Headlines Sunday 12th October

'Britt's death was no accident'
BRITT Lapthorne's grieving family believes her death was not an accident and is determined to find out how the young backpacker died.
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Sarah Palin denies abuse of voters' trust
US vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has denied wrongdoing after a probe found she had abused voters' trust as Alaska governor.
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$20k deposit guarantee likely to be lifted
THE Federal Government is poised to raise the guarantee on consumer bank deposits beyond $20,000, but to what level remains uncertain.
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Healthy son aborted after wrong diagnosis
A WOMAN aborted her healthy son because doctors told her - wrongly - the boy would die of a rare terminal genetic abnormality.
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Criminals laughing at our expense
Piers Akerman
The Rudd government may be having second thoughts about boosting immigration numbers to record levels, but taxpayers are still spending tens of millions to fund illegal immigrants’ countless appeals against expulsion orders.
The illegal-immigrant lobby has made a mockery of natural justice through its focus on a handful of heart-rending cases, and criminals are reaping the benefits of its campaigning.
More than $50 million will be spent this year alone in furnishing appeals against decisions concerning refugee status and the refusal or cancellation of migration and refugee visas.
One case laboriously wending its way through the process involves 29-year-old New Zealander Wilton Briggs, who identified himself in a sympathetic article in The Age yesterday.
Briggs’ identity would normally have been kept secret under the grossly over-protective and over-used privacy provisions enshrined in Australian law—another legacy of the civil-rights lobby’s campaign to ensure that offenders are given greater protections than their victims enjoy.
Briggs came to Australia lawfully in 1987 and returned to New Zealand in 1996, when he was 17.
Last year, he re-entered Australia fraudulently, using a passport issued in his brother’s name.
Briggs probably chose that route because between January, 1997 and November, 2006, he had run up a criminal record in New Zealand that runs to four pages.
It includes robbery by assault, common assault, two escapes from penal institutions, kidnapping, assault with intent to avoid arrest, threats to kill and cause grievous bodily harm, assault with a stabbing or cutting instrument, escape from custody, theft of motor vehicles and burglary.
In short, Briggs used a false passport to enter Australia so this record of serious criminality would be kept secret.
The act of using a fraudulently obtained passport should have ensured he was returned to New Zealand on the first available aircraft—but not so under our wacky appeals process.
When it was discovered Briggs had re-entered Australia fraudulently, his visa was cancelled and he was placed in detention.
He quickly established himself as a troublemaker at Villawood and, to the delight of civil-rights advocates, took his case to the Migration Review Tribunal, which affirmed the department’s decision.
That should have been sufficient to have Briggs removed, but, under the benevolent provisions of the Immigration Act, he was able to appeal this result to the Federal Magistrates Court on the basis that a woman he met a week after his arrival had become pregnant to him.
The Federal Magistrates Court duplicates other courts, and its status badly needs resolving.
Nonetheless, it creates business for legal professionals and will probably continue to be a costly, if ineffective, adjunct to justice for years to come.
It remitted Briggs’ appeal to the Migration Review Tribunal, which reversed itself and substituted a decision to reinstate his fraudulently obtained visa.
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CSIRO slips on oil
Andrew Bolt
The CSIRO’s peak-oil prediction in July:

THE price of petrol could soar to a crippling $8 a litre over the coming decade...

Treasury’s prediction less than three months later:

They reveal a likely 40% plunge in oil, coal and gas prices over the next eight years.

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A quick cut in tax would be simpler
Andrew Bolt
There’s an easier way than this to prime a faltering economy:

The Government has not ruled out the possibility of spending budget surplus as a way of pumping extra money into the economy, after earlier announcing plans to bring forward its infrastructure fund.- a tax cut would be better for Australia, but that aallows ALP earmarked money to bleed into the general population. This way, ALP money can be funneled to their mates. - ed.
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Bill Henson's dancing bear.
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What Palin scandal?
Andrew Bolt
The headlines are screaming that Sarah Palin has been found guilty of misusing her powers as Governor for personal gain.

But read the report for yourself, and you’ll find there is far, far less to those lurid headlines and allegations than meet the eye. - former Premier Nick Greiner resigned over such humbug. - ed.
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Sir? It’s that Australian guy ringing again
Andrew Bolt
There’s something about talking to famous people - especially foreign leaders - that really, truly excites Kevin Rudd. His hunger for such big-noting is manifested not just by his insatiable foreign travels, largely pointless, but by his almost daily calls to big shots overseas - and his ludicrous need to tell everyone about them afterwards.
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MEEEEEEE
Tim Blair
Everything – from a football game to ship construction and now the death of an Australian tourist half her age – is all about Traceeee Hutchison:
Every time I see a photo of an always-smiling Britt Lapthorne — alone or with a group of also-travelling new-found friends — I see myself. Every time I see her parents struggling to cope with the excruciating reality of their situation I see my own parents. Every time I see her shell-shocked brother I see mine. And every time I see her devastated boyfriend having to defend her honour I see my own boyfriend of that time.
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FAILIN’
Tim Blair
My old pal Dawn Eden finds herself involved in a Sarah Palin fake-a-roo:
Gawker—the same online rag that called me a “Crazed Christ-Loving Re-Virgin”—is engaging in some craziness of its own: It’s asking readers to judge the validity of what it says may be ‘Sarah Palin’s High-School Grades’—but is in fact a forgery made from my SAT scoresheet, which I posted in January 2004.