What Australian papers say Friday, Aug 31, 2001

AAP General News (Australia)
08-31-2001
What Australian papers say Friday, Aug 31, 2001

SYDNEY, Aug 31 AAP - The time has come for the government to cut its losses before
it embarks on even higher-risk gambits - like trying to tow the Norwegian freighter into
the open sea, The Australian Financial Review says in its editorial today.

The signal to other asylum seekers from this exercise is being overwhelmed by the negative
impact on Australia's reputation abroad and the threat to the well-being of the 460 asylum
seekers, the paper says.

"It is now pointless to drag out the standoff until serious illness on board the freighter
simply forces gradual movement of some asylum seekers to Christmas Island."

The Daily Telegraph says the Australian government "must find somewhere for them to
stay or we will have denied our humanitarian responsibilities and abrogated our leadership
in the region."

Australians should give a thought to "how we would look at ourselves were the Tampa
people to suffer or die if we were to shunt them out to sea".

While the people on the Tampa may not come here, "we must ensure they, too, have somewhere
to settle".

The Courier-Mail says the federal government has resorted to force rather than diplomacy
in dealing with the Tampa, when it should have been making every effort to persuade Indonesia
to share the burden.

Rather than simply declaring the ship should take the people it had rescued to Indonesia,
it should first have cleared the way with Indonesia's leaders.

The paper says it is difficult to imagine any satisfactory solution that does not involve
Indonesia, other than allowing those on board the Tampa to land in Australia.

"The difficulty in getting Jakarta's support is that bitter resentment still exists
among Indonesia's leadership and people of the role Australia played in East Timor's gaining
of independence," The Courier-Mail says.

The handling of the Tampa case cannot be allowed to be done in anything but the national
interest, The Age says.

"The Howard cabinet clearly believed it had the law and the Australian people on its
side when it decided early this week to refuse entry to the Norwegian freighter, Tampa,"

it says.

"That was until the government tried - and failed - to rush through parliamentary legislation.

The (resulting) split meant the end of the bipartisan stance on the issue," it says.

"For these issues to become part of the... federal election campaign would be a terrible
mistake."

Resolving the Tampa crisis is being made all the tougher by a large dose of world hypocrisy,
the Herald Sun says.

"Our nation has been unfairly attacked by global human rights groups for using troops
to protect our territorial rights," it says.

"It is all the more galling that one nation calling for an end to the crisis - Afghanistan
- is a long-term cause of the world's refugee problem.

"In the short term, it is another nation - Indonesia - which holds the key to finding
a sensible and humane solution to the Tampa dilemma.

"Neither is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, under which Australia has welcomed
more than 580,000 refugees fleeing persecution."

The government has broadly supported the need to end the current restrictive and manipulative
framework on media ownership, but its approach has been deeply flawed, The Australian
says.

Instead of encouraging innovation, it has sought to control emerging technology, it says.

Its restrictions on datacasting, for instance, cost a billion-dollar hole in its budget
surplus thanks to the lack of takers for spectrum licences.

World class media groups should be welcomed into Australia, the paper says, as their
expertise will enrich content, increase competition and create more choice for consumers.

It is known that people with injuries for which they can claim compensation are likely,
in the process of being compensated, to suffer even more, The Sydney Morning Herald says.

Now two reputable professional bodies say professionals in the injury compensation
processes should change their ways.

Unless they do, injured people who claim compensation in the courts will remain less
likely to recover as fully and quickly as those who do not make such claims.

It would be easy to glow with sentimentality as the Royal Adelaide Show starts today,
The Advertiser says in today's editorial.

"However, the significance of this show transcends these considerations," it says.

"Successive good seasons have given new heart to rural SA - exports of primary produce
and value-added primary produce are buoyant.

"The traditional image of the slow thinking, handout-seeking farmer (always unfair)
is replaced by the reality of dynamic producers employing new technologies to supply and
service new and discerning markets.

"Today is Show time again and we have a great deal of success to put on parade."



















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