provided through various measures to compensate families for price rises and estimates around 90 per cent of low income households will receive assistance of 120 per cent of their increase in cost of living expenses.

Aged pensioners, seniors, carers and those with a disability would receive a 2.5 per cent increase in the rate of the pension once the scheme begins.

Low and middle income families would be eligible for a range of measures through increases in the low income tax offset, a 2.5 per cent increase of Family Tax Benefit Part A or Family Tax Benefit Part B.

The white paper estimates that with a carbon price of $25 per tonne, electricity is expected to increase by around $4 per week, with a rise in gas prices of around $2.

Despite a large drop in petrol prices in recent months the Government will keep its cut in the fuel excise announced in the green paper on a cent-for-cent basis as the scheme causes a petrol prices rise.

Around $2.5 billion, as part of the Climate Change Action Fund, will also be allocated to help small businesses and community groups adapt to the scheme and lower emissions.

Trade exposed industries

The Government has increased the amount of free permits allocated in its green paper to those industries described as trade exposed because they face international competition and cannot pass the cost of a trading scheme onto consumers.

One threshold for eligibility has also been lowered, meaning more companies will be covered by the assistance.

The amount of free permits available to those industries - such as aluminium, cement, lime and silicone production - has been increased to 25 per cent, compared to 20 per cent flagged in the green paper.

That amount would rise to 35 per cent once agriculture is included in the scheme, which is not expected until at least 2015.

Industries now also have the choice of being assessed for assistance via two different tests based on either revenue or the value it adds to the product in the manufacturing process.

If an industry produces over 2,000 tonnes of emissions per million dollars of revenue or 6,000 tonnes of emissions in the value it adds to a product it is eligible for 90 per cent of free permits.

If it produces over 1,000 tonnes of emissions per million dollars of revenue or 3,000 tonnes of emissions in the value it adds to a produce it is eligible for 60 per cent of free permits.

The Electricity Sector Adjustment Scheme will also provide $3.9 billion assistance to coal fired power generators over the next five years.

Updated: 1:38pm (AEDT)

5pc target a global embarrassment

Greens Senator Christine Milne says the emissions reduction targets are extremely weak and disappointing.

"This is a complete failure of a system," she said.

"Five per cent is a global embarrassment, 15 per cent is way below even the minimum the rest of the world wants to see.

"The Europeans have said 20 per cent targets by 2020. How can the Rudd Government face the rest of the world when Australia has done nothing?"

The WWF environment group is also unhappy with the announcement, with Australian director Ray Nias describing the 5 per cent target is deeply disappointing.

"It commits Australia to long-term dangerous climate change [and] it will make Australia's ability to negotiate global agreements very, very difficult," he said.

"Its much lower than even we had imagined the worst case being."

Three protesters had to be [thrown] out of the National Press Club in Canberra this lunchtime as Rudd was speaking about the decision.

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Greenpeace criticises clean-coal plans
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Garnaut too soft on emissions target: expert
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Green groups slam failure to set firm targets
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Native forests should be part of the solution
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Climate change fight needs political ardour: Greenpeace
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Leaving petrol off emissions trading scheme 'dangerous'
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Aust's ecological footprint one of biggest in world: index
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Climate change hot topic at youth 2020 summits
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Greenpeace to give Treasurer carbon capture petition
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Year in detention 'excessive'

The lack of judicial review has meant that women and children had been held unreasonably, the report said.

Dissenters have broken away from a parliamentary group investigating Australia's immigration detention policy, arguing for more dramatic change including legal rights for detainees and a one-month cap on detention.

Conservative Liberal senator Alan Eggleston joined party colleague Petro Georgiou and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young in criticising the majority's 18 recommendations for not going far enough.

The unlikely splinter group wanted detainees to be granted immediate access to the courts. This would allow them to appeal for release when there were "no reasonable grounds that their detention is justified", a supplementary report prepared by the group said.

The lack of judicial review has meant that women and children had been held unreasonably, the report said.


Kids in Detention

The Government can detain people while immigration officials conduct health, security and identity checks. Beyond that, people deemed a risk to the community should only be held in detention for a maximum of a year, the committee majority said.

But the dissenting trio said a year in detention was "grossly excessive" and called for a limit of 30 days. Public servants should not have the "unfettered power to detain", they said, taking a swipe at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's "chequered" history.

The refugee advocacy group, A Just Australia, said the main report was disappointing. It provided only a negligible step in the right direction, the national co-ordinator, Kate Gauthier, said.

"This inquiry has missed out on a vital opportunity to put the new detention values into practice. We'd like to see the committee pay more than lip service to human rights."

