Nowforarealitycheck–noone canputBigBrotherinhisplace

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First published 1831 No. 52,665 $1.20 (inc GST)
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A CITY-WIDE tolling system
that charges motorists for using
main roads at the busiest times
of day has been proposed as a
radical solution to Sydney’s
traffic nightmare.
Although politicians and
motorists reject a London-style
congestion tax, experts yesterday
said variable tolling on arterial
roads could be the only way to fix
the city’s gridlock.
The satellite technology that
would enable it is around the corner, while peak-period tolling is
already operating in several overseas cities to discourage drivers.
Peter Stopher, a professor of
transport planning at the University of Sydney, said a city-wide
charge would be more effective
than a CBD congestion tax.
‘‘What we would do is charge
people according to how much
they’re driving, where and when,’’
said Professor Stopher, of the
Institute of Transport Studies.
Under the plan, road use would
be measured by satellites and
motorists would be tolled for driving in peak hour along congested
routes such as Parramatta Road.
Professor Stopher said the
technology, which combined the
global positioning system and
odometers, was ‘‘about 90 to
95 per cent there’’. He has applied for an Australian Research
Council grant to conduct testing. ‘‘I don’t think it would be
hugely expensive,’’ he said.
A similar plan has been proposed by Dr Garry Glazebrook, a
transport consultant and aca-
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ISSN 0312-6315
9 770312 631025
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Now for a reality check – no one
can put Big Brother in his place
CHOKED CITIES
Editorial – Page 8
demic at the University of Technology, Sydney. Dr Glazebrook
recently said the first step towards
such a scheme could be to introduce a CBD cordon whereby
motorists passing one of 18 entry
points are charged $6. This could
be followed by a GPS-based tolling
system covering all roads.
The Sydney-wide plan was
supported by David Brown, of the
Australian Institute of Traffic
Planning and Management, who
said it could be an effective traffic
management tool if it were to be
used for policy, not profit.
The technology could also target congestion outside peak hours
– such as Bondi’s Campbell Parade
on Saturday mornings.
But it would be a mistake to
think tolls would make motorists abandon their cars for public transport, Mr Brown said. ‘‘It
is not just the decadent joy of
private motorists. Often you
don’t have an alternative.’’
The president of the NRMA,
Alan Evans, said motorists were
already charged enough, with
existing toll roads acting as a
proxy congestion tax. He said the
city needed better roads planning
and public transport. ‘‘People
don’t drive along Victoria Road for
the fun of it,’’ he said.
A shorter-term option would be
Continued Page 2
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BIG BROTHER may have
overstepped the line but the
truth is a lack of up-to-date rules
means little can be done to rein
in the reality show.
The media watchdog, the
Australian Communications and
Media Authority, cannot get its
teeth into the program, whose
latest breach did not occur on TV
but on live internet footage that
went out at 4.17am last Saturday.
The authority’s powers are limited
to TV and radio broadcasts and
stored internet content.
The live web footage that
streamed out of the Big Brother
house featured the alleged sexual
assault of a female housemate.
Acting on it was not in the
watchdog’s bailiwick, nor anyone
else’s, a spokesman for the
authority conceded yesterday.
And even if it had been screened
on TV, disciplining Network Ten
would have been ‘‘a convoluted’’
process requiring viewer
complaints and an investigation.
As the network stood by its
program, the Prime Minister,
John Howard, labelled the show
stupid and called for Ten to axe it.
‘‘It is just a question of good taste
and I don’t like heavy-handed
regulation,’’ he said.
‘‘The business community is
always saying to me ‘let us selfregulate’. Well here’s a great
opportunity for Channel Ten to
do a bit of self-regulation and get
this stupid program off the air.’’
Ten’s head of production and
development, Tim Clucas, said
that not only would the series
continue but another was being
planned for next year.
AN EXPERIMENTAL super-drug
with potential to tackle a range
of illnesses including cancer, agerelated blindness, heart disease
and arthritis has been developed
by Sydney researchers.
