Another horrific reminder

I read this article a couple of weeks ago- another horrific reminder of the kind of callous, inhumane treatment of refugees that occurred under the Howard government- and still occurs, albeit with some significant improvements, to this day.

IMMIGRATION staff plotted to distract a seven-year-old girl with toys so they could take her away while her father languished in solitary confinement.

The father was duped by a former manager of the Baxter Detention Centre, which closed in 2007, when the manager asked if he and his wife could take the child shopping.

"No problem, yes, go and enjoy yourself," the father replied.

In the meantime, another staffer made sure the father would never see his child, dubbed Y, again, and clandestinely spirited her back to Iran.

"If Y requests to say goodbye to her father I will advise her that it is not possible as it could stop her from being returned to her mother in Tehran. We will have several toys for distraction purposes," a file note said.

The "disturbing" case from 2003 was highlighted in a report by the Commonwealth Immigration Ombudsman, Professor John McMillan, which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. It has prompted the minister, Chris Evans, to seek ways to compensate the family.

Sickening, no?

So why, on the rare occasion that John Howard pops his slimy little head out of whatever hole he's been hiding in since he was booted out in the 2007 federal election, don't journalists confront him, hound him, and demand to know how he could have created and defended a system where such a disturbing act of cruelty could be carried out?

But if you think it couldn't be worse than the scenario described above, read on. All these acts- and if none of this is a crime then it should be- were carried out on the same man.

The plot to distract the girl - who had arrived on a boat with her father in 2001 - was revealed among a string of other callous acts against the asylum seeker.

The girl was probed by child protection services after they received a tip-off from the government-contracted detention company at the time, Australasian Correctional Management, that she was being sexually abused by her father.

Checks by youth services and child protection officers found no such thing.

By contrast South Australian Family and Youth Services recommended the girl be returned to her father's care and the pair be moved to another detention centre immediately.

Again the Immigration Department ignored the advice, even though the father went on a hunger strike to support his wish to move.
By August 2003, two months after his daughter was taken away, the man was diagnosed as severely depressed, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and prone to anxiety attacks. In October that year he slashed his wrists with a razor blade.

The department also ordered a psychiatrist not to tell the man his daughter had been taken from Baxter.

Stomach-churning, yeah? Utterly indefensible, you'd think. Anyone who took part in this shit needs to be named, and if they are still working for the department they ought to be deprived of their jobs with immediate effect. God knows there are enough psychopaths active in that particular section of the bureaucracy, and the opportunity to remove them should not be passed up if we never want such an incident to happen again. Anyone with any credibility and even an ounce of humanity would have refused to take part in the abuse of this man and his daughter by the Australian government. They would have blown the whistle.

To top it all off, the Howard government applied its famous 'pay for your own indefinite mandatory jailing' to the guy, who has not seen his daughter since she was stolen.

The man was later charged with a detention debt of $288,000, including the cost of his daughter's removal from Australia. The debt has since been written off.

He was given a temporary protection visa in 2005, thereby owed Australian protection - and he now lives in Melbourne.

The department has since apologised to the man and will soon issue an apology to his daughter.

Oh, all better now! Thankfully, current immigration minister Chris Evans is looking at ways to compensate the guy for his mistreatment at the hands of the Howard government. He has also instructed them to assist the daughter and the mother if they wish to apply for visas to join the man. However much they fork over in compensation, it's unlikely to be enough.

What's most galling about all of this is that we paid for it. We paid to have this guy and his young daughter thrown into a prison, we paid the sons-of-bitches who carried out the kidnapping and deportation of his daughter. We paid the people who posted out letters to the man, informing he owed the Australian government a quarter of a million dollars in spite of all they did to him- or because of it. We paid the salary of possibly the most inhuman sicko to become prime minister in at least the last 50 years, and we are paying compensation for the despicable acts carried out under this man's orders.

I won't ever forget the things that were carried out in our name, and I will never vote for someone who supports or attempts to justify treating a person like that.

Helen Coonan backs Howard's offensive anti-Obama statement

Can you believe this?

Senator Coonan agreed with Mr Turnbull that Mr Howard's remarks were unfortunate. But she also suggested that the former prime minister's assault was justified at the time because Mr Obama had supposedly not renounced terrorism.

I could call this bimbo every name under the sun and it still wouldn't do her justice. Where do you begin? I don't believe I have ever heard Helen Coonan declare that she's not a terrorist either- are we to presume that she is until she says otherwise or does it seem, you know, reasonable to assume that she isn't?

