Hate laws may encourage lawsuits

Many argue that the language used in the government's draft Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill could spark more lawsuits. Picture: Thinkstock/Comstock Images Source: Supplied

AUSTRALIA'S discrimination watchdog wants the federal government to water down its new hate laws to avoid litigation over workers' water-cooler chats.

Discrimination has been redefined as "conduct that offends or insults" in the government's draft Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill.

But Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs thinks the broad definition will spark too many lawsuits.

She said the words offend and insult "have to go".

"There is no need to set the threshold so low," she said.

"I would suggest the government consider taking the words 'offensive' and 'insulting' out (of the legislation).

"It does raise a risk of increased litigation".

Professor Triggs said discrimination cases should be based on the higher test of "intimidation, vilification or humiliation".

The Gillard government has drafted the new law to combine and update five sets of legislation banning discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, age or disability.

Professor Triggs said the words offend and insult had been "buried" in Section 198 of the Racial Discrimination Act, which will be replaced by the new legislation.

"Now it (the new legislation) extends that attribute to all areas (of discrimination)," she said.

"Probably what we'll see is an amendment to the exposure bill, taking out offensive and insulting."

The draft law says a person has been discriminated against if someone treats them "unfavorably" on the grounds of "protected attributes" that range from gender to race, disability, age, religion or sexual orientation.

It defines "unfavorable treatment" as harassing someone or "other conduct that offends, insults or intimidates the other person".

A Senate committee inquiring into the draft bill has already received 587 submissions from organisations including churches, employers, unions, mental health agencies, disability groups and state governments.

A spokeswoman for acting federal Attorney-General Jason Clare yesterday refused to say if the wording would be changed.

"The main objective of this project is to simplify and consolidate many laws into one," she said.

"If the Senate inquiry identifies the drafting goes well beyond this, the Government will closely consider those recommendations."

Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie has told the Senate inquiry the the new laws could damage freedom of speech.

"The use of subjective language such as 'insult' and 'offend' in the statutory definition of 'unfavourable treatment" may be interpreted to set a low threshold test for discrimination," he said.

"(This) will result in unmeritous complaints and lack of alignment with international human rights benchmarks that focus on the need for equality, rather than merely on the social value of being polite".

Queensland's Anti Discrimination Commission also wants the legislation be rewritten, so a "reasonable person" would have to find the conduct insulting or offensive.

Tasmania's Anti-Discrimination Commission, however, wants to keep the words "insult and offend" and add others as well.

"To provide greater certainty, this clause could also include the words humiliate, denigrate, ridicule or degrade to describe some of the specific types of behaviour that constitute unfavourable treatment," it told the inquiry.

The NSW Government has told the Senate inquiry the broader definition of discrimination "places unreasonable restrictions on freedom of speech".

"The words 'offend' and 'insult', in particular incorporate a very low threshold of unfavorable treatment," its submission says.

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark warned that people could be accused of discrimination over what they say in private conversations held in a public place, such as a club or office.

"Many people may be subjectively offended or insulted by the simple expression or manifestation of views different to their own," he told the inquiry.

"To make such expressions of views in workplaces, schools, clubs and sports prima facie unfavourable treatment and hence discrimination ... appears to substantially erode freedom of expression."

The Law Society of South Australia told the Senate inquiry it "condemned" the new definition.

"The robust expression of opinions, short of incitement to hatred, is a strength of our social and legal system," its submission states.

"It should not be curtailed to protect subjective offence that individuals may feel when their beliefs or attitudes are criticised."
 

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We love larrikins but fear they won't last

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, remains a popular larrikin.  He is pictured here with cricket fans at the SCG moments before he skolled a beer in the crowd. Source: Supplied

Paul Hogan told Hugh Jackman at G'Day LA to not let success go to his head. Picture: Getty  Picture: Mark Sullivan/Getty Images Source: Getty Images

Shane Warne is another popular larrikin. Picture: Wayne Ludbey Source: Herald Sun

MOST Australians think it's important to hang on to our "larrikin" nature but more than a third think we have already lost that spirit.

And Aussies have nominated Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan as the man who best embodies the modern-day larrikin.

A national survey conducted for News Ltd shows that 60 per cent of people thought it would be a bad thing if our larrikin nature disappeared.

But 36 per cent of respondents thought the concept had already gone.

Apart from Hogan, other popular "larrikins" nominated by those surveyed included cricket legend Shane Warne and radio and TV personalities Hamish and Andy.

Another actor, Hugh Jackman came in second on the list, after Hogan.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke, who at age 82 last year skulled a beer to cheers from an SCG crowd, was also given a nod.

