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Monday 11th March 1996

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International:

Victorian Premier Jeff Kennet's dream almost became a nightmare yesterday when there was a major accident in the first 30 seconds of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Martin Brundle came unstuck at the start while travelling at 290km/hr shooting like a missile into the side barricade yet walking away unhurt.

Damon Hill in his Williams took the winner's flag after an exciting dual during most of the race with Canadian team mate and rookie Jacques Villeneuve. Villeneuve led right up to the last few laps when failing oil pressure hampered his progress.

Political:

We told you what we thought of Bill Kelty's action in writing to one of the major Japanese clients of Australian mining giant CRA. Now it appears that 2,000 jobs are seriously under threat. RTZ-CRA's group executive director Leon Davis described as "pretty incredible" the letter to the Japanese coal buyer.

At a time when Australia has a serious budget deficit I think that those words are weak to say the least. It is an act of industrial espionage which has serious implications for the whole country.

Last week Transport Workers Union (TWU) federal president Steve Hutchins condemned Mr Kelty for his actions. He said that the TWU was unlikely to rejoin the ACTU after disaffiliating itself last year over a pay dispute.

The Liberal Party have taken a very soft stance doing no more than appealing to Kelty to pull his head in in a diplomatic way.

Business:

A 171 point fall on Wall Street on Friday and the release of figures today expecting to confirm a huge blow out in Australia's Federal Budget deficit are expected to send Australia's financial markets into turmoil. Market watchers say that the share market could drop 70 points this week and long bond yields surge up to 9 percent.

Here we are less than 10 days out of a Federal Election in the lead up to which Paul Keating, Labor's leader and then Prime Minister, bragged about the excellent state of the economy. This is the man who, you might recall, refused to give the Liberal Party the true state of the nation. He was the man who said that John Howard was a "pretender" to his throne. Hey, are these guys supposed to represent the people or are we just some lackies that they bow and scrape to once every three years? How do we make these demigods more accountable? How did Paul Keating acquire a fortune of over Au$2.5 million in just 10 years on a salary averaging out at about Au$100,000 per annum. Did he know something I didn't? Are the facts known, used for self benefit then revealed? I have got to say in the light of the shocking state of our economy (which he must have known about while telling the whities) something does not seem quite kosher here.

Sport:

Loyal Australian Rugby League (ARL) clubs are preparing to pick the bones of the Super League clubs in the expectation of a Federal Court death sentence being brought down tomorrow. The Super League debacle will have to go down in corporate history as one of the most expensive decisions that has gone wrong. Costs to News Limited have already run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Social:

Young juvenile offenders will be forced to apologise for their crimes and make restitution under tough changes to the Juvenile Justices Act. Queensland's Attorney General and Justice Minister, Denver Beanland, said that parents would be ordered to pay restitution of up to Au$5,000 for their children's crimes. He said that courts would be given greater powers and more options for punishment including sending children to "work camps" at centres such as Boys Town as well as increasing community services orders.

The Justice Minister said that it was no longer right to give juveniles "a slap on the wrist".

Personal trivia:

The weather is again quite glorious with temperatures in the mid 20s. Today we have a bit of cloud cover and some rain is expected.

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