No workers comp for sex injury

A Federal Government employee who was injured in a motel room while having sex with a work colleague, has lost her claim for compensation. She said that during the energetic episode, a light fitting above the bed was pulled from its mount and fell onto her face, injuring her nose, mouth and a tooth and also caused a "psychiatric adjustment disorder." She felt entitled to claim because it happened during a work-related trip to a country town, and at least one judge agreed with her.

The man involved said in his statement "I don't know if we bumped the light or if it just fell off ..... I think she was on her back but when it happened, I wasn't paying attention because we were rolling around."

After a four year legal battle, the case is finally over but lawyers will be arguing about it around dinner tables for a long time, because when you read the fine print, it's complicated.

The government's workplace body ComCare initially accepted her claim but it was later revoked.  Then it was upheld by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.  In April 2012, the woman won an appeal and her employer was ordered to pay her court costs. The judge, John Nicholas, said if the woman had been injured playing cards in her motel room, she would get compensation, and the incident was no different.

But ComCare refused to give up and lodged an appeal and said her injuries were not caused "in the course of her employment." Yesterday, the High Court agreed and accepted their argument. Here is part of the their findings.

The High Court allowed Comcare's appeal. A majority of the High Court held that in order for an injury sustained in an interval or interlude during an overall period of work to be in the course of an employee's employment, the circumstances in which the employee was injured must be connected to an inducement or encouragement by the employer. 

If the employee is injured whilst engaged in an activity at a certain place, that connection does not exist merely because of an inducement or encouragement to be at that place. When the circumstances of an injury involve the employee engaging in an activity at the time of the injury, the relevant question is: did the employer induce or encourage the employee to engage in that activity? On the facts of the respondent's case, the majority held that the answer to that question was 'no'.

Couple die in New Zealand snow cave

Dr Hiroki Ogawa 31 was a postgraduate research fellow at Auckland University and had come to New Zealand to pursue his postgraduate thesis on marine studies.  He loved the outdoors and so did his fiance Nicole Sutton 29, so it was no surprise to Nicole's father when they decided to join others and climb Mount Taranaki.

The group reached the summit on Saturday and were heading back down when bad weather closed in.  Two other climbers in the group made it back down safely after spending one night on the mountain.

The couple dug themselves into a snow cave as best they could and Nicole managed to text police and rescue teams, giving them directions, but the weather was so bad, after two nights on the mountain, they were too late.

Taranaki Alpine Cliff Rescue member Mike Johns said rescue teams got within 200 metres of the couple, but it was impossible to stand upright in the gale force winds that had a wind factor of minus 15.  "......One side of your face was going numb and by that stage, we were so covered in ice, everything was starting to freeze up" he said.

It got so bad, that around 3.30 am, they made the gut-wrenching decision to turn around and go back down.  "It weighed on everyone's mind, we discussed it as a team, but our safety came first and we all agreed we were at the point where it was starting to get dangerous" Mr Johns said.

"Normally, it's possible to get right inside a snow cave and get out of the weather but they had just managed to dig a slot in the snow and get into it.  Considering how hard it would have been up there - the ice gets really hard, especially that high up - it would have been a big effort for them to do what they did, so they did really well."

They were eventually found at 7.30 am on Monday morning near the 2,500 metre summit, after hearing Nicole call out.  They found Dr Ogawa had died and Nicole was barely conscious.  She managed to speak to rescuers who provided medical assistance but they couldn't save her and she died a few hours later.

Ironically, yesterday morning Mike Johns was winched down onto the mountain to help recover the bodies in near perfect weather conditions.

Nicole's father described Mr Ogawa, an experienced mountaineer, as "a very special man" who tried to look after his daughter and he and his wife had hoped the pair would eventually marry.  "We know mountains are a nasty place when things go wrong" he said.

The search involved 30 volunteers.  "If there were no volunteers, there would be no research and rescue in New Zealand" Mr Johns said.

Newstart allowance too cruel

There are thousands of unemployed Australians between the ages of 50 and 64 who receive the Newstart allowance of $500 a fortnight. They know there is no chance of getting a job because they are too old, yet after hundreds of rejection letters from employers who refuse to hire older workers, they must keep going through the motions of applying for jobs they know they will never get, to qualify for the welfare payment. Too young for the age pension, they must tread water until they turn 65.

