The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 9

EDITORIALS, FEATURES 9 AGE Wednesday; July :19, 1972 it means freedom for some people who should have been convicted of motor car theft. In sorting out the legal and administrative tangle, the State Government should review the procedures by which it brings new laws into force and informs the police, the legal profession and the courts of their operation. One sensible course would be to require that all new laws become operative only after a proclamation fixing their date of commencement. Such a move would, as the Attorney--General (Sir George Reid) has said, have avoided the illegal uselarceny confusion. It is pleasing that Sir George has ordered an immediate examination of ways to improve communications between the makers and administrators of the law.

The hour of Australia, not. only in the slums but in the brick veneer belts, their report was restricted in its scope. Much more needs to be known before we can be satisfied that relief measures, particularly those offered a few months prior to a critical election, will get to the root causes of this complex problem. This was the point made by the Australian Council of Social Services in its call for a national inquiry into the whole field of social welfare in Australia two months ago. It was the point made also by the 18 Anglican bishops who have attacked Mr.

McMahon's decision not to inquire into poverty. As the group's spokesman, Archbishop Sambell, of Perth, said at the weekend: "Unless the country has an objective study of the scope and causes of poverty, we cannot be satisfied with any ad hoc welfare measures the Federal Government may Budget relief for those trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and underprivilege is, of course, not to be despised. But in these days of high inflation, its effect will at best be temporary. What is needed is what the Government seemed to be promising two months ago, but has now rejected: a full-scale inquiry which would set out the extent of the problem and the various cures that might be applied. Mr.

McMahon's decision is shortsighted. We regret it. the milking rhythm of their cows; the TV stations found that people stayed away in droves from their early evening programmes. These were, at most, minority objections. For the rest of the community the extra hour of sunlight after work was a decided boon.

Even' Sir Henry Bolte, who was cool about the scheme at first, became a convert, Now the hour of reckoning has come. On Friday State and Federal Ministers will meet in Sydney to decide whether to repeat the experiment next summer. We would be delighted to report that the meeting was a mere formality, and that an affirmative decision could be expected from everyone. Unfortunately, this is not the case. South Australia and the three eastern States New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania seem likely to vote in favor of a repetition of the Western Australia still has doubts, however, while Queensland is even more doubtful.

The Queensland Premier (Mr. Bjelke-Petersen) has bowed to Country Party pressure and -declared his opposition to the plan. But he has still to win his coalition partners over to the same view. If either of these States chooses to remain the odd man out, that is its affair. -It is certainly no reason for people in the other States to be inconvenienced or for the scheme to be abandoned.

Daylight saving, in our view, has proved itself. If anything, it should be made an annual fixture. Illegal use of obsolete laws THE State Government has made a prompt and proper response to the disclosure that a significant number of Victorians are in gaol for the non-existent offence of illegally using cars. After an urgent it has ordered the immediate release of 11 prisoners and is still checking the files of many others. All of the prisoners affected had been gaoled since May 13, the day on which the illegal use charge was superseded by the charge of larceny.

The fact that they were gaoled at all suggests that the Government seriously bungled the introduction of its new laws relating to motor car theft. Regardless of their guilt or innocence, the Government had no option but to release the prisoners. To gaol people for breaches of nonexistent laws is completely contrary to the spirit of our legal system. It is beside the to argue, as the Acting Attorney-General has argued, that nobody suffered because the ingredients of the new and old offences were identical. The important point is that justice must appear to be done, even if Why no probe into poverty? AFTER two months of foding silence frqm the Federal Government, the truth is out: there will be no national inquiry into poverty.

The Minister for Social Services (Mr-Wentworth) has repeatedly said that some aspects of poverty should be investigated "in Churchmen, social workers and social welfare agencies have gone farther and called for a full-scale probe. Perhaps from fear of public criticism of shortcomings in the social welfare field, the Prime Minister has decided the subject does not bear investigation. Instead, he says, "we will do what we think is right in the Budget itself in order to help this type of How will Mr. McMahon go about deciding what is right, for Australia's poor? Some research has been done on the subject in particular, the disturbing "People in Poverty" report prepared by Professor Ronald Henderson and his team at the Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research. While they established beyond all question that poverty is a serious' contemporary problem in reckoning AUSTRALIANS in the eastern States saw the light last summer, and liked it.

