EDITORIAL WEDNESDAY 13.10.10.
It’s no wonder our hospitals are struggling so badly to keep up with the demands placed upon them. All the evidence would seem to suggest that hospitals in New South Wales are overcrowded. Occupancy rates at many major hospitals have been reported as consistently exceeding 90%, with Saint Vincent’s registering 99%, the Prince of Wales running at 95%, and the average across the state reaching 87.9% for the 2009-10 financial year. Doctors have been repeatedly calling for a target of 85% occupancy to be set, describing it as an internationally accepted standard necessary for optimum safe and efficient care. Repeated inquiries and studies have determined that the primary cause of overcrowding in emergency rooms is access block, caused by a lack of available beds in the hospital when an emergency patient needs to be admitted to a ward. No beds available, means that patients are stacked up in the emergency department taking up space and soaking up resources so that new arrivals are forced to wait.
However, when confronted with these facts, the New South Wales government, and the Department of Health simply deny that any problem exists. Deputy Premier and Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt claims that “there is no definitive rule that states it is unsafe for hospitals to operate above an 85% bed occupancy,” and insists that achieving such a target would mean that more than 3000 acute care beds would be left “fully staffed but deliberately empty.” Today I spoke with the Deputy Director of New South Wales Health, Dr Tim Smythe, and he went even further. Dr. Smythe said that the 85% figure is a myth and is meaningless in terms of quality of care. He insisted that the claimed occupancy rates, such as the 99% at St Vincent’s for example, are based on “patient-bed-days” and are not an accurate representation of actual occupancy rates. He further claimed that there is no one single “magic figure” to define optimum occupancy rates with different rates being appropriate for different treatments, different procedures, different patients, different locations, and different circumstances.
This is such a typical bureaucrat’s response, and only serves to demonstrate that figures really can be twisted around to mean whatever you want them to mean. The idea that maximum efficiency is achieved by running at maximum capacity is fatally flawed, one that seems to take industrial theory and apply it to healthcare. But patients are not products, and hospitals are not factories, and it is wrong to treat them as if they are. The target of 85% is supposed to reflect an average which will accommodate surges in demand which might at times stretch hospitals to beyond normal circumstances. Failure to structurally incorporate such excess capacity not only means that there is no surge capacity, but also that staff and resources are pushed to the limit all the time, which only increases the prospect of adverse events such as medical mistakes and unnecessary deaths, which ultimately actually cost us all much more than it would to have a reasonable margin for safety built in to the system.
This bloody minded denial of the obvious also makes it painfully clear that the government, and their bureaucrats, are simply not listening to the doctors, not listening to the patients, and most certainly not listening to the taxpayers of New South Wales.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Women At The Top
EDITORIAL TUESDAY 12.10.10.
Westpac Bank has just announced a target of having women in at least 40% of management positions in the next four years. Although it is not the first big company to make such an undertaking, it is one of only a very few. In many ways it seems difficult to believe that such matters remain an issue after half a century of feminism, and long standing equal rights legislation. Surely this is a battle which was won long ago. We have a woman as Prime Minister, and a woman as Premier. In fact, by the time Kristina Keneally became the first woman to be Premier of New South Wales, nobody particularly cared one way or another. All other things being equal it would be reasonable to expect men and women to be more or less roughly equally represented in the top jobs. And yet, for some reason the numbers of women in leadership roles remain significantly and disproportionately lower than men.
Working out just why that might be is not entirely simple, but it would seem that community attitudes and perceptions still play a prominent role. Despite the progress which has been made over the decades, old prejudices are slow to completely disappear. It might have been in the 1960s when Star Trek first showed women in positions of responsibility, but it was still another thirty years before they put one in command of a Starship, and even then the television networks were worried whether the audience would accept it. And that’s just a work of fiction. Here in the real world there are still people who believe that women are somehow not equipped to take a leadership role and that it is somehow wrong that they should try. And some of the people who have said such things to me are actually women themselves. While those views are becoming much less prevalent, I have been shocked to discover they have not entirely disappeared.
