A plan for larger health warnings on cigarette packets was dumped by the Federal government after opposition from the tobacco industry, despite the government's own research showing they would be effective, according to recently-unearthed documents.

Trish Worth, junior health minister at the time, initially supported the Health Department's plan but downgraded it after correspondence with the country's three tobacco companies in late 2003.

More than 100 different documents dating back to 2000, obtained under Freedom of Information, show the department made "painstaking and thorough" plans for new, larger and more graphic warning stickers on 50 per cent of the front and back of cigarette packets.

Treasury predicted that the larger warnings would result in fewer people smoking, with the Government eventually losing $500 million a year in cigarette taxes but saving $2 billion in health costs.

However tobacco companies were concerned about a lack of room on the packets to clearly show their trademarks.

Ms Worth supported a downgraded plan, telephoning the managing director of Philip Morris (Australia) Ltd, outlining proposed smaller warnings.

"I have had discussions with industry in relation to this issue, and a revised option, setting the health warning area at 30 per cent of the front and 90 per cent of the back of the pack, has been developed," she said in a memo to Health Minister Tony Abbott in January last year.

Cabinet later approved these smaller warnings and delayed their introduction until early next year, prompting accusations from the anti-smoking lobby of capitulating to the tobacco industry.

Smoking is the largest preventable cause of premature death and disease in Australia.

(Source: news.com.au)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy...

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force...

A memo of a meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior British government officials, some 8 months before the invasion of Iraq, which seems to show that the US government had decided to invade and was not seriously pursuing diplomatic options as they claimed. An anonymous senior US official has described the memo as "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" and neither the US nor British governments have denied its authenticity.

(for the full text, see www.downingstreetmemo.com)

 

According to members of his own party, the new leader of the New South Wales Young Liberals is 'dangerous' and similar to the Hitler Youth.

Last week conservative Christian members gained a majority on the NSW Liberal Party's executive, amid allegations of branch-stacking.

An anonymous member of the NSW Young Liberals described the new Federal President, Alexander Hawke, as "a dangerous young man who is in a powerful position". Another Liberal source described him as "the modern form of the Nazi Hitler Youth".

Recent Young Liberal policy documents have referred to the "health risks of homosexual intercourse" and "Child Protection issues" relating to homosexual but not heterosexual sex. The document also described "inhaled nitate burns" as a risk associated with homosexual intercourse.

(Source: MCV newspaper)

 

The poorer half of the Australian population own less than 10 per cent of total household wealth - and the least wealthy 20 per cent own none of it, according to a new study.

The study by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research found that the wealthiest 5 per cent of Australian households account for almost two-thirds of total wealth, while the least wealthy 10 per cent have a median debt of $6000.

The study also warned that the median net wealth of households whose occupants were aged between 55 and 64 was well below the level the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia defines as required for a comfortable lifestyle.

(Source: The Age)

 

The Australian military is "manifestly incapable" of investigating crime and abuse within its own ranks, according to an inquiry.

The Senate inquiry recounted widespread evidence of inordinate delays, incompetence and bias in military investigations. Many families of Defence Force members testified that such failures had led to suicide, trauma and psychological breakdown.

The committee's chairman, senator Steve Hutchins, said a decade of inquiries had elicited "only inertia from Defence".

"...we have lost faith in the ability of the ADF to appropriately investigate serious incidents, discipline its members in a just process and to maintain the necessary level of independence." Senator Hutchins said.

Senator Hutchins also observed that some defence commanders might have "a 19th-century view of leadership and discipline."

In 1992 a soldier, Private Nicholas Shiels, was involved in a live firing exercise in which he accidentally shot and killed a fellow soldier. He was not placed on sick leave or given proper medical treatment.

His father claims he was instructed to undertake another live firing exercise two days after the shooting. Nicholas was put in front of 200 troops, who were asked, "Who will volunteer to be Private Shiels' partner?"

Mr Shiels said that his son relived the event over and over until he was discharged from the army in February 1995. He committed suicide at the end of 1996 aged 27.

Comcare found that the army contravened 24 areas of its duty of care under the occupational heath and safety act. No senior officer was court-martialled.

The enquiry also heard of Matthew Liddell, who was deeply traumatised by seeing two of his crewmates die when a fire swept through the engine room of HMAS Westralia in 1998.

Two weeks after he was nearly killed trying to revive a dying sailor, he was ordered back to the ship by navy commanders.

His mother told the inquiry the shock of that experience had led to post-traumatic stress disorder, and eventually to his suicide.

It took 17 months for the military to acknowledge Able Seaman Liddell's stress disorder and refer him to counselling.

Defence Force Chief General Peter Cosgrove told the inquiry that "the military justice system is sound" and that he had "every confidence that, on the whole, the military justice system is effective".

(Source: The Age)

 

The Victorian government has vetoed moves by three councils to ensure new buildings are accessible for elderly and disabled people.

