By Gary Hughes
Between a quarter and a half of bushfires in Australia each year are deliberately lit by firebugs. And there is evidence that the number of wildfires started by arsonists is increasing. With suspicions that some of Sydney’s weekend fires were deliberately started and warnings of an upcoming bad bushfire season, those statistics are particularly ominous. It’s such extreme conditions that arsonists find irresistible.
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The annual cost of disaster-level bushfires is put at $77 million by the Australian Institute of Criminology. In a study on bushfires the AIC said some jurisdictions had shown sharp increases in deliberately lit fires. In some cases large, spectacular fires such as the 2001 Sydney bushfires, led to an increase in arson attacks. But identifying how the exact level of the increase has been made difficult by the fact that forensic techniques to detect arson as a cause of bushfires has improved.
In other words, arson may have always been a serious problem. It’s just that we are getting better at detecting them.
According to the AIS, which has compiled a large amount of research on the problem, arson-caused bushfires can result in greater damage than those arising from natural causes, such as lightning strikes, because they are usually started relatively close to populated areas. They are also often started at times when other fires are already burning and causing problems for firefighters.
“To the extent that arsonists may select weather conditions and locations conducive to the spread of fire, arson-caused bushfires may be generally more severe than naturally occurring ones,” the AIS says. “The occurrence of deliberately lit fires during severe weather conditions, particularly when other fires are already burning, can present major problems for fire services and increase the likelihood than any given fire may become uncontrollable or that sufficient resources may not be available to deal with all fire fronts. At such times, even where an individual deliberately lit fire does not in itself become threatening, it may join up with other deliberately or naturally lit fires to become a major fire front.”
Particularly worrying, given the current warnings about the looming bad bushfire season, is evidence that arson tends to increase in bad bushfire years, “possibly when there is more media coverage and greater potential for excitement or attention”, the AIC says.
Studies have found that the declaration of total fire ban days are likely to lure arsonists into action. And according to the NSW Fire Brigades, most deliberately lit fires occur on weekends – normally between 2pm and 7pm.
So why do firebugs do it?
Unlike arsonists who operate in urban areas and may be motivated by financial gain, such as setting fire to a failing business to claim the insurance, firebugs who start bushfires are virtually all driven by psychological factors. Diagnoses of firebugs in past court cases include antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality and sexual disorders. There are also thrill-seekers, looking for the excitement of the flames, the emergency services sirens and the associated fire-fighting activity. And there are those trying to seek recognition as heroes. In those cases, the firebugs are often volunteer firefighters.
“It is apparent that the desire to gain recognition or hero status is a primary motive behind bushfire setting by volunteer firefighters,” says the AIC. “It should be noted that it is not only volunteer firefighters who start bushfires in the hope of receiving attention and recognition. Other members of the community may also hope to be seen as heroes by ‘detecting’ and reporting fires, and possibly even becoming involved with assisting fire services.”
The AIC sounds a note of caution, however, for those calling for tougher penalties for bushfire arsonists, such as happened after the 2001 Sydney fires.
“The efficacy of tougher penalties in deterring arson, however, as with any other type of offending, is highly dubious,” the AIC says. “The deterrent effect is based on an assumption that the individual will stop and rationally consider their behaviour before deciding to embark or proceed on a particular course of conduct.
“…many arsonists act from the basis of motives that do not incorporate the kind of contemplation that would allow more severe potential punishments to have a deterrent effect. Arsonists who suffer from intellectual disability or mental illness, or who are driven by the strength of feelings of vengeance, will not desist from their behaviour on the basis of a punishment they may not be able to comprehend.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/crime/index.php/news/comments/starting_bushfires/
An appeal court has been forced to lift a community supervision order against a paedophile recently released from jail because the wording of a new law did not provide it with the power the amend the terms of the order. The court said the interests of justice would have been best served by continuing the supervision order on an interim basis while it was sent back to the original court to be reconsidered. But the legislation did not allow this. Instead the appeal court was given the choice between keeping the order in its original form or revoking it altogether. The “lesser evil” in this case, the court decided, was revoking it.
