Bush fires around Adelaide destroy homes and kill several people.
Mr Hawke outlines the ALP's election platform with income tax concessions the main plank.
And Mr Fraser says, Labour's policy lacks substance.
A number of people have died in South Australia as bushfires sweep Australia's southeastern
corner.
The ABC's Adelaide office says it's just been confirmed that three people died.
They were killed when their cars were trapped in one of six fires in the Adelaide hills.
Several other people have been injured, at least two seriously, and many homes have been
destroyed by at least six separate fires.
The state of emergency has been declared for the next four days.
Rick Teague reports.
Shortly before midday that the major fire south of Adelaide erupted.
Forced on by the strong northerly winds that had earlier coated most of the Adelaide metropolitan
area in thick dust.
The blaze raced from grassland at McLaren flat over the Sellicks Hill ranges towards
the southern tip of the Kuypo forest.
Every available CFS unit and police officer in the southern districts was called in on
the big blaze that threatened the dozens of farming properties that stretched down to
Adelaide's far south coast.
At last reported was still burning completely out of control and a southerly change during
the afternoon added complete confusion to the firefighting efforts.
Early in the afternoon at least one house and a number of stock were reported lost,
but at present there has been no communication with several of the more isolated spots.
These wind gusts of up to 80 kilometres an hour have made fighting this fire completely
impossible.
It's been raging out of the control for about two hours now and heading down in a southerly
direction towards Kuypo.
The CFS authorities say they haven't got any hope of holding the fire.
They're just making attempts to contact all householders and evacuate them.
In Victoria fires are raging on three fronts.
Many parts of the coastal resort of Lorne have been affected.
The population has been forced to go to the beaches.
The other major fire is in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne.
Hundreds of people have left their homes around Belgrave Heights.
This report from Ralph Neal in Melbourne.
In Lorne the police say the fire has swept through a quarter of the town's boundaries.
Firefighters are battling to save houses but already a number have been destroyed.
Hundreds of people along the coast between Lorne and Anglesey have been ordered to evacuate
their homes.
Many are seeking refuge on the beaches.
A fire at east Trenton, 90 kilometres north of Melbourne, is moving rapidly towards the
Wombat State Forest.
The CFA says 15 tankers are helping the Forest Commission of the place which has so far destroyed
a number of outbuildings.
Another major fire is burning in the outer suburban Belgrave Heights area where a number
of homes have been destroyed.
The CFA says the fire is spotting badly and is growing larger.
Another fire blazing out of control is at Kudgy, north east of Warrnambool, where 20
CFA tankers are battling a huge grass fire.
Mr Hawke has launched the Labor Party's policy for the general election with a promise of
tax cuts for 6 million Australian workers and improvements in welfare, health, housing
and education.
The details from our political correspondent, Barry Cassidy.
Sydney's Opera House theatre was filled 30 minutes before Mr Hawke's speech began and
they were to hear Mr Hawke say from the outset that it wasn't going to be a campaign about
personalities but one involved with important issues.
The key plank in Mr Hawke's platform was a restructured income tax package.
Its key elements include immediate, that is in our first budget, reductions in income
tax for almost 6 million Australian taxpayers, with the greatest tax cuts going to those
on the lowest incomes who have suffered most under Mr Fraser's policies.
Under the new scale, a taxpayer without dependents on $300 a week would save $3.26 and because
of a lift in the tax threshold to $5,000, tens of thousands of low income earners would
be freed from all tax.
And the zone allowance for people living in remote areas would be increased by 25%.
On social welfare, Mr Hawke promised to raise pensions and unemployment benefits.
And Mr Hawke reaffirmed previous Labor commitments to universal health insurance, a cut of 3
cents a litre in the price of petrol, the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs
and special assistance for the steel industry.
On the controversial question of state aid, Mr Hawke said direct Commonwealth grants
to a very small number of wealthy private schools would be reduced by 5%, but he said
as a result, 98% of children in Catholic schools would be better off.
Mr Hawke ended his speech by going back 40 years to when the people of Australia, faced
with the crisis of war, gave the Labor Party under John Curtin their overwhelming support.
In very different times, in a very different kind of crisis, the task and the challenge
remain the same, to bring Australians together in a united effort until victory is won.
And with the applause still being sustained, Mr Hawke's father, Clem, climbed onto the
stage to join him.
Polling day March 5th will be Mr Hawke Senior's 85th birthday.
And outside, hundreds of people who hadn't been able to fit into the theatre, mobbed
Mr Hawke on the Opera House steps as he moved towards his car.
