Wednesday, 31 August 2005

Shamed Brogden attempts suicide, The Australian, 31 August, 2005. Additional reporting. Page One.

Shamed Brogden attempts suicide: [3 All-round Metro Edition]

Brad Norington, Andrew West. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 31 Aug 2005: 1.
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Shortly after midnight, Mr [Barry O'Farrell], Peta Seaton and several of [John Brogden]'s staff and close relatives left Royal North Shore Hospital.
Last night a former female staffer named as part of scuttlebutt involving Mr Brogden denied any relationship between the pair. Suzanne Tulloch said they were only friends.
It was reported that Ms Brogden's father, former state party treasurer Frank Hooke, suggested Ms Tulloch leave his son-in-law's office in 1999 because colleagues had begun to speculate about their relationship. Mr Brogden had also denied the rumours.
FORMER NSW Opposition leader John Brogden attempted to take his own life last night at his electoral office on Sydney's northern beaches.
Mr Brogden -- who resigned the leadership of the state Liberal Party on Monday over a racist joke and claims of sexual harassment - - slit his wrists.
He was found unconscious in his electoral office at Mona Vale just before 10.30pm and was taken by ambulance to Royal North Shore Hospital.
The attempt on his life came ahead of the publication of fresh details about the 36-year-old's private life in a Sydney newspaper today.
Mr Brogden arrived at the hospital with his head and body covered by a sheet.
His wife, Lucy, and senior Liberal frontbencher Andrew Tink were by his side.
Several other supporters from the front bench were also at the hospital last night.
The ballot to replace Mr Brogden as party leader is likely to be postponed today, with members of the party expected to be too distressed to continue with the vote.
However, if it were to go ahead the surprise winner would be transport spokesman Peter Debnam, by two votes from deputy leader Barry O'Farrell.
The last politician to attempt to commit suicide was federal Labor frontbencher Nick Sherry, who slit his wrists in October 1997, after he was attacked in parliament by Treasurer Peter Costello,
over his parliamentary travel entitlements.
Federal Labor backbencher Greg Wilton committed suicide in June 2000. He gassed himself in his car in bushland outside Melboure, less than three weeks after he attempted to take the lives of his two young children the same way.
Shortly after midnight, Mr O'Farrell, Peta Seaton and several of John Brogden's staff and close relatives left Royal North Shore Hospital.
Mr Brogden is expected to be discharged tomorrow.
Since Sunday, when he confessed to having pinched a
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female journalist's bottom -- jokingly, he said -- his enemies have revived a series of stories about his alleged inappropriate behaviour towards other women.
The reporting of the last round of rumours represents a new and potentially dangerous development in the relationship between politicians and the media.
Last night a former female staffer named as part of scuttlebutt involving Mr Brogden denied any relationship between the pair. Suzanne Tulloch said they were only friends.
It was reported that Ms Brogden's father, former state party treasurer Frank Hooke, suggested Ms Tulloch leave his son-in-law's office in 1999 because colleagues had begun to speculate about their relationship. Mr Brogden had also denied the rumours.
The allegations concerning Mr Brogden's behaviour at a party on July 29 ended his leadership only because the women concerned were willing to confirm the events. The fresh claims were more risky as they relied on anonymous sources.
Additional reporting: Nick Leys and John Stapleton
More reports -- Page 6
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Monday, 29 August 2005

