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Sunday 26th October 1997
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Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday achieved significant concessions in his quest to have the greenhouse gas targets strategy being made more flexible.
British officials meeting with Howard at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Edinburgh said that they would not insist on uniform targets being met.
Howard has claimed in the past that Australia would need to raise greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels to ensure that massive unemployment does not hit Australia in years to come.
Howard welcomed the softened stance which followed his meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Organised Asian crime syndicates and corrupt consulate officials were helping flood Australia with illegal immigrants to aid drug smuggling, prostitution and extortion rackets, a report claimed yesterday.
"Human smuggling represents a serious threat to Australia," a recent closed meeting of senior police and forensic experts was warned in Sydney, the Australian newspaper said.
Richard Basham, an expert on Asian crime, told the meeting that immigrants were forced into crimes such as prostitution in "near slavery" conditions to repay debts to criminal groups for entering the country.
"Failure to repay such debts will invoke serious sanctions, including murder," said Basham, head of Sydney University's anthropology department. He said immigrants, particularly from China, were being forced to pay as much as 15,000 Australian dollars (10,800 US) to crime gangs who charged high interest rates.
Chinese triads and other Asian gangs saw Australia as a "soft target" and had an almost free hand in helping immigrants pose as students on sham English-language programs.
Unless immigration laws were substantially tightened the matter would only get worse, Basham said.
The meeting of the Australian Academy of Forensic Scientists was told police should treat all official documents from Asia with caution and "take care" when exchanging sensitive information with their Asian counterparts.
Basham said corrupt consulate officials in Asia had been known to provide fake documents for illegal entry into Australia or legitimate documents to undesirable immigrants.
The meeting was also warned that the illegal immigrants were unlikely to pay tax or cooperate with Australian laws and authorities.
Some Asian cultures did not consider heroin importation and dealing, loan sharking, extortion and prostitution as serious crimes and Australia needed to be aware of these and other cultural differences when combating Asian crime, the meeting heard.
Making the
news" -
The Federal Government have messed up the computer driven means testing of nursing home residents which will lead to nursing home operators handing the bill, which could be as much as Au$300 per week, to their residents.
Family Services Minister Warwick Smith is meeting with industry representatives tomorrow to discuss the impact of the computer failure - which will see the new charges coming in from 1st November..
Australian Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association chief executive Bill Bourne said, "It wasn't supposed to be a problem but it is a total disaster because the computers cannot talk to each other.
"Providers are being told that even full pensioners have to pay the increased fees and that is rubbish. The way things are going it will be November 1st 1999 before it is sorted out.
"If a provider has not been advised of the level to charge, then by law, they have to charge the maximum amount."
(For some this will mean an increase from Au$147.70 per week to Au$443.10 per week).
The chiefs of staff at News Limited's The Sunday Mail were obviously on full alert this weekend... despite the wide coverage being given on Friday's decision by Pauline Hanson's One Nation to run candidates in next year's Queensland state elections you would never have known it... not a word was mentioned about the party or its ambitions as the "news paper" instead featured close ups of Ironman Trevor Hendy's backside in a half page article; a story on "Suicide tips on the Internet"; and the paper's political journo, a Sid Maher special, on "Bad tenants on Probation..."
Let us remember that just last week the paper was full of feel good stories about the dramatic defection by Cheryl Kernot from the Australian Democrats to the Australian Labor Party.... and how she had single handedly resurrected the ALP from the dead...
Subject: Pauline Hanson's courage
Dear Editor,
For her courageous decision that One Nation will stand candidates for all 89 Queensland state seats in the next election, Pauline Hanson deserves all the admiration we, her admirers and supporters, can muster.
I invite all of those who find themselves enslaved to the whims of the world's politically correct elite establishments, to join me in a hearty chorus of - Cheers and good-on-ya, Pauline!
Keep the good work, but don't fail to,
Keep your powder dry,
john hamilton
Yesterday the Australian dollar crashed through the US70 cent mark to close at just 69 cents. The drop was quite dramatic and follows weeks of sustained assault on Asian currencies by the world's richest money men eager to add a few more billions to their bulging coffers at the expense of anyone or anything that looks like being exploitable.
There is tremendous trepidation now in Australian stock markets that things might just collapse and follow the 1987 crash which saw hundreds of paper millionaires become bankrupt within hours of the market opening that terrible October day.
This weekend is motor racing... check out the BOC Super Touring Championship race at Lakeside, Queensland... news updates on today's race.
Australians are feeling the strain of additional workloads according to Time's researcher Michael Bittman who said, "The whole population has this sense that time is scarce and there isn't enough of it to get anything done.
"There is growing fear that people won't be able to stay on top of everything."
The Australian Bureau of Statistics came up with the following activity report:
| Activity | Working Men | Working Women |
| Sleeping | 8.1 hours | 8.19 hours |
| Working (including travel and lunch) | 9.11 hours | 6 hours |
| Eating and Drinking | 56 minutes | 53 minutes |
| Personal care | 49 minutes | 53 minutes |
| Reading | 16 minutes | 17 minutes |
| Watching TV/Video | 97 minutes | 73 minutes |
| Talking | 11 minutes | 20 minutes |
| Relaxing or thinking | 26 minutes | 30.5 minutes |
| Childcare | 16 minutes | 43 minutes |
| Domestic activities | 1.35 hours | 2.52 hours |
| Purcahsing goods and services | 29 minutes | 52 minutes |
Another gorgeous sunny day in paradise...
Have a good one.
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