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Since October 1995

Wednesday 15th November 1995

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International:

Australia's waterfront will be shut down for five days by the trade unions in a response to CRA's serving a summons for damages against about 70 striking workers at the Weipa mine.

Political:

Them and us:
 Sometimes I think that we in Australia are no better than the Nigerian leaders that we have pointed fingers at so fiercely in the last few days. Some time ago a female lawyer, Penny Easton, committed suicide in Perth after a false report was tabled under the direction of the then Premier and now Labor Health Minister, Carmen Lawrence. The report reflected very badly on this innocent woman who had gone through a bitter property settlement in the Family Court where matters are not, by law, to be publicised. But the law doesn't count for politicians and is irrelevant in State Parliament where you can say what you like under Parliamentary priviledge and never be sued irrespective of the truth or the damage you cause to innocent people. You see the document was also supposed to reflect badly on Liberal leader Richard Court - now Premier of Western Australia. but the scam backfired when its credibility was shown to be lacking.
A Royal Commission was appointed after Senior Ministers in Carmen's government at the time revealed in April this year that then Premier Carmen Lawrence had lied in Parliament when she had previously disputed in Parliament any knowledge of the planned tabling prior to the Family Court document being made public by her ministers.
Our Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, immediately labelled the Commission a "political witch hunt" and Carmen Lawrence under the claim of "Parliamentary Priveledge" tried to have the Commission closed down while disputing her knowledge of the document or the intent to table it before the fateful events took place. Oh, and the tax payer footed her Au$1 million legal bill. When this failed she claimed in a radio interview before the Commission started that she might be mistaken as her recollection of her knowledge of the exact timing in which she became aware of the Family Court document was not too clear.
During the Commission it became obvious that the Government shredders of the day had done their job very, very well and no written record could be found so it became a case of many Labor ministers of the day claiming under oath that Carmen Lawrence had approved the tabling of the Family Court document in Parliament. When Carmen Lawrence gave evidence before the Commission she had, all of a sudden, very clear recollections that discussions with her ministers had only taken place after the tabling and the subsequent suicide committed by Penny Easton. Of course all her ministers of the day were mistaken.
When the Royal Commission's findings were tabled by Richard Court yesterday and it came to the clear conclusion that Carmen Lawrence had been less than truthful to the Commission, she called it a political witch hunt while not disputing the accuracy of its findings. Prime Minister Paul Keating scoffed at the credibility of the Commissioner who is a highly respected judge.
Where does that leave a civilised nation like Australia - does the law mean anything? Are politicians above the law? Are tax payers there to pick up their legal bills? Will we ever know? Sadly I doubt it.

Business:

Champion de Crespigny's Normandy mining group are planning a Au$3 billion merger with Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie, North Flinders Mines and Posgold Limited.to form the fifth largest mining group outside South Africa.

Sport:

Pakistani Imran Kahn has launched a stinging attack on the touring cricket team after their innings and 126 run loss against Australia in the first test at the Gabba. He blamed greed for the poor show of the Pakistani cricket team.

Social:

Suicide has become the third biggest killer of young Australian men the latest studies show. Last year 437 people under the age of 25 took their own lives.

Personal trivia:

GLOBE International has been receiving a lot of good publicity lately. The sun is shining outside, and apart from the despicable shananigins of certain politicians the future in paradise looks rosy.

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