Jackman, who spoke to News Ltd from the set of upcoming film Prisoners in Atlanta, Georgia, said anyone who was "cheeky and irreverent" would fit the bill as a larrikin.

"Even those in authority can't help but smile, even when they are crossing the line," he said.

"Larrikins make you laugh in situations when you are not meant to, they naturally see the lighter side of life."

The star of Les Miserables and the X-Men franchise said that spirit "can't be manufactured" and approved of 'Hoges being Australians' choice.

"I can say for sure after hanging with Hoges at the G'day USA Gala last Saturday night, that he is rightly number one on this list," he said.

"My favourite line from the other night: 'Jackman, if you happen to win on Sunday for best actor, don't get too carried away with yourself  - I won one too!!'."

Dr Tony Moore, director of Monash University's Centre for Australian Studies, said increasing political correctness had altered the prevalence of the larrikin.

He said Barry Humphries, who was also mentioned as a larrikin by people surveyed by News Ltd, had used the concept, as well as the "ocker" image, to great effect  - as did Bob Hawke.

"There has been a patriotic correctness and political correctness that holds people to account for what they say a lot more (today)," he said.

"It's created a risk averse culture. The things Bob Hawke got away with saying... it used to be easier in Australia to get away with that sort of thing."

He said politicians were now a lot more rehearsed and controlled, which fed into people's perceptions on larrikinism.

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'Too much money spent on fires'

An insurance researcher has suggested more lives could be saved by diverting money from bushfire prevention to other areas. Picture: Nicole Garmston Source: Herald Sun

AN AUSTRALIAN researcher has suggested too much money is being spent on bushfire prevention and more lives could be saved if some of that money goes elsewhere.

Insurance researcher Brian Ashe concedes his findings might upset some people, but says a rational analysis of the $12 billion in annual spending on fire prevention backs his case, Fairfax reports.

If $4.5 billion of the money spent on fire safety was instead returned to businesses and consumers as tax cuts, health and nutrition would improve, Dr Ashe has written in the Australian National University journal Agenda.

His modelling suggests such a tax cut could save between 90 and 225 lives a year.

About 114 lives are lost each year from fire - 14 of them from bushfires.

"This is a very sensitive matter and really what we're looking to get is the best out of our investment," Dr Ashe told Fairfax Media.

"We just have to be careful that we don't put too many resources into one hazard."

But NSW Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said anyone who had lost their home in a bushfire would not agree with the study.

"You can't discuss fire safety spending as a simple equation," he told Fairfax.

"It's not just above saving lives but properties and what's in them - the things that can't be replaced."

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A quarter of uni debts won't be repaid

Almost a quarter of uni student loans are not expected to ever be repaid, a new report says. Source: AAP

ALMOST a quarter of university student loans owed to the government is not expected to ever be repaid, a new report says.

The Grattan Institute's annual Mapping Australian Higher Education report finds that students and former students have accumulated HECS-HELP debts of $26.3 billion.

This is about an extra $10 billion owing, in real terms, than in 2007.

The interest bill on the income-contingent loan scheme, formerly known as HECS, is nearly $600 million a year, the institute estimates.

And it says HELP debt not expected to be repaid rose to $6.2 billion in 2012.

The report says the bad debt is mainly due to HELP debtors dying or moving overseas before they finish repayments.

The Grattan Institute also found the new demand-driven funding system for undergraduates seemed to be addressing skill shortages.

It said enrolment numbers in health and engineering courses in particular had grown more quickly than in other areas - good news for the persistent skills shortages in these professions.

Labor parliamentary secretary Mark Dreyfus said Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans had asked the department to look at ways of getting the money back from graduates who were overseas.

Mr Dreyfus said Australians could be proud of the HELP system.

"It makes higher education available to all students and that's good for the Australian economy as well as being good for the community," he told Sky News.

Liberal MP Steve Ciobo said university students using the public education system had a responsibility to repay the taxpayer assistance that had been afforded to them.

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Skateboarder dies after being hit by car

A TEENAGER died last night after being knocked off his skateboard yesterday afternoon in Dalyellup, about 180km south of Perth.

Police say the 13-year-old boy was riding his skateboard on Lawson Road about 3pm yesterday when he skated into the path of a Holden Commodore that was driving along Dampier Street.

"The 20-year-old male driver was unable to take evasive action and struck the youth knocking him off his skateboard," police said in a statement this morning

The teenager received serious head injuries and was taken to Bunbury Regional Hospital where he later died.

The 20-year-old driver of the vehicle has assisted police with their inquiries and no charges have been laid at present.

Police are calling for witnesses to the incident to call Crime Stoppers.

In two separate incidents yesterday, an elderly man died after his car collided with another vehicle in Maddington.

