With a coal market share of only 12%,
Hep C certainly needs a master stroke.
Perhaps in the past the company hasn't been working hard enough.
I don't think it's a question of working hard enough.
I don't think we've had the formula right in the past.
And we certainly haven't had the focus from an international division's perspective that we now have.
We've increased our staff five-fold in the last 12 months.
We've recruited a whole new management team, they're all very young.
We've, I think, established ourselves as a group of people who are very determined to make Pepsi a major player in the Australian soft drink market.
But that determination may not be enough, even though they've increased their marketing budget 200%.
And this summer they'll spend $6 million.
I'm surprised it's that little.
I think $6 million is a very small amount of money to be spending.
Very, very small.
But the St George Building Society spends something like $10 million in this state alone.
Just marketing money.
If I was them I would be recommended double the spending.
Go all the way.
Music
Companies have always sought the right image for their products by celebrity sponsorship.
But it's become far more sophisticated than the days when men were men.
Howdy, folks.
I'd like to talk to you about outlaws.
Not the kind I bring in.
But this kind.
Grosby Outlaws.
Today's heroes could be bisexual pop stars.
Or those whose nose jobs weren't acquired in a bar room.
And whose attitudes weren't meant to please mum.
Music
But despite the harnessing of the thunderous appeal of rock music to the sales pitch,
and the numerous companies who sponsor various sporting events,
in Australia sponsorship is still in its infancy.
Record executive and promoter Michael Gudinski.
It's really very early days.
In Australia now we're just starting to see the start of sponsorship.
But certainly internationally it's become a very, very big thing for the business the last few years.
Sponsorship here has been very chaotically organised.
It doesn't market itself very well to potential clients or to the public.
It's always been, I think if someone's been mad about motor racing,
they've kind of taken their shareholders' money and cut it off and got themselves a racing car
and gone along to the, so they've got the glamour of standing in the pits.
I think apart from Colton United,
they're the only people who have really approached it in a sophisticated way,
the rest of them have been very, very cottage industry in their thinking.
I think a lot of the people in advertising were resisting tie-ins with Rock and Roll, perhaps in the earlier days.
But certainly in the last year with Elton John and Quantis, and Coke and John Farnham,
and now Pepsi doing all their tours, it certainly, it seems that the dam wall's finally broken
and it's really going to open up.
People today, there's enormous demand for a return on the investment of your advertising dollar,
and sponsorship just takes a long time to get going, unless you do it in a blockbuster fashion.
Music
Why does this ad work for Coca-Cola?
Well, that's a great endorsement of the product.
But it's very subtle.
Yeah, but Jack is drinking the product and enjoying it.
Why have you decided to use John Farnham?
Because everyone likes Jack.
What's most important in this type of rock magazine layout is that we get the relevance.
The relevance is the most important factor.
While Pepsi has gone out and bought the rock industry,
Coca-Cola is taking a more low-key approach in his backing a local identity with greater market spread.
My call, Coca-Cola Australia.
We put a lot of money behind sponsorship because it works.
Very effective.
Music
How much money a year would you put?
We'd spend about $5 million.
And on what range of products?
I'm talking specifically behind Coca-Cola, and behind the particular activities would be surfing,
netball, supercross, a whole range of sports.
And how long have you been doing that for as a company, in a major way?
From the day we started.
I mean, sponsorship has always been part of our marketing armory.
But the soldiers over at Pepsi have little choice but to be aggressive.
Well, it's war.
I mean, there'll be no blood spilled in the streets, but this is certainly a war.
It's a battle. It's a big business.
The Australian soft drink market is worth $1 billion a year.
We would like a much bigger share of that.
Australians consume one million litres of Coca-Cola every day,
and Coca-Cola has here one of the highest market shares in the world.
They'll have nothing of any war.
There is no cola war, I can assure you.
When you outsell somebody by 15 to 1,
you've got to believe that that particular battle or minor skirmish that we had with Pepsi Cola is all over.
The competitor that we look at now is total beverages.
And I'm talking about tea, coffee, wine coolers, light beer, beverages like that.
That's where we're focusing our marketing effort, and that's our strategy.
So as the marketing cavalry descends on the new generation with promises of the real thing
and the pop stars thump the promotional tom-toms, who benefits?
Who benefits from sponsorship?
Well, the client does if it works, and so do the shareholders because they get a better return,
and so does the consumer because he's more entertained and more involved in what's going on.
And people today love being entertained.
That's what sponsorship is really great at, great entertainment.
Do you think that many Australian companies are ready for the rock and rollers to turn up in the boardroom?
Yes. Just turn on the radio.
MUSIC
David Morgan reporting on one aspect of the froth and bubble of marketing.
Next, John Elliott.
MUSIC
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A taste of paradise.
Another big year for Elders IXL, bigger than most in fact.
After announcing substantial and controversial restructuring plans, the company produced on Friday record profits.
$613 million before tax, more than double the previous year's figure.
Much of it came from trading operations and the sale of rights in BHP Gold.
Still to come, further windfalls from the float of Courage Pubs in the United Kingdom and the partial float of several other divisions within Elders.
Not that Elders are having it all their way.
This week, rival Bond Brewing became number four in the world ahead of the Foster's Group after stitching together the giant Heilermann deal in the United States.
Not that that's phasing Elders Chairman and Chief Executive John Elliott, who agreed to this interview with Finance Editor Michael Pascoe.
You don't like coming second, but at the same time it looks like Arch Rivals Bond Brewing has put you in second place as far as the beer business goes for an Australian company with his purchase of Heilermann.
Oh no, I think if his purchase puts him into fourth place I think, we're sixth.
Internationally.
Yes, so he's paid a full price, but good luck to him.
Do you want to stay behind Bond Brewing and the placings on the world stage?
Oh we don't see that as very important Michael, the key is to buy businesses at the right price, to run them well and get profit results for your shareholders and that's what we think we've done again this year.
Still on the beer business though, obviously it gives Bond a big leap into the United States, a much bigger one than you're achieving through the exporting of Foster's there.
Does that put a little bit more urgency on that five billion dollar takeover you've been thinking about for a while?
Well we never speculate about what we're going to do Michael, you know that.
Everyone else does.
Well you keep speculating.
Would you like your beer division to be bigger?
Well I think it's, as I said, a subject that we don't speculate about.
It's gone through enormous growth this year with Carriage and Carling, we're absorbing those things, Carriage is performing particularly well and we're doing all the structural things in Carling now and we'll get the benefits of that next year.
The decision though to have your takeovers in Canada and the United Kingdom rather than the world's biggest beer market, was that intentional or just the way the opportunities came?
Well I think we've been well analysed, we thought the biggest opportunity was in the UK and we've been proved to be right because we paid 1450 million pounds for Carriage.
Our pubs into the new pub float, the details of which will be announced in the next few weeks, are 1150 million pounds. We've sold off our wines and spirits for 50 million pounds and there was 100 million pounds in cash there.
So we have bought literally a bit over 9% of the brewing industry in the UK for about 150 million pounds, one and a half years cash flow.
That's good, we like those sorts of transactions.
It's a very good profit this year.
Thank you.
But looking at the figures it would seem that more than half of it, one way or another, came from BHP.
No I think we had 90 million from the gold rights.
Another 40 million from the AFP options deal.
That came from AFP.
And another equity account of 140, 150 million dollars from the BHP profit.
Oh you'd have to offset the interest holding costs on the 1700 million that we paid for BHP against that.
But still one way or another BHP and deals associated with it provided more than half of your total profit.
No they didn't because say you've got to take the cost off, cost of 15% of 101.7 billion is something over 300 million, that wipes most of it out.
At the same time you haven't been able to float off the BHP interests, you've got 2 billion dollars tied up there and the BHP investment, a passive investment, accounts for a very significant part of this year's profit.
Is that a sustainable situation?
Well if you look at our results and when we show the segmented results in our annual accounts you'll see that a lot of it's come out of the brewing and our other operating businesses.
We have to look at reducing the holding costs of our BHP investment.
It's been a fantastic investment.
We have one and a half billion dollars of unrealised profits on share holdings that Elders owns.
And about a billion of that is in BHP.
So I think, and that's not in any of our results, so we are obviously looking at it.
And what with the Elders investments float, the PubK to come, three major floatations, we'll be tackling that after those things are done.
Why did BHP knock back the idea of the float of the company holding its shares?
Well it didn't.
The reason we didn't do that in the rationalisation, I didn't put it forward finally, was that we didn't have any of the share premium reserve left.
And what we've offered shareholders is a cash neutral situation where they can take a capital return and then subscribe funds for all the floats.
Had we gone ahead with the Besik floatation we would have been asking the Elders shareholders to buy again the BHP shares that we already own.
We didn't think that was right.
BHP still wasn't terribly happy with the idea anyway.
No, they didn't make any comment on it, didn't ever get to that point.
There are already plans around for a way to get around that BHP problem, they just won't be acted on until the Elders are out of the way?
Well we obviously aren't asleep in what we're thinking about.
But when we've got something properly developed we'll let you and all our shareholders know.