Despite the lunacy of idea of a US presidential candidate having to declare that they're against terrorism (do they need to state that they're against murder and drunk-driving as well? Littering? Jay-walking?), Obama had indeed made clear his opposition to terrorism, at the moment he announced his candidacy:

Contrary to Senator Coonan's claim that Mr Obama "hadn't made it clear his very strong opposition to terrorism" at the time, he did that very thing when he announced his candidacy.

[...]

Later yesterday, Senator Coonan went into damage control, telling Sky News she disagreed completely with Mr Howard

Duh... oops!

Australia would be mightily benefited by the invention of a lipstick that could superglue Helen Coonan's stupid trap shut.

You'd think he'd have run out of lies

FORMER prime minister John Howard, still butthurt over his election flogging, has taken aim at his successor, Kevin Rudd, over his repeated pronouncements that the world is facing the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

In his first news interview since the Coalition's electoral defeat a year ago, Mr Howard chose the right-wing American TV network Fox News to air his views about remedies for the global meltdown.

John, they think you are the Prime Minister of Austria. Americans will be wondering why the Austrian PM suddenly has something to say about economics.

"The first thing we should do is stop comparing what we now face with the Great Depression," he said in the interview to be aired in Australia this morning on Sky News.

"I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation but I think it's unnerving to the average citizen to be constantly told we're in the worst situation since the Great Depression - not because it isn't bad, but because there is no comparison between the circumstances we now face and the circumstances in the Great Depression."

And why wouldn't we trust his judgment? After all, he was right about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, about the occupation being a quick success and about the scope of our involvement there. He predicted that the insurgency didn't exist, was run by Baathist dead-enders and was being commanded by Barack Osama himself. He also rightly ignored global warming and told us the Iraq war would lead to cheaper oil prices. He also failed to do anything about inflation and completely neglected infrastructure, when it didn't involve doling out cash to 'needy' electorates because there was no need. I for one would gladly stake my economic future on the sage wisdom of someone who has been so right so often.

Mr Howard said two major differences were that, in the 1930s, there was no social security net and there was no global economy.

WTF? the social security net you spent your entire life trying to destroy, when you weren't suckling off it?

Mirroring comments by his old mate, outgoing US President George Bush, Mr Howard - addressed throughout by interviewer Neil Cavuto as "Mr Prime Minister" - said re-regulation was not the answer.

Wow, Mr Prime Minister? It must have been like a scene from Misty Oaks Retirement Village. We all just pretend he's still PM, it makes it easier to give him his meds. It's nice to see that he's still blowing the worst leader evar.

He warned the Rudd Government against going "carelessly" into deficit, reminding viewers that the Howard government had been good at balancing the budget.

Oh yes, they balanced it through a global economic boom and failed to do a single thing with our prosperity to guard us against the inevitable down turn. Such hard work it was.

In a return to a familiar theme, Mr Howard declared that if spending the surplus meant cuts to defence and national security, it would please "our enemies".

What like that Barack Osama? I think that we should cut retirement entitlements for former PMs, we wouldn't want to please our enemies. I'm sure Rupert can spring for a cab, like he does for his other hoes.

Mr Howard, who in government warned that electing Barack Obama would be welcomed by terrorists, wished the president-elect well. "This is a great moment for many in the United States," he said.

LOL no more invites to the Whitehouse. You called the first black US president a terrorist. Awkward! But then he thought Nelson Mandela was a terrorist too. It's never to late to keep being on the wrong fucking side of history is it? If he'd been born a few decades earlier he would have supported the Nazis and we would have been spared a decade of his crap.

His foray into international political commentary coincides with the G20 leaders' meeting in Washington on the global financial crisis, which Mr Rudd is attending.

It was also before a detailed look at his government's years in office in a four-part ABC series, starting tomorrow night.

The Howard Years was produced from 180 hours of interviews with key domestic and international players from the Coalition's reign of almost 12 years.

The former prime minister gave 20 hours of his time for interviews, plus background briefings.

Well only JH could lie for 20 straight hours. How many ers and ums the editors at ABC have spared us we shall never know.

Many of Mr Howard's ministers over the Coalition's four terms were interviewed, including the unrequited heir apparent, his treasurer Peter Costello.

Mr Costello struggles in the first episode to find one word to describe his former boss, settling eventually on "relentless". Tony Abbott, an unabashed fan of the former prime minister, seizes on "magnificent".