It works by switching off a master gene in all these conditions.
Levon Khachigian, of the
Centre for Vascular Research at
the University of NSW, said the
gene, known as c-Jun, controlled
the activity of many genes. ‘‘It is
the godfather gene,’’ he said.
The experimental drug was
specifically designed to seek it out
in diseased tissues. ‘‘It is like a
secret agent that finds its target,
c-Jun, within the cell and destroys
it. It is a molecular assassin.’’
The first human test of the
‘‘one size fits all’’ therapy, scheduled for early next year, will involve about 10 people with nonmelanoma skin cancer. The drug
will be injected into the tumours.
Professor Khachigian said
tests in animals had shown the
drug, called Dz13, could significantly slow the growth of skin
cancers by choking off their
blood supply.
There was an acute need for
better treatments for skin cancer
because the main approach now
was surgery. ‘‘This can cause scarring and disfigurement,’’ he said.
The head of the Cancer Control Program of South Eastern
Sydney and Illawarra Health Service, Bernard Stewart, said if the
The show threw its critics into
apoplexy when the internet
footage appeared to show Michael
Cox, 20, rubbing his crotch in the
face of Camilla Halliwell, 22,
while Michael Bric, 21, held her.
The police were notified but
decided to take no action.
Ms Halliwell told viewers: ‘‘We
laughed it off. As soon as I said
‘enough’s enough’ it stopped.’’
The men were booted off the
show for breaching the Big
Brother rule ‘‘about respecting
each other’’, Mr Clucas said.
The footage was not aired on
TV and never would be. People
needed to differentiate between
the show and the house. ‘‘This
was a bit of fun that went too far.’’
CAN’T STOP WATCHING
Insight – Page 10
Comment –Page 9
Although Ten took the incident
seriously enough to evict the two
housemates, in a last-minute
interview screened at 9.45pm,
host Gretel Killeen blamed the
media for beating up the story.
‘‘It’s not our intention to
sensationalise,’’ she said, before
interviewing the evicted
housemates. The pair told her
they had not meant to hurt or
offend Ms Halliwell. They had
only been ‘‘mucking around’’.
They said they were respectful of
women and the incident was a
practical joke gone sour.
‘‘We only intended to have a bit
of fun with Camilla,’’ said Bric,
known on the program as John.
The pair said they were having a
lot of mixed emotions. ‘‘If we
could turn back time we obviously
would do it,’’ Bric added.
‘‘As soon as I said ‘enough’s enough’ it stopped’’ ... Camilla Halliwell on Big Brother last night. Top left,
Michael Bric and Michael Cox telling viewers they were just ‘‘mucking around’. Photos: Network Ten
The Labor leader, Kim Beazley,
has stepped up his calls for the
show to be axed. ‘‘As a dad, I
don’t like seeing young women
treated that way.’’
The Communications
Minister, Helen Coonan, was
furious that Ms Halliwell was
paraded on Sunday night’s
episode apologising to the two
men. ‘‘It is very regrettable that
Camilla was made to cry and
made to feel that she had done
the wrong thing and somehow or
other was responsible for these
guys getting evicted,’’ she said.
Senator Coonan said the
show’s constant sexual advances
towards women ‘‘ruthlessly
reinforce the kind of notion that
women are objects’’.
The Democrats senator
Andrew Bartlett was a lone voice
of dissent, saying politicians had
Uni cheats with cash create opening for business
Harriet Alexander
Higher Education Reporter
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THE advertisement was for a
‘‘freelance writer/researcher’’,
and when John Purvis saw it on
his university’s career website, it
looked harmless enough.
But when he was accepted for
the job, the University of Wollongong cultural studies student
realised the only writing and
researching he would be doing
was for fellow students – helping
them cheat their way through
their studies.
