Friday, December 16, 2011

Copping it

The WA police officer who shot his glock twice at a car full of Aboriginal women and children, Niko Westergerling, pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm in public and got a $5000 fine today. Westergerling was also fined in March this year in the Magistrates Court, for kicking and punching a woman, but was allowed to remain in the police service.
According to police policy in WA, when an officer commits a criminal offence and that offence is considered to affect their performance or presents a risk, the WA Police attempt to identify the causal factors. Once the assessment takes place, and any risk has been assessed, managed and mitigated, an officer may be returned to frontline duties.
Where the catalyst for the criminal offence relates to knowledge or skills, the officer may be sent for re-training.
Where the cause of a criminal offence is 'behavioural' and stems from factors like stress or an officer's inability to control themselves and make sound decisions, they are then referred for a 'Fitness for Duty' assessment by qualified medical persons. The assessment may include behavioural and therapeutic treatment or programs designed to prevent a repetition of the conduct.
The victim of the assault was Westergerling's wife.
In WA, another police officer was found guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The offence occurred during a 2009 investigation into neo-nazi and white supremacist groups in Perth. Robert David Critchley had been working with the elite intel unit doing telephone interceptions, when he tipped off the friend of one neo-nazi who was affiliated with a Perth branch of UK hate group Combat 18. Three offenders from the group later pleaded guilty to shooting at the roof of the Cannington Mosque when they were drunk. Two of the offenders were former Australian Defence Force employees.

Apparently, random drug testing was introduced for WA police officers on December 3.
Two VicPol officers have copped it for assaulting two 'hoons' doing burn-outs near their station.

## Critchley was jailed for 18 months with a minimum of 9 months and was considered in sentencing to have a low likelihood of re-offending.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The day before the Melbourne Cup?

The  Federal Attorney General presented the Surveillance Devices Act Report the day before the Melbourne Cup, detailing reported surveillance costs and figures for the last year, and this analysis highlights some unusual upward trends. 
In NT - the number of devices used 2010-2011 has rocketed to about 6.5 times that of the year before, and perhaps this may have been what the NT Police Minister had in mind when John McRoberts was appointed the Commissioner for NT Police, with his background in surveillance.  As NT media are a bit isolated from the trends of the Australian mainstream, it is hard to tell if the hike is an indication that the surveillance was long overdue, or if the surveillance is simply to establish if there is actually crime up there in the Territory to detect.
However, one interesting facet of the reported information from police is the cost per unit of an intercept (and use), which in WA, Victoria and NT is over four times that of NSW. Outsourcing, anyone?  Also, in NSW, reported warrant figures are dropping, as are applications.

Total intercept related arrests were 2441 for 3155 prosecutions and that resulted in 2022 convictions.  1531 were supposed to be for serious drug offences, and then 1046 resulted in convictions for serious drug offences and  so, about a third(485 according to the Surveillance Devices Act Report) of those intercept-related drug prosecutions failed.

Of the 91 arrests that stemmed from retreived stored email and phone communications about a third resulted in convictions.
There seems to be some problems in the annual report with the continuity of the figures relating to the total of failed convictions compared to prosecutions. The Federal AG reported as a 22% increase in prosecutions.  The over-all drug prosecution to drug conviction rate, seems to suffer an attrition of about 30%.

The AG also reported that most warrants last for two months, no warrant applications by police were refused, and total warrant use has doubled, and, in some states - like WA and NT, the frequency or use of surveillance is disproportionate, as is the expense.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Rex Bellotti Junior

This is a clip circulated by the BSG by way of a thank you to all those who played a role in their campaign, and who may have made the plight of the permanently injured young Noongar footballer, Rex Bellotti Jnr, known to the public.

Authorities have failed to be accountable over inadequacies in the original investigation into how the young man became permanently injured after going under a police 4WD in a notorious country town.  All the investigations since then have failed to yield any type of closure for the family, due to no forensic evidence having been gathered at the scene by police officers in the investigation of other police officers. No officers were dismissed in the making of this story...

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Girls' Guide

Yearly stats from the AIC verify women are more at risk from homicide in their home at the hand of someone they have been, or are in, a relationship with, than any of the vague notions in the mainstream media about independence creating risk, by going out, catching a cab, or the way women and girl's dress, etc etc ad nauseum.

The AHRC has brought out a guide to help women's complain ts be heard, when none of the authorites can or will do anything to help redress a wrong doing or prevent any more.  I know there will be some readers who will be interested in how these independent protection mechanisms can be utilized to better empower women, who typically aren't well cared for under the British Common Law system we have in Australian states.

The human rights violations the Discrimmination Commissioner mentions are of course much broader than solely issues stemming from the inept legislation and practices applied to the management of domestic violence, but that would be a common unaddressed issue for a lot of women and girls.

Australian Human Rights Commission Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, launched a guide to assist women who have experienced human rights violations, and been failed by processes in Australia, to use international complaint mechanisms to seek redress.