Obviously Costello is still looking for that spine he lost back in '73 and Tony Abbott is still as clever as a brain damaged St Bernard.

There are differing accounts of the contentious children overboard affair of 2001, when Mr Howard and his senior ministers sensationally claimed asylum seekers in boats had tossed their children into the sea.

Denial, not just a river in Egypt.

Mr Howard said he trusted the ABC to deal with his time in office in an accurate and professional manner.

Why wouldn't they? He stacked the board with loyal half-wits before he left.

Pearls of Wisdom

If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

As a gesture of goodwill to the new US administration, I suggest we airfreight ol' eyebrows to Washington for the Democrats to dispose of as they see fit. I'm sure they could use another valet at Obama's inauguration.

Mohammed Hussain, John Howard's latest victim

Another day to experience those feelings of shame at being an Australian that I felt so often up until the change of government almost one year ago- the 12 years of Howard government that led to countless incidents like this:

The man, Mohammed Hussain, was thrown down a well by gunmen, believed to be the Taliban. Then in front of onlookers including members of his family, the killers threw a hand grenade down the well and he was decapitated.

According to accounts given to Mr Glendenning, Mr Hussain was held for weeks by his captors before he escaped to Iran. After authorities began deporting Afghans home, he fled to Pakistan, but the Taliban forced him out and he returned to Kabul.

It was from here he sent a message to Mr Glendenning, asking him "could I contact anybody that might be able to help him to get out of the country because he was going to be killed by his enemies from the Mujahadeen war".

That's your legacy right there, John. The lives of these people are on your head. You sick, inhuman son of a bitch. Not a single person with an ounce of humanity could have looked at the situation of Mohammed Hussain or any other person you deported to that hellhole and thought it was the right thing to do to send them 'home'.

7 Year Itch

If you bought a house in the last 7 years, your loan has never seen an interest rate drop. For over half of Howard's 'keeping rates at record lows' reign they've been going up. Since the Liberal party are so keen to blame Kevin Rudd for the rise that's occurred since he took office, I can't wait for them to acknowledge how he has magically waved a wand to lower them.

Life is about to get harder for Cypriots

Now that Alexander Downer, Queen of the Desert, is coming to help them. After hemming and hawing and doubtless sending surrogates to beg the UN to give him a job, Downer has managed to get... another government job. So much for being so valuable the public sector would be falling all over itself to hire stupid, incompetent former ministers. Downer detaches himself from the Aussie taxpayer's teat to suckle at the breast of the very same organisation he derided as irrelevant, corrupt and run by lefties when it tried to stop him invading Iraq.

I wonder what the job description must have been?

Wanted: Useless bloviator, must be comfortable windbagging at length about favourite subject, self. Must be able to generate own geo-political disasters, experience a must.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. We can only wonder if the worst foreign minister since WW2 will be paid the same dollars he gave Saddam.

Apparently the secretary general is yet to decide to employ him. I'll laugh so hard if he doesn't get the job. There's also a 'visiting professorship' lined up for him. I thought academia was left-wing and silly and not real enough for Downer.

Is Renee Viellaris a prostitute, or does she believe this stuff?

Courier Mail readers love this shit

Today the Courier Mail decided to invent an attention-grabbing "them illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs and our dole all at the same time" story as the perfect antidote to a slow news week. If all the anti-Kevin petrol price headlines weren't doing the job, surely associating him with handouts to 'illegal' foreigners would?

I have to admit, this sort of shit makes my blood boil. It brings forth the ugliest side of Australia, one I'd really rather ignore. Predictably, the comments page was awash with barely coherent racist sentiment, baying for Rudd's blood and the return of our faithful refugee-hating ex-PM John Howard. Perhaps one or two comments out of more than two hundred attempted to inject some common sense into the situation. I didn't expect my own comment to be published (it was), and frankly I probably shouldn't have bothered venting, but seeing that article on the Courier Mail's website, with the motives behind it so transparent, made me feel physically sick.

So the Courier Mail doesn't want ASYLUM SEEKERS (because that's what they are, Renee Viellaris and the idiot subeditor who decided to label these people 'illegal immigrants) being able to work to support themselves while they are awaiting the outcome of their processing. In the mean time they need to rely on charity donations from the minority of decent human beings in Australia who are willing to see past the racist hype that this tabloid rag and many of its readers love to put about. If they work, they pay taxes, you idiots. And I would be willing to bet that ALL of these people, coming from much worse circumstances than most Australians are able to imagine, are willing to work harder and take worse jobs than any of the multi-generational dole-bludging bogans that much of the revenue from our taxes currently goes to support. Enough of the dog-whistling racist rhetoric, Courier Mail. We've heard the "Teh foreigners are coming to steal our jobs and go on the dole" line before. It's old, but obviously still appeals to the idiot racist bogans out there.