Mr Purvis saw on the website
of his new employer, Deveraux
Deloitte, that he would be joining a team of 2500 researchers
Cure-all
drug hits
godfather
of genes
Deborah Smith
Science Editor
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Sherrill Nixon – Page 2
SPORT
4
Phillip Coorey
and Alexa Moses
INSIDE
WORLDWIDE TOLLS
GOOD LIVING
Fri
Sat
Traffic
tax: pay
when
it’s busy
Jordan Baker
Transport Reporter
and Sherrill Nixon
GRASS
MASTER
HEWITT
ON A ROLL
GIANT WALL
POSTER
who wrote essays for students
ranging from undergraduates
to PhD candidates.
He would be paid according to
the students’ study level, at an average rate of $249 for degree-level
essays to $7974 for PhD work. But
the students who ordered the
work would be paying about twice
that amount, with Deveraux
Deloitte taking a cut, he said.
‘‘I was pissed off,’’ he said.
‘‘I hate scams. I resented them
trying to pull a fast one on
me and the fact that they were
so blatant and stupid.’’
The British company is one of
several aiming to recruit Australian students, to cater to the
plagiarism market here. The
John Purvis ... ‘‘I hate scams’’.
wealth of ‘‘essay help’’ sites on
the internet include a Melbourne one that was changed
from an ‘‘essay writing’’ to an
‘‘essay editing’’ service after inquiries from the Herald, and
legitimate business sites that
students have harnessed to put
their assignments out to tender.
Matt Connors, copyright coordinator at Macquarie University,
said recruiting local researchers
makes sense because academics
are wise to work that has been
produced overseas. The style of
writing can be a giveaway, as can
students drawing on overseas
examples rather than local ones.
‘‘I think that’s the reason
they’re so keen on getting local
authors,’’ Mr Connors said. ‘‘It can
be very easy to spot something
that’s not produced locally.’’
Deveraux Deloitte has ‘‘live assistance’’ phone lines for students
in Australia, Europe and the US.
Its researchers are encouraged to
put their work through antiplagiarism software before they
submit it to students, to try to
avoid detection
The University of Wollongong
pulled the advertisement from its
careers service website when Mr
Purvis told of the scam in April,
and warned other universities.
The same ad had also managed to
slip through safeguards on the
Bond University student portal,
but has since been removed.
Deveraux Deloitte declined
interview requests.
A local site for cheating
students, www.essayhelp.com.au,
was pulled down and changed
no place trying to ban a ‘‘lame
television show’’.
‘‘If anyone in the Big Brother
house broke the law then it can
be dealt with by the legal
system. Attempting to force a
television show off the air
because of an incident that
wasn’t even screened is an
excessive intrusion into the lives
of Australians by moralising,
preaching politicians.’’
Rates rise tipped
Home owners and
investors should get ready
for another hit in the hip
pocket as interest rates are
expected to rise again soon.
A change in August would
push standard variable
mortgage rates to 7.8 per
cent. Page 3
Saddam setback
Saddam Hussein’s eldest
daughter, Raghad, remains
under Jordanian
protection, despite calls
from Baghdad for her
extradition. She is now
ranked as Iraq’s 16th mostwanted in a list that
includes Saddam’s wife,
Sajida. Page 7
Continued Page 2
drug was found to work well
against skin cancer in people, it
was likely to work against other
solid cancers, because the godfather gene was switched on in
these too.
Professor Khachigian, however, cautioned that the safety of
the new approach needed to be
confirmed in people. Treatments
for patients were still ‘‘years
away’’, he said.
Denis Wakefield, head of the
university’s School of Medical
Sciences, said Dz13 also had
‘‘enormous potential’’ for the
treatment of the leading cause of
blindness in Australia, macular
degeneration, as well as for
diabetes-associated eye disease.
Both were caused by abnormal
growth of blood vessels.
A study by Professor
Khachigian’s team showing that
Dz13 also reduced inflammation
and joint swelling in mice was
published in the journal Nature
Biotechnology yesterday.
The team has used the same
approach against a different
master gene to halve tissue
damage after a heart attack
in animals.
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