Planning Minister Rob Hulls has refused to approve changes to the planning rulebooks of Melbourne, Yarra, and Moonee Valley councils. With no federal or state laws in place, the three councils would have been the first authorities to insist that new buildings be accesible.

Melbourne City Council's planning chairwoman Catherine Ng said that the council had worked on the proposals for two years.

Mr Hulls claimed that he would look at introducing state-wide laws. However his representative would not say what form the discussions would take or give any timeframe.

In a letter to Mr Hulls, five disability advocates said that four years of committee meetings had achieved nothing. Several members of the Accessible Built Environment Working Group have threatened to resign - with one member saying "why bother when you're not heard?".

(Source: Melbourne Times)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"When I kill one I create three."

US Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick P. Wellman, on the seeming impossibility of destroying the Iraqi insurgency by military means.

 

Quote of the Moment:

"Strongly disagree."

According to an aptitude test for prospective employees of US corporation Wal-Mart, the only correct answer to the proposition 'there is room in every corporation for a non-conformist'.

 

Australia's newest 'environmental' group seems to be in reality a front for a right-wing think tank and the forestry and mining industries.

The Australian Environment Foundation's registered place of business is the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank.

Its chairwoman is Jennifer Marohasy, director of the IPA's environment unit. Other listed directors include mining and timber industry lobbyists.

Don Henry from the Australian Conservation Foundation says the new group's name is "deceptively similar" to the ACF's own, and could easily mislead the public.

Mr Henry said that "we encourage open and constructive debate...but people have to be transparent about who they are and what they are trying to achieve. The IPA has variously claimed that the Murray River is fine and doesn't need protection and that the Great Barrier Reef is not being polluted by fertiliser run-off - despite both federal and state governments saying to the contrary. I think in most cases the IPA presents an anti-environment perspective."

Dr Marohasy said she acted as the group's leader as an individual and not part of the IPA. She said the group received no funding from the think tank. The foundation was born out of frustration with the "current direction of environment groups", she said.

One of the group's main campaigns will be against environmental education for children that it believes is "ideologically driven". This included teaching children that forest industries were unsustainable, said spokeswoman Kersten Gentle, who is also state manager of Timber Communities Australia.

(Source: The Age)

 

The majority of workers do not support the government's proposals to 'reform' industrial relations, according to a new survey.

Seventy-two per cent of workers opposed new laws exempting businesses with less than 100 employees from unfair dismissal laws, which the government claims will create jobs.

This change will affect around 3.8 million workers across Australia, including 99% of all private sector firms.

Workers employed by large corporations will also be affected, having to be employed for more than six months before they are covered by the unfair dismissal laws.

The government also plans to introduce several measures to limit the powers of unions.

The poll showed that 82% of workers were concerned by the government's push to remove collective bargaining in favour of individual contracts. Roughly 69% said the government's changes will create more fear in the workplace; 68% oppose a restriction of union access to workplaces; and 55% support a campaign against the industrial relation changes.

(Source: Green Left Weekly)

 

Lower-grade jobs with little responsibility are more likely to lead to heart disease than more senior jobs, contradicting the stereotype of "executive stress".

A British study has found that men in "low-grade jobs" - those with little control over daily tasks - and in low social positions had faster and less-variable heart rates.

"This finding helps explain why men with low-paying jobs and less education have a higher risk for heart disease, a trend that has been evident for the last 30 years," said the study's leader, Dr Harry Hemingway of the University College London Medical School.

"The heart doesn't, or shouldn't, beat like a metronome," he said, because a healthy heart rate varied. His team studied 2197 men aged 45 to 68 who worked for the British Government, and talked to them about friends and family, education and lifestyle.

Job control was rated on a scale of 15. Steadier, faster heart rates were consistently seen in the men in lower social positions, with less job control and suffering higher depression.

The effect was clear even after taking into account factors such as smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The US government has effectively 'whitewashed' the use of torture by US forces, according to human rights groups.

A report by the group Human Rights Watch charged that US FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two US citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and tortured by Pakistani security services. The two were abducted from their Karachi home last August, and released this April without being charged. During eight months of interrogation and torture, they were questioned at least six times by FBI agents, who did nothing to stop the torture - including beatings with whips and rods - or provide consular help. Instead, the two said, the agents threatened to send them to Guantánamo if they did not "confess" to terrorist involvement.

Further, The New York Times published a report on torture at a US detention centre in Bagram, Afghanistan, based on leaked files of an Army investigation into the 2002 deaths of two Afghan detainees. Among the details:

* a prisoner "made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water...to soften him up for questioning."

* repeated use of the "peroneal strike - a potentially disabling blow to the side of the leg, just above the knee." A police officer involved in training told a soldier "he would never use such strikes because they would 'tear up' a prisoner's legs", Times reporter Tim Golden wrote, but in Afghanistan "the usual rules did not seem to apply".

