Tuesday 25th June 1996
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Oh, and the company manufacturing the car is, like everything else in Indonesia, owned by a member of President Soharto's family.
Maybe that Australian ambassador was right, but "just" politically incorrect. The joys of bureaucracy in all its forms!
He admitted that he had discussed the axing of the Development Import Finance Facility scheme with senior Indonesian ministers in March.
He had earlier denied in Parliament receiving any ministerial-level protests about the abolition of the scheme, which provides finance to companies involved in foreign development.
The Labor Party unsuccessfully tried to censure Downer for misleading Parliament. Opposition leader Kim Beazley called Downer a "lying buffoon" and later a "deceitful, dishonest buffoon."
The company's shareholders meet tomorrow to vote on the proposed St George Bank acquisition of Metway. St George requires 75% of the vote, which in the light of the Queensland State Government's actions yesterday, appears unlikely.
The State Government's move got right up the nose of financial markets in Sydney and Melbourne. Premier Borbidge was bouyant now being sure that the Queensland owned bank would be safe from the clutches of a southern state ownership.
A comprehensive study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that migration, education and improved health care are changing the shape of the nation.
Families are smaller than ever before with the birth rate lower than at any other time. The ratio of women becoming mothers is at an all time low. But population growth remains fairly high - because of immigration.
The survey shows that there are just over 9 million women and just under 9 million Australian men. The median age is 33.7 years but more than one out of ten is over 65. More than a fifth of Australians are born overseas. Of those 60% are now Australian citizens.
Monks, in the light of all evidence against his stand said: "The truth is there's no koalas around here because it is not good country for them."
There is a twist of irony in this tale. The koalas and a koala sanctuary were used by Monks' group to sink the proposed new superhighway between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. The road would have cut alongside the koala sanctuary. In fact so successful was the CRAG action group last year that they played a major role in the Labor party's defeat in the 1995 elections.
The Coalition saw a winner and stopped the highway but to the horror of the residents, who had saved their homes and their large acreage from the noise and pollution of a major highway, the state government went one step further and now plan to declare large areas of their property protected koala habitats.
The same CRAG members now want to disown the little marsupial who stopped the highway!
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