But Newstart doesn't only affect older workers, it's hurting single mothers and their children.  There are 80,000 single parents who have been moved from the sole parent pension to Newstart this year, when their youngest child turned 8, and now they must survive on $200 less a fortnight.

It's hard to understand how these people survive.  Emergency accommodation is now so hopelessly inadequate and overwhelmed by demand, welfare agencies have cases of mothers and children living and sleeping in their cars.

Latest figures show that our unemployment rate fell last month from 5.8 per cent to 5.6 per cent and we are supposed to be the envy of the world.  So why do we continue to hear horror stories about how hard it is to get a job, even for those with a degree.

Georgia Leaker

Georgia Leaker is 24, has two university degrees and wants to work in the media.  She too is on Newstart.  While at university she juggled three casual jobs, self-funded a university exchange to the US, worked for a Congressman and is now on a welfare payment of $565 a fortnight from Centrelink.

She pays $500 a fortnight for a "shoe box" (very cheap for Sydney) which leaves $65 for bills, food and public transport.  She earns $65 a fortnight for nannying which comes in under the threshold of minimum earnings allowed before penalties apply.

Out of hundreds of positions she applied for, she got four replies - two in retail and the other two offered salaries under the minimum wage. But she didn't get a chance to turn them down because all four jobs went to someone else.

Tim Costello

World Vision Australia CEO Tim Costello, Julian Burnside QC and social commentator Eva Cox called on the Labor government to increase newstart payments by $50 a week in the May 2013 budget, but it didn't happen.

Anthony Albanese

While Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese were running their leadership campaigns, they knew that Newstart was hurting single mothers and their children.  They could have fixed it before they were booted out of office, but they chose not to.  It's now up to Tony Abbott who we know is on a cost cutting crusade.

Anthony Albanese was raised by a single mother and sometimes speaks about it with pride.  So what happened Anthony?

Blonde angel's mother found

Blonde angel Maria with couple who said they were her parents

There are an estimated 10 million Roma living across Europe and the Council of Europe, which monitors human rights, say they are the most discriminated-against minority.

Global media went into overdrive when police discovered a little blonde haired girl called Maria living in a Greek gipsy camp. During a police raid, she stood out like a sore thumb and DNA tests proved she wasn't related to the couple claiming to be her parents.

How could this be, we wondered?  Blonde haired, fair skinned children don't belong in a dirty gipsy camp - she must be stolen. But Maria wasn't on Interpol's list of missing children and there were no claims that she had been kidnapped.

Parents of abducted children living in the west, like the McCanns, suddenly had renewed hope that maybe this stolen child could be theirs, but she wasn't.  Police think they have now found the mother and DNA tests are underway to remove all doubt.

Sasha Ruseva and child

She's a 35 year old woman who looks twice her age.  She lives with her husband and ten children in shocking poverty in Bulgaria.  Her name is Sasha Ruseva and she's been arrested twice for trying to sell her baby in Greece and skipped bail on both occasions.

Police believe she sold her baby for around $A1,000 but the mother strongly denies this and says she wants her daughter back.

She claims she couldn't afford to pay for a birth certificate and had to leave her child behind with a friend in Greece. When you see the state of her family's living conditions, it's clear the last thing they need is another mouth to feed.

The mystery of how a blonde child can belong to dark-skinned parents has been solved.  Her husband has an albino gene and five of their other children are blonde and fair skinned and look just like Maria.

The pictures of the family's dire living conditions are shocking. Twelve souls survive on child benefit payments of around $A100 a month and Mr Ruseva likes a drink, and who could blame him? They live on potato soup and homemade bread.  They only have one bed and there is no water connected to the two-room dwelling.

Mrs Ruseva said "I don't know how to pay for their clothes, that is why I send them to school dirty and without shoes or clothes, look at me, look how dirty I am."

This sad case has brought the state of Roma to the attention of the world.  Most Roma in Eastern Europe (where the majority live) are now worse off than they were under Communism.  With all its faults, it guaranteed them work, housing and welfare.

