---

[Source:{The NZ Herald} May 11, by James Gardiner.]

LIGHTS OUT IN AUCKLAND AGAIN!

Another blackout lasting 45 minutes, hit the New Zealand capital city of Auckland on May 10, even though the privatized power company, Mercury Energy, had supposedly made every effort to guarantee power to the central business district, which had been almost completely blacked-out for two months prior to April 15.

The Mercury management would not explain what had gone wrong, except to say that the city central was at risk of even further blackouts. New Zealand's federal government has mandated an "inquiry" into the last blackout, but specified that the privatization of the city's power was {not} allowed to be examined, as a cause of the event.

---

[Source: Australian Financial Review, Feb 24, by Garry West]

MONT PELERIN SOCIETY RESPONSIBLE FOR AUCKLAND, BRISBANE BLACKOUTS.

The Australian city of Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, has become virtually crippled by power failures, in a bizarre parallel of the calamity that has struck Auckland in New Zealand.

Mechanical failures have caused the break-down of generational units at 4 major power stations in the past ten days, which has resulted in power being supplied by rotational load-shedding, whereby power is only available to most residents for about one hour in every four.

This is expected to continue until next Wednesday. The State opposition has blamed budget cuts of $850 million in the state-owned electricity sector last year.

The common denominator in both the Brisbane and Auckland power crises is Mr. Wayne Gilbert, the chief executive of Mercury Energy in Auckland, who was formerly the head of Brisbane's electricity supplier, the South East Queensland Electricity Board (SEQEB).

In 1985, Gilbert started slashing costs in Queensland's electricity sector by sacking the entire unionized workforce of SEQEB, and replacing them with non-union contractors.
Gilbert's actions made him a hero of the HR Nicholls Society, the union-busting front of the Mont Pelerin Society in Australia.

After briefly overseeing the corporatization of Victoria's electricity industry in preparation for its sell-off, Gilbert joined the newly corporatized Mercury Energy in Auckland, the company responsible for the power failure that has shut down that city.

He also became a member of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, the Mont Pelerin Society front that directed that country's infamous economic reforms. As in Brisbane, the Auckland power failure has been firmly blamed on cost-cutting.

---

[Source:{The Sydney Morning Herald} August 8, by Adele Horin]

MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS BEING "DUMPED" ON CHARITIES IN SYDNEY.

Five Sydney charities have just released a report blaming the NSW state government of using draconian measures in "dumping" mentally ill people at crisis centers without adequate health professionals or funds to deal with them.

The report, called {Shifting The Deckchairs}, put together by Sydney City Mission, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Salvation Army, the Wesley Mission and the Haymarket Foundation, accuses the Government of deviously removing mental health services from the inner city, in a bid to force these patients-- making up a large number of the city's homeless--to relocate to outer southern suburbs so they won't be on the streets in the lead up to the 2000 Olympics.

As usual, Mont Pelerin-dictated budget cuts have generated the problem. The charities state that they have lost faith in the senior management of the South East Sydney Area Health Service and Inner City Mental Health Services (ICMHS) who have cut or withdrawn their services due to what is believed to be government budget cuts of $100,000.

This has meant that nurses, psychiatrists and other health professionals were not available to treat residents, especially when they experienced acute episodes.

As well, normally available crisis teams were taking much longer to attend to calls, and on occasion had refused to come, or had advised the hostel staff to call the police or to deal with the episode themselves.
In hostels such as A Woman's Place, run by the Sydney City Mission, more than 40 per cent of the homeless women had a diagnosed mental illness.

---

[Source: {The Age} June 30, by Tania Ewing]

MONT PELERIN POLICIES CAUSE 550 UNNECESSARY DEATHS OF NEW-BORN BABIES IN VICTORIA.

Avoidable deaths of new-born babies has increased by as high as 60 per cent in two years, because of the fascistMont Pelerin Society budget-cutting policies being used by the Jeff Kennett government in Victoria, Australia.

A report prepared by the Council of Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity blamed the rise in deaths on a decline in the standard of public hospital services due to budget constraints, inadequate management, and basic inexperience in procedure.

Other causes included inadequate foetal monitoring, inappropriate induction of labor, and inadequate screening of mothers during pregnancy. It showed that in 1995 there was an increase from 1993 in avoidable deaths in three categories.