But it won't be until next year?
It's hard for me to get the timing right, we're not quite where we want to be yet.
Well all the restructuring is now up to the shareholders to vote on?
Yes.
Will they have an independent opinion on the value of the company to do that with?
No, the independent opinion will be given on each of the floats.
In other words they will have to be independently valued.
The question of a capital return, which is the first step, has to do with the actual position of Elders as to whether or not it can afford to repay a billion dollars of capital.
And that's really a decision from creditors and bankers, and naturally we can.
And then the shareholders vote on whether they want that.
South Australia SA Brewings Chief Executive thinks that Elders just might stay on as a major shareholder. Is that a possibility?
Well that's up to them. They've been granted an option to be able to take us out of the shares and if they don't exercise it we'll remain a shareholder.
There seems to be something of a truce between Bond Brewing and CUB in Australia as far as the marketing and sponsorship wars go.
Is there a danger that within that truce an independent SA Brewing could become a threat to both of you on the home ground?
I doubt it. I mean we've got what, 49% of the market and Bond's got 43. I don't think there's any truce.
I think there's a realisation that seems to have occurred that we were both spending a huge amount of money in a media war that was getting neither of us very far.
And that seems to have cooled off a bit. Could always flare up at any time.
But it's a pretty hard battle out there all the time. It's always on the ground and that's good. It's healthy.
We've picked up market share this year across Australia and Foster's is doing very well.
But I can't see SA Brewing being a real threat to us nationally.
So there's no need to keep a watchdog portfolio interest in SA Brewing just in case?
Well there's been a good friendly relationship there and they also own Gadsden's. We're their biggest customer.
The Treasurer announced a review of business taxation. What do you read into that?
Well I think that's the most positive thing in the Budget because the Budget really didn't do anything to solve the long term problems of Australia.
I found it amazing the way the Canberra Press picked up the euphoria of that Budget.
They're obviously not very competent people that write about these subjects because it's not going to solve any of the problems of Australia at all.
But I think the most positive thing was that Mr Keating is reviewing corporate tax because that's the most significant factor why net private investment's down in this country
because our taxes in the corporate sector are far too high as well as income tax being too high.
So provided they're not just going to take it out of one hand and put it into another, in other words you're going to juggle around a few taxes,
if there's an honest attempt to try and make Australia's corporate taxes competitive with the world then I think it'll be very positive.
You talk specifically about broadening the company tax base.
Yes, I don't think any of us are concerned about broadening the base and taking out some of the distortions and deductions.
I think they're all appropriate things that ought to be looked at but ultimately the base has to be lower.
Australia, thanks for talking to us.
Pleasure, Michael.
John Elliott, interviewed there by Michael Pascoe.
Next we'll check progress in our portfolio game.
Music
Putting together a suitable communication system for your business, it can be a teaser.
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So talk to telecom first and discover why our solutions are better for your business.
Music
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Music
At NEC, we believe a PABX is more than just a switchboard that you buy off the shelf.
We believe it should fit your company like a well-fitting suit.
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How's the new PABX?
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That way you won't end up with a PABX that doesn't properly fit your needs,
if only your company had spoken to NEC first.
Six thirty tonight on Our World.
The creatures that live among the coral heads of the Great Valley Reef in Australia
will surely be among the most beautiful and the most bewildering organisms
that you can find anywhere in the world.
David Attenborough looks at life in the oceans.
The squids and octopuses are the most active and intelligent of all the masks.
And how it became adapted for the move onto land.
This creature is indeed spectacular.
The wonders of life on Earth.
Six thirty tonight on Channel 9's Our World.
And there's been a change in our line-up of brokers with game leader Tony Huntley
handing over his portfolio to McCaughan Dyson Sydney Chief John Peasley.
Tony's moving to county securities.
And the lumpy market produced different trading strategies from our brokers.
John Peasley didn't trade, but both Steve Crane and Peter Borrows took a punt on new stocks.
Even though the strategy didn't pay off for Steve, by week's end he still emerged as the game's leader.
Tired of waiting for an expected price rise in Ariadne, Steve sold his holding
and used the money to top up his investment in National Australia Bank rights.
Steve says bank stocks are fast becoming the flavour of the month
and thinks overseas investors will be pursuing leading industrials such as the banks next week.
Steve Crane's portfolio dipped by $5,500, but it's still a healthy $364,000.
The game's newcomer John Peasley of McCaughan's sat tight on his former colleague's portfolio
and a strategy that backfired in the choppy market.
While John's holding in Strand increased by $3,500, he had a big loss on square gold and minerals.
It accounted for most of the $19,000 drop in John's portfolio
which now stands at just over $356,000.
Peter Borrows sold his Moralga mining for a profit of almost $11,000 to invest in Colley Farm Cotton.
He believes the rural sector is still undervalued and says that Colley is about to announce a new deal.
Peter's holding in AFP was showing a small book profit by week's end
and he expects further rises on the strength of Elders' good result.
Peter added $10,000 to his portfolio value to finish the week at just over $286,000.
That's all we have time for on Business Sunday this morning.
Sunday is next featuring the latest on the Fiji coup, Britain's tabloid newspaper war, and John Howard.
That's in a few moments.
Business Sunday
was brought to you by Telecom Australia.
Tony was ready for anything on sale of the century and our champ couldn't believe his good luck.
And $200 lurking under the binnacle here, like that?
Yes, of course it did.
He couldn't go past it.
Every night they play for keeps.
I wish Colley would have played tomorrow in the Grand Final.
On Monday, Jenny's play for luxurious leather furniture, 7 o'clock on 9.
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Dino Music presents the Paul Anker story.
Put your head on my shoulder.
Stay by me, Diana.
I'm just a lonely boy.
I'm thrilled to have a chance to share my music with you.
The Paul Anker story.
In stores for a short time only, so don't miss it.
Art Mell from Dino Music.
It takes time and money to train a guide dog.
Dogs aren't a problem.
Finding the money to train them is.
You can help us help train more dogs because the makers of Kleenex tissues will give up to $50,000 to the Guide Dog Association
by donating $1 for every panel like this that you send in.
It's only a small gesture.
Won't you please help?
Sunday is brought to you by one of the world's most successful international resource companies, Australia's BHP.
Would make it redundant.
Well, it hasn't happened.
With one or two exceptions, the printed word has proven its resilience.
Indeed, it has a new lease on life.
And as our cover story this Sunday shows, nowhere these days is the press more lively than in Britain.
Standing here beside you, want so much to give you this love in my heart that I'm feeling.
Britain's most successful new newspaper celebrates its first birthday.
And Sunday's sport has every reason to celebrate.
Circulation at half a million and rising, showing a profit sooner than anyone expected.
The formula is simple.
As one of the paper's staff put it, tits, bums, QPR and roll your own fags.
How many nipples do you have in an edition of Sunday Sport?
On average we have 14 sets, 14 pairs.
The Revolution in Fleet Street is our cover story this Sunday.
It's reported by Helen Bowden of the BBC.
And we have an unusual offering this morning, a story about tapestry, that pastime of the very young or very old.
The skill and patience in the doing of it are admired.
But the result, well, like kids' paintings, you're sort of obliged to hang them.
This morning though we show you tapestries so beautiful they grace galleries.
And tell the story of the Australian weavers who created them.
Music
It was in 1976, with the support of the Victorian Government,
that the tapestry workshop was established in a former glove factory in South Melbourne.
There are 26 weavers, all Arts College graduates, and all involved in the whole process.
From start, inking the trace design onto the loom to finish, hundreds of painstaking hours later.
The reviving art of tapestry a little later.
Also this morning we'll be crossing to Fiji for a first-hand report on the latest coup from Sunday's Graham Davis.
We will report to, from another troubled spot, the Persian Gulf.
That's after our usual look at the week's news at home and overseas.
In our studio this morning, the opposition leader, Mr John Howard.
Peter Thompson will be here with a look at a new Australian film, Ground Zero, and of course we have some Sunday music.
But we'll begin with the news of this Sunday, the 27th of September.
And from Fiji this morning, growing signs the island nation is set to become a republic.
The new leader, Colonel Rambuka, has effectively suspended Fiji's legal system,
with leading members of the judiciary arrested, along with key ministers of the former coalition government.
But who's actually in charge is a moot point.
Colonel Rambuka maintains he is, while the Governor General, Ratu Supenai-Ganilau,
has told British, Australian, and New Zealand envoys he is in control.
This report from Mark Burroughs.
Fiji is quiet but tense as people become to terms with the country's second military coup in less than five months.
Tidavani Rambuka, the man who led the last takeover, is again in control, he says,
because the aims of the May coup have not been achieved.
And that the hopes and expectations of the Soviet will now not materialize at all.
It is for this reason, ladies and gentlemen, and fellow citizens, that I have chosen to act.
At least 17 ministers of the former coalition government, including Dr. Bhavendra, are believed to be under arrest.
Security forces have announced a get tough policy with a dusk to dawn curfew.
Anyone found wandering the streets will spend the night in jail.
