From: brad@winnie.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Brad Alexander )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian
Subject: Bumper, Budget edition oznews, 17th of August, 1992
Date: 19 Aug 92 08:35:55 GMT


             News from "The Australian" Monday 17-8-92
             -----------------------------------------
"Willis shelves deficit pledge"- On the eve of tomorrow's federal budget,
the Minister for Finance, Mr Willis, has signalled the Government will
defer its commitment to return the Budget to surplus by 1995-96 and has
refused to rule out changes to the delivery of tax cuts worth $8.6 billion.
  Mr Willis's comments reflect the impossibility of Labor meeting both its
surplus and tax cut pledges in the face of sharply reduced growth and a
blow-out in the starting point deficit to more than $13 billion. 
  Mr Willis confirmed that the budget forecasts would put growth over the
next year at around 3.5 per cent, dramatically down on the 4.75 per cent in
the One Nation statement in February. 
  "It's obviously more difficult to get back into surplus by the middle of
the decade than was thought at the time of One Nation," Mr Willis told the
Nine Network's Sunday program...
-------

"Kirner's green policy draws flak"- The Kirner Government has risked a
damaging backlash from the forestry industry and unions by supporting
establishment of a controversial national park, and a decision aimed at
shoring up the green vote before the October 3 state election. 
  The Premier, Ms Kirner, released the ALP's environment policy yesterday,
with its main plank the promise to create two national parks, including a
park in the Central Highlands...
--------

"The size of Australia's government business enterprises has grown strongly
in the past few years, despite privatisation drives and State bank losses,
according to a new study by the Economic Planning and Advisory Council.
  However, EPAC says while the sector grew in importance, it shed about
34,000 jobs and, as a result, boosted its productivity levels more sharply
than the private sector. 
  The EPAC paper - Profitability and Productivity of Government Bussiness
Enterprises - says GBE's in Australia have remained responsible for about
10 per cent of gross domestic product in recent years. 
  The size of the sector is larger than in the United States and Britain
but smaller than in most West European nations. 
  Privatisation is yet to have any marked impact on the size of the sector
in Australia. 

           News from "The Australian" Wednesday 19-8-92
           --------------------------------------------
"Jobs now but taxes later"-The Keating Government has pinned its
re-election hopes on a two-year, $1.2 billion Budget employment package
that seeks to meet the economic and political threat of 11 per cent
unemployment by creating 800,000 more jobs by 1996. 
  But the employment spending, which will push the 1992-93 Budget deficit
out to $13.4 billion from $9.3 billion, will not be matched by growth
robust enough to cut unemployment to below 10 per cent by the next
election.
  An expansion of the taxation base, particuarly the imposition of new
business taxes, will be necessary to restore the Budget to surplus by
1995-96.
  In his first Budget , delivered last night, the Treasurer, Mr Dawkins,
increased a number of taxes to pay for Labor's jobs package and forshadowed
possible further increase in bussiness taxes to meet the One Nation
commitment... 
---------

"Workers silence the House"- Construction workers employed by the
Tasmainian Government, who were told in last week's Liberal State Budget
they would be sacked, stopped a sitting of State Parliament yesterday when
they hurled interjections at the Government from the public gallery.
  About 50 men and woment filled the gallery to accuse the Premier, Mr
Groom, of lying to the electorate in the Februrary election campaign when
he said any reduction in the government workforce would be achieved by
natural attrition...
---------

"SPC staff win bonus for profits"- The nation's largest fruit cannery, SPC,
as agreed to pay workers minimum pay rises of $25 a week plus a share of
productivity improvements under a ground breaking enterprise agreement. 
  The company, which was at the centre of a bitter industrial dispute in
1990 over a plan for workers to take a cut in pay and conditions in a bid
to avert collapse, is expecting to present it's new agreement to the
Industrial Relations Commission in about a week. 
  Under the deal, which has been accepted by SPC's  400 permanent
employees and endorsed by their six unions, workers will recieve the
greater of the $25-a-week or 5 per cent-a-year pay increase...
--------

"Legionella traced to McDonald's restaurant"- McDonald's Family Resturants
shut 19 water cooled air-conditioning units in its restaurants thoughout
Australia after the release of a report yesterday linking a restaurant in
Fairfield, Sydney, with 14 cases of Legionnaire's disease contracted in
April.
  Air-conditioners are one of the most common breeding sites for the
legionella bacteria, which is beleived to have killed six people who
contracted the disease in the Fairfield area between April 11 and April 20...
  The Fairfield air-conditioning unit has been removed and 18 other
water-cooled air-conditioning units in McDonald's resturants have been
turned off and will be removed and replaced.
  The rest of the company's Australian resturants use more modern air
cooled systems.
---------

"Telecom rings up a mobile phone boom"- Roof tiler Peter Frazer is no
yuppie but he wouldn't go anywhere without his mobile phone. He's not the
only one either. 
  The mobile telephone industry is booming. Almost half a million of them
are used in the country and 500 new connections are made each week. At June
30, connections had reached 441,256, an increase of 51 per cent in one
year...
  Sydney leads the country in mobile phone use, with 131,116 connections,
followed by Melbourne (102,906), Brisbane (52,887), Perth (28,214),
Adelaide (22,117) and Hobart (3431)...
---------

"Gene clone hope for high blood pressure"- A breakthrough by Australian
medical scientists could save lives and the health system millions of
dollars a year by controlling  high blood pressure, a key factor behind the
nation's leading cause of death - heart disease and stroke.
  A team, headed by Dr Lisa Selbie, from Sydney's Garvan Institute
announced yesterday it had successfully cloned a gene believed to exert an
influence on blood pressure.
  The ground-breaking achievement was reported in the latest issue of the
Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is expected to lead
to the creation of a new generation of more effective drugs to control
blood pressure, thus lowering the risk of heart attack, heart failure and
stroke. 
---------

"Oil to be drained from reef wreck"- A federal authority has ordered the
removal of 150 tonnes of oil from a Taiwanese boat straned on coral in
Torres Strait following claims of "procrastination and complacency" about
an environmental threat.
  The move by the Australian Marine Safety Authority reverses earlier
decisions not to remove oil from the Sheng Fu which was beached at Turu Cay
in Australian territory - 60 nautical miles north of Thursday Island - on
May 6 during and alledged illegal fishing expidition...
---------

"Park trailblazer fined $20,000"- A man who built his own road through a
national park after a court ordered him not to, was given a six-month
suspended jail sentence and fined $20,000 yesterday.
  Klaus Remme, who owns a farm near the NSW Blue Mountains national park,
first bulldozed a road through an area of the park in 1987, claiming he
needed the road for access to his property. 
  He extended it to 3.5km, destroying 5000 mature trees in the process. 
  The National Parks and Wildlife Service moved in, restored the bushland
and took Remme to the NSW Land and Enviroment Court, in April 1988, Justice
Stein ordered him not to rebuild it.
  But earlier this year park rangers returned and found Remme had rebuilt a
road - with a round-a-bout. 
  Justice Stein said yesterday Remme's actions had caused between $40,000
and $50,000 worth of damage. 
  He said Remme then set about "icing the cake" by sending a bill for $7485
for the work to the NPWS.
---------
Brad Alexander
Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian,soc.culture.new-zealand,soc.culture.british