Deep wounds after preselection battle, The Australian, 29 August, 2005

Deep wounds after preselection battle: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Andrew West, John Stapleton. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 29 Aug 2005: 6.
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Michael Daley, 39, a corporate lawyer and lifelong resident of the Sydney beachside electorate of Maroubra, defeated branch official Penny Wright. Even with a 20per cent affirmative action loading, Ms Wright was able to boost her vote only to 110 against Mr Daley's 140.
Last week, Ms Wright was one of several candidates who challenged the right of more than 100 branch members to vote in thepreselection. The members received anonymous leaflets demanding preselection voters sign statutory declarations affirming their addresses, union membership and record of meetings attended, warning of jail sentences for filing false statements.
THE candidate for the seat held by former NSW premier Bob Carr has vowed to heal the deep wounds inflicted on the party by one of the most vicious preselection battles in decades.
Michael Daley, 39, a corporate lawyer and lifelong resident of the Sydney beachside electorate of Maroubra, defeated branch official Penny Wright. Even with a 20per cent affirmative action loading, Ms Wright was able to boost her vote only to 110 against Mr Daley's 140.
Last week, Ms Wright was one of several candidates who challenged the right of more than 100 branch members to vote in thepreselection. The members received anonymous leaflets demanding preselection voters sign statutory declarations affirming their addresses, union membership and record of meetings attended, warning of jail sentences for filing false statements.
Mr Daley is now set to replace Mr Carr, who held the seat for more than 20 years. Mr Daley said the challenges had been poorly considered and had left a bad taste in people's mouths.
"Still, Maroubra is a jewel in the Labor crown so it's not surprising that people would be fighting hard for it," he said. "My challenge now is to heal the wounds that were opened during a pretty tough preselection."
Mr Daley said being selected was the fulfilment of a childhood dream. "I have always wanted to be a politician, ever since I was seven and saw the opening of (former prime minister Gough) Whitlam's campaign."
Mr Daley said no single factor was decisive in his win but the large number of surf club members who had joined the Labor Party had been significant.
Mr Daley, who works as a senior lawyer at the NRMA and is president of Randwick Rugby Club, said he would fight the coming by- election as if it was a marginal seat, despite it being held by a 23.5per cent margin.
"There are no safe seats any more," he said. "The major platform that I'll be offering ... is that I'm one of them ... Maroubra born and bred."
In the inner-west Marrickville by-election, caused by the retirement of deputy premier Andrew Refshauge, Labor candidate Carmel Tebbutt faces a significant threat from Greens candidate Sam Byrne, who called this weekend for her to stand down as Education Minister for the duration of the campaign, claiming she was neglecting her work.
In the third seat to be vacated after Mr Carr's retirement, Macquarie Fields in western Sydney, vacated by Craig Knowles, the Liberals have announced as candidate Nola Fraser, a nurse who blew the whistle over the state of Campbelltown Hospital while Mr Knowles was health minister.
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Saturday, 27 August 2005

Smuggler hears fate, The Australian, 2 August, 2005.

Smuggler hears fate: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 02 Aug 2005: 6.
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Abstract

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[Stephen Sutton] was accused of being a drug courier for a syndicate impregnating suitcases with cocaine to smuggle the drug from South America. Only after a website for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service revealed Sutton's plight was a trial date set.


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AN Australian man who languished without charge in an Argentinian jail for 2 1/2 years for alleged involvement in a cocaine smuggling operation has finally been sentenced after an internet campaign to bring attention to his plight.
Stephen Sutton, from Lithgow, west of Sydney, was arrested in 2003 after a joint operation between Australian and Argentinian police. On Friday, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Sutton was among nine people arrested in Argentina. Five more were arrested in raids in Sydney.
Sutton was accused of being a drug courier for a syndicate impregnating suitcases with cocaine to smuggle the drug from South America. Only after a website for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service revealed Sutton's plight was a trial date set.
Sutton's sister, Ann Cluse, said the Australian Government gave support to high-profile cases such as Schapelle Corby but ignored people such as her brother with no media profile.
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Monday, 22 August 2005

Faulty sensor cause of Qantas drama, The Australian, 22 August, 2005.

Faulty sensor cause of Qantas drama: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Jonathan Porter, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 22 Aug 2005: 3.
QANTAS last night blamed a faulty fire sensor in the hold of one of its jets for causing an incident in which nine passengers were hurt evacuating an Airbus A330-300 in Osaka.
Passengers told The Australian of panic as the 178 passengers and 13 crew on board the 14-month-old Airbus A330-300 were hustled on to inflatable safety ramps at Osaka's Kansai airport at 1am local time (2am AEST) yesterday.
He said a Qantas aircraft would be sent to Osaka as early as today so passengers could continue their journeys. Japanese safety investigators had quarantined the aircraft and Qantas engineers were en route to assist in investigating the incident.

