Radio and Television Breakfast Round Up

AAP General News (Australia)
02-16-1999
Radio and Television Breakfast Round Up
BREAKFAST ROUND-UP: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AAP RTV FILE AT 0430.

TAX (CANBERRA)

The Australian Democrats have rejected claims by Treasurer PETER COSTELLO that they've
reneged on a deal to vote on the GST before the end of June.

The government wants its tax legislation passed before then to avoid the more hostile
Senate which comes into effect from July 1.

But Democrats Leader MEG LEES says the complexity of the tax legislation means there is no
guarantee the Senate can deal with it before June 30.



SMALL (CANBERRA)

The Senate is now certain to overturn the federal government's unfair dismissal rules for
small business with key independent Senator MAL COLSTON absent due to ill health.

Labor Senate leader JOHN FAULKNER says a vote on the disallowance motion will be taken
today, when Senator COLSTON is not in parliament.

The senator, who is suffering terminal cancer, has been granted leave from the Senate.



REPUBLIC (CANBERRA)

Federal government MPs will today debate whether God and Aboriginal ownership of Australia
prior to European settlement should become a key part of the referendum on the republic.

Cabinet yesterday gave broad approval to a proposed preamble to the constitution and a
question on a republic with a president chosen by parliament.

Cabinet supported a preamble which mentions God and prior Aboriginal ownership, but stopped
short of recognising Aboriginal custodianship, even though it was unanimously supported by
last year's constitutional convention.



RONA (BRISBANE)

Relief centres have been set up to help people on low incomes affected by flooding as north
Queensland begins to add up the damage bill from cyclone Rona.

Primary producers have also started on initial estimates of the loss to fruit and sugar
cane crops.

Canegrowers general manager IAN BALLANTYNE says there's been a 20 per cent fall in the
value of sugar cane in far north Queensland with an estimated loss of $100 million.



HANSON POLL (SYDNEY)

Support for PAULINE HANSON's One Nation Party has slumped to its lowest level in a year
following a recent string of defections from the party's Queensland branch.

One Nation's national support now stands at two per cent, according to a Newpoll taken for
The Australian on the weekend.

That compares with 8.5 per cent at the October federal election, when close to one million
Australian voted for the Party.



WAGE REITH (CANBERRA)

Workplace Relations Minister PETER REITH says the ACTU's latest push for a wage rise for
low paid workers fails to balance the interests of low-income earners, the unemployed and the
economy.

The ACTU is seeking a $26.60 a week increase in minimum award rates -- increasing the
federal minimum wage from the current $373.40 a week to $400 a week.

Mr REITH has hit back at opposition criticism over the government's refusal to support the
ACTU claim and instead back an $8-a-week rise.



TENT (CANBERRA)

An Aboriginal tent embassy protester will appear in the ACT Magistrates Court today,
charged after a scuffle with police outside federal parliament yesterday.

The 26-year-old Canberra man has spent the night behind bars after being refused bail on
charges of obstruction and assaulting and resisting police.

A second man arrested in the scuffle will appear in court on Friday -- the 21-year-old
Melbourne man is charged with obstructing and resisting police.



ONETEL (SYDNEY)

News Ltd, the Australian arm of RUPERT MURDOCH'S News Corp, and KERRY PACKER'S Publishing
and Broadcasting Ltd are joining forces in a $709 million telecommunications deal.

In a transaction led by the media magnates' sons, LACHLAN MURDOCH and JAMES PACKER,
Australia's two most influential families will emerge with a total 40 per cent stake in junior
telco company One.Tel Ltd.

One.Tel is to be positioned as a major new player in the mobile phone market.



OVERSEAS...........

YUGO KOSOVO (PARIS)

Serbia says it is willing to make major compromises and grant rival ethnic Albanians broad
self-rule, but adamantly opposes NATO troops to police a Kosovo agreement.

Serbian president MILAN MILUTINOVIC says his country can't compromise on that.

He comments came as the Kosovo peace conference headed toward a fast-approaching deadline,
with the United States bearing down on the Serbians to make a deal with Kosovo Albanians or
suffer bombardment by NATO forces.



IRELAND (BELFAST)

Northern Ireland's peace process faces a key test as politicians debate the creation of new
power-sharing structures, deadlocked over whether to bar Sinn Fein from power until its IRA
allies give up their guns.

The IRA guerrillas, who fought for decades against British rule, have so far refused to
begin the disarmament called for in last year's peace agreement.

Pro-British Protestant Unionist politicians say that should rule the IRA's political wing
Sinn Fein out of the new administration.



IRAQ US ATTACK (BAGHDAD)

US jets have launched fresh attacks on Iraqi air defence sites in the wake of threats by
President SADDAM HUSSEIN to strike back at bases used by allied aircraft in Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait.

Iraq says US planes have attacked two sites in the northern no-fly zone from a base in
southern Turkey, killing five Iraqis and injuring 22, some of them civilians.

The attacks came during a visit to Turkey by Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister TAREQ AZIZ who
called, in vain, for a halt to the use of the Turkish base to launch strikes on his country.



BRIEFLY..........

US President BILL CLINTON has been nominated for the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, as have his
Balkan peace-broker RICHARD HOLBROOKE, UN Secretary General KOFI ANNAN and Pope JOHN PAUL II.



With her husband's impeachment trial now just a tortured memory, US First Lady HILLARY
CLINTON is now weighing her own run for elected office - and polls show she could be a winner.



Victorian Premier JEFF KENNETT and construction union representatives will get together for
a conciliatory meeting today over the handling of major projects in the state.



A new report expected to be released today could finally end the 23-year mystery of the
killing of five Australia-based newsmen in East Timor.



The Australian International Airshow kicks off in Melbourne today, with more than 200,000
people expected to attend the six-day event.



SPORTS...........

LEAGUE DRUGS (SYDNEY)

Western Suburbs rugby league club has had a second player within a week test positive for
drugs.

Prop ADRIAN RAINEY is facing a two-year ban for steroid use and is likely to front the
drugs tribunal at the same time as team-mate MATT SPENCE, who faces a stimulants charge.



RUGBY EALES (BRISBANE)

Wallaby captain JOHN EALES will miss the entire Super 12 rugby union series and his World
Cup campaign is in jeopardy after a weights training mishap with the Queensland team.

EALES damaged his left shoulder and the 28-year-old lineout ace will have surgery within
the next 10 days.

It's the same shoulder that prevented EALES playing the 1992 season.



AFL SHAW (MELBOURNE)

Essendon's massive salary cap punishment could cost DAVID SHAW his seat on the AFL
commission when it meets today before the league's annual general meeting.

SHAW was president at Essendon from 1993-96, the timeframe of the club's salary cap
breaches that attracted fines this month of more than $276,000 plus the loss of draft picks.



OLY BRIBES HANCOCK (SYDNEY)

A major Olympic sponsor has accused the Sydney Games bid of bribery and criticised the
International Olympic Committee for orchestrating a cover-up of a $105,000 inducement to two
African IOC members.

The Australian newspaper says US insurance giant John Hancock Financial Services has
blasted Australian Olympic Committee president JOHN COATES's brokering of sporting grants with
Kenyan and Ugandan IOC members hours before the IOC vote on the 2000 Games host city in 1993.

John Hancock president DAVID D'ALESSANDRO has ridiculed the IOC's assessment that the
payments for the Kenyan and Ugandan Olympic committees were perfectly correct.


ENDS BREAKFAST ROUNDUP
AAP RTV msk

KEYWORD: BREAKFAST ROUND-UP

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.