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.

The Untouchables - Left Lobbyists Part 2

Lobbyist Clive Brown whose integrity is admired by Carpenter

The Desert Rat's next takes the microscope to former Left Faction and Labor Party lobbyist Clive Brown, the former Minister for State Development in the Gallop Government and MP for Bassendean.

Alan Carpenter (preaching from the Moral High-Ground) told Parliament in an answer to a question from Greens MP Giz Watson, that Clive Brown was not a lobbyist; he was employed by the Geraldton Iron Ore Alliance (GIOA) and didn't need to be on the Lobbyists Register.

Clive Brown was employed by the GIOA shortly after he left Parliament and his Ministerial position as a consultant and was later made Chairman of the Alliance lobbying group.

Read on and see what you think! Alan Carpenter certainly takes us mere mortals for idiots.

First the Desert Rat would like to say that he is not aware of the Corruption and Crime Commission investigating any of the activities of lobbyists associated with or formerly associated with the Jim McGinty controlled Left Faction of the ALP.

Shortly after retiring from Parliament in 2005 Clive Brown was hired by BHP Billiton as a lobbyist (the euphemisn "consultant" was used). Clive Brown had earlier appointed Mark Ritter (a lawyer with links to the and ALP's Left Faction) to inquire into the deaths at BHP's HBI plant in Port Hedland in June 2004. In November 2004, three months before Clive Brown retired Mark Ritter's report was completed and tabled in Parliament.

The Desert Rat understands that Clive Brown's appointment as a consultant / lobbyist to BHP was approved by Alan Carpenter. The Desert Rat thinks that taking up an appointment with BHP was a breach of propriety - it was not proper to seek or accept such an appointment so soon after retiring where he could use confidential information.

Entrepreneur Andrew Forrest was not amused that Brown was now working for BHP, he told the Sydney Morning Herald that it was highly improper. As the recent Minister for Mines, he was aware of all of the Fortescue Metals Group's (FMG) plans and now fresh from the Ministerial position he was working for Forrest's competitor. There was the sensitive issue of FMG's access to BHP's private railway as well.

About six months after retirement Clive Brown was employed as a lobbyist by Griffin Coal. When retiring, he complained to Rebecca Carmody of ABC Stateline that he was "burned out" and that was why he was leaving Parliament.

Brown was a very ordinary Minister for State Development but certainly better than Fran Logan the current Minister for State Development also (fortuitously) from the Left Faction.

His claims to fame are taking the credit for opening-up the iron ore province in the Murchison. When the big problem arose which Clive Brown could not handle or fix, such as environmental problems, road access problems and the proposed Murchison Radio Telescope Array, help was called in. The Desert Rat has heard from industry sources that Julian Grill (and possibly Brian Burke) were called in to do the heavy lifting to solve these problems, to remove the brick walls Brown hit and could not handle and get the show moving again.

The irony is, that if Grill and Burke had been around from the beginning, the rail and port delays for the Murchison producers would have been sorted out years ago. As well as contacts and entrees, which most lobbyists trade on, Grill and Burkes main asset was their problem solving skills - creating win-win situations.

The other claim to fame is the $25 billion sale of North West Shelf LNG gas to China. This contract was a major cock-up where the Desert Rat doesn't believe Clive Brown discharged his duty to the State as Minister for State Development. His job was to ensure the State got full value for the gas. It is now accepted (except by those involved) that the gas was sold for less than half the price they should have got at a time when LNG was in keen world demand.

The deal was a major long-term sellout of Australia's resources. The gas is pegged at the equivalent of $25 a barrel of oil, about $US100 below the current world price!

To quote Alan Carpenter's defense of Clive Brown the lobbyist in Parliament he said:

"Once a person leaves political life - and I intend to one day - you're a free citizen."

Why isn't that rule applied to Julian Grill and Brian Burke?

Despite the ongoing Corruption and Crime Commission Grill - Burke witch hunt; all of whose finding to date have all been discredited, neither have been shown to have been involved in any misconduct.

In the ALP these days there is one rule for the Left Faction and another for the Centre - Right faction members.

And, by the way, Clive Brown is not a lobbyist - Alan Carpenter said so.!

The Untouchables - Left Lobbyists Part 1

Scrutinising Megan Anwyl - an Untouchable?

The Desert Rat thought it may be illuminating to look at the activities of political lobbyists who were former members of the Socialist Left faction of the Labor Party and former MP's.

Why haven't any of these lobbyists beeen pursued or put under the scrutiny by the Crime and Corruption Commmission. Why have only the centre and right politicians come under scruting - some of it malicious.

Are Left faction apparatchiks off-limits; protected species who have political immunity from scrutiny?

Megan Anwyl who had the ignominy of being the only ALP MP to ever lose the safe State ALP held seat of Kalgoorlie since federation. Anwyl was the only Labor member to lose her seat when Geoff Gallop led the ALP to victory in 2001. She went south when everyone else was heading north.

Anwyl would have lost the seat four years earlier if it wasn't for Julian Grill taking over and re-jigging her election advertising campaign which she didn't realise was badly damaging her prospects.

She has since hung around Perth hoping for Left Faction endorsement for a safe seat, but she had a snowflakes hope in hell, as the Left Faction campaign managers and apparatchik's involved in her failed 2001 campaign found her impossible to work with.

