AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2008
What Australian newspapers say on Wednesday, April 9, 2008
SYDNEY, April 9 AAP - Tibet will not be a major item in Kevin Rudd's talks with Chinese
leaders on his first visit to Beijing as prime minister, The Australian says in its main
editorial today.
Mr Rudd has made Australia's position on Tibet clear - to encourage Chinese leaders
to hold direct talks with the Dalai Lama to explore a long-term solution.
"Overall, The Australian agrees with Mr Rudd's assessment that it is better to engage
and cajole than to push the Chinese leadership inward," the editorial says.
"Although Mr Rudd is expected to raise China's human rights record, Tibet will not
be a major item of business. The focus will be on our shared interest in fostering China's
stability and continued economic growth."
The editorial says the Tiananmen Square crackdown showed the Chinese government's ability
to shock everyone with the brutality of its response.
"Encouraging a deeper involvement in the rules-based international order is the sensible
way to make China lift its game on human rights."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's China expertise could quickly look like a liability if
he cannot deliver on some of the diverse expectations of his visit to Beijing, says The
Australian Financial Review in today's main editorial.
This means letting the Chinese know they have badly handled the situation in Tibet
- but also letting Australian rights activists know that an Olympic boycott would not
achieve much in the way of liberalisation inside the country, the editorial says.
"Big-time bilateral visits generate many sweeping claims about outcomes, but Mr Rudd
would be better focused on fostering long-term engagement than producing a circus act
in Beijing this week," it says.
"For example, his predecessor won a big gas export deal but at a price so low that
no others followed for many years.
"Mr Rudd would therefore be better focused on keeping the free-trade negotiations alive
in order to allow companies to get on with doing business."
On Chinese investment, he should insist that Chinese government-owned companies are
transparent but not stand in the way of a
new source of
foreign capital, the paper says.
The two certainties of NSW politics are that there will be a Cabinet reshuffle by May
and John Della Bosca will not become premier, says Sydney's The Daily Telegraph in an
editorial today.
News that Premier Morris Iemma has approached former education minister Carmel Tebbutt
to return to the ministry confirms that he is about to "shuffle the deckchairs on the
Titanic", the paper says.
"The problem for Mr Iemma is that the three (ministers) who desperately need moving
- Small Business Minister Joe Tripodi, Health Minister Reba Meagher and DoCS Minister
Kevin Greene - are his mates.
"It is unlikely he would touch them as they are his mates."
Rumours that Mr Della Bosca will seek the leadership are "nonsense", the editorial
says, because no one believes he could lead Labor to power, he does not have caucus support
and the party would lose a by-election needed for Mr Della Bosca to join the lower house.
The full story of the alleged gang attack at Merrylands High School last Monday has
not been told, says The Sydney Morning Herald in today's main editorial.
Such an incident had clearly been expected for some time, the paper says, noting that
teachers and students responded quickly and effectively as they had been drilled to do.
"Why, for instance, are lockdown drills needed in a Sydney high school?" the editorial asks
"The children at the school had no doubt that most of the alleged attackers were of
Pacific Islander background. Is that a dreadful thing to acknowledge?"
Some youth workers and education experts speak of the events at Merrylands with "the
most extraordinary obfuscation" about the issue of ethnicity, the editorial says.
"There is no point pussyfooting around the issue..." it says. "If ethnic-based gang
activity is behind Monday's events, it is a key to understanding what happened and perhaps
reducing the likelihood it will be repeated."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faces a raft of contentious issues as he touches down in
China today, the main editorial in The Age newspaper says today.
A political storm over Tibet, human rights and the Olympics will "challenge all (Mr
Rudd's) diplomatic acumen" on the final leg of his world tour.
But the biggest challenge will come next week when Mr Rudd is joined in Beijing by
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, Agriculture Minister Tony Burke and Trade Minister
Simon Crean, the editorial says.
"The economic scale of the topics for discussion is immense. Trade between the two
countries stands at about $50 billion," it says.
"China is Australia's largest trading partner, although Japan is still our largest
export market. The Australian economy is a major beneficiary of China's demand for resources
such as iron ore and coal."
Mr Rudd and his ministers must foster trade but also protect Australia's interest "from
a country relentlessly scooping up stakes" in industries such as the mining sector, the
editorial says.
Other challenges will be to revive negotiations towards a free-trade agreement, as
well as climate change and the situation in Tibet.
"The Prime Minister, it is to be hoped, will not feel constrained by the weight of
economic considerations to continue raising human rights issues."
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon and her advisers must win back the
trust of their officers, the main editorial in the Herald Sun newspaper says today.
The editorial follows a landmark survey of Victorian police by the newspaper.
"Perhaps the most disturbing message is that an astonishing 64 per cent of the 3,459
police officers who responded say they have considered resigning over the past 12 months,"
it says.
"Lack of resources and low morale were given as the main reasons and Chief Commissioner
Christine Nixon faces a personal crisis of confidence.
"Nearly 70 per cent of police officers surveyed believe she has done a bad or below average job."
The survey results and a mass meeting of police yesterday suggest Ms Nixon "must look
closely at the way she runs the force" and quell public disquiet about the state of the
force.
"Ms Nixon and her close advisers need to ask themselves if they need to do their jobs
differently. They must regain the trust of the officers they command and in doing so regain
the confidence of all Victorians."
AAP jrd/jl/
KEYWORD: EDITORIALS
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