Friday 4th April 1997
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Issues - timed calls for Internet use. The company suggested a "joint venture with your government, ourselves and RTZ-CRA to reopen and operate the Bougainville mine once recovered".
The revelation came out during PNGs Royal Commission into the Sandline contract.
It has become apparent that senior PNG bureaucrats were concerned regarding Sandline's corporate links and operating methods and had made their point of view clear.
If you have heaps of money, want an island and a bargain, then Queensland's Hayman Island is the one to check out.
Redeveloped at a cost of Au$350 million by Australian owned Ansett airlines it is now on the market and expected to fetch between Au$100 to Au$150 million...
Senator Vanstone, speaking at the launch of 1997 Job Guide in Brisbane was not aware of the details of a proposal to import 7,000 skilled tradespeople, managers and engineers to meet expected shortages in development projects in Western Australia.
"You can't hold industry up. You make it less competitive if you don't allow them to access the skills base. Australia does have a skills migration programme and does bring in people to assist in broadening its skills base."
Extensive political commentary and links can be found on Palmer's Australian Politics page.
The deal would see 100 of the merged group's 360 branches in Victoria disappear with about 1,000 jobs being phased out on the way.
Westpac have had problems gaining a strong foothold in Victoria and the CEO, Bob Joss, said, "It is one of three key markets we identified when we came out of financial difficulties (following the 1987 stock market crash)".
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has, in the meantime knocked the move calling it "premature".
"Any merger is subject to the approval of the Federal Treasurer," Costello said.
"I want to stress this - the Treasurer has the ultimate discretion and whether it was cleared by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or whether it wasn't, the Treasurer retains the discretion to approve the merger.
"This doesn't start time ticking in their favour.... the starting gun doesn't run until the Government announces its response to the Wallis report (on the Australian banking industry) and as I've made clear on a number of occasions, parties who make decisions in anticipation of that outcome do so at their own risk."
In an attempt to prevent his wedding photographs being leaked to a magazine Perkins has insisted that the photographer sign a confidentiality contract... and if you think that's going over the top let's remember what happened to star australian bowler Shane Warne recently.
Warne's wedding photos were copied by the company developing them and then sold to a woman's magazine...
ATSIC chairman Gatjil Djerrkura said unemployment was one of the major problems facing Aborigines. The report predicts that by 2006 over 40% of Aborigines will be unemployed putting an additional Au$800 million tax burden on the country.
The unemployment rate is already at 39% - far ahead of the general unemployment rate of 8.8% - with expected budget cuts to Aboriginal job creation programmes this figure could increase much higher with some predictions saying that 43% by the year 2001 is not out of the question.
On top of this statistic is the prediction that the Aboriginal population is set to explode from 280,000 to over 400,000 in the next decade.
This in the face of threatened cuts to or scrapping of the Community Development Employment Project's (CDEP) indigenous "work for the dole" program would certainly exaserbate the unemployment cycle that many indigenous people find themselves trapped in.
Dejerrkura said, "There is also the need for ATSIC, all governments and the private sector to increase training efforts, financing and government tendering processes to generate opportunities for self-employment and entrepeneurial activities."
Had a very stimulating afternoon and evening "chewing the fat" over a major project involving the University of the Future... watch this space...Magnificent day ahead of us and how's this sunset - caught on the way to my business partner's (Barry Corrick) house at about 6pm last night.
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