Mechanisms for advancing women’s human rights: A guide to using the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other international complaint mechanisms, aims to help and encourage advocates, lawyers and women to use international complaint mechanisms when they are left with no other option,” said Commissioner Broderick.

Where domestic remedies have been exhausted, the Optional Protocol enables women in Australia to make a complaint to the United Nations committee responsible for monitoring Australia's compliance with its obligations under CEDAW.

The Commissioner pointed out one case in which a female assault victim in the Philipines complained that her case was dismissed in court due to gender and cultural stereotyping by a judge, and the discrimmination had been subsequently dealt with.'

“Women around the world have used the communication and inquiry procedures under the Optional Protocol to CEDAW to obtain redress for violations of their human rights, but so far no-one in Australia has done so.” 

Commissioner Broderick said, following adverse decisions by the CEDAW Committee, several countries had introduced laws regulating gender-based violence against women or had committed to effectively enforcing existing laws.

“Effects can be very significant - one country responded to a negative decision of the CEDAW Committee by introducing a national strategy on violence against women, building domestic violence shelters and establishing a telephone counselling service."

However for such international complaints mechanisms to be effective tools, women and those advocating on their behalf need to know they exist and understand how to use them, she said.
“It is important that women know how to seek redress for violations of their rights and can challenge gaps in our laws and policies."

The guide features a list of over 70 cases where other international mechanisms have been used by people in Australia to advance human rights.  It  builds on the CEDAW Toolkit, published by the AHRC and the Office for Women. Both can be downloaded from the Commission website at www.humanrights.gov.au/sex_discrimination/publications.html.  If you want a copy you can email publications@humanrights.gov.au.

Monday, July 18, 2011

The Forgotten Australians - the "t" word, let's talk about it

The Forgotten Australians have found a voice via You Tube.

Initially, they were abducted by sick individuals who worked for the government during that era, then blatantly tortured and abused. Many of those victim survivors remain severely disadvantaged today, so though these videos below are pretty heavy emotional viewing, they reveal an essential truth - the true story of state wards during that Forgotten Australians era in which the public willingly turned a blind eye to abuse. Most state wards were reviled as a sub-class in big small-town Perth.

Though the government currently funds torture counselling for refugees, it seems authorities are reluctant to acknowledge the torture perpetrated by the government against the most precious and vulnerable members of its own society, in its own back yard. So, in the meantime, the-head-in-the-sand approach by the government leaves these victim survivors with standard emotional counselling for having been mistreated, which Panaia reveals could be 'nicety code' for torture. Presumably, the counselling of child torture victims would be a very specialized area of psychology, not something easily glossed over in group sessions.

With the second clip, Panaia has written a brief summary of some of the torture the children at one particular institution endured.  Please take the time to read it, you can open that You Tube page by double clicking on the clip. The author has erred on the side of caution - the physical abuses were actually quite a bit more severe and traumatic. It is really quite accurate that the sheer sickness, brutality and perversity that took place in these institutions by government employees against children is still covered over by the current government's societal niceties and benign language. 

It is noteworthy that the records these "group worker" child sex offender perpetrators invented about these children in order to cover up their offences, are still used punitively by government departments(police, prisons, parole, courts, DCP) against victim survivors caught in the justice system today, as if they were fact and not vile falsehoods. "Sorry" seems a bit disingenuous to me.



Saturday, May 21, 2011

Spratt Inquiry continues: April Hearings (Part 3)

Departmental bosses were grilled before last month's hearings at the CCC inquiry into the treatment of Kevin Spratt.



On 19 April, 2011, WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said that when he opted for disciplinary measures instead of criminal charges against the Watch House officers, he understood it to be in keeping with the wishes of Kevin Spratt.  The disciplinary process resulted in a $1200 fine for Troy Tomlin - who tasered Mr Spratt 4x, and a $750 fine for Grant Strahan, who tasered Mr Spratt 10x, and who was later promoted to the rank of sergeant.

The police 'flow chart' about Kevin Spratt, according to the Police Commissioner, was to correct confusion and widespread misinformation after the release of the video that showed Mr Spratt being tasered at the Perth Watch House. The Police Commissioner said, "no matter what we have said in regard to the material, the way it was released or the flow chart, it is not an excuse for what happened to Kevin Spratt. He has been apologised to and I don't resile from that position...what happened to Kevin Spratt was wrong."


The taser policy has changed since August 2008, and taser use is only permitted where there is an imminent risk of serious harm, although tasers were never intended to be used to force compliance.


On 16 September 2008, the then Superintendent of the Police Complaints Administration Centre Graham Moon received a complaint regarding the incident at the Watch House on 31 August, 2008. Moon notified Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson, who escalated the investigation referring it to Internal Affairs. 

Superintendent Moon said, "it was probably ... one of the worst I'd seen in the time I had been in the police complaints administration area." "I believe that the actions of the officers to taser Mr Spratt on numerous occasions was unwarranted and unjustified," he said. "I had some concerns about the version of events that was supplied by the officers, and when you looked at the video - I basically pointed out that... some of that information they provided surely couldn't stack up to what they were actually saying and those matters needed to be investigated thoroughly." 

