McGinty's Fiona Stanley Fiasco

McGinty's Fiona Stanley Folly - "Calm before the Storm?"

The Desert Rat is a bit mystified as to why the Liberals haven't called our failed Health Minister Macavity McGinty and the Carpenter Government to account over the continuing shambles at the Fiona Stanley Hospital.

The cost blowouts, the earthworths contract and the cuts to services all reflect McGinty's administrative incompetence.

Earthworks Contract

At taxpayer expense we have seen glossy brochures sent to all and sundry in the run-up to the election campaign which extol the virtues of the Carpenter Government. Stamped on the brochure is "Construction Commenced".

Take for example the site earthworks. The Desert Rat was informed by one contractor that they looked at the earthworks tender and declined to put in a price because they thought it too risky.

Why? Because Fiona Stanley is a contaminated site. It is a former area of silted-up swamps, the area has acid sulphate soils, which have to be removed from the site, because they will eat at the concrete and steel in the foundations. Soils in this area contain naturally occuring iron sulphide which when exposed to air turn into sulphuric acid. The government wants a fixed price contract to be completed in a compressed time frame - a recipe for major disaster and litigation for contractors. Remember the Government contaminated site fiasco with the Minim Cove development at Mosman Park.

The Desert Rat is unsure if McGinty means the pre-election media stunt showing Fiona Stanley, McGinty and Carpenter shovelling at the phony start of "building" is all the construction that has taken place.

It is highly probable that if they have managed to let the earthmoving contract, without secretly amending the conditions of the contract if removal of hazardous waste has been underestimated and the time frame is not flexible.

Cut to Services - Obstetrics and gynaecology gone!

Jim McGinty's planned obstetrics mess has further deteriorated. The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department was part of Stage 1 when Woodside Hospital and Kalamunda Hospital maternity services were shut. It wasn't announced when later the Obstetrics and Gynaecology had been moved to Stage 2 and a month ago it was scrapped from Stage 2. No Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Fiona Stanley - despite the promises and the incredible pressure on King Edward Memorial Hospital.

The only reason why it has been scrapped is to contain costs at Fiona Stanley Hospital and have the public believe the blowout are less than they really are. All about perception, nothing about substance and reality - spin, spin spin.

Cost Blowout - now over $2 billion!!

In a previous post the Desert Rat pointed out that Fiona Stanley costs had blown out by $1339 million , from $451 m when it was announced in 2005 to $1721 in the December 2008 estimates. Those figures are now 9 months old and the price of steel went up 38% in the last 12 months as well as other costs adding another $500 to $600 million in costs. By the time construction starts the cost will be well over $2 billion. It is a fiasco.

Very few building contractor are interested in taking on the job because of the short time frame and fixed price contract that McGinty wants to cover his political arse in the short term. He will be retired when the shit hits the fan! The unrealistic expectations created by McGinty are pure politics.

We get the politicians we deserve it seems.

Mt Kilimanjaro - Quintessential monitor of global warming?

Of volcanoes and glaciers

One has to be careful drawing the conclusion that the retreat of glaciers is evidence of climate change. The glaciers of Mt Kilimanjaro in equatorial Africa have been referred to in American Scientist as a poster child for global climate change. This mountain has lost 90% of its glacial cover since first climbed in 1889.

Is this enough evidence to prove climate change?

Some more observations by Professor Neil Phillips a geologist in a letter to the AGE 30 July 2008, may help.

"Most of the glacial retreat on Kilimanjaro happened before World War I - that is, almost a century ago. Second, because of its altitude of 5895 metres and position three degrees south of the equator, Kilimanjaro does not have a hot and a cold season, and the temperature at the summit rarely exceeds minus 3 degrees. Glaciers do not melt in this temperature range.

Third, glaciers extend down from the outer crater edges of Kilimanjaro but are absent in the crater, where there is a 20-metre ice wall; these glaciers appear to be retreating from the top.

More likely than climate change, the Kilimanjaro glaciers could be retreating because of increased volcanic activity below the crater. More volcanic heat means melting of the snowfall rather than replenishment of the glaciers' source.

We cannot prove Kilimanjaro's glaciers are retreating because of volcanic heat, but we need to be careful before jumping to conclusions that the poster child of glacier retreat is support for global warming. The main message here is that the obvious answer may not be the correct one.”

Left Utopias and the real world

Education is where the Left have done the lasting damage.

Love him or hate him, Bill Gates hits the nail on the head with this speech he recently gave at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

McGinty's stupidity on cannabis laws exposed

Smokescreen to hide McGinty's failed cannabis laws?

The Minister for Health and Attorney General Jim McGinty is at it again, attempting to dishonestly spin his way out of his failed liberalisation of drugs with trendy cannabis law "reforms", the "success" of which he has crowed about for years.

The Liberals have always opposed McGinty's trendy drug "reforms" which encourage the drug culture and substance abuse, and contribute to and exacerbate mental illness, particularly schizophrenia.

McGinty has hidden behind an inquiry which has recommended he dump the patently foolish elements of his policy which allowed cannabis to be grown in homes and stupidly increased the amount cannabis that drug users can carry.

McGinty now says the Liberal Party's proposed changes to cannabis laws are similar to those already agreed to by Labor!

The Opposition leader, Colin Barnett, has reaffirmed the Liberal's position to repeal the laws, which would make the possession of cannabis plants an offence and cut the cannabis possession threshold by two-thirds.

McGinty was too gutless to defend his cannabis laws - probably because some opinion poll commissioned at taxpayers expense showed that most of the public thought McGinty's laws were dumb.

In typical McGinty spin he now says he is "making sure we're tough in dealing with cannabis laws."

McGinty should be frank about his many stuff-ups and not continually treat the public as fools. The public deserves a more respect from McGinty.