Under the original five-year supervision order the paedophile known only as TSL, who had served four years and three months in prison for three counts of sexual penetration of a child between the age of 10 and 16 and had three prior convictions, was forced to live in a supervised unit. He was not have been allowed to leave the unit unsupervised, was subject to a curfew and faced a range of other restrictions, including not being allowed access to the internet.
The extended supervision order was granted in the Victorian County Court in April, three months before TSL’s release, under new legislation introduced in Victoria last year. The appeal to the Supreme Court was the first test of the new laws, designed to monitor the activities of dangerous sex offenders after their release from jail.
In a written judgment handed down yesterday the appeal court ruled that the original judge had erred in reaching the decision to impose the supervision order for five years. Justice would have been best served by continuing the supervision order on an interim basis while it was reviewed again by the County Court, but those option was not provided to the appeal court under the legislation.
As a result, the court said, it was “faced with a choice of evils”. It could either confirm the order, despite the fact that TSL was not a serious serial paedophile, or revoke it altogether. “The lesser evil, in the circumstances of this case, is to revoke the extended supervision order,” it said.
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/crime/index.php/news/comments/sex_offender_law_falls_short/
A NSW man has been charged with attempted murder after attacking another driver with a tomahawk in a road rage attack and severing part of his ear. The attack is the latest in what appears to be increasingly violent road rage incidents of Australian roads. And it seems that there’s a spark of road rage in almost all of us. Here’s just a sample of incidents from the past few months:
• A nine year old Melbourne girl was left with life-threatening injuries and her mother, father and sister put in hospital on September 20 after allegedly dicing with another car during a road rage incident and hitting a pole.
• Traffic in Sydney’s Eastern Distributor was brought to a standstill on September 3 by two motorists have a fist fight in the middle of the road following a minor accident.
• Seventeen-year-old Sunshine Coast teenager was stabbed to death on August 27 outside his house in an alleged road rage attack after the driver of another car followed him home and confronted him.
• A Melbourne driver was left with head wounds after being attacked with a claw hammer after one car cut in front of another. The driver also received a broken finger in the attack on August 24.
• An Adelaide taxi driver was charged with aggravated assault after attacking a driver in his 70s who sounded his horn at the taxi on July 26.
• A Sydney driver bashed another driver with a wheel brace on June 8.
• A white Mitsubishi sedan forced two cars, including a police car, off the road during a road road incident in Hobart on May 16.
• A driver allegedly choked and punched a couple after sideswiping their car and forcing them to stop in Brisbane on May 14.
• A man who confronted another driver about his driving was stabbed in the chest in Adelaide on April 25.
A survey by motor insurer AAMI last month found that 26 per cent of drivers admitted they were “reckless or aggressive”. The same survey in 2005 found 44 per cent of drivers admitted they had gestured rudely or yelled at
another driver. Of those, 82 per cent believed their actions were justified. And 14 per cent of drivers said they had tailgated other drivers and tailgated them.
Out of those who have experienced road rage, eight in ten (79 per cent) have been subjected to rude gestures, one in six (16 per cent) has been forced off the road by another driver, and one in 25 (4 per cent) has experienced physical assault from another driver.
Six in ten drivers (58 per cent) say they have witnessed a road rage incident involving other drivers. This experience was most common in NSW (62 per cent) and least common in the Northern Territory (42 per cent).
In May an Australian Institute of Criminology study said that the true extent of road rage on Australian roads was probably far greater than thought, with as few as one in 10 incidents being reported.
But according to US researchers, road rage is actually a medical condition - intermittent explosive disorder – and could be treated. The researchers from the University of Chicago’s medical school said in June the disorder also accounted for other sudden temper outbursts and could affect up to seven per cent of the population.
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/crime/index.php/news/comments/road_raging/
FORMER first lady Margaret Whitlam has done herself a grave disservice with her unprecedented attack on Prime Minister John Howard’s wife Janette.