* an Army interrogator reported by a detainee to have "pulled out his penis during an interrogation at Bagram, held it against the prisoner's face and threatened to rape him".

Autopsies showed the two deaths had been caused by "blunt force trauma" to the legs. Soldiers said the two had been repeatedly beaten while shackled. Nevertheless, investigators initially recommended closing the case without criminal charges.

Eventually, the Army found "probable cause" to charge 27 officers and enlistees. Over two years later, only seven have been charged, and no one has been convicted. Many Bagram interrogators, and their officer, Captain Carolyn Wood, were redeployed to Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. An Army investigation said Wood implemented "remarkably similar" techniques there.

New Army documents released under court order last week are filled with additional instances of torture and abuse by US forces. In Ramadi, Iraq, in 2003, an Army captain took an Iraqi welder into the desert, made him dig his own grave, threatened to kill him, and had other soldiers stage a shooting. An Army master sergeant knocked an Iraqi detainee to the ground, repeatedly kicked him in the groin, abdomen and head, and encouraged subordinates to do likewise.

A staff sergeant held a detainee's legs apart while other soldiers kicked him in the groin, abdomen and head. Two Iraqi men detained in Samarra were driven to a bridge where a platoon leader ordered them pushed into the river. One of the Iraqis could not swim and drowned. One soldier told investigators the chain of command had instructed the soldiers not to co-operate with the investigation, and to deny they pushed the men into the river.

The nearly 2000 pages of documents were released after a federal court ordered the Defense Department to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union, Centre for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace.

In March the ACLU and several other groups filed suit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of eight detainees who were "subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

One was held at Kandahar and Bagram, Afghanistan, in July and August 2003. His treatment included "beatings, placement in restraints and positions calculated to cause pain, verbal abuse of a sexual nature, humiliation by being photographed while naked, denial of water, intentional deprivation of necessary medication exacerbated by physical abuse, intentional and prolonged exposure to dangerous temperature extremes, and sleep deprivation".

Another plaintiff, held by the US military at various locations in Iraq from July 2003 to June 2004, was subjected to "severe beatings to the point of unconsciousness, stabbing and mutilation, isolation while naked and hooded in a wooden coffin-like box, prolonged sleep deprivation enforced by beatings, deprivation of adequate food and water, mock execution and death threats". One Iraqi detainee charged that soldiers taunted him by having a military dog pick up the Koran in its mouth.

"While the White House blames Newsweek magazine for damaging America's reputation in the Muslim world, the Army's own investigations show systemic abuse and humiliation of Muslim men by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay", said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. He said "high-ranking officials who allow the continuing abuse and torture" must be held accountable.

Amnesty International head Irene Khan condemned "cynical attempts to redefine and sanitise torture." William Schulz, the group's US executive director, compared the US torture practices to "a virus" and said the government's response "amounts to a whitewash" of "those who schemed to authorise those actions, sometimes from the comfort of government buildings".

"The architects of torture policy" must not "get off scot-free", he said.

(Source: The Guardian [Australia])

 

A ship which is believed to owe its crew more than US$80,000 was allowed to leave an Australian port without authorities taking any action, according to unions.

The Greek ship was loaded with Forestry Tasmania logs yesterday and is now anchored at sea.

Union delegates believe the 16 Filipino workers on board are not being treated humanely.

International Trasport Workers Federation (ITF) spokesman Matt Purcell said that "the harbour master...conceded that the company was in breach of the ISPS Code - that is the security code, in not allowing the ITF to come on board," he said.

"When asked about what he was going to do about it, he said he wasn't going to do anything about it."

(Source: Yahoo.com finance news)

 

The Howard Government is moving to weaken the Senate committee system - one of the main sources of scrutiny of government policy.

Set to take control of the Senate on July 1, the Coalition is already preparing to use its power to veto damaging public inquiries into scandals such as the children overboard affair or the wrongful detention of Cornelia Rau.

The Senate estimates process also faces severe restriction.

A Government source told The Age that Finance Minister Senator Nick Minchin was "keen to rattle the cage, flex the Government's muscle in the Senate".

"We are not going to abolish estimates - just make life a little more difficult for our friends on the other side," the source said.

The most likely outcome will be a cut in the number of estimates rounds from three to two, limits on the time allowed to ask questions and the power to rule unwanted questions out of order.

Senator Harry Evans said the Government's actions during the past fortnight of Senate hearings showed it was preparing to limit the flow of information.

He said he also feared for the Senate references committee process, whereby issues deemed worthy of inquiry are referred to committee by a vote of the Senate.

"In the post-July world, there would have been no children-overboard inquiry, which the Government voted against but prevailed, thanks to the Opposition and minor parties.

"Instead, we will be having inquiries into the wine industries of South Australia, but not into things like Medicare funding,not into the Cornelia Rau matter, the sorts of the things the Government doesn't want exposure on."

(Source: The Age)