Parents lack life skills, means, time: Stanley

ONE in five Australian parents are poor caregivers because they don't have the means or life skills, child health expert Professor Fiona Stanley says.

she said many others could not devote enough time to their kids because of excessive job commitments.

"If we don't respond to these challenges ... we will be looking at our generation, my generation, as being the last generation that lives longer than its parents," Prof Stanley said.

"If you look at the overall trend in many problems, they are actually showing no improvement and some of them are getting dramatically worse."

Mental illness, obesity, asthma and substance abuse were the biggest health risks for Australian kids.

"Family life has changed a lot," Prof Stanley said.

"You've got more hours of work, you've got more women working, but without men, or the business world or government, actually coming forward with really good childcare.

"So who's responsible for the children when a high proportion of women are working?

"That's been very detrimental to children."

Related:

Mental illness more prevalent among youth
A new report on children's health shows that young people's mental health may not be improving, as was previously thought.

Govt to change work-visa loophole

The federal government is moving to close a loophole that allows companies to employ short-term foreign guest workers for as little at $4.20 an hour.

Regulations will be introduced to change work-visa rules ensuring the workers are paid fair wages, Immigration Minister Chris Evans says.

The move follows an investigation by the Workplace Ombudsman which found 16 guest workers on an offshore gas project were performing 12-hour shifts on a two-months-on-one-month-off roster, and earning between $4 and $10 an hour.

"We have subsequently got the decision from the Workplace Ombudsman so we are going to change our regulations to try and make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again," Senator Evans said.

The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) had alleged Filipino construction workers laying a gas pipeline on the Angel gas project, off the WA coast, were being paid as little as $4.20 an hour.

"My members, Australian workers on that job, were earning upwards of a round $140,000 per annum," AWU secretary Paul Howes said.

"These Filipino workers were earning less than a 16-year-old who works for McDonald's and that's a disgrace.

"These workers should get every single dollar that they would have earned if they had been Australian workers working on the same project."

The workers were working under section 456 short-stay visas for a US-based labour hire company.

Once the pipeline touched the sea bottom, the workers should have gone onto section 457 visas which require them to be paid award wages.

Senator Evans says new regulations will require employers to pay proper wages under the section 456 visas.

"It is to pick up what seems to have been a loophole that has been exploited in this case and maybe in others."

Education forum: focus on employability?

Education researchers say developing a student's employability skills are just as important as teaching them how to read and write.

[But more students would be even more employable if they could equally get the social skills they need to get a job after leaving school and to stay employable. That is just as important as teaching them how to read and write. If one misses that opportunity, then 5 per cent of them fall over. People with social skills are more cooperative and have more respect for each other. Therefore learn more, take fewer risks and use fewer resources. People with social skills will stay in the job longer.]

The annual Australian Council for Educational Research conference is being held in Brisbane over the next two days.

The council's Professor Geoff Masters says he wants to see national minimum benchmarks set for high school students.

"The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia have called for greater emphasis to be placed on what they're calling employability skills, and they are things like communication, problem solving, planning and organising, teamwork, developing skills for life," he said.

"What we're hoping for today is to start a conversation nationally about what we should expect every student to achieve, what are the basics, how can we set minimum expectations for all students.

"It is our belief that a significant proportion of students are getting through the school system and not meeting basic standards."

Quote: What about a greater emphasis on social skills? They are things like communication, conflict resolution, self preservation, street wise, vulnerability, self-worth, self presentation, efficacy, mentoring. Because up to three generations of parents don't have social skills to pass on to their children. Corporate interests already reap from the academics but what about the tens of millions spent on the 5 per cent of people who don't make it? The money spent on those people make up a very large sum of taxpayer’s money spent on police, prisons, courts, hospitals, the morgue, and the victim industry. Those 5 per cent of children don't get a life or become a corporate asset if they don't make it!

Related:

More youth, women committing violent crimes
Queensland's Police Commissioner says more young people and more women are committing violent crimes.

Students finishing school 'without basic skills'
A leading education researcher is calling for national education standards to be imposed, saying that many students finish high school lacking basic reading and writing skills.

Young offenders face curfews
Young offenders could face curfews, strict limitations on their movements and controls on who they socialise with in an Australian-first program to be piloted in New South Wales.

Laws will push teenagers into adult prisons
For the past two years the department's director-general has had the power to move detainees to jail once they turned 18, irrespective of judges' orders.

Changes aim to help disability pensioners

The Federal Government has announced changes to assist more disability pensioners to find employment by removing disincentives for people who want to look for work.

