Tuesday 24th March 1998

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Recent stories exclusive to  (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:

Pauline Hanson endorses 12 state candidates. 22nd March
News Limited bucket opposition to the MAI. 21st March
The proposed privatisation of Telstra 16th March 1998
Queensland State Candidates meet the people 15th March 1998
One Nation, the First Year 12th March 1998
Pauline Hanson tackles the MAI in Parliament while the media re-writes history 10th March 1998
Feature: How did the Hanson phenomenon start? 8th March 1998
Presentation on "the level playing field" that ain't 7th March 1998
B A Santa Maria on Australia pre- and post- Hawke. 6th March 1998

Current topical links (available to all readers):
[Links to the MAI] [Queensland One Nation State Election website]
[Sign the "I'm so sorry Pauline" book]
Archive of weekly features (available to all readers):
[The Canberra Column] [Economic Rationalism]

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

News Limited to censor my right of reply?

On Saturday News Limited ran a lengthy article written by Peter Charlton about the MAI. The article expressed the point of view that MAI was good for Australia. Just about all the research material was extracted from my MAI web site - with extracts being very selectively sourced to present an unbalanced picture favouring Murdoch's position. Murdoch has the most to gain through media ownership changes if Australia signs the MAI.

Now it appears my request for a right of reply faxed to the paper on Sunday is "too hot for the chiefs of staff to handle" as they have not contacted me to confirm whether or not they will run it. It has not appeared in the paper to date. My response makes a statement which is supported by facts, not Charlton fantasies. This statement claims: "As I have been researching the MAI, the FSIA and other international treaties for over a year now I would like the opportunity to reply to Charlton’s biased, poorly researched and one-sided diatribe."

For me, personally, it was a perfect opportunity to see first hand how articles are slanted, moulded and once this juggling has been done, further distorted to ensure that the theme fits the line imposed on "ethical" Australian journalists. The end result is the perpetuation of the myth that Pauline Hanson, who has been leading the drive to stop MAI, is presented by Charlton as: ‘ill-informed, illogical, not based on fact and hysterically outlandish’.

Todays' Courier Mail does carry a letter on MAI written by a Phil Graham in the letters to the editor section:

MAI not in Australia's best interests.

Peter Charlton emphasises the need for a "level playing field" for global investors (Monitor, Mar 21).

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) guarantees foreign investors the right to have full ownership of media, telecommunications and public utility companies. This is not in Australia's interests.

 All capital flight laws are to be rolled back. Cobar's experience with Ashanti Mines should show that this is not a good thing.

Any concessions or exemptions are subject to a mandatory roll-back clause.

Charlton's reference to the agreement meeting world standard agreements on labour and environment is right - there aren't any.

The primary function of the MAI, a 20 year agreement, is to outlaw national policy formulation where foreign investment is concerned. Therefore, the agreement gives foreign investor interests primacy over national sovereignty.

Why, if the treaty was such a good thing, are the Americans invoking "national self-interest" in rejecting it? Is it also in Australia's self-interest not to sign up? If so let's not.

I think foreign investment has had its fair share of Australia's ever-more-level "playing field" and it hasn't helped a thing. Time for a new game.

You will note that there is absolutely no reference to Pauline Hanson although the original article had a two-edged blade - one to ridicule Pauline Hanson and the other to pooh-pooh concerns about the MAI.

Once again portraying Pauline Hanson on a good light has been selectively censored by News Limited. What more can we expect?

On Sunday we carried a story about Rupert Murdoch's business ethics as reported in the Los Angeles Times... here is what they had to say: ""a bruising, right wing outsider... a global drifter... considered one of the most singularly ruthless business executives in the world. Murdoch is fearsomely tough and willing to employ his companies in the services of his ambitions and interests." 

We have got to feel sorry for the journalists who have little career prospects if they upset the man that CNN's Ted Turner has compared to Adolf Hitler. For in the prophetic words of John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the NEW YORK TIMES, called by his peers, "The Dean of his profession." Swinton was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club.

He responded with the following statement:

'There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty four hours my occupation would be gone.'

"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting to an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes'."

Pauline Hanson's prophetic words.

Those who listened to Pauline Hanson at Beenleigh on Saturday night could be excused for thinking that Hanson's vision for Australia and current concerns are sprinkled with a fair amount of prophetic words.

A week ago today an Indian student who had been in the country just six months, 24 year old Rammohan Neelan, died.

The death was kept covered up by authorities despite the highly contagious nature of Neelan's disease - tuberculosis (TB). As a result of the oversight by Australian embassy officials in India 300 students at Griffith University's Gold Coast campus will now be tested for TB.

The student reported to the university's health clinic just 12 days ago.  

A spokesman for Mr Ruddock said that doctors from the Australian based Health Assessment Service had confirmed that Neelan had TB and that he should not be granted a student visa, "However a person at the overseas post granted the student visa in advance of the medical advice being received. It was an incredible bungle," the spokesman said. This at a time when funding to the states for health related support is being cut.

TB effects most parts of the body but is most common in the lungs. It is spread by inhaling droplets of moisture expelled from the lungs of infectious people coughing, laughing or speaking.

You might recall that News Limited's Sunday Mail ridiculed Hanson's claims and The Sun Herald ran a headline "Immigration Slur" - Hanson: 'They spread disease'.