International communications are being cut indiscriminately,
but our High Commission in service says the two and a half thousand Australian tourists in Fiji are safe, as there is no imminent danger.
The federal government has condemned the coup and put navy ships on standby, ready to sail,
should there be a threat to the safety of Australian tourists.
Fleet headquarters at Sydney's Garden Island now has a lot of experience of this.
An evacuation task force sailed from here during the first coup, returning only when that emergency passed.
Now Prime Minister Hawke wants another task force ready to sail as soon as possible.
As many as 5,000 Australians, most of them holidaymakers, are believed in Fiji.
...so that if it be necessary to protect the interests of Australians in Fiji for purposes of evacuation, we will be able to do that at short notice.
We will be watching the interests of Australians in Fiji,
and Colonel Rambuka should be extraordinarily careful that he doesn't infringe the interests of Australians.
Mr Hawke escalated his condemnation of Colonel Rambuka, describing the military takeover as illegal and intolerable.
But he will never be able to get legitimacy for his regime, and his country will suffer.
We will update the Fiji situation with Graham Davis shortly.
The United States has repatriated 26 Iranian prisoners, captured when their vessel was found laying mines in the Persian Gulf.
Along with the bodies of three crewmen from the Iran-Ajah, today sunk by the Americans in the deepest part of the Gulf, the Iranians were put ashore at Oman.
Four of the 26 survivors arrived on stretchers, several others were less seriously injured, but most were unhurt.
Three of their colleagues who died received Islamic rites away from the cameras.
All the survivors were given medical examinations by Omani doctors.
Once the Omanis had taken charge of the Iranian sailors, they were formally handed over to Iran's diplomats in front of a representative of the International Red Cross.
Then, just hours after the Americans destroyed their ship, the survivors of the Iran-Ajah boarded an Iranian Boeing 737 for their flight home to Tehran.
In time, news crews have been allowed aboard the British registered tanker Gentle Breeze, the ship whose shelling precipitated the latest crisis.
The British tanker Gentle Breeze has been cleared by Royal Naval bomb experts.
The bridge burnt out after the Iranian attack.
The heart of the vessel was turned into a blazing inferno, steering and navigation systems wiped out as flames swept through the upper deck.
The Iranians blasted the ship with at least 15 rockets, one of the lifeboats taking a direct hit.
Had it not been for the heroic efforts of the crew, the ship, its accommodation section ablaze, might have been lost.
The captain says he asked for Royal Naval protection for the first part of the journey before the ship was hit, but it never came.
British warships, the captain believes, perhaps overworked with other vessels at the time.
Since this attack, there have been no more Iranian raids on merchant vessels, but the risks for shipping are no less, particularly with the Iranians threatening retribution for what happened to their ship.
To sport now with this weekend the biggest weekend in Australian sport, the weekend of the big football finals.
But in weather that's hardly conducive to football at all.
It should have been the cricket, the tennis, anything but the football that one day in September proved to be one of the hottest ever.
And surprisingly football fans loved it.
Despite threats of a clamp down on sculpers, they were out in force.
Plenty of money changing hands and a devil may care attitude.
You know you could get caught doing this.
Tough, don't even like the football.
Every year the grand final becomes more like the Melbourne Cup.
For a mere $12,000, fans could hire a marquee, invite 50 friends and have a party.
All just a hand pass away from the MCG.
Nothing much else happens in Melbourne on grand final day.
Everyone's there. Golfers, tennis players, politicians too, love the grand final.
And Mr Hawke had this to say about the effect of the weather on the players.
I reckon at the end of the game they will be nugget if I could put a price.
But it was a game of football everyone had come to see, the clash between Hawthorn and Carlton.
For Hawke supporters it was a disappointment.
The Blues ran out easy winners.
Joe Hall reporting there, obviously a Hawthorn supporter I think.
The final score Carlton 15-14, 104, Hawthorn 9-17, 71.
In Adelaide today, Glenelga plays Norwood in the South Australian Football League preliminary final.
The winner going on to meet North Adelaide in the big one next week.
And in Sydney the Canberra Raiders take on Manly in the Rugby League grand final at the SCG this afternoon.
Manly odds on but Canberra the sentimental favourites.
And with a claimed 80 million people watching yesterday's VFL grand final worldwide,
you had to wonder what some made of it all.
We wondered so we sent a crew to Reno in Nevada where the grand final was beamed live yesterday into Harrah's casino.
With America's football players on strike and only replays and college football on television,
patrons of the casino were served up what was billed as the Super Bowl from down under.
Over Fosters of course they watched themusively this strangest of spectacles.
Intercepted by Carlton, he's ripping him apart.
Intercepted, back the other way.
The outside post is one, inside post is six. I think, is that right?
Yes! Yes!
It kind of reminds me of a game we used to play in school called Smear the Queer.
Well learned. Next the ID card checked, Al Grasby charged and Margaret Thatcher challenged.
Stories in our Week in Review after this.
Los Angeles, one of the most exciting cities in the world.
They reckon if you've made it here, you've made it in the big time.
BHP is here and throughout the United States with a string of factories producing Calabon steel building products.
And in the booming US construction business, BHP have really made it.
Perfected by BHP technology, Calabon steel has up to four times the life of galvanized steel.
And here's the big news.
In the last couple of years, the profits on more than $250 million in sales have gone back to Australia.
And there's plenty more to come.
Through BHP, our steel technology is now a world leader and that's paying big dividends for every Australian.
Los Angeles, part of Australia's BHP.
The adage, pulled together, was born of rowing, the team working as one.
Westpac has embraced a team philosophy in all aspects of commercial banking, for it is through coordinating resources and concentrating energies that a team forges ahead.
Consider then how your business will benefit from linking with a team dedicated to winning.
See Westpac first, the bank for business.
Presenting the winners from Nissan Knowhow.
The Nissan Racing Team, winners of the Australian Manufacturers' Championship, two years running.
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Thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen.
In closing, may I remind you that all of my books are available at the bookstore at Meyer.
Not to mention the Anne of Green Gables series, $5.95 each.
Activity packs for little ones, $1.99 each.
And the Young Australia series, $2.45 each.
So remember, the best book buys are at the bookstore at Meyer.
Wednesday for Ben Matlock, life's a mystery.
$2,000, that must be some chilling.
On a hot case, Matlock, 8.30 Wednesday on Channel 9.
It was the tiniest of technicalities, but it was enough to leave the Australia card lying dead in the water.
The fatal flaw was that the government's legislation lacked a start-up date for the ID card.
The government had planned to introduce by regulation after pushing the bill through a joint sitting of parliament.
This week, the Liberal and Democrat opposition gave notice that it would block such regulation in the Senate.
The ID card legislation is dead, stone dead, and I simply call upon the government to cut its losses.
The Prime Minister is beaten on this issue.
And indeed, it did seem the government's most controversial of post-election issues would be defeated.
All because of a legalistic loophole discovered by a retired Canberra public servant, awoken one morning by magpies.
And I was cursing them. I bless them now.
Because I tossed and turned and all I could think of was that bloody bill.
Ewert Smith's discovery that the Australia card legislation could be so easily blocked was hailed by many, including Labour backbenchers.
And John Howard had a field day.
It really is incredible that the very piece of legislation on which the double dissolution was obtained may well be, as I believe it is, fundamentally flawed.
Of course, one I suppose ought to ask, did the Prime Minister know of this flaw and did he keep quiet about it?
But while 30,000 marched in Perth against the card, the government still was not conceding its defeat,
instead berating the opposition for overriding constitutional convention.
Something that's never been done in the history of this country.
I mean, it's just tearing up the customs and traditions that we've operated under for something like the last 87 years.
By week's end, it had become a battle of words.
This response by John Howard to Bob Hawke's accusation that he was a liar.
Well, if he wants to have that little semantic wank go right ahead, I mean, I just think that's just childish.
I mean, what he's got to understand is that he can't get his legislation up.
I've directed Sir Terence Lewis to take special leave as from midnight tonight.
Eleven years after his meteoric rise, Sir Terence Lewis was ordered to stand aside as Queensland Police Commissioner.
This because of corruption admissions to the Fitzgerald inquiry by two policemen.
One, the former Assistant Commissioner, Graham Parker.
With the inquiry in recess, there came calls for government ministers to give evidence when it resumes.
The sooner the Premier, his police minister, Gunn, and those previous police ministers, Mr Hins, Mr Glasson,
currently in this Parliament, the sooner they make themselves available to go before the Fitzgerald inquiry
and answer a series of questions which have got to be answered, then the better it will be for all of us.
He wanted them to cut harder. He got rolled.
He's really undermined the carefully orchestrated public relations hype that has surrounded the Budget since last Tuesday night.
The he of Howard's gleeful comments was Finance Minister Peter Walsh, the least popular of government ministers this week.
This after his address to a Perth lawyers' conference, supposedly private, which became anything but.
Criticising the Budget, Senator Walsh cautioned that Australia could face intervention by the International Monetary Fund
if there were another slide in commodity prices, and said 200 wasteful government programs should have been scrapped.
Well, that was last weekend, and opinions do change.
