What Australian newspapers say Monday, April 5, 2004

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-2004
What Australian newspapers say Monday, April 5, 2004

SYDNEY, April 5 AAP - The Australian says in its editorial today no particular election
outcome or fashioning of national policy has a predictable effect on their actions.

Terrorists are psychopaths guided by a millenarian religious fantasy, not by real-world
events, so we must increase our vigilance and stand firm with our allies.

Terrorists can be stopped by good policing, as the foiling of the latest train line
blast in Spain shows.

That bolsters the case for Australian police to be urgently given the additional powers
they seek.

The Australian Financial Review says the three substantive policies released in the
midst of the troops-in-Iraq debate show the social policy idealist side of Labor leader
Mark Latham.

There is much to attract voters and parents in their emphasis on discipline and quality
teaching in schools and personal responsibility in Aboriginal affairs.

But there is no clue as to how Mr Latham will wean Labor and the unions off the producer-controlled
model of service delivery that has been found so wanting.

What Labor needs to do is follow through on the rough-hewn principles and produce detailed
policy on schools, parenting and indigenous funding.

The Daily Telegraph says it's outrageous that a teacher should get compensation for
psychological injury over his sacking after engaging in a relationship with a 15-year-old
student.

What about the psychological injury caused to all those affected by the teacher's relationship
with the girl 33 years his junior?

The Workers' Compensation Commission has made a mockery of the education minister's
sacking decision. Now the NSW government must waste more time and taxpayer funds appealing
the decision.

The Sydney Morning Herald says the re-election of Taiwan's pro-independence President
Chen Shui-bian is testing the One China position, to considerable alarm in the region
and beyond.

And Hong Kong's political troubles are unlikely to persuade the Taiwanese to adopt
a more conciliatory stance, let alone join Beijing's "one nation, two systems" club.

Unfortunately, there is little immediate prospect of an easing of tensions across the
Taiwan Straits or of the dangers they pose to the rest of the world.

Melbourne's Herald Sun says the Victorian government needs to reconsider its decision
to prolong its ban on genetically modified canola crops.

The decision to increase the one-year moratorium to four years caught many by surprise.

The Bracks government can no longer fly in the face of mounting evidence backing trials.

It must now rethink its ban or risk sinking the state's claims as a world leader in
biotechnology.

Melbourne's The Age says up to 95 per cent of Indonesia's 147 million voters are expected
to turn out to vote in today's parliamentary elections.

At stake are 550 seats in the national parliament, while the nation's first direct
presidential election is scheduled for July.

The expected high turnout will mirror the 1999 poll, the first since the collapse of
the Soeharto regime, when about 93 per cent voted.

It is an impressive level of participation, considering voting is not compulsory.

Adelaide's The Advertiser says smokers have a right to health care as they have broken no law.

It could be argued our scant resources should be applied to non-smokers, where the
most positive outcomes are likely, but where does the logic stop?

Could we not also argue against operating on the obese, the anorexic and the elderly,
who face an increased risk of pneumonia after surgery?

The moral argument must not get overshadowed by the economic. The community would do
well to consider how the health system does and should serve smokers, who are using a
legal, highly taxed product which puts billions of dollars into Treasury each year.

AAP bw/rs

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

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