Two men who tied a rope around a 16 year old Aboriginal boy's neck and then assaulted him, have each been 'punished' with an $800 fine.

David Hillary Tomkins, 44, and his son Clint William Tomkins, 24, pleaded guilty to one count each of assault occasioning bodily harm.

The Tomkins' returned to their Queensland property to discover several youths trespassing.

The Tomkins caught one of the youths, a 16-year-old, near the adjoining McIntyre River, looped a rope around his neck and dragged him up the river bank to a waiting ute.

Gulf Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner said that "I bet if two blackfellas had gone out and done that to two or three white children we would not be receiving an $800 fine."

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Several media outlets, including the ABC, ran a story about a white man ambushed by a gang of drunken Aboriginals, which seems to have been largely or entirely invented by the man, despite police contradicting the story.

ABC radio in Darwin reported that "being ambushed and assaulted on the highway has been regarded by many as a bit of a territory bush myth, or something that happens to other people, but it's not. In fact it happened just last week to Kevin Drummond".

Mr Drummond claimed he saw a group of people on the Stuart highway south of Alice Springs. He said that "there was quite a few of them there. When I stopped I had the windows down on my car because I don't have an air conditioner and one man put his head and torso inside the car and grabbed me by the shirt and the arm and his mates went through the other window, the passenger window, ripped the top off my Esky, presumably looking for beer. I don't drink so didn't have any luck there. And then began rummaging through my personal gear which the whole car was full...in my view it was a robbery or it was an attempted robbery. So I got out of my vehicle and in a very short space of time on the basis of my experience I was able to forcefully and positively convince them that what they were doing was wrong...all of these people were in an advanced state of inebriation."

Mr Drummond claimed that police had attended the incident.

Theresa Kuilboer from the Northern Territory police's Media Liason Office, said that "I was approached by ABC to organise a police officer to comment on the alleged incident...I checked and made it very clear there was no such incident recorded."

The ABC ran the story anyway.

Mr Drummond also told ABC staff that he was carrying a gun at the time of the incident, which the ABC did not report because, according to ABC radio manager Jacqui Kinder, "Mr Drummond told us certain aspects of this story were 'off the record'. In good faith we accepted that there were certain aspects he did not wish to divulge...Mr Drummond stated that he would not tell his story if certain aspects were published."

Police media liason said that "at no time did Mr Drummond indicate that people had stopped him or...had rifled through his car, or assaulted him...he simply said they were a traffic hazard. Police from Kulgera who spoke to the group allegedly causing the traffic hazard said there were three men, two ladies and about three young children in the group. One of the men and one of the ladies were quite
elderly.

The police also said none of the group was drunk.

The NT News ran the story on its front page, claiming that "Mr Drummond was driving along the Stuart Highway 150 kms south of Alice Springs, when about nine men stepped out of the desert and formed a human chain across the road.

He said he stopped despite the fate of backpacker Peter Falconio who went missing along the highway in 2001.

The former police officer said the men were half tanked."

The Adelaide Advertiser also ran the story, saying that "former army captain Kevin Drummond, 60, was attacked by a gang of about ten would be thieves.

Ten men had formed a human chain across the road.

'They started coming in the windows' Mr Drummond said 'but I remained positively assertive throughout.'"

(Source: ABC News website)

 

A baby boy born in a Perth hospital on Monday takes the number of children in immigration detention to 68, a human rights groups said today.

Michael Andrew Tran was born after his parents, both Vietnamese asylum seekers, were transferred under guard from the Christmas Island detention centre for the event.

His father Minh Dat and mother Hoai Thu have been in detention on Christmas Island since July 2003.

Coordinator of the group Chilout: Children out of Detention, Alannah Sherry, said there are 62 children in mainland Australia centres and six on the Pacific island of Nauru.

"The longest children (have been) in detention are those six in Nauru who are Pacific Solution victims," she told ABC radio.

"They've been in for well over three and a half years now."

Michael Tran was born the same day as three-year-old Naomi Long was released with her mother from Sydney's Villawood detention centre, where the child had spent her entire life.

Ms Sherry said most of the children had not been in detention for longer than a year but there were some, like Naomi Leong, who had been in detention since birth.

"On Nauru, there is a two-year-old there who's been there his whole life," she said.

