From: brad@winnie.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Brad Alexander )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian
Subject: Oznews, Tuesday the 10th of November, 1992
Date: 11 Nov 1992 00:44:19 GMT
Organization: The University of Adelaide
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: winnie.cs.adelaide.edu.au

I was away over the weekend so this weeks news is late but its from
Tuesday's paper. The strike in Victoria yesterday involved just under
half-a-million workers. The protest rally in Melbourne was estimated ,by
police, to have attracted over 100,000 people (a much larger turnout than
expected by organisers).

                   News from "The Australian" 10-11-92
                   -----------------------------------                   
"Strike just the start vows ACTU"- Today's strike by up to a million
Victorian workers against the Kennet government's industrial relations
reforms was only the start of a national campaign of rolling stoppages
against similar changes planned by the Federal Coalition, the ACTU
declared last night.
  An assistant secretary of the ACTU, Ms Jennie George, said key sectors,
including the airline industry, would be targeted to ensure the Hewson
Opposition knew workers would not allow their conditions to be whittled
away...
  Today's strike, to be accompanied by a rally outside the Victorian
Parliament, will affect schools, hospitals and shops, as well as throwing
airline schedules into chaos. 
  Qantas has cancelled all flights into and out of Melbourne, affecting
about 1900 international passengers. Domestic air travellers also face
delays.
  The Premier of Victoria, Mr Kennett, said today's strike would fail
because the Government remained determined to implement its radical
industrial relations legislation regardless of how many people protested
outside Parliament. 
  The Kennet Cabinet earlier yesterday endorsed a package of amendments
to the Employee Relations Bill, ensuring that penalty rates and existing
award conditions can be rolled over into new employment contracts to be
introduced from March 1 next year...
  The secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Mr John Halfpenny,
dismissed the changes as cosmetic and said they would not diminish
workers' outrage at the plans, particularly the decision to scrap the
17.5 per cent holiday leave loading for people on State awards.
  Mr Halfpenny and Ms George said the industrial campaign would continue
until Mr Kennett was prepared to negotiate directly with unions...
-----------

"Surge in support gives Labor an election-winning lead"- Support for
federal Labor has jumped dramatically, giving the Keating Government an
election winning lead of four percentage points over the Hewson
Opposition.
  The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for the Australian, shows
primary support for the Keating Government has surged eight percentage
points over the last fortnight to 45 per cent. 
  By contrast the primary vote of the federal Coalition has slumped eight
percentage points to 41 per cent. 
  The poll, conducted last weekend, is the first national poll taken
since the Victorian Coaliton Government moved to abolish penalty rates
and annual leave loadings as part of sweeping changes to the industrial
relations arena.
  It registers Labor's highest level of support since May 1989 and marks
the first time the ALP has been ahead of the Coalition in voter support
since just before the last federal election in March 1990.
  On the Newspoll figures, subject to a 2 per cent statistical sampling
error, Labor would win an election now handsomely.
  But senior ALP strategists cautioned last night that Labor support in
the key States of Western Australia and South Australia remained "soft"
and the Government was still not in a position to win an election held
now...
-----------

"Cabinet row looms over revamped forest policy"- Federal Cabinet will
soon consider a revamped version of resource security for the forestry
industry - a policy the Minister for the Environment, Mrs Kelly, and the
ALP left succeeded in having dumped in April.
  The new version is being championed by State governments in
inter-governmental negotiations for the national forest policy strategy,
which was promised by former prime minister Mr Bob Hawke in the 1990
election campaign. 
  Parts of the States' proposals are understood to have the support of
the Minister for Resources, Mr Griffiths. But the new moves are opposed
by Mrs Kelly. 
  Cabinet will decide on the issue in time for it to be finalised at the
special premiers conference in Perth early next month.
  If the Federal Government rejects the backdoor resources security,
which is now called "legally enforcable forestry agreements", it runs the
risk that some States will walk away from the Strategy and claim that the
Federal Government had disregard for forest industry jobs. 
  But supporting the move would incure the wrath of the conservation
movement in the lead-up to the environment statement by the Prime
Minister, Mr Keating...
-----------