The official report recommended all criteria by which detainees could be deemed a risk be published. It suggested health checks could be completed in five days and more than $20 million in debts owed by current and former detainees to the Government be waived by the Minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner.

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Detention centre staff 'cracked'
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UN Torture Committee Blasts Australia
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Doctor urges mandatory detention inquiry
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Refugees highest level in history: UN
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says there are more displaced people in the world than at any time in history, with the bulk of them coming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Children's welfare groups slam net filters

Support for the Government's plan to censor the internet has hit rock bottom, with even some children's welfare groups now saying that that the mandatory filters, aimed squarely at protecting kids, are ineffective and a waste of money.

Live trials of the filters, which will block "illegal" content for all Australian internet users and "inappropriate" adult content on an opt-in basis, are slated to begin by Christmas, despite harsh opposition from the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, consumers and online rights groups.

Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.

She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently block legitimate resources.

Furthermore there was no evidence to suggest that children were stumbling across child pornography when browsing the web. Doel-Mackaway believes the millions of dollars earmarked to implement the filters would be far better spent on teaching children how to use the internet safely and on law enforcement.

"Children are exposed to the abusive behaviours of adults often and we need to be preventing the causes of violence against children in the community, rather than blocking it from people's view," she said.

"The constant change of cyberspace means that a filter is going to be able to be circumvented and it's going to throw up false positives - many innocent websites, maybe even our own, will be blacklisted because we reference a lot of our work that we do with children in fighting commercial sexual exploitation."

Doel-Mackaway noted the claims by the internet industry that the filters would be easily bypassed, would not block content found on peer-to-peer networks and chat rooms and would be in danger of being broadened to include legitimate content such as regular pornography, political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling.

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

James McDougall, director of the National Children's and Youth Law Centre, expressed similar views to Save the Children.

He said the mandatory filters simply would not work and children should be able to make decisions for themselves. Concerned parents could easily install PC-based filters on their computers if they desired, or ask their internet providers to switch on voluntary filtering.

"This is called a child protection measure yet the vast majority of all serious child abuse does not occur on the internet, it occurs in the home," said McDougall.

"I take issue with the minister's perspective that children are themselves the danger in a sense that we have to make this decision for them because they are not capable of making it for themselves - I think there's very little evidence to support that and plenty of evidence to show that children are responsible decision makers given the skills and information."

On Thursday, as political activist group GetUp announced its plans for an elaborate anti-filtering campaign, 70 ISP filtering stakeholders converged on the University of NSW to examine the merits of the proposed censorship scheme.

"There seemed to be some consensus that the proposed mandatory filter model would not actually be directed at the real channel of child porn distribution, which is not the blacklist of known web sites, but via various other internet protocols and tools," said David Vale, executive director of UNSW's Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre.

"The idea of doing whatever was possible in stopping the problem at the source, including education of parents, kids, teachers and politicians, and serious law enforcement efforts at detection and prosecution of perpetrators and distributors, was seen as probably as, or more, effective than a filter initially aimed at preventing inadvertent browsing of child porn on the web by young people.

"Another aspect was the potential for the filter, once in place, to become the subject of a repeated bidding war, depending on which minor politicians had balance of power in parliament, or who had the 'moral panic of the day'."

Senator Conroy's spokesman, Tim Marshall, has consistently failed to respond to requests for comment on the issue.

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Activists target Rudd's net censorship plans
The political activists have now set their sights on the Government's plan to censor the internet, which is already facing a major backlash and a lack of political support. GetUp says a petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures; GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than "any other campaign in recent history".

Govt criticised over Senate schedule

Greens Leader Bob Brown: "The problem is that governments are frightened of the Senate, they always have been," he said.

The Federal Government has been criticised by senators who say they are under pressure to rush through legislation in the final week of Parliament.

The Senate will this week debate key Government bills in areas like industrial relations, infrastructure and school funding.

Senators are facing extended sittings as they try to move the legislation through before the Christmas break, which runs from next week through until February.

Greens Leader Bob Brown is critical of the Government's refusal to sit for an extra week and has his own theory.

"The problem is that governments are frightened of the Senate, they always have been," he said.

He has called for more sitting weeks next year.

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz says he will not be rushed.

"The Senate has a role to properly consider legislation, and that's what we'll do," he said.

Activists target Rudd's net censorship plans

The political activists who helped free David Hicks and abolish Work Choices have now set their sights on the Government's plan to censor the internet, which is already facing a major backlash and a lack of political support.

GetUp says it plans to run mainstream ads and offline action that will be as elaborate as its free Hicks campaign. In just a day, a petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures; GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than "any other campaign in recent history".