"At the Port Augusta residential housing project, which is the detention centre for women and children - their husbands and dads are at Baxter - there is a three-year-old Chinese girl, baby Bonnie, who was in detention at Villawood with her mum (who's) been in detention her whole life.

"She turned three just last month."

Former Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett has just returned from the immigration detention centre on Nauru, where he said he spoke to all detainees individually and as a group.

Senator Bartlett told ABC Radio there were six children aged two to 15 from two Afghani families in detention on Nauru.

"There's a seven (year-old girl) and an eight-year-old girl, an eight-year-old boy, a two-year-old boy that was born in detention there, and a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy," he said.

"(They are) all very isolated, just two young seven and eight-year-old girls with each other for company who have been in that environment for over three years."

Senator Bartlett said he was struck by the psychological trauma many of the people were experiencing, but particularly the terrible situation the children were in.

(Source: The Age)

 

Teachers are so disillusioned they are telling bright students to avoid a career in secondary teaching, a government inquiry has been told.

Submissions to an inquiry into teacher education reveal a litany of problems facing teachers leaving university, forcing many out of the profession in the first few years.

University courses are too removed from the reality of the classroom, leaving graduates ill-prepared when they start teaching, submissions from teacher and university groups suggest.

The Association of Principals of Catholic Secondary Schools in Australia says the image of teaching is so poor that it is not attracting many 'higher-quality' students.

"The experience of principals suggests that in many instances practising teachers are either averse to encouraging, or actively discourage, secondary students - particularly high-achieving students - from entering the profession," its submission says.

Research indicates that a quarter to a half of new teachers leave the profession within three to five years, many jolted by a lack of classroom experience.

According to the Australian Secondary Principals' Association, research shows a large proportion of new teachers were teaching at least one subject in which they had no expertise.

(Source: The Age)

 

Torture should be legalised and is morally defensible even if it causes the death of innocent people, according to an article by two Victorian academics.

In a paper soon to be published in an American law journal, the head of Deakin University's Law School, Professor Mirko Bagaric, and a fellow Deakin law lecturer, Julie Clarke, argue that in extreme cases, "all forms of harm" may be inflicted on the suspect, even if this resulted in "annihilation".

Asked if he believed interrogators should be able to legally torture an innocent person to death if they had evidence the person knew about a major public threat, Professor Bagaric replied: "Yes, you could."

Professor Bagaric said that one of the reasons that he and Mrs Clarke had submitted the paper to a American journal was because they were more open to 'new ideas' on human rights.

He criticised the "emotive comments that I've had here in Australia" from groups such as Amnesty International and the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture.

(Source: The Age)

 

A former policeman was found not guilty of dangerous driving, despite hitting and killing a cyclist and then failing to stop.

Prominent lawyer and former police officer Eugene McGee was driving a four-wheel drive vehicle when it was involved in a fatal collision with father-of-two Ian Humphrey in the Barossa Valley in November 2003.

Mr McGee did not stop at the scene and was arrested by police some six-and-a-half hours after the collision.

He was acquitted of dangerous driving but found guilty of the lesser crime of driving without due care.

Mr McGee received a $3100 fine and lost his license for twelve months.

A royal commission will examine several elements of the case, including why police did not breath-test Mr McGee, who admitted had been drinking wine at a lunch in the hours before the collision.

Bystander Tony Zisimou alleges that crucial information he provided to investigating police about McGee's driving before the accident was not presented in his trial.

(Source: ABC News website, Adelaide Advertiser, Sunday Telegraph)

 

A Federal Court judge has ruled that two men's mental illness was mainly caused by their being held at Baxter detention centre, and that the Immigration Department failed in its duty of care.

Justice Paul Finn agreed with three independent psychiatrists that the Baxter environment was the primary cause of two detainee's mental illness, and that keeping them there condemned them to ongoing injury.

The director of New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry, Dr Louise Newman, has attended the men and says they are some of the longest-term detainees in Baxter.

"As is entirely expected, [they] were suffering from quite significant degrees of depression," she said.

She says that the detainees have displayed some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"And their condition has been steadily deteriorating over the time of their detention," she said.

Dr Newman says the detainees are often not recognised as being seriously depressed or mentally-ill.

"We've seen that in the case of Cornelia Rau," she said.

"They are certainly not treated adequately in terms of the standard interventions for the treatment of depression.