To the man who shat all over human rights...

Commitment to social justice: Dorothy Hoddinott

So. On this Queen's Birthday holiday, Australians who receive honours are:

* A gay rights campaigner.

* A school principal who used her own money to enable an 18 year old asylum seeker finish her education.

And

The man who dedicated his entire working life to making the lives of gay Australians and asylum seekers as miserable as he could manage.

How does this not render the awards utterly meaningless? John Howard is a despicable human being who was paid vast sums of money by Australian taxpayers over several decades to screw over the poor and downtrodden. Other people who received the awards have dedicated their lives to making other peoples' lives better. The idea that John Howard is worthy of anything other than a World's Biggest Arsehole Award is just laughable.

Reacting to his Queen's birthday honour, Prof Altman questioned the structure of the awards, which he said didn't always award those who were deserving of recognition.

"Of course it's gratifying and I suppose a sort of mixture of pleasure and embarrassment," Prof Altman said.

"Part of me is delighted but I also feel somewhat ambivalent, the advantage of having been given one is that I can say that without having sour grapes."

Howard's anti-refugee legacy eroding

Refugee Mohammad Dawlat-Hussain with Immigration Minister Chris Evans, pictured in the SMH.

I had hoped that the end of the Howard government would also see an end to some of their rather despicable policies aimed at making the lives of refugees as miserable as possible.

So I'm glad to see the Rudd government has made a start, by abolishing temporary protection visas:

Under the former government, refugees were forced to reapply for protection several years after being granted temporary visas, in case the conditions in their home countries had changed.

While on temporary visas they had no travel rights, reduced access to resettlement services, English language programs, employment and income assistance and could not sponsor or be reunited with other family members.

While John Howard was happy to help George Bush start wars and create millions more refugees, he wanted to ensure that life was made so hellish for refugees here that no more of them would dare come. He won the 2001 election by stirring up the latent racial hatred that seems to be present in a shocking proportion of the Australian population, even today. I will never forget what I saw in Australia's heart that year, but I am glad that we now have a government who see the importance of undoing some of the damage caused by the inhumane and inhuman policies enacted by John Howard.

Why I could be a terrorist

This story from Brisbane's toilet paper newspaper, the Courier Mail, serves to remind us of just how ridiculous Australian society has become, and just how our freedoms were undermined during John Howard's reign as Prime Minister. The fear of 'terror' is so pervasive that people can't carry out perfectly normal activities without having someone jump up and threaten them with arrest under some 'anti-terr' law or another. Apparently Brisbane's ABC breakfast radio announcer Spencer Howson was busted by some Queensland Rail ticket inspectors for snapping a photo of one of the new Go-Card machines and forced to delete the pic from his camera. Pre-fucking-posterous.

Anyway, the story made me realise I've done my fair share of 'potential terrorist acts' by snapping photographs of various pieces of infrastructure and important buildings around Brisbane. I also had a photo somewhere of a view from one of the platforms at Toowong train station, with graffiti on the wall, but I can't find it. Never mind- to make up for it I've also taken a picture on a train- while in the company of a suspiciously swarthy person, no less (oh noes!). Had no idea at the time that I could be arrested for it, but who would suspect that our laws could be so damn stupid?

*insert scary music here*

Photographed transport infrastructure while in the company of a suspiciously swarthy male, who was also taking photographs...

Photographed the interior of a train carriage while posing as a football fan.

Photographed more public transport infrastructure under the guise of complaining about public smoking.

Photographed communications infrastructure while pretending to be interested in the local wildlife.

Plotted to destroy North Bank...

... oh wait, Anna Bligh beat me to that one... Never mind, what the terrorists don't get, Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman are sure to ruin anyway!

Dear Constituents of Gippsland

Fuck you, I'm retiring. Four months after you mongoloids re-elected me I'm pissing off for a lucrative career in the hor$e racing industry I helped destroy while in government. I wish you all the best and will think fondly of your fly-blown towns while sipping champagne in Dubai. Thanks for voting National.

etc. etc.
The Hon. Peter McGauran

Captain Obvious Reports

JOHN HOWARD was excessively obedient to the White House on Iraq, climate change and the "so-called war on terror" in a stance that was damaging for both Australia and the US, says a Liberal MP and international relations expert, Russell Trood, who has urged the Coalition to adopt a new co-operative foreign policy.