Moon said he was shocked no-one took charge of the situation... "and that no-one actually took the initiative to handcuff Mr Spratt, pick him up and take him into the lockup, put him a padded cell if they believed he was violent or whatever. I found that to be quite hard to fathom."  Moon described the way it was handled, as "totally over the top."

Department of Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson said changes were needed to reduce risk to detainees and improve the ESG's performance. Giving evidence on 18 April, 2011, Ian Johnson said police handovers of prisoners needed to be more detailed. The use of force used by police needed to be fully documented, so the ESG could make informed choices regarding further use of force, and medical staff should be available at the Watch House. Mr Johnson said the ESG had only used tasers on six occasions since 2006, and added that there was nothing secretive about the unit, including their use of force and the videos they made of their operations.

Hearings one week earlier examined the evidence of Corrective Services' elite ESG officers, most of whom had their identities protected. The video of Kevin Spratt's reception at Casuarina Prison was played to the CCC hearing and then in the days following, it was publicly released, in accord with Mr Spratt's wishes. The 6 September 2008 CCTV video showed Mr Spratt being extracted from a Perth Watch-House cell by the heavily armoured and masked ESG officers, and the naked and unarmed man is heard praying for his life, and tasered 11 times by two senior ESG officers.


At the hearing on 11 April 2011 the then ESG Acting Assistant Superintendent said police had briefed ESG officers during the handover process about "numerous physical engagements with police that took place prior to the cell extraction."

Casuarina Prison staff, including the medical officers, were subsequently told to prepare for an extremely violent prisoner but were surprised when they found him on arrival to be, quiet, dishevelled, praying, and suffering in pain.
'Officer D,' a senior prison officer, said when the then ESG Superintendent Jim Schilo rang him, he instructed him to prepare the staff(12 to 15 Casuarina Prison and infirmary staff) for an "extremely violent" prisoner, who had assaulted and injured several police.

Perth Watch-House Police Sergeant Nicholas Rowe told the inquiry that calling the ESG was his idea, but the 'cell extraction' was planned by the ESG. "The basic conversation was ... they go in basically by surprise or not give warning because ...he had been erratic for four hours," he said. However, some ESG officers told the inquiry that they didn't think Mr Spratt could hear them identify themselves at the commencement of the cell extraction because he was screaming.

Sgt Rowe said the sergeant he replaced at the Watch House on that shift, had sought medical attention after he tried to negotiate with Mr Spratt, and got Spratt's blood on his face.  Rowe said on 6 September 2008 prior to his departure, Mr Spratt's only recorded injuries on the police running sheet was a little bleeding from his nose or lip.

After the cell extraction, Mr Spratt was transferred to Casuarina Prison infirmary, his hands and feet were shackled. ESG 'Officer B' said when transporting Mr Spratt, that one of the other ESG officers had told him that Mr Spratt was "throwing himself around" the van.  

After Mr Spratt's removal from the ESG van he was put in a wheelchair and later diagnosed with at least one broken rib, a badly collapsed lung and pneumothorax, a dislocated right shoulder and a comminuted fracture of the humerus. The CCTV footage from Casuarina showed Kevin Spratt screaming with pain upon removal from the van and at the infirmary.

One of the prison infirmary nurses said Spratt seemed compliant but in some pain. No one had mentioned that he was injured and she was told he was "psychotic and drug affected." Officer "D," a Casuarina Prison officer, said Mr Spratt was in pain and "speaking in tongues."  "He didn't appear to be threatening or violent...he appeared more upset and definitely dishevelled and looked like he'd been sleeping rough..." 

Kevin Spratt at the Rally for Humaneness November 13, 2010 - pic copyright
MSM media coverage here

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Timmins on new Commonwealth Shield Laws

This is a post by Open & Shut on the new Commonwealth Shield Laws - hopefully the states will follow suit and the media will respect the privilege. From the traffic, I can see that it works better for The Daily Magnet's readers for me to cut and paste this and I hope that with full attribution to Peter Timmins, that this will be ok.  He and, I note, Ken from Club Troppo , have been working on submissions and considerations of this legislation for some months now and I really don't think that I could add anything to their coverage of the matter - so here is it in full...
Posted: 03 Mar 2011 10:36 PM PST
Having suggested WikiLeaks would add further complications to passage of a federal law to protect journalists' sources, I was proved wrong on Friday morning at 1.20 am when neither WikiLeaks nor the name Assange were mentioned as the Senate passed the Evidence Amendment (Journalists Privilege) Bill 2010. (For the Senate Committe's report on the legislation last year see here.)

It's a good result, but will only be relevant in court cases regarding Commonwealth laws, and it remains to be seen how the courts interpret journalist (defined by function) and circumstances where the public interest should override protection of a source. NSW is the only state with a shield law but it falls short of a rebuttable presumption of protection of identity.