If she has been quoted correctly by her fawning biographer, longtime Labor supporter Susan Mitchell, a sometime ABC talkback host and author of a handful of poorly-written works, Mrs Whitlam’s remarks are at odds with the usually gracious and intelligent public comments she makes about personalities involved in current affairs.
The political world knew that she and her husband, Gough, were totally shattered by Mark Latham’s unflattering references to his mentor, the former prime minister, whom he succeeded in the seat of Werriwa. Yet there were no public statements or reports.
Mrs Whitlam is critical of Mrs Howard for holding hands with her husband in public. What? When did a small gesture of public affection between a couple who are obviously very close become a problem worthy of comment?
She says Mrs Howard is “useless” in terms of community service - yet her diary shows she was at a fundraiser for the homeless charity Youth In Search on Friday night, attended a private lunch Monday backing former NSW Treasurer Michael Egan’s Centenary Institute in support of cancer research and went to a dinner hosted by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, of which she is a patron, on Tuesday.
Most newspapers ran a photograph of another patron, Sarah Murdoch, but being less photogenic than a former super model is surely no crime and Mrs Howard brings a rare compassion to her role, having had her own brush with cancer a decade ago.
Australia has not gone down the US road of following every move made by the wives of its prime ministers and, unless they impinge on public policy, nor should it.
Mrs Whitlam’s legacy is largely unremembered, except for her and Gough’s gift to comedians the world over - based largely on their towering size.
Mrs Howard chooses not to grandstand, and for that, most Australians will be extremely grateful. There are enough poseurs to fill all the women’s magazines and the circulation-challenged Bulletin already.
Far from detracting from Mrs Howard’s stature, Mrs Whitlam (if quoted correctly), and her biographer have revealed an ugliness in their natures that betrays deep character flaws.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/whitlams_whipping_of_janette_shows_deep_character_flaws/
In defence of Mrs Whitlam, she might not have meant the sentiment for public consumption when she brought it up with the 'journalist.' It is possible, that it was one of many things meant to provide her biographer with background. In other words, maybe Mrs Whitlam wouldn't have been so insensitive as to say it.
However, if it is true that she told her biographer those words. If her biographer didn't just make it up, then it still shows Mrs Whitlam is a flawed individual, in this instance lacking judgement, charity or empathy.
What is worse - the threat or the abject surrender?
The Deutsche Oper in Berlin announced Monday “with great regret” that it had scratched Hans Neuenfels’ version of the Mozart opera “Idomeneo” from the program this season because certain scenes presented an “incalculable security risk” for the theater.
“To avoid endangering the public and its employees, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin has decided to refrain from showing “Idomeneo” in November,” the opera house said…
In the epilogue, Idomeneo, the king of Crete, comes on stage comes on stage with a bloody sack in his hand. He then pulls the heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed out of the sack and places them triumphantly on four chairs.
Oh, and of course you instantly realised which was the head of contention. If Idomeneo had pulled out the heads of Bush, Blair, Howard and the Pope there would of course been no security threat at all, and the the gesture might have shown precisely how keen Western artists are on cannibalising our own while placating the true threats to their freedoms and traditions.
Gutless, gutless, gutless. And to think when Jean Raspail warned of just this collapse in his wonderful novel The Camp of the Saints some 30 years ago he was vilified as an extremist. Would that more artists had a flicker of his own courage, let alone insight.
But let’s now sum up our list of artistic must-nots, based on recent history. We must not:
* draw or publish pictures of Mohammed, however respectful, for fear of causing deadly riots
* make films criticising Islam for fear of having our head nearly sawn off by a furious Islamist a la Theo van Gogh
* tell a joke against a Muslim for fear of having our act banned by the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s director
* preach to our Pentacostal congregation about the danger of Islam’s jihadist preaching for fear of being found guilty of vilifying Muslims and sentenced to run full-page advertisements to tell the world of our guilt
* quote the verdict on Islam of some 14th century Byzantine emperor for fear that a Catholic nun might be murdered, churches in Palestine torched and demands be issued for an apology or violent else
* perform Mozart’s Idomeneo (or, for that matter, his Aduction from the Seraglio, which is set in a harem and features a dumb Muslim guard) for fear that our theatre might be blown up
Other than that, we should be right. Or not, given how badly we tremble.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/now_even_mozart_isnt_safe_from_muslim_rage_or_artistic_cowardice/
Some people are faced with decisions that are probably beyond the ability - or right - of the rest of us to judge. I’m thinking, for instance, of a Sydney couple who have admitted to the manslaughter of their son, killed just before an operation that would have left him deaf:
The inquest had heard that Matthew had intellectual disabilities, and had been born with no eyes and part of his face missing, but he could hear, and sound was his link to the outside world.