The UN children's agency Unicef said there are approximately 3,000 children in Greece in the hands of child-trafficking rings originating in Bulgaria, Romania and other Balkan countries.  Most cases are not thought to involve abduction but rather the buying and selling of children for a few thousand euros.

Is Madeline McCann still alive?

When Madeline McCann was kidnapped from her holiday apartment in Portugal while her mother and father were having dinner with friends close by, parents around the world made a silent vow - they would never leave their children alone anywhere, ever again, no matter how safe the situation appeared to be.

The thought that their child had been stolen to order by a paedophile gang or sold into slavery is so unbearable, it would have tipped most people over the edge by now, but this brave couple's resolve has never wavered. They will keep looking until they have proof that she's dead or alive.

After their recent appearance on BBC Crimewatch, police have been inundated with over 1,000 new leads.  Detective Inspector Andy Redwood who has 35 detectives working on the case, says it will take time to sort through them all.

DCI Redwood

Hand out photos from police show a man detectives want to contact urgently and say finding him is of "vital importance."  The two images have been drawn up based on descriptions from two different witnesses who saw the same man in the area at the time.

The McCanns have an additional burden to carry - they feel compelled to protect their reputation.  Last month, Kate McCann was in court in Portugal seeking libel damages from Goncalo Amaral, the detective who led the original investigation.  He wrote a book accusing the couple of faking Maddie's abduction.

The Portuguese police didn't like the McCanns from the outset and started a rumour that quickly circulated throughout the town. They said the couple had accidentally killed their daughter with an overdose of drugs, given to her to make sure she would sleep through the night, allowing them to enjoy an uninterrupted meal with their friends. 

The Portuguese police were hopeless.

• The initial police response was to dispatch two uniformed police who ambled in late and didn't believe that Maddie had really been abducted.
• They failed to lock down and seal off the resort.
• No roadblocks were set up and police on the Spanish border, just two hours away by car, were not told until 12 hours later.
• The apartment was not taped off until 10am the following day by which time the McCanns, their friends, resort staff and police had traipsed through it, destroying vital forensic evidence.
• Coastguard and marine police were not alerted for 14 hours.
• The first proper description of the suspect was not issued by police until 22 days after Maddie vanished.
• A vital direct appeal to the abductor was not made until Maddie's parents took matters into their own hands and invited a TV camera into the apartment.

Portuguese police closed the case in 2008 but now plan to re-open it after the Crimewatch program was shown across Europe. There are a number of issues they wish to clarify, an unnamed police source said.

Come on DCI Redwood, you have to solve this case and give these brave parents some peace.

America's working poor

This ABC production of Foreign Correspondent is called Down in Jungleland.  It's about the working poor in America.  It will shock you. We see a college graduate who is earning $2.13 an hour and has the pay slips to prove it.  There are now so few jobs for the middle class, they must take poorly paid jobs to survive. So what happened to all those people who used to do that work, where are they now?  Chilling viewing about the country we thought had it all.

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/

Simon Gittany trial begins

The evidence was compelling.  The secret pinhole camera Simon Gittany installed outside their apartment to spy on his fiance, captured footage of him with his hand over a terrified Lisa Harnum's mouth, dragging her back into the apartment by her head, moments before she plunged to her death.

A neighbour heard "a single bone-chilling scream" and a woman yelling "please help me, God help me" before the fall.  Another witness said he saw a man fist-punching the air after something had gone over the edge, and a man walking on Liverpool Street saw a shirtless man holding what appeared to be black luggage horizontally over the balcony, before it fell.

"Of course, it was not a piece of luggage, it was Ms Harnum wearing black clothing" Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi said.

It's Mr Tedeschi's job to prove that Simon Gittany threw Canadian-born Lisa Harnum off their 15th floor balcony in a fit of rage because she was leaving him and going home to Canada.

Mark Tedeshi

Gittany's barrister, Phillip Strickland SC argues that when Lisa Harnum went over the railing of their balcony, Gittany tried to help her get back up, and in doing so, she fell to her death.  He said that Lisa's state of mind is crucial to the case and although her motive for going over the balcony was unknown, it may have been a suicide attempt or a cry for attention.

