Good evening, a sensation tonight at the Commonwealth Games trials in South Australia.
17-year-old Queensland swimmer Glenn Houseman slashed more than a second from the 1500-metre
freestyle world record, only to have it disallowed by Games officials.
And unfortunately, a world record has to be recorded on the automatic officiating equipment.
The timing judges claimed, Houseman failed to touch the finishing pads hard enough.
You see, they're supposed to have manual backups.
If a manual backup isn't acceptable, as a world record claim, why do they have it?
It's a waste of time.
Not even an Australian record.
I mean, it's a joke.
Prime Minister Hawke has asked state premiers to attend a summit on child poverty next month.
His request coincides with a separate call by the United Nations for a top-level world
conference on poverty.
It was during the 1987 election campaign that Mr Hawke made his now famous promise.
Now he has claimed success.
I and the government have delivered on the promise that we'd remove any financial need
for poverty among kids.
But the Prime Minister doesn't pretend the system is perfect.
And in an attempt to improve the delivery of services to the needy, he has called for
cooperation between state and federal governments.
I have just this last week written to all the state premiers and asked that there should
be a meeting which we'll have in January.
Meanwhile, the United Nations was calling for a similar meeting, this time between world
leaders on the plight of children.
It is unconscionable that as the decade of the 1990s start, that some 40,000 children
are still dying every day.
Or in other words, 28 children every second.
According to a report by UNICEF, much of the blame for that toll can be put on rising debt
in the third world.
Sarah Turner, Canberra.
With Christmas less than two weeks away, family and community service departments across Australia
say there's a desperate need for foster parents.
Up to 10,000 children are on waiting lists for families they can call their own.
For mothers like Tracy Danielson, the Christmas holiday period isn't easy.
I was on the border of killing my son, Leslie.
I was on the verge that I didn't care anymore because my husband had died and left me with
all the kids.
Police intervened and two of her children were given to foster parents.
The situation is quite critical in that we simply haven't got enough caring families
to provide homes for those children during that period.
Today the family was reunited for the best Christmas present Tracy's ever had.
And in South Australia, welfare workers and hotel owners have taken a stand against domestic
violence, in particular wife bashing.
They've printed off hundreds of posters to be put up in popular drinking holes.
Alcohol is not the cause of domestic violence, but it does have a role as a catalyst.
The main groups of wife beaters are doctors, lawyers, truck drivers and men in uniform.
So that it's right across the social spectrum.
Welfare groups say there's always an increase in family disputes immediately after Christmas.
Emma Rossi, National Nine News.
Overseas and the British Parliament will debate on Tuesday the fate of 57,000 Vietnamese boat
people in Hong Kong.
Prime Minister Thatcher is standing by forced repatriation despite international condemnation.
And those countries who are protesting at their return would do far better if they offered
to take some of them.
Doesn't the Prime Minister realize that she's the only person in this whole shameful episode
that can't make the excuse I was only obeying orders.
Yesterday 51 Vietnamese were forced to leave Hong Kong to return to an uncertain future
in Hanoi.
Campanings in full swing in Chile for the first general election in almost two decades.
Close to 35,000 soldiers are taking up positions at polling booths for this Friday's election.
Opinion polls predict military dictator General Augusto Pinochet will be succeeded by populist
Patricio Alwin.
The seven and a half million voters will have a choice of stability and prosperity under
the shadow of Pinochet or a civilian government prepared to go it alone.
Checking the weather now in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane can expect showers.
That's Nightline for this Wednesday.
I'm George Duneckian.
Good night.
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