Did Senator Walsh say to you this morning that he no longer believes that there are 200 programs that should be cut?
That's right. I made it quite clear that it is not useful to government or, I think, to public understanding of issues
if you're going to go on in the way he did.
Charges were brought this week against former Immigration Minister Al Grasby.
It was alleged he'd conspired with crime figure Robert Trimboli and others in perverting the course of justice.
He was also charged with criminal defamation relating to a document he's alleged to have circulated
about the family of anti-drugs campaigner Donald McKay.
Detective Inspector Bruce Provost told the court Grasby had received $40,000 from Trimboli to get publicity for the document.
The former Minister was granted bail on condition he surrender his passport.
The week brought yet another defeat for the British government in its battle to prevent publication of Peter Wright's memoirs in Australia.
But after the New South Wales Appeals Court upheld a Supreme Court judgment to allow that publication,
Mrs. Thatcher vowed to take the matter to the High Court.
This despite the ready availability now of spy-catcher throughout the world and opposition from within Mrs. Thatcher's own ranks.
We're paying both sides costs. We're having to pay for Mr. Malcolm Turnbull to win these victories against us.
And I suggest that probably the cost must by now be somewhere in the one to two million pound range of taxpayers' money probably higher than that.
In South Australia's Cooper Basin a main underground pipe ruptured spewing half a million cubic feet of natural gas a day into the air.
Troubleshooters from overseas were brought in to plug the flow, dumping a combination of water and mud down the well.
By week's end the rupture had been blocked. Engineers were still working on ways to repair the pipeline.
And it was the week we were treated to the views of Bruce Ruxton on apartheid.
Blacks use the same hotels as the whites. They were staying at the places where I stayed. They use the same urinals.
The Victorian RSL president spent two weeks in South Africa and came back with these thoughts on blacks.
First of all they're employed. Secondly they're all well dressed. Thirdly they've got a very happy nature about them.
As for the infamous Soweto, the squalid scene of so much rioting, there was this.
There are stylish homes which very likely are better than the homes that you and I live in, complete with swimming pools etc. etc.
And in Soweto they intimidate people to follow the line and if they don't follow the line they get their houses burnt down.
Next another presidential candidate bites the dust and Jessica Hahn bears her soul. Stories from the week overseas after this.
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30 years ago a major UFO sighting in South Australia was carefully hushed up.
The Sunday Mail this week brings you the true story of the Marylanders sighting and the chain of UFO cover-ups in Australia since 1920.
The Mail is first with a VFL grand final and the match battle between Glenelg and Norwood.
We tell the tragic story of caught deaths and the fight in South Australia to find a cure and we continue our investigations into the growing crime rate.
Sunday's the day.
Tuesday night Maddie discovers that business and pleasure don't mix.
You think something means something doesn't mean what you think it means.
Catch the mad moonlighters at 830 followed by the action on the streets with the hottest cops on television Miami Vice.
I say we gotta press real hard on Mike.
Do it.
A promising actor on the edge.
If you find a light in a guy like that you want to cut through the crap.
Bringing you the best on Tuesday night.
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There's a joke doing the rounds about American Senator Joe Biden accused of plagiarizing the speeches of most illustrious or more illustrious politicians.
He reassured his staff with the words we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
But plagiarism it seems was not enough for the Democrat senator.
This week he was also caught out lying about his prowess at university.
And like Gary Hart before him was forced out of the running for the American presidency.
Announcing his retreat though Biden quoted only himself.
Do it with incredible reluctance and it makes me angry.
I'm angry with myself for having been put in a position put myself in the position of having to make this choice.
Senator Biden put on a brave face but his campaign workers were devastated.
They lost their candidate not only because he'd stolen the words of Neil Kinnock and the Kennedys.
But also because he'd lied about his academic record.
I made some mistakes.
Now the exaggerated shadow of those mistakes has begun to obscure the essence of my candidacy and the essence of Joe Biden.
Senator Biden's withdrawal reduced the official Democratic field to six.
And they tried to sound sincerely sorry about his departure.
All of us are hurt because Senator Joe Biden brought to the campaign a zest and a vitality.
I think it may have been possible for him to continue on but it's his decision and I respect his decision.
More protests against the government of Philippines President Corazon Aquino this week.
Leftist demonstrators angered by the assassination of their leader Leandro Alejandro accused Mrs Aquino of shooting civilians.
The protests came as communist rebels destroyed rail and road bridges in the Bical region south of Manila.
Which armed forces chief of staff General Fidel Ramos said would prove counterproductive.
In their heating those targets related to the welfare of the people that they're really hurting the people much more than they're hurting say the military.
In Lebanon warring militias called a three day ceasefire to allow doctors to vaccinate 300,000 children.
The UNICEF program is aimed at protecting children from diseases like polio TB and measles.
Only they had a vaccine against war.
To the Sandinista delegation here today I say understand this.
We will not and the world community will not accept phony democratization designed to mask the perpetuation of dictatorship.
President Reagan's blast at the Nicaragua government at the United Nations this week came as President Daniel Ortega was declaring a regional ceasefire.
Ceasefire along with the reopening of a radio station owned by the Catholic Church and the opposition newspaper La Prensa was designed to comply with a Central American peace pact signed last month.
Architect of the accord Costa Rican President Oscar Arias met President Reagan and told Congress to hold off on voting military aid to the Contra rebels.
Lucia Gelli the financier whom Italians call the chief godfather gave himself up to Swiss police this week four years after escaping from this prison near Geneva.
As Grand Master of the P2 Masonic Lodge whose members included many of Italy's major politicians and financiers Gelli was allegedly behind right wing terrorist acts to destabilize the government.
The week saw former PTL secretary Jessica Hahn revealing all to a North Carolina court about her forced sexual encounter with her former boss the Reverend Jimmy Baker.
Also revealing all to Playboy magazine claiming that she was an innocent victim of two ministers ministrations.
I'm just really drained. I mean I'm really tired and I'm just being as truthful as I can be.
Sure said her critics but what about the pictures.
When you read the story you'll you'll understand the pictures that pictures are as important as the story.
And it was the week director and choreographer Bob Fosse died of a heart attack age 60.
Death came on the eve of a revival of sweet charity just one of his 11 award winning Broadway productions and came partly because of the heavy smoking hard living lifestyle that he wrote almost autobiographically into the movie All That Jazz.
It's showtime folks.
I think I was trying to kill off that part of me that I didn't like anymore which was that self destructive character who smoked too much and drank too much and stayed out too late.
From his dancing days with his third wife when burden to the imagined portrait of his death in All That Jazz Fosse was a perfectionist.
His one Oscar came from the classic cabaret.
It could also serve as his epitaph.
What good is sitting alone in your room.
Come here the music play.
Also making news this week was the Persian Gulf.
We've a report on the mayhem there in a moment and the latest on Fiji.
After this.
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Well you should have said something before we left.
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6.30 tonight on Our World.
The creatures that live among the coral heads of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia
must surely be among the most beautiful and the most bewildering organisms that you can find anywhere in the world.
David Attenborough looks at life in the oceans.
The squids and octopuses are the most active and intelligent of all the masks.
And how it became adapted for the move onto land.
This creature is indeed spectacular.
The wonders of life on earth.
6.30 tonight on Channel 9's Our World.
But World War III did not break out this week was no fault of the many nations now embroiled in the Persian Gulf conflict.
In the waters of the Gulf tankers were hit and sunk.
Mines laid. American helicopters attacked.
An Iranian vessel, ships, sailors seized.
While on the diplomatic front the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union fought a war of words.
Finally it was President Reagan who took steps to calm the growing crisis addressing the United Nations.
He called on Iran to accept a Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire in the Gulf.
If the answer is positive it would be a welcome step and major breakthrough.
If it is negative the Council has no choice but rapidly to adopt enforcement measures.
The problem was that the US Navy was adopting its own enforcement measures.
After an Iranian gunboat attacked a British tanker killing one sailor,
American helicopters equipped with infrared cameras disabled an Iranian frigate suspected of laying mines.
There were no warning shots and no effort was made to communicate with the craft before the helicopters acted.
Three Iranians were killed and 26 detained.
And soon the Iran Azhar and its 10 mines were being put on show.
I don't think that there's any other conclusion that we can come to other than that this ship was sent to this water to lay mines.
Iran's reaction was predictable and it came from Iranian President Khamenei
who just happened to be in New York for a speech to the United Nations.
As a beginning for a series of events the bitter consequences of which shall not be restricted to the Persian Gulf
and the United States as the initiator of the trouble shall bear responsibility for all ensuing events.
That tirade caused a walkout of the American delegation and Khamenei sent them off with this parting shot.
I declare here very unambiguously that the United States shall receive a proper response for this abominable act.
But what would that proper response be?
In the first instance it means the Iranians will support terrorism in Lebanon against American interest
and secondly probably in Saudi Arabia against the royal family and much more broadly we can expect to see Iranian terrorism in Europe
against American installations and conceivably in the United States as well.
