Thursday, 29 March 2007

Driver still in hospital after bus-stop crash, The Australian, 29 March, 2007.

Driver still in hospital after bus-stop crash: [1 All-round Country Edition]

John Stapleton, James Madden. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 29 Mar 2007: 5.
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The 42-year-old, who screamed hysterically after the fatal crash at Kogarah, in Sydney's south, is in a satisfactory condition in St George Hospital, receiving treatment for shock.
Ms [Emma Hansen]'s former high school principal in the NSW regional city of Orange, Rodney Hancock, said her "beautiful smile and gentle manner made her much loved".
Kogarah mayor Michael Kitmiridis said that while the safety of the intersection would be reviewed, it was the first accident involving a pedestrian at or near the crash scene in 10 years.
THE learner driver who killed a young woman and injured 11 other pedestrians when she crashed through a Sydney bus stop on Tuesday remained in hospital last night, as police waited to interview her.
The 42-year-old, who screamed hysterically after the fatal crash at Kogarah, in Sydney's south, is in a satisfactory condition in St George Hospital, receiving treatment for shock.
A man calling 2GB radio, claiming to be the brother of the man accompanying the learner driver, said the mother of five might have hit the accelerator instead of braking at traffic lights.
"It went to amber and instead of putting on the brakes, she put her foot down," he said.
Four other people, including an 18-month-old boy, remain in hospital.
Flowers appeared at the crash site in memory of Emma Hansen, 20, a fashion student at St George College who died as a result of her head injuries.
College director Dianne Craven described Ms Hansen as a promising student.
"All the staff and students are deeply shocked and we want to send our condolences to Emma's family and friends," Ms Craven said.
Ms Hansen's former high school principal in the NSW regional city of Orange, Rodney Hancock, said her "beautiful smile and gentle manner made her much loved".
Local shopkeepers told of their concerns about the intersection.
Harry Johnson at Ulysses Charcoal Chicken said accidents would continue until red arrows were installed at the lights.
But Kogarah mayor Michael Kitmiridis said that while the safety of the intersection would be reviewed, it was the first accident involving a pedestrian at or near the crash scene in 10 years.
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Monday, 26 March 2007

Indonesian flight alert, The Australian, 26 March, 2007.

Indonesian flight alert: [2 All-round First Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 26 Mar 2007: 3.
Among airlines to be given three months to improve their standards are Metro Batavia, Kartika Airlines, Trans Wisata Air and AdamSky Connection Airlines.

Full Text

A WARNING has been issued to Australian travellers following a report by the Indonesian Government showing many of the nation's airlines have met only minimal civil aviation safety standards.
The warning by the Department of Foreign Affairs comes in the wake of the March 7 Garuda airline crash in Yogyakarta which killed 21 people, including five Australians.
Among airlines to be given three months to improve their standards are Metro Batavia, Kartika Airlines, Trans Wisata Air and AdamSky Connection Airlines. If they fail to improve they will face further sanctions and another warning by the Indonesian Government. If that is ignored, the airlines could have their licences revoked.
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Unemployment amongst the vision impaired The Australian 26 March 2007

