Fed: Government in line for more criticism from UN ATSIC

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2000
Fed: Government in line for more criticism from UN ATSIC

CANBERRA, Aug 27 AAP - The federal government was likely to face more international
criticism for the treatment of Aborigines following its latest appearance before a United
Nations committee, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) said today.

ATSIC said the Australian government's submission to the committee examining Australia's
compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
was insufficient, piecemeal, lacking in focus and incoherent.

The commission lodged its own report to the UN committee which stated that indigenous
people in Australia were unable to enjoy their rights at the standards mandated by the
covenant.

So far this year, the UN's Committee on the elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
and its Human Rights Committee have both issued adverse findings on the Australian government's
treatment of indigenous issues.

ATSIC Commissioner Brian Butler said the 18-member CESCR, which heard Australia's submission
late last week, showed enormous interest in the relationship between Australian governments
and indigenous people.

"On the first day, committee members impressed us with their high level of awareness
of the issues in Australia," Mr Butler said.

"The next day, they were eager to deal with indigenous issues as soon as the meeting
opened yet the Australian government officials brushed aside further questions about disparity
and spent a lot of time restating the government's 1998 arguments on native title."

Mr Butler said comments from the committee members indicated the likely tone of the
report due late next week.

* Javier Wimer Zambrano (Mexico) questioned the Australian officials on self-determination,
rebuking them for hiding behind legal subterfuges to cloud the issue;

* Walid Sa'di (Jordan) asked for confirmation of a change in policy in 1996 with the
cuts to ATSIC's budget and suggested the government's explanation for the high level of
indigenous unemployment was inadequate;

* Maria de los Angeles Jimenez Butragueno (Spain) described the 1998 changes to the
Native Title Act as a step backwards; and

* Kenneth Osborne Rattray (Jamaica) said indigenous issues in Australia were highly
visible and that one of the fundamental tenets of the covenant was no regressive steps,
don't retreat from rights already in place.

AAP eg/cd

KEYWORD: INDIGENOUS ATSIC

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

SA: Ford Australia appoints new marketing boss

AAP General News (Australia)
04-12-2000
SA: Ford Australia appoints new marketing boss

ADELAIDE, April 12 AAP - Ford Australia has appointed Bruce McDonald as its new marketing
and sales vice-president.

President Geoff Polites said today Mr McDonald has been with Ford for a number of years
and held several senior marketing and sales positions within Australia before moving to
the United States three years ago.

"His experience in the areas of corporate brand planning, field operations and, most
recently, as regional sales manager in New York makes him the best person to fill this
vitally important position," Mr Polites said in a statement.

Mr McDonald joined Ford in 1974 as a graduate trainee and later worked as marketing
research manager, advertising manager and merchandising manager.

He later worked for Laminex Industries and with Nissan before returning to Ford in 1992.

Since then, he's worked as a regional manager and vehicle marketing manager before
moving to the United States in 1996.

Mr Polites said Mr McDonald would replace Mr Matthew Taylor, who was returning to Europe
for personal reasons.

"Matthew made a fantastic contribution to Ford Australia during his time here and we
thank him for all his efforts," the Ford president said.

AAP tjd/ rs

KEYWORD: MOTOR FORD

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

NSW: 10 year old girl jabbed with blood filled syringe

AAP General News (Australia)
01-14-2000
NSW: 10 year old girl jabbed with blood filled syringe

A 10-year-old girl in north-west New South Wales faces an anxious three-month wait
for test results after being jabbed with a blood-filled syringe by a school friend.

The girl, ALEX, was walking with her cousin in Bourke in the main street on Tuesday
when a girl came at her with a needle and jabbed it hard into her stomach.

The attack happened the London Bank, a building where local drug users are known to congregate.

ALEX has undergone blood tests and was vaccinated against Hepatitis B at Bourke …

VIC: Fifteen seats at stake as ALP faces uphill battle

AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-1999
VIC: Fifteen seats at stake as ALP faces uphill battle

By Krista Hughes, State Political Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Aug 24 AAP - Fifteen seats stand between the Labor Party and government in
Victoria.