For four months they basked in an extra hour of sunlight in the evening, thanks to daylight saving. A few mothers complained that their children could not be bedded down; some farmers complained that daylight saying upset for the sexual delinquents: is it the of 1984? iMINDAIIIIIK Madness of fear, hatred and lawlessness in Mindanao as Moslem fights Promis meets Religious war rips an island asunder hormone Injections iiTfT'HEN a man' cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." "Thus the agonised cleric in the film Clockwork Orange, when he sees that a course of aversion therapy has rendered Alex, his once-vicious protege, incapable of violence. Some say it 'is the key point in the i Others, today, are saying it is the key point raised against the innovative therapies being administered by the psychiatric superintendent at the Children's Court' Clinic (Dr. Lionel Chatz). Dr.

Chatz announced in February this year that for three years he had been administering female hormone injections to aggressive male sex offenders in an effort to reduce their sexual drive. Then, the other day, he announced that six girls, all of them 16 or 1 17 years, and all of them -described as J'very had been injected with a long-term contraceptive at the Children's Court Clinic. The therapies have echoes of both; Orwell and Huxley about them, i Orwell might have foreseen a world in which citizens with antisocial drives were chemically or mentally "de-natured" and came to love Big Brother. Huxley might have seen a world where citizens were free to indulge their-fleshly lusts by the removal of what society now regards as "the Both of Dr. Chatz's experimental solutions chemical suppression of the sexual urge- in the male and chemical suppression of fertility in the female raise entirely different sets of questions.

But one question is common to both, and that is: choice. In neither case with the males and the females has there been compulsion. The males agreed to the injections on the grounds that they desperately wanted to i control their hitherto uncontrollable sexual urge. The females and their parents agreed to the contraceptive Injections as a means of softening or reducing the consequences of their genuinely (demonstrably) uncontrollable sexual promiscuity- So there was a choice. The objection is that this one choice has decided not1 one, but literally hundreds of smaller choices which would 'otherwise have had to be made.

That is, this one choice, made The contraceptive was recommended only where the clinic had been unable to break what he calls their "intercourse and the injections were a completely practical measure to ensure that the girls' already disturbed lives and minds were not further complicated by unwanted pregnancy, abortion attempts, unwanted children. Nor did it mean that the other attempts to rehabilitate them were abandoned. The injection was still only part of a rehabilitative programme which continued indefinitely. The contraceptive used was freely available in Australia as a drug and had been used in Australia for several years, at 25 times the dose Dr. Chatz administers, in the treatment of hormone- dependent cancers in women.

(By replacing the natural hormone with a synthetic one a hormone-dependent cancer can be literally starved to death.) It contained no oestrogen and therefore was less of a clotting risk than most oral contraceptives. There had been no breakthrough bleeding in his patients, although medical literature suggests there should be about the same amount as with normal oral contraceptives. Fertility usually returned within a matter of months after the six months of the dose had expired. Unlike the youths already dis- cussed, the girls are not policed or sent back to an institution if they do not renew their injection at the end of six months. Dr.

Chatz said their treatment was free of all compulsion. But still the echoes of 1984, Brave New World and Clockwork Orange persist. Why? Ask a psychiatrist. "People today are tending more and more to give in to temptation, forgetting the necessity to struggle with themselves, so they become upset if they see someone trying to reinforce someone else's struggle, whether it is with drugs or anything else. "But in fact all of us are reinforced in our struggle not to give in we are reinforced by the law, policemen, our friends, jobs.

"In the case of Dr. Chatz's patients these external supports or reinforcements are being taken further than usual to deal with exceptional cases. "The reason for much of the fuss surrounding Dr. Chatz's programme is that it has to do with sex the fact that these things touch on sex make them much more contentious than they would be otherwise." Perhaps Kubrick would not have had a film If author Anthony Burgess had put the vicious Alex and his gang of droogs on the Pill. From 44T HAVE seen some, of my people- with thelrifingers, ears; breasts and other parts of their bodies cut The speaker was referring to the creeping social cancer on Mindanao probably the richest island in the whole of the Philippine archipelago.

in terms of natural resources and potential for economic development. Some have called it a religious war because rival bands of tians and Mqslems have been making mayhem. One thing is certain The violence has polarised the Christian and Moslem communities and created a climate of fear, hatred and lawlessness that is going to be very difficult to lull. In greater Manila, the shock-waves of communal conflict- in the southern Philippines are aired with increasing intensity these days. In Congress and in the press, charge and counter-charge are hurled about.

