THE BRAILLE MAIL April 1994 edition This is the 33nd edition of The Braille Mail, a community project providing access to the news for the print disabled by Queensland Newspapers, Bowen Hills, Brisbane. Telephone (Brisbane) 2526354. Braille printing by the Hong Kong Society for the Blind. The hardcopy Braille edition is flown free of charge to Australia by Cathay Pacific Airways. All editorial inquiries to Bob Howarth in Brisbane on 252 6354. Publisher: Mr John Cowley, Managing Director, Queensland Newspapers. This 14,860-word hardcopy Braille edition is distributed through Braille House, 507 Ipswich Road, Annerley, Brisbane. The text of this edition is also available in disk and dial-up form in ASCII format through the Queensland Blind Association's Computer Users' Group bulletin board "Flying Blind" and the Access Australia electronic bulletin board run by the Queensland Spastic Welfare League (inquiries 358 8011). It is also available on the "Bush Telegraph" bulletin board of the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind in Melbourne. It is available in compressed form on these bulletin boards using the program PKUNZIP to unpack it. This experimental large-print version has also been produced by staff of the Editorial Technology Department of Queensland Newspapers using the program Microsoft Word on an IBM compatible 486 computer. what's inside Editor's Note A more "correct" world Picture it: Women at work and men at home Death of the magnificent coral reefs Australia becoming a divided society says analyst Dangerous trade for local caterers Remember, the customer is always right The final fling PMS - a vicious cycle THE GALLIPOLI SAMURAI Australia's cat wars The apathy of bystanders The new South Africa  EDITOR'S NOTE Once again we have more stimulating reading ranging from ecology, social issues, columnist Lawrie Kavanagh stirring up a hornet's nest on caning naughty teenagers, to humourist Dave Barry writing about how the customer is always right -especially when he has an army armoured tank - to a look at how the new South Africa has changed from the old. We also have some good news this month. The Braille Mail has been awarded the Gold Award of the International Newspaper Marketing Association for the Best Community Promotion for newspapers with circulations greater than 80,000 copies. The judge, the famous author and advertising guru Bryce Courtnay, commented that this very publication deserved every encouragement. We welcome feedback from readers. - signed BOB HOWARTH, Editor Ends Item The Courier-Mail March 28, 1994: A more "correct" world Political correctness has become the catch-cry of the 1990s. The term, which loosely refers to the movement towards non-offensive and equitable language and behaviour, is the subject of fierce intellectual debate around the world. SHANE RODGERS reports: MODERN language and behaviour are fast becoming a minefield: watch what you say, watch what you do and try not to upset anyone. The so-called political correctness movement has permeated the boardrooms, living rooms and classrooms of Australia in an unprecedented fashion over the past five years. Gender, age, race and religious sensitivities have resulted in a virtual rewriting of the accepted rules of speech and conduct as scholars, educators, interest groups and governments search for a more "correct" world. But in our haste to treat everyone fairly and equally, has the whole thing gone too far? Have we stifled free speech, undermined freedom and equality and attached negative connotations to expressions and actions never designed to cause offence? For some, the quest for correctness is a natural progression for a caring society trying to do the right thing by all its members. For others, it is do-gooding gone mad or a form of social engineering designed to reprogramme people away from their traditions and natural behaviour. Historian and social commentator Geoffrey Blainey is one of many now speaking out against the "correctness" trend. While he believes much of it is a passing fad, he is concerned at the potential damage to the democratic institutions of free speech and free elections. "I think it has become very difficult to debate some issues," he said this week. "Many of the people who see themselves as politically correct say there's only one answer and so there can be no debate. "I also think the idea that new words will change conceptions and attitudes is very naive. It's based on a idea that if you suddenly invented a new language and forced its use on people, all prejudices would automatically vanish. That is not so." Professor Blainey said there was a view in universities now that selection committees and the like had to have some positions filled by women. This, he believed, was based on an assumption that men sitting as a group would necessarily make different decisions from a group of women. Such a notion was not proven, he said, and the distorting of the selection process ran against the "strong principles" of democratic elections. "One of the disappointing things is that the stronghold of the movement for political correctness is within certain faculties and departments within universities," Professor Blainey said. "The very institution that is supposed to promote free speech and debate is becoming a choker of free speech and discussion." That said, Professor Blainey does see occasional short-term benefits from special use of language. An example of this was the term "new Australians" which was useful in its day to remove the stigma from migrants but was seldom used now. He said "correct" terminology fell down when long and clumsy words were introduced which undermined the efficient use of the language. "I think in intellectual circles, political correctness is a very powerful force," Professor Blainey said. "I think a lot of it is done unthinkingly at the moment. A lot of what they do is highly irrational." Former high-profile television presenter and broadcaster Jane Singleton takes an opposing view. She believes particular use of language does lead to actions and there is nothing improper about forcing people into more acceptable speech and behaviour. "It would be nice if everyone became tolerant and supportive without laws and regulations," she said. "Unfortunately, people in wheelchairs only get action because laws say they must have equal access to buildings and Aborigines have got only part of the way towards equality because some people have said this is just not good enough. "When some people talk about do-gooders, it has become a slang rather than a commendation. I find it rather odd that people who try to do good are regarded this way." Ms Singleton, who is president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the Australian Consumers Council, said it was not incumbent on a person at the receiving end of particular comments to interpret whether they were designed to cause offence. "Freedom of speech does not give you the right to vilify others," she said. "I think people who wish to express themselves should work out ways of saying it that do not cause offence. "I don't think this is a passing fad. Language is changing all the time. My kids use language that I don't use. Change is okay. I don't see why the language shouldn't change." Ms Singleton said moves towards equality and fairness did not have to stifle free speech because it was only an issue when behaviour or language vilified or offended someone. Unwanted sexual attention, for example, was harassment but there was nothing wrong with welcome attention. It was also possible to have a vigorous debate or give forceful opinions, but still use acceptable language. Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Zrinka Johnston believes laws against discrimination are often lumped unfairly under the banner of political correctness. "I see the enactment of these laws as reflecting very strongly people's views as reflected at the ballot box," she said. "They are also confirmation of the commonly accepted view that we should give everyone a fair go." Ms Johnston said there was a wide spectrum of attitudes in the community and accepting the language of equality would take longer for some people than others. In five or six years, most of the gender and race-neutral terms were likely to be uncontroversial. Ms Johnston said an example of this was the title "Ms" which once attracted attention but was now in common usage. In contrast, some of the suggested alternatives for words like fat, short and tall were "just silly". "Not everything that is unfair is discriminatory," Ms Johnston said. "I think a lot of those sort of terms are caused by modern advertising techniques rather than governments or anti- discrimination laws." Ms Johnston said Australia was nowhere near the situation at Antioch College in Ohio where students had to ask specific permission at every stage of a romantic contact. "The cases of sexual harassment we deal with are usually very clear and obvious and involve a very obvious power imbalance," she said. "I guess with romantic attachments and involvements, you're talking about a far more equal power situation." Ends Item  The Courier-Mail April 4, 1994 KAVANAGH ON MONDAY COLUMN: USA gives a picture of Australia's future By LAWRIE KAVANAGH CRIME in the United States should be of great concern to Australians because in it we can see an accurate picture of what Australia can expect just a short way down the road. The US gives us a very accurate picture of what we will be like in all aspects of society but, as I've pointed out before, we are too stupid, too politically correct, to learn from their mistakes. So some day soon Australia will see the latest US crime, violent car-jacking, which has left a trail of tourists murdered recently, the latest two young Japanese men. The crime is a big worry to law-abiding Yanks, particularly those in the tourist industry like hire car companies. To help reduce the risk of tourist car-jacking many rental companies have removed logos from their cars so as not to have confused tourists sticking out like sore thumbs. Leading rental company Avis has even installed panic buttons that will signal an emergency to authorities. I read all about it in The Courier-Mail on Saturday, right next to a story about that 18-year-old American facing six strokes of the cane in Singapore for 16 acts of vandalism over a period of 10 days. Poor kid. It was his first offence . . . well, the first 16 offences for which he has been caught. It was a very interesting story. Naturally the US is outraged, from President Clinton down, that one of its citizens, particularly one so young, is to be subjected to this barbaric Singaporean abomination. Why, no less than the State Department in Washington is to bring pressure to bear on Singapore because it "believes caning is an excessive penalty for a youthful, non-violent offender who pleaded guilty to reparable