It was for him an emotional end to a day which began with the publication of a Morgan Gallup
poll showing the Labor Party 11 percentage points ahead of the Government.
Barry Cassidy in Sydney, ABC News.
And while Mr Hawke was delivering Labor's policy speech at the Sydney Opera House, Mr
Fraser was here at the Hakoa Club at a private luncheon.
But within minutes of the close to Mr Hawke's address, the Prime Minister emerged with this
reaction.
The Australian public are asked to buy a policy with its linchpin totally and absolutely missing.
And when it does appear, it'll be tinsel without anything underneath the wrapping paper.
And I believe that these policies have been very hurriedly put together.
I don't know how much Mr Hayden has had to do with it, but I'd find it hard to see how
he could support the spending proposals that Labor have put forward.
Because those proposals have and will guarantee that Labor will lose this election on March
5th.
In Brisbane today, the Federal Treasurer, Mr Hard, claimed Australia could not afford
Labor's election promises.
He predicted they would put Australia further into debt and lead to spiralling interest
in the elections.
Mr Howard attacked the ALP's election promises mainly on the theme of their cost.
At the same time, he sought to undermine the ALP theme of reconciliation.
He said the immediate trigger for the elections was a response of the Labor Party and the
ACTU to the wages pause.
Instead of reconciliation, Labor's stance on the pause was divisive, as was its reawakening
of the state aid to schools issue, its support for a republic in Australia and its foreign
policy.
On the funding issue, Mr Howard said the national deficit now was uncomfortably high.
Under Labor, Australia would get even more into debt.
But that was before he'd heard the details of Mr Hawke's major policy speech in Sydney.
After a quick briefing, he gave this response.
I'm very, very suspicious of the calculations that he's made about the taxation commitments,
the idea that 99% of people can have a tax cut without us going much deeper into the
red, and I'm very worried about the effect that a much larger deficit will have on the
level of interest rates in Australia.
Mr Keating has already made it clear that he sees that deficit being funded by the Labor
Party getting money from the banks and building societies.
That can only legitimately happen if interest rates go up.
A retired army officer warned today the Fraser Government's proposal to take an extra 10,000
young people into the defence forces might prove impracticable.
Speaking in Brisbane, Brigadier John Speed, a former army administration expert, said
the need for extra training staff could strain resources considerably.
But he said the program could succeed, providing young people weren't led to believe their
12 months in the services would guarantee them a job outside.
As long as they understand in the first place that no job is guaranteed for them at the
end of the time, then I don't think it would do any great harm.
They would have had a period of 12 months of interesting work under reasonable conditions,
and they would have some incentive to go on to something else.
It would be very important, however, to make it clear that there isn't going to be a job
waiting for them when they finish.
The Tasmanian Wilderness Society today brought the battle to save the Franklin River to the
heart of one of Queensland's most marginal electorates.
As Mike Zacknitz reports, the Society has opened an office in Fadden on Brisbane's
south side, which needs a swing of only 1.6 per cent to go to Labor.
The Director of the Society, Dr Bob Brown, acknowledged there were more pressing issues
than the Franklin, but in a close election, saving the Franklin River from destruction
could decide the general election on March 5.
Dr Brown said it would have been illogical and immoral for the Society not to take a
party political stance when the future of the wild Franklin River and Tasmania's southwest
wilderness was on the line.
He said the Prime Minister's offer to make available $50 million over the next five years
to develop a world standard national park in Tasmania's World Heritage Area was absurd.
There are five marginal seats in Queensland which could well decide the outcome of the
election, decide the next government, and that means decide the fate of the Franklin
River in southwest Tasmania and inevitably, I believe, the fate of other wild areas in
Australia such as the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Island.
This is a national campaign.
How many seats do you think you might be able to swing?
Well, we'll be targeting 13 marginal seats, two of which are here in Brisbane, Fadden
and Bowman, and we're also working in other marginal seats such as Lycart and Herbert
in North Queensland and Petrie in North Brisbane.
And it's going to be a campaign based on people power, a voluntary workforce which the wilderness
society has always been able to get out on these occasions, putting colour brochures
of the Franklin River in letter boxes and on polling day, staffing polling booths right
through these electorates so that people know how to vote to save the Franklin River.
The National Farmers Federation is less than happy with the policy speech of both the Liberal
and Labour parties.
The details from Geoff Power in Canberra.
While welcoming specific Liberal policies on drought, soil conservation and wool promotion,
the 170,000 strong National Farmers Federation is concerned about the budget blowout.
The Federation's executive director, John Whitelaw, says the deficit casts a shadow
over economic recovery and it should be much lower.