Moderates propose peace plans. But the fighting still continues unabated. fNE indication of the madness gripping parts of Mindanao is the death toll. According to Government figures, more ihan 1600 people more than half of them Moslems have been killed in clashes on the island since early last year. Hundreds of others have been injured.

There have been some horrible incidents, On June 19 last year, at least 65 Moslems, including 13 children and 29 women, were massacred in Manilili village in the Carmen district of Cotabato province. Nearly all the victims were waiting inside a mosque for a scheduled peace Conference between the warring communities when armed men believed to be members of the extremist Brave New World cure without sex suppression his assaultive, sexuality seemed so intense that detention in a locked security building would have been essential "He was prescribed intermit-, tent bursts of oestrogen deriva-" tives for 20 months, of which the latter 12 months were spent in a hostel and working in the community under intramuscular depot oestrogen (i.e., hormone injection) cover." The report states that there was a marked reduction in sexual drive and no inclination towards heterosexual experience. During the time of sex suppression he matured somewhat mentally and developed improved control over his sexual drives. During this time he received as they all do mental and supportive social therapy. The hormone therapy was gradually reduced and finally stopped.

The cost savings are considerable. Institutionalisation of a sex offender or any other offender-costs the State about $50 a week. The average time young male offenders spend in an institution is four months, at a cost of around $800 to the community. By comparison, four months of the Chatz therapy costs about $24 and permits the patient to function as a relatively normal member of the community. Dr.

Chatz's treatment of uncontrollably promiscuous girls of 16 and 17, also referred to the clinic by the Children's Court, raises the more obvious moral question of contraception. Which cannot be resolved here. The girls are different from the boys in that they would not necessarily be confined to an institution if they were not taking the contraceptive injections. Dr. Chatz says that he is again reluctant to inject anyone with a long-term contraceptive and that the decision to do so with the patients' consent only followed after exhaustive attempts to rehabilitate the girls by other methods.

"Aetuolly, I'm nor too entity the SULU SEA Uth in, Borneo BV su MICHAEL RICHARDSON, in Christian- group known as llagas (or Rats) stormed in the and gunned, them down. The scope of the violence has been steadily growing since early last year. It started in Cotabato, then spread to Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, spilling over into adjacent Bukidnon province towards the end of the year. Recently there has' been a series of bloody encounters in Zamboanga del Sur. Roving bands of Moslem Barracudas reportedly travelling by mot'oriscd outriggers from islands in the Sulu chain to the south-west have struck at coastal villages and towns.

Early this for example, Barracuda raiders entered the town Of Dimataling. hacked the Christian mayor to death and killed two policemen and six soldiers. The Defence Department says that at least 67 Christians have been killed in these raids in Zamboanga del Sur since June 28. thief of the Philippines constabulary (Brigadier-General Fidel V. Ramos) reported last week after a tour of the province that six municipalities had been largely deserted because of the hostilities.

The pattern is one of an es-: caiatlng vendetta as one massacre or burning of a village and crops is met with retaliatory violence. Thousands of people have become refugees. The Moslems retreat Into the predominantly Islamic provinces of Lanao del Sur and Cotabato. The Christians seek haven with their co-religionists in South Cotabato, Lanao del Norte, Misamis Occidental and Zamboanga del Sur. The causes of the strife in Mindanao are complex.

But basically it is the problem of a minority that feels itself threatened, neglected and subject to discrimination. In Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, the Moslems number about two and a half million: the Christian population, mainly Roman Catholic, is estimated at around seven million. The Moslems who are of Malay stock like the rest of the Filipinos have been warding off Christian encroachment since the Spaniards started the process of colonisation in the 16th century. But mass migration a substantial part of it Government-sponsored of Christian Filipinos from the overcrowded central and northern islands, particularly in the past 25 years, has generated critical tensions between the two communities. These have surfaced in land ownership disputes, economic rivalry and, lately, in religious and cultural differences.

Pressure on a limited amount of land underlies a great deal of the friction. Politics has aggravated the situation. Struggles between local political dynasties and their armed henchmen have led to appeals for support on the basis CELEBES SKA Manila of religious allegiance and dispensation of favors on the same grounds. In its oratory at least, the Central Government recognises the need to adopt policies to help Moslems secure a better hold on land, capital and other economic resources. The problem is a difficult one, but in general Government efforts to come to grips with it have been both fitful and fragmented.