1. Stillbirths--237, a rise of 60%.

2. Neonatal--38, a rise of 40%.

3. Perinatal--275, an increase of 14%.

Professor Norman Beischer, chairman of the committee, said that the increase in perinatal deaths from 7 per 1,000 live births in 1993, to 8 per 1,000 births in 1995, ``is of great concern,'' especially when other states, such as Western Australia and South Australia, are still showing a decline in perinatal deaths.

[Source: Herald Sun, 4/22, by Cheryl Critchley & Jack Taylor] KENNETT SAYS HOMELESS DON'T WANT HOMES.

Mont Pelerin Society pin-up boy Jeff Kennett, the Premier of Victoria, said at the launch of the Salvation Army's Red Shield Appeal on April 21 that some homeless people did not want a home.

"It's harsh to say it, but there are some who want to be without accommodation," he said. "We try and provide for it, we offer it and they refuse."

This statement was strongly disagreed with by the spokesman for the Salvation Army, John Dalziel, who said that, while some people are incapable of independent living, and are therefore homeless, in general,"People are homeless because they cannot afford accommodation or there's a lack of accommodation."

---

[Source: Media reports for last two weeks]

MELBOURNE SUFFERS FOURTH SALMONELLA OUTBREAK IN TWO WEEKS.

The fourth salmonella outbreak in two weeks has hit Melbourne and has affected at least 19 people, adding to the more than 500 people hospitalized, and two, possibly three, dead, as a result of the salmonella outbreaks thus far.
Health authorities have tracked the outbreaks to businesses dealing in manufactured meat: two smallgoods manufacturers, a Vietnamese bakery, and a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant.

Authorities at the Department of Human Services say they cannot say for sure what has caused the sudden outbreak, but the head of the department, Dr. Graham Rouch, said on the ABC's "7:30 Report" today that the record spell of excessively hot weather in Melbourne in January and February may have contributed to it.
What this outbreak has highlighted, is the collapse in meat inspection standards that has accompanied the rise to power of Victoria's Mont Pelerin-controlled Premier, Jeff Kennett.

In 1994, Kennett passed legislation which abolished food regulations, and replaced them with voluntary codes of conduct.
As a result, the number of local government meat inspectors has been cut from 400 in 1994 to 250 today, and meat inspection is done by the manufacturing companies themselves.
This is exacerbated by the fact that nationally, the number of meat inspectors has been slashed from 2500 to 800.

Class-action lawsuits have been laid against the offending companies, and the State Opposition has called on Kennett to hold a judicial inquiry into food inspection, and to reintroduce enforceable regulations. The Government has rejected the call, saying the outbreaks are "isolated".

---

[Source: Courier-Mail, Feb 3, 1997]

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)--MONT PELERIN-INSPIRED EDUCATION MINISTER FORESHADOWS "McEDUCATION."

Australia's Minister for Schools, Mont Pelerin think-tank product Dr. David Kemp, has publicly mooted the idea that big corporations like the McDonald's hamburger chain could help set the curriculum in schools, which would equip schoolchildren with "skills" McDonalds would find attractive, and thus prepare them for the workforce.
Speaking on Channel 7's Sunday-morning "Face to Face" program, Dr. Kemp expounded on his brilliant idea: "A firm like McDonalds, for instance, trains some 35,000 casual workers, and most of these are school kids. If we could provide a school end to study, so there is some school study associated with those training, we could create a school-based, part-time traineeship for these young people.
The training would give them a qualification [sic] that would be recognised around Australia under the new national qualifications arrangements." What Dr. Kemp didn't say, of course, is that the only reason McDonald's would need to make burger-flipping part of the education curriculum, is because of the massive turnover they have in young people working for them, caused by the fact that as the teenagers get older and into higher minimum-wage brackets.

McDonalds is no longer interested in their skills or services--only young workers are cheap. This entire proposal is understandable, coming from Kemp: His father, C.D. Kemp, was the founder of the Mont Pelerin-von Hayek-inspired think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), after World War II, which has shaped the free trade agenda of Australia's Liberal Party, especially in the last two decades.
Dr. Kemp's brother Rod was the director of the IPA for many years, and both men are now ministers in the federal government. Moreover, Kemp's own children won't be subjected to "McEducation"--they attend Melbourne's elite private school, Scotch College.