Anwyl coundn't even get a sinicure appointment from a Left Minister. It was left to Centre Faction's Transport Minister Allanah McTiernan to come to her rescue and provide a board position on the Esperance Port Authority (EPA).

Anwyl showed no interest in keeping the Kalgoorlie to Esperance railway line open when it was under threat of closure by Westrail and which was vital to the viability of the Esperance Port. That was left to Julian Grill, Mark Nevill and Graeme Campbell to secure the future of the rail link during its threatened closure.

The Desert Rat recalls the antipathy she had to the mining industry when a Member of Parliament. A Damascene conversion seems to have taken place since her defeat, as the mining and exploration now puts the butter and jam on her EPA bread.

At the Esperance Port Authority, Megan Anwyl was on the Board before during and after the lead carbonate poisoning of the town and it population. All the males Board members have either left the Board or have not been reappointed - but the precious Ms Anwyl continues. She was there before and during the negotiations to ship lead carbonate from Magellan's Wiluna mine through the Port of Esperance.

Anwyl seem untouchable at the Esperance Port Authority when it comes to accepting her share of the blame for the poisoning. Why on earth did Allanah McTiernam reappointed her? Does Allanah think the Left have treated her unfairly?

Since getting dumped from her Kalgoorlie seat by her electors, Ms Anwyl has plied her trade as a political lobbyist, first with the Labor Party aligned lobby group Hawker Brittian and now out on her own. Why would she leave a group so well connected to the ALP and who are literally "raking it in" under Labor Governments all over Australia - away from the scrutinising eye of the CCC? Was she dumped?

The Desert Rat is aware she had a sinecure with the BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine Project early in her wilderness period. They actually complained about the lack of progress they were making with the Gallop Government. The Desert Rat's informant referred them to Julian Grill - unintendedly starting his demand as a lobbyist. Julian Grill achieved in a few months what Anwyl didn't make progress on in nine months. The Desert Rat would like to examine the Esperance Port Authority Board minutes to find out if Megan Anwyl disclosed any lobbying conflicts of interest while on the EPA Board.

The Desert Rat asks the question: Why should any lobbyist be on a Government Board that has dealings with the lobbyists clients?

Her new clients are iron ore hopeful who recently engaged her to chair the North West Iron Ore Alliance and Skywest Ltd. She has been flying from Perth to Esperance each month for five or more years at the taxpayers expense overseaing the the EPA pollute the town with lead. It's not surprising she has Skywest as her client.

Let's hope she has learnt a little bit about the basic physical chemistry of lead in recent times.

If Jim McGinty's Corruption and Crime Commission had been even-handed in its politicking it would have examined the activities of more lobbyists than just Julian Grill and Brian Burke.

The Desert Rat is waiting for a post from CEO Mike Silverstone (through a third party!) justifying his his strange activities.

McGinty's truth-in-sentencing - the Spin and Reality

Attorney General erodes public confidence in the justice system

When introducing the "Truth-in-Sentencing" legislation into State Parliament in 2002, Labor Attorney General Jim McGinty said:

"The end result will be a more understandable and workable sentencing regime, which will increase community confidence in the sentencing process."

That was the spin. The "real" truth is the legislation shows McGinty was not only deceptive about this legislation, but also grossly incompetent as well. Far from McGinty's claim above, the legislation is confusing, unnecessarily complex, grossly misleading and down-right incompetent.

The real aim of this legislation was to reduce the rate of imprisonment, which seems to have been missed by former the Liberal Shadow Attorney General Sue Walker who handled the Bill.

More from McGinty during the debate:

"...the Government is currently progressing a range of reforms in the adult justice arena aimed at reducing the rate of imprisonment in Western Australia, known as the reducing imprisonment strategy."

The sham was there for all to see. The impression McGinty gave is that serious offenders would spend more time in gaol. Offenders would not automatically have their sentence cut by one-third and that they would, when released, continue on parole for the "remainder" of the original sentence.

After reading the legislation and debate, the Desert Rat can only conclude that Sue Walker and some others involved with the debate were very naive. They had the wool pulled over their eyes by McGinty. Why do they behave like underlings and hold this court jester in awe? They must really think Jim McGinty really is the Emperor of Western Australia.

Like Macavity the Mystery Cat, Attorney General Jim McGinty is hiding, and nowhere to be seen on this issue. He has gutlessly avoided any public comment on his embarrassing "Truth in Sentencing" fiasco - and offered no defence! He was uncontactable.

Read what McGinty said in the debate and try to separate the reality from the spin?

" ... the concept of truth in sentencing is enshrined in the two Bills. The current system of providing an automatic one-third remission of sentences is to be removed. Likewise, the current two-tiered parole eligibility date formula, which is often difficult to interpret and understand, will be removed. In their place will be a system whereby offenders will be under sanction for the whole of the sentence imposed by a court. For some offenders this will mean serving their whole sentence in prison. For others, parole will be a consideration, and if released from custody, the offender will be subject to a range of conditions for the remainder of his or her sentence."

What was a bad idea in the beginning has just got progressively worse. Even the title is redolent of McGinty spin, "truth-in-sentencing" - very different from reality where sentences for abominable crimes are now automatically cut by one-third.

The result is that more criminals, murderers and rapists are spending less time in gaol.