Of course, it’s one thing for a handful of old fashioned people in the general community to cling to some old fashioned ideas, but it is entirely another thing for those ideas to hold any sway in the board rooms of our biggest companies. It is hard to believe that modern business, which is so obsessed with bottom line thinking, might be making decisions on executive appointments based on anything other than qualifications and competence. Is the propensity of boards to favour the appointment of men based on old prejudices, or is it the result of a lack of suitable candidates? If it is the latter, then why is there a lack of suitable candidates? Has there been a failure by companies to provide adequate training and opportunities to advance for women? Is there still an “old boys” culture within some companies where jobs are awarded to mates, and all the mates just happen to be men? The truth is that all of these things are contributing factors.
But it should also be remembered that while women fought for the right to work in the top jobs, they did not fight for the obligation to do so. Women fought for the right to have a choice of whether to pursue a career, to have a family, to do both, or to do neither. One woman told me that she believed that women have far more choices than men, because society does not condemn them for staying home and letting someone else be the bread winner, while very few men would be allowed to consider that as an option. On that basis, women would seem to be better off than men, not worse. And besides, who said that running a big company is the only measure of success anyway?
I’m sure that plenty of women are capable of doing it… it’s just that some of them quite happily choose not to.
Westpac Bank has just announced a target of having women in at least 40% of management positions in the next four years. Although it is not the first big company to make such an undertaking, it is one of only a very few. In many ways it seems difficult to believe that such matters remain an issue after half a century of feminism, and long standing equal rights legislation. Surely this is a battle which was won long ago. We have a woman as Prime Minister, and a woman as Premier. In fact, by the time Kristina Keneally became the first woman to be Premier of New South Wales, nobody particularly cared one way or another. All other things being equal it would be reasonable to expect men and women to be more or less roughly equally represented in the top jobs. And yet, for some reason the numbers of women in leadership roles remain significantly and disproportionately lower than men.
Working out just why that might be is not entirely simple, but it would seem that community attitudes and perceptions still play a prominent role. Despite the progress which has been made over the decades, old prejudices are slow to completely disappear. It might have been in the 1960s when Star Trek first showed women in positions of responsibility, but it was still another thirty years before they put one in command of a Starship, and even then the television networks were worried whether the audience would accept it. And that’s just a work of fiction. Here in the real world there are still people who believe that women are somehow not equipped to take a leadership role and that it is somehow wrong that they should try. And some of the people who have said such things to me are actually women themselves. While those views are becoming much less prevalent, I have been shocked to discover they have not entirely disappeared.
Of course, it’s one thing for a handful of old fashioned people in the general community to cling to some old fashioned ideas, but it is entirely another thing for those ideas to hold any sway in the board rooms of our biggest companies. It is hard to believe that modern business, which is so obsessed with bottom line thinking, might be making decisions on executive appointments based on anything other than qualifications and competence. Is the propensity of boards to favour the appointment of men based on old prejudices, or is it the result of a lack of suitable candidates? If it is the latter, then why is there a lack of suitable candidates? Has there been a failure by companies to provide adequate training and opportunities to advance for women? Is there still an “old boys” culture within some companies where jobs are awarded to mates, and all the mates just happen to be men? The truth is that all of these things are contributing factors.
But it should also be remembered that while women fought for the right to work in the top jobs, they did not fight for the obligation to do so. Women fought for the right to have a choice of whether to pursue a career, to have a family, to do both, or to do neither. One woman told me that she believed that women have far more choices than men, because society does not condemn them for staying home and letting someone else be the bread winner, while very few men would be allowed to consider that as an option. On that basis, women would seem to be better off than men, not worse. And besides, who said that running a big company is the only measure of success anyway?
I’m sure that plenty of women are capable of doing it… it’s just that some of them quite happily choose not to.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Gotcha!
EDITORIAL MONDAY 11.10.10.
Once again the debate about speed limits and penalties has sprung up, this time in response to a proposal from the NRMA that the penalty system should be reviewed to more adequately, and fairly, reflect the modern driving environment. The NRMA has proposed that drivers should be allowed a total of 13 demerit points rather than 12, that the demerit points should have a life of two years rather than three, and that good drivers who have not accumulated any points should be rewarded with discounts on their licence renewal fees or registration. Whether or not those proposals are adopted, the NRMA says that it is time for a review of the system which is almost 40 years old, and was introduced before the days of speed cameras.