Khamenei, the first Iranian head of state to visit the United States since the advent of the Ayatollah
happens to be well versed in terrorism having been the target of two terrorist attacks including a bombing in March 1985.
Six people were killed then and Khamenei said that act too was the work of the United States.
As a victim of a savage terrorist attack that was aborted by the will of the Almighty
I have the honor to declare here that none of these brutalities and bloodsheddings could shake the will of our people.
Let's get things straight, if that ship was laying mines, again an attack on innocent merchantmen.
If that ship was laying mines the merchantmen are entitled to expect the navies of the world to defend the merchantmen.
While the word games went on tensions in the Gulf increased.
At the USS LaSalle where the Iranians were being held until they could be turned over to the Islamic version of the Red Cross there was a scare over the approach of an Iranian hovercraft.
This is US Navy Warranty, you are standing in danger, request to remain clear.
The warning and these bullets convinced the Iranians. Later it was Iran's turn.
Navy ship, this is Iranian warship. It seems your helicopter is unable to hear me on guard frequency 243.
Please advise him not to close to me less than five miles.
Having started all the action President Reagan was avoiding it at weeks end.
Referring photo opportunities like this one with the US ice hockey team rather than answer congressional queries about how the United States became so deeply involved in the Gulf.
We have got ourselves into a very tenuous spot without consulting with the Congress of the United States and I think the policy of the President is wrong.
Unable to keep Congress happy the President instead worked on the morale of troops sending Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on a mission to the Gulf.
Mr. Weinberger had time for jokes commenting on the Iranian claim that the mines aboard Iran-Ajah were really food containers.
That's the biggest load of groceries I've ever seen. Well I'm just glad they didn't get delivered.
As troops paraded in Tehran this week the message from Iran was clear.
There would be more mines, there would be retaliation, there would be martyrs.
Any country that would send women to a war front as Iran is now doing clearly cares not one iota for convention or conventions.
Also this week there was of course that new coup in Fiji.
With a resolution seemingly in hand to the country's constitutional crisis Colonel Rambuka stepped in again.
His motive that the formation of the new transitional government and what it was planning would distort what he'd tried to achieve with his earlier coup.
In other words Rambuka believed the primacy of native Fijians over Indians could be threatened.
In Suva is Sunday's Graham Davis to bring us up to date with latest development.
Graham who's in charge there now is it Rambuka or the Governor General who has executive authority?
Jim I think it's very clear to say that Colonel Rambuka is very much in charge here.
He's already said as we've heard that he plans very firmly to declare Fiji a republic and presumably to give the Governor General titular role there.
But I think it's very clear that Colonel Rambuka will be the real power in Fiji for some time to come.
He seems to be thumbing his nose at any criticism particularly from Prime Minister Hawke.
Well he does and really he said quite clearly that he's not concerned about international condemnation.
And this has emerged actually in the last 24 hours in a very telling way Jim.
And that is in the treatment of some Supreme Court judges here.
One Supreme Court judge is still in detention.
Another has been released, a British judge, but he was detained for four hours on Friday night, has had his British passport confiscated.
And I think this indicates above all else that really Colonel Rambuka doesn't have much regard any more for the process of convention at least.
Tell us about the former ministers of the coalition government.
Where are they? Are they safe? And also the Governor General himself, is he under so-called house arrest?
The Governor General isn't apparently under house arrest as such although he is at government house.
I mean he told the Australian and New Zealand High Commissioners yesterday that as far as he was concerned he was effectively legally still in charge of the country.
But I'm afraid that legally is where it ends.
He says that Colonel Rambuka hasn't even told him that the second coup has taken place.
As to Dr. Bavandra and his ministers, they are being held at the moment at a prison farm outside Suva.
It's the same prison farm from which that mass break out during the week took place.
If Rambuka goes ahead and declares a republic, there must be concern about the role of the traditional Fijians.
I mean are there fears of bloodshed now?
Well I think there is and this latest pronouncement that he's made about his intentions will exacerbate an already very tense situation.
People in Fiji are saying that if widespread violence comes it won't be between Fijians and Indians. It will be within the Fijian community.
And I was talking to somebody a while ago, somebody very prominent in the Fijian community,
who said that many Fijians are particularly angry at the way in which Colonel Rambuka has treated the Governor General,
who quite apart from being the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is also Colonel Rambuka's paramount chief.
Now there's a strong concern about the way in which traditional Fijian allegiances have just been set aside in this affair.
Very briefly Graham, the fate for the several thousand Australian tourists there, we've been told they're not in imminent danger, is that correct?
Yes, that's true. The last thing that Colonel Rambuka would want is bad publicity about the treatment of tourists.
On Friday when the coup happened tourists were shepard into hotels and told by the military what had happened.
Everything is quite normal in that direction.
Graham we'll leave it there, take care and we'll talk to you again.
Thanks Jim.
Sunday's Graham Davis monitoring the latest coup in Fiji.
Next our studio guest this Sunday, opposition leader John Howard.
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Join in the fun. Who's the boss? 7.30 Wednesday, online.
It's an old, old cliché that a week is a long time in politics,
but how else do we describe the rapid reversal in the fortunes of opposition leader John Howard?
Seemingly on self-destruct after the July election and stranded again by last week's budget,
his Liberal Party suddenly has the Government on the run.
And over that most visible and vilified of issues, the Australia card.
Mr Howard visited our studios earlier this morning. Sunday's political editor, Laurie Oakes, talked with him.
Mr Howard, welcome to the program.
Thank you.
Before we get on to domestic politics, could I ask you about Colonel Rambuka's second coup?
What should the Australian Government be doing or what could it be doing?
Well, it could have had better intelligence to tell us that it was going to happen again.
I mean, 24 hours before it happened, the Prime Minister was waxing lyrical in the Parliament
about the settlement that had been reached and the whole coming of the second coup
raises serious doubts about our intelligence-gathering capacity in Fiji and the Pacific generally.
Beyond that, I totally support the condemnation of the coup by the Prime Minister.
Are there any circumstances where military intervention could be considered?
Well, I would totally support the use of Australian forces to protect Australian citizens
and secure their safe evacuation if that were necessary.
I certainly wouldn't think it would be wise for us to contemplate military intervention to overturn the coup,
nor do I think we should be rushing into economic sanctions.
Much and all as we deplore what has happened, are we delapsed into the situation that every time
something occurs in another country we don't like, we impose economic sanctions.
I think we'll get ourselves into a terrible tangle if we start doing that.
Is there a role for the Commonwealth, by that I mean the Commonwealth of Nations?
Yes, I think there is. When the first coup took place, we urged the Government to try and get a Commonwealth mission going,
and I would hope that that might be conceded again and we would fully support the Government in any steps down that path.
Well, let's talk about the Howard coup, your victory on the ID card.
Now that the ID card is dead, will the Opposition support an alternative way of gathering that revenue
that's lost through tax fraud and welfare fraud?
We'll have a look at what the Government puts up.
We're not going to support an ID card by another name, but if there are other ways of clearly eliminating fraud,
which don't involve the unacceptable features of the ID card, we'll positively have a look at it.
I mean, one of the things I have in mind is that once the card is dead and buried,
I'm going to convert the Opposition ID task force into a task force examining acceptable ways and means
of dealing with taxation and welfare fraud.
Some of our policies already do that, of course.
Our work for the Dole proposal would do more to eliminate fraud in the welfare, unemployment benefits areas and the ID card.
What about the specific plan for an upgraded tax file number? Would you support that?
Well, we'd like to have a look at it. I don't want to reject it out of hand,
because our objection to the ID card was not the goal of eliminating tax fraud, but the means that were adopted.
So we'd have a look at that, but I'm not going to commit the Opposition in advance of seeing what the Government wants to put on the table.
And I repeat, we're not going to be in the business of supporting an ID card by another name.
But a joint parliamentary committee which rejected the ID card favoured an upgraded tax file number.
Why are you shilly-shelling now?
No, I'm not shilly-shelling, but I'm in the Opposition, they're the Government.
They haven't even buried the ID card formally yet.
When they bury it and they come up with a specific proposal, I'll give a quick response.
But I'm not in the business of putting my cards and my attitudes on the table at this stage in advance of what the Government's gotten.
And the other point I make is that the Government talks freely about a billion dollars.
The Prime Minister has never explained how that one billion dollars is made up.
I suspect it's an figure easily to be remembered, which is plucked out of the air and used for propaganda purposes.
You're feeling pretty chuffed about embarrassing the Prime Minister over the ID card.
But are you concerned at all about the consequences of the way you've done it, by throwing into doubt the whole system of the Senate being able to disallow regulations?
No, that's nonsense.
All we are doing is using a power that was given to us indirectly through the Constitution and directly under an Act of Parliament.
We're not abusing any privilege.
Wouldn't we be a funny Opposition if having campaigned against the ID card for a year
and there being so much public concern about it that having been delivered an opportunity to defeat it, we didn't do so?
I mean, people would think we were mad.
You're a funny Opposition because you didn't use this method to defeat other bills that you were allegedly solidly against.
The Prime Minister is the example of the lump sum tax on superannuation, which depends on regulations.