Lisa Harnum

The trial must be a cruel nightmare for Lisa's mother Joan Harnum because Gittany's defence team now have to prove that her daughter was unstable to save their client.  They will call a biochemical engineer, a psychologist and an eating disorder expert to support their case.  Last week they successfully subpoenaed Gittany and Lisa's mobile phones from police which are said to contain evidence of her unstable behaviour.

New girlfriend

New laws that came in this year allow both the prosecution and the defence to suggest that the case be heard by one judge alone.  If both parties agree, then the court must dispense with a jury but if the defence objects, then it is up to the court to decide. 

There is some controversy among the legal community about these new rules, some say it has led to an increase in acquittals for people charged with serious crime, so Simon Gittany stands a better chance of getting off, as a lone judge has been appointed to decide his fate.

Apartment block

Gittany was accompanied to court by his current girlfriend, another beautiful woman.  I wonder what she was thinking when Mr Tedeschi pointed out that Gittany controlled his fiance's every move.  He refused her permission to work as a hairdresser and hired a personal trainer to come to the apartment so she wouldn't have to go to the gym.  "He believed it was her function to submit to his will as the male in the relationship" Mr Tedeschi said.

Joan Harnum, mother of Lisa

She even became a Catholic to please him and had to dress and do her hair the way he wanted.  He read all her email and text messages without her knowledge.  He was so jealous, she had to lower her eyes to the pavement as they walked in the street, in case Gittany accused her of looking at other men.  "The deceased's confidence became more and more diminished" Mr Tedeschi said.

The trial continues today.

Edit 4 November 2013:   Gittany takes the stand tomorrow.

Edit 13/11/2013: Today is D-Day for Simon Gittany.  Prosecutor Tedeski asked Justice Lucy McCallum three times to revoke Gittany’s bail and yesterday she finally agreed.  The law requires her to only allow bail if there were exceptional circumstances and in this case, she felt there were, as he was an integral part of his legal team.  But after more than three weeks of evidence, the prosecution and defence finished presenting their cases yesterday so his services were no longer required.  Mr Gittany's barrister, Philip Strickland, SC, argued he needed to have access to his client before he made his final submissions today, but the judge wouldn’t be moved. His girlfriend Rachelle Louise was in tears as he was taken into custody.

New bikie laws toughest in the world

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has just introduced the toughest anti-bikie laws in the world.  His government launched an unprecedented $20 million campaign to drive outlaw motor cycle clubs out of his state.  The new law is called the Vicious Lawless Associate Disestablishment Act.

Premier Campbell Newman

The Premier has named a list of clubs that are now considered "criminal organizations" and members will face a minimum of six months jail for setting foot inside their clubhouse.  If they are convicted of serious crime, they will receive a mandatory 15 to 25 prison term.

Just hours after the bill was passed, police raided the Odins Warriors premises in Cairns and arrested two "patched" members. The two men, Peter Johnston and Mark Filtness have been charged with "being a participant in a criminal organization entering a prescribed place."

It seems to be working already.  In Brisbane, one chapter of the Bandidos has already closed and a dozen members, including the club president, have signed legal papers saying they have quit.

Lawyer Michael Bosscher said "There will be challenges up hill and down dale to these laws now that people are beginning to be charged with offences under this new piece of legislation.  I have no doubt that they will be tested and we will see how well they stand up in court."

NSW bushfires start early

Yesterday, residents of the Blue Mountains rushed home early to see if their homes were still standing. Thousands of people have been evacuated and hundreds of homes are feared destroyed as 98 bushfires burn across the state.  Firefighters from the ACT, Queensland, Melbourne and South Australia are on their way.

The first death was reported this morning, a 63 year old man died on the Central Coast after he collapsed trying to protect his Lake Munmorah home.

Tamarama Beach yesterday

The smoke from the mountains spread all the way across to the coast, creating an eerie feel to the city. 

People are angry and are looking for someone to blame.  The Greenies have a lot to answer for, according to some, and so has the Rural Fire Service (RFS) for not doing enough "burning off." 

Questions are being asked - why weren't adequate hazard reduction burns done in the cooler months and why can't farmers get a permit to burn off ground fuel on their properties? 

