CELEBRATING
175
YEARS
First published 1831 No. 52,606 $1.20 (inc GST)
Wednesday April 26, 2006
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ID cards
for all to
foil fraud,
terrorism
Louise Dodson
Chief Political Correspondent
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A SINGLE ‘‘smart card’’ for
every Australian adult, providing access to Medicare, welfare
and tax benefits – while doubling as a national identity card –
will be considered by federal
cabinet today.
The card would include a
computer chip and photograph,
and is designed to reduce welfare and identity fraud, and protect against terrorists.
It would replace up to 19 other
cards used by beneficiaries of
government payments, including
those for pensions, unemployment benefits, child care,
Austudy, family tax benefits and
concessions for medicines.
Since the London bombings
last year the Government had
also been considering introducing a separate identity card to
fight terrorism and boost national security. But the cost of two
cards is regarded as far too high,
so cabinet will now look at combining aspects of both.
The plan for the separate security ID card – which is being
pushed by the intelligence
agencies – is expected to be
dropped.
Nevertheless, the Government
expects opposition to the smart
card from people worried about
civil liberties.
When the Hawke Labor
government tried to introduce a
national ID card in the mid1980s, known as the Australia
Card, it was fiercely opposed by
the Liberal Party, including the
Prime Minister, John Howard.
But last year Mr Howard said
ID cards were back on the
agenda because the world was
now a very different place.
Concern about individual
rights had to be balanced against
protecting people from terrorism, he said.
‘‘You have to put that against
the right all of us have to expect
of our Government that it takes
all reasonable measures to protect us against the behaviour of
terrorists,’’ Mr Howard said.
‘‘I think when people talk
about civil liberties they sometimes forget that action taken to
9 770312 631032
DRAGONS
ANSWER THE
CHALLENGE
SPORT
On the back of history, the Light Horse rides again
BIG BROTHER
씰 The new card would be used
for social security, Medicare
and other government
benefits.
씰 Funding to start in this year’s
budget.
씰 Could cost $1 billion.
protect the citizen against physical attack is a blow in favour and
not a blow against civil liberties.’’
More recently the Treasurer,
Peter Costello, publicly praised
the smart card idea, saying
people were now more tolerant
of intrusions into their privacy
because of security threats.
The country’s attitude to the
cards has also changed. An
ACNielsen poll for the Herald last
August found that two-thirds of
Australians were willing to sacrifice privacy and civil liberties for
protection against terrorists.
Sixty-one per cent were also in
favour of a national identity card.
Cabinet remains concerned
about the cost, which would be
more $1 billion, but it would also
save money by cracking down on
people cheating on welfare and
other government benefits.
After the Australia Card failed,
Labor introduced a tax file system, which has been expanded by
the Howard Government. It allows computer cross-checking to
discover tax and welfare fraud.
The Government has been
watching with interest the experience of the British Government, which this month
announced an ID card that will
allow holders access to some
government services.
A big issue has been the cost of
that card, about $13 billion.
Britain will start to issue cards
from 2008-09, but the task could
take 10 years to complete. The
Identity and Passport Service
says it expects the card to be accepted by the public as part of
life within 10 years.
About 100 nations have identity cards of some kind. Smart
cards are used in many European
countries and Singapore to crack
down on identity fraud.
WEATHER
ISSN 0312-6315
MONEY
PRESSURE ZONE
Details – Page 18
Sydney city showers 13°-21°
Tomorrow early rain 14°-21°
● Liverpool showers 12°-21°
Tomorrow early rain 9°-21°
● Penrith showers 13°-21°
Tomorrow early rain 9°-21°
●
Enduring Light ... Frank Morgan, centre, and the 6th Light Horse Trundle Troop recreating a forgotten part of pastoral Australia yesterday. Photos: Peter Rae
Damien Murphy
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‘‘I haven’t climbed on a horse in two
years’’ ... Frank Morgan yesterday.
DAWN was just a crease in the
clouds when the clip-clops
clattered down the main street of
Terrigal and a voice called out in
the darkness: ‘‘Sixth Light Horse,
eyes right.’’
Fifteen horsemen rode by.
At the war memorial above the
beach and under the Norfolk
pines, all eyes in the 3000-strong
crowd were on the old man in
the khaki breeches, bandolier
and Sam Browne belt who stood
stiffly to attention, emu feathers
on his slouch hat floating on a
slight ocean breeze.
Terrigal’s residents, including
ANZAC DAY
Reports, pictures Pages 6, 7
veterans, parents, grandparents,
children, couples and teenagers
had turned out to honour their
own light-horseman, Frank
Morgan, and watch in delight as
his mates in the 6th Light Horse
Trundle Troop poignantly
turned back the clock on their
snorting mounts as part of the
Anzac dawn service.