"How tight is our immigration in Australia, and also what screening is done once they come out here," Pauline Hanson said on Channel 7 news this morning.

What is of interest is that News Limited and Channel 9, despite slamming Hanson for the "slur" have divorced the immigrant student's death from Hanson's comments. Once again a classic case of selective reporting.

Australia's digital television policy to be unveiled.

Communication Minister Richard Alston is expected to announce his policy on digital TV in the next few days.

The Coalition for Australia's Digital Future (CADF) (which surprise, surprise includes News Limited) sent letters to all Coalition Members of Parliament yesterday urging fair and open access, "We understand that that you will be asked to give spectrum free of charge to the commercial television broadcasters.

"The result of such a move would be further concentration of media power and it would cut out new players who may wish to introduce innovative services."

Yesterday ABC's managing director Brian Johns asked for financial assistance to develop the new technology saying, "The Minister for Communications has acknowledged that the ABC and SBS have a special role to play in the Australian broadcasting system, which should be taken into account in the decision on spectrum."

"We urge the government to take this special position into account in regard to financial assistance for the conversion to digital technology, as governments in the past have done with costly technology upgrades."

News Limited's stated interest in restricting Packer "because of further concentration of media power" is a joke. The problem we have in Australia is largely as a result of backroom deals done between Murdoch and successive Labor and Coalition governments.

The truth behind "Deaths in Prison"

Like everything else Australian there has been an inquiry into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The chart below, sourced from the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) reveals a different situation to that popularly expressed by minority groups.

The AIC report shows that 75 people died in prison last year a 44% increase on 1996 and the highest level since 1980.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths have fallen 33% since the inquiry while non-Aboriginal deaths have climbed a massive 68%.

Most of the death are as a result of hanging (32) with natural causes being the next highest at 27.

The research analyst who compiled the report for the AIC, Vicki Dalton, said, "It's now been ten years since the royal commission (into black deaths in custody) and seven years since the recommendations were accepted by the governments. This (the figures) would indicate many of these recommendations are either not being implemented or not working effectively."

The question now arises would the politically correct allow an inquiry into non-black (only) deaths in custody. You and I both know the answer - of course not!  

Political:

Parer sells shares

If you want to see the sickest show in town watch the Senate at work.

Yesterday I watched the ABC TV station's live coverage of the goons in the Senate. It is like watching a bunch of school kids out of control. When a Liberal Senator is speaking the Labor Senators interject and make a rowdy noise and visa versa.

The whole thing is a joke - here are the men and women entrusted in running our country and they play party politics with Parer eventually losing face (much to the delight of the ALP) by handing over his interest in the coal shares to his kids.

 Is it any wonder that really important issues like MAI are totally overlooked? As the date for signing the MAI approaches the goons in the Senate are totally involved in trying to upstage each other on a personal basis.

Its time the whole political system was given a massive shake up starting with the dismissal of the entire Senate. (Just like the process Australians face in employment today under enterprise bargaining contracts). Only those Senators who agree to do the job properly under strict "employment" guidelines being given back their positions of authority.

 Can you imagine the cries of outrage if they were made to be accountable to the people who elected them....

You say:

Carl Kenner,
Resistance

Resistance is a name well known to One Nation supporters. They are the face of violent protests at One Nation meetings - part of the scourge against our democratic right to assemble and hear what someone has to say.

Here we have a member of Resistance asking me for help - what a strange alliance. I might just write back and suggest that he and his fellow Resistance member come into a One Nation meeting not as protesters but as listeners to see what Hanson is saying about getting Australia back on its feet - after all MAI is only one of the symptoms of the sick political system that we have in this country.

Editor

Business:

Surprise, surprise  on a day that a Federal Government committee tells us that foreign owned Australian banks are ripping off Australians we hear that Westpac's American boss, Bob Joss, personally made Au$57 million yesterday as the shares in Westpac lifted.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee yesterday launched an attack on the delay that banks impose before passing on interest reductions to home owners.

The margin in interest rates stood at 3% in March 1996 before the arrival of Aussie Home Loans. The new non-bank competitor forced this lending margin to be reduced to 1.7% - yet the banks still make Au$ billion profits as they close down branches and raise fees to "offset reduced margins".

Here is one fee that will surprise you - if you have a monthly periodical payment on your ANZ savings account rejected because of lack of funds you incur a Au$35 fee.... Now ANZ is reducing staff by 1,700 this year after reducing staff by 2,000 last year. ANZ's biggest shareholder, with 11.6%, is US based Chase Manhattan Nominees.

I know about the fee because they levied that on me, incorrectly, in January. My housing loan (once with NAB) is debited monthly by ANZ on the 6th. I always pay in the funds a day or two before the date - but in January I paid the funds in on the day the debit is made.

With the staff reductions now in place and automation the name of the game, when the computer tried to process my periodical payment it was rejected automatically. No staff member queried why, no phone call from the bank manager... nothing. Of course I complained when I received a computer generated letter signed with a computer generated signature (in blue) from ANZ telling me that I was in default.

No staff member had been involved in what happened, my manager had not even received notification of the non-payment from the computer as I pay more than I need to off the loan each month.

However a Au$35 fee had been levied because the computer had had to generate a default letter. The fee was reversed by my bank manager when she checked my account and realised that "they had been at fault". 

No written apology, no explanation, but then again that is not in a computer's vocabulary or capabilities.

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another perfect day in paradise.

Have a good one.

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