Currently recipients who sign up with an employment agency have their benefits reviewed automatically and can lose some entitlements even before they get a job.

Federal Minister for Employment Participation, Brendan O'Connor, says from September the process will be changed so people will not lose any payments when they begin looking for work.

"My job is to see more people in work and I think this is certainly a worthwhile opportunity to consider whether the increase will occur as a result," he said.

"I'm hoping it will and I'm confident as a result of today's reception that people who can look for work, who are on the pension will be encouraged by the announcement."

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities Bill Shorten says under the new system people will not be penalised for looking for work.

"Living on $270 a week is a battle but if you think that you're going to lose that $270 a week by simply wanting to apply for a job, it's sending the wrong messages," he said.

"The signals are all wrong and now we've fixed that."

New figures reveal farming family exodus

Forced off: The drought has wreaked havoc with farming families (Get Images)

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show more than 10,500 farming families have been forced off the land during the drought.

The figures, show there has been a 10 per cent drop in the number of farming families during the drought.

In the five-year period between 2001 and 2006, 10,636 families sold up or found other work.

It was a big increase from the previous Census period, when 2,500 families stopped farming.

The figures underscore the drought's deep impact on rural Australia and bring the long-term fall in the number of farming families to 30 per cent during the past 20 years.

Planned ASIO surveillance laws under fire

A Senate Inquiry has been told proposed amendments to electronic surveillance laws will allow ASIO and police to further intrude on people's privacy.

The inquiry sitting in Sydney today is looking at proposed changes to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Bill.

This morning the secretary of the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, Stephen Blanks, said the changes would allow police and security agencies to monitor communication equipment that had not been identified in a warrant.

"The police will be able to add devices to warrants without any independent scrutiny so that they can intercept telephone calls and other telecommunications without any independent oversight," he said.

Greens leader Bob Brown has slammed the proposed electronic surveillance laws.

Senator Brown says the bill allows surveillance authorities to spy on people who are not even being investigated.

"There shouldn't be a blank cheque which allows the agency to pick and choose which devices it's going to listen in to, and inevitably the surveillance of completely innocent people," he said.

Related:

Email spy powers 'a licence for witch hunts'
Mr O'Gorman says the existing legal framework provides enough protection against terrorism."We have passed so many laws in the name of fighting terrorism that we're at ... serious risk of losing the balance between giving the intelligence services sufficient powers to fight terrorism while at the same time keeping longstanding and cherished civil liberties," he said.

Push for overhaul of laws on terrorism
Anti-terrorism laws are just 'state sanctioned terrorism' aimed at 'innocent people' and using them as 'scapegoats' for Australia's 'alleged war on terror'. These laws were meant to project 'fear' in the community that we somehow need to be protected so that the government can wage war on innocent people for resources around the world unchallenged.

Email spy powers 'a licence for witch hunts'

Employers would be able to read their staff's emails under proposed new national security laws being considered by the Federal Government.

The new laws would give companies extra powers to monitor their computer networks to prevent cyber-attacks.

They would be allowed to check their staff's emails and internet communications without their consent.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the proposed changes would step up national security of Australia's computer networks.

"We want to make sure that they are safe from terrorist attack," she said.

"Part of doing that is making sure we've got the right powers to ensure that we can tell if there's something unusual going on in the system.

"So it's a national security move, not a move about an unseemly interest in people's private emails."

A spokesman for the Attorney-General says cyber-threats are growing and that privacy experts and unions will be consulted about the proposed laws.

Dale Clapperton, from the internet-rights watchdog Electronic Frontiers Australia, says it is an over-reaction.

"Our concern is, that if given these powers, they're more likely to be used for eavesdropping and corporate witch hunts rather than protecting Australia from some kind of cyber attack."

The head of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, says tighter laws to protect Australia against cyber terrorism threats are not needed.

Mr O'Gorman says the existing legal framework provides enough protection against terrorism.

"We have passed so many laws in the name of fighting terrorism that we're at ... serious risk of losing the balance between giving the intelligence services sufficient powers to fight terrorism while at the same time keeping longstanding and cherished civil liberties," he said.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis says he is concerned about giving companies the power "to act in effect as a quasi-law enforcement or investigative authority."

Quote: This is definitely a move about an unseemly interest in people's private emails. Any person who wants to look at another persons mail is invading that persons personal privacy. Any law that intends to give another person that right is draconian and an invasion of that persons privacy. Shame on you Gillard.

