Mar 12, 2005 ... DRA 001 hyundai.com.au. HMCA1539/SMH1. †Price for Terracan CRDi manual.
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BUSINESS An even bigger Australian
NEWS REVIEW The rise of parent power
TRAVEL Beauty on our doorstep
March 12-13, 2005 No. 52,258 First published 1831
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Reasonable renovations
WE E K E N D
DOMAIN
All the weekend’s
Spectrum
Good Weekend
SPORT MORE ACTION
REVEALED NATIONAL BRAINS TRUST
IMPERFECT WORLD OF A ROLE MODEL
MORE ATTITUDE
Keen to work, a million lost in the system John Garnaut ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Almost 1.2 million jobless people want to work but are not recorded in official unemployment figures, while Australian businesses say they cannot find enough workers. The hidden jobless pool – many of whom are kept out of work by obstacles such as inadequate child care or because they are considered by employers to be ‘‘too old’’ – has barely improved since the Government was elected in 1996, despite the official jobless rate plunging to a 28-year low of 5.1 per cent. The jobless rate would be as high as 14.8 per cent if these hidden unemployed were counted in official statistics. Business groups and the Government seized on yesterday’s figures to press the case for further industrial relations reform and smaller minimum wage rises. The Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, said high minimum wages would cost jobs. He revealed the Government would ask the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to restrict the next minimum wage rise to $11. This would mean today’s minimum wage of $470 would be unchanged in real dollars after adjustment for inflation. Mr Andrews said the ACTU’s counterclaim of $26.60 was too high. ‘‘It’s unfair to the unemployed because it blocks them out of the labour market,’’ Mr Andrews said. His proposed $11 rise would maintain living standards for the lowly paid without pricing the low-skilled and unemployed out of a jobs, he said. Australia has the highest minimum wages compared with median incomes of all 30 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Yesterday’s new figures from
WEATHER Details – Page 43 Sydney city Fine 19°-26° Tomorrow fine, mostly sunny 19°-26° ● Liverpool Fine 17°-28° Tomorrow fine, mostly sunny 17°-29° ● Penrith Fine 17°-30° Tomorrow fine, mostly sunny 17°-30° ● Richmond Fine 16°-30° Tomorrow fine, mostly sunny 16°-30° ●
● Newcastle Clearing 18°-27° 0312-6315 TomorrowISSN mostly sunny 18°-27° ● Wollongong Fog clearing 17°-26° Tomorrow mostly sunny 18°-26° ● Canberra Dry, sunny 12°-29° Tomorrow dry, sunny 13°-30° ● Batemans Bay Fine 14°-27° 9 770312 631063 Tomorrow mostly sunny 15°-28°
THE MISSING LINK Wanted to work
Discouraged job seekers
2001
1,130,200
81,700
2002
1,169,300
78,000
2003
1,213,000
79,800
2004
1,188,700
82,000 SOURCE: ABS
TALK OF TAX Not just about tax – Page 11 A new report has added weight to calls for further tax reform. Matt Wade – Page 31 No fair trade Adele Horin– Page 39 the Bureau of Statistics showed 3.8 million people were of workforce age last year but not included the labour force as being either employed or officially unemployed. Of those, 1.2 million would take work if they could get it, virtually unchanged since 1997 but higher than in 2000. Of these, 790,000 declared themselves ready to start work within a month, according to the survey conducted in September. They were not actively looking for work for reasons including a lack of child care, and physical disabilities or illness. A staggering 174,000 women nominated child care as their main barrier to working, raising policy questions beyond the Government’s industrial relations and welfare reform agendas. ‘‘Access to child care is a barrier preventing parents – particularly single parents – from entering the workforce,’’ said Labor’s
Sonny-side up – league’s image flip
Julie Robotham Medical Editor ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Parents are resorting to therapies originally developed for people with disabilities to help children in early primary school cope with academic pressure. Across Sydney, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech pathologists and specialist optometrists report they are seeing more children in younger age groups, referred by worried parents or teachers. Some children have demonstrable problems, but others are there because their developing brains are not yet ready to handle the sophisticated tasks required of them. Doctors are concerned by the trend – which is also occurring overseas – saying society’s expectations of young children are unreasonable. They also say
spokeswoman on employment, Penny Wong. The number of those officially designated as ‘‘discouraged job seekers’’ rose to 82,000, up from 78,000 in 2002 but down from the 118,000 recorded in 1997. One-third said they were discouraged because they were ‘‘considered too old by employers’’. A quarter said they lacked the necessary skills or training, while 23 per cent said there were no appropriate jobs in their local areas. ‘‘These alarming figures highlight the lack of Howard Government action in addressing skills shortages and overcoming barriers to mature-age employment,’’ Ms Wong said. The new figures on the hidden unemployed sit awkwardly with the Reserve Bank’s program of raising interest rates in part to cool the job market – and with persistent business claims about a shortage of workers. But business groups said the figures highlighted barriers to workforce participation. Peter Hendy, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said yesterday’s figures highlighted the need for smaller minimum wage rises and ‘‘brave and bold’’ industrial relations reform. ‘‘There are inflexibilities in the system that stop a lot of these people working,’’ he said. Professor Peter Dixon, from Monash University’s Centre for Policy Studies, said the jobless problem was not just about the disincentives to work caused by the welfare system. ‘‘There are people who if someone offered them a job they’d take it . . . It’s not really that people don’t want to work because of disincentives, but when they look for a job they can’t find one,’’ he said.