One could be perhaps naive and say as little as possible and that's really what we would
like to see because the thought of a $7 billion or $6 billion deficit and one is not counting
it down to the last dollar is rather terrifying.
The prospect of an even higher deficit under Labour prompted comments of economic pie in
the sky from Mr Whitelaw.
He said the policies announced today by Mr Hawke gave no confidence that Labour could
provide sound economic management.
Geoff Power, Canberra.
The Vice Chancellor of Queensland University claimed today the Prime Minister's policy
speech showed a complete absence of party policy on higher education.
Professor Brian Wilson was talking as three and a half thousand new students milled onto
the campus for the first of the traditional orientation week activities.
Lack of resources forced Queensland University to reduce its number of places last year by
200.
The position hasn't improved.
About half those who nominated the university as their first choice this year had to be
rejected.
The reaction of the Vice Chancellor to last night's Liberal policy speech was that a
telephone call would have established the demand for more places for tertiary students.
Professor Wilson.
There doesn't really seem to be anything for tertiary education within the speech.
Obviously the one reference I think was that there would be a request to the Commonwealth
Tertiary Education Commission to determine whether additional university places were
necessary.
And I suppose one could also take into account the move to develop high technology sort of
sunrise industries which if they were to be successful of course clearly require significant
numbers of very highly trained people that the universities would have to provide.
Do you think this would be the weakest education policy that's been put forward for some time?
Well I think I indicated that it really indicated an absence of policy.
Professor Wilson said because of the real reduction in funds over the past eight years
the university was now taking fewer students than it did in the late 1970s.
He said one of the most significant aspects of Mr Fraser's speech was the absence of
comment about higher education fees or extra funds which the university had been pressing
for for some time.
But none of this deterred newcomers from taking part in the customary orientation hijinks
while getting to know what university life holds in store.
This week at least they're flying high.
Barbara Ewart reporting.
Four letter bombs suspected to be the work of animal rights militants have been defused
in three English cities without causing injury.
Scotland Yard said one package received at the Canadian High Commission in London had
contained a message claiming responsibility on behalf of the animal rights militia.
The group was first heard of late last year when it claimed responsibility for letter
bombs sent to the British Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher and four other politicians.
Police said their letter bombs sent to the Canadian representatives could have been in
protest against the annual Newfoundland seal cull.
Now Scott McKinlay has more overseas news.
Thanks Bruce.
About 100 police in North Dakota have used an armoured personnel carrier and tear gas
to storm an isolated farmhouse where they thought a fanatic tax protester was hiding.
Gordon Carl 63 was involved in a fatal shootout with police on Sunday.
Authorities say he's vowed not to be taken alive.
Federal and state law enforcement officials were called in from around the country to
help in the manhunt for Gordon Call suspected of killing two US marshals on Sunday.
Agents surrounded calls former farm in Heaton North Dakota last night where despite the
lack of any hard evidence police believed call was hiding made his house there and that's
all that we do know and it's a logical place if he is hiding in the area.
Special FBI tactical unit and SWAT teams began an assault on the farmhouse that lasted most
of the day.
As many as 100 officers took part in the operation.
Police move slowly because of rumors that call had booby trapped the woods around the
farmhouse with landmines.
Call in addition to being a fanatical opponent of taxes is also known as a survivalist and
is thought to be heavily armed.
Police used tear gas today in their assault on the house but authorities say no shots
were fired and police now say they are sure call is not inside the house but they suspect
he did hide out there and they hope to find some evidence to tell them where to look next.
In North London 30 police trainees scraping through waste ground with their fingers have
uncovered a significant amount of human bone.
The trainees were recruited into the search for the remains of 14 missing men believed
to have been the victims of a mass murder.
Police drafted in 17 year old male and female cadets some who have been in the force only
a matter of weeks to help in the widened search for the remains of bodies in the backyard
of 195 Melrose Avenue.
Under the watchful eye of senior detectives their search was extended into wasteland behind
the house.
With implements and on their hands and knees they carefully plucked at the surface of the
ground and almost immediately their efforts were rewarded with grim fines.
I think it's right to say that we have found a significant amount of human bones.
Apart from that we have also found a large quantity of personal clothing.
It now appears that the search for 13 bodies may go on for weeks while the problem of identifying
those remains which are uncovered will last even longer.
Peter George, ABC News, London.
In Montego Bay thousands of exuberant Jamaicans have greeted the Queen on the second day of
her winter vacation.
The Queen and Prince Philip travelled from the island capital of Kingston where they'd
earlier been entertained by thousands of young people in the National Stadium.