With 25 days to go until the September 18 election, that's about one electorate to win
every two days.

The feat is not unprecedented: the coalition pulled off a similar coup in 1992, when it
achieved a 5.77 per cent swing and 19 extra seats to win government from the embattled ALP.

But opinion polls indicate the government has little cause for concern, despite Premier
Jeff Kennett's repeated statements that it will take nothing for granted.

The main election issues shaping up are:

* Police numbers and crime on the back of a 3.6 per cent rise in the crime rate;

* Public hospitals and drugs, with Labor pushing its plan for five safe injecting rooms and
the partial decriminalisation of marijuana.

The government has yet to release detailed policies but has its can-do image and economic
achievements to remind voters of who is the safer option.

Yesterday's announcement of funding for the Geelong Road will give the government a boost
but the opening of City Link could be a rogue factor, with tolls likely to bite before the
election date.

For its part, Labor will emphasise its break with the past, its new policy platform and
team of fresh faces such as former Uniting Church spokeswoman Bronwyn Pike, civil libertarian
Joseph O'Reilly, and lawyer Stuart Morris.

In theory, the ALP's Steve Bracks needs at least a 5.3 per cent swing in voter support
across the state to become the next premier.

It's far short of the 15.8 per cent swing the ALP achieved in 1997 to wrest the blue-ribbon
seat of Mitcham from the Liberals at a by-election, yet would require a doubling of the 2.8
per cent it won in the 1996 state poll.

But the swing means nothing unless it translates into MPs, and Labor needs to add 15 to its
current crop of 30 to win a majority.

It will also have to watch the eastern suburbs outpost of Mitcham and its own marginal
seats such as Ivanhoe and Werribee, where the Liberals have endorsed David McLaren, the local
mayor during the toxic waste dump controversy.

The 18-odd government seats in the firing line, which would require a 5.5 per cent swing or
less to fall to the ALP, are concentrated in Melbourne's south-east and around the regional
centres of Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong.

The ALP already holds Bendigo West and Geelong North, giving it a head start on Bendigo
East, Ripon and Bellarine.

In Geelong, Housing Minister Ann Henderson will face a strong challenger in Ian Tresize,
son of former Labor minister and footballer Neil "Nipper" Tresize.

Both Ballarat seats will be hotly contested, with only 0.06 per cent needed to topple
Ballarat East and 1.39 per cent for West, where local mayor Judy Verlin is taking over from
the retiring Paul Jenkins.

In Melbourne, Liberal Bernie Finn's seat of Tullamarine could be adversely affected by City
Link tolls, while on the other side of town, Labor's wish-list includes Prahran, Oakleigh,
Bentleigh and Mordialloc.

The government will also be keen to regain Carrum, a traditional Labor seat lost to the
coalition at the 1996 election.

The government also has plans to topple independent MPs Russell Savage (Mildura) and Susan
Davies (Gippsland West), who goes to her first general election after wresting the seat from
the Liberals at a 1997 by-election with just a 0.3 per cent margin.

The Liberal and National party coalition partners will stand rival candidates in five
electorates, including the two independent-held seats.

In the state's west, the Nationals have picked former Geelong AFL player Paul Couch to
stand in retiring former (Liberal) minister Ian Smith's seat of Polwarth, and the Liberals
will run candidates against Nationals' Hugh Delahunty in Wimmera and Greg Walsh in
Warrnambool.

AAP kmh/jlw/er/jnb

KEYWORD: POLLVIC BACKGROUNDER

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

VIC: Crown witness may not be trustworthy, jury told

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-1999
VIC: Crown witness may not be trustworthy, jury told

By Stuart Walsh

MELBOURNE, April 5 AAP - A lawyer defending a man accused of murdering two Bega schoolgirls
today questioned whether the key crown witness, who admits to the killings, could be trusted
or whether he was "downright evil".

Accused man Leslie Alfred Camilleri, 29, of Yass, New South Wales, has pleaded not guilty
to two counts of murder.

He denies having any part in the stabbing killings of Bega High School pupils Nichole
Collins and Lauren Barry.