In the Senate the Government supported Senator Ludlam's move to clarify that a journalist did not need to be in an employment relationship to qualify for privilege, a problem for mine  with Andrew Wilkie's House bill from the start, and to ensure neutrality regarding the medium of publication. Senator Brandis spoke against The Greens amendments arguing that they opened the door to a claim of privilege by "any citizen who by any medium publishes something that might be considered to be newsworthy." While it extends to citizen journalists-paid or unpaid- who are clearly involved in publication of news, I doubt it covers every citizen who publishes anything at all.

The resulting definitions as they emerge from this are:
journalist means a person who is engaged and active in the publication of news and may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium.
news medium means any medium for the dissemination to the public or a section of the public of news and observations on news.

These changes need to be endorsed by the House but this will be routine.

Senator Ludlam's amendment to replace "work" with "activities" in this definition failed:
informant means a person who gives information to a journalist inthe normal course of the journalist’s work in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium.

The substantive provisions of the amendment legislation, based on NZ law, would add these sections to the Evidence Act:


126H Protection of journalists’ sources
(1) If a journalist has promised an informant not to disclose the informant’s identity, neither the journalist nor his or her employer is compellable to answer any question or produce any document that would disclose the identity of the informant or enable that identity to be ascertained.
(2) The court may, on the application of a party, order that subsection (1) is not to apply if it is satisfied that, having regard to the issues to be determined in that proceeding, the public interest in the disclosure of evidence of the identity of the informant outweighs: (a) any likely adverse effect of the disclosure on the informant or any other person; and (b) the public interest in the communication of facts and opinion to the public by the news media and, accordingly also, in the ability of the news media to access sources of facts.
(3) An order under subsection (2) may be made subject to such terms and conditions (if any) as the court thinks fit.

Subsection 131A(1)
(1) This section applies if, in response to a disclosure requirement, a person claims that they are not compellable to answer any question or produce any document that would disclose the identity of the informant (within the meaning of section 126H) or enable that identity to be ascertained.
(1A) A party that seeks disclosure pursuant to a disclosure requirement may apply to the court for an order, under section 126H, that subsection 126H(1) does not apply in relation to the information document.

131B Extended application of Division 1A etc. to all proceedings for Commonwealth offences
 In addition to their application under section 4 to all proceedings ina federal court or an ACT court, Division 1A and section 131A apply to all proceedings in any other Australian court for an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, including proceedings that: (a) relate to bail; or (b) are interlocutory proceedings or proceedings of a similar kind; or (c) are heard in chambers; or (d) relate to sentencing.

The Family Law Act 1975 would also be amended:
Subsection 69ZX(4)
Repeal the subsection, substitute:
(4) In proceedings under this Part in which the court is required to regard the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration:(a) subsection 126H(1) of the Evidence Act 1995 does not apply in relation to information that would: (i) reveal the identity of a journalist’s source; or (ii) enable that identity to be discovered; if the court considers that it is in the best interests of the child for the information to be disclosed; and (b) the court must not direct, under a law of a State or Territory relating to professional confidential relationship privilege specified in the regulations, that evidence not be adduced if the court considers that adducing the evidence would be in the best interests of the child.

Section 100C Repeal the section.

Chalk this up for The Greens and independents in parliament as the ALP was going nowhere close to a result like this after its general commitment to a shield law in the 2007 election campaign.

Thanks to Open Australia for the Hansard links.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

FAST FACTS: CCC Spratt Inquiry Pt. 2


31 August - 6 September, 2008, tasers were deployed against Kevin Spratt at least 41 times at the Perth Police Watch House, mostly in drive-stun mode.


6 September, 2008, tasers were deployed 27 times in under 9 hours during 3 incidents, against Mr Spratt.


A police officer told the CCC he supplied an incorrect statement of material facts to the criminal court on a charge of obstruction against Mr Spratt. Fowler was not present at the time of the alleged obstruction. He said at the CCC that he was wrongly informed by two other officers, and also told not to correct the statement by an investigator from IA, whose name he could not recall. The obstruction conviction has been quashed.


31 August, 2008


• Sergeant Aaron Grant Strahan and Detective First Class Constable Brett Fowler arrested Spratt


Mr Spratt was tasered:


• 14x at the Perth Watchhouse,


• 4x by Senior Constable Troy Tomlin and,


• 10 times by Sgt Grant Strahan,


allegedly, because he would not take his clothes off.


Shadow Attorney General John Quigley and Kevin Spratt
at the Rally for Humanness in November 2010
 copyright Broly Turles
September 6, 2008:


• 5: 30am, Bayswater police officers allege an attempted burglary was reported, and that they found Mr Spratt in a park nearby, and that when they confronted him, he argued with them and took his clothes off.


• 6am, he was arrested and tasered 2x in probe-mode and 5-6 times in drive-stun mode, for not getting into the police van, officers alleged. No footage of this incident has been publicly released.


• 10:30am Snr Const Darren Skelton, in dealings with Kevin Spratt at the Watchhouse, deployed his taser 8x in under 3 minutes.


• Skelton told the Inquiry, “it basically charged him up like the energizer bunny.” No footage of this incident has been publicly released.