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QANTAS last night blamed a faulty fire sensor in the hold of one of its jets for causing an incident in which nine passengers were hurt evacuating an Airbus A330-300 in Osaka.
Passengers told The Australian of panic as the 178 passengers and 13 crew on board the 14-month-old Airbus A330-300 were hustled on to inflatable safety ramps at Osaka's Kansai airport at 1am local time (2am AEST) yesterday.
Flight QF70, on its way to Perth from Tokyo's Narita Airport, had turned back because a warning light indicated there was a fire in the cargo hold.
All nine injured passengers were taken to hospital in Osaka -- with all but one, a Japanese woman who suffered a fractured pelvis - - released by early yesterday.
The flight was about 90 minutes out of Narita and "well over the ocean" when the skipper told passengers he had turned back, said Greg Pidgeon, 36, a business analyst from Perth.
"He said there had been a warning light indicating a fire," said Mr Pidgeon.
"Fifteen or 20 minutes later he told the crew to go through emergency evacuation procedures with the passengers. It was at this stage that people began to get very nervous."
About 15 minutes later the captain was on the PA system again, saying he had contacted the plane's manufacturer, Airbus Industrie, and asked about the light, Mr Pidgeon said.
"The captain announced that he had made a phone call to a representative from Airbus who suggested the problem was not a real problem, just a faulty light. The landing was fairly routine but the plane, instead of taxiing, stayed out on the runway."
After the landing "all of a sudden all power went out, all the lights went off. Then the crew announced we should evacuate the plane". That was when panic began to set in, he said. "Not knowing exactly what was going on, I was under the impression one of the engines was going to explode. When I got down I just bolted 300m from the plane."
Mr Pidgeon said the Qantas cabin crew did a "fantastic job".
Qantas executive general manager for engineering and maintenance David Cox said just after touchdown a fire officer at Osaka airport said he had "observed some smoke from the hold".
"The captain gave the order to evacuate the aircraft," Mr Cox said. He described the injuries as "unfortunate".
"The evacuation systems are designed to get people off, in fact, within 90 seconds, and that means they are going to go down those slides very, very quickly," he said. "And there is the risk of minor injuries."
Mr Cox said it was believed the injuries happened "in that process of going down the slide".
Mr Cox said it was "highly unlikely" the captain had spoken to Airbus directly, but would have been getting advice from Qantas's crisis team.
He said a Qantas aircraft would be sent to Osaka as early as today so passengers could continue their journeys. Japanese safety investigators had quarantined the aircraft and Qantas engineers were en route to assist in investigating the incident.
Asked if terrorism were suspected, Mr Cox said: "Absolutely not. It was a perfectly normal issue with the fire sensor system. In that situation you're not going to muck around or take any risks when there's the risk of fire."
Mr Cox ruled out grounding the airline's fleet of A330s.
"There is no question of any action as drastic as that." He said there could have been a problem with smoke sensors in the hold "or some sort of wiring fault".
Dennis Hicks, 30, a sales manager from Perth, said some passengers were "clearly nervous".
"You could see the nerves on their faces, they were getting a bit teary," he said. "The captain was very calm. There was nothing in his voice to suggest we were in any danger."

Also published in The Advertiser.


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Friday, 19 August 2005

PM shuns radical clerics - Moderates only at Muslim terror talks, The Australian, 19 August, 2005. Additional reporting. Page One.

