AAP General News (Australia)
04-22-2009
What Australian newspapers say on Wednesday April 22, 2009
SYDNEY, April 22 AAP - Wednesday's The Australian says it took him months to manage
it, but Kevin Rudd has finally admitted the obvious - we are, or we soon will be, in recession.
But having finally got one R-word out, Mr Rudd must start using another one - recovery.
But despite the RBA's ersatz optimism that growth will return in "due course", there
is no guarantee more jobs will accompany it.
Without tax reform, many of them will be discouraged from looking for even part-time
work by perversities in the tax and welfare systems that punish people who try to earn
more income. There is also a risk young people will have still-born working lives.
For all the Government's pump-priming, the best way of generating long-term jobs is
for the state to encourage people to train and retrain for real work, and to create conditions
where growth allows business to employ people.
It will require the Rudd Government to implement policies that reform counter-productive
pensions and empower the private sector to create jobs with a future.
Whatever the cost of our non-participation in terms of votes for the Security Council,
Australia was right to have no part of it.
The UN's integrity has been tarnished as the conference degenerated into bitter farce
because of the pernicious, anti-Semitic tirade by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Singling out Israel as "the most cruel and racist regime" created "under the pretext of
Jewish suffering" in World War II, the Iranian tyrant's 30 minutes of racist bile, a day
before Holocaust Remembrance Day, vindicated the Rudd Government's decision not to attend.
Australia's non-participation could cost us heavily in our quest to be elected to a
temporary seat on the UN Security Council in 2013-14. But the more important question
the Rudd Government must consider is whether it is worth committing scarce resources to
further that aim.
Whatever the cost of our non-participation in terms of votes for the Security Council,
Australia was right to have no part of it.
The Australian's third piece says the workers collective at the ABC is apparently upset
management has called in international interviewers to review the work of those torquemadas
of television, Kerry O'Brien and Tony Jones.
Perhaps they are worried Jones and O'Brien will struggle with critical scrutiny.
The Sydney Morning Herald today says long before the Rudd Government began talking
about a recession in Australia, hundreds of thousands of workers in the real economy,
outside the public service, felt the chill wind of job loss, or work loss, or job insecurity.
Yesterday the Herald revealed that one in four small to medium-sized businesses in
NSW expect to cut staff in the next three months, according to a survey by the NSW Business
Chamber.
What makes this news doubly troubling is that this sector is the great employment sponge
of the economy, soaking up more workers and self-employed than any other sector. For all
the hyperactivity and spending of the Rudd Government, we have not seen structural reforms
targeted specifically at the 1.2 million small businesses in this country to help them
weather this storm.
In fact, we have seen the opposite.
The other area of greatest concern for small and medium-sized business is the ever-increasing
burden of compliance with government regulation - federal, state and local - in areas
such as tax and occupational health and safety.
When the federal budget is delivered on May 12 we would like to see a range of measures
designed to lift the creeping burden of compliance, complexity and constraint that small
businesses must operate under.
The SMH's second piece says that you cannot believe either side in the bloody Sri Lankan
conflict.
We suspect there's truth in both claims, it says.
But verification is near impossible because foreign media and humanitarian agencies
have been kept out, and Sri Lanka's own media is subject to intimidation and control.
Beyond the fighting, if peace and human security is to return to Sri Lanka, the country's
leaders have a huge task of inter-communal healing ahead of them.
In its second take The Australian says before its second conference on racism opened
in Geneva, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the UN's reputation was on the
line.
Australia's non-participation could cost us heavily in our quest to be elected to a
temporary seat on the UN Security Council in 2013-14. But the more important question
the Rudd Government must consider is whether it is worth committing scarce resources to
further that aim. Last month, the Lowy Institute reported that Australia's diplomats are
overstretched, underfunded and ill-equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says that for a start, this year's May budget will be
the first recession budget known to many Australians, who have become used to times of
plenty.
This year, the amount of capital available to the Government is considerably reduced
(by something like $115 billion in lost taxes and excise).
the Government proceeds with proposed measures against the wealthiest Australians,
it risks stalling recovery. These people are, after all, employers.
A planned program of increased capital works is far more positive and job-friendly
and should have particular application throughout NSW.
The federal coalition's recent performance on the asylum-seeker debate shows it has
not come to terms with losing government, the main editorial in The Age newspaper said
on Wednesday.
The editorial said opposition MPs had demanded a return of temporary protection visas
and the release by the government of all information relating to last week's fatal boat
explosion at Ashmore Reef "despite the fact that official investigations have not been
concluded".
"The insinuation in all this is that the Rudd government's abandonment of policies
that trampled on human rights has undermined border security, creating a flood of asylum
seekers who will overrun our haven of stability.
"This is simply untrue - the 426 who have arrived so far in this financial year hardly
compare with the 4,241 who came in 1999-2000 - but, more disturbingly, it suggests a belief
that voters can be prised away from the government by resorting to its predecessor's policies,
which stirred xenophobia.
"The question is why the Opposition Leader and other senior Coalition MPs seem intent
on trying to revive it. Mr Turnbull is no racist. That, however, makes his attachment
to the policies of a government the voters have rejected all the more curious.
"The confected asylum-seeker controversy is only the latest, most distasteful example
of that attachment.
"Since the global financial crisis began, Mr Turnbull has inveighed against the dangers
of stimulatory fiscal policy, despite the clear evidence that voters are much less troubled
by the dwindling of the budget surplus than by the rise in unemployment.
"It is as though the Coalition has not yet come to terms with its loss of office. If
Mr Turnbull hopes to become prime minister eventually, that is where he must start."
More police on the beat would cut the number of crimes in Victoria, the main editorial
in the Herald Sun newspaper said on Wednesday.
Crime statistics released on Tuesday showed "a disturbing increase in violent crime",
the editorial said.
"This is matched by a dramatic decrease in the number of police on patrol throughout the state.
"Chief Commissioner Simon Overland attributes some of the increase in street violence
in the Melbourne CBD to more crimes being reported as offenders are confronted with extra
police.
"But the message throughout the state appears to be crystal clear. When there are fewer
police on patrol there is more crime, particularly assaults and drug offences.
The solution is more police in trouble spots and tougher policing. The courts must
also do their part with realistic sentencing for street thugs."
Brisbane's The Courier Mail today says it is refreshing to hear our Prime Minister,
our Treasurer and the governor of the Reserve Bank, finally concede that Australia is
indeed in recession.
But as the global financial crisis continues to cripple the world economy, it is a
reality we must deal with openly and honestly.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hinted at a third round of government spending
as part of the May Budget to further stimulate demand and economic activity.
Now should be the time to stimulate activity in the engine room of economic growth
in Australia, and that is private enterprise.
This Budget will be the most delicate of high-wire acts.
In terms of our ballooning debt, there must be an exit strategy, and we need to rest
assured that the money borrowed will enrich future generations, not burden them.
The Courier Mail's second editorial says Premier Anna Bligh has followed up her structural
overhaul of the state's public service with a shake-up of parliamentary committees. The
system will now be dominated by four so-called super committees: law, justice and safety;
economic development; environmental and resources; and social development.
However, it is the calibre of the committee membership that will make the difference,
not what the committee is called.
AAP jfm
KEYWORD: EDITORIALS
2009 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.