• A fellow officer Constable Grigg, present at the 10:30 tasering, complained to Internal Affairs about excessive force used but has since retracted her statement, saying she did not know what to expect because she was inexperienced as a police officer compared to the others.


• About 2:30pm, 2 senior officers from the Emergency Services Group deployed tasers against Mr Spratt 11 times in 3 minutes in a “cell extraction,” with 5 other ESG prison officers.


A senior ESG officer told the CCC Mr Spratt’s alleged attempts to sit and stand during the “cell extraction,” “could be a form of attack.” The other senior ESG officer refuted that Mr Spratt’s injuries were caused by the ESG.


“Mr Spratt was later diagnosed the following day suffering from at least one, possibly other fractures of the ribs and a collapse of his lung and pneumothorax. His right shoulder was dislocated with a comminuted fracture of the humerus,” Mr Quinlan, Counsel Assisting, said at the CCC opening hearing.


Counsel Assisting, Mr Quinlan outlined that tasering in drive-stun mode inflicts sudden pain whereas probe mode incapacitates the muscle system. Probe-mode taser use has been criticized by police for not making contact reliably.

The inquiry is ongoing...

Monday, February 28, 2011

Blue Iris CCTV Bandaid MIA in Belmont stabbing

The skate park in Belmont is under constant CCTV surveillance, along with several streets in and around Belmont (even extending to adjacent suburbs, Redcliffe, Cloverdale and Rivervale) and it is one of the only areas in Perth to have CCTV purportedly live-streamed into the WA Police Surveillance Unit.

If the big-brother presence in the largely multi-cultural working-class suburb was not troubling enough, more troubling still, is the fact that police are appealing for witnesses to this young man being stabbed ...in front of the 24-7 live-streamed Blue Iris CCTV, and yet the roll-out of CCTV in WA continues indiscriminately and without questioning.


CCTV has caught on in Belmont shire like wildfire. The local council has volunteered the area's streets, resident pensioners' homes, and local businesses, up to the omnipotent CCTV gods for 24-7 surveillance. But, are any of the WA police watching? The police helicopter is fairly attentive over the area, but is reactive and not the preventative measure that Blue Iris was meant to be.

Is it a conflict of interest for the Federal Home Affairs minister to also be responsible for crime prevention funding, where CCTV surveillance(if someone is watching) might lead to the racial vilification of the area's population, largely comprised of migrants, war widows, refugees, Indigenous people and a variety of low income families from minorities?

In late 2009 Brenden O'Connor fleetingly appeared in Rivervale's Needlestick Park to launch the combined approach of CCTV and the older and much more organic Eyes on the Street program in the suburb. Belmont Shire's Eyes on the Street idea involved all council workers and residents spotting people and incidents that they perceived as suspicious and filling out a form for the central police about them, retrospectively - it hasn't taken off in a big way, though. That section of Rivervale(about 6 blocks from the Skate Park) is never terribly short of suspicious occurrences, and maybe the residents/council workers require coaching from Uncle Brendan to identify what police might consider aberrant behaviours, that residents have suffered out for decades.

The Needlestick Park netball courts have now had a temporary fence erected around them but the needle disposal unit remains right next to the kiddies' playground. The parks in the Belmont district are a hub for bored youth and need closer attention. More generally, the shire is long overdue for a funding injection for culturally diverse services and entertainment(as opposed to $ for CCTV cameras) that can give young people a range of supervised and constructive activities at the times of day/night when they will use them. The skate park offers a lot to local youths despite the ever-present bullying there, but there is little else available.

In the AFP Association newsletter "Auspol" last October, CCTV upgrade$ were once again being peddled as a cure-all for the boogie monsters of "organized crime, "terrorism," and "national wellbeing," citing the violent death of one man at Sydney's domestic airport as the catalyst for Australia to transform into a police state. They obviously aren't a cure-all in the South-East region of Perth.

The same story was critical of the media not considering those issues as a first priority in the news, and simultaneously failed to mention the difficulties police have refraining from profiling minorities, aided by CCTV, due to the lack of diversity in their recruitment and promotion practices.

One AIC study of open-street CCTV found that the government tended to make "grandiose" claims about CCTV's potential achievements, where research showed that the results were "ambiguous." The study also said, it was necessary for policy makers "to remain alert to the negative potential of CCTV to discriminate against and exclude individuals who are legitimate users of public areas.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Misplaced wings

Ombudsman paddles NT Police for prying (into journo's secret source business)

In this post I looked at the 'whys and wherefores' of the NT Police covert search of a journalist's phone records after he reported on a drug raid on a high profile politician in the Territory.


I'd like to provide readers with a copy of the NT Big O's report, however the website is - down ...


So instead, here's an interview about the search debacle with former WA police head spook, John McRoberts, who is now the Commissioner for NT Police.


The Northern Territory Ombudsman ruled against the police last week, saying that though their search might have been legal, it was unnecessary and that in future such searches need to be authorized by officers with a rank of superintendent or higher. 


Club Troppo's Ken Parish gets 3 D-M golden elephant stamps for being a pace-setter and seeing through the spin.