Mr Morgan, 83, who joined the
6th Light Horse Regiment in
1938, founded the ceremonial
troop about 16 years ago. ‘‘I tried
to show people today a bit of the
Australia that we were all so
proud of when when I was
young,’’ he said.
‘‘Mind you, I haven’t climbed
on a horse in two years. But I do
miss it so much.’’
That last ride was in Sydney
in July 2004, when Mr Morgan
was among a group of lighthorsemen who led the Reserve
Forces Day parade down
Macquarie Street.
For weeks Mr Morgan, who
farmed at Trundle, west of
Parkes, and Leeton, in the
Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area,
before retiring to the Central
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A PAROLE officer has resigned
amid an investigation into her
relationship with a former jail
inmate who is now on the run,
wanted for the killing of a
Bandidos bikie gang leader.
Corrective Services confirmed
to the Herald that the prisons
internal affairs unit began an investigation into the parole officer
after it was revealed her involvement with the fugitive, 39-yearold Russell Oldham, was linked
to an internal split in the
Bandidos’ city branch, known as
the Uptown Chapter.
Last Thursday night, Oldham,
a former science and medicine
student, allegedly shot dead the
chapter’s president, Rodney
‘‘Hooks’’ Monk, 32, in a lane
near the Bar Reggio restaurant
in East Sydney.
Oldham is a former Bandidos
Russell Oldham . . . bikie gang
member still on the run.
national sergeant-at-arms, while
Monk was the brother of a senior
NSW police officer, Detective
Inspector Brad Monk.
But Oldham’s relationship with
his parole officer contravened
the gang’s rules. Monk and other
bikies had met him at the res-
taurant to tell him he was being
expelled from the club. Monk’s
killer fired three shots, two of
them hitting him in the head. A
police taskforce has been hunting for Oldham since.
Oldham was released on parole last year after serving six
years of a nine-year sentence
for the manslaughter of two
men shot dead in a Bankstown
house in 1998.
A condition of his parole was
that Oldham, who worked at the
Illinois Hotel at Five Dock, not
associate with any known criminal. It was beholden on his parole
officer to ensure this. The Herald
has learned that she tendered
her resignation on Monday.
Police are expected to provide
extra security at Monk’s funeral
in Sydney tomorrow. They will
post officers to control traffic and
escort several hundred bikies
among the mourners, including
members of other outlaw gangs.
Coast, was probably the only
person in Terrigal who did not
know the Light Horse was
coming to town.
In fact, he was thinking of
giving the dawn service a miss
for the first time in ‘‘donkey’s
years’’ until some of the
neighbourhood kids told him
on Sunday he was the object of
everybody’s affections and had
better start polishing his spurs.
The Australian Light Horse has
enjoyed a renaissance of a sort: it
is a popular feature of the
historical re-enactment units
and now there are about 1500
horsemen ready to ride across
Continued Page 6
‘‘I miss it so much’’ ... Sergeant
Morgan when he was 19.
Computer glitch wipes
out compo claims
Hunted bikie’s parole officer quits
Les Kennedy and
Kate McClymont
>> Photo gallery at smh.com.au
Australians injured
Ben Cubby
TWO Australians are among
more than 60 injured and
23 killed in a triple bomb
attack at a tourist strip in
the Egyptian Red Sea resort
of Dahab. Australian
witnesses described people
running from the blasts,
blood streaming from their
faces. Page 10
THOUSANDS of files on workers’
compensation cases have been lost
in a computer malfunction.
WorkCover, a public body which
investigates about 13,000 cases a
year, lost the files of ‘‘personal archive material’’ in the information
technology collapse on March 27.
WorkCover maintains that no
cases currently before the Workers
Compensation Commission, the
independent body that resolves
disputes, have been affected.
But the Minister for Commerce,
John Della Bosca, who did not
know of the problem until contacted by the Herald yesterday,
said WorkCover would be asked
to review its processes and make
sure back-ups were held in future.
Frantic efforts have restored
COLUMN 8 More – Page 20
What was the indescribable
racket that woke up the
entire lower North Shore at
5.30am on Monday? The
ferry Freshwater, with its
horn stuck on full blast at the
Quay for 10 long minutes.
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some of the lost information, but
in other cases records could be
restored only to September last
year, with everything filed since
having been lost.
In some cases, up to 40 or 45
per cent of the archival material
had been lost or irretrievably corrupted, a source within the organisation said.
‘‘Now we have a staff of 100
people running around like headless chooks,’’ the source said. ‘‘We
have lost a lot of separate bits of
information, like links in a chain
. . . it makes it very difficult.’’
A statement from the chief
executive officer of WorkCover,
Jon Blackwell, said that the
mainframe computer had not
been affected.
‘‘In excess of 90 per cent of the
Continued Page 5
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