crimes against private property". The poor kid's mother is petitioning just about everyone, even ex-president George Bush. And quite right, too. Caning should not be countenanced for one second in any civilised country, particularly one like the United States where the civil rights of every American citizen are enshrined as if stitched into Old Glory herself, fluttering up there through the dawn's early light. We can be thankful for that because, with our penchant for doing every thing American, such barbaric punishment as caning will never darken our reputation as a country where the rights of the individual are more precious than gold. It's hard to imagine in this enlightened age that anyone, even a thick-headed Singaporean, would not realise that punishment, particularly physical punishment, is no deterrent to crime. On the contrary, corporal punishment will only lead to more violence. You only have to look at the track record of both countries. Why, in Singapore they are so draconian they punish people for throwing matches in the gutter. They have ordinary citizens so cowed, so afraid to stand up for their civil rights, that today Singapore is the cleanest city in the world. How disgusting. They are so tough on criminals, like that poor young American, that today Singapore is probably one of the safest cities in the world in which to stroll. Can you beat that? Now take a look at the United States of America, and in a lesser way Australia, where it is every citizens' right to do what we- bloody-well-please and bloody-tough-luck for anyone who happens to be standing in the way. Sure, some people get traumatised and maybe have to be put in jail occasionally, but we make it as pleasant as we can for them because it's not their fault when you look at the society we've created for them. The victims, what about the victims, you ask? Sure, sure, it's tough on them, but if they weren't standing around minding their own business they wouldn't be dead or injured or be poorer for the experience, would they, eh? I mean, is that good old civil libertarian democracy at work or what, I ask ya? And here are these Singaporeans taking umbrage at the United States of America, land of the free, lecturing them on crime and punishment. What next, you may well ask? I'll tell you what. Last month they had a referendum in Singapore asking citizens what values they thought appropriate for their country and they came up with five: 1. Love, care and concern for family. 2. Mutual respect. 3. Filial piety. 4. Commitment. 5. Responsibility. And now the dumb bastards are going to push those old-fashioned values through every aspect, every institution of Singaporean life. Whatever happened to modern standards? Whatever happened to civil liberties where you can do what you like, when you like, and stuff the other bloke? It sure ain't the American way . . . or the Aussie way. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 7, 1994: Picture it: Women at work and men at home By DALE SPENDER WHEN my mother was married, she wasn't allowed to work. That was not because my father wouldn't let her. He didn't think a woman's place was solely in the home, particularly when there were no children there, and not much furniture either for that matter. In fact, they could have used the money, but there were laws against married women going out to work. It usually comes as a shock to young women today to find that, as late as the 1960s, there was what was called "a marriage bar". Not that it applied to both parties in the marriage. It applied only to women, who were barred from work once they were wed. Women public servants, especially teachers, were hit hard. According to my mother, there were a lot of secret marriages in those days. Well, who would want to tell the world that they had become a wife if it meant they had to take their pay packet and go home? With married women kept out of the workforce, it was pretty easy for men to argue that they deserved a family wage. After all, they had wives and children to keep, didn't they? This was one way that sex differences in pay were institutionalised even though they were grossly unfair. Men didn't have to prove that they had dependants in order to get the family wage, and women couldn't get it, even when they had family - parents and children (and sick husbands) - to support. By the end of the 60s, the system was being strained to breaking point. Women started to demand equal pay and, like men, the right to work regardless of their marital status. We all know what has happened since then. Instead of a marriage bar, we now have laws against discrimination in the workforce. It has to be said that women have been much more successful at getting the jobs than getting the same money as men. This isn't just in Australia, but the world over. (In Japan, the average wage of a woman is only half that of a man, while in Sweden it is nine-tenths). When women started on their quest for equality in the job market, no one could have predicted the astonishing changes that would take place, and so quickly. Thirty years after the rumbles of discontent, The Economist magazine reports that in the United States, women now comprise 46 percent of the workforce and the rate is increasing every year. This is in stark contrast with a century ago when women comprised only about 17 percent of the paid workforce. Men have been the breadwinners for a very long time in Western society, but the experts predict this is not going to be the case in the near future. According to The Economist, "on present trends, the typical worker in some rich countries will be a woman by the 21st century". This scenario has enormous implications. Could it be that within the space of a few short years we are going to have a society in which the average man doesn't go to work? (And will this inequality in the work place make a difference to the present inequalities in domestic arrangements?) What sort of family policies do the political parties have in the pipeline to deal with the financial and psychological consequences of men at home? The "success" of women isn't the result of "taking men's jobs", despite some of the accusations that have been made. The traditional areas of women's work have expanded. Jobs have gone from the manufacturing industries, which employed mainly men; at the same time, there has been growth in the service areas. There are more jobs in education, social work and health care, and they have gone mainly to women. This is happening in Australia where most of the new jobs have women's names on them. Much of the work is part-time, which is one factor and a reason that women's rates of pay are lower on average; it is also a reason that some men don't want the work. Of course, what we think about work and pay depends on circumstances. We now have a younger generation that has adapted amazingly and realistically to their reduced job prospects. But what will be the consequences of women at work and men at home? Something tells me that it won't necessarily be good news for women. Unless there are drastic changes on the home front, we could see in the 21st century the typical man with a life of leisure, and the typical woman being the worker. It wouldn't be progress. EDITOR'S NOTE: Dale Spender, author and academic, is deputy convener of the Queensland Women's Consultative Council. Ends Item The Sunday Mail April 10, 1994: Death of the magnificent coral reefs By BEN CROPP TEN percent of the world's magnificent coral reefs are already dead and scientists predict that a third will be dead within 20 years - and two-thirds within 40 years. It is a disaster happening right on our tropical doorstep, caused by man's polluting ways. I've been diving on these reefs for the past 40 years, and it saddens me to see these wonderful coral reefs slowly dying. The island of Okinawa is my first stop on a world tour to assess the global state of coral reefs. Mack Okada, a diving buddy for 20 years, is my guide. We return to the coral reefs at the World Marine Expo site, where I dived 18 years ago with Mack. I remember the reef well, remarking to Mack then that Japan's Okinawa was truly a beautiful coral reef. My wife, Lynn, and I are devastated as we flipper down. The coral reef is dead. There are no fish, just a graveyard of coral skeletons covered in algae. We dive further along Okinawa's fringing reef and see more devastation. The once live garden is now 98 percent dead. The remaining 2 percent are little clumps of regrowth, but they will soon die. Mack introduces me to local diver Yoshimine, who shows me graphic pictures of the demise of Okinawa's corals, which he has been documenting for the past 20 years. A picture tells a thousand words. A coral outcrop is very much alive in a photo Yoshimine snapped in 1972. The second photo taken in 1990 shows the same coral outcrop very dead. He has shown these graphic photos to the government and they deny that Okinawa's coral reef is dead. How then did a 130- kilometre fringing reef totally die? The answers are obvious when you look at Okinawa's massive over-development. When Japan reclaimed Okinawa from the USA in 1972, they set about bringing it up to the standard of mainland Japan. Six billion dollars a year went into massive, ill-conceived development and the coral reefs were forgotten. Okinawa's rivers are sorely degraded. Most have been transformed into cement-lined drains and are rivers without life. We went to Tokashiki Island in the Kerama Group, 20 nautical miles west of Okinawa. Mack wanted to show Lynn and I an unspoilt coral garden. The corals were beautiful, like the gardens I remembered at the Expo site 18 years ago. The locals have so far rejected government offers for massive development here. Kerama's corals can be saved, Okinawa's cannot - the damage is too great. Dr Clive Wilkinson, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, is a world authority on the dying coral reefs of the world and the causes of pollution. "Places like South-East Asia and the Caribbean are the biggest problem," he said at his office in Townsville. "Philippine reefs are in a really bad state. The Japanese reefs, particularly those around Okinawa, are gone. "Many of the reefs on the Caribbean - Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic - are in a really bad state and I'd add to that Florida, India and the east coast of Africa." Next stop is Thailand, which has extensive fringing coral reefs. Thailand is also an industrial giant and mega tourist destination with big problems. Lynn and I booked into one of the luxury hotels fronting Pattaya Beach. The luxury along the beach is deceiving - I could smell the raw sewage in the water. No one swims at Pattaya Beach as the sea is too polluted. It was here that I saw my first example of coral bleaching, a white patch on a brain coral that seemed at first to be like a cancerous growth. Koh Samui Island is the newest