Recent stories exclusive to (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:
Hindmarsh
Island Bridge case thrown out by High Court 2nd
April
The
Hindmarsh Island Bridge farce revealed 31st March
UN
agrees to make our fresh water a "global commodity".... beware farmers -
your fresh water dam WILL cost you! 28th March
Courier
Mail's national affairs reporter Peter Charlton attacks MAI concerns and
breaches ethics guidelines 28th March
The
US Government's global "Cablesplice" project, fact or fantasy? 26th
March
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
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
Today Toowoomba will be recognised in the archives of Australian political history.
Toowoomba will be host to hundreds of One Nation executive, supporters and state candidates today and tomorrow as they gather to prepare for the upcoming state and federal election. This will be the first time One Nation takes part in elections.
I will be there to report and capture on film what is going to be remembered as a significant turning point in Australia's political history.
Here is the itinerary for this weekend.
Sir James Killen loses Liberal pre-selection for Blair
Just days after the Courier Mail ran a lengthy feature "Knight vows to end Hanson's free reign" glorifying the man they wanted to stand against One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, the 'war horse' has been put on retirement by his party. Seems like someone cut his steed from under him.
Killen was defeated last night by Cameron Thompson, Joan Sheldon's former chief-of-staff, who will now battle Pauline for the new seat of Blair established by the Australian Electoral Commission after a redistribution last year. Yesterday we reported that Thompson was expected to win after the candidates supporters pointed out that Killen has not been involved in politics for over fifteen years.
Thompson last night praised the work of Sir James saying, "I think Sir James is a Liberal icon. He's done so much work over the years to further the Liberal Party and support the Liberal Party."
Thompson said that he would concentrate on local issues, "You're not going to get a local member who can deliver on local issues when they're grandstanding across the country, and that's a fact.
"If you wander around Blair, there are a lot of issues, a lot of occasions and a lot of areas where the local performance, the delivery that people are getting from their local member is lacking."
Interesting that Blair is not even a seat yet and that Hanson has moved from Oxley to take on all comers for the seat... but let us not that get in the way of a good story.
Foreign owned National Australia Bank to cut thousands of Australian jobs
In the interests of "rationalisation" one of our foreign owned major banks, National Australia Bank, is to cut an estimated four thousand Australian jobs and close scores of branches as traditional services for the "poor" are thrown on the scrap heap.
All in the name of a "global revamp of its operations".
In a move made to help "pay" for the retrenchment costs the bank's ATM charges will be raised from 1st May 1998. The new charges will be Au$1.25 every time they use a non-NAB ATM - this represents a 25% increase.
Now let us remember that it was the Australian Labor Party in 1995 who opened the floodgates of this takeover of Australian banks when they signed the secret FSIA (Financial Services Industry Agreement) treaty. You can read all about the FSIA here.
The bank's managing director, Don Argus, said Au$160 million would be spent on redundancies dismissing as "emotional issues" the effects on jobs and bank branches.
"There is no doubt fundamental changes have to be made - and made quickly," Argus said yesterday.
"This is not a slash and burn strategy. We have adopted a strategy of branch reconfiguration and modification rather than a wholesale reduction of outlets."
Under the planned restructure traditional bank branches will be a thing of the past with the changes being complete in the next twelve months.
In February this year the ANZ Bank, whose largest shareholder is Chase Manhattan Nominees (11.6%), said when announcing the lay off of 1,700 staff, and I quote: "This isn't about profits or shareholders. It's about serving our customers better."
To see my experiences with the NAB foreign corporate vulture check out this link.
Just who are the world's top 100 trans national corporations?
Here is the list... and what should be of concern is that Australia is not much bigger than General Motors.
Perhaps even more concerning right here, right now is that number two on the list, Japan with an annual turn over of Au$2,920,310,000,000 is on the brink...
Japan takes the world's economy to the brink.
TOKYO -- In an unusually blunt assessment of this country's bleak financial outlook, the chairman of Sony Corp. warned Thursday that "the Japanese economy is on the verge of collapsing" and echoed Washington's call for the government to move quickly to stimulate consumer spending.
Sony Chairman Norio Ohga said the new business year, which in Japan began Wednesday, will be "very difficult" for the electronics and entertainment giant if Japan isn't rapidly pulled out of its economic tailspin. "If consumer confidence continues to decline," he said, "we'll face a long spiral of deflation that would have a damaging effect on the world economy."
For American investors, Wednesday's pessimistic outlook raised new questions about how much longer the robust U.S. stock market can continue to set records while the world's second-largest economy is trapped in a downward spiral. (The Dow Jones industrial average closed Thursday up 118 points, within spitting distance of 9,000.) By all indications, 1997 will be the first year in more than two decades in which Japan's economy has actually contracted.
"I have great concern about Japan becoming a trigger for worldwide recession," Ohga said, likening Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to U.S. President Herbert Hoover, whose fiscal austerity after the market crash in 1929 helped exacerbate the Great Depression.
Ohga spoke to reporters just an hour after the Nikkei stock index fell 3.32 percent, or more than 538 points, dragging down markets in Hong Kong and other Asian nations. Earlier in the day, the Bank of Japan reported that business confidence has plunged to its lowest level since 1994.
The bank's closely watched "tankan" survey, which measures business sentiment four times a year, found that Japanese executives expect manufacturing to slow, inventory levels to rise and companies to continue having difficulty getting loans from their banks.
Another government agency reported Thursday that household spending fell 4.5 percent in February, the lowest since the survey was launched in 1970. The survey showed that Japanese consumers are spending less even though their disposable income actually rose slightly.
"We're just starting to see Japan's darkest hour," said Jesper Koll, chief economist for J.P. Morgan. The new data, he said, confirms "that the Japanese economy has slipped into a very deep recession."
Thursday's pummelling of the Nik-kei stock index, which fell to its lowest level since Jan. 14, wiped out a big injection of cash from the Japanese government. On Tuesday, the government apparently pumped $730 million into stocks in order to boost year-end closing prices. The money helped Japanese banks, which hold much of their portfolios in stocks, dress up their year-end balance sheets -- but only for two days.
Prime Minister Hashimoto's ruling Liberal Democratic Party also has promised to spend $119 billion to prop up the nation's sagging economy, but has yet to outline the details of the stimulus package. While many in his party want to see the money spent on traditional public works projects, some insist that tax cuts are the only way to get businesses and consumers spending again. Japan's top corporate tax rates approach 60 percent.
Hashimoto now finds himself caught between demands for a big stimulus package and his promise to reduce the government deficit.
Sony Chairman Ohga said Japanese politicians have ducked their global responsibilities and seem to consider only their domestic constituencies. "All our businesses are operating on a global scale," Ohga said. "But our politicians are purely domestically oriented. That's where the problem is."
Making the
news" -
Another perfect day in paradise. One to be enjoyed in Toowoomba.
Tomorrow's news will be late... very late!
Have a good one.
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