SMH


Really Russell? I hadn't noticed. Poor Johnny, might as well stay in America, your name is mud over here. Maybe you can get a job on the Bush ranch?

Howard Does Dallas

"They gave a nice bowl to store the tiny, tiny remnants of my dignity in."

I had the misfortune to hear a bit of J-Ho's speech to some Yank nut-club this morning. Apparently he's become a performing seal slapping his flippers for right-wing audiences in America, where they pat him on the head and wonder why Austria would vote such a strong president out. Howard's basically become a house dancer. You pay him money, he comes over to your place and he slowly and seductively exposes his political ideas for an audience who just love big, bouncy socially conservative ideals. He praised St Ronnie the forgetful, Margaret "balls of steel" Thatcher and even admitted to letting the Exclusive Brethren run policy, giving

"faith-based groups direct involvement in policy making and execution"

He still lies six times before breakfast and is as delusional as ever. Remember the secret plan to pull out of Iraq? Well someone should ring Dr Brendan because Iraq is as important as Afghanistan in the fight against 'Islamic fascism', whatever the fuck that is. Also we shouldn't give up our 'core values' to appease 'Islamic fascism', only the non-core values like the rule of law and not sodomising people with glow sticks because we think they might be guilty, oh and killing lots of people.

To go off on a tangent, it's hilarious how anti-Islamic racism has ruined the real message of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He's alleged to have recently called for Sharia law to be included in the British legal system. Predictably the usual nutbags sprang to the defence of volk and vaterland, completely missing the point. Williams' real message was a deeply sinister one, that religion should influence law. He simply cited Sharia law as an example, pointing to how it was possible to allow the faithful to be governed by the laws of their religion. He was probably hoping it'd give him some cover by looking friendly to Muslims. Wrong. Williams' real message was that we should be debating whether religious laws should be subordinate to secular laws as part of the general war on secularism that's been going on around the world since the end of the 20th century. He just ran out in front of his own side wearing the wrong uniform.

To return to our bushy eyebrowed political stripper, Howard also made it clear that workchoices was totally awesome. I guess that answers the question about whether there was a rapemeharderchoices around the corner.

"It would be the first time in 25 years that a major economic reform in my country has been reversed," he said. "In particular, bringing back the old unfair dismissal laws will stifle employment and growth in small business."

SMH

What, you mean the economic growth and employment that occurred before your 'reforms' and continues despite your next lot of 'reforms' never having taken place? Of course his audience would have lapped that up. In America, 'I don't like your face' is a good enough reason to fire someone and Americans work more hours for the same wage than they've ever done before. Oddly enough Howard spent millions on finding out if the millions he spend advertising rapechoices was working. Only 15% of people thought rapechoices was awesome. 65% thought the old system was better, yet nearly 50% of you morons voted for the workchoices you hated so much for so long. Thanks guys.

Which brings us to the finale of the stripper act. Grinding his audience hard he talked about the day he fell in love with Dubya's codpiece.

"I decided it was not a time for 80 per cent allies; it was a time for the US to have 100 per cent allies,"

he said of his decision to invoke the ANZUS treaty.

"And, like Trent told me about how his aunt died, and, like, he was so, so sad, and, like I just had to let him put it in all the way, just this once, I'm not a slut or anything!"

I hope the old whorebag packed his cheerleader costume for his visit to the Oval Orifice. This, Liberal voters, is your great white hope? Some pathetic, irrelevant gigolo, busily fluffing an equally irrelevant meal ticket who'll be yesterday's news in a matter of months. Fucking seriously guys, did Whitlam fly to China to kiss Mao's ass after he left office? It's the intellectual equivalent of a Tijuana donkey show, I can just imagine Wolfowitz (yes, he was there) licking his comb and leering at the stage... eeugh. Dear pets, don't tell me you're surprised that his first public address is to the foreigners he sold his country to? I wish treasonous bastard would piss off over there and never come back.

Another scummy Howard law bites the dust

Kevin Rudd is really getting busy undoing some of John Howard's dodgiest laws. The latest to get the chop are Howard's secret political donation laws that enabled rich motherfuckers to give up to $10,300 without being outed for their support rather than the previous threshold of $1,500. Heck, I think anonymity should be abolished altogether when it comes to political donations, and so should the ability to tax-deduct those donations. I certainly don't expect Rudd to go that far, but it's good to see he actually plans to go ahead with the foreshadowed threshold rollback.