of Thailand's tourist resorts. It's a beautiful island, crowned with coconuts and even trained monkeys to toss the nuts down. But like Thailand's other resorts, the hotels crowd the beaches in a continuous line. The smell of raw sewage pervades my nostrils. In the few years since Koh Samui has become a mega resort, the water table has been totally polluted and everyone drinks bottled water. Professor Suraphon Sudara is Thailand's foremost authority on coral reefs. "It's a pity," he said. "Actually, a few years ago the corals around here were very, very good, but when we have development, particularly tourist development, that causes a lot of interaction to the reef." Back in Australia, I went out to our Great Barrier Reef and thankfully saw it was still in good shape. It and some of the remote Pacific Island reefs may well be the surviving third of the world's coral reefs in the next 40 years. We have degraded some areas, mostly around the tourist resort areas of Heron Island, Green Island, Magnetic Island and Whitsunday group. As I said, tourist resorts and coral reefs do not mix. Thankfully, most of the resorts are now installing tertiary treated sewerage plants - a must for all coastal and island communities. I swam around the leaking sewerage pipe running across the reef flat at Green Island and saw corals dying, covered in algae. The new tertiary plant in the centre of the island is an eyesore and nesting birds had to move elsewhere, but at least it will reduce the euthrophication of the corals when it becomes operational soon. The Great Barrier Reef has always survived natural predators - Crown of Thorns starfish, myriads of fish that chew the corals and devastating cyclones. This largest of all coral reefs has experienced 145 cyclones this century, each cutting a path of destruction. Damaged reefs recover within a few years, a decade at the most, unless man-made stress factors inhibit their growth. The Reef has also survived some of the earliest damage inflicted by man. Taiwanese poachers wiped out many of the giant clams up to a decade ago. Reef walkers crunched corals underfoot and laid bare some areas by failing to turn back overturned rocks. All the hidden creatures and exposed corals die. The biggest risk to the Reef is a major oil spill and it is inevitable this will happen. Dr Wendy Craik, of The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, has calculated that there is a 93 percent likelihood of a major oil spill within 20 years and a 48 percent likelihood within the next five years. Along the coast, from the Daintree River to Gladstone, the inshore coral reefs are dying fast - 80 percent are gone. I can remember beautiful coral gardens at Magnetic Island and The Whitsunday Group. They are no more. Sewerage and agricultural run-off are the main cause. Gladstone's massive harbour development spews pollution far offshore. Polmaise Reef, 20 nautical miles off the coast, has changed from a live coral reef to endless, waving seaweeds. This is euthrophication - nuisance algae growth competing successfully with the corals for space. Even at Heron Island, 40 nautical miles offshore, the water visibility has dropped to half of what I remember back in 1970. If pollution can reach this far, the Reef is in danger. Its saving grace is that the Reef does lie well offshore, away from most of the coastal pollution and we have an efficient watchdog in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages and monitors the reef. Yes, we will save our Great Barrier Reef, but our inshore fringing reefs appear doomed. I boarded the charter vessel, Elizabeth E, and we headed far out into the Coral Sea, 250 nautical miles off the Queensland coast. A multitude of coral cays, emeralds in a rainbow sea, are home to countless nesting sea birds and green turtles lumbering up the beaches to lay their eggs. Water visibility is 50 metres, unbelievably clear. The corals are absolutely pristine, so remote from any polluting source. Dr Wilkinson urged me to go back to the Caribbean. He said I would be shocked by the changes since I was last there filming, 20 years ago. Looking at glossy, glorifying underwater photos in skindiving magazines, enticing tourist brochures, and James Bond-type exotic locations, I've simply accepted the Caribbean is still the same as I knew it 20 years ago. What a shock! Key Largo is the first of the large, low cays in the Florida Keys. Canal housing estates probe like fingers into the limestone island and 25,000 septic tanks seep raw sewage through the porous limestone into the canals and out to sea. The nutrient discharge is enormous. I went on board the dive boat El Capitan. As we sped along the narrow mangrove passage, the boat's wake, along with a dozen others, rolled waves into the fragile mangrove system, no doubt creating havoc with the swamp creatures. Long scars criss-crossed the shallow sea grass beds from thoughtless boaters who took a short cut. My first impressions were poor, and this is a national park. We tied up to a mooring buoy at Grecian Rocks. The ranger guide gave us a spiel on how to take care of the corals so that our next generation would see them as we see the corals today. I jumped in and was shocked by the desolation before me - pitiful dead branches of elkhorn corals looked depressingly grotesque. There were few live corals, mostly 80 percent dead and covered with algae - a forest of skeletons. This is a marine park created in 1960, with general rejoicing that this American treasure would be preserved for future generations. Tuck and Alice Biays are expert underwater photographers who came to the Florida Keys 25 years ago. "The filming then was absolutely exquisite," they said. "The colours of the coral reef were magnificent, the water was clear. It was a wonderful place to show people what a vibrant, living coral reef is like. "You can see out on the reefs today the result of pollution. The water is yellow and the deterioration of what was once so magnificent. You hurt inside - it does make you want to cry." My next Caribbean stop was in Jamaica, where I had pleasant memories of wonderful diving and pretty coral reefs in 1960. The tourists flock to the north coast of Jamaica, to Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, where a line of plush hotels covet the beaches. The beach side of one large hotel is glamorous. A holiday atmosphere prevails and tourists swim, sunbake and drink rum cocktails in obvious luxury. But behind this hotel is an open drain, a sewer, carrying raw sewage and garbage directly into the coral lagoon. Next, on to Barbados, beaches sparkling white and the lagoon waters clear, and 100 nautical miles from the nearest island. It's the western-most island in the Caribbean, virtually out in the Atlantic Ocean. Barbados is too lovely a place to spoil, but spoilt it is. Dr Wilkinson sees most of the Caribbean as a disaster area. "Governments in these countries can legislate for coral reef protection, but that legislation is ineffective without public support and without the ability to enforce the legislation," he said. "Most of these countries are too poor to enforce the legislation. So we are talking about a real collapse in the Caribbean reefs, and only a few around the periphery will be left there in 30 to 40 years' time." What does the future hold for the world's coral reefs? In Australia, the GBRMPA has an ambitious 25-year plan which will ensure the Reef will be around for a very long time. Most of the uninhabited island reefs in the Coral Sea and the Pacific will see little change, and will retain their pristine reefs. All the rapidly-developing, tourist-oriented countries of South- East Asia and the Caribbean are moving towards the extinction of their coral reefs. Dr Wilkinson feels we probably need something like the Antartic Treaty, a multi-nation treaty to protect those reefs and conserve them. "They are mankind's resource, they're our treasure. We need to look after them and guard them," he said. Some countries will stem the polluting cause and see their coral reefs slowly regenerate. Others, like Okinawa and Barbados may never have live corals again. The damage is simply too great. The coral reef, in all its wonder and beauty, may be for them, only a memory. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 12, 1994: Australia becoming a divided society says analyst AUSTRALIA was fast becoming a society where the poor and jobless ran riot and the rich lived behind bars, a leading economic analyst said yesterday. Professor Helen Hughes said working Australians were enjoying their best living standards ever while more than 1 million people were "shut out of the good life" by unemployment. The level of joblessness was getting higher with each recession and, without remedial action, would top 12 percent when the next recession hit. "That's getting very dangerous," Professor Hughes said. "That sort of division within society is not very healthy. "You end up with one group of underprivileged poor whose kids start to drop out and get into drugs and crime and you have the rich who are living behind bars." Professor Hughes said the education system was producing many young people unsuited to work. Many boys in particular "come out hoons, don't have the three Rs and have behavioural problems and can't settle down to jobs". Professor Hughes, author of economic and industry reports for the Federal Government, is director of a new Full Employment Project which began last week. The project, a joint exercise of the Institute of Public Affairs and Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, aims to achieve an unemployment rate of no more than 3 percent within five years. Professor Hughes said even the most optimistic economic growth forecasts put unemployment at about 7 percent by 2000. At that level, numbers of long-term unemployed would remain high and many young people leaving school now could not expect a job this century. Already 30 percent of adults under 30 did not work and people who were unemployed at 50 did not expect to get another job before retirement. "What sort of life are they going to have?" Professor Hughes said. "They've got kids at school and a mortgage and suddenly the bottom has fallen out of their world. "There are kids in Australia who haven't had a Christmas for three years. They are the ones who are doing worst at school and are likely to be cut out of employment next time around." Professor Hughes said to achieve full employment Australia needed to be far more flexible with its working hours, remove penalty rates for nights and weekends and work capital equipment harder. She said workers should get higher wages - but only in a more efficient economic environment where productivity was greater. Instead of working people longer hours, she believed machines should operate for at least two shifts a day - increasing the output from the investment and employing more people. Firms were shutting down early and on weekends because of penalty rates and not employing extra people because of the high costs of putting them on. "If we just got rid of shift work and weekend rates we could double the tourist industry in Queensland," Professor Hughes said. She said Australians were once among the top-paid workers in the world but had fallen to about 15th place, largely because of inflexibility over when people could work. Benefits were similar to the minimum wage and the added costs of working meant many people were better off financially if they stayed at home. "I know people who want to go to work but can't afford to," she said. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 13, 1994: Dangerous trade for local caterers By MEGAN TURNER ROBERT McVickers sleeps and works with a gun by his side. He is the managing director of Queensland company Morris Catering, the Yatala-based caterers who have a $100 million contract to supply food to UN peace-keeping troops in Somalia. The company is turning over $1.5 million each week - more than it makes from its Australian contracts in a year. But prosperity comes at a price. In October, Tyson Morris, the 21-year-old son of company founder David Morris, was shot by Somali gunmen - a retaliatory action organised by a disgruntled former employee sacked for stealing bread - and more recently two Cambodian employees, one of them David Morris's personal bodyguard, were also killed. Last month, Wayne Hargreaves, a former New Zealand who now lives on the Gold Coast, and a Kenyan cook were taken hostage. The six young Somali kidnappers _ locally known as "snappers" - eventually traded the men for a small parcel of food following 14-days of tense negotiations spearheaded by Morris and McVickers. The pair were held 14 days after ransom demands of $200,000, $1 million and finally $5000 were rejected. McVickers: "We always felt capable of our own ability to get them out even though we're caterers. It came down to an ability to manage people, I believe." The tally so far: three dead, eight wounded, two kidnapped - and the danger is likely to increase when Morris begins delivering food to troops outside the company compound. McVickers, who made a brief visit to the Yatala operation last week, said: "The risks are high but so too are the rewards. "We'd trade it all for the life of Tyson back, of course we would, but the opportunity to extend the company is tremendous. "Sure, we've got regrets but we knew the risks and we're not a bunch of cowards who go running every time something happens." Most of the company's Australian employees are in their mid-20s; they're a mixed bunch, some have military backgrounds, others are there for the adventure. They include cooks, kitchen managers, electricians, refrigeration mechanics, farming consultants. Most work 10 to 14-hour days, seven days a week. According to McVickers, they are "reasonably renumerated" - danger money is built into their package - and have an unrivalled excuse to save. They have access to an armoury within the company warehouse - UN-registered rocket-propelled grenades, machine- guns, teargas. "This is not cowboys and Indians stuff," McVickers cautions. "This is serious, serious business." So why does the company continue to operate amid such danger? "We have a contract," is the simple answer. Morris Catering was established at Yatala by David Morris in 1977. Having already catered to 16,000 UN troops in Cambodia in 1991, Morris, with the support of Austrade on behalf of the Australian Government, snaffled the Somali deal. It comprised an $83 million contract to feed 29,000 troops plus the opportunity to earn $17 million hiring out company aircraft, cranes and a 100-tonne coastal freighter to the UN. The contract was a coup for the relatively small Queensland company; Bruce Coyle, senior trade commissioner for Austrade in Washington, described it as "an amazing document . . . like a regular shopping list except in thousands of kilos". The company is also involved in other private enterprise projects. It sees a long-term future in the fishing and telecommunications industries and already provides Mogadishu's sole telephone system, called Tycom in memory of Tyson Morris. The catering contract runs until November but there are roll- over provisions. McVickers doesn't believe the Somalis really want peace. "They accept as part of their Muslim faith that they live a life of poverty and misfortune and wait for their death because their next life is where they'll be rewarded. "Some Somalis are very good friends but there are some who would whack you on the head and steal the gold out of your teeth if they could." Because of chronic unemployment, jobs with Morris Catering are much sought after by the Somalis. Management is continually receiving death threats from those who've missed out on jobs and from disenchanted employees made redundant. "You can't think they're not going to hurt you, they bloody will because they're desperate people. You can get someone killed in Somalia for $20, that's how much a hit costs. "We're peace-keeping people, for goodness sake - we're supposed to be here to help them." Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 18, 1994: HUMOUR with Dave Barry of the Miami Herald, Florida Remember, the customer is always right TODAY'S consumer topic is: How to resolve a dispute with a large company. If you're a typical consumer - defined as "a consumer whose mail consists mainly of offers for credit cards that he or she already has" - chances are, sooner or later, you're going to have a dispute with a large company. You're going to call the company up, and you're going to wind up speaking with people in a department with a friendly name such as Customer Service. These people hate you. I don't mean they hate you personally. They hate the public in general, because the public is forever calling them up to complain. I know whereof I speak. I used to be (I am not proud of this) a newspaper editor. This was at a paper in West Chester called (I am not proud of this, either) the Daily Local News. We came out daily, and we specialised in local news. For example, when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency, we sent reporters out to the shopping mall to badger randomly selected shoppers into having an opinion about this. Our big headline was "Local residents react to Nixon resignation". As though they really were reacting to it, as opposed to trying to find the right colour bedsheets. This was the way we treated all news. One spring day I made the editorial decision to put a photograph of some local ducks on the front page. At least I thought they were ducks, and that's what I called them in the caption. But it turned out that they were geese. I know this because a whole lot of irate members of the public called to tell me so. They never called about, say, the quality of the schools, but they were rabid about the duck versus goose issue. It was almost as bad as when we left out the horoscope. I tried explaining to the callers that, hey, basically a goose is just a big duck, but this did not placate them. Some of them demanded that we publish a correction. For whom? The geese? By the end of the day I was convinced that the public consisted entirely of raging idiots. (This is the fundamental underlying assumption of journalism.) This is what people who answer the phone at, for example, the electricity company, go through every day with an endless stream of calls from people who are furious that their electricity got turned off just because they failed to pay their bill for 297 consecutive months, or people asking questions like: Is it okay to operate a microwave oven in the bathtub? Let's say that you have a genuine problem with your electricity bill. The people in Customer Service have no way of knowing that you're an intelligent, rational person. They're going to lump you in with the whining non-rocket- scientist public. As far as they're concerned, the relevant facts, in any dispute between you and them, are: They have a bunch of electricity; you need it; so shut up. This is why, more and more, the people in Customer Service won't even talk to you. They prefer to let you interface with the convenient Automated Answering System until you die of old age. So is there any way that you, the lowly consumer, can gain the serious attention of a large and powerful business? I am pleased to report that there is a way, which I found out about thanks to an alert reader, Jim Ganz junior, who sent me an Associated Press news report from Russia. According to this report, a Russian electricity company got into a billing dispute with a customer and cut off the customer's electricity. This customer happened to be a Russian army commander. So he ordered a tank to drive over to the electricity company's office and aim its gun at the windows. The electricity was turned right back on. On behalf of consumers everywhere, I want to kiss this arsenal commander on the lips. I mean, what a great concept. Imagine how much more seriously your complaint would be taken if you were complaining from inside an armoured vehicle capable of reducing the entire Customer Service department to tiny smoking shards. Perhaps you are thinking: "But a tank costs several million dollars, not including floor mats. I don't have that kind of money." Don't be silly. You're a consumer, right? You have credit cards, right? Perhaps you are thinking: "Yes, but how am I going to pay the credit card company?" Don't be silly. You have a tank, right? Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 19, 1994: The final fling Tomorrow Barbra Streisand begins her first concert tour in two decades when she takes the stage for four sell-out concerts in London. WILLIAM CASH reports: SHE is quickly gaining the name, Miss Nitpicker. In Washington for a White House dinner last year, she complained that the marble floor in her hotel suite was too cold for her bare feet. At her New Year Las Vegas shows at the newly opened MGM Grand (her first public concerts in 22 years), she sharply criticised the hotels suites and room service from the stage. She made her hosts squirm by sniffing about the hotel-theme park's reported $1-billion price tag: "What did you spend it on? The carpets?" For her four London concerts, Wembley Arena is to be fully carpeted because Streisand thought it would be too draughty otherwise. Before choosing London as the curtain-raiser for her forthcoming 16-show American tour, she dispatched her manager, Marty Erlichman, on a mission to scrutinise - down to the hotel suite locks - eight other European cities for Streisand suitability. While such extraordinary nitpicking causes huge irritation for those who have to work in her shadow, there is no doubting that Streisand, who last performed in London 28 years ago, inspires incredible loyalty from her army of fans. All 26,000 Wembley Arena tickets sold in hours, and were available on the black market for exorbitant prices the next day. At her Las Vegas concerts, which earned her a record $20 million for just two nights, touts sold prime seats for $3000. When the lines opened for the US tour last week, America's Ticket Master recorded its biggest response, with more than five million calls logged in the first hour. The official reason for her return to live performance is that she has now conquered her stage fright. This dates back to 1967, just after the Arab-Israeli War, when she reportedly received a terrorist death threat before her famous free Central Park concert in front of 130,000 people. She forgot her lines and vowed never to sing live again. Yet there is more to it than nerves. The main reason is to do with guilt and the desire to give something back. According to Randall Riese, author of the new Streisand biography, Her Name Is Barbra, it is no coincidence that she has chosen to start her tour in London. During her last London appearance, the 1966 stage version of Funny Girl, the 24-year-old superstar unexpectedly became pregnant with her first child. At a cost of $1 million, she was forced to cancel a five-week, 20-city tour of America and a whole generation of her most loyal fans never heard her sing live. After the 1967 terrorist threat, Streisand shied away from the public and led an increasingly lonely, Garboesque existence cut off from her fans, her family and her Brooklyn background. As her superstar fame and wealth rocketed, she split up with Elliot Gould and had a succession of failed or fleeting relationships with Warren Beatty, Don Johnson, Ryan O'Neal, Steven Spielberg and hairdresser-turned-mogul Jon Peters. The perfect relationship has always seemed to elude her. On holiday in London last summer, she made front-page news simply by watching her friend, 23-year-old Andre Agassi, play at Wimbledon. The romance quickly foundered, although Agassi, along with Liza Minnelli, is credited with persuading Streisand to go back on stage. Like many people who are successful and rich, but whose emotional lives are starved, she channelled her talent and highly charged emotional energy into her work, political causes, fundraising and multimillion-dollar art and property collections. She bought luxury houses as though playing a game of Monopoly, purchasing five neighbouring houses in Malibu to prevent anyone living nearby. But she hardly ever lived there, turning the complex into a museum. She once admitted that she collected because objects were less disappointing than people. Streisand's tragedy for most of her life has been that she is never really able to enjoy her fans or her spectacular success. She is a mess of contradictions, which explains why she is so popular with her fans. Uncharitable as it may sound, they identify fiercely with such tear-jerking, love songs as Memories and The Way We Were precisly because Streisand is an emotional loser. At last, her life seems to be changing. After giving away the $16-million Malibu complex to a Santa Monica conservation charity, she recently sold her Art Deco collection. Perhaps she feels she has reached her singing career menopause and wants to have a final fling with her fans before finally hanging up her microphone. The American shows, and the London preview, are significant because they repeat many of the locations of the 1966 cancelled tour and also take her back to the places which helped start her career. "She really wants to enjoy her success now," says biographer Riese. "That was why she did Vegas in the New Year - she used to hate Vegas. But she needed to prove that she had overcome her fears before moving on." When the tour is over, that will probably be it: she will concentrate on trying to become a great film director. Streisand likes Britain. She once reportedly said that if George Bush was re-elected, she would move there. Some, however, are grateful for Bill Clinton for keeping her away. When she last performed there in Funny Girl, she was predictably demanding, ordering that her dressing room be redesigned, that no other cast member could dress on the same floor and that a theatre staircase be reserved for her exclusive use. She has always had to be the biggest and best. When asked by a reporter about the success of the Beatles, Streisand snapped back: "I'm paid more. I get as much for me, one person, as all four of the Beatles." Today, she is said to have a clause in her $60-million Sony contract that guarantees her a royalty rate higher than any other performer on the company books. Her forthcoming trip to London amounts to a Hollywood state visit in her new role as Friend of Bill Clinton and Washington lobbyist. Streisand has never hidden her political interests and once considered running for Senate. She religiously reads The Economist and her Manhattan apartment boasts the complete works of Thomas Jefferson. It's a long way from the girl who never went to college and used to boast that her reading was limited to Women's Wear Daily and her own reviews. It should be taken as a mark of respect, as well as a measure of her enduring insecurity and hyper-sensitivity to criticism, that her enemies, of which there are many, won't talk about her on the record. More surprisingly, her official publicists prefer not to be quoted. One reason that Streisand has been vilified, and only lately has gained Hollywood's respect as a director, is plain snobbery. Many people see her as a depressing symbol of everything that is wrong, bad and boring with middle-class American culture. Streisand always thought that her amusing light comedy What's Up, Doc? was not worthy of her talent. She wanted to make serious films that would validate her in Hollywood. But she blew her chance by going on to make a collection of generally mediocre films over 20 years. The best, by far, was Prince of Tides, which helped her come to terms with her miserable childhood and the memory of her neglectful step-father. Despite her desperate attempts to win his approval, which stretched to grovelling at his feet with his slippers, she remained ignored and felt unwanted. His love went instead to her step-sister Roslyn, who was deemed to have a better voice. Streisand has never really forgiven her family or recovered from her lack of love. Her step-sister Roslyn Kind today works as a struggling cabaret and nightclub singer while Streisand is worth about $120 million. Her mother lives in an unassuming flat on the fringes of Beverly Hills, living off a modest $1000-a-month allowance from Streisand. Roslyn has recently said that her one wish in life would be to share a stage with her sister. Streisand's spokesman said that the chances of this happening on the forthcoming tour were negligible. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 22, 1994: PMS - a vicious cycle It's real. It happens every month. It's PMS - but women face a dilemma in dealing with its many aspects. RUTH LAMPERD reports: THERE was only one time in every month that a dirty sock on the floor could lift the roof. For three weeks of every four, she'd just roll her eyes, click her tongue and put the offending article in the wash basket. But it was the remaining week, the week before "that time of the month" that the misdemeanour caused a hurricane. Doors slammed, voices raised to shouting and, for the life of them, they couldn't work out why. Actually, not even the medical experts can agree on what causes pre-menstrual syndrome, commonly referred to as PMS or PMT. People are still debating whether it's a physiological problem or purely a socially engendered "excuse" for women to let loose. One thing is certain - it's a rare woman who says PMT is just in her mind. For her, the spouse, children, boyfriend or workmates, it's as real as charging bulls in Spain and sometimes as dangerous. In 1981, a mother who drove a car at her lover and killed him walked free from a United Kingdom court because she had PMS. Its use as a reason for diminished responsibility or mitigation has yet to make big news in Australia, although there have been isolated incidences around the states where it has been claimed to reduce sentences. Many question how far the excuse of PMS can go in the courts. It has been used to work against the sufferer. For example, the syndrome has been employed to deny a mother custody of her child. Medically, PMS is the recurrence during the seven to 10 days before the onset of menses of a combination of verifiable physical and emotional symptoms. Three things separate PMS from other disorders - the symptoms are cyclic, they decrease dramatically after menstruation starts and they are severe enough to interfere with normal activities or harm relationships. Brisbane gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Barbara Hall says general practitioners, when faced with a woman suffering PMS, will often suggest vitamin B6 and evening primrose oil. "There is a suggestion these may help some ladies with some of their symptoms," she says. Dr Hall says treatment depends entirely on problems the women are facing. For example, fluid retention is usually a problem associated with PMS, so a GP may suggest the woman take a mild diuretic 10 days before her period is due to start. They may recommend hormonal regulation of the cycle by putting the sufferer on a monophasic contraceptive pill, to abolish the "ups and downs" of hormone levels. With extreme cases of PMS, involving emotional problems, Dr Hall says GPs need to work out if there is an underlying depression problem in the first place. "They may require anti-depressants if this is the case." American researchers have found a signpost pointing to a physical cause for PMS. They have found PMS may not originate in the reproductive organs but in the brain. Research is still in its very early stages, according to Dr Greg Boyle, the associate professor of psychology at Bond University. "There's still an awful lot to be discovered about the relationship between moods and hormones," Dr Boyle says. He says one of the major areas of concern about PMS is to what degree it is environmentally and genetically determined. Results of a study conducted last year by Dr Boyle and Julie Aganoff, of the University of Queensland's Department of Psychology, suggested women who undertake regular, moderate aerobic exercise showed significantly lower levels of negative mood states than non-exercisers. Dr Boyle says medication can reduce negative symptoms of PMS but says a similar result could also be achieved by using a placebo. Health information worker for the Brisbane Women's Health Centre Ms Ursula O'Brien says care should be taken not to "jump on the PMS bandwagon", because of the suggestions that women are emotionally ill-equipped to deal with positions of responsibility. She says PMS is particularly an issue for women from out of town. "City women have access to all sorts of information and different treatments. Country women only have access to a GP who may think it is all in their head. "Country women who call us are ones who usually don't have a sympathetic GP," she says. Ms O'Brien says there is no way of denying PMS is a hugely political issue. "It is being used to say when convenient that women's emotions get in the way of their judgment, but often women have valid reasons to be angry, so for someone to blame her hormones is just a scapegoat." The Australian Institute of Criminology reported recently that those who are concerned with gender equality are faced with a dilemma. "Although they do not want the small number of severe PMS sufferers to be dismissed as neurotic or charlatans, the primary concern is that people might generalise from the few and negatively stereotype all women or all those who experience premenstrual symptoms," says the report, Women and Crime: Premenstrual Issues. The danger with this, as with all medical disorders, is that a whole class of people with similar maladies can be stigmatised. "The days of biological deterministic theories of male superiority were recalled with the concern that PMS as a defence would revive this perspective with its obvious implications," the report says. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 25, 1994: THE GALLIPOLI SAMURAI Born in Japan of mixed parentage, educated in England amd schooled in revolutionary war, Harry Freame proved one of Gallipoli's most daring soldiers. BRIAN TATE recounts Freame's colourful exploits: ON the morning of April 25 1915, one man stood out from the other Australian soldiers as they readied themselves on board the troop ships at Anzac Cove. His uniform was different: at the elbows, knees and inside the ankles, it was faced with leather. It was at these points, he explained, that his body came into contact with the ground, when he crawled about no-man's land. He had also abandoned the standard issue .303 rifle, declaring it too cumbersome and unpractical for the ground-level world of infantry scouting. Instead, he had a pair of pistols in holsters strapped on each hip. Unknown to most of his battalion mates, he also carried a small back-up revolver in a shoulder-holster under his shirt. In a special boot pocket was a bowie knife, a legacy of his days fighting for the army in Mexico. To complete this somewhat swashbuckling image, around his neck he wore a black-and-white patterned, cowboy-style bandanna. Laconic Australian soldiers are not easily impressed, but by the end of the day, Harry Freame had won the admiration of all his comrades. Towards late afternoon, the situation for the Anzacs became desperate as the Turkish counterattacks gathered momentum. A unit of Australian and New Zealand troops, under Captain H. Jacobs, found themselves isolated near Pope's Post and Dead Man's Ridge. Freame volunteered to make the perilous and steep climb up Monash Valley to assess the situation for battalion headquarters. In the semi-darkness of the early evening and under heavy Turkish fire, he crawled towards the marooned men. He found them exhausted and desperately in need of water. Accompanied by a New Zealander, Freame returned part-way down Monash Valley, obtained water and once more negotiated the scrub and Turkish fire to Jacobs and his men. Knowing that his commanding officer needed information on the position at the head of the valley, Freame then dashed back down, drawing fire from the Turks as he went. It was not until after making his report that he revealed he had been twice hit by sniper fire on his final return run. Only then did he obtain medical attention for his wounds. For his bravery during this historic day, Freame was awarded one of Australia's first Distinguished Conduct Medals of the war. Three days later he was promoted sergeant personally by the British commander of the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade, Brigadier-General H.B. "Hookey" Walker. Word of Freame's daring spread along the Anzac trench lines. Men spoke of his uncanny and unerring sense of direction, even in the total darkness of no-man's land. It was said that if a man stood in a field of grass 30 centimetres high, Freame could negotiate a circle around him with a eight-metre radius, without the man seeing any movement. Later, Charles Bean, the official historian of Australia in World War I, was to describe him as "probably the most trusted scout at Anzac". So who was this dark-complexioned man with a strange accent, and why was he fighting alongside Australians on a rugged Turkish coastline? His enlistment papers gave his birthplace as Kitscoty, Alberta, Canada, so many naturally assumed he was Canadian. Others, who had heard of his service in the Mexican army under President Porfirio Diaz, believed he was from that country. They were all wrong. Wykeham Henry Freame was Japanese-born, with an aristocratic and probably samurai background. His English-born father, William Henry Freame, had left Melbourne and his Australian wife and son in the 1870s and settled in Japan. The old Japan had begun to fade as the American Commander Perry and his "black ships" kicked open its feudalistic doors in 1853. William Freame travelled throughout the central Japanese island of Honshu, working as an English-language teacher. He met and fell in love with Shizu, seventh daughter of the house of Kitagawa. In 1885, Shizu gave birth to Wykeham Henry at Osaka. Freame's early life was one of confusion and complexity. He grappled with an up bringing which brought with it both the virtues and strengths of his mother's Shinto philosophy and the conformity and humanity of his father's Church of England rigidity. At 15, and fluent in Japanese and English, the young Freame was dispatched to England to further his education. In his new-found release, he decided to search for a life away from the perplexity and persecution that a return to his homeland as an Anglo- Japanese Christian would guarantee. The years between 1902 and Freame's arrival in Australia in 1912 are clouded. It is more than likely that he saw service during the Mexican revolutions as an intelligence officer in the forces of President Diaz. There is also some suggestion that he travelled from Mexico to German East Africa, with an international group of mercenaries. Employed as a master scout by the Germans, he may have helped the Teutonic colonial rulers put down a native revolt in 1904. He apparently returned to Mexico about 1910, just in time to learn that Diaz had fallen and that there was now a price on his head. Escaping by packhorse down the Central American Peninsula, he boarded a ship in Chile and sailed for Australia. In August 1914, when Australia joined England in its declaration of war against Germany, Freame was breaking horses at the northern NSW town of Glen Innes. As the initial influx of urban recruits who joined up within days of the announcement began to slow, the men and boys from the country, including Freame, flooded into the cities. With the bare military basics under their belts, the men of the 1st Battalion, Freame among them, set sail from Farm Cove, Sydney on the afternoon of Sunday, October 18, 1914. The grand adventure was under way, and the ronin (the Japanese word to describe a masterless or freelance samurai) had dedicated his sword to a new lord. By early May, the 1st Battalion occupied the trenches near Courtney's Post and German Officers' Trench. It was in this area that Freame carried out some of his more audacious scouting and raiding exploits. One of these was to become legend among the Australians. During his nocturnal meanderings, Freame often came very close to the Turkish trenches and on one occasion he entered a Turkish trench. Confident that none of the defenders would ever suspect that an Australian would actually roam among them, he walked along the trench, passing many Turks as he went. Some looked suspiciously at him, but the brazen Freame simply returned their glances as he moved on, gaining valuable information. Freame's luck ran out when he was challenged by two Turkish soldiers who had seen him during his previous visits. He was marched to a nearby officer, to whom he formally surrendered his two belt pistols and the bowie knife. Because of his apparent co-operation and courtesy, he was not searched, and his small under-arm revolver went undetected. The Turkish officer, described by Freame as "a perfect gentleman", was urbanely asked by his prisoner if he spoke French. Delighted that one of the seemingly uncouth Australians actually knew a foreign language, he invited the captured scout to join him in coffee and cigarettes. For a brief time, the war stood still and the two men spoke as equals, until the Turkish officer glanced ominously at his watch. He said to Freame, "Well, you have been captured in our lines in certain circumstances. You probably know the result." The inference was clear and portentous; Freame was considered a spy and would be executed. The officer told Freame that he would be taken back under guard to headquarters, about 8 kilometres away. Escorted by six men, two in front, one on each side and two behind, he was marched off to his fate. But Freame was not about to die easily. He already had a plan in mind. As a soldier, he knew that his escort would begin the march with good intentions and with vigilance at its peak. But he also knew that, as they became tired, they would begin to relax. As they approached an embankment, Freame reached inside his shirt, withdrew the small revolver and fired in a sweep. The shots hit both of the front escorts, but missed one of those at his side and one at the rear. With four of his guards now lying on the ground and the survivors scattering, Freame slid down the embankment and eventually made his way back to the Anzac positions. This story first surfaced in a published article about Freame in 1931, and reappeared in 1940. No official records have yet been found which support it. In 1959, Charles Bean wrote: "I have little doubt that it was true, for I never knew Freame to exaggerate - at least so far as I could judge of his statements." Freame's final action on Gallipoli took place at Lone Pine in the early hours of August 15. During the counterattack, which saw a small section of the Australian line fall into Turkish hands, 31 Australians were killed or wounded. Among them was Sergeant Freame. He sustained a severe gunshot wound to his right arm, which fractured his elbow. Freame was evacuated and underwent treatment at Harefield Park Military Hospital in England. His recovery was slow and incomplete, leading to his eventual and reluctant return to Australia. He was discharged medically unfit, at the 2nd Military District headquarters in Sydney on November 20. Freame and his English wife moved to Armidale where they ran an orchard. They had two children. At the outbreak of World War II, Freame joined Australia Military Intelligence, operating as an undercover agent among the Japanese community in Sydney. In late 1940 he joined an Australian diplomatic mission in Japan as a translator. He returned to Australia in 1941 suffering from illness. He claimed that he had been attacked and garrotted in Japan. He died five weeks later. FOOTNOTE: The author of this article, Brian Tate, a retired Australian Federal Police intelligence officer, is writing a biography of Harry Freame. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 26, 1994: Australia's cat wars MEGAN TURNER reports on the case for and against the domestic cat: now in the dock accused of destroying much of Australia's delicate wildlife. "ALL right," said the cat, and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. Many people would see all unwanted moggies go the way of Lewis Carroll's obscenely-satiated Cheshire Cat. But quickly. And without that irritatingly smug grin. Unfortunately, Wonderland is a fictional utopia, as federal and state governments, local councils, veterinarians and animal welfare groups know only too well. In real life felis domesticus is here to stay, killing about 70 million Australian natives annually, caterwauling, brawling and multiplying . . . providing companionship, aestheticism, a means of rodent control and polarising opinion like no other pet. About two years ago, University of Adelaide zoologist Dr David Paton "officially" informed Australia that its native fauna population was suffering at the hands of the cat. Since then, various authorities have set their feet upon the word treadmill, a mechanism which, so far, has been adept at churning out many words. Australia's cat population - estimated to be 3 million owned, and anything up to 12 million unowned - has to be controlled. But how, and by whom, is a bone of contention lodged in the throats of the talkers. The National Consultative Committee on Animal Welfare, representing state animal welfare ministers, met in Canberra last week to fine-tune its Cat Control Programme. The committee expects its recommendations - including the imposition of a night curfew, desexing and compulsory registration of owned cats, and the culling of homeless ones - to be law in Victoria by the end of the year, with other states and territories following. Giving cats a legal status will allow owners to be prosecuted and cats to be impounded and destroyed. The legislation would be passed at a state level, the implementation of the laws left up to individual municipalities and shires. But animal welfare groups maintain cat control is a matter of responsible cat ownership, essentially a community problem, and are sceptical about whether unwieldy legislation can solve it. They're also concerned that the cat is getting all the bad press when irresponsible owners are at the root of the problem. Dr Diane Sheehan, the Australian Veterinary Association state president, says the cat problem stems from a lack of understanding about feline behaviour, and that community education is the only way to address the problem. Like the dog problem a few years ago, it can be rectified through social pressure. "Society suddenly said then: we want clean footpaths, beaches and parks, we want people to be responsible for dogs, to register, desex and control them and it happened." The Pet Education Programme, an AVA initiative, is expected to be introduced into Queensland primary schools early next year. For the RSPCA's Queensland head, Dr Cam Day, legislation is a case of trying to impose the black and white nature of law on to a biological system composed of rainbow hues. The solution, he says, is about individual compromise; it's about maintaining a careful balancing act between the interests of cats, wildlife, cat owners and non-cat owners. And unique feline biology and behaviour have to be taken into account: governments can't just cross out "dog" legislation with a crayon and insert "cat". The scant research available would suggest that cat owners theoretically agree with the prospect of cat control. A survey conducted by the Australian Museum last year showed most cat owners supported legal controls to stop their pets killing native animals - 72 percent of cat owners surveyed believed cats were a problem in the wild; 85 percent of non-cat owners agreed. Dr Hugh Wirth, convenor of the National Consultative Committee on Animal Welfare, sees the issue of cat management as much more divisive. Part of the problem the committee has had in selling its recommendations is the existence of two extreme views - the belief that every cat should be shot on sight and the opposing view of aelurophiles - cat-lovers - that cats are ethereal spirits and can't be controlled. The first step under the NCCAW proposal is to introduce compulsory identification to differentiate between owned and unowned cats. Local government officers or private contractors - cat-catchers - would be legally allowed to take up unwanted cats and transport them to cat pounds where sick or obviously feral cats would be put down with a lethal injection immediately and others would be kept for a statutory period. Unwanted cats in the bush would be shot or poisoned. The best solution, it seems, is long-term; prevention rather than eradication, coupled with a heavy dose of community goodwill. NCCAW proposes compulsory registration and identification either by collar tag or micro-chip. The committee envisages a one-off fee of $5 for desexed cats and, as an economic disincentive, an annual $20 fee for entire cats. Implementation of a night curfew, to be enforced by local government officers or private contractors, would be left to the discretion of individual councils. Inner city Brisbane, according to Dr Wirth, would find no advantage in imposing a cat curfew but outlying suburbs and small towns might. Owners of registered cats caught out at night would be fined. The RSPCA, whose Brisbane refuge became a dump for 13,745 unwanted cats last year, welcomes cat identification and encourages desexing, but these proposed solutions also have detractors. When Queensland Environment Minister Molly Robson recently proposed a 10-point plan for controlling domestic cats, the Local Government Association rejected state-wide registration. The Australian Veterinary Association is also concerned about the effectiveness and cost of such a scheme. Councillor David Hinchliffe, Brisbane City Council's recreation and health chairman, is scathing of NCCAW's "overly-bureaucratic approach" to a community problem. "They've got rocks in their heads if they think they can make compulsory registration or night curfews work," he said. "They have no practical idea how to implement such a policy - are they going to have people prowling in other people's yards hunting for stray cats?" The cost of such a programme would be borne by local governments which would be compelled to impose severe registration charges on cat owners. BCC spends $3 million annually on dog management and Councillor Hinchliffe estimates another $2 million would be required for cat control, even then resulting in ineffective enforcement levels. "Domestic cats are not the problem - the strays and ferals are, and it is possible to look at pick-ups of strays without the rigmarole of registration," he said. Alf Boden, cat-lover and environmentalist, is also founder of Brisbane's Feral Cat Eradication Society. He believes control measures should begin with the culling of homeless cats and governments should legislate to unfetter the responsible public to carry out the task. "At least 10 percent of the population would be more than willing to go out and humanely attack the feral cat population; they need protecting from belligerent or nuisance prosecution - or persecution," he said. Boden's non-profit organisation has been lending out cat-traps free of charge since 1988. The RSPCA-approved traps go out to 39 local councils state-wide, as well as individuals who are "Green-oriented or just fed up with cats digging up their garden or injuring their own cat". The trapped cats are taken to the RSPCA or cat refuges; Boden estimates that during his personal crusade he has destroyed more than a thousand feral and stray cats. He likens the danger of mistaking someone's pet for a feral to confusing a snake with a dove. The culling of homeless cats immediately raises the public ire and poses the problem of implementation. In 1992, army sharpshooters shot more than 400 feral cats in Queensland's far-west Diamantina Shire. The idea of offering a bounty for feral cats was mooted later that year but outraged cries of "blood money" resulted in it being shelved. The RSPCA worries, too, that a flood of anti-cat propaganda is slanting the issue against the animal; in such cases, the cat suffers at the hands of overzealous vigilantes. The domestic cat, which has co-existed with humans since ancient Egyptian times, is not about to gather up its tail and its grin and simply vanish. Neither, it seems, will the controversy surrounding the search for a viable means of cat control. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 27, 1994: The apathy of bystanders It is called "social loafing". It applies when innocent people are victims of attack but no one comes to their aid. Gold Coast psychologist RON KOCINSKI explores the issues involved. WHAT stops us from helping one another in situations of threat or harm? Are we inhumane, fearful, or simply and woefully apathetic? Way back in the 1960s an infamous case in America prompted psychologists to try to answer these questions: QUEENS, New York: Some time between 3:10am and 3.45am, March 1964. Victim: Catherine, ""Kitty'' Genovese. Kitty's death was by no means quick: indeed, it was torturously long and in full view of her neighbours. The events that took place on that cold and dark March morning are best described in the front page articles of the New York Times. A.M. Rosenthal, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and metropolitan editor of the Times, assigned a reporter (Ganzberg) to cover the neighbourhood "Bystander Apathy Angle" of her murder: "For more than half an hour, 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. "Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned he sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead." The Kew Gardens slaying baffles Ganzberg, not because it was a murder, but because "good people" failed to call the police. Note: Before the witness called the police, he called a friend in another suburb to ask him if it was the right thing to do. Shock, disbelief and bafflement were the standard reactions from police and the reading public. Enraged readers wrote letters to the Times demanding the names of witnesses be published, thereby exposing them to the public. When witnesses were asked why they failed to act and call the police they were bewildered: "I don't know", "I just