The bodies of Nichole, 16, and her 14-year-old friend Lauren, were found in dense bushland
at Fiddlers Green Creek, 10km inside the Victorian border on November 12 1997.

The court has been told that Camilleri's then close friend Lindsay Hoani Beckett, 25,
pleaded guilty to the murders and was now serving life with a minimum term of 35 years.

The Court of Appeal rejected his appeal against the severity of the sentence.

Beckett has told the court he thought he would be sentenced to 30 years because he had
pleaded guilty and had agreed to give evidence against Camilleri.

Beckett has said that in carrying out the killings, he was acting under orders from
Camilleri because he feared for his own life. He said Camilleri had threatened to stab him to
death if he did not obey him.

Beckett told the court that after picking the girls up near their homes, he and Camilleri
repeatedly raped them before they were tied up and killed on October 6, 1997.

Camilleri's defence is that he knew nothing of the rapes and killings because he was asleep
in the car and "doped out" on heroin.

Beckett said that for 10 hours the girls were driven hundreds of kilometres throughout NSW
and Victoria.

Stratton Langslow, for Camilleri, said Beckett had shown in giving evidence that he would
lie whenever it suited him.

Mr Langslow asked the jury to consider whether Beckett could be relied upon or "is he
inherently dishonest and perhaps even downright evil?"

Mr Langslow said it was clear nobody could ever trust Beckett, who had shown no emotion,
"no real sense of conscience and no real sense of the gravity of the crimes that he
committed".

"He blankly told you how he used the knife - because, on his story, Lauren Barry dared to
struggle..."

He had kicked Nichole Collins as she struggled for her life.

Mr Langslow said the jury might think just about the only sign of emotion that Beckett
showed in the witness box had been when, asked by Camilleri to burn things that might be
traced through DNA testing, he recalled losing his favourite footy jumper.

The trial, before Justice Frank Vincent, is continuing.

AAP sew/er/cfm

KEYWORD: CAMILLERI (CARRIED EARLIER)

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

NSW: Disgruntled police officers consider splinter union

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-1998
NSW: Disgruntled police officers consider splinter union

By John Kidman, Crime Reporter

SYDNEY, Dec 16 AAP - Some 600 specialist New South Wales police officers are said to be
considering the formation of a splinter union.

The disgruntled faction, proposing to call itself the Professional Investigators
Association, is set to meet in Sydney tomorrow.

NSW Police Association president Mark Burgess tonight labelled the breakaways, thought to
be comprised mostly of Crime Agencies personnel, as elitist.

"What were talking about is very much at elitist organisation," he said.

"Those responsible, I believe, are setting themselves up for the perception that theyre
better than other police."

Mr Burgess said the movement appeared to have sprung from opposition to recent changes to
the associations rules regarding representation at its biannual and special conferences.

He said there had been a general push towards the changes in accordance with last years
restructure of the police service along regional lines.

However, some investigators, scientific officers and prosecutors had rejected the move.

Mr Burgess said the irony was that some of the detractors had been prepared to do
themselves out of a say on important industry issues.

He said under the new rules Crime Agencies staff would be represented along with City East
Region at upcoming conferences, creating the strongest voice within the state.

But if they preferred to go it alone, they faced the prospect of losing more than 75 per
cent of their representation.

The changes did not affect the branch structure of the association and only dealt with the
issue of representation at conferences, Mr Burgess said.

He had offered to speak at tomorrows meeting but had been declined the opportunity, he
added.

AAP jk/sw/rap/de

KEYWORD: POLICE UNION

1998 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

QLD:Qld expands whooping cough vaccinations

AAP General News (Australia)
02-25-2011
QLD:Qld expands whooping cough vaccinations

BRISBANE, Feb 25 AAP - The Queensland government's free vaccination program for whooping
cough has been expanded, as the risk from the illness continues to rise in the state.

Health Minister Geoff Wilson says the government announced in July 2009 that the free
whooping cough vaccination program would include new parents and it has now been expanded
to cover other close relationships.

"The free whooping cough vaccination program now includes parents, foster parents,
adoptive parents, and grandparents of babies under six months of age and anyone …