PM shuns radical clerics - Moderates only at Muslim terror talks: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Trudy Harris, Dennis Shanahan, Additional reporting: John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 19 Aug 2005: 1.
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Mr [Amir Butler] said Salafist Muslims, who advocate a pure interpretation of the Koran, would be unrepresented at the Canberra summit, even though they account for up to 10 per cent of Australia's 350,000-strong Muslim community.
A newly-formed Muslim group yesterday proposed establishing a panel of "legitimate" Islamic clerics to advise the Government on which religious leaders to admit to Australia.
Sheik Jehad Ismail and Ali Khamis -- spokesmen for the group, which represents 12 different Islamic centres and associations -- said "terrorism is legally, morally and explicitly wrong by Muslim principles".
JOHN Howard has shut out radical Muslim clerics from his terrorism summit, prompting warnings from moderate leaders that thelong-awaited meeting will be nothing more than a talking shop.
The Prime Minister yesterday released the guest list for next Tuesday's summit. The list includes 14 Islamic leaders, all of whom are regarded as moderates.
The summit was called to address the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in Australia, particularly among disillusioned youth, as part of an intensified effort to prevent a terrorist attack on home soil in the wake of the London bombings.
Moderate leaders said yesterday that Mr Howard had made a mistake by cold-shouldering fundamentalist leaders such as Melbourne's Sheik Mohammed Omran, whose congregations were more at risk of becoming radicalised.
"If they are serious about tackling extremists, then you need a broad cross-section of the community and, in particular, that section ofthe community accused of fostering extremism," Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee executive director Amir Butler said.
"I don't really see what's going to come out of this."
Mr Butler said Salafist Muslims, who advocate a pure interpretation of the Koran, would be unrepresented at the Canberra summit, even though they account for up to 10 per cent of Australia's 350,000-strong Muslim community.
"It seems to be a narrow selection of the people. There are no Salafis represented," Mr Butler said.
Mr Howard said the summit would work on strategies to promote shared values and investigate how Islamic leaders could help prevent intolerance and the promotion of violence.
But Mr Butler said the leaders attending the summit had no authority over the more radical religious and community clerics and preachers.
"These people don't have any authority whatsoever over the imams accused of making inflammatory remarks. If they come out of thesummit and say `hey, imams stop saying those things', they will just laugh," he said.
Other leading moderates warned excluding fundamentalists risked marginalising them. Former Federation of Australian Muslim and Youth president Zachariah Matthews said fundamentalists needed to be confronted with debate about their ideas to make them understand how they differ to the rest of Australian society.
"With them not being there or represented there, that will keep them on the margins," Dr Matthews said. "Isolating them from thewhole process means they are not exposed to how things work, and this is an opportunity for them to be involved."
But a leading moderate who is attending the summit said including Sheik Omran, and Sheik Abdul Salam Zoud from the Belmore Mosque in Sydney, would lead to the talks becoming bogged down amid accusations and argument. "We don't want those people there, the whole thing will just go haywire, we want something positive out of this," the moderate, who did not wish to be named, said.
A newly-formed Muslim group yesterday proposed establishing a panel of "legitimate" Islamic clerics to advise the Government on which religious leaders to admit to Australia.
The Australian Shia Muslim Network, representing more than 50,000 Shia Muslims in NSW, has struck out against terrorism.
Sheik Jehad Ismail and Ali Khamis -- spokesmen for the group, which represents 12 different Islamic centres and associations -- said "terrorism is legally, morally and explicitly wrong by Muslim principles".
"Australian mosques have been consistently warning against acts of terrorism and affiliations with misguided groups, declaring all violence as unjustified, un-Islamic and un-Australian," they said.
Last night Sheik Ismail told The Australian the new group was prompted by the London
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bombings and reactions to the threat of home-grown terror.
Sheik Ismail said Muslims were all part of "mainstream Australia, and we all want to Advance Australia Fair".
"We don't wish anybody to be hurt and we want to pursue freedom and peace in Australia," he said.
"We don't want to import old wars and hatred into Australia,"
After the London bombings, Mr Howard called for Australian Muslim leaders to denounce acts of terrorism and help prevent incitement to violence.
On Tuesday, Mr Howard will meet 14 Islamic religious and community leaders to identify ways for "Islamic leaders to assist in eliminating intolerance and the promotion of violence in this country".
"The meeting will also discuss what assistance the Government might provide to support the leaders of Australian Muslim communities to eradicate extreme views and prevent violence," Mr Howard said yesterday.
Sheik Ismail told The Australian that, like the "random bag checks" in London to try to detect suicide bombers, there should be "compulsory brain checks" for people coming into Australia.
The sheik said nobody knew the Islamic community like the community itself and that a group of "legitimate" religious leaders could be appointed to advise the Government on foreign clerics.
"The willingness of the Muslim community to continue engagement with the Australian Federal Police ... is testament to their belief that there is absolutely no justification for such evil intentions, attitudes and criminal actions or excuse for taking innocent life, regardless of creed, colour, race or religion," he said.
Sheik Zoud said last night he was not disappointed at not getting a summit seat, adding that he would express his views through one of the leaders attending. Sheik Omran could not be contacted for comment.
Acting chairman of the Islamic Council of NSW, Ali Roude, said he would include the views of Sheik Zoud and others at the summit. "This is an important chance to share our ideas, concerns and commitments," he said.
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