The arrest of a doctor in at the Gold Coast Hospital, accused of being connected to the failed terror attacks in London and Glasgow, brings international terrorism a lot closer to home than it has ever been before for me. Of course, it’s front page news, and the fact that most of the (alleged) participants in these attacks were doctors is pretty disturbing. Not surprisingly, the hospital’s switchboard was jammed with calls.
Still, my impression is that most people here are taking it in their stride. The risk of being caught up in a terror attack is part of the background of modern life, along with other largely random risks like hit-and-run drivers and street thugs, to name just two. At a policy level, of course, these problems are very different, and require different responses. But as far as day to day life is concerned, it’s mainly a matter of getting on with it.
Update “Alleged” turns out to be the operative word. The case against the Brisbane doctor apparently turns on the fact that when police tried to interview him about his links to one of the British accused, they found him at the airport with a one-way ticket to India. But it appears he was going there to join his wife who had gone home a week or so earlier after having a baby.
John Quiggin 
One hopes they were better doctors than they were bombers.
Yeah, there was little panic in my Gold Coast office either. But of course the media swarmed around the hospital, sticking cameras in peoples faces and searching for quotable quotes:
“We’re worried now what’s in the hospital. It’s frightening really,” one visitor said.
What’s in the hospital, lady, is incompetent doctors and overworked staff on crap wages. And that really IS frightening!
Bob Brown is calling this “a wake up call”for the government:
“Maybe there’s a wake-up here to the Government, which has been very keen to bring in people who have more than a quarter of a million dollars. That will buy you a way straight into Australia, if you’ve got that in your back pocket, or with high skills, but they need to be no less vetted than the poorest person.”
I remember doing an Arts degree at Sydney Uni for $400 a year (mostly student fees). Maybe if our Unis were not in such a mess, we would not need to rely on cheap foreign doctors.
Maybe if our Unis were not in such a mess, we would not need to rely on cheap foreign doctors.
Nope. To understand the sorry state of Australian healthcare you need look no further than the virtual nationalization of the industry and the closed shop run by Australian specialists.
gandhi – youtotally misrepresent the cause of theshortage of doctors. It has nothing at all to do with the HECS system putting off students becoming Doctors. All Medicine course are generally fully enrolled and entry scores are generally the highet because of demand.
The structural problem is not enough training spots at either University or in Trainign Hospitalss. This is a complex issue involving many parties, themain ones being the Federal Government, State Governments, Universities and the Medical Profession.
“This is a complex issue involving many parties…”
Gosh, sounds like we need to declare a National Emergency!
Maybe we should – cut the Gorgian knot of entrenched interests of two of the strongest unions in the country – Academics and Medicos.
Right Razor. After that we can stuck into the state Law Societies, easily the strongest unions in the country. (The Academics union is completely lame in comparison, though of course there is some overlap.)
Peter,
I would agree. The legal profession runs a closed shop the powers of which the CFMEU would be in awe of.