The 72-year old man was killed when the Ford Falcon station wagon he was driving along Gosnells Road West collided with a Mitsubishi Magna at the intersection of Tonkin Highway about 11:45am.

And, a 42-year-old woman was trapped in her vehicle for about 90 minutes before being found by a passing motorist after her car left the road and hit a tree early yesterday morning in North Boyanup, near Bunbury.

The woman received serious injuries in the crash and was taken to Bunbury Regional Hospital for treatment before being flown to Perth.

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Dramatic end to yachtie rescue

RAW Footage from onboard the cruise ship Orion showing sailor Alain Delord being pulled from his life raft. Footage Courtesy Orion Expedition Cruises.

"WE got him!" They were the ecstatic words of MV Orion expedition leader Don McIntyre following the rescue of solo yachtsman Alain Delord in the Southern Ocean.

Mr McIntyre described the dramatic rescue in a post on Facebook, saying tons of water poured in and flooded the lower decks when the crew opened the side gate to get to the Frenchman.

"Trying to shut the door was interesting," he wrote.

"The ship just rolled at the wrong moment... (Captain) Mike repositioned and gave the GO GO... so zodiac launched and when the door opened there was the raft 20m away from me so I immediately changed plans and sent the Zodiac straight for the raft, as the freeboard at the side gate was only 2m to 30cm."

Another crew member grabbed Delord and dragged him into the zodiac.

"I attached the hauling line and we dragged him in through the side of the ship ... then the recovery team grabbed him to take below to the hospital," Mr McIntyre wrote.

"The hospital is now flooded too and we then had to rush to clear the side compartment to close the door again as another wave swamped through... sort of like those submarine stories you see when someone leaves the door open!"

Alain Delord safe aboard ship. Picture: Facebook/MV Orion

Mr McIntyre said Delord was very tired and a little lethatgic, but otherwise happy and healthy.

"Alain had a weak smile... but Margie and the doctor have him and all looks good," he wrote.

There were plans to move Mr Delord to a guest cabin.

"Amazing... all round," Mr McIntyre wrote.

"Captain Mike did an amazing job getting the ship in a perfect position... the Hercules did a great job dropping smoke flares to mark the way... we only saw him from one mile out and we only had about 30 minutes of light left after it was all done.

"No injuries to anyone... Thanks RCC Canberra... all the flight crews... and everyone on Orion... amazing job!"

Mr Delord had been at sea since last October in his attempt to sail without assistance around the world.

His yacht, Tchouk Tchouk Nougat, was damaged in rough weather off Tasmania on Friday.

After three days adrift on a life raft the 63-year-old was rescued by the cruise ship about 500 nautical miles southwest of Hobart on Sunday night.

The ship was diverted about 1800km to his assistance and had battled deteriorating weather conditions to reach him before sunset, with fears he would have to spend a third night at sea.

The Orion's captain Mike Taylor said at first the vessel's 100 passengers on their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Macquarie Island were "massively disappointed" about being diverted.

"But there was a cheer you could hear right over the ship when we pulled him in through the door," Captain Taylor told ABC radio this morning.

Alain Delord being recovered from his liferaft. Picture: Facebook/MV Orion

Captain Taylor said the ship was about 680 miles south of Mr Delord when he was contacted by the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Canberra.

"(The RCC) and called us and said we're Johnny on the spot pretty much," he said.

"It took us a full 53 hours to get from where we were to him."

He said the conditions in which Mr Delord was rescued, with big swells and high winds, were as extreme as he had experienced and that without the help of the RCC the Orion would never have found him.

"It was unbelievable how difficult he was to see," he said.

Mr McIntyre told The Mercury that in the end the rescue took just 25 minutes.

Alain Delord safe aboard MV Orion. Picture: Facebook/MV Orion

"We changed plans on the run, a lot of things didn't quite work out the way we thought but we modified the plans very quickly," he told The Mercury this morning.

"The zodiac (inflatable boat) went straight to the life raft and we managed to get Alain out very quickly into another raft and came back to the side gate (of the Orion) where we were able to attach a line to him and wait for the swells to work with us and then we quickly hauled him in through the side of the ship.

"He's obviously very weak, very tired ... Basically after a full check out in the hospital the doctor was very surprised at how good a condition he was in."

Alain Delord, the solo yachtie. Photo: Facebook

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Net addict kids 'on downward spiral'

One parent of a teenager addicted to the internet wrote that she was "helpless and living in a nightmare with absolutely no support for me son, who is on a fast downward spiral.''  Picture: Calum Robertson Source: adelaidenow

AN ADELAIDE mother's harrowing story of her teenage son's addiction to online gaming has prompted a flood of responses from News Limited readers reporting children as young as eight being addicted to the internet.