The llagas, Barracudas and other bands of sectarian toughs claim to1 have started their activities in sell-defence. The Moslems in particular allege that the armed forces and constabulary have repeatedly sided with the Christians. There is no shortage of suggested solutions to the trouble. Mayor Reuben R. Canoy of Cagayan de Oro city in northern Mindanao whom some observers see as a budding national leader has urged creation of a peace commission whose eight members would be drawn equally from the most respected elements of the local Moslem and Christian populations.

He says the commission should be given a free hand by President Marcos to prepare plans to restore peace in Mindanao and total Administration support to carry them out, Under the Canoy plan, military forces and all Government agencies now operating in Mindanao and Sulu would be placed under the control of the commission. Unless effective action is taken, this festering communal strife could develop into full-scale civil war. EGYPT'S Under Secretary of 1J State of Foreign Affairs (Ambassador Mohammad Hassan el Arrousy), who led a four-member point Libyan-Egyptian delegation in Mindanao and Sulu this month to investigate the Moslems, warned in Cairo last Thursday that the situation carried the seeds of a religious war. This would almost certainly impel -the neighboring Islamic States of Indonesia and Malaysia to take more critical notice of affairs in the southern There is also a secessionist organisation in the area the Mindanao (formerly Moslem) Independence Movement. The MIM was launched in May, 1968, by Dato Udtog Matalam, an ex-governor of Cotabato, to agitate for the establishment of an independent Islamic republic comprising Mindanao, Palawan Island and the Sulu group.

Traditionally, the Moslem minority has been prey to all kinds of internecine faction fighting within and between the main tribes the Maguidanaos of Cotabato, the Maranaos of Lanao and the Tausugs and Samals of Sulu. If the conflict with the Christians continues, the MIM or a similar movement could attract much greater support. NT when temptation was not threatening, has deprived these individuals of their right (or human duty) to face the hundreds of temptations which would normally occur in their day-to-day life. In effect, the decision to take a course of injections denies them the human dignity of having to face and overcome (or not overcome) temptation. How then does Dr.

Chatz see it? "I regard these treatments as meeting delinquency in the seventies with the tools of the seventies," he says. "This is the first time in the world a long-acting oestrogen injection has been used with highly assaultive male sex offenders. "It is also the first time in Australia that these long-term injections have been used as a contraceptive measure in promiscuous girls referred to a clinic by a children's court. "In the case of the boys who' are referred to the clinic by the Children's Court the only ones treated thus are the highly assaultive ones and for them it is a question of whether they are to be incarcerated for a time in an institution, or allowed out into the community. "Nothing is done without the consent of the boys and their parents, although there is of course this subtle form of compulsion to take the treatment because the alternative is to lose their freedom.

"I am reluctant to exert even this sort of pressure on them the same as I am reluctant to inject female hormones into a male but 1 like even less the idea of them being locked up." CARLTON OFFICE BUILOIHO By ROGER ALDRIDGE Dr. Lionel Chatz he says he is "meeting delinquency in the '70s with the tools of the Dr. Chatz describes the hormone treatment as a "stop-gap saying that it is tapered off as the patient matures and his adult ability to control his sexual drive increases. In other words, it gives the patient's mind time to catch up with his body. "The basic situation is that these boys are locked up have been for months their liberty is denied them and understandably they want to get out into the community again," Dr.

Chatz explains. "The treatment is discussed with them and with their parents and if agreement is reached the boy is put on a course of the injections in combination with an oral hormone dosage. "He remains in the institution until it is ascertained whether his sex drive has been adequately reduced. After it is decided that' sexual drive has been greatly reduced it usually is a decision is reached about his release back Into the community under supervised circumstances and maintained medication." rpHIS involves a fortnightly in- jection of the hormone. If the boy does not turn up for his injection he is sought and found and returned to the institution.

The hormone reduces drastically the boy's Interest in sex, his desire for gratification and his interest in the opposite sex. He often becomes less positive, less assaultive, more wishy-washy. The only side-effect Dr. Chatz says he has experienced has. been in some small breast enlargement.

This is not only reversible, but can be controlled by varying the dosage to make the hormone's administration more erratic, less chronic. A clinical illustration from the doctor's records reads: "A physically healthy 13-year-old youth of average intelligence and marked educational retardation committed two major sex assaults on female children resulting in their serious physical injury. He came from a family in conflict and his personality showed many psychopathic traits. RINGWOOD EAST Rich Mountain Vlawt 2 Tintern School utility room and UMement gmi 4h AUCTION JULY 29th AT 11.30 l.m. 7 Rex Court Opn tor Inipeetlon 3-4 P.m., Wed.

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