What the nation s newspapers are saying today, Mon Dec 28

AAP General News (Australia)
12-28-1998
What the nation s newspapers are saying today, Mon Dec 28

SYDNEY, Dec 28 AAP - The Sydney Morning Herald said in an editorial today the reaction of
Labor leaders to criticism of their "pedestrian" policies was a telling justification for the
case Federal ALP backbencher Mark Latham was making.

"(He) is trying to initiate an important debate about the future of the Labor Party," The
Herald said.

The light on the hill, it said, had been turned off.

In the latest election Mr Beazley had adopted the trade union perspective of national
politics, turing his back on the essential reforms of the Hawke-Keating governments to
enunciate back-to-the-future remedies.

"When Mrs Cheryl Kernot defected to Labor, there was talk of the party adopting the 'third
way' of the Blair Government. It bodes badly for the modernising of the Labor Party that Mr
Latham is being ostracised for setting out an Australian context to this 'third way.'"

The Age says in its editorial today that while the United States and Britain were bombing
Iraq and the US House of Representatives was debating impeachment of president Bill Clinton,
South Korean scientists reported research far more momentous than either of the other events.

They announced they had produced a human embryo by cloning, the paper says.

Now is the time to frame laws that enshrine convictions about the uniqueness of human
individuals, but allow for the possibility of cloning techniques that do not conflict with
these beliefs, it says.

The Age also says Esso is challenging legislation which curtails the right to lawyer-client
confidentiality in the face of royal commissions.

Given the consequences of the recent gas crisis, involving the deaths of two men,
systematic problems of gas supply, and the hundreds of thousands whose livelihoods were
jeopardised, it is difficult to see how the right to confidentiality between a large
corporation and its in-house lawyers outweighs the greater public good of understanding what
went wrong, the paper says.

The Courier-Mail's main editorial today questions the need for an elite facility such as
the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) following revelations about the coaching methods and
attitudes of its tennis program.

"Some women claim the pervasive emphasis on physical appearance led them down a sickening
path of anorexia nervosa and bulimia," the paper said.

The AIS tennis program had not managed to produce one player who has ranked in the world's
top 20.

Tennis great Margaret Court said that Australia's individual champions in recent years have
come from one-to-one coaching arrangements where players train and develop in their home
environment and not in a team camp situation.

"Mrs Court says we have already lost a generation of potential tennis champions because of
the AIS training methods," The Courier-Mail said.

"We cannot afford to lose any more."

In Sydney The Daily Telegraph said it was an appalling reflection on both our attitude to
public hospitals and our litigious society that obstetricians are forced to resign because of
the high cost of indemnity insurance.

From 1990 insurance costs for obstetricians had risen form $6,000 to $41,400 a year.

If the government wanted doctors in its hospitals, it should compromise to meet part of the
indemnity, the Telegraph editorial said.

The Australian editorial today said that the freedom of choice the banning of compulsory
student union membership would bring would be a boon for students.

Student unions would have the chance to survive and thrive by earning the right to provide
services and so justify their fees.

The National Union of Students argued that students were "expected" to make a contribution
to their organisation - but made no mention that it instead should be expected to make a
contribution to students and one they actually wanted, rather than one which was forced upon
them.

Unions had far too long enjoyed a free ride on the backs of students forced to join groups
they did not support or use, The Australian said.

The Herald Sun says in its editorial today a serious yacht drama in storm-tossed Bass
Strait and yesterday's decision to delay for 24 hours the start of two Melbourne-Tasmania
races highlights the dangers encountered by blue-water sailors.

Insurers would take a dim view of boat owners and officials who had needlessly put
competing craft at risk, the paper says.

"It would be a dull world, however, if adventurers were discouraged from challenging the
elements at sea or the slopes of fearsome peaks, or stopped from exploring our skies in
balloons," the editorial says.

AAP cjh

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS MONDAY, Dec 28, 1998

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