"Election will be GST referendum - Keating"- The federal election would
be centred so firmly on taxation it would turn into "a referendum on the
GST", the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, told Parliament yesterday.
  Moving to try to score points from his surprise announcement last week
that a Labor Opposition would not block the goods and services tax in the
Senate, Mr Keating accused the Opposition of trying to hide from its own
tax policy.
  Mr Keating's rationale for his decision, announced both publicly and to
his shocked party during Question Time last Thursday, was to make more
stark the differences between the two parties on taxation policy.
  His aim was to remove any possibility that voters might put the
Coalition and its leader, Dr Hewson, into government in the belief that
by also voting for a Labor-dominated Senate they could avoid the new tax.
  "As much as the next election can be fought on a single issue, we want
to get it down to a single point," Mr Keating said yesterday. 
  "We want it to be a referendum on the GST - that is those who want one,
vote for John Hewson; those who do not, vote for me and the Labor Party.
It is as simple as that"...
   Mr Keating is likely to be called on to explain his decision not to
block the GST at today's ALP Caucus meeting...
----------

"Retail sales fall counters growth forecast"- A fall in retail sales
during the September quarter has raised new questions about Budget growth
forecasts  and yesterday prompted many private sector forecasters to
lower their estimates for economic growth in the quarter. 
  The release of figures showing a 0.3 per cent fall in retail sales (in
constant price terms) during the June quarter helps put the economy back
at the centre of the political stage, with the release of unemployment
figures on Thursday widely expected to show unemployment jumping back
above 11 per cent. 
  They also took the edge of the small amount of good news contained in
the ANZ job advertisment figures, also released yesterday.
  The ANZ Bank said its employment advertisment series rose 1.6 per cent
in October, the third consecutive month of modest increases. 
  But the bank warned that while the job advertisments suggested the
labour market had "steadied", "the tentative nature of the pickup is
insufficient to suggest unemployment will fall quickly".
  Yesterday's retail sales figures raise questions about the level of
economic growth likely to be reflected in the September quarter national
accounts data due for release in early December, and therefore the
likelihood of the Government meeting its forecast of 3 per cent growth
this financial year...
-----------

"Hunger strikers to be force-fed" - Officials would force-feed three
Cambodian refugees in Sydney who were on a hunger strike in a bid to
avoid being deported, the Minister for Immigration, Mr Hand, said
yesterday.
  The move came as the Federal Government told angry human rights
activists that none of the 113 Chinese boat people deported from
Christmas Island on Saturday had sought refugee status here.
  Mr Hand said three Cambodian women in Sydney - one of whom is in a more
serious condition than the others - would be force-fed "in the near
future" and that special regulations had been brought in to enable this.
  The women arrived by boat in Australia three years ago and began their
protest two months ago...
-----------

"Women face DNA tests over baby boy" - Two Queensland women charged with
organising a surrogate birth face DNA testing to determine whether one of
them is the mother of a boy born on September 13.
  The two women, aged 39 and 34, appeared in Ispwich Magistrates Court
yesterday charged with arranging a surrogate birth and falsifying a birth
certificate. 
  The first charge under the State's 1988 Surrogate Parenthood Act and
the second is under the criminal code.
  It is the second case before the courts concerning the Act. Surrogate
pregnancy transactions are also outlawed in Victoria and South
Australia...
----------

"ABC rejects basis of Fightbacks $56m in cuts" - Plans by a federal
Coalition government to pare $56 million from the ABC's budget would be
impossible to absorb without significant impairment of program quantity,
quality, and staffing levels, the national broadcaster claimed yesterday.
  In a 38-page document, the ABC says the corporation has "now exhausted
the opportunities for further substantial savings" and has no remaining
"fat" in its system to cut. 
  The document, the product of almost four months work by corporation
managment, is the broadcaster's offical response to the plans outlined in
Fightback. 
  The response, sent last week to the Leader of the Opposition, Dr
Hewson, and the Coalitions spokesman on communications, Mr Warwick Smith,
claims that during the past five years the ABC has had its funding
reduced by $120 million in real terms. It says 1000 staff positions, 15
per cent, have - or will be - lost because of budget decreases...
  If the paper was aimed at inducing sympathy from the Coalition it
appeared already last night that it had failed. 
  Mr Smith said in Canberra that from a first, quick reading the document
was "predictable" and extremely unlikely to change the Coalition's mind
about corporation funding....
-----------
Brad Alexander