Though the future of the monarchy is in some doubt here the Queen's presence has been an
occasion for Jamaicans to forget what divides them especially the politics and remember
what brings them together.
They did that triumphantly at the big show in Kingston with a grand band of the security
forces a march passed by the skipping brownies and a valentine for the Queen.
For her it was just one of many engagements and her fourth visit to Jamaica was only half
way through.
It continued today at the other end of the island in the second city Montego Bay and
as the crowds in the streets had been quieter in Kingston they were tumultuous here standing
room only and not much of that and the roofs were as crowded as the streets.
It was a simple ceremony in the city square a speech of welcome by the Mayor no speech
at all by the Queen above all a chance for the people of Montego Bay to see at first
hand a very popular head of state a Queen who has helped Jamaica come of age.
And now here's a late message on the bushfires in South Australia it's been confirmed four
people have died but it's feared that at least 14 people have lost their lives.
The four confirmed dead were trapped in cars at Green Hill in the Adelaide Hills and in
the south east of the state.
Australia's road toll has dropped to its lowest level for 20 years thanks to the introduction
of random breath testing in some states.
The details from Kevin Balkan in Canberra.
The latest official figures show that 206 people were killed on the roads last month
74 fewer than in January last year and the lowest January toll since 1963.
Traffic authorities said the new random breath testing laws in some states appeared to be
the only reason for the lower road toll.
As an example they pointed to New South Wales where random breath tests were introduced
just before Christmas.
71 people were killed on the state's roads last month the lowest January figure for 20
years.
New South Wales usually has the highest number of road fatalities.
There were 39 road deaths in Victoria the lowest January total since 1956.
Victoria has had random breath testing since 1976.
Tasmania which had nine road deaths introduced random breath tests last month and in the
ACT another new area for random tests there were two road deaths.
Queensland's Transport Minister Mr Lane has so far declined to comment on whether the
figures might prompt his government to introduce random breath testing.
He says he wants to examine them closely before making any statement.
Mr Lane did say however that the drop in the New South Wales and Tasmanian road tolls could
be due to the novelty of random testing there.
In Brisbane today the giant Utah Development Company announced a profit of more than $148
million dollars that's 12% up on the previous year.
But in the same breath the company warned this year's profit would be lower.
Managing Director James Currie told Noel Gentner the export coal market would continue to tighten
up.
We saw it beginning to tighten it up in the second half of last year.
Our shipments were down somewhat and we're seeing a continuation of that tightening as
we go into 83 and I don't see it frankly getting much better until near the end of 83 if then.
We're seeing more coal coming on stream and declining markets and that's really the problem.
And that affects prices?
That affects prices and it affects how much coal they're going to take from each customer.
Well how much do you think prices will fall?
Well we've seen indications in Europe and indications in Japan more recently that prices
have fallen up to $10 from the mid 60s to the mid 50s basically and that's going to
create some real problems for some of the marginal producers if that's in fact carried
through the entire industry.
Jailed entrepreneur Harry M. Miller is to be released on parole from Cessnock Jail on
March the 1st after having served 10 months of a three year sentence.
A spokesman for the New South Wales Corrective Services Department said today the release
had been approved by the State Parole Board.
Miller was convicted last May on five charges of aiding and abetting the fraudulent misappropriation
of more than $700,000 after the collapse of his booking agency CompuTicket.
The spokesman said the Parole Board had not allowed any special conditions upon Miller's
parole and he would be treated as strictly as any other parolee.
The Administrative Services Minister Mr. Hewitt has accused some businessmen of seeking cheap
labour from disabled people.
Sandra Haswell takes up the story.
Some business people, Mr. Hewitt said, mistakenly believed that Queensland's 2,600 disabled workers
were suited only to performing menial tasks for low pay rates.
People who work with the disabled say business leaders aren't the only ones.
Members of the public sometimes call into sheltered workshops to price an article and
walk out empty handed, stunned that they would have had to pay a reasonable price for it.
That's an unjustified response.
Today Mr. Hewitt launched a new directory which lists the names and addresses of 50
Queensland workshops, their facilities, products and services.
The products range from handcrafts and toys to major furniture items and large truck bodies.
Every service offered or product made is carried out with painstaking care and pride.
It worries these men and women to turn out something which might not be considered high
quality.
As Mr. Hewitt observed at the book launching today, the skills of some disabled workers
are more than a match for those of non-handicapped people.
Copies of the new directory are available from Industry House in Brisbane and it's
expected they'll be used as a quick reference for purchasing officers and consumers.
Sandra Haswell, Brisbane.
The Queensland Grain Growers Association is seeking more access to drought aid for share
farmers.