Readers around Australia have described their own battles with internet addiction in dozens of comments on the story of Karen*, whose 17-year-old son is addicted to online fantasy game Runescape.

One father, who did not wish to be named, said his eight-year-old daughter spent "80 per cent of her summer holidays'' on the family's Playstation, and hides her iPad so she can play games when they are asleep.

"If we don't hide our laptop with 'guest log-in' and password protect our other computers, she will play internet games on these in between times on the Playstation 3,'' he said.

"She has hidden our iPad in her bed to play when we are asleep, as we found out, and doesn't have meals with us when asked.

"It is just a force beyond our reckoning.  At first it allowed us to get our ridiculously busy work lives in order but now I am concerned that, with ourselves psychologically wedded to our work and investments, she is psychologically wedded to her games.''

Another parent of a teenager addicted to the internet wrote that she was "helpless and living in a nightmare with absolutely no support for me son, who is on a fast downward spiral.''

Another commenter said they knew a middle aged woman who ``neglected her daughter and threw away her 20 year marriage'' to play online for up to 20 hours a day.

South Australian 17-year-old Melanie Bennett said she dropped out of school at 15 and developed an eating disorder after becoming addicted to shooting game Counter Strike Source, which exacerbated her underlying obsessive compulsive disorder.

Ms Bennett said she played the game every day before and after school for up to six hours at a time before her father cut off her game account, sending her into a spiral of depression which culminated in anorexia.

"I was failing school and I needed to feel achievement in another aspect of my life,'' she said.

"The real issue was having something I was good at and when I could no longer play the game and be good at it, I turned to losing weight as the thing that I could be good at.

"The game was addictive because there was a ranking system and I was addicted to being one of the top ranking players.

"I felt like nothing was good enough so no matter how much I lost or how good I was at the game; I would never be satisfied.

"I could never stop playing or stop starving because I couldn't feel satisfaction.''

Ms Bennett, who is still recovering from her anorexia and planning to return to school this year, said she sympathised with Karen's story, saying that internet addiction needed to be taken more seriously.

"Internet addiction isn't the illness; it is a symptom of a mental illness,'' she said.

"In my case, it was a symptom of my obsessive compulsive disorder. But with that being said, internet addiction needs to be taken more seriously.

"I still feel drawn to the game and very addicted but I am not allowed to play which is very frustrating. Some people can play those types of games and not get addicted but not for me.''

Associate Professor Paul Delfabbro from the University of Adelaide's school of psychology, who has co-authored a report with Dr Daniel King on the psychological effects of internet addiction, said video games can be as addictive as pokie machines because they operate on the same brain processes.

"Because of the similarities between video games and pokie machines, there's a likelihood there are similar processes involved,'' he said.

"All forms of addiction you look for two things: pathological behaviour and evidence of harm. The typical characteristics of pathological behaviour is the loss of control, you can't resist the urge to start the behaviour and you find it very difficult to stop once you've started.

"In video games people have the sense that ... the next event or outcome or solution is just around the corner, so they keep on going back to it all the time.

"That's one of the similarities between pokie machines and video games - is that people have to keep on doing it.''

Mr Delfabbro said certain personality types were more prone to video game addiction than others.

"The sort of characteristics we're looking at are things like perfectionism, obsessiveness, proneness to rumination, the sort of things that make people dwell on things,'' he said.

"Also procrastination, people who use video games as a way of getting away from responsibility.''

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Aussie Day BBQs burn more than snags

Last summer 28 people were injured in BBQ related incidents, with five of them occurring on Australia Day. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

PEOPLE are being urged to take extra care when firing up their barbecues this Australia Day after five people suffered burns last year.

With the annual day of celebration fast approaching, Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Greg Mullins is advising people to follow a simple set of rules to prevent any serious injuries.

"Make sure your gas cylinders and hoses are in good condition before you fire up the barbecue and keep it properly serviced and maintained," Mr Mullins said in a statement.

"Never leave your cooking unattended and ensure the fire is extinguished or the gas bottle is turned off when you're finished."

Last year's summer festivities resulted in 28 people being injured in BBQ related incidents, with five of them occurring on Australia Day.

So far this year 20 people have been injured, due mainly to damaged gas cylinders, unattended barbecues and improper cleaning of barbecues.

Concerns over the recent extreme weather conditions mean people also need to check whether there are any fire ban before turning the barbie on.

"On days of total fire ban, no fires, including wood and charcoal barbecues, can be lit in the open and all fire permits are suspended," Mr Mullins said.

"Gas and electric barbecues are permitted but must be kept at least two metres away from combustible materials such as trees and shrubs, and within 20 metres of a permanent dwelling or approved picnic area."

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