don't know" or "I was afraid . . . I didn't want to get involved" were the replies. Afraid? Involved? None of the witnesses was exposed to personal danger. All were safely in their homes, peering out of windows. So what could account for this unconscionable behaviour? Is this, as was mooted at the time, an example of apathy, depersonalisation of urban life with its "magalopolitan societies"? A most surprising explanation was rendered by Psychology Professors Bibb Latane and John Darley: No one took action because there were so many (38) observers. The majority assumed someone else would call the police! This explanation dispels the "myth" of 20th century inhumanity in critical emergencies. Bystander apapthy is misleading and these situations are better understood and remedied when viewed as examples of "Social Loafing". Empirical findings suggest that there are at least two reasons that account for why people in a group would be unlikely to help a victim even when they themselves are not endangered: first, within a group, the personal responsibility to "do something" is spread among or over the entire group of potential helpers, resulting in diffusion of responsibility, with everyone in the group thinking that someone else will call the police or an ambulance . . . no one does. Second, people have a tendency to look to others in a group before committing themselves to action. This need for "social proof" leads to "pluralistic ignorance". We tend to look to others for clues as to whether what we observe is, in fact, an emergency. What we forget is that every other observer is looking for the same form of social evidence or proof. In a UPI news release from Chicago: "A university coed was beaten and strangled in broad daylight near one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city . . . police said thousands of people must have passed the site and one man told them he heard a scream about 2pm but did not investigate because no one else seemed to be paying attention. Each person decided that since nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong." Safety in numbers? The opposite may well be true. Latane and Darley reasoned that, for an emergency victim, the idea of safety in numbers may be completely wrong: the victim would have a better chance of survival if a single bystander, rather than a crowd, was present. How you can make a group help WHAT can you do to avert "Social Loafing"? All group participants have the potential to do something constructive and be "change agents". Perceived permission to act is contingent on the "change agent" feeling that they are unique and have a unique function to perform. Should you ever have the need to activate other people's helping behaviour, single them out with a physical attribute or article of clothing: identify them as unique, for example: "You sir, in the leather jacket, call the police." And, should you be part of the "observer group", put aside your own petty embarrassments. Do not let this become a reality as it almost did in our local shopping centre: My wife Shashanna (a clinical psychologist) and I were leaving the shopping centre with a heavily laden shopping trolley when we heard a woman screaming: "Mum, Oh! Mum!" We did a 360 degree turn and rushed to the side of an elderly woman lying motionless on the cold tiled floor. Her middle-aged daughter stood beside her, hysterical. My wife and I, both trained lifesavers, quickly assessed the situation. While I bent over the woman, who was not breathing, and removed her false teeth and scarf and unbuttoned a tight overcoat, my wife was attending to the daughter. A crowd began to gather around us. I quickly noted and called out to a young woman with a name tag: "Julie, call an ambulance now!" I prepared myself to perform CPR but hesitated for a second as I had only read about it. My wife picked up on this split-second hesitation and shouted to the encircling crowd: "Does anyone know CPR?" A young man standing on the inside of the group, arms crossed, nonchalantly raised one hand to indicate he did. My wife, seeing him exhibit traits of "social loafing", rushed over to him and, while applying some force to the back of his neck to push him down to the victim, said: "You know CPR? Then do it mate!" In a second he was doing CPR. Ends Item The Courier-Mail April 28, 1994: The new South Africa From Bruce Loudon in Johannesburg FOR generations it was the language of power . . . the lingua franca of a white minority as it sought to impose its dogma of racial superiority on an oppressed black majority. Now, as part of the astonishing series of whirlwind changes occurring in South Africa, Afrikaans, the language, is just one of 11 official languages, competing with nine lack tribal languages and English for space in official pronouncement. It is a breathtaking defeat for proponents of the language that was born out of early Dutch settlement of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century, and which was the language of apartheid for all the years the now-reviled policy endured from the time the late Dr D.F. Malan, the policy's founder, won the prime-ministership in 1948. In their racist lunacy, apartheid founders tried to widen the use of Afrikaans. Attempts were made to make it compulsory for blacks at school - that demand led to riots. The whites sought hegemony for Afrikaans over all other languages in the country. English was scorned, black languages despised. Now, as part of the constitution for a new, non-racial South Africa, Afrikaans has lost its status, and among Afrikaner nationalists there are fears - probably justifiable - that their language and the culture are on the skids. For it is not just the pre-eminent place of Afrikaans within South Africa's ruling elite that is being dismantled: as well, many symbols of Afrikaner culture and Afrikaner paramountcy are being changed. As of yesterday, for example, South Africa has a new national flag. Hauled down is the old orange, white and blue flag of apartheid South Africa - a flag that, significantly, had a centrepiece showing the flags of the former Boer republics, as well as the Union Jack. In its place is a flag of converging coloured stripes - including the colours of the ANC. And there is the new national anthem Nkosi Sikele Afrika (God Bless Afrika), a traditional African hymn that is the national anthem of several other black-ruled African states. Die Stem (The Hymn), the national anthem of apartheid South Africa - a hymn revered by Afrikaners - for now retains a place in official ceremonies. But, to drive home its secondary role, protocol, in terms of the new Constitution, demands that Nkosi Sikele Afrika be played first and in full on state occasions, while Die Stem is played second, and then only the first verse. It is a shattering change for Afrikaners - and there's more on the way. Yesterday it was announced that the South African Defence Force, which is being integrated with the ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) liberation army as well as other black units, is getting new insignia. Out is the principal symbol of the SADF, a badge that reflects the ancient Cape Town Castle, the earliest evidence of colonial (that is, white) settlement. In its place is a nine-pointed star. Other changes are under way: what South Africans claims to be one of the world's largest, busiest and best general hospitals, the Aragwanath Hospital in the black satellite city of Soweto, has already been re-named - the Chris Hani Memorial Hospital - after the assassinated leader of the South African Communist Party. After the new, black-led Government of National Unity takes over, it is expected to turn its attention to other symbols of white rule: all the nation's major airports, for example, are named after white leaders from the past. In Johannesburg there is the Jan Smuts International Airport, in Cape Town the D.F. Malan Airport, and in Durban the Louis Botha Airport . . . All are likely to change - possibly being given names from the pantheon of black heroes, such as the late ANC leader Oliver Tambo. The apartheid regime was notable for its naming of major public undertakings after its heroes, and there is barely a major road, hospital or transport facility that does not bear the name of some Afrikaner lumninary. Nothing seems more certain than that all this is about to change as the country's new rulers seek to expunge memories of the racist past. Perhaps the biggest symbol of all, however, is one that the country's new, black rulers will see every day as they look out of the windows of their offices in the Sir Herbert Baker-designed Union buildings in Pretoria, the seat of government. It is the Voortrekker monument, the vast edifice that commemorates the Great Trek of 1836. It is the most hallowed shrine in Afrikanerdom. It will take all Mr Mandela's powers of tolerance to allow that to stay in place, most analysts believe, but there is, given its vastness, little he can do about it. Just as there is little, for now at least, that he can do about the host of names that have been given to cities that commemorate the old colonial or Boer past: Pretoria itself, is named after a Boer hero. So, too, is Pietermaritzburg, in Natal. And Durban is named after a British colonial governor, Sir Benjamin D'Urban. But the spirit of reconciliation is firmly in place with Mr Mandela, at least, and he has long since turned his back on proposals that South Africa should be renamed to make a clear break with the past - Azania being the favoured name. He has also rejected suggestions that the country's new Parliament should meet not in Cape Town, the seat of the old, white Parliament, but in Soweto. Instead, he is made it plain that things will stay largely as they are: Pretoria will remain the administrative capital, Cape Town the parliamentary capital, and Bloemfontein the judicial capital. But times change, and nothing seems more certain than that, as the new, black-dominated government works itself in, it will turn its attention to national symbols - just as other African states have done before it. For Afrikaners with their guttural language and feverish patriotism, things do not look promising. That is why they want their own state after the election - a place where they could enjoy self-determination and where their language and culture would be paramount. The pragmatic Mandela has agreed to discuss details of this with Afrikaner leaders after the poll - when the strength or weakness of the Afrikaner vote for white leader General Constand Viljoen is demonstrated. The likelihood is that, in time, the "volkstaat" - or something that passes for a "volkstaat" - will, indeed, get the nod, for no one is more aware than Mr Mandela of the strength of Afrikaner passions, and he may decide it is better to let them have their way in a little corner of South Africa rather than causing trouble nationally. Ends Item