How do I use the current date in an HQL query with an Oracle database?

I'm trying to write this query using Hibernate 3 and Oracle 10.

from Alert alert
where alert.expiration > current_date()
order by alert.priority, alert.updated, alert.name

It's creating SQL like this -

Hibernate: select alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_ID as ANNOUNCE1_1_, alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENT
S_NAME as ANNOUNCE2_1_, alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_PRIORITY as ANNOUNCE3_1_, alert0_.
ANNOUNCEMENTS_EXPIRATION as ANNOUNCE4_1_, alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_UPDATE_DATE as A
NNOUNCE5_1_ from NYC311_ANNOUNCEMENTS alert0_ where (alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_EXPIR
ATION>current_date()) order by  alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_PRIORITY , alert0_.ANNOUNC
EMENTS_UPDATE_DATE , alert0_.ANNOUNCEMENTS_NAME

I'm getting all of these wacky errors like "missing right parenthesis" when there is apparently perfectly balanced parenthesis.

Why is Oracle freaking out at this? Is there a better way to write my HQL query?