The Greens this week officially announced their opposition to the internet filtering plan, which critics like GetUp fear will slow the internet to a crawl and open the door to censorship of other material such as, political views and pro-abortion sites.

They join a chorus of dissent from internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators and online rights activists.

Despite the significant opposition, the Government is pressing ahead with live filtering trials, which it wants to launch by December 24. ISPs, which already offer free filters but on a voluntary basis, are reluctant to take part but fear they have no other way of showing the Government the deep flaws in its mandatory censorship plan.

"We're very, very concerned that there's going to be a unnecessary clamp down on the internet and it has to be watched," Greens leader Bob Brown said Tuesday.

GetUp campaign director Ed Coper said he was certain his organisation's "Save the Net" campaign would be "really big and ongoing".

"It's certainly one of the most ill-thought-out decisions of the Rudd Government so far," he said.

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

The Government plans to impose a mandatory filter for all internet users that will block sites found on the secret ACMA blacklist and blacklists held by other countries. But only half of ACMA's list is child pornography, while the rest is mainly X-rated porn and sexual fetish material.

A second, optional filtering tier, which will also be tested in the trial, will block content deemed inappropriate for children.

The filters can easily be evaded by those using freely available tools.

Britain, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand have all implemented similar filtering systems. However, in all cases, participation by ISPs was optional and the filtering was limited in scope to predominantly child pornography.

Greens call for uranium mining be reinstated

The WA Greens will move an urgency motion in the Upper House calling on the Government to immediately reinstate the ban on uranium mining in Western Australia.

The Premier, Colin Barnett, announced the ban had been formally lifted last week, and that mining leases would no longer contain a clause excluding uranium mining.

Greens MP Giz Watson says the Government does not have a mandate for its position, given that the Liberal Party only won 24 seats in the Lower House, compared with Labor's 28.

"They didn't win the election, let's get this clear.," she said.

"They formed a minority Government with the Nationals. Now the Nationals didn't run on a policy of open slather uranium mining in this state. The Nationals ran on a policy of royalties to regions."

Greens to host childcare summit in SA

Childcare providers in South Australia will get to have their say about the future of the sector at meeting.

The Australian Greens will host the meeting on Wednesday prompted by the fall of ABC Learning, which has been placed in voluntary receivership.

On Tuesday, CFK Childcare Centres, the operator of 43 childcare centres in NSW, announced it had gone into voluntary administration due to a failed asset sell-off to ABC Learning Centres Ltd.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Adelaide meeting was an opportunity to hear first-hand from the private and not-for-profit sector.

"This meeting in Adelaide is a first step in opening those lines of communication, creating a dialogue, and learning from those who are working on the ground as to how to stabilise and improve childcare provision in Australia," Senator Hanson-Young said.

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Child care for people not profit! The future of childcare services in Australia has been brought into question by the financial collapse of ABC Learning, the largest childcare provider in the country. Its collapse, and government responses to it, reveal much about how public services and private profit interact in Australian society.

What does the Melamine- laced milk disaster have in common with the collapse of the childcare giant ABC Learning? The failure of commercial childcare and the disaster of the melamine toxic milk episode lead us to examine how 20th century capitalism has exploited women and their babies and children. Women’s dissatisfaction whilst caring at home has been amply described by Betty Freidan and others. Their factual reports of the unhappy lives of many a suburban mother and housewife contributed in some part to the mass co-option of discontented women into the workforce.

Milne named first Greens deputy leader

Tasmanian Greens Senator Christine Milne has been elected as the party's federal deputy leader to Bob Brown.

It is the first time the Greens have had a deputy leader.

Since the last election, the Greens now have five senators in the Upper House of Federal Parliament.

Greens push for affordable homes

The NSW Greens have introduced a bill into the Legislative Council that would allow councils to require up to 25 per cent of new multi-unit housing developments to be set aside for affordable housing.

The housing would be managed by councils, non-profit housing organisations or the Department of Housing. Rents would be limited to 30 per cent of the tenants' income.

The Greens say that the scheme is "by no means radical", with similar ones operating in Britain, the US, France and Japan. The developers' contribution could be monetary or in the form of housing units, they say.

The Greens' planning spokeswoman, Sylvia Hale said, "The bill is aimed at providing more affordable housing for low- and moderate-income earners. Councils can set their own target [from] 1 per cent to 25 per cent, based on housing needs.

"Recent statistics rate Sydney as the seventh least-affordable city in the world. Where will Sydney be when key workers such as teachers, nurses, police and aged and child-care workers can't afford to live here?" Ms Hale said.