26 MARCH 07.
John Stapleton
THE unemployment level among blind or vision impaired people is more than five times the national average.
New research to be released on Monday by Vision Australia shows a staggering 69 per cent of working age vision impaired are unemployed. The survey is the largest ever done on employment levels amongst blind.
``Even well educated people who are blind or have low vision have difficulty securing employment,'' Chief Executive of Vision Australia, Gerard Menses, said.
``Sadly, many end up de-motivated and give up searching.
``To be unemployed is an issue for anyone, but when you are a community that is to a degree different from the majority of Australia, unemployment further exacerbates that difference.''
One of the key findings of the report was that 34 per cent of blind post graduate degree holders are unemployed. As well 50 per cent of those looking for work had been searching for more than a year. Four out of ten said they wanted a job but had given up looking.
Mr Menses said there had been a decline in recent years in the levels of employment of people with disabilities. ``This is puzzling at a time of high employment. It is important to reverse this trend.''
Jason Merkley, 32, has been teaching English at Mercy College at Chatswood in Sydney for the past two years. He lost his sight unexpectedly when he was 25 in the space of a single day due to a genetic condition. He uses computers to read text to him and and his students, and says technology has made all the difference.
``It has provided me with independence,'' he said. ``I was working before I lost my sight, and I just could not accept that I would stay at home and not work, that was not an option.''
Mr Merkley said he was basically treated like any other teacher at the all-girls school, ``I actually have advantages,'' he said. ``I don't see the students; I never judge a student on how they look, it is impossible. I immediately hear their personality, I hear when they are nervous; when they are shy, when they are expressive and enthusiastic.''
He said the students seemed to feel it was a privilege to help him write something up on the classroom whiteboard or read out material for him. Any student who had not done their homework found it hard to come up with a good enough excuse when they were talking to a blind teacher.
Mr Merkley has worked as a teacher in Canada and France. ``When I first came to Australia I was struck by the level of prejudice towards jobseekers who are blind or have low vision,'' he said.
Mercy College Principal Ray Paxton said said they had not deliberately set out to employ a vision impaired teacher. Mr Merkley applied for the position and was the best applicant. His employment has provided no difficulties for the school. Minor adjustments included extra support with technology and raising the awareness of students to Mr Merkley's working guide dog, Whiskey.
``It has been a positive for Mercy,'' he said. ``Jason is an excellent teacher and our students are broadening their experience of the people they interact with and of people with disabilities.''
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Industrial heartland's not the sure thing it used to be - NSW DECIDES, The Australian, 26 March, 2007.

Industrial heartland's not the sure thing it used to be - NSW DECIDES: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Imre Salusinszky, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 26 Mar 2007: 7.
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The seat where Labor haemorrhaged least dramatically was Swansea. Robert Coombs, a Sydney union official who grew up in the area, will retain the seat with a majority of about 10 per cent, down from the 17 per cent bequeathed him by Mr [Milton Orkopoulos]. "The message that I got ... is that they were not prepared to punish the party," Mr Coombs said.
Ms [Jodi McKay] was picked by Morris Iemma to replace Bryce Gaudry, who had held the seat since 1991. He quit the party earlier this year and ran as an independent. The decision to impose Ms McKay as the candidate in a push for generational change was the biggest issue in the campaign. There were resignations in local branches over the refusal to consult the rank and file.
BUSINESSWOMAN and former television reporter Jodi McKay appeared last night to have narrowly staved off an historic loss for Labor in the heartland seat of Newcastle.
There were similar tight contests in the surrounding once-safe ALP seats, with local criticism that Labor had taken the Hunter Valley area for granted.
Lake Macquarie faced a cliffhanger with Mayor Greg Piper running as an independent, as did Maitland with Mayor Peter Blackmore. Until now, Newcastle's industrial heritage ensured it stayed in Labor's hands for all but one term since 1907.
The closure of the BHP steelworks and the modernisation of the city, as well as a drift of middle-class retirees and young professionals from Sydney, have changed the dynamics of the electorate.
Ms McKay, 37, represented a modern face for Labor: unmarried, childless and with a business background. On his trip to Newcastle last Friday, federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said her greatest strength was that she was a "voice for the future and a voice for government for the future".
Ms McKay was picked by Morris Iemma to replace Bryce Gaudry, who had held the seat since 1991. He quit the party earlier this year and ran as an independent. The decision to impose Ms McKay as the candidate in a push for generational change was the biggest issue in the campaign. There were resignations in local branches over the refusal to consult the rank and file.
"The party is determined to shift our representation up there to more broadly represent the Hunter Valley," a Labor source said. "Out of the seven Labor candidates ... five of them were new candidates."
He said this was particularly true given the scandal that had enveloped the party when Swansea member and then Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos was last November charged with child sex offences.
Mr Rudd would not comment yesterday on a plan to install ACTU secretary Greg Combet in the federal Hunter Valley seat of Charlton, first reported in TheAustralian a fortnight ago.
Deputy leader Julia Gillard also refused to confirm the reports but said Mr Combet was working hard for families hurt by the federal Work Choices laws.
"Mr Combet is a great asset to the labour movement," she said. "If he chose at some point to come into parliament, he would be a great asset to the party."
Based on early results, Ms McKay appeared to have won 31per cent of the Newcastle vote, Mr Gaudry 21 per cent and independent Mayor John Tate, who was directing preferences to Labor, 24 per cent.
The seat where Labor haemorrhaged least dramatically was Swansea. Robert Coombs, a Sydney union official who grew up in the area, will retain the seat with a majority of about 10 per cent, down from the 17 per cent bequeathed him by Mr Orkopoulos. "The message that I got ... is that they were not prepared to punish the party," Mr Coombs said.
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Saturday, 24 March 2007

Little more for Iemma to do against Mr Impossible - ELECTION DAY, Weekend Australian, 24 March, 2007.

