From: brad@eeyore.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Brad Alexander )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian
Subject: Oznews, 21st and 23rd of November, 1992
Date: 24 Nov 1992 01:40:32 GMT
Organization: The University of Adelaide
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: eeyore.cs.adelaide.edu.au

Fair bit of news this week ...

               News from "The Australian" 23-11-92
               -----------------------------------
"GATT deal a $1bn boost for farmers" - The breakthroug in international
trade talks at the weekend could be worth $1 billion a year to the economy
and significantly boost the ailing farm sector, the Federal Government said
yesterday. 
  But France could still scuttle a successful outcome of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks, after the dramatic breakthrough on
agriculture subsidies reached between the United States and the European
Community on Saturday...
  The Prime Minister, Mr Keating, told a press conference in Canberra: "This
is the best news for Australia in a decade, easily, in terms of
international trade ... it's a great confidence booster to world
confidence." ... 
  The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator Evans, said estimates
of the benefit to Australia varied but "it's not too extravagant to say
about $1 billion a year in the not too much distant future"...
  The president of the National Farmers Federation, Mr Graham Blight,
estimated that the deal could boost farm incomes by $500 million a year...
-------------

"Ray's Vietnam defence plan outrages veterans" - The Minister for Defence,
Senator Ray, infuriated Vietnam veterans and the Returned Services League
yesterday by saying Australia would consider defence cooperation with
Vietnam within 10 years.
  The comments - which came less than two months after his controversial
enhancement of military links with another former enemy, Japan - were
criticised last night by former veterans as both insensitive and premature.
  Senator Ray unexpectedly flagged the possibility of defence co-operation
with both Vietnam and Cambodia at a defence seminar in Melbourne yesterday..
-------------

"Cabinet poised to lift armed force ban on gays" - Federal Cabinet is today
expected to lift the ban on homosexuals in the Australian Defence Force,
despite warnings by the Minister for Defence, Senator Ray, that the decision
could have a serious impact on the morale of ADF members.
  It is understood that the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, supports the lifting
of the ban and has the backing of the majority of Cabinet, with the
exception of Senator Ray and the former minister for defence and now
minister for Education and Training, Mr Beazley...
-------------

"Reith vows to retain GST on food" - The Coalition "would not even
contemplate" removing the goods and services tax from food and the GST is
not impeding the Opposition's electoral populartity, the Opposition shadow
treasurer, Mr Peter Reith, said yesterday.
  Church and Welfare groups have called for food exemption in the past, but
pressure for modifications to the GST policy from within the Coalition
increased last week after it was shown to be trailing the Government in a
series of opinion polls.
  Mr Reith told "The Australian" yesterday that the Coalition had not, and
would not, revisit the decision it made during the formulation of Fightback,
that food would not be exempted.
  He said the drop in the polls came from Victoria, where the Kennett
Government's industrial changes were attracting "a lot of debate"...
-------------

               News from "The Weekend Australian" 21-11-92
               -------------------------------------------
"Dawkins warned of debt blowout" - Federal Treasury has told the Treasurer,
Mr Dawkins, it fears economic reform is not progressing quickly enough and
the economy may not be competitive enough to avoid a balance of payments
blow-out when recovery occurs.
  The department also has expressed concern the Government's committment to
balance the budget by the mid-1990's has weakned. 
  Treasury's views on the pace of micro-economic reform, particularly in
government bussiness enterprises, and on the governments fiscal position
were put at meetings between Mr Dawkins and his senior departmental officers
over the past three weeks.
  News of the meetings comes a day after the Prime Minister, Mr Keating,
claimed the micro-economic reform agenda had been mostly completed. He also
played down the importance of the Budget being returned from deficit to
surplus in the next few years.
  "Since when do we have to go back to surpluses? Since when are they holy
writ," he said on ABC-TV on Thursday ...
-------------

"Wages take historic dive" - Workers are receiving their smallest pay rises
in at least a generation with wages growing by less than 1 per cent for the
first time on record in the year to September. 
  Official figures released yesterday confirmed a dramatic slide in wages
growth as the economy inches out of recession with pay packets now barely
keeping touch with the nation's low inflation rate of 0.8 per cent.
  Overall, wages stood still in September and were just 0.9 per cent higher
than the same month a year earlier. 
  This slashed the previous month's record when wages edged up by just 1.9
per cent in the year to August. 
  Until then the Australian Bureau of Statistics had recorded annual wage
rises of at least 2 per cent through the awards system in any given 12-month
period...
-------------