A deep, deep psychosis

The Howard government would have starting pulling its combat troops out of Iraq this year if it had been re-elected, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb says.

It's ok, have a laugh, I'll wait....

of course, being Liberals, there's always a lie within the lie:

"In August last year, and during the campaign, John Howard quite explicitly - and (then foreign minister) Alexander Downer explicitly - talked about (how) a time would come this year when we would start to replace combat troops with training troops."

SMH

That, is not a withdrawal, you tit.

So we've gone from, "withdrawing from Iraq is exactly the same as surrendering to Osama, because Saddam did 911!" to, "well actually we had a secret plan to pull out all the time but we lied about having one while lying about staying in Iraq and lying about the reasons for doing so and lying about the consequences of pulling out". This is supposed to make Howard look good? Seeing as how this was an official plan, I'm sure Mr Robb can get supporting documents from Downer, just to prove he isn't lying this time too.

On a personal level, I feel soooo bad about not voting Liberal, I had no idea they had secret plans to do all the things they said they weren't going to do, why it's almost as if they were going to JUST GET IN AND THEN CHANGE IT ALL!!!11111ONE11!!1ONE

Come on voters!

You know the parrot's a good option.

Low Taxes, Tourism and Encouraging Small Business

That's all Howard can honestly claim. Look at this crap from the Liberal party's Website. It's a list of Howard's 'achievements' over 11 years. The only problem is that almost all of them are flat out lies or gross exaggerations of the truth. Armed with my trusty A Current Affair stamp, I will provide links to sources that show each claim to be bullshit. Let this post stand as reference the next time some muppet goes on about 'how much Howard did'.

National Achievements

Lower, Fairer Taxes

A Sustainable Environment - John Howard, climate change skeptic.

Better Roads and Rail - See Infrastructure Crisis.

Encouraging Small Business

Productive and Prosperous Australia Industries - Australia's Manufacturing/GDP ratio lowest in OECD.

Support for Older Australians - Work till you die, because we cut pensions

Encouraging Retirement Savings

Better Aged Care - Christopher Pyne and the Broughton Hall Salmonella Deaths.

Supporting Families - No Paid Maternity Leave.

Domestic Security - Kevin Andrews, Mohamed Haneef and the looming inqury.

Water Sustainability - Howard comes up with water plan after ten years in office.

Fighting Terrorism - John Howard, Iraq and Mick Keelty

Standards and Values in Schools - John Howard and School Flagpoles.

Investing in World Class Universities - University Funding Among Lowest in OECD.

Advanced, Accessible and Affordable Telecommunications - Australian Broadband Among Worst in OECD.

Investing in Training and Skills - Howard's $2 billion Technical Colleges a Waste of Money.

Addressing Climate Change - Turnbull Vainly Urges Howard to Sign Kyoto After 10 Years in Office.

Results for Indigenous Australians - Australia Worst in the World for Indigenous Health.

More Focus on Mental Health - Mentally Ill Homeless Left to States, Howard Comes Up With Mental Health Plan after 9 years in Office.

A Stronger Defence Force - Brendan Nelson and the $6 billion Super Hornet Scandal.

A Fair Go for Regional Australia - Coalition Abuse Commonwealth Grant Scheme for Political Advantage.

Secure and Sustainable Energy - 'Clean' Coal.

Building Better Infrastructure - Infrastructure Bottlenecks Push Rates Up On Cup Day.

Improved Information Technology - See Telecommunications.

Encouraging Exports - Trade Deficit Hits 36 Year High.

A Stronger Economy - Paul Keating.

Better Workplace Relations - Revealed, How Workchoices Strips Workers' Rights.

Opportunities for Young Australians - See Workchoices.

Encouraging Tourism

Preparing for an Ageing Population - See Health, Aged Care.

Quality, Accessible and Affordable Childcare - Child Care Costs Force Parents out of Work.

A Stronger Health System - Tony Abbott.

Protecting Our Borders - Pacific Solution Costs - $1 billion, 98% of Asylum Seekers Let in Anyway.

A Sound Immigration System - Vivian Alvares Solon, Cornelia Rau, Robert Jovicic, Stefan Nystrom

Investing in Science and Innovation - Australia Loses Scientists Through Lack of Investment.