This is an interesting angle on source protection and current government and media industry practices, although his glasses could be perceived as being a touch rosy.

##UPDATE## The O's website is back up but isn't hosting the report.

I just can't work out if this story informs, or does it entertain? Darn it - News Ltd UK gets all the scoops...

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Cyclone Yasi aftermath

North Queensland has emerged from the Category 5 Cyclone Yasi very well, although it's estimated 180k people are homeless and there is no power, mobile towers or fixed phone lines - there have been no fatalities detected.

Some communities are still isolated by the loss of communications and roads cut off by debris and flood waters. However, it seems as though the post-Cyclone Larry rebuild in this region 5 years ago, early evacuations and warning systems, as well as an increased amount of caution by the public due to recent catastrophic flooding in S-E Qld, has meant that, quite extraordinarily, there's been no loss of life. That's pretty impressive planning, considering the severity of the winds and the damage that has been done to homes and land.

The sheer magnitude of the cyclone has meant that it is still travelling into inland regions, which may not be quite as well prepared for this kind of severe weather, although it's power is dissipating as it moves away from the coast.

This Cyclone Yasi news cover by Reuters(of Mission and Cowley Beaches), on-sold to IOL, is a bit fresher than the 24-7 bombardment the Australian public has copped from the ABC and News Ltd.

Update on Cyclone Yasi - Eye to cross coast later, at 12:30am

I can see that since I published this last Cyclone Yasi post there have been quite a few people googling for information on how they can stay safe in their homes, when and where the cyclone will hit, and more generally, updates on what's happening at ground level. So, here's an update from the Premier's Office which hopefully may answer a few of your questions. The info given earlier today said that even if the roof comes off the house that it is still safer inside, and that the smallest room will have the strongest structure against the winds. Apologies for all the Premier's state of emergency info, as other sources emerge I will try to update it. This story has come from Townsville ten mins ago - details in it are a bit scant but it's still  a good indication comms are still up although power is out to 90k houses.



The most recent tracking indicates the eye of the cyclone will cross the coast around the midnight time. The core of Cyclone Yasi will cross the coast from about 8pm onwards...

Anna Bligh 10:30pm (AEST) - "The destructive core, that is, the part of this cyclone that will have the winds of up to 280 - 300 kilometres an hour, spans a distance of about 150 kilometres. It is five times wider than the same core in Cyclone Larry.
Between about 830pm, about now, and just after midnight is going to be the roughest time for the people who are living with this event right now. The very early signs of this cyclone are now starting to be felt; we have significant power outages and reports of powerlines coming down. We also know that we are going to see very, very high storm surge activity.

"...late this afternoon in Townsville, the monitor recorded a maximum wave height at Point Cleveland off Townsville of 6.6 metres. This is the highest that has ever been recorded since measurements began in 1975. Similarly in Cardwell, we are planning for a storm surge of higher than seven metres over the high tide mark; Lucinda Beach, 4 metres and at Cairns around the 2.6 metre mark. These are extremely high levels of water that will come into those towns and inundate all those low lying areas at a very high level.

The high tide that we're looking at in about half an hours time will add to that storm surge but we will also see a high tide in this region around 930am tomorrow morning. It is expected to be quite a high tide and this storm system is so big that we will be experiencing residual effects of high powered winds still around that 930 time and later.

What that means is that we could see a second peak of storm surging in all of these areas during and after the high tide tomorrow morning. So if the winds have started to die down and people, quite naturally, will want to get out and see what has happened in their homes.

I can't stress enough that you may be putting yourselves in danger if you go out after this event too early. You cannot, we cannot eliminate the very high likelihood that there will be a second storm surge that will peak sometime around that high tide event tomorrow morning.
North Queensland itself has very little power generation. The overwhelming bulk of power generation for North Queensland comes out of Central Queensland. It is then transmitted by a spine of transmission towers that goes inland behind Townsville all the way to Cairns. It is then supplied through another spine of transmission towers that goes down the coast from Cairns, right down south of Mackay. In Cyclone Larry that coastal spine saw six transmission towers knocked out and that seriously disrupted power supply in that area. But Cyclone Larry was a category 4 event.

The inland transmission system has never been tested at a category 5 level. If the transmission lines on the inland spine are disrupted or brought down by this event, it would mean a catastrophic failure of the electricity supply system to the entire North and Far North of our state.

So...if it does happen we could see a failure of electricity supply that would extend potentially to many areas that have not been affected by this cyclonic event and it could extend for a prolonged period of time... we are planning for an aftermath that may see a catastrophic failure of essential services. We now have 37 000 people without electricity supply. That's because winds have brought down local powerlines, not because we've seen any transmission towers down. Almost half of that is in the Caldwell/Innisfail area.

"...this cyclone is expected to have a life of between two and three days. It is now tracking to cross Mt Isa as a category 1 cyclone sometime on Friday. Still tracking as a category 3 cyclone over the Atherton Tableland and into towns like Georgetown as a category 3 cyclone, 450 kilometres inland, early tomorrow morning. So we are still talking about a massive and intensifying event."

