Today's Headlines
Wednesday 14th February 1996
International:
The coalition has committed itself to build up a new sixth battalion of regular combat troops by phasing out the Ready Reserve and reducing defence bureaucracy
costs by Au$250 million. (Where will all these bureaucrats go I wonder? - There must be legions of them looking over their shoulders at the moment!) Anyway back to the story. Howard stated
that his main aim would be to get Australia battlle-ready in the event that we were threatened by a northern neighbour. Other issues that the Coalition would look at
is the state of our airforce and whether the aged F111 fighter jets need to be replaced.
In Queensland state politics the Premier Wayne Goss has called it a day and has recalled Parliament on Monday so that he can be dumped by the new Coalition majority.
It is expected that National leader Rob Borbridge will take over as Premier following this extraordinary session which promises to get the old fireworks flowing. Amazing
what an independent MP from Gladstone, Liz Cunningham, can do to roll a government who were elected in only 9 months ago on a minority vote. Its going to be rough
going here though. There is no love lost between the new encumbent Labor opposition with 44 seats in parliament, the new political bosses, the Liberal/National
Coalition with 44 seats supported (at the moment) by the loose cannon in the independent member from Gladstone holding the balance of power on every decision! Wonder
if any will ever get made? Anyway this should keep the new bureaucratic heavyweights happy shuffling paper and having long lunches with little required inbetween!
According to the latest Morgan Poll out today, the gap between the major parties in the lead up to the Federal election has narrowed to 2 points on a two-party prefered basis. Yesterday Labor's hopes were
again battered by another rise in long term unemployment to 7.5%. John Howard's Liberal party haven't had it easy either with a National member shouting his mouth off
about "the wogs". Good cannon-fodder for the PM I must say. By the way I wonder what ever happened to the apology that the PM never gave to Peter Costello when he wrongly
accused him of threatening a man in treasury? That seems to be forgotten - unlike the hounding the media are now giving Keating on his reasons for not releasing
Treasury's latest budget estimates.
As you can see things are starting to warm up out there!
Business:
TNT will consider selling off its 50% stake in Ansett Australia to Air New Zealand for Au$425 million. Seems like the Kiwis are going to own a major part of Australia soon as well!
Under the existing proposal, released to the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, Air NZ would acquire 25% straight away for Au$200 million with an option to acquire the
balance by February 1998 for Au$225 million.
Sport:
Poor old Sam Riley. This figurehead of all that is good in the sport of swimming today has been tarnished with the dope tag. This is how it happened. She had a headache in Brazil late last year.
HER COACH gave her a head ache tablet three days before her short course event. She took it, he didn't realise that it had that nasty word "dextropropoxyphene" in it.
(No I have never heard of it either). She was tested after her race. She
was found positive and has now become the centre of attention for all the bureaucratic intrigue within the swimming organisation FINA. Riley has been warned that
FINA's president Mustapha Lafoule favours a two year ban. That will be end Riley's chance to compete in the Olympics at Atlanta and probably her
entire international swimming career. The coach has accepted the blame. It was a one time accident and guess what the drug DOES NOT IN ANY WAY IMPROVE
the performance on the athlete. Why the heck is a head ache tablet ingredient on the banned list in the first place?
I can just picture a little group of hard headed academics with a large sport funded grant sitting around a table pulling the names of drugs out of a hat just to make
up the numbers to justify their work in deciding which drugs are to be banned in competitive swimming. What other reason can there be for this harmless drug being on the list
with the sort of heavies that the Chinese swimmers have been taking?
We're for you Sam - keep your head up girl!
Social:
Now this is sure to be controversial! According to the latest research women like housework because it provides deep psychological factors through which they define their
personalities. The research found that women in Australia do twice as much housework as men but that 86% say they prefer it that way. Before I get swamped with email,
the research was undertaken by social scientist Janeen Baxter at the Australian National University who also found that less than a third of women wanted their male
partners to do more housework.
Guess there are going to be a few more feminist rallies at ANU in the near future!
Personal trivia:
What a lovely day yesterday, cool and pleasant. The river looked absolutely delightful and it was a shame that I had to leave my global office to travel to the big smoke
in Brisbane. (Actually, Brisbane has got to be one of the cleanest citiies in the world with no heavy industry in it or in it's suburbs). Well what else can you expect in
paradise.
Happy Valentine's Day to all the lovers of the world and a special one for my wife who sensibly has her birthday at the same time!
We'll be visiting Rogues Restaurant in Ipswich for dinner tonight.
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