Why didn't you blow that out of the water?
Well, I suppose...
Didn't you think of it?
Well, I think it's fair to say that this device may not have been at the top of our minds.
I don't think it was the top of the Government's mind either.
I mean, if it had have been, they would have drafted the bill in a different fashion.
I mean, I haven't looked at the lump sum super bill.
It may well have been that the regulation-making power could not have been used
because the clauses that could have been denied by the use of that power may not have been critical of the bill.
But now this isn't the top of your mind, surely?
Well, I think it will be the top of the Government's mind too.
And in future you won't have that legislation being drawn in this fashion.
But isn't that bad for Parliament? Doesn't it mean less parliamentary scrutiny?
No, it's not bad.
I think as a very prominent state politician said to me yesterday at the football
that he was very surprised the Federal Government employed the practice of nominating dates by regulation.
He said, we always do it by proclamation.
But this is not just a matter of nominating dates.
The Opposition can now kill bills by disallowing other kinds of regulations as well.
I mean, obviously, Governments now will be reluctant to use regulations and that must be bad for Parliament, surely?
No, is it bad for Parliament?
Now, could I take you up on that? Isn't it good for the supremacy of Parliament
that important things have to be enshrined in legislation?
Or done by proclamation that rules Parliament out of a role.
No, but proclamations can only be used in limited circumstances.
Proclamations can't be used to replace deliberative pronouncements in the same way that regulations can.
Proclamations are normally only used for commencement dates.
So you're not concerned that if you're in Government the Labor Party could do this to you?
No, I'm not the least bit concerned. I think the analogy with 1975 is laughable.
Well, so do I. It was certainly over the top.
Do you see an irony in the fact that Senator John Stone found this flaw, or rather found the man who found the flaw,
and that Senator Stone is a supporter of Sir J. Belka Peterson, who you've called a wrecker and blamed for the election loss?
Oh, I don't see a great deal of irony in that. John's more committed to the defeat of the Labor Party than he is to anything else,
and he behaved like a first-class member of the Liberal National Party team on this issue.
When the information was brought to his notice, he brought it to the attention of his colleagues in the Shadow Cabinet.
One of the good things about last week is that the opposition behaved like a real team.
As I understand it, he brought it to the attention of you and the Liberal Leader in the Senate, but not of Ian Sinclair, is that right?
Well, I don't. Well, no, I think that's been unfairly Machiavellian.
Laurie, I think what he did was he naturally brought it to the attention of his Senate Leader,
and to me, and it was brought to the Shadow Cabinet, because Ian Sinclair is the number two man in the Shadow Cabinet.
Well, now that the dust has settled on the election, do you now accept responsibility for that defeat?
Well, my views about the defeat in the election haven't changed basically from the morning after when both of us spoke,
and I said that I believe disunity on our side of politics was the main reason,
and everybody, from myself down, has to accept some responsibility for that, and I haven't altered that for you.
And I think last week demonstrated what we can achieve if we work together.
I was going to ask you about your relationship with Andrew Peacock, which is obviously part of the success of last week.
How is it working?
Excellent. I would say that our relationship is better than it has ever been.
He's doing a very good job as Shadow Treasurer, and both of us are very committed to the Liberal Party
remaining unified and winning the next election.
I suppose what everyone's wondering is why couldn't you have done this before?
Why couldn't you get together before the election?
Well, that's the sort of thing that going back over doesn't achieve anything.
I think everybody in the Liberal Party has had a very sober look at the events of the last year
and has concluded, I think most of them anyway, have concluded that if we are to remain a credible political force,
we've got to work together.
And I repeat, the real goal of last week to me is that it's demonstrated to all of my colleagues,
in fact, last two weeks, what can be achieved if we work together.
But do you accept that if you and Andrew Peacock could behave like grown men,
this could have been done a lot earlier and perhaps one year the election?
Well, that's academic. I mean, reflecting on the past like that, hindsight is always marvellous
and there are all sorts of other circumstances that operated then that don't operate now.
Andrew Peacock's made it clear that he wants a new economic policy framework announced by the middle of next year.
Now, how much of the old policy, the policy you went to the election on, is likely to be changed?
For example, is there any possibility of you abandoning your promise to abolish the assets test,
the fringe benefits tax, capital gains?
Well, there things will be looked at.
That's an option to abandon those.
Well, I think what Andrew has said and what I have said is that the basic elements of our economic policy
are going to remain the same, lower tax, smaller government, winding back trade union power.
We are reviewing our taxation policy. The basic thrust will be the same.
But are you reviewing the...?
Well, we haven't made any specific decisions.
All I can say is that the basic thrust will be the same.
We'll be going on a low tax, small government platform again at the next election.
The precise details of it are going to be refined over the next year.
But just to clear it up, it's possible you'll now decide to keep the assets test, the capital gains tax, the fringe benefits tax?
All I can say at the moment is that our position on those issues at the last election has not been altered.
It could be.
Well, if it were altered, I'd tell you. But all I can say is that it remains exactly the same.
But those things are on the table, is that so?
Laurie, they remain our policy and until they are altered, to suggest they're on or off the table is irrelevant.
Well, Senator David Hamer, who's a Liberal, says that most of those things I've named should be changed.
He also says you should embrace a consumption tax.
Are you looking at that?
Well, we're not looking at any of those things at the moment.
But will you be before you change your policy?
Well, I can't tell you that. All I can say is that our basic thrust will remain the same.
And in the course of the next year, we'll be reviewing the details of that policy.
The hot issue of parliamentary salaries is in the news again.
What's your attitude to that? Are your backbenchers hurting, as Labor backbenchers say they are, hurting financially?
Well, I don't think there's any doubt that relatively they are, yes.
And I think they do have a case.
But I'm not going to go into any detail on it until the Government puts a proposition.
The Government hasn't approached me.
And if the Government wants to, the Prime Minister wants to talk to me about it, well, I'm ready to listen.
There is a principle involved, isn't there?
Over recent years, the recommendations of the Remunerations Tribunal have been ignored
because members of parliament have been used as examples.
Now, do you think the recommendation should be accepted this time?
Well, I don't know precisely what the recommendation is, and until I do, I'm not going to say yes or no.
I'd simply make the point that relatively speaking parliamentarians have fallen behind.
You can always find examples perhaps where the salary that they get is not earned,
but in the great majority of cases it is.
Most members of parliament on both sides work very hard.
I'm impressed with the argument that there has been a relativity for,
particularly when I know of some of the salaries that are paid in the private sector
for people who leave the public service and leave ministerial and indeed opposition staff.
So there is a case, but as to the quantum and so forth,
I'm not going to commit myself until I know what's been recommended and what the government wants to do.
It's been said that one of the reasons the Liberal Party lacks talent in the parliament is because of low salaries.
Is that true? Do you accept that?
I don't necessarily accept that firstly that we lack talent.
I certainly don't accept that.
And secondly, I don't necessarily accept that salaries are as big a factor.
I can think of people like Peter Boehm and John Spender who left professions
where they could have earned infinitely more than they earn in parliament.
That's not all to that factor.
I think there's a variety of factors, but there's a separate case for people being paid what they're worth.
And a hard-working member of parliament and certainly a hard-working minister
is worth more than they have been paid over recent years.
Mr Howard, thank you.
Pleasure.
Laurie Oakes with opposition leader John Howard in an interview recorded earlier this morning.
Next, films with Peter Thompson.
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The pioneers of the power tool have reinvented the saw.
The company that reinvented the saw is Bosch.
Welcome back. Making news this morning, in Fiji, coup leader Colonel Sittivani Rambuka has stated he will declare the country a republic early next month
and will detain indefinitely members of the former government.
Twenty-six Iranian seamen captured by the United States Navy in the Persian Gulf this week have been repatriated.
And speaking on Sunday earlier, opposition leader John Howard supported pay rises for MPs
and said he would set up an opposition task force to investigate alternatives to the ID card.
Now to films and Peter Thompson's been to see Ground Zero, an Australian movie starring Colin Friel, Jack Thompson and Donald Pleasance.
It's to be released next week and it's about, well here's Peter to tell us.
Ecological disaster must be a bit like herpes. You just learn to live with it.
With the world's rainforests disappearing at the rate of 40 hectares a minute, oceans and lakes being stripped of life
and our atmosphere growing increasingly poisonous, most of us seem quite blasé about what's happening.
If ever anything was designed to jolt Australians out of complacency,
it must surely have been the revelations about the British atom bomb tests of the 1950s,
which rendered vast tracts of our desert wilderness more radioactive than Hiroshima.
The complacency, the tests and the Royal Commission set up to investigate them 30 years later are the subject matter of Ground Zero.
It's also a classic movie thriller. Out in the desert they dig up a bomber that's been covered up for decades.
It still bounces the Geiger counters off the scale.
And back in the big city, life goes on as usual.
Harvey Denton is a highly paid cameraman, greatly in demand for big budget television commercials.
Symbolically, if you like, he sort of represents the sort of detached, irresponsible, disengaged person of the mid-80s,
somebody who says, look, it might be all happening out there, but I've got my life here. It's quite comfortable, quite cosy.