"... everybody who is now bunkering down in North and Far North Queensland will be starting to experience what they will be living with for the next four or five hours.... it will take all of their strength to endure what they are about to experience. I think it's difficult for us to imagine what it might be like to go through four or five hours of listening to 300 kilometre winds going around our homes, torrential rain and to be doing that in the dark and potentially without any communications. It will not only take all the strength of those enduring it, we as a community, as Queenslanders and as Australians need to brace ourselves for what we might find when we wake up tomorrow morning.

Without doubt we are set to encounter scenes of devastation and heartbreak on an unprecedented scale.This cyclone is like nothing that we have ever deal t with before as a nation... the next 24 hours I think are going to be very, very tough ones for everyone."

The Deputy Police Commissioner said the winds were rising, the streets were clear and that everyone was bunkered down, "it is too dangerous right now in all of those areas for our police crews and other emergency crews to go out. We are not yet receiving calls for assistance from the public related to the cyclone. It is eerily quiet in terms of that area of police operations. I don't expect that to last much longer as the cyclone encroaches on landfall. We are certainly thinking of all of the community and all of the emergency workers in the area right now."

This coverage came out about midnight (around 90 mins ago) and has the most up to date info on damage and the impact of the cyclone so far - it's estimated 90k houses have lost power.  This story was published from AAP at Mission Beach around 20 mins ago, and it would seem that they are coping ok at this stage.  Here is more recent footage of Yasi crossing the coast.

##UPDATE## Early reports from Townsville suggest that residents there have escaped the worst impact of the cyclone, official wind gusts measured at 220 kmph. Typical storm damage is being reported - roofs torn off, trees up-rooted, etc, although it is still too dangerous in the calm of the storm - in the 135 kmph winds, for emergency workers to assess damage or respond to requests for help. The weather bureau said that the tidal surge has not been as bad yet as anticipated, due to a receding tide at the time of the tidal surge which is countering the rise in water levels. 75% of Townsville residents have lost power. 10.5k residents are in Level 5 reinforced evac centres.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

North Qld in path of Cyclone Yasi

Just briefly...Anna Bligh said at her afternoon press conference today that it's time to bunker down, no more evacs the places are full and the weather, too woolly.  Cyclone Yasi's wind speed as it flattened Willis Island, just off the coast, was 295km per hour - just to put it in perspective Hurricane Katrina's top wind speed was 225km per hour - those in the affected areas will most likely have found somewhere reasonably safe to be, but there would still be a high risk to those on the outlying areas of the towns in the path of Yasi.

During the January floods "social media" became a corner stone for referral information for relief efforts, and Queenslanders are utilizing the same means in anticipation of this huge cyclone. If you need info or resources/support referral there are several sites including facebook offering contacts. The electricity and other resources will probably only be available for a short period, so there may be difficulties keeping in communication for people who have holed up in their homes, rather than evacuation centres.




One can only speculate the potential impact of this cyclone after the recent storm activity.


Here's an excerpt from an earlier press conference today with the Qld premier,

"By way of comparison the last category five cyclone to cross the coast of Queensland was in 1918. So this is an event we have no recent experience of. This also means that we will see very, very high seas and the Bureau has also issued a warning for dangerous swells all the way down to the Sunshine Coast. 

 The Bureau has issued a warning and they are only going to get more dangerous in the next 24 hours all the way down the coast to the Sunshine Coast.
The other important message this morning is to say to those communities to the west of the area between Cairns and Townsville that they need to be equally prepared.

The cyclone is looking like it will be around Georgetown as a category 3 cyclone around 9am tomorrow morning. So as this cyclone moves across the coast it will slow down a little but it will still be a very serious cyclone, category 3, in towns like Georgetown which normally you would never see a cyclone in. So the Tablelands, the Hinterland and then towns to the west need to start preparing and understanding that this event will affect them and give cyclonic conditions.

We now have approximately nine and a half thousand people in 20 evacuation centres between Cairns and Townsville. Most of them in Cairns or Townsville but another large one in Innisfail.

There is still some spare capacity in some of these centres and I said this morning the window was still open and closing. It is still a little crack of light there and there is still some last minute opportunities, people who are in any of those areas that might experience flooding should be looking at their absolutely last chance. The next time I am doing an update there will be no further opportunities for people to move. Those people who are not in an inundation area please do not go to the evacuation centres. You are safer in your own home and you will only take up space from people who cannot be in their own homes or the home of a friend. So please, only go the evacuation centres if you are firstly in a flood or inundation area and you are not able to find accommodation with a friend or a family member.

Look I think it's very hard to even contemplate the unbearable circumstances that many families are going to be facing tonight. We need to understand that they will be in very frightening circumstances. They will be for the most part going through cyclonic winds of up to 300km an hour, torrential rain and many of them will do that without any electricity, without any mobile telecommunications and some of them may well be doing it with parts of their roof coming off. As the Deputy Commissioner said this morning people who are bunkered in their house are safer in their house even if parts or all of the roof come off. I know it will be raining on them but going out into those winds even if it seems sensible is just the most dangerous thing to do.