Of course, the truth is that if you don’t want to be penalised all you need to do is don’t break the law. Of course, there is a need for sensible speed limits, and other road rules, to manage the ever increasing traffic and promote road safety. And of course, if there are rules there should be penalties for breaking those rules otherwise they would easily become meaningless. But there is no shortage of motorists who have become so frustrated that they believe that the penalties are designed to collect revenue rather than to protect the safety of motorists. But I’m not really sure that it’s the penalties that are the problem. As I said, there need to be penalties so that we are discouraged from doing the wrong thing. Instead, I believe that it’s the rules which are the problem.
It’s easy to understand the frustration when the whole system increasing seems to be designed to trap the driver into making a mistake rather than help the driver get from point A to point B safely and efficiently. Cameras, both fixed and mobile, lurking at every turn, a vast array of possible speed limits from 40 through to 110 which could appear in any combination over a short distance, variable speed limits, speed limits for road works when there are no road works actually taking place, transit lanes, and bus lanes, all seem to be designed only to catch the unwary. And the moment you make a mistake, the government gleefully cries “gotcha”, grabs your money and takes away your points. The trouble is that if you keep on making more and more laws, sooner or later it becomes impossible not break at least some of them inadvertently.
And what’s worse, if the rules become too difficult to follow, people will inevitably lose all respect for them and won’t bother to even try.
Once again the debate about speed limits and penalties has sprung up, this time in response to a proposal from the NRMA that the penalty system should be reviewed to more adequately, and fairly, reflect the modern driving environment. The NRMA has proposed that drivers should be allowed a total of 13 demerit points rather than 12, that the demerit points should have a life of two years rather than three, and that good drivers who have not accumulated any points should be rewarded with discounts on their licence renewal fees or registration. Whether or not those proposals are adopted, the NRMA says that it is time for a review of the system which is almost 40 years old, and was introduced before the days of speed cameras.
Of course, the truth is that if you don’t want to be penalised all you need to do is don’t break the law. Of course, there is a need for sensible speed limits, and other road rules, to manage the ever increasing traffic and promote road safety. And of course, if there are rules there should be penalties for breaking those rules otherwise they would easily become meaningless. But there is no shortage of motorists who have become so frustrated that they believe that the penalties are designed to collect revenue rather than to protect the safety of motorists. But I’m not really sure that it’s the penalties that are the problem. As I said, there need to be penalties so that we are discouraged from doing the wrong thing. Instead, I believe that it’s the rules which are the problem.
It’s easy to understand the frustration when the whole system increasing seems to be designed to trap the driver into making a mistake rather than help the driver get from point A to point B safely and efficiently. Cameras, both fixed and mobile, lurking at every turn, a vast array of possible speed limits from 40 through to 110 which could appear in any combination over a short distance, variable speed limits, speed limits for road works when there are no road works actually taking place, transit lanes, and bus lanes, all seem to be designed only to catch the unwary. And the moment you make a mistake, the government gleefully cries “gotcha”, grabs your money and takes away your points. The trouble is that if you keep on making more and more laws, sooner or later it becomes impossible not break at least some of them inadvertently.
And what’s worse, if the rules become too difficult to follow, people will inevitably lose all respect for them and won’t bother to even try.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Leaving Dracula In Charge Of The Blood Bank
EDITORIAL FRIDAY 08.10.10.
(Today's editorial has been written by William Allan)
We’ve all experienced it. You’re sitting down to dinner when the phone rings or the doorbell chimes, and you are confronted with a barrage of sales tactics at such a pace you are barely able to interrupt with a polite but firm “no thanks”. Ceiling insulation, cheaper phone rates, bargain holiday packages, and now even electricity are being sold both door to door and by unsolicited phone calls. In recent times, the ‘Do Not Call’ register has delivered some success to those of us who’ve had enough of the harassing phone calls. Introduced in a wave of sweeping reforms, it was a firm response to what clearly was an inability of businesses to play by the rules. So if businesses can not be trusted to ‘self regulate’ when it comes to telemarketing, how on earth can they be trusted to ‘self regulate’ when it comes to ‘door to door sales’.