"So what we tend to see is people who become progressively more disturbed, some people becoming suicidal, some people engaging in self-harming behaviours."

Dr Newman says that if behaviour is seen as a problem by the management of the detention centre, people are dealt with using "really out-of-date psychological behavioural management techniques", including solitary confinement.

"I think the consensus of opinion amongst psychiatrists would be that [solitary confinement] actually makes someone worse," she said.

Justice Finn ruled that the effect of the case was that the Immigration Department had breached its duty of care.

"It was the Commonwealth's duty to ensure that reasonable care was taken of [the two men] who, by reason of their detention, could not care for themselves," he said.

"They did not have to settle for a lesser standard of mental health care because they were in immigration detention."

(Source: ABC News website)

 

The Federal Government has admitted that it mistakenly deported a mentally ill Australian citizen as an illegal immigrant four years ago, and is now unable to find her.

The woman is understood to have been deported back to the Philippines. However the government has not released any details of the case, claiming the woman's family doesn't want it.

So far, the Government has admitted 33 cases of possible wrongful detention of either Australians or foreigners holding valid visas, over a seven-month period.

The Government has now extended its review to cover nearly three years and it is understood to be looking at more than 100 cases.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

The Immigration Department has been accused of endangering the mental and physical health of a toddler, who was born at Sydney's Villawood detention centre.

A leading child psychiatrist has told the ABC that the girl, who turned three today, urgently needs a nurturing environment.

Dr Michael Dudley, from Sydney's Children's Hospital, says the girl, Naomi, has deteriorated to the point where she bangs her head against the wall, is constantly anxious and is also often mute and unresponsive.

He says refugee advocates have been negotiating with the Department of Immigration for five months to allow the toddler and her mother access to a playgroup outside the detention centre.

He says the department's inaction is taking a terrible toll.

"She's spent all her life in immigration detention where there's traumas and losses," Dr Dudley said.

"I guess she's had very little opportunity to interact with peers and teachers on a regular basis."

The Department of Immigration is yet to respond to the accusation.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"It's all because you're here. Get out of our country and there will be no more explosions".

Iraqi policeman to US soldiers, after another carbomb killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded in Baghdad.

 

Children from socially disadvantaged areas are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than other Australian children, a report has found.

The report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, titled A Picture of Australia's Children, also found that indigenous children continued to fare worse than other children on all indicators. They are 2.5 times more likely to die in their first year; almost six times more likely to be the subject of care and protection orders; and those aged between 10 and 14 are detained in juvenile justice detention centres at about 30 times the rate of other children.

(Source: The Age)

 

5000 Victorians have spent longer than 24 hours lying in hospital emergency departments in the past financial year - with almost 100 waiting for more than three days.

The benchmark set by the Victorian Government was 12 hours. 26,585 patients waited longer than that before being admitted.

5009 patients who needed to be admitted to a ward spent more than 24 hours on emergency trolleys waiting for a bed. Of those, 512 waited more than two days before securing a bed, and 98 waited more than three days.

(Source: The Age)

 

A senior judge has criticised the Victorian Government for its handling of young people in state care, saying they are victims of "sloppy and disgraceful behaviour".

In the Victorian County Court, Judge Peter Gebhardt yesterday attacked the Government as he sentenced a 17-year-old offender raised under state care. He said state care should be made aware of the "consequences of their incompetence".

"I have had a number of young offenders before me who have been the victims of sloppy and disgraceful behaviour by the Department of Human Services," he said.

"What can one say of a department whose behaviour and activities makes lives worse? The department has much to answer with respect to the pattern of neglect and indifference, a pattern we see far too often in this court."

The court was told that the youth had had 22 different homes and had been to eight high schools. He was put into state care at a young age when his father went to prison.

Judge Gebhardt said that while the youth was in care - "a scarcely appropriate word" - he was abused by a foster family.

(Source: The Age)

 

At least 33 Australians have been wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department in the past two years, the Government revealed last night, as it continued its hunt for a deported Australian woman missing overseas.

Acting Immigration Minister Peter McGauran said the incidents occurred between July 2003 and February last year.

He said the cases had prompted the Government to expand its inquiry into the case of Cornelia Rau.

Ms Rau, a mentally ill European-born Australian resident, spent 10 months falsely detained as an illegal immigrant.

(Source: The Age)