However, he had suffered chronic, painful ear infections and needed an operation which would have made him deaf for three months, if not permanently.
I guess we must formally disapprove, because that is what is demanded of us in a society which still (kind of) believes every life is sacred. But I doubt anyone’s heart is in it, and pity is the only emotion we can truly feel. And relief - as we look on our own children.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/let_someone_else_judge_them1/
Why should a widely known truth spoken by Tony Blair’s wife - rather than the widely disbelieved lie uttered by Gordon Brown - cause the “media storm”:
A young journalist’s insistence that she heard the Prime Minister’s wife call the Chancellor a liar during his speech to the Labour Party conference led to a media storm that ruined Labour’s careful stage-managing of the conference in Manchester.
“Well, that’s a lie,” is what Bloomberg TV producer Carolin Lotter swears she heard Ms Blair say when Mr Brown declared he had enjoyed working closely with her husband.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/shock_truth_told/
Bush nails the spinning over the secret report which allegedly claims we’re all in more danger because we freed Iraq.
President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he had ordered the declassification of key parts of a major intelligence report that reportedly found that the Iraq war has helped produce a new generation of Islamic radicals and increased the threat of terrorism.
The president was clearly unhappy that findings from the document, a National Intelligence Estimate completed in April, had made their way into news reports. The New York Times disclosed some of the details in its Sunday editions.
“Some people have guessed what’s in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake,” the president said. “I strongly disagree.”
“I think it’s naïve. I think it’s a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm against the American people makes us less safe.”
Noting that evidence-gathering for the assessment had concluded in February, and that the report itself had been finished two months later, he said: “Here we are, coming down the homestretch of an election campaign and it’s on the front page of your newspapers. Isn’t that interesting?”
The whole thing sounded like a set-up, with leakers in the discredited CIA briefing sympathetic reporters in the hate-Bush New York Times . Something sure smells, and Bush has reacted by upping the stakes.
He says he’s declassifying the report so people can make up their own minds, which indicates that the report isn’t as clear on the Iraq-makes-terrorism-worse argument as the leakers and reporters have claimed.
In fact, that claim has to be a guess at best and I’d say it’s a poor one. For one, who can truly know that the world would have been safer with Saddam and his sons still in charge of their own empire of terror, with the US and the UN in retreat and the jihadists left with the idea that the West was too weak to fight?
For the more practical other, here is Robert Kagan:
For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the “terrorism threat”? Presumably, the NIE’s authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn’t mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.
Probably what the NIE’s authors mean is not that the Iraq war has increased the actual threat. According to the Times, the report is agnostic on whether another terrorist attack is more or less likely. Rather, its authors claim that the war has increased the number of potential terrorists. Unfortunately, neither The Post nor the Times provides any figures to support this. Does the NIE? Or are its authors simply assuming that because Muslims have been angered by the war, some percentage of them must be joining the ranks of terrorists?
Much the same argument can be made for Australia. We lost more than 90 Australians in the September 11 attacks and the first Bali bombings, both before the liberation of Iraq. We also disrupted terrorists plots on Australian soil, included that of Muslim convert Jack Roche, that were hatched before Iraq, too. Since Iraq we have lost several more Australians, especially in the second Bali bombings, but thankfully many, many fewer than our earlier losses.