Yet that’s just what the Energy Retailers Association of Australia has been touting as part of a new era in improved customer service and standards. They’re making a formal proposal to the ACCC to establish a ‘self-regulatory’ scheme to monitor and control door to door sales tactics used by electricity companies – a marketing strategy the companies themselves admit has been plagued by underhanded tactics and false information. The electricity companies want to register and track the door knockers, weeding out those who use questionable sales tactics. Fair enough. The problem however is not with the door to door sales person - they’re just trying to make ends meet. The problem is with the electricity companies themselves – companies that are making substantial profits, paying exorbitant executive salaries, and charging prices that fewer and fewer can afford. These companies are pressuring their door knockers to resort to extreme tactics.
Who is really to blame, when an employee’s ability to put food on the table is directly proportional to their ability to convince people to change electricity providers – all for the sake of a few cents in savings. Marketing practices employed by the energy companies continue to account for almost 10% of Ombudsman complaints. Shockingly, energy marketing complaints continue to grow at a rate five times faster than similar complaints made about phone companies. Despite this, the energy companies believe that complaints are at an acceptable level, and that they should be given more control.
The trouble is most people see that as nothing more than leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
(Today's editorial has been written by William Allan)
We’ve all experienced it. You’re sitting down to dinner when the phone rings or the doorbell chimes, and you are confronted with a barrage of sales tactics at such a pace you are barely able to interrupt with a polite but firm “no thanks”. Ceiling insulation, cheaper phone rates, bargain holiday packages, and now even electricity are being sold both door to door and by unsolicited phone calls. In recent times, the ‘Do Not Call’ register has delivered some success to those of us who’ve had enough of the harassing phone calls. Introduced in a wave of sweeping reforms, it was a firm response to what clearly was an inability of businesses to play by the rules. So if businesses can not be trusted to ‘self regulate’ when it comes to telemarketing, how on earth can they be trusted to ‘self regulate’ when it comes to ‘door to door sales’.
Yet that’s just what the Energy Retailers Association of Australia has been touting as part of a new era in improved customer service and standards. They’re making a formal proposal to the ACCC to establish a ‘self-regulatory’ scheme to monitor and control door to door sales tactics used by electricity companies – a marketing strategy the companies themselves admit has been plagued by underhanded tactics and false information. The electricity companies want to register and track the door knockers, weeding out those who use questionable sales tactics. Fair enough. The problem however is not with the door to door sales person - they’re just trying to make ends meet. The problem is with the electricity companies themselves – companies that are making substantial profits, paying exorbitant executive salaries, and charging prices that fewer and fewer can afford. These companies are pressuring their door knockers to resort to extreme tactics.
Who is really to blame, when an employee’s ability to put food on the table is directly proportional to their ability to convince people to change electricity providers – all for the sake of a few cents in savings. Marketing practices employed by the energy companies continue to account for almost 10% of Ombudsman complaints. Shockingly, energy marketing complaints continue to grow at a rate five times faster than similar complaints made about phone companies. Despite this, the energy companies believe that complaints are at an acceptable level, and that they should be given more control.
The trouble is most people see that as nothing more than leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
At Least New South Wales, The Premier State, Is Number One In Something
EDITORIAL THURSDAY 07.10.10.
It’s no secret that the price of electricity is going up. We have all seen our bills increasing over recent years, and we’ve all been told repeatedly by the government, the regulator, the industry, and the media to expect more of the same. We know that prices are expected to increase by as much as 40% over the next few years even without a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and as much as 60% if and when there is a carbon price. We even have a pretty clear idea of why the price has risen so far, and will continue to rise even further. A number of factors are involved, but by far the most significant is the long term lack of investment in the infrastructure as successive governments have repeatedly sucked all the cash they can out of the sector to beef up the budget bottom line.
What’s worse, is that there isn’t really all that much to show for it in terms of government services or community infrastructure with so much of the budget bottom line evaporating into sheer waste. $400 million and counting for a Sydney Metro system which will most likely never be built. $100 million wasted on a T-Card system which was never delivered, and the money might never be recovered. That’s a total of half a billion dollars right there for those two items alone. And who pays? You and I do, with the cost of our electricity being driven upwards to pay for the belated investment in the infrastructure which should already have been covered by the past dividends of the publicly owned power providers.
