From: brad@winnie.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Brad Alexander )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian
Subject: Oznews, 12th of April, 1992.
Date: 12 Apr 92 07:49:35 GMT

The main stories this Saturday concerned the results of the British election
and the predicted results of the Wills by-election. Since these articles 
were written the result at Wills has come through. The Independent candidate
,Mr Phil Cleary, has won. There was a large swing against both the Labor and 
Liberal parties...

               News from The Weekend Australian 11-4-92
"Hawke boosts Cleary, shocks ALP"- On the eve of the crucial Wills
by-election, former prime minister and local member Mr Bob Hawke has
boosted the chances of Left Independent Mr Phil Cleary taking the seat,
describing him as potentially a "good representative".
   Senior Labor strategists were last night incredulous when told of Mr
Hawke's comments. The undermine the appeal from the Prime Minister, Mr
Keating, that voters should support the ALP, not an Independent. 
   In remarks likely to outrage ALP members, Mr Hawke told Melbourne radio
station 3AW that Mr Cleary was a personable, articulate and presentable
candidate who offered "a real alternative for a lot of people".
---------

"Pensioner discounts face overhaul"- Pensioner discounts for travel, health
and household bills could be standardised by a federal-State plan to pool
$2 billion worth of concession payments into a national funding scheme.
  Officials told The Australian yesterday the existing arrangement, by
which each State decides what concessions it will offer, allowed some 
pensioners to claim double benefits and resulted in wasteful duplication.
  And the States have finally reached a funding agreement that will clear
the way for an extra 50,000 childcare places to be provided nationally.
  Federal and State ministers will consider both proposals at a meeting in
Sydney on Monday....
  The Federal Government gives aged pensioners, the disabled, the
unemployed and low-income earners a range of benefits, including discounts
on telephone bills, pharmaceuticals, hearing aids and national rail travel.
  The States give pensioners - usually the aged - discounts on electricity
and water bills, council rates, public transport, education, stamp duty,
land tax and motor vehicle registration...
---------

"Crean criticises monopoly plan for privatised wheat board"- The continued
monopoly that the Australian Wheat Board holds over wheat exports - the
last piece of assistance enjoyed by the industry - was not necessarily in
the nation's best interests, the federal Minister for Primary Industries,
Mr Crean, said yesterday.
  In responding to an industry proposal that would see the conversion of
the AWB into one of the nation's largest agri-bussiness companies, Mr Crean
indicated the restructuring of the grains industry - worth more than $3
billion in export income - was now inevitable. 
  But still he questioned various aspects of the radical industry proposal,
put forward by a working group consisting of farm leaders, AWB officials
and federal government bureaucrats, as did other financial and agricultural
interest groups.
  In particular, there was strong opposistion to the central plank of the
proposal - that the Federal Government give a private company, in the form
of a privatised wheat board owned and controlled by the grain growers,
monopoly export powers.....
  But the chairman of the working group, Mr Donald McGauchie, who is also 
vice-president of the Grains Council of Australia, strongly defended the
scheme. He agreed it was "unusual" for a private company to hold  a
government-backed export monopoly but said the world grain industry was
also "unusual".
--------
"Ambassador attacks inquiry"- Iran's ambassador to Australia has attacked
the Federal Government's response to the official inquiry into Monday's
attack at the Iranian embassy, saying diplomatic security should not be
determined simply by the presence of the ambassador. 
  Dr Mohammad-Hassan Ghadir Abianeh said yesterday that saftey of embassy
staff and their families should be assured at all times. 
  "The provision of security for the embassy and its staff is not subject
to the presence of the ambassador," said Dr Abianeh, who was in Sydney when
the embassy was attacked on Monday.
  "It is not even a matter of discussion. It must be carried out."
  The Government announced on Thursday that despite having investigated the
incident for three days, it was not able to pinpoint  what went wrong or 
who was to blame for the attack, which sent three embassy officials to
hospital and caused tens of thousands of dollars damage...

(So far eight people have been charged in connection with the incident. 
  The attack was part of a coordinated world-wide attack on Iranian
embassies by Iranian dissidents in retaliation for the Iranian bombing
of a reblel base in Iraq - Brad.)
---------

"Business fails to see migrants as key to Asia"- Local businessmen may be
missing out on huge opportunities in Asia by not joining up with the real
"quiet achievers" of Australian business - the migrant community.
  A study for the Federal Government has found that most businesses run by
migrants not only survived but prospered right through the recession, when
many established enterprises went to the wall.
  The study's authors said yesterday Australian Businesses were ignoring, or
even rejecting, the migrant business community as a fast track into the
most rapidly growing markets of the world.
  Many local producers could not be bothered about, or actually  thwarted,
efforts by migrant business to source products for export into Asia.
  Bureaucracies and producer authorities passed the buck when approached
for information on export opportunities. In many cases, the study's authors
said, migrants wanted to invest in productive, export-oriented businesses
but found obstacles and red tape so frustrating that they were forced to
invest in property instead.
---------

"Dawkins attacks whingeing expatriates"- The Treasurer, Mr Dawkins,
beleives a "rump" of the expatriate community in Hong Kong is doing
considerable damage to Australia's reputation in the region by promoting
outdated sterotypes of the economy "over their gin slings".
  Mr Dawkins took a number of opportunities yesterday to take a swipe at
what he believes is a group of Australians who, as local authorities on the
subject, continue to tell businessmen in the region that Australia is a
"high wage, low profit country, prone to industrial strikes".
  People who had not returned to Australia for some time continued to
describe it wrongly as a country "with high inflation, high tax to
discourage investors and a European outpost which does not seriously engage
in the region and which maintains vestiges of the Whit Australia policy",
he said...
  His comments come at a time when local trade officials are concerned
about Australia's reputation in the region and a string of negative
comments in the past year in influential publications such as the Far
Eastern Economic Review, which has, however, just published a more
favorable survey on Australia.

            News from "The Advertiser" (Adelaide) 11-4-92
"BHP oil-rig vessels in path of cyclone"- Darwin: Tropical cyclone Neville
was on a direct collision course with three BHP Petroleum oil production
facilities after the cyclone started moving again in the Timor Sea
yesterday. 
  A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said the still-powerful cyclone had
started moving slowly west-south-west towards the BHP vessels about 300km
away, late in the afternoon.
  He said the cyclone was moving very slowly but it was still rated as
a category three cyclone, generating wind gusts of up to 220km/h.
--------

"NT-Indo plans for trade"- Darwin: The Northern Territory and the
Indonesian Island of Sulawesi signed a trade agreement yesterday.
  Officials said it could pave the way for projects involving leather
products, activated carbon and cashew nuts.
--------

Brad Alexander