So he's not involved anymore.
This is Bruce Miles's first film. He shares the directing role with Michael Pattinson,
who's already made three features, including moving out and street hero.
For both men, Ground Zero is new territory.
To what extent have you exaggerated things for dramatic effect?
Probably understated.
I think a premise that we worked on in terms of just the structuring of the imagery was things aren't what they seem.
Somebody said to me after the screening we had here in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago,
how could we go so far as to actually have a news item saying there was a break-in at the Royal Commission?
I said, that's really pushing it.
I said, well, we got that out of the paper. That actually happened.
Australian Federal Police confirmed that there was a break-in at the offices of the Royal Commission into the British nuclear tests.
The break-in early Saturday morning has raised fears about the safety of top secret documents held by the Commission.
It seems someone is looking for missing evidence,
film footage of something that happened out there in the desert when Harvey Denton was just a little boy.
His father was a cameraman too and not just of home movies.
He died mysteriously after working for the government at the atomic testing site.
Harvey finds himself drawn unwillingly into the investigation.
What do you know about your father's death?
My father?
He drowned off the coast of South...
Where did you get this?
What was he doing when he died?
He was a cameraman. He died when I...
He was working for the Army.
He was filming the British A-bomb tests.
We believe that is your father.
Shot through the head. Close range.
It's not unheard of, but it's certainly unusual for two people to collaborate in directing a major film.
Bruce Miles is an experienced actor and theatrical director with limited experience of film making.
Did you have any trepidations about the co-directing role?
No, no. A lot of excitement about it to be asked to join in on a big feature film to do with these themes.
The script that I liked very much at that first draft stage, it was obvious the script had enormous potential and a lot of honesty about it.
What was the attraction of sharing the directing?
Well, I think that directing is a very intensive experience.
On the day you're very focused on what's going on.
And I've often reflected on my own work when I've sat at home and watched it on television in years to come.
How easy it is to take an armchair view.
And it's so clear the things that I would have done on the day.
I suppose just even on that simple basic level, being two of us, one of us could take a more active role in the actually hands-on direction of the scene.
Whilst the other one could sit back and more or less take the armchair view on the set.
I'm surprised why more people don't do it.
Because having directed a film with another director, I can't imagine how I could do all of that on my own anymore.
As well as celebrated names like Colin Friel's and Jack Thompson, Ground Zero sees the return to Australia of British actor Donald Pleasance.
Pleasance was here in 1970 for the classic Wake in Fright.
One mighty explosion.
And you pay for it for the rest of your life.
For the day of retribution is upon us.
And we shall all burn.
Burn in hell for eternity.
Bruce, what would you like the audience to take from the film?
Most of us, I think, go in to see something to do with these issues.
And find that we don't know very much about them and we should.
And to come out with the feeling of, can I do something about it now?
Mike?
I think it's essentially, it's a ripping good yarn and it's a thriller. And as a filmmaker, that's a bit of a turn on making a thriller that works.
So, would you tell the court again about the poison? What was it?
The sticky black cloud.
And where did it come from?
Filled on the trees, on the ground.
And what happened to the people?
The people became sick, vomited, sore eyes, and some died.
They were dead?
It's taboo, Your Honor. My people aren't allowed to speak of the dead.
Ground Zero does credit to everyone involved. Not only the directors, but writers Jan Sardy and Mac Gudgeon, cinematographer Steve Dobson, and composer Chris Neal, to name just a few.
I'm often struck these days by how much the general standard of our films has risen.
Especially in areas you might not notice first time around.
Things like design, soundtrack, and the quality of acting in supporting roles.
Most significantly, our scripts.
It's a sign of the maturity of our writing that we're finding dramatic material in contemporary issues.
And most important of all, turning it into compelling drama.
I've been involved with World Wildlife Fund Australia for several years now because I don't want museums and books to be the only place that our children can see the animals and plants that we see today.
Right now, we have 30 scientific projects underway.
And one of them will help to save this little fellow here from extinction.
That's why we need you to help.
Urgently. Please. Send us your donation.
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It began as a game. She wanted a few kicks.
Are you out of your mind?
Not a bit.
She had a passion for danger.
Just a little more!
We're gonna get killed! Let's go!
But now the game was to end in a fight for her life.
This whole thing was a setup?
I didn't know he was in scene.
It's over when I say it's over.
Channel 9 premieres kicks, 8.30 Monday. A game you won't want to miss.
Most of us would connect the art of tapestry with medieval days, Bayeux and all that.
But it goes back even further.
Some European tapestries surviving from 1500 BC.
And it has a rich present as well as past.
At present centred surprisingly on Melbourne, where spectacular tapestries are being woven.
Tapestries that hang not only in Australian buildings,
but grace such glamorous walls as London's Guild Hall.
Graham Davies reports on the Victorian Tapestry Workshop.
The world sort of says, well what is a tapestry workshop of this size, this skill level, doing in a place like Melbourne?
These are the things that ought to relate to Europe.
What we've done in Australia is really establish a sort of new tradition based in the techniques of the past,
but taking account of the sort of spirit and imagery of the present.
Sue Walker is founding director of the Victorian Tapestry Workshop,
and the person largely responsible for the renaissance of one of the world's oldest art forms in one of the newest of countries.
But it's Australia's very absence of any tradition of cloth weaving that's perhaps its strength.
When people overseas see our work, they seem to be very taken by the kind of vitality and spirit of it.
And I think it's that freedom from the traditional constraints which is in our work.
I think there's more in our work as well that people enjoy.
Tapestry does have a tradition that dates from the anchors of Peru, yet has always fought a losing battle with painting.
For a time during the medieval period, Bobbin and Loom were on par with brush and palette,
but ironically weavers became so adept, so skilled at duplicating paintings,
copying became their lot and remained their lot until recently, well relatively recently.
What we've tried to do in the 20th century is to return to a more medieval approach where we have more limited palettes,
we weave more broadly, the weavers are able to put in much more of their own feeling and spirit
through interpretation of another artist's work into tapestry.
It was in 1976, with the support of the Victorian Government, that the tapestry workshop was established
in a former glove factory in South Melbourne.
Its philosophy, then and now, based on the collaboration between artist and weaver, weaver and client.
I suppose we try to breathe the sort of life into it that any performer in the performing arts tries to do
when they're working with a script or a composition from a composer or a playwright, other than themselves.
At any one time, the tapestry studio can be working on as many as six different commissions.
There are 26 weavers, all arts college graduates, and all involved in the whole process,
from start inking the traced design onto the loom to finish, hundreds of painstaking hours later.
In between, the colours are chosen, the wool dyed, and what would seem the most laborious, the actual weaving.
Personally, I don't think I've ever got tired of a tapestry.
There are always changing moods as you work through a tapestry,
even though it looks like a mechanical process you are thinking all the time.
It certainly is a living art, although it's an art for posterity.
I think that's one of the very interesting things about being a weaver,
that you feel that you're leaving this legacy behind you.
And that legacy is varied from the photorealism of this tapestry made for the ANZ Bank,
to these historical pieces hung in the World Trade Centre, also in Melbourne, to the most modern.
Tapestry flatters artists and architects, I must say that,
because I've seen all sorts of things produced in tapestry,
even sometimes designs that are maybe a little bit on the feebler side, that look terrific in tapestry.
And likewise, you can say that it covers up the foibles and the mistakes of some architects in their grandiose plans,
where tapestry gives us a rich warmth.
Melbourne artist Jan Senbergs was one of the original designers commissioned by the workshop,
and it's his three tapestries that hang in the State Bank of New South Wales.
In that particular case, I thought I'd work on this idea of a Sydney coastal New South Wales industrial imagery.
There were three pieces.
There was the coastal industrial, there was a piece suggestive of areas like Wollongong or Newcastle,
and then the second one was what I call the port, which is actually the city itself with its port,
and all the sort of juxtaposition of forms and that goes with that.
And the third one was an interior design of an industrial kind of mining site.
To produce a tapestry is a very expensive thing to do, isn't it?
I mean, that's the first thing that one realises.
I mean, it costs a lot of dough.
Between $2,000 and $8,000 a square metre, in fact.
This is because just one square metre can take up to 12 weeks for the most intricate designs,
designs like the tapestry for the ANZ Bank's so-called charter room in its Melbourne headquarters.
It costs $100,000.
The architects decided in the main reception room we needed a different piece of artwork.
They thought of something that had to fill a wall that was something like 40 feet long and 16 feet high.
And the theme, because we were in banking, was thought to be about Melbourne 100 years ago, commerce, banking and so on.
The charter room tapestry was a really important one for the workshop because it was the first major commission we received.
In fact, it took, more or less took over the workshop.
It took 10 weavers a whole year to weave.
And it was the first opportunity that we had to work with documentary material.
I suppose it's like any work of art.
It's the skill of the craftsman.
And when you look at it and when you see that all the wool was hand-dyed by the designers to the required colours to match the parchments that we had, that they were designed of,
the water stain on the parchment is recreated in the tapestry.
