Today's Headlines
an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's first daily Internet newspaper.
Monday 28th October 1996
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| WWW - due for release shortly... |
International:
Last week a Morgan Poll came up with some startling results.
A party led by Queensland Independent MP Pauline Hanson could win the balance of power in the Senate. Her party would pull 18% of the vote in Australia with the hardest hit being the Labor Party. Ms Hanson's support is double that won by the Democrats in the last Federal election. In a full Senate election she would win 12 seats based on her current support.
I guess the major parties had better start listening to the voters out there now... see survey below.
A former Russian spy operating in Australia came clean yesterday confirming on Channel 9's Sixty Minutes program that he had, while stationed at the Russian embassy in Canberra, recruited Australian journalists, businessmen and diplomats during the height of the Cold War.
Lev Koshliakov, who worked as a KGB officer and later as station chief in Canberra from 1977 to 1984 also confirmed that historian Manning Clark was not a Soviet agent.
"I must tell you absolutely and honestly and without any hesitation, he's too great a man. For intelligence he would be very inconvenient and I don't think any intelligence service would be really interested to compromise that kind of person," Koshliakov said.
Of course the Courier Mail have still not apologised to the Clark family for the damage done to Manning Clark's name in their reports earlier this year.
Political:
The Coalition Government have managed to sign a peace pact with the Australian Democrats over their proposed Industrial Relations policy, making the Labor Party largely irrelevant in the process which is now destined to sail through the Senate.
The major changes in the Industrial Relations act, which the Labor Party has slammed, are:
- Australian Workplace Agreements will be vetted by the Employer Advocate which will bring in the Industrial Relations Commission to rule on any agreements which may leave workers worse off.
- Agreements will be tested against a wider "no disadvantage test" considering all existing award conditions.
- Minimum standards increases to 20, to protect superannuation agreements and working conditions for outworkers, IRC can also arbitrate where workers conditions are "harsh or unjust" or it is in the public interest.
- Paid rates award to continue where agreement on a replacement cannot be reached.
- Unions can enter workplaces with a permit from the Industrial Relations Commissioner's industrial registrar.
- Unions able to maintain coverage of members if they can prove they conveniently belong and have been effectively serviced. Enterprise unions can't be set up within a Union.
- Bans tranferred back to Trade Practices Act with exemptions for environment and consumer boycotts.
- State agreements can only prevail where state laws provide for no disadvantage to workers.
- Compensation cap lifted to Au$32,000
You say:
One cannot but help get the feeling that there are some major changes happening in the Australian political scene. There appears to be a major shift away from the establishment parties such as Labor and Liberal... the impact and support that Pauline Hanson is gaining represents a feeling of frustration and impatience with our current political status quo.
So whether we like it or not these changes will have an impact on Australia's political future.
Cyber feedback: Would you feel threatened by a new Hanson driven party in the Senate:
Do you feel that the Labor party appears to be losing its influence in Australia:
Please email any views or related information on the above.
Australian (only) feedback as at 3pm AEST:
| Would you feel threatened by a new Hanson driven party in the Senate: | Yes: 65 | No: 3 |
| Do you feel that the Labor party appears to be losing its influence in Australia: | Yes: 29 | No: 32 |
Business:
Channel 9 has done a deal with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to avoid penalties for breaches of the Trade Practices Act. In the deal, struck at the weekend, Nine said that it had terminated exclusive supply arrangements with the Seven Network relating to the Darwin television broadcast area - averting fiines of up to Au$10 million in the process.
Channel 9 also terminated an exclusive supply agreement with the West Australian rural television network, Golden West, and will, from now on, offer programmes to regional Western Australia on a purely commercial basis.
Social:
Schools in Queensland will have to publish annual reports containing data such as Year 12 OP scores under a new accountability process. The policy, designed to assist parents in making an informed judgement about a school, will be trialled next year and introduced formally in 1998.
Education Minister Bob Quinn said schools would detail thei academic and other outcomes in the annual report which would be published in March.
Levels of truancy, suspensions and exclusions and the participation rate in the range of curriculum offerings would be listed, along with feedback on general education matters from students, parents and teachers.
Another beautiful day outside, sunny skies and the birds singing away merrily.
Have a good one.
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