"Bond may pursue compo for jail term" - Alan Bond said yesterday he would
consider seeking compensation for the 90 days he served in prison after
being aquitted during a retrial in Perth District Court this week.
  Bond was convicted and sentenced to 2 1/2 years' jail in May after he was
found guilty of dishonestly concealing from fellow businessman Mr Brian
Coppin that Bond Corp Holdings Ltd would receive a $16 million fee for its
role in the rescue of Laurie Connell's  Rothwell's Ltd in October 1987.
  He served three months of his sentence at the Wooroloo Prison Farm before
the conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered following fresh allegations
at an Appeal Court hearing that Connell had deliberately lied at Bond's
original trial...
------------

"Police sorry over bashing" - The West Australian acting police
commissioner, Mr Frank Zanetti, yesterday publicly apologised to the family
of Joseph Dethridge, the youth bashed senseless by a police sergent in May.
  Mr Zanetti said the commissioner, Mr Brian Bull, and the rest of the
police force were "disgusted and embarassed" by the incident.
  The bashing which left Joeseph Dethridge, 17, with a broken jaw was
recorded on a police station surveillance videotape and the officer
responisble, Sergeant Desmond Smith, was last week convicted of assaulting
the boy. Sergeant Smith was fined $5000,. Mr Bull will decide next week if
Sergeant Smith should be dismissed. 
-------------

"Police let PM off the Hook over $5 note" - Police have dropped an
investigation into whether the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, committed a
criminal offence by signing tow $5 notes for a Swedish artist.
  The commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Mr Peter McAulay, said
yesterday he had decided not to proceed with the investigation because -
among other reasons - of the apparent lack of intent to commit a crime and
the comparitive trivialty of the offence....
------------

"Brown threatens workers" - Victoria's Minister for Transport, Mr Brown, has
savagely attacked the union movement over the 24-hour strike that brought
the State's public transport to a standstill yesterday, and warned it would
shut down the system if faced with a snap strike or if public safety were
threatened. 
   In a hardline response to the statewide strike, Mr Brown made it clear
the Government would use further snap industrial action as a pretext to
accelerate its planned reforms of the system. 
   Mr Brown's threat came as the Minister for Education, Mr Hayward,
announced the closure of 55 State primary and secondary schools and
redundancy for almost 7000 teachers, administration staff nad school
cleaners - moves aimed at cutting $86 million from the education budget this
year. 
   Mr Brown said the Government's reforms would be introduced "come hell or
high water", and further "bloody-minded" union action would force closure of
the system. 
  The Government said the strike by 18,000 public transport workers had cost
the business about $20 million.
-------------

               News from "The Advertiser" 21-11-92
               -----------------------------------
"I'll quit, Speaker threatens" - The Independent Labor MP, Mr Norm Peterson,
has threatened to resign as Speaker of the House of Assembly if the
Opposition moves a vote of no-confidence against him.
  He says if he quits he will nominate an Opposition member as his
replacement. That would give the Labor Coalition Government a clear majority
on the floor of the House...
  While the Government would be unlikely to accept such a move, Mr
Perterson's comments last night mark an escalation in the war of attrition
being waged against Mr Peterson over his response to the first report of the
State Bank Royal Commission. 
  The long-awaited report condemned the Government for failing to spot the
many warning signs which finally led to the bank's $3.1 billion debt.
  Mr Peterson admitted on Thursday he had read only the nine-page summary of
findings from the 475-page report before voting with Government to defeat a
vote of no-confidence...
-------------

"Iranian loses battle" - Melbourne: An Iranian who claims he will be
executed as an army deserter if he  returns home has lost a last-ditch High
Court bid to stay in Australia.
  Mr Jaffer Heshmaty, 31, who has spent three years in custody after
arriving with a false passport on a Singapore Airlines flight into
Melbourne, is likely to be deported early next week.
--------------

Brad Alexander