What Australian newspapers say Tuesday, Dec 10
EDS: corrects date in headline
SYDNEY, Dec 10 AAP - The commonwealth's additional $368 million drought package hasthe important critical aims of helping farmers survive the ordeal and get back to workwhen it ends, The Daily Telegraph says in its editorial today.
The government hopes to address the problem of facing farmers restarting productivework through the cheap, low-interest loans it will subsidise.
Banks should show a flexibility equal to that of the government by tailoring loansto suit these special circumstances, with farmers bled dry, it says.
The Courier-Mail says the commonwealth relief package carries the promise that thosesuffering the worst of the drought will no longer have to put up with the added frustrationof bureaucratic inertia.
Initial reaction to the package has been mixed, with some saying loan subsidies areuseless for those primary producers who have seen the drought leave them with no cashat all to pay off their debts.
But overall, the newspaper says, the new package is welcome in that it recognises thisdrought as having a more acute impact than many that have gone before.
What all levels of government should do now is get serious about achieving policy reformin areas such as water management and tax to help ease the pain of the next drought.
Water property rights should be the foundation of a viable market for trading waterrights, The Australian Financial Review says.
This in turn is just one of a range of measures needed to secure the long-term futureof agriculture in this country, it says.
Sustainable agriculture should mean farms that are better able to cope with the ravagesof the drought. Not that ad hoc drought assistance measures such as the package unveiledyesterday would never be needed, just that smaller packages would be required less often.
The SA police force has no right to escape public scrutiny by censoring informationreleased to the media, says The Advertiser.
From today radio stations will not be able to warn the public about serious crimesand information will be kept secret to be possibly released well after the event.
"The police force exists to serve and protect the community. The desire of its rulingranks to censor details of violent crime ... should not over-ride this service value."
The change is an intolerable abuse of power and the police minister should intervene,the newspaper says.
The heavy income tax rates should be axed to give taxpayers a fair go, The Australian says.
High tax rates which were meant for the better-off are hitting close to 1 million ordinaryAustralians whose middling incomes are catapulting them into the 47 cent-in-the-dollarrange.
"Under this supposedly free enterprise government, the tax burden has reached record highs.
"Is it any wonder that high tax rates are sapping the motivation to work hard, anddriving increasing numbers of Australians overseas?"
Australia loses out as the high tax rates that cut in at low thresholds force manyhighly skilled expats to think twice about returning.
British American Tobacco is showing an absence of compassion by demanding million-dollarlegal fees from the family of former smoker Rolah McCabe, the Herald Sun says.
The company's demand that her family pay its legal costs arising from their failedattempt to sue the tobacco giant smacks of more than asking for legal rights, the newspapersays.
"It suggests a determination to intimidate anyone else tempted to point the fingerat its potentially lethal product," it
says.
NSW Labor has taken an encouraging first step in cleansing the party of branch stacking,stripping ALP membership from 57 Wollongong individuals, The Sydney Morning Herald says.
But this is a first step only and, measured against its extent across the state, amodest one, it says.
"Branch stacking is practised in all political parties but ALP sections made it a fearsomesword for personal or factional supremacy.
"Through the installation of people who care little or nothing for the organisation'score beliefs, it allows perpetrators to manipulate policies and offices, particularlyprized endorsements for parliamentary elections."
The rules have just got a lot tougher and Labor must impose them even-handedly, thenewspaper says.
Otherwise, it will fail not only its genuine members and committed voters but democraticprocesses themselves.
AAP rs
KEYWORD: EDITORIALS (REISSUING)
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