Little more for Iemma to do against Mr Impossible - ELECTION DAY: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. Weekend Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 24 Mar 2007: 7.
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THE party leaders spent the final day of the election campaign doing what they have been doing for the past five weeks -- Peter Debnam working to achieve the seemingly impossible and Morris Iemma repeating his mantra of "there's more to do".
The Liberal leader spent the day in a seat he cannot hope to win, Rockdale, held by Planning Minister Frank Sartor with a margin of 15.9 per cent. It was a last stab at highlighting the failings of a Government that includes controversial ministers such as Mr Sartor, Treasurer Michael Costa and Energy and Ports Minister Joe Tripodi.
THE party leaders spent the final day of the election campaign doing what they have been doing for the past five weeks -- Peter Debnam working to achieve the seemingly impossible and Morris Iemma repeating his mantra of "there's more to do".
The Liberal leader spent the day in a seat he cannot hope to win, Rockdale, held by Planning Minister Frank Sartor with a margin of 15.9 per cent. It was a last stab at highlighting the failings of a Government that includes controversial ministers such as Mr Sartor, Treasurer Michael Costa and Energy and Ports Minister Joe Tripodi.
Mr Debnam was among friends. You could tell -- they were wearing Liberal Party T-shirts.
But gallant to the end, he refused to write off Liberal candidate Lili Gestakovska's chances of achieving a shock victory over Mr Sartor today.
"We've got a fantastic candidate," he said. "Everybody acknowledges Frank Sartor has been one of the worst and most arrogant ministers in the state. It's up to the people of Rockdale what they want to do. We're going to find out tomorrow what they do."
Earlier Mr Debnam had stood at Captain James Cook's landing place at Kurnell, near the proposed site for the Government's desalination plant. "I have never known a sorrier Government than Labor in NSW," he said.
Mr Iemma finished the campaign focusing on improving Sydney's transport system.
Addressing students at Sutherland TAFE, he once again promised that a re-elected Labor Government would make rail and bus services its top priority.
"It has been the No1 priority. I identified it as the Government's No1 priority. It continues to be so and it will be so over the next four years," Mr Iemma said.
Later he stopped for a sandwich in Camden, southwest of Sydney, where shop owner Kerri Lysle chatted jovially with the Premier before slipping him a curly one about his former boss, federal Labor heavyweight Graham Richardson.
"I saw on the (TV) news last night someone was saying you were trained by ... who is that fat, grey-haired politician?" she said. "They said you were trained by him and I thought, `Oh no, that's not going to go well'."
Mr Iemma played a straight bat. "I worked for him," he replied.
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Thursday, 22 March 2007

Rail report gives Coalition free ride, The Australian, 22 March, 2007.




Rail report gives Coalition free ride: [6 NSW Country Edition]

Imre Salusinszky, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 22 Mar 2007: 6.
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Premier Morris Iemma and his deputy, John Watkins, were forced on to the back foot yesterday by revelations CityRail had buried an expert report that gave Sydney's rail system failing grades on reliability, economy and efficiency.
The report, revealed in The Daily Telegraph, found CityRail trains travelled an average of 32km before falling behind timetable, compared with 396km in Hong Kong.
He said the Sydney network had about 2000km of track while Moscow, for example, had 200km, and that Sydney had 300 stations while Hong Kong had only 56.

