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an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's first daily Internet newspaper
Since October 1995

Friday 22nd March 1996

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International:

A Queensland company plans to relocate koalas from the overpopulated Kangaroo Island to Rockhampton in Northern Queensland. The company, Koala Valley Pty Ltd, has 10,000 hectares of native trees on which the 2,000 koalas could subsist.

In the meantime the Australian Koala Foundation has raised concerns that the koalas are being sold for as much as Au$5,000 each to countries like South Africa.

Political:

In a major move the Federal Labor party, or what remains of it after the election, moved yesterday to sever links with the ACTU. Bill Kelty, secretary of the ACTU, made himself very unpopular with the Labor Party after veiled threats about industrial chaos if the Liberal Party won the election. The Libs did, and Kelty's remarks are quietly seen as a big contributor to the massive swing against Labor.

The Labor Part's national secretary, Gary Gray said that:
"It is with our affiliates (who contributed Au$3 million to the Labor campaign) and not the ACTU that Labor party will re-group."

Business:

Financial business group Colonial Mutual has reported a massive Au $1 billion turn around after losses in the previous calendar year. The company made a Au$726 million profit which puts the organisation in a position to demutualise before the legal deadline in December 1998.

Sport:

The Australian Rugby League (ARL) heads back to the Federal Court today to try to stop the rebel Super League players from starting their own 10 team competition called Global League. The injunction is aimed at stopping the players from kicking off their competition next Friday.

In an ironic twist it now appears that Rupert Murdoch has gained a substantial shareholding through a US company in Optus, the company sponsoring the ARL until the year 2000. Rupert is in Sydney at the moment and the rumour is that he is about to dump plans of building an association between Foxtel and Galaxy (Pay TV) to move into bed with Optus Vision.

All of a sudden, officially, Rupert says that he is not interested in what the Super League players do. Guess he has a foot in each camp. Amazing what money can buy! But what about the Super League players? Are they up to the antics of big business. Somehow I get a fishy feeling that they are going to land up being the losers here.

Social:

Record tourist numbers to Australia in 1995 have helped keep it one of the fastest growing international visitor destinations. More than 3.7 million people visited Australia spending an estimated Au$7.2 billion in 1995. This represents a growth of 11% over the previous calendar year.

Top 10 visitors by country:

Personal trivia:

Another day in the big smoke today. Wow this is getting habitual! I am feeling somewhat plagued by withdrawal systems - missing my global office and the beautiful river views... and no traffic! Another sunny, perfect day ahead of us.


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