In fact, when I first saw it I thought, God, they've damaged the thing, but it was actually within it.
And some of the records, John Batman's Ledger Card, came out of our ledgers.
John Batman was a client of the bank.
Looking at the figures, it doesn't seem as though he was very wealthy, but he was a client of the bank.
There is a secret place of rest.
Of the 120 or so works completed since its inception, the workshop's most unusual has been that for the Ivanhoe Grammar School.
Commissioned for the school chapel, the design was a world first, drawn from an aerial photograph of the school.
I think one of the really successful things about the Ivanhoe tapestry is that when you stand at the back of the chapel,
it's almost as if you're looking through a window to the suburb of Ivanhoe through the window.
It's very realistic, and yet as you walk closer to the tapestry, you notice that it simply becomes a series of abstract shapes
in a sort of pattern form, which is of course very traditional to tapestry.
And that's what some of the most successful tapestries do.
They're very, very satisfying in an abstract way, close up, especially with the sort of repetition of changing patterns.
And then as you get further from them, you can see that they're actually very realistic imagery,
which you hadn't been able to observe when you were close to them.
The same too could be said of a suite of four tapestries for the Victorian Arts Centre.
Artist Mary McQueen drew her images from a nearby park, and the Weavers took three years getting the colours right.
The technique itself is quite simple. The shapes themselves are fairly simple.
The main thing is just getting the vividness of the light colours working and the subtle changes between them,
and then the next, which is a characteristic of watercolour.
And I don't think it's been tried that often in weaving, because of the intricacies involved in mixing the colours.
I think we spend a lot more time just mixing one colour than what I personally have ever before.
The workshop's current and by far its biggest project emanates from here, Suffolk, England,
and from this man, expatriate Australian artist Arthur Boyd.
I was always impressed with the fact that they had a tapestry works in Melbourne at all.
Five years ago, Boyd was commissioned to work with architects and weavers to design what's to be a centrepiece of the new Parliament House.
We sat down at lunch and I made this sketch of the proposed, of the tapestry, of what we had in mind.
From that sketch emerged this, a huge painting, its inspiration drawn from the Shoalhaven River in New South Wales, where Boyd still maintains a home.
The gumtree was described as a weed, and I don't know whether it's appropriate to use a weed for a symbol of Australia,
but if it is a weed, it's the most marvellous variety.
The tapestry from his design will be hung here, the most public of the public spaces in the new Parliament House, the vast reception hall.
It's the place the architects wanted occupied by something that would somehow draw together the vastly different styles of art that will be displayed elsewhere in the building.
It's quite unique for Australia, as far as I know, to produce work like this of such quality and such an enormous technical feat to really make something this large.
I mean, 65 feet long and 32 or 5 feet high is enormously impressive.
The reception hall tapestry will be 160 square metres in total when it's completed,
and we believe it will be the second largest tapestry in the world, second only to the Graham Sutherland tapestry in Coventry Cathedral in England.
This is just one of four panels, two of which have been completed. For 12 weavers, two and a half years' work.
Each time this is unrolled, I forget how large it is, and you think, we did that.
It's just so interesting to see it as a whole, because we're so used to just seeing sections of it month by month.
It's always changing. And then to see it as a big piece, it's just wonderful.
It becomes magic that you think you're working on something that's quite abstract,
but then when you get back and look at it, the bush is just alive. You can almost hear it.
And I think it's that magic about it that's been exciting for us.
But to get that feeling, to get the perspective visitors will get when they see it,
the weavers employ a trick from childhood, reversing binoculars to diminish rather than magnify.
The end result, magnified esteem, magnified knowledge of what, till the workshop, had become a diminished art form.
Music
Magic indeed, the Renaissance of Tapestry, a story produced by Catherine Hunter, reporter, Graham Davis.
But it's a comeback of a different kind, our cover story after this break.
Music
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I see he's putting up another two stories.
Isn't he doing well?
I see he's putting another two stories on. Business must be booming.
You went to school with him, didn't you?
I see he's putting on another two stories.
Well, I'd think only three years ago he started off in a building not unlike this one.
Apparently his bank had a lot to do with his success.
Bank? Which bank?
Six thirty tonight on Our World.
The creatures that live among the coral heads of the Great Valley Reef in Australia
must surely be among the most beautiful and the most bewildering organisms
that you can find anywhere in the world.
David Attenborough looks at light in the oceans.
The squids and octopuses are the most active and intelligent of all the mosques.
And how it became adapted for the move onto land.
This creature is indeed spectacular.
The wonders of life on earth. Six thirty tonight on Channel 9's Our World.
In the newspaper business the rewards can be high, but so too the risks.
It's little more than a month since the demise of Australia's first new daily paper in decades.
A venture that cost the business daily millions of dollars for a five week life.
Yet in Britain a rash of new papers has hit the streets.
Some on shoestring budgets as low as three hundred thousand dollars.
How technology and titillation have changed the face of Fleet Street is the subject of our cover story.
It's reported by Helen Bowden of the BBC.
Britain's most successful new newspaper celebrates its first birthday.
And Sunday's sport has every reason to celebrate.
Circulation at half a million and rising, showing a profit sooner than anyone expected.
And owner David Sullivan has plans up his sleeve to go daily early next year.
I don't think I've picked that one up.
So you know you think all you're going to read about is sex.
And quite frankly I'd rather spend my money on reading something else.
Which am I?
Why do you say that?
Because of it.
What, because of the woman?
Yeah.
It's absolutely disgraceful.
The formula is simple.
As one of the paper's staff put it, tits, bums, QPR and roll your own fags.
And it's all because of the newspaper revolution.
Three years ago Sunday's sport and the other three new national newspapers could never have got started.
Hello this is Helen Bowden from the BBC.
Yes, yes the door is open just walk up.
The headquarters of the Sunday's sport are tucked away above a warehouse in North London.
The entire operation was set up for 150,000 pounds.
That's the kind of money most other newspapers spend on a year's supply of stationery.
The bill's trying to change the very basic definition of obscenity and that's what we'll do later on David.
And it's hard to believe that this is the nerve centre of a national Sunday paper with a circulation of half a million.
Sunday's sports readers are overwhelmingly young and male, most aged between 16 and 35.
Can you just hold this?
Mike, on this sick baby, right?
Yeah.
It's definitely a runner. The social security offered them two quid to send the kid to London hospital.
Two pounds?
Right.
The original editorial staff of seven has rocketed to nine, but they know a good story when they see one.
The perfect combination, a heartless ministry on page one and topless lovelies on most other pages.
I make no bones about it at all that we publish a lot of colour pinups and they are very important to us.
And we have the traditional mix of exposés and things like that, but we have the kitchen sink stories.
Things which affect ordinary people, have a relevance to their lives, see people in quirky, amazing situations,
which you and I might find ourselves in because we're not just a pop singer or something like that.
How many nipples do you have in an edition of Sunday Sport?
On average we have 14 sets, 14 pairs.
And how do you decide which nipples get in and which don't?
We pick the nicest pictures, what we think are the nicest pictures.
And what sort of criterion do you use for that?
Well I personally like, and I don't say this tongue in cheek, because the proof of the pudding is to read the paper.
I like outdoor beach pictures and things like that of topless girls. I think that's fantastic.
This is the best story we've got at the moment, I think it's quite a nice...
It's been through the lawyer?
Yes it has indeed, it's been cleared.
It's the best story of the week.
And this is a cracking shot from Mexico.
Is this one of George Richardson's pictures?
Yes, it's one of George's pictures again.
Man, she's got no bra, you're not going to see any nipples?
I don't think so, no I don't think so. It's fairly raunchy but I think we'll just get away with it.
It's right on the edge for page one, but I like it, I think it's a great picture.
Yeah, it is indeed, yeah.
And Sunday Sport certainly knows the value of the right exposure.
This pin-up of Tina Small, who claims the world's biggest breasts, boosted circulation by 30% last winter.
I frankly can't see breasts as being pornographic, which is one of the arguments of the lunier women's livers.
And I don't think it's the case, I don't think that there is anything wrong with having pictures of pretty girls.
We'll change that into a nice smile.
That's good, hold onto the boots, just hold the boot, yeah like that, that's it.
There.
Good, that's fine, hold it like that.
I wouldn't want to go any lower, I think there's a certain level which is acceptable to people for newspapers.
And I think Sunday Sport is that level.
And I think, for example, there was a pubic hair shot in the Sunday People the other week, which I think got him by mistake.
I think that is not acceptable to most people.
And I think the combination of Sunday Sport is an acceptable package, but just on the borderline of acceptability.
Until Sunday Sport came along, the Sun and the Star had defined the bottom end of the newspaper market.
Page 3 girls were thought to be at the limits of public acceptability.
But there are those who argue that newspaper journalism should be more than nipple counting,
that papers have a higher moral duty than finding out what people seem to want and giving them as much of it as possible.
Sir Roy Shaw used to work in newspapers and lectures on the media.
The freedom of the press was defended on the grounds that it is absolutely essential to a democracy.
In what sense is the freedom of the Sun or Sport under the sun?