Push for overhaul of laws on terrorism
[However anti-terrorism laws are just 'state sanctioned terrorism' aimed at 'innocent people' and using them as 'scapegoats' for Australia's 'alleged war on terror'. These laws were meant to project 'fear' in the community that we somehow need to be protected so that the government can wage war on innocent people for resources around the world unchallenged.]

Message on a bottle for binge drinkers

BOTTLES of alcoholic drinks could soon carry graphic pictures warning of the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption as part of the Federal Government's latest series of measures to cut down on under-age and binge drinking.

At a meeting of state and federal leaders in Adelaide on Wednesday the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will tell his state colleagues he also wants national guidelines covering the responsible service of alcohol and uniform standards on the serving of alcohol to minors, including training for bar staff.

The Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, said yesterday there was "no coherent national approach to tackling binge drinking among young people".

"While young people must take greater personal responsibility for their behaviour, binge drinking is a community-wide problem that demands a community-wide response … What is lacking is a consistently tough message," Ms Roxon said.

The Federal Government is concerned that the penalties for bar attendants and licensees found to be selling alcohol to people under the age of 18 vary from state to state and wants the inconsistencies ironed out.

In NSW, a licensee found guilty of supplying alcohol to minors can be fined $6600 but in Queensland the fine is as high as $18,750 and in South Australia the penalty is $20,000.

"State and territory laws relating to secondary supply are currently inconsistent," Ms Roxon said. "For example, in some states, it is deemed acceptable if a minor is supervised by an adult. In some states, restrictions on supplying alcohol to minors only relate to licensed premises, or to public venues."

Labels on alcohol containers could mimic the graphic pictures on cigarette packets that are intended to scare people off smoking by showing them photographs of gangrenous limbs and ulcerated mouths.

The Federal Government is on a crusade against binge and under-age drinking. Earlier this month Mr Rudd said he wanted to "scare the living daylights" out of binge-drinking teenagers with a graphic Grim Reaper-style advertising campaign warning of the health risks of excessive alcohol consumption.

As part of a $53.5 million national binge-drinking strategy endorsed by cabinet earlier this month, the Government will require sporting clubs to introduce codes of conduct on responsible drinking behaviour for players, officials and members.

The latest plans came as two brewing companies announced they would ban "alcopops" - the high-energy, high-sugar alcoholic drinks favoured by many younger drinkers.

But the Government has not yet gone as far as expressing support for plans to put a 9pm curfew on alcohol advertising, a plan being investigated by a Senate committee.

That committee is also examining the effectiveness of putting warning labels on bottles and cans.

Related:

Ban on late spirit sales

Govt unveils $53m to target binge drinking

Millions abused during boozy Christmas hols: study

Stress and debt make Sydney a violent city

Stress and debt make Sydney a violent city

SYDNEY is an angry city with longer working hours, climbing levels of debt and traffic snarls.

People are trying to cope with increasing stress that leads to alcohol-fuelled violence and a less tolerant society, a sociologist has warned.

James Arvanitakis, from the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney, said Sydneysiders were increasingly feeling the pressures of a competitive society, getting more and more frustrated with everyday annoyances such as public transport delays and feeling increasingly time poor.

"Even though there's quite a lot of wealth, people feel like there's this feeling of competitiveness and that's both on a professional and personal level," Dr Arvanitakis said.

"It's an angry city. It's a combination of the number of work hours and increasing levels of debt and people are feeling the ongoing pressure to buy more and more consumer goods."

Tony Grabs, the director of trauma at St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst, said the number of people admitted to the hospital with injuries from alcohol- and drug-related violence had risen dramatically.

From October 2003 to September 2004, 120 patients were admitted to St Vincent's following an assault or stabbing, Dr Grabs said.

Of those, 54 had been alcohol- or drug-related attacks.

But from October 2006 to September last year, the number of admissions was 197 and those related to alcohol or drugs had nearly doubled to 90.

Dr Grabs believes the latter figures could be even higher. They did not take into account patients who presented to the hospital but were not admitted.

"Over three years, that's a dramatic increase," Dr Grabs said.

Dr Grabs said many city office workers and professionals used alcohol as a way to release work stress but said they were drinking at more harmful levels than they used to.

"It's a fast life," he said of Sydney. "With a fast life there is a perception that they need to unwind.

"Unfortunately, they're unwinding with alcohol."

Dr Grabs said a relatively strong local economy with good employment levels was keeping the violence from getting out of control but he feared what would happen should a recession hit, combined with interest rate increases.

He also said Sydney's cultural mix could sometimes fuel some of the assaults and stabbings.

Figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics show a rise in assaults - both domestic-violence related and non-domestic related - over the past 10 years, and police agree alcohol-related violence is a problem.