Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Nadine Flood weighing into the ACT prison debate is as ominous as it is misguided.
She told the ABC that ''before trialling [a] needle exchange'' ''action must be taken to curb prisoner drug use'' as if the ACT Government and Corrections had not been doing their darndest to achieve just that. Jon Stanhope, who now supports the trial, declared that the prison would be drug-free.
Unlike the union and the Opposition, he has belatedly accepted the reality expressed by the independent review of the prison: ''There are always drugs in correctional centres'', and this is so even though ''Considerable effort is made in the discovery of drug contraband and the prosecution of those in possession. There are no exceptions. Regular cell and personal searches are made, including strip searches, while dogs and scanners are used regularly, and random urine samples are taken''.
That's the misguided bit. The ominous bit is the union is using its muscle to sway government from measures to prevent a hepatitis C and HIV epidemic in the community. ''Prisons are little concentrations of Hep C all around the country from where it is going to spread out'' warned the late Dr Peter Sharp of Winnunga Nimmityjah.
Unions have every right to ensure their members have safe working conditions which is not the case with the existing, infectious contraband needle exchanges thriving in prisons.
The main source of needle-stick injuries, accidental injury during searches, is eliminated by prison needle-and-syringe programs.
Bill Bush, Turner
CSIRO STAFF
I would like to correct an error in an article by Rosslyn Beeby (''Cash-strapped science agency $10.5m in the red'', October 14, p11 ) concerning the ''analysis'' of staff numbers in CSIRO's 2010-2011 annual report.
The article said that ''more women are employed in communications than science'' and ''less than one quarter (24per cent) of CSIRO's research scientists are women'' and ''Overall, 39per cent of the agency's full-time employees are women, with the majority (63per cent) employed in communications and information services.''
The annual report clearly states that 24per cent of the 1865 research scientists are women. Therefore, 447 research staff are women.
The annual report also states that 63per cent of the 375 communications and information services staff are women. Therefore, 236 are women. So there are about double the number of women working in science than communications. Thirty-nine per cent (2540) of the 6514 staff at CSIRO are women.
The majority, 63per cent, of the 375 staff in communications and information services are women, not 63 per cent of all CSIRO staff.
I would also like to clarify another report (''The Dish to have its budget slashed by 40%'', October 14, p1). CSIRO is moving towards a new remote operational model at Parkes Observatory. This will see less observations undertaken ''on the ground'' at Parkes, as these activities will be undertaken remotely from other locations, but it will not result in reduced observation time being available to the international astronomical community from this facility.
Huw Morgan, media liaison manager, CSIRO
CHEEKY STUDENTS
I would like to respond to R.S. Gilbert's patronising message (Letters, October 18) to those ''cheeky students'' at the Australian National University, who apparently breached their role as ''consumers'' of a ''business service'' by demanding the university administration be held accountable.
His argument is problematic for two reasons: first, it assumes that universities are businesses and, second, it assumes that consumers cannot hold businesses accountable. In the first place, universities such as the ANU appear strangely at odds with the deregulating, privatising rhetoric of neo-liberalism precisely because they are public institutions.
The ANU only receives 3per cent of its funding from private businesses. Thus, to call the ANU a business is clearly misguided.
So if, as R.S. Gilbert admits, he himself would not be brave enough to take action, at the very least he should commend the actions of those who will.
Mathew Blithe, Latham
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