So people do need to prepare themselves and particularly their children for something that will be quite frightening. But everything that can be done is being done and the safest place right now given it is not possible for most people now to leave town, the safest place is to be in their homes in the smallest room in the house. Whether that is your toilet, your bathroom, a laundry; the smallest room in your house will be the most structurally sound and that is where you should take your family when these winds really escalate."

(In response) "We're not evacuating people off Palm Island. The Palm Island Council has worked to ensure that anyone in a low lying area has been relocated to a house in a higher area. Palm Island is a council that is ready for this event. It will be one of the islands that experiences some very early symptoms of the cyclone because it's just that bit offshore. Without doubt because it's now south of where the cyclone is going to hit, it's those areas to the south that will feel the brunt of some of the stronger winds and particularly the storm surge so all the planning that can be done on Palm Island for that storm surge has been done. I'm very confident the council has done a good job in alerting people. It is a very small community and that does mean that you can just about talk to everybody."

JOURNALIST: Is the ETA still ten o'clock tonight?



PREMIER: At this stage yes and we'll update you through the day.

JOURNALIST: What happened to the cyclone bunkers promised after Cyclone Larry?

PREMIER: What was committed to after Cyclone Larry was that as we built large public infrastructure that lent itself to being capable of taking a large number of people that would be done at a category five cyclone level. That has happened. In Innisfail State High School the centre that is accommodating 500 people right now is a category 5 shelter and that was as a result of that rebuild. Redlynch State School which is also accommodating I think close to 1,000 people, built and finished at the end of last year, is a category 5 shelter and is accommodating a thousand people. The hall at the Babinda RSL is a category 5 shelter. So that's three that have been done in five years. The commitment was as we build the things that are necessary like school halls, where people could take shelter, we will build them to a category 5 level. But you can't accommodate 75,000 people in these sorts of shelters. That could never happen. You always need to expect that some people will be sheltering in their own homes."

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Why some old fashioned Qld phones are still working....

Hearing impaired people jailed in WA

In this post I referred to the findings of the 2010 Senate Inquiry into Hearing and Ear Health, which said 90% of Darwin Correctional Centre's Indigenous inmates had hearing loss and/or ear disease, and I commented that the statistics for Western Australia's prisons were an unknown factor.


However...ear test results from the West Australian metropolitan women's jail, Bandyup, were released at the end of last year. The tests were commissioned by Corrective Services after concerns about the large number of women who appeared to need treatment.


The results showed almost half of Indigenous imprisoned women not only have a hearing loss, but of the 104 Indigenous women tested by TSH:
  • 45 required referral to a GP,
  • 13 had burst eardrums,
  • seven had visibly scarred eardrums and
  • four had ears that were discharging pus(most likely from Chronic Supperative Otitis Media).  
Not being able to hear has a negative impact on a person's ability to navigate safely through our troubled justice system, in addition to the barriers poor communications pose to schooling and getting/keeping a job - obvious for people who live with it, but a complete unknown for those who don't

Awareness of ear disease has rocketed in the last year thanks to the efforts of the Inquiry, and the test results from TSH debunk the age-old belief that Otitis Media("Glue Ear") is solely a minor ailment, limited to childhood, that occurred in isolated regions.

The test results show ear disease is also a serious problem for Indigenous people in the metro area, and the effects of the disease on ears and hearing can last a lifetime.

Previous research has shown the disease is very prevalent in regional and remote areas and 80%-90% of Indigenous children(aged 1-4 years) suffer from Otitis Media(OM) and those rates, are among the worst in the world.  A lot of those kids will end up with the more serious and exceedingly painful, Chronic Supperative Otitis Media(CSOM), recurring indefinitely, which causes lifelong auditory processing impairment and ear defects. 

The difficulties of growing up with hearing loss is only just beginning to be addressed, but the implications for a child's psychological and emotional growth, of growing up with everyday chronic pain, seems to be relatively unchartered territory.  
In the regions rife with OM, the rates decrease as kids get older(around 54% of school-aged kids in NT). However, the brain's auditory link develops at around the age of 2-3 years, creating a battle with impaired auditory processing that effectively, lasts a lifetime. Accurate information about auditory processing is still not very widely known and this means the funding, services and support are still limited.

One in ten non-Indigenous female inmates tested had a hearing loss/ear disease, as well.

Poor social(plus justice, education, employment, and anything else hinging on communications skills) outcomes are also reflected in the high rates of non-Indigenous inmates with hearing loss, who were also disproportionately represented among the prison test group, compared to the number of women with ear disease on the other side of the fence.


The 2010 Senate Hearing Inquiry recommended that all Australian inmates have their ears examined and their hearing tested and that those found to have a loss should then have the circumstances surrounding their incarceration, such as their offences and their court hearings, investigated by the state Ombudsman to screen for miscarriages of justice. At the outset, the Senate identified that there are approximately 4 million Australians with a hearing loss.