четверг, 1 марта 2012 г.

FED:Editorials Wednesday Dec 21, 2011


AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2011
FED:Editorials Wednesday Dec 21, 2011

SYDNEY, Dec 21 AAP - The Australian on Wednesday says Workplace Relations Minister
Bill Shorten has been handed the opportunity to mark himself out as an economic reformer
in the Labor tradition of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. To do so he must ensure that the
review of the Fair Work Act announced yesterday positions Australia for a productive future
after a slowdown over the past decade.
We know Mr Shorten will take this advice seriously because he revealed yesterday that
he takes guidance from our editorials, among other sources. So we presume he was joking
when he said the Fair Work Act was "working well". At least he conceded "there is always
room for improvement". Especially in regard to unions' pursuit of so-called "job security"

clauses; the strike first/negotiate later pattern that has pushed working days lost to
a seven-year high; the need for flexibility through individual contracts; a modification
of unfair dismissal laws; and rebuilding the nexus between productivity and wage rises,
including employer-funded superannuation.

After two decades of workplace reform under the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments
that led to higher real wages and living standards, Fair Work has taken Australia back
to the rigidities of the 1970s. Mr Shorten now has the chance to show he is a man of the
future.

The Sydney Morning Herald today says after the death of the North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il, countries with an interest in security on the Korean peninsula are doing what
they can. But that is not much: holding the line, in this case the demilitarised zone
separating the North and South, one of the most heavily militarised frontiers in the world
aside from the strip of wilderness in the middle.

The new leader, Kim Jong-un, 27, is described as ''the Great Successor'' to his father,
following the same ''army first'' policy.

But this bleak prospect should not stop our leaders trying. North Korea is not totally
impervious to the outside world. The population now knows it is not living in a socialist
paradise with ''nothing to envy'' elsewhere, that South Korea has zoomed far ahead in
prosperity and freedom. While this knowledge works through - one hopes to some kind of
North Korean ''spring'' - our leaders should focus on drawing the North Koreans back to
the six-party talks in Beijing,

Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says justice delayed is justice denied, according to the
famous maxim credited to 19th-century British prime minister William Gladstone. NSW police,
armed with detection methods that didn't exist when serious crimes were committed decades
ago, are now gradually tracking down and charging those believed responsible for crimes
previously left unsolved.

The record so far is impressive. Police have charged 24 alleged sexual offenders for
crimes dating back to 1987.

This is not only a credit to the police for their modern application of available technology,
but also to the thorough policing methods that preserved valuable evidence for future
examination.

These processes are scientifically intriguing, but the primary purpose of any investigations
must always be to right terrible wrongs, whether they were committed 25 years or 24 hours
ago.

The Herald Sun says the small township of Fiskville, where the Country Fire Authority
based it training centre and buried highly toxic chemicals, should be shut down.

It says the CFA has either ignored a secret scientific report about the dangers of
the chemicals, or decided not to investigate the deaths of 15 former staff from cancer.

The paper says former firefighter Paul Beattie is one who wants to know whether his
brain and lung cancers were caused by breathing smoke from those suffocating fires of
toxic chemicals.

"The families who have suffered death and illness since their menfolk trained with
dangerous chemical fires in the late 1980s are entitled to answers," the paper says.

It called for an independent investigation to see if there was a cancer cluster at Fiskville.

For all the uncertainty following the death of North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il and
the rise of his son, little known Kim Jong-un, there is also the opportunity to open up
the economy, feed its people and end Pyongyang's nuclear program, says The Age.

Then there is the unfinished business of a treaty with South Korea, which has been
in a technical state of war with the North since the 1953 truce.

"North Korea's economy and society are as weak and dysfunctional as the military is
powerful," says the paper.

"The combination is inherently dangerous.

"All nations have an immediate goal of maintaining calm, but they should also aim to
encourage change in North Korea and its relations with the world."

It pointed out that Kim Jong-un has been dubbed the Great Successor but he has not
had much of an apprenticeship for running North Korea.

He could face a power struggle with more established military leaders and with his
uncle, Jang Song-thaek, a potential rival.

"The US, China and Russia must work together to defuse the danger or the whole world
may regret the survival of the last Cold War outpost of nuclear-armed hostility," said
The Age.

Brisbane's The Courier Mail on Wednesday says the most immediate challenge for the
rest of the world is to make sure there is no confusion in the signals being sent to North
Korea. This is international diplomacy at its most delicate. North Korea has acted unpredictably
for years. How much more unpredictable might its behaviour become as it deals with the
unsettling business of installing a new leader? Any sign that the West is trying to direct
an outcome could be seized upon to justify provocative behaviour by an untested young
man who has all the potential for parody of his father but will be every bit as dangerous.

The West must tread with caution.

AAP jxt/jfm

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

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