What Australian newspapers say on Friday, April 11, 2008

AAP General News (Australia)
04-11-2008
What Australian newspapers say on Friday, April 11, 2008

SYDNEY, April 11 AAP - NSW Premier Morris Iemma is right to promise public funding
for elections, but the reform will be pointless if loopholes remain for union-linked donations
and grants, The Sydney Morning Herald says in today's main editorial.

The NSW government has given the Transport Workers Union grants worth more than $700,000
over the past six years, and in the same period the union has donated $746,288 to the
Labor Party, the editorial says.

Most of the money came from WorkCover and was apparently to fund unspecified "projects"

in occupational health and safety. The minister responsible, John Della Bosca, insists
the grants were at arm's length and rigorously audited.

But audits usually involve no more than a sample of records, and such expenditure should
be fully receipted and on the public record, the editorial says.

"Then there is the broader question of why unions should be getting union funds at all," it adds.

"If public funds are to be spent it should be on programs for all, not just union member,
who make up just one-fifth of the workforce."

Even if the grant money is properly spent, the public money spent on union activities
frees up funds to spend on something else - like donations to the ALP, it says.



If life is a gamble, the trick is to make sure the odds are tilted in your favour,
says Sydney The Daily Telegraph in an editorial today.

"When it comes to poker machines, they are not," the paper says.

The "massive concentration" of poker machines in western Sydney has become a problem,
reflected in the gigantic sums of money local residents put through the machines.

On average every Bankstown resident spends $1500 a year on the pokies. In Canterbury
the amount is up to $1782 a year.

"Western Sydney is a region under genuine mortgage pressure. Residents may therefore
be more inclined than otherwise to chase the long odds of a big mortgage-clearing pokie
win," it says.

"Worried people do worrying things."



With the US economy expected to slip into recession this year, Australia is the only
English-speaking country with economic growth in the three per cent range - but the good
times can't last, says The Australian in today's main editorial.

"It used to be said that when the US sneezed, Australia caught pneumonia. But we sidestepped
the tech wreck in 2001 because our housing market had begun its long boom," the editorial
says.

"Now the good fortune is coming from an even longer boom in the mining sector."

But the International Monetary Fund warns that the laws of gravity will eventually
kick in, with a fall in commodity prices.

"The $1 trillion question is whether the Australian economy is already slowing more
dramatically than the IMF realises," the editorial says.

The federal government should press ahead with spending cuts to give it the flexibility
to return larger tax cuts to voters to prevent the economy falling too far, it says.

It is also important that Treasurer Wayne Swan be upfront about the risks to the economy
in the long haul, it adds.



Stock market mayhem has raised questions about the competence of market regulators
the Australian Stock Exchange and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission,
The Australian Financial Review says in an editorial today.

"Unlike the courageous competition regulator, ASIC has been silent at a time when the
market needs leadership through enforcement. The Treasurer must be concerned," the editorial
says.

Treasurer Wayne Swan should take a leaf from the book of his US counterpart Henry Paulson,
who has recognised the need for rethinking the structure of US market regulation and devised
a detailed long-term plan, it says.

"Mr Swan should plan to deal with the inherent conflict of interest in the ASX as a
frontline regulator and aim to harmonise Australia's regulations with the best of global
rules.

"In the meantime, he must ensure ASIC uses its teeth to enforce existing disclosure laws."



As the Victorian government profits from restructuring the state's poker machine industry,
it must not forget problem gamblers, the main editorial in the Herald Sun newspaper says
today.

The government is likely to get a "multi-billion-dollar windfall" from auctioning licence
fees when the current system expires in 2012.

"The big losers in the new arrangements announced by Premier Brumby are Tattersall's
and Tabcorp, which are prevented from bidding for the pokies until their current licences
run out," the editorial says.

"But while the government is right to break the lucrative pokies duopoly, it has not
done enough to reduce the social cost of problem gambling."

Anti-pokies campaigner and World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello welcomed the changes
but describes pokies as the "crack cocaine of gambling".

The Victorian government has banned ATMs from venues so gamblers cannot drain their
bank accounts but it remains addicted to pokies revenue, the editorial says.

"Mr Brumby must put more of the profits the government makes from gambling into solving
the problem it creates."



The Victorian government's gaming industry reforms do nothing to assist problem gamblers,
the main editorial in The Age newspaper says today.

The end of the poker machine duopoly in Victoria is "welcome" and the reasons for the
change "seem sound", the editorial says.

"...It is hoped (the changes) will indeed lead to a greater diversity of ownership
and increased competition, as well as giving smaller communities a more direct connection
with putative owners, such as local hotels and clubs."

The changes bring Victoria into line with NSW and Queensland, and show the state's
willingness to embrace the federal government's national approach to gaming-machine control..

"But what of the people who really matter - the ones who don't own poker machines,
or even want to bid for the rights to do so, but who are subject to frequent exposure
to what one gambling expert has called `the most dangerous machines in the world'?

"Victoria has, by the most conservative estimate, 40,000 problem gamblers, a malaise
that, in more than 80 per cent of cases, is associated with electronic gambling machines.

The billions earned from gaming have come at a "tremendous human cost", the editorial says.

AAP jrd/jl/

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS (REISSUING)

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