Last summer, a Tasmanian farmer was told he couldn't burn off the hills on his property because there were protected eagles and swift parrots breeding there. Imagine his fury when not long after, his home, property and all his sheep were completely destroyed.

Nakia Belmer looks over his mother’s destroyed home in Sunny Ridge Road, Winmalee

Brian Williams is captain of the Kurrajong Heights bushfire brigade with 44 years experience.  "Fires run on fuel" he said "limited fuel means limited fire."  Sounds logical, doesn't it, but he's frustrated at every turn.

Instead of needing only 6 people to perform a controlled burn in the cooler months, he now needs 40, to oversee biodiversity and other ridiculous red tape requirements put there by taxpayer-funded green activists. So instead of carrying out five hazard reduction burns last season, he only managed two.

But it's not their fault, say the Greens.  It's all caused by Climate Change.  Deputy Green leader Adam Bandt said yesterday it was the fault of Tony Abbott's climate change policy and would lead to more bushfires across the nation in the future. "Global warming is the biggest threat to Australian life" he said.

Adam Bandt

"I think that given Parliament is about to resume shortly and global warming is on the agenda for debate, we should be talking about how we as politicians can do everything we can to protect the Australian way of life" he said.

Nicola Roxon calls Kevin Rudd a bastard

Nicola Roxon has called Kevin Rudd a "bastard" and said he should quit Parliament.  She made the extraordinary remarks as she delivered the John Button Memorial Lecture in Melbourne this week.  Roxon served as Health Minister under Rudd and Attorney-General under Gillard.

There's a very valid reason for wanting Kevin Rudd out of Parliament, says Ms Roxon, pollsters will continue to run popularity comparison between Rudd and the new leader Bill Shorten.  And she's right, they will.

"Removing Kevin was an act of political bastardry for sure, but was made possible only because Kevin had been such a bastard himself to too many people already" she said.  "We were clumsy and short-sighted in the way we did it."

Maxine McKew

Maxine McKew, the woman who won John Howard's seat of Bennelong, has changed her mind about the man she once supported.

She said he "went off the deep end" with some of his quick-fix policies in the lead up to the election.  She "couldn't stomach" his Papua New Guinea asylum seeker policy which was "perverse and cruel" and his quick trip to the Northern Territory to announce a special tax zone amounted to "idiocy."  But she thinks his worst decision was to bring back Peter Beattie to run for the seat of Forde.

Kevin Rudd was immensely popular and many wonder why.  In September, he became the first Australian to exceed more than one million followers on Twitter, double that of the second most popular Aussie - Shane Warne.  

They say that truth is often stranger than fiction and the six year Labor rule was so bizarre, if you wrote it down in a book, no one would believe it. 

Kevin Rudd brings the Labor Party out of the doldrums and into power. His colleagues hate him so much, they sack him without giving any explanation to the electorate and Julia Gillard becomes Prime Minister. When it becomes clear that with Julia as leader, they have no chance of winning the upcoming election, they put Kevin back in as leader but lose the election anyway. 

Now we wait to see if Kevin realizes he has well and truly worn out his welcome, and resigns while he still has some dignity left.  

Union boss Michael Williamson pleads guilty

Yesterday Michael Williamson pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars from his union and was forced to apologise to members of the Health Services Union (HSU) for doing it. All the members need now is to see him get serious jail time and if he doesn't, they will be correct in assuming Australian justice is on the nose.

This amoral man was once the National President of the Labor Party. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Now that the case is over, the union can start proceedings aimed at getting a lot of that money back.  They are able to withhold $1.1 million out of his superannuation and $600,000 of unpaid entitlements.

In his letter of apology, released by the union, Williamson urges members not to quit, that he accepts full responsibility for what he did. He writes:

I wish to place on record my sincere apology to all of you. You placed your trust in me when I was general secretary and I abused that trust.  "I apologise unreservedly to all of you for my actions, which were not in keeping with the position I formerly held.  I have agreed to assist the union in recovery actions against others, and will honour that agreement.  The court will determine the penalty I am to receive, but it won't remove the fact I have to live with this matter until the day I die.

Pass the tissues, and the bucket.  

