Well, well Robert Bropho and his extremist Perth based ‘Nyungah circle of elders’ whose Internet website home page proudly proclaims the racist remark, “The smell of the white man is killing us”, has now called on Australian Olympic 400 metre sensation and Aboriginal Kathy Freeman to boycott the Sydney 2000 Olympics because of the government’s reaction to resolving the native title issue.

Prime Minister John Howard called the remark totally outrageous and inspiring racial division in Australia.

Elderly people who have been caught in the government’s “time-warp” - having paid thousands of dollars in bonds to nursing homes will be refunded following the Prime Minister’s admission that he made a mistake. The new bonds would have caused many elderly people to have to sell their family home and the resulting proceeds would have put many of thee people into income brackets where they lost their pensioner benefits as a result.

Family Services Minister Warwick Smith said, “My most immediate concern is for those who have acted in accordance with the government’s policy, and who now believe that they have been disadvantaged.

“People who have already paid a bond, or who have entered into a legally binding agreement to pay a bond will have the choice of moving o an annual payment system.”

John Howard said, “You know as well as I do that from time to time governments take decisions which operate from a particular date, and that there are some people who have taken decisions on the basis of what was the law before then, who can’t take advantage of the change.”

Kim Beazley called on home buyers who had made offers to buy the homes of elderly people selling up to raise the bond to allow those people to retain their homes by pulling out of the agreement. “If settlement has perhaps not yet completed, I would call on the folk engaged in that sale process to have mercy on the people with whom they are dealing,” he said.

More than 100 Australian immigrants who were doctors before they came to this country have vowed to starve themselves to death in the face of the enormous battle that they face when trying to gain recognition as qualified doctors here.

The 130 overseas trained doctors will start a hunger strike later this month sitting outside the office of Federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge and the gates at the Prime Minister’s Sydney home, Kirribilli House.

Assad Razaghi, one of the striking doctors, said, “I will die if I have to.

“The only means we have left is to go on a hunger strike, hoping to achieve by our death what we could not achieve during our lives.”

Indian immigrant Dr Burney Siddiqui, who is president of the Australian Doctors Trained Overseas Association, said that the group had 1200 members who could not practice here in Australia because of their overseas training.

“I dedicated my life to helping the suffering,” Siddiqui said, “Now I am told that I am no good to anyone - even if I die I don’t care.”

What he and the others forget to mention is that before migrating it is made quite clear to doctors that they will have to be re-trained to meet Australian medical standards. Why then should this sort of pressure be used to try to change the rules of the game that they accepted before they choose to move to Australia?