It’s not a problem which is peculiar to New South Wales, with prices all around Australia being driven higher for much the same reasons. But sadly it is the state of New South Wales which leads the way. A report by the Institute of Public Affairs has shown that around the nation the price of electricity has outstripped inflation by almost four times over the past five years. Yet some cities have fared better than others, with the best performing city Adelaide registering an increase over five years of 16%. Sydney, by contrast, has experienced an increase in the price of electricity of 61.3% over the same period. As Duncan Gay, the Shadow Minister for Energy said to me today, “at least New South Wales, the premier state, is number one in something.” He was of course being sarcastic, as he levied the blame at the feet of the current government which has had more than 15 years to address this problem.
While it is relatively straightforward to identify the problem, it is much harder to devise a solution. With the government having proven to be such a poor manager of what is supposed to be a public asset, perhaps privatisation really will deliver better administration. But sadly that is no guarantee of lower prices or better service. In fact the reason for the problem is that the government has behaved just like a greedy corporation in the first place, rather than as a responsible government. Privatisation, in any form, is only going to see the perpetuation of the principle of profit before people, as any private operator will quite reasonably expect to be allowed to manage their investment in a manner which maximises their profit. That is what private companies do, so we cannot and should not expect any form of privatisation to deliver consumers a better deal. Unless a cheaper source of energy is discovered, the only solution will inevitably involve greater subsidies for low income families, or the reduction of living standards.
Neither of those options should have ever been necessary in the first place.
It’s no secret that the price of electricity is going up. We have all seen our bills increasing over recent years, and we’ve all been told repeatedly by the government, the regulator, the industry, and the media to expect more of the same. We know that prices are expected to increase by as much as 40% over the next few years even without a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and as much as 60% if and when there is a carbon price. We even have a pretty clear idea of why the price has risen so far, and will continue to rise even further. A number of factors are involved, but by far the most significant is the long term lack of investment in the infrastructure as successive governments have repeatedly sucked all the cash they can out of the sector to beef up the budget bottom line.
What’s worse, is that there isn’t really all that much to show for it in terms of government services or community infrastructure with so much of the budget bottom line evaporating into sheer waste. $400 million and counting for a Sydney Metro system which will most likely never be built. $100 million wasted on a T-Card system which was never delivered, and the money might never be recovered. That’s a total of half a billion dollars right there for those two items alone. And who pays? You and I do, with the cost of our electricity being driven upwards to pay for the belated investment in the infrastructure which should already have been covered by the past dividends of the publicly owned power providers.
It’s not a problem which is peculiar to New South Wales, with prices all around Australia being driven higher for much the same reasons. But sadly it is the state of New South Wales which leads the way. A report by the Institute of Public Affairs has shown that around the nation the price of electricity has outstripped inflation by almost four times over the past five years. Yet some cities have fared better than others, with the best performing city Adelaide registering an increase over five years of 16%. Sydney, by contrast, has experienced an increase in the price of electricity of 61.3% over the same period. As Duncan Gay, the Shadow Minister for Energy said to me today, “at least New South Wales, the premier state, is number one in something.” He was of course being sarcastic, as he levied the blame at the feet of the current government which has had more than 15 years to address this problem.
While it is relatively straightforward to identify the problem, it is much harder to devise a solution. With the government having proven to be such a poor manager of what is supposed to be a public asset, perhaps privatisation really will deliver better administration. But sadly that is no guarantee of lower prices or better service. In fact the reason for the problem is that the government has behaved just like a greedy corporation in the first place, rather than as a responsible government. Privatisation, in any form, is only going to see the perpetuation of the principle of profit before people, as any private operator will quite reasonably expect to be allowed to manage their investment in a manner which maximises their profit. That is what private companies do, so we cannot and should not expect any form of privatisation to deliver consumers a better deal. Unless a cheaper source of energy is discovered, the only solution will inevitably involve greater subsidies for low income families, or the reduction of living standards.
Neither of those options should have ever been necessary in the first place.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
It Just Doesn’t Add Up
EDITORIAL WEDNESDAY 06.10.10.