GROWING PAINS News Review – Page 27
Curtain raiser ... Sonny Bill Williams at ease and, below, in pain last night. Photos: Jason Capobianco and Steve Christo Jacquelin Magnay ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Even when he’s injured – as he was last night in the first match of the rugby league season – Sonny Bill Williams is the new poster boy of the game. The cocktail offered by the National Rugby League for 2005 will be a mix of glamour, style ... and grunt. On-field it will be bruising tackles tempered by
Back off, battleaxe: spinsters need not apply Damien Murphy ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Not so many years ago the federal public service was a nowoman’s-land if you happened to be married. Documents just released by the National Archives of Australia show it was no more inviting to single women. ‘‘A spinster at work, can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing years. A man usually mellows,’’ the director of trade commissioner services, K. L. Le Rossignol, was told by a subordi-
nate on March 13, 1963. ‘‘A man normally has his household run efficiently by his wife, who also looks after much of the entertaining. A woman trade commissioner would have all this on top of her normal work.’’ The memos came as the public service was resisting the idea of married women working. The National Archives has put the bureaucratic exchange on its website as part of a monthly display of ‘‘quirky, amusing or nostalgic little gems’’ researchers sometimes unearth in its collection. A
No time to lose, so kids get therapy
glass ceiling did not exist in the public service for married women at the time. They were not even allowed in the room and were required to quit their jobs once they uttered ‘‘I do’’. In 1963, with the Trade Commission Service considering appointing its first woman trade commissioner, Mrs Freda Beryl Wilson, to the Los Angeles office, the author of the memo, A. R. Tayson, was outlining reasons to his director why he considered women should not be appointed to represent Australia in overseas
trade missions. ‘‘In countries where publicity media is well developed, such as North America and England and where there are no other major drawbacks, such as the Islamic attitude towards women, a relatively young attractive woman could operate with some effectiveness, in a subordinate capacity.’’ Tayson thought women might be more valuable than men as trade commissioners responsible for women’s clothing and accessories, but ‘‘such an appointee
twinkle-toe steps of perfection. Off-field it will be well-tempered gentlemen. Humble. Gracious. This is the image the NRL wants and Sonny Bill, at 19, is the man to deliver. The governing body and the Bulldogs’ key player are on the verge of signing their biggest pay cheques: Williams is in $400,000-a-year negotiations with the Bulldogs, and the NRL is preparing for talks with broad-
Carr in sewer fight The Premier, Bob Carr, took the extraordinary step of seeking a judge’s permission to intervene in a firm’s controversial court fight to dismantle Sydney Water’s monopoly. Page 5
COLUMN 8
More – Page 26
Readers have wondered about those living in the Dupain building, in the Herald yesterday, and which body bits they will inhabit. One said the man’s backside will let in the most light.
Continued Page 2
casters for a deal worth $20 million to $30 million starting in 2007. But there’s always a drama. In last night’s season opener, when the Bulldogs beat St George Illawarra 46-28, Williams hobbled off just before half time with a knee injury. It was the last thing league’s image-masseurs wanted Continued Page 9 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Sport – Page 71
some of the therapies are of no proven value because scientists cannot identify which children would catch up spontaneously, and the techniques have not been shown to make a difference to children’s school performance. Lisa Hughes, an occupational therapist, said: ‘‘We are very conscious of the fact that we’ve got to get children to a certain level so that they can integrate properly into a school setting.’’ Mrs Hughes, who runs school holiday workshops in occupational therapy as well as intensive programs for individual children, said some parents were no longer prepared to let time take its course if a child was struggling with one or two basic skills. ‘‘By the time they’re 15 they’re all going to be riding a bike. What you never know is what they would have achieved if they’d had some intervention when they were five,’’ she said. Children who came to therapy were now typically aged four or five, she said – about two years Continued Page 2
May his god go with him Comedian Dave Allen has died at the age of 68. The Irishman died in his sleep at his west London home, his agent said late last night, Sydney time. Allen, pictured, was a TV favourite with his shows Tonight With Dave Allen and Dave Allen At Large, during which he sipped whiskey, smoked cigarettes and poked fun at many things, most notably the Catholic Church. He first appeared on The Val Doonican Show in 1965 but proved so popular he was given he own show. He is remembered for quirky
skits about sex, confession and the Pope, and his sign-off: ‘‘May your god go with you.’’ His real name was David Tynan O’Mahoney. A former journalist, he once smoked 80 cigarettes a day, but had given up the habit and was drinking little. His agent said the cause of death was unknown but he suffered no major illness. He leaves a wife, Karin, and three children. He spent much of his later life painting. – AP
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HMCA1539/SMH1. †Price for Terracan CRDi manual. Boat/trailer not included. Metallic/mica paint at extra cost. *2.5 tonne braked towing capacity. Excludes dealer delivery and govt charges. DRA 001
