16th January 1997 - Today's Headlines from Australia's first Internet daily

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

Thurday 16th January 1997

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International:

The riot at Parliament House last year cost hundreds of thousands dollars. The massive bronze doors are still being repaired - and by members of the same union that wrecked them in the riot - the Construction, Mining, Energy and Forestry Union (CMEFU).

The doors are costing the taxpayer approximately Au$270,000 to bring them back to the top quality that they were before being trashed. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), which organised the rally that led to the riot have refused to accept any financial responsibility for the damage caused by their members.

A spokesman for contractor National Fixing said only union members could get a ticket to work in Parliament House.

"I suppose it is quite funny - the damage was done by the Union members and it's being fixed by them. It's one way of keeping them employed," he said.

Three CMEFU tradesmen are being employed to restore the doors.

Now talk about a democracy in Australia!

Political:

Australia's two major education unions have criticised the newly appointed chairman of the federal government review board, Roderick West, over his claims that education and training should be kept separate.

West sparked the furure after saying that training should be left to TAFE (Tertiary and Further Education) Colleges.

"We train soldiers but we don't educate them, otherwise they might all leave the army," he said yesterday.

The seven-person committee which West heads is expected to report back the Federal Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Sanator Amanda Vanstone, by the end of 1997 - with the work expected to shape higher education policy for the next 20 years.

Vanstone defended West's appointment saying, "He's a gentleman who's spent a long time in education, made an excellent career out of it... and he's now retired from that and got the time to give maximum effort to it."

Australian Education Union President Shanan Burrow had a different viewpoint saying, "Mr West's comments show appalling ignorance about the nature of tertiary education in Australia".

Business:

A rags to riches story from one of the oldest trades in the world. Cash Converters which started off with a single pawn broking shop in a small suburb of Perth, Western Australia in the 1980s is to list on the Australian Stock Exchange after strong interest from local institutions. The group, founded in 1988, is already listed on the London Stock Exchange.

McIntosh West, the company's house broker, has forecast that Cash Converters net profit for the year to June 1997 will improve by 36% to Au$4.9 million. Cash Converters presently has 141 stores in Australia, 85 in the UK and more than 300 world wide.

Sport:

They said it would never happen, but it has. Australia's up coming cricket tour of South Africa will only be available to pay-tv clients of Foxtel meaning that the once free-to-air broadcasts are a thing of the past. Foxtel are promoting the series as "a world title bout". Bit silly really after Australia's dismal performance against both the West Indies and Pakistan in one day cricket... but I guess in the commercial hype of selling ratings anything goes.

Social:

The case of inequality in the hospital system continued full steam ahead in Queensland yesterday with the revelation that wealthy people on the Gold Coast get specialist eye treatment at the click of a finger while the poor have to wait at least two years before being treated at a public hospital.

There are eight eye specialists working on the Gold Coast but only two are prepared to work in the public hospital system and one of those only in the case of an emergency. This has led to the sitaution where an elderly woman losing her sight was told that she would have to wait until the turn of the century before she could be treated.The eye specialists who refuse to work in the public hospital system earn up to Au$1 million per annum in private hospitals.

The Royal Australian College of Opthalmologists which trains new eye specialist rejected a state government offer to allocate a position for an eye specialist at the Gold Coast Hospital on a salary of Au$500,000 per annum.

Now what ever happened to the hypocratic oath.. or should that be a bunch of hypocrits?

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another wonderful day ahead with the cockatoos making a meal of it outside. Haven't seen Baldy here today yet... but in the meantime here are a a couple of happy snaps of the friendly fellows enjoying today's morning pig out.

I call the "cocky" eating from his claw "Brains"... he is my favourite after Baldy... both of these birds being extremely tame. Brains was attacking a nylon broom outside the global office earlier this morning!

The photo on the bottom right is of the two friendly long beaked corellas, Heckel and Jeckel, named because of their incessant noise and teasing antics displayed as we walk past. A case of showmanship with wings spread and loud shrieks as one walks underneath them - scared more than one client I can tell you!