There were already limited schemes operating in NSW. "One success story is the affordable housing run by City West Housing Company in inner Sydney. The Greens' bill removes the obstacles to the expansion of these types of schemes."

Ms Hale said councils are at present hamstrung by the requirement that a scheme be listed by the Minister for Planning in a State Environment Planning Policy. The previous and present planning ministers had not approved any new schemes, and when a council had asked it had been refused, she said.

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Logging protest turns ugly

They smashed [the rear window] and I cut my hand getting out

FOREST activists say they feared for their lives after a violent attack by Tasmanian loggers led to one man wielding a sledge-hammer and others kicking in a protest car.

Police are investigating Tuesday's attack, which was caught on a video that shows a sledgehammer-wielding man assaulting a disabled blockade car, with two protesters caught inside, before others kicked in its windows.

The two protesters, Nishant Datt, 22, and Miranda Gibson, 27, said they tried to escape from the car as quickly as they could after the attack began. "I was pretty sure that if we'd stayed in there, he would have started going at us with the sledgehammer as well," said Mr Datt, formerly of Sydney.

He said he was thrown to the ground and kicked as he scrambled out of the car, and Ms Gibson, from Brisbane, said she cut her hand escaping through a broken rear window.

The two are part of a small group of protesters who on Saturday will celebrate their second year trying to halt logging of old-growth forests in the Upper Florentine valley, about 120 kilometres west of Hobart.

The rainforest valley is surrounded on three sides by the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has identified the Upper Florentine as having potential World Heritage value.

Ula Majewski, a spokeswoman for the group Still Wild, Still Threatened, said attempts to save the forest were reaching a critical point, with plans to drive a 10-kilometre logging road into the valley this summer.

"That would open the entire area up for logging," Ms Majewski said.

Ms Gibson said that before the attack an officer from Forestry Tasmania, the state agency that controls the valley, told them he could not hold back the logging contractors, and said they had three seconds to get out of the car.

"We said, 'We're getting out of the car' and I just managed to get out of the back. They smashed [the rear window] and I cut my hand getting out," she said. "It was pretty scary."

She said the protests would continue. "We just hope the contractors won't be violent, and that Forestry will be present, doing something to stop this kind of thing. We were pretty disappointed that the Forestry officer just stood by and let it happen."

Forestry Tasmania's acting general manager of operations, Steve Whiteley, said a staff member at the protest gave a categorical assurance that he did not witness any confrontation and did not receive any complaint.

Tasmania Police Inspector Glen Woolley said an investigation into the incident was under way. Evidence had been taken from the site, the video, and statements from the two protesters. He said police would be interviewing the contractors.

"We respect the right of people to demonstrate peacefully, and to work lawfully," Inspector Woolley said. "We don't tolerate heavy handedness and we won't tolerate people being assaulted."

A Greens senator, Christine Milne, said the culture of violence against conservationists in Tasmania had to end.

"For all Premier [David] Bartlett's rhetoric of a kind and clever Tasmania, what is on global show is thuggery and wilful ignorance."

See Video

Greens propose 2010 republic referendum

A referendum on the republic should be held with the next federal election, due in 2010, the Australian Greens say.

Greens leader Bob Brown said on Wednesday the time was right as both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull support a republic.

"We Greens are going to move before Christmas for a referendum at the next election on the republic, just a yes-no question," he told reporters.

"We think the time is right, the stars are aligned.

"We have a prime minister and a leader of the opposition who support the republic."

The Australian people should be given a simple opportunity before work was done on what form a republic should take, Senator Brown said.

The failed 1999 referendum should have been asked simply whether or not the electorate favoured a republic.

"Ask people in Australia do they want a republic? The answer is yes.

"Once we have established that, we can go on to outline the powers of a future president and how that president ought to be appointed."

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The Secret Rulers of the World – New Link 

The Secret Rulers of the World The Secret Rulers of the World - Present/Past [part 1 of 29] You Tube Video The source of most if not all our woes, revealed (from the present to the past): Connecting the dots through ~3000 years of revisionist human history, spanning from the time of the pharaohs, all the way up to the present dynasties creating the New World Order, in a quest to perfect the enslavement of mankind. From pirates to banksters, to the ruling elite, who run the world's finances, the media and cover both side of nearly every conflict or war: the world may make more sense after watching this. See additional episodes on the sidebar. In particular 9. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Queen and 12. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Cult of Amen and 13. The Secret Rulers of the World - Committee of 300 and 14. The Secret Rulers of the World - Rothschild. That truth will set you free.