Since Iraq - and largely because of it - we have also made ourselves less vulnerable to the most deadly attacks of all. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program, the nuclear secrets network of Pakistan’s AQ Khan has been wrapped up, Saddam’s long-term nuclear ambitions are over, and Iraq’s nuclear experts are now identified and presumably under surveillance to help prevent them from going freelance.
But as we see, all this can be ignored for the thrill of a Iraq-was-a-mistake gotcha headline based on a little malicious spinning of a report no reporter has actually seen.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/safer_from_terror_but_not_safer_from_spinning/
Guardian columnist Max Hastings notices an insanity on the Left for whom he now writes:
So little confidence do some people feel in the virtues of their own societies that they are willing to suppose bin Laden might be, well, a bit right.
He also accepts that such people face annihilation from this same bin Laden they think might be, well, a bit right:
Yet we shall be lucky to get through the next 10 years without weapons of mass destruction being used somewhere in the world, quite likely against us.
Yet given this deadly self-loathing and even deadlier threat, he feeds the conceit of Bush-haters and Blair-loathers that there was a nice way to fight off this menace, largely involving us proving we were nice.
They will be defeated only when the West’s counter-vision is perceived by reasonable people as just and unselfish.
And such an argument can but add to the self-loathing of the West and the gloating certainty of Islamists that make this conflict so dangerous.
UPDATE. Former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar takes a different tack:
"It is interesting to note that while a lot of people in the world are asking the pope to apologise for his speech, I have never heard a Muslim say sorry for having conquered Spain and occupying it for eight centuries.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/keep_smiling_and_maybe_they_wont_kill_us/
Mark Latham’s new book, released today, prompts many to divulge even more reasons to marvel that he was ever Labor’s candidate for Prime Minister.
Former Labor Minister Barry Cohen, for instance, tackles Latham’s lousy memory of a visit to Cohen’s nature park, and includes a little anecdote of the kind that so perfectly gives the measure of a man - or a self-obsessed me-me:
Latham also has memory lapses. He forgot to mention what happened during lunch. Having raised three sons, we should have known better than leave my wife Rae’s prized piece of porcelain on the coffee table. Oliver, a two-year-old, picked it up and smashed it into a thousand pieces - at his father’s feet. It was not Oliver’s fault, but ours.
Rae showed remarkable restraint. White knuckles, an intake of oxygen and a gurgled “Oh, dear”, was her only indication of pain.
Mark showed even greater restraint. He didn’t even notice. No apology. No “I’m sorry”. No attempt to clean up the debris. Nothing. It was a minor incident in life’s rich tapestry but it revealed the true nature of Mark Latham.
As he departed, the First Lady hissed through gritted teeth: “If that ####### ever becomes leader of the Labor Party, I’m voting Liberal.” She kept her promise. Fortunately for Australia, she was not alone.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/a_sorry_latham/
Finally someone suggests that the breathless try breathing:
Prof Cullen said the dry weather could be caused by a dramatic climate change acceleration or a drought worsening the effects of the expected levels of climate change.
Either way, he says, Melbourne needs to take action on water security.
“When you look at Melbourne in particular, you have that (climate change) stress and on top of that . . . you are looking at putting another million people into Melbourne over the 30-40 year period,” he said. “It’s not a great combination.”
Prof Cullen said building new dams should not be ruled out in Victoria despite the Bracks Government’s policy of having no new dams.
“If we had a site and a new dam was a cost effective way of meeting our needs then it should be there,” he said.
The refusal of the government to even cost a new dam is a stunning example of how religion messes with men’s minds. You’d laugh if you weren’t so thirsty.
UPDATE. The conventional wisdom stupidity on dams:
World Wildlife Fund freshwater policy manager Averil Bones said cultural change, education and community programs were the most effective ways to save water.
The Government should be using money allocated to pipeline construction for recycling projects and individual water-saving initiatives.
Global evidence from similar projects showed large-scale pipelines and dams tended not to solve the problem.
I guess that building the giant Thomson dam on which Melbourne now depends “tended not to solve the problem” either. Please then define “the problem”.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dam_right/
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