Nicole Perko's desperate plea to Barry O'Farrell

Mum Nicole Perko here with daughter Evie 1, Beau 11 and Jai 9, has been waiting for six months for lifesaving peritonectomy surgery

Here is a letter from Nicole Perko, thanking me for signing her petition. She's a young mother of five who needs urgent cancer treatment and can't get it. And our NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell could fix it with a stroke of the pen.   just click here to share the petition on Facebook. 

I first saw the petition on Tuesday morning. When I saw that thousands of people had signed it, I really couldn't believe it. I keep checking it to see the numbers of people signing it. I'm overwhelmed and so thankful for every one of you.

 I have five little ones. It breaks my heart looking at them now, and knowing that I might not be there to see them growing up; to see my beautiful one-year-old Evie's wedding.

I've written a number of times to the the Health Minister. Still they can't give me a straight answer on why there's such a delay - and how they're allowing people to wait until they face death on this surgery waiting list. And I'm becoming more and more terrified that I might be next if they don't start moving faster.

 I want to try and deliver the petition personally to Barry O'Farrell soon - but if we can get more signatures I think it'll help show him the community is behind us on this one. Can you forward this email to some friends and family now to ask them to sign the petition at change.org/savenicole -- and share it also on Facebook? Click here to share.

Knowing that this surgery could give me a 97% chance of surviving this dreadful cancer is the most frustrating part of it all. The surgeon is even ready. All the government needs to do is find another surgery place or fix whatever the log-jam is preventing people getting surgery. What kind of health system do we have if people are waiting so long for surgery that they're now likely to die because of the wait?

For starting this petition and helping share it, I'll always be thankful for Sam McCauley and Charlotte Dawson. And I'd thank every one of you -- all 42,000+ of you -- personally if I could. Can you help share this petition asking the Health Minister and Premier O'Farrell to fix the waiting list preventing me getting the surgery I urgently need?I'm not asking to jump the queue or get special treatment. That'll just leave someone else -- and their family -- in the exact same position as ours is in. We need to fix the excessive waiting times that's preventing me and about 40 others getting the surgery we need.Thank you all for your support.Nicole Perko

Edit 18 October 2013:   It worked, Nicole and others waiting with the same cancer will now get their operations.  The complex peritonectomy procedure will be undertaken at Prince of Wales Hospital to allow more patients to be treated sooner, Health Minister Jillian Skinner said.  Liberal Premier O'Farrell should be disgusted with himself, for allowing this situation to happen at all.

Edit 18 October 2013:  

Muslim schoolgirl married off at 14

Two reporters in the UK wanted to find out if Muslim clerics were still breaking the law by performing Islamic marriage ceremonies involving 14 year old schoolgirls.  So they cooked up a credible story.  The woman, accompanied by her brother, pretended to be looking for an imam to marry her 14 year old daughter.  Out of 56 mosques they visited, 18 clerics said they were prepared to do it.

And a Muslim cleric somewhere in Sydney agreed to do it too. 

Muslim parents arranged for their 14 year old daughter to be married to a 21 year old man.  They said her future looked bright - her new husband would take her to the movies and theme parks, and buy her lots of ice cream and lollies.  But once married, he locked her inside the house and she wasn't allowed to go out, except to school.

Twelve months later, he didn't want her going to school anymore. He burnt her schoolbooks and she had to leave. She wasn't allowed to watch her favourite shows Home and Away and Neighbours - he replaced them with violent DVDs about soldiers being taken hostage and blown up.  Then he started knocking her around.

Someone who could have helped her, chose not to and let her down very badly.  She told a teacher about her situation at home, but that person ignored the mandatory reporting law and failed to pass the information on to authorities.

So she went to her father and told him about how her husband was bashing her and her daughter, but he wasn't moved.  He said that having a violent husband wasn't a good enough reason to leave him. "The only way you can come back to me is in a coffin for me to pray over you" he said.

Last week, Judge Jo Harman described the man as "a most heinous, capricious and revolting misogynist."  He said the woman had been kicked, punched, stamped on and thrown into walls.  

The court heard the man was a drug dealer and involved in criminal activity.  Judge Harman awarded her sole custody and ordered the father be restrained from having all contact with mother and child.

The couple separated in 2009 and she has since found a new partner.