Schapelle - Sins of the Father interview

Heard about this interview, with excepts, this morning and found it interesting.

A village for every idiot!

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Several international indexes consistently rank Australia's major cities as some of the world's most liveable.

But there's no shortage of Australian city dwellers who will complain about the expensive housing, traffic jams and slow public transport.

Professor John Stanley says don't expect additional government investment to come to the rescue.

And big cities bring economic growth, and crime...

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The report also calls for a whole new way of thinking about cities with a focus on small and manageable.

The director of programs at the ADC Forum Anton Roux says there are economic gains from having a large dense city but there are problems too.

With size comes economic growth but also crime. And once a city gets too large the additional negative consequences start to outweigh the benefits.

He says Australia needs to think very differently about its urban centres.

How big are Australian cities? You can't decentralise if there is no work at the decentralised locations.

You could have this utopia...

ANTON ROUX: Just imagine a network of city nodes, each a few hundred thousand people connected to advanced communications technology and transport access, where people don't need to travel too far from home to find meaningful work, where the society is economically productive and competitive, socially and ecologically resilient, surrounded by lush forests perhaps geo-engineered in large scale reforestation programs to bring increased rainfall and subsisting on vertical agriculture where food produce is grown in multi-storey glass houses.

And while people would live in closer proximity the quality and quantity of their public spaces, parks and gardens would be much greater too.

The Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese launched the report this morning in Sydney. He says the Government will look at many of the ideas in the report but there are others he's not so sure about.

These villages mentioned above seem to be urban villages, so really, there will be the same problems as the city. Besides, if you look at places in Australia like Macquarie Fields and other suburbs out near Campbelltown, particularly the experimental Housing Commission (Government housing), single parent villages (check out Proctor Way, Claymore), which were built with their backs to the street and their front to parkland (a handy escape route for burglars), and filled with single parents*, some lax on discipline, some into drugs, poor**, and/or generally undesirable, what hope was there?

I would imagine that all these years later the single parent family suburbs have changed (I would hope they have!). They were traps for people who found it difficult to get transport to jobs and to find work nearby - they were really out in the middle of nowhere! However, these days the suburbs surround Campbelltown and the Hume Highway has estates all along it.

With the NBN everyone will be able to telecommute, and use their computers to work at home.... well, of course. How many employers will allow that? Not a lot I'd imagine. And the bloke who works in the factory, or the receptionist, they can't work at home.

*I'm not rubbishing single parents, I think many people were trapped in these estates with nowhere else to go and they couldn't better their situations because of their location, lack of infrastructure, etc.

**I'm not saying poor people, or Housing Commission people, are undesirable, but it is undesirable to put them all together in cheap estates miles from work and other opportunities because they may end up trapped in that welfare merry-go-round.

Country hospital criticised by Queensland Coroner

This is a local hospital to me, I have had to take myself there for treatment when I've been suffering from SVT.

I have no complaints about the hospital or my treatment in the hospital.

Reading the report in the local paper I was surprised that the coroner found fault with the hospital. Mental health patients and drug overdose patients (and many of the mental health patients do suffer from drug abuse issues due to, or because of, their mental illness), have nowhere to go. The hospital can not assist patients who leave the hospital, no matter how ill they are, the same as Ambulance officers cannot take anyone to hospital if they refuse to go to hospital. To have someone sectioned they need to be held by police (the only people permitted to hold anyone against their will), and they need to have a GP and a JP, or magistrate, to certify that they are a danger to themselves or others.

More here.

Coroner's Inquest Findings here. I don't agree with this particular finding.

"Bradley went to the Gatton Hospital on three occasions in the early morning
before his death. He was treated for dehydration on the first occasion, but self
discharged himself. He returned twice, reporting that he had taken pills.
I find that the inaction of the staff at the Gatton Hospital, and in particular Nurse Lorenzen, when Bradley re-attended contributed to his death."

An unlikely friendship - Australian Story ABC Monday 8pm

Dianne Brimble was found dead in a cruise ship cabin nearly eight years ago. Australian Story will tell about the aftermath and how the two men who loved Dianne Brimble forged a bond in their campaign for justice for Dianne.

Link to a blog with more information.

Who's the victim?

As Nick Charles says...

Police disappointed...

There's a huge dance party on in Brisbane tonight for New Years' Eve.

Sniffer dogs have been deployed with police to crack down on drugs at the party.

There have been many people caught with drugs

Police are disappointed...

Yeah. Not as disappointed as the people caught with drugs... first they're caught. Next their drugs are confiscated, and last, they have a little date with the magistrate.

Fun night, huh!

Melanie Boyd's death - Coroner's report complete

Further to this post on bloodnut, Would your teenager call the ambulance?, the Coroner, Brian Smith, handed down his findings.

Googling this to find more information on the coroner's report, I've found several blogs condemning society/anti-drug journalists/anti-drug politicians for the death because those at the party were "too scared of the police" to call an ambulance. Somehow, I don't think that the blame is rightly placed.

Courier Mail piece on Melanie's parents, Julie and Laurie Boyd, who slammed kids for girl's drug death.

I suppose education is the answer. Don't take drugs, but if someone around you has and there's a problem, call an ambulance.

Just another subject to be added to the curriculum.