While business borrowers and mortgagors breathed a sigh of relief that the reserve Bank Board decided to leave interest rates on hold, there continue to be signs that not all is well in the Australian economy, and consequently in the Australian community. Today, we have seen the call by Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey for industrial relations policy to be reformed yet again. The opposition leader may have declared Work Choices to be “dead, buried and cremated” during the election campaign, but there is every indication that certain elements of that policy remain very much on the coalition agenda. Specifically, exemptions from unfair dismissal laws for small business along with individual contracts, which were both key features of Work Choices, are likely to be objectives of any revision to Coalition policy. Of course, Tony Abbott promised that current industrial relations laws would remain unchanged for this term of parliament, but as he did not win the election it’s fair to say that all bets are off and the Coalition is free to rewrite its policy any way it wants.
This comes at a time when it has been revealed that the much vaunted benefits of the resources boom and the resilient response to the Global Financial Crisis has come at the cost of declining wages and conditions for ordinary Australians. A report by the Sydney University Workplace Research Centre has found that while workers in the mining sector have done very well, people employed in retail, hospitality, and community services such as health, are experiencing reduced hours, a move to casual and part time jobs, and wages growth which is failing to keep pace with inflation. In other words, they are literally going backwards. At the same time, essential goods and services such as electricity and many grocery items are increasing in price at a rate above inflation. It all adds up to a significant number of people finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet at a time when we are all being told how well we are doing. For those people it just doesn’t add up.
Further to this, the Sydney Morning Herald has used figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to make a comparison between what would have once been described as “working class” suburbs and the suburbs which are home to our highest income earners. The result is that in the five years from 2003 to 2008 the eastern suburbs average income increased from two and a half times the western suburbs average up to almost three times. As they say, the rich get richer… The same effect can be seen more broadly with the rate of average wages growth being rapidly outstripped by the growth in executive salaries, with CEO pay packets exploding in the past twenty years. Now there’s nothing wrong with top people being paid top money, but there is a structural problem for both the economy and the community as a whole when ordinary people can no longer afford to pay for the goods and services that they themselves produce. You simply cannot have a consumer economy without consumers.
Neither bringing back Work Choices, nor pushing up interest rates can fix that.
While business borrowers and mortgagors breathed a sigh of relief that the reserve Bank Board decided to leave interest rates on hold, there continue to be signs that not all is well in the Australian economy, and consequently in the Australian community. Today, we have seen the call by Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey for industrial relations policy to be reformed yet again. The opposition leader may have declared Work Choices to be “dead, buried and cremated” during the election campaign, but there is every indication that certain elements of that policy remain very much on the coalition agenda. Specifically, exemptions from unfair dismissal laws for small business along with individual contracts, which were both key features of Work Choices, are likely to be objectives of any revision to Coalition policy. Of course, Tony Abbott promised that current industrial relations laws would remain unchanged for this term of parliament, but as he did not win the election it’s fair to say that all bets are off and the Coalition is free to rewrite its policy any way it wants.
This comes at a time when it has been revealed that the much vaunted benefits of the resources boom and the resilient response to the Global Financial Crisis has come at the cost of declining wages and conditions for ordinary Australians. A report by the Sydney University Workplace Research Centre has found that while workers in the mining sector have done very well, people employed in retail, hospitality, and community services such as health, are experiencing reduced hours, a move to casual and part time jobs, and wages growth which is failing to keep pace with inflation. In other words, they are literally going backwards. At the same time, essential goods and services such as electricity and many grocery items are increasing in price at a rate above inflation. It all adds up to a significant number of people finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet at a time when we are all being told how well we are doing. For those people it just doesn’t add up.
Further to this, the Sydney Morning Herald has used figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to make a comparison between what would have once been described as “working class” suburbs and the suburbs which are home to our highest income earners. The result is that in the five years from 2003 to 2008 the eastern suburbs average income increased from two and a half times the western suburbs average up to almost three times. As they say, the rich get richer… The same effect can be seen more broadly with the rate of average wages growth being rapidly outstripped by the growth in executive salaries, with CEO pay packets exploding in the past twenty years. Now there’s nothing wrong with top people being paid top money, but there is a structural problem for both the economy and the community as a whole when ordinary people can no longer afford to pay for the goods and services that they themselves produce. You simply cannot have a consumer economy without consumers.