NSW DECIDES
COMMUTER anger fuelled by claims of a cover-up of key failings in Sydney's train system looms as the last hope for the Coalition to dent Labor's majority at Saturday's NSW election.
Premier Morris Iemma and his deputy, John Watkins, were forced on to the back foot yesterday by revelations CityRail had buried an expert report that gave Sydney's rail system failing grades on reliability, economy and efficiency.
The report, revealed in The Daily Telegraph, found CityRail trains travelled an average of 32km before falling behind timetable, compared with 396km in Hong Kong.
It found CityRail's operating costs, at $6.70 per passenger, were nearly seven times those in Europe and nearly 10 times those in Asia.
The revelations came a week after the breakdown of a peak-hour train on the Sydney Harbour Bridge caused meltdown across the system and trapped hundreds of passengers on trains for hours.
Mr Watkins, who has served as Transport Minister and Police Minister since last October, said he did not agree that Sydney's trains were the worst in the world but recognised there were improvements to be made on a system which carries a million passengers every day.
"Our rail system is very different to rail systems around the world," Mr Watkins said.
"There are major improvements to be made. I have tried to improve our daily service.
"Transport was always going to be an issue in this election. Anyone who thought otherwise is crazy."
Mr Iemma promised a return to having a minister devoted solely to transport if he wins the election, but rejected the comparisons in the report as invalid.
He said the Sydney network had about 2000km of track while Moscow, for example, had 200km, and that Sydney had 300 stations while Hong Kong had only 56.
"However, the Government has heard the message loud and clear, that the people do want their services improved and expanded, and rail is the Government's No1 priority."
Opposition transport spokeswoman Gladys Berejiklian said the report proved Sydney's rail system was "broken and needs fixing".
"The NSW Liberal/Nationals want a chance to fix the problems on our rail network; under Labor things simply don't get fixed," she said.
"When our trains are being outperformed by Santiago, Chile, Bangkok and Moscow, then you know the Labor Government has failed the people of NSW."
Public transport, especially trains, has traditionally been the No1 issue in Sydney during state election campaigns.
However, until last Wednesday's breakdown, the issue had been quiet, despite Opposition Leader Peter Debnam largely eschewing his government car to ride with commuters.
Mr Debnam has promised to spend $450million on station upgrades, more trains at peak times and a fare freeze until services improve.


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Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Robert Black Farmer The Australian 21 March 2007

21 MARCH 2007
John Stapleton
A man accused of bashing Sydney teenager Lauren Huxley, binding her with electrical chord, dousing her in petrol and leaving her for dead in a burning garage has been committed to stand trial.
The five charges against Robert Black Farmer which arose the attack included  causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.
The Parramatta Local Court heard evidence that DNA material taken from a red petrol can found at the crime scene had only a one in 76 million chance of not being that of Mr Farmer. Swabs taken from the doorknob of Ms Huxley's home and from inside the house was also likely to be Mr Farmer's.
A report from Analytical laboratories at Lidcombe recorded that while no semen had been detected in swabs taken from a bedrail, there was fewer than a one in 10 billion chance that the DNA profile from material taken from the rail matched another person besides Mr Farmer.
The case attracted massive media attention late 2005.  Ms Huxley spent 198 days in hospital recovering from the attack.
Magistrate Paula Russell said she was satisfied there was sufficient evidence that a well-briefed jury would find Mr Farmer guilty of attempted murder of Ms Huxley.
Mr Farmer did not seek to make any submissions or call any witnesses. He sat quietly taking notes throughout yesterday's proceedings.
Her Honour said she was satisfied there was evidence Mr Farmer had intended to cause grievous bodily harm and had attempted to murder Lauren Huxley  and had committed the offence of maliciously damaging property with the intent of endangering the life of Lauren Huxley and detaining her with intent of gaining sexual gratification.
Mr Farmer was committed for trial at the Parramatta District Court on the 13th April.
In evidence before the court his girlfriend Catharine(correct) Beverley said she had received a number of phone calls from Mr Farmer on the day and that he had consumed a significant amount of alcohol. She said Mr Farmer had sounded ``happy and jovial.''
Mr Farmer came back to see his girlfriend after she had finished work in the afternoon. ``He seemed fine, perhaps overnice. I put that down to the beers.''
That night he told his mother Gail Farmer that he just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. The family subsequently listed Mr Farmer as missing.
An interview with Detective David Shaw recorded that after his arrest Mr Farmer said: ``I know you think it is me because of the suicide note I left at mum's and me burns, but I don't know anything about it.''
At Campbelltown Police Station Mr Farmer had initially refused the services of a solicitor and refused to answer questions.
``I am not signing anything, I am not doing nothing,'' he said.
Constable Alison Beechey recorded that on arriving at the crime scene: ``I heard the female moaning and I could hear a gurgling sound each time she breathed. Her face was extremely swollen and covered in blood, her hair was also completely covered in blood.''
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