A meeting of the Association State Council in Toowoomba was told it was extremely difficult
for share farmers to qualify for financial help under the existing drought assistance
guidelines.
The meeting decided to ask that the regulations be amended to give them easier access to drought
relief loans.
Queensland's 1982 Greyhound of the Year was announced today.
The dog Glad's End is owned by Mr. E.W. Hill and Ms. C.A. Hill of Gilberton near Beanlea.
A large part of London's famous Carnaby Street will soon go up for auction.
The ABC's Peter George reports that interest in the sale is all part of a revived interest
in the 1960s and the lifestyle of that decade.
In the 1960s Peter Blake was the enfant terrible of the art world.
They coined the term pop art for him.
Now here we are 20 years later and 60s nostalgia is upon us.
Peter Blake is back in prominence with the retrospective of his work at the Tate Gallery,
recognition indeed from the art world.
The best known work though is rarely associated with the artist.
The album cover of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
So what made the 60s so special?
Perhaps the optimism.
I think it was, yeah.
I think it was a time of kind of financial optimism and you know there was a feeling
of optimism in the country.
And curiously enough going into my show yesterday there were a lot of smiling faces so maybe
some of that still comes through.
But things change.
The shimmer of the 60s has become the tarnish of the 80s.
You should have been here then people will tell you as though they were talking about
yesterday's surfing conditions.
Once the fashion centre of the world, Carnaby Street is now just a trap for the tourist,
cheap and gaudy and a large part of it is up for sale by the Queen's Crown Estates which
bought property here in 1967 for several million dollars.
The likely future, redevelopment, a facelift and the firm imprint of the 80s.
The 60s, well they're already a thing of the past.
Peter George, ABC News, London.
And that's all the news for now.
Back with the late news at half past ten tonight and that will be following countrywide.
Now it's Labour's policy speech with Bob Hawke offering tax cuts to most of the population
plus more jobs.
National recovery and reconstruction, he calls it, but we'll also hear what Mr Fraser calls
it in an interview with Richard Carlton.
Plus part of the campaign that offends Queensland's own Greg Chappell.
Nationwide 8.35 tonight.
Good evening, another fine and warm to hot day in southern Queensland.
In fact it was fine and warm to hot throughout the whole of the state today.
Tomorrow very similar weather pattern expected for the southern part of the state.
No rain in sight at this stage.
In fact there's no rain in sight for the next few days according to the weather bureau at
this stage.
We'll look at the satellite photo now and the cloud out in the Coral Sea there is associated
with tropical cyclone Eleanor, more about that in a moment.
Around the Gulf the cloud is associated with isolated thunderstorm activity.
Now on the chart itself the winds onto the coast have actually freshened a little bit
but cyclone Eleanor is weakening as it's moving further southward and this pressure gradient
hasn't increased that much at all.
And also during the past 24 hours the high cell, little high cell has developed here
just west of or east of Brisbane should I say and the ridge and the combination of this
on the surface plus an upper level ridge over most of the state has kept the state fine
today.
And the other point of interest on tonight's chart really is this broad trough over Northern
Territory and South Australia.
Now during the next 24 hours the trough is expected to move a little further east almost
to the southwestern border areas.
Now that will tend to strengthen the northerly winds in inland parts and they are expected
in turn to send temperatures up a few degrees on those of today.
Cyclone Eleanor is expected to move further southward and weaken even further and on Friday
this trough here is expected to weaken out as well.
So as I said no rain in sight for the next few days at least.
Now the forecast in detail firstly for Queensland, fine over most of the state.
Isolated showers and storms in western Cape York Peninsula and in the far north west.
Isolated showers on the east tropical coast where mostly fresh south-easterly winds and
moderate to rough seas are expected.
Hot north-east to northerly winds over much of the inland freshening in south-western
districts on Thursday.
For Moreton Bay, seas choppy in the central and western bay with highest waves to about
one metre between Deception Bay and Mud Island.
Winds south-east to north-east at 10 to 15 knots.
Lighter winds inshore at night.
For the Gold Coast, fine light to moderate south-east to north-east winds and south
ports expected temperature range 19 to 29.
For the Sunshine Coast, fine moderate to fresh south-east to easterly winds.
For the Laundress, expected maximum tomorrow 28, expected minimum tonight 20 degrees.
For Ipswich, also fine light to moderate south-east to north-easterly winds.
Amberley temperature range expected of 15 to 33.
And for the Brisbane metropolitan area, also fine light to moderate south to north-east
winds.
A temperature range of 20 to 30.
That compares with today's temperature range of 19 to 29.
Good night.