Neither bringing back Work Choices, nor pushing up interest rates can fix that.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Two Deaths In Two Days.
EDITORIAL TUESDAY 05.10.10.
Two men have died over the past two days when arrested by New South Wales police, one after being subjected to capsicum spray and the use of a baton; the other after being shot with a Taser. In both cases, questions are now being asked about police procedures and whether or not excessive force has been used. In the case of the first man, Steven Bosevski, witnessed have reportedly claimed that it was police who initiated the violence, not the alleged offenders. In the second case, the alleged offender appeared to be mentally disturbed and was armed with a pair of knives. Police claim that under the circumstances they behaved appropriately, and that although the loss of life has been tragic, there was very little else that they could do.
This follows the report from Western Australia over the weekend which has revealed the excessive and inappropriate use of tasers. In one case, a mentally disturbed man was subjected to 14 Taser shots, before being shot again by prison guards a week later. Last year, a man in Queensland died after receiving 28 jolts from a Taser fired by a police officer. Here in New South Wales, the Ombudsman Bruce Barbour has reported that he has found repeated cases of Tasers being used excessively and inappropriately. Mr Barbour said that in “situations where there are multiple officers surrounding an individual, the individual is compliant but is acting in a little way strangely, they may be drunk, they may be affected by drugs but they're not presenting a direct threat… In those cases, we think that the traditional methods of resolving a dispute are far preferable to shooting somebody with 50,000 volts of electric current."
There is clear evidence from other jurisdictions both in Australia and around the world, that the idea of a Taser representing a “less than lethal option” can and does lead to a more casual attitude, and a greater propensity to rely on the weapon as something other than a measure of last resort. In fact, the evidence seems to indicate that it is very easy for a tendency to develop where the use of a Taser becomes the preferred option to resolve a situation quickly, and, in Bruce Barbour’s words, “with some finality.” That might be a viable policy if the Taser really was a “less than lethal” weapon, but the truth is that it is not. Although other factors obviously have contributed to Taser related deaths, it is abundantly clear that a Taser should always be considered to be a “potentially lethal” option. As such it is vital that its use should be governed by guidelines which are similar to those which apply to firearms.
Two men have died over the past two days when arrested by New South Wales police, one after being subjected to capsicum spray and the use of a baton; the other after being shot with a Taser. In both cases, questions are now being asked about police procedures and whether or not excessive force has been used. In the case of the first man, Steven Bosevski, witnessed have reportedly claimed that it was police who initiated the violence, not the alleged offenders. In the second case, the alleged offender appeared to be mentally disturbed and was armed with a pair of knives. Police claim that under the circumstances they behaved appropriately, and that although the loss of life has been tragic, there was very little else that they could do.
This follows the report from Western Australia over the weekend which has revealed the excessive and inappropriate use of tasers. In one case, a mentally disturbed man was subjected to 14 Taser shots, before being shot again by prison guards a week later. Last year, a man in Queensland died after receiving 28 jolts from a Taser fired by a police officer. Here in New South Wales, the Ombudsman Bruce Barbour has reported that he has found repeated cases of Tasers being used excessively and inappropriately. Mr Barbour said that in “situations where there are multiple officers surrounding an individual, the individual is compliant but is acting in a little way strangely, they may be drunk, they may be affected by drugs but they're not presenting a direct threat… In those cases, we think that the traditional methods of resolving a dispute are far preferable to shooting somebody with 50,000 volts of electric current."
There is clear evidence from other jurisdictions both in Australia and around the world, that the idea of a Taser representing a “less than lethal option” can and does lead to a more casual attitude, and a greater propensity to rely on the weapon as something other than a measure of last resort. In fact, the evidence seems to indicate that it is very easy for a tendency to develop where the use of a Taser becomes the preferred option to resolve a situation quickly, and, in Bruce Barbour’s words, “with some finality.” That might be a viable policy if the Taser really was a “less than lethal” weapon, but the truth is that it is not. Although other factors obviously have contributed to Taser related deaths, it is abundantly clear that a Taser should always be considered to be a “potentially lethal” option. As such it is vital that its use should be governed by guidelines which are similar to those which apply to firearms.
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