What the papers say today, Friday, December, 8, 2000

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-2000
What the papers say today, Friday, December, 8, 2000

SYDNEY, Dec 8 AAP - In the context of black-white relations in Australia there is no
simple, agreed definition of reconciliation, says the Sydney Morning Herald in an editorial
today. "In yesterday's final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, there
is a draft reconciliation bill. It includes a definition, borrowed from the council's
"vision", as vague as any definition in any legislation."

Such vagueness partly explains why, after nine years, the council is winding up without
having achieved its goal, says the paper. "That is not to say, though, that it has been
nine wasted years, or that it is futile for the council to pass the baton to the new independent
foundation, Reconciliation Australia. The past nine years have shown that reconciliation
means different things to different people. That does not make it meaningless. On the
contrary, when those different things are seen in review, as in yesterday's report, they
tell a story more of progress than failure, of attitudes changing more than hardening."

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was born of the need to reconcile reality
with the demands of some Aboriginal groups for a treaty with other Australians, says The
Australian today.

The council had nine years to put the options clearly to the people, says the paper.

"We can only surmise why it has not. Having achieved so much, and laid such a positive
framework for progress, the council has, sadly and dangerously, ended where it began:
with a treaty at the centre of the reconciliation debate."

In handing down its final report the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has elicited
the most conciliatory responses so far from the Prime Minister, says the Age in its editorial
today.

Mr Howard has also agreed to a memorial to the stolen children.

"Being the leader of a nation also involves expressing the nation's ideals and aspirations,"

the Age says.

As council chairwoman Dr Evelyn Scott said: "The people's movement (for reconciliation)
is one of the most tangible and encouraging outcomes of the past decade."

"Mr Howard needs to show the people he shares it," the Age says.

The groundswell of goodwill towards reconciliation goes beyond arguments about the
wording of apologies, the Adelaide Advertiser editorial says today.

"The overwhelming majority of Australians are quiet people of good intentions, who
only occasionally do they feel moved to stand up and march.

"They have done so more than a million of them, voting with their feet and their hearts
for the ideal of reconciliation," the Advertiser says.

The East Timor crisis showed Australia could not rely on the US to support us in sorting
out regional troubles, says the Herald Sun editorial, which reflects on the defence White
Paper.

Nor can Australia rely on the Kiwis, who "share cloud nine with the Australian Democrats,
who are questioning whether Australia can afford the new defence Bill".

"Our dangerously volatile region requires a strong defence force with the latest military
technology," the Herald Sun says.

Police Commissioner Peter Ryan hopes to achieve two important objectives with his blueprint
for the future of the police service, says today's Daily Telegraph.

This is to increase the number of operational officers by freeing them from work that
can be performed by others, and to improve the effectiveness of the police service, the
paper says.

"Some proposals are likely to cause controversy, particularly among an entrenched public
service," it says. "However, the potential of the reforms means the document is worthy
of earnest consideration."

The Prime Minister, John Howard, says the essence of a good defence policy must be
to guard against even remote risks, says today's Canberra Times. "Wrong. The essence of
a good policy is to make preparations proportionate to the size of the risk."

The region is arguably a less stable place than it was before the Asian economic crisis
and the fall of Suharto and Australia may well need a new defence response, proportionate
to the changed circumstances, the paper says. "But things can change quickly, for better
as well as for worse, and any defence policy must be flexible enough to respond."

The failure to push the Federal Government's new tax treatment for trusts through Parliament
this week represents another blow to the business tax reform agenda, says The Australian
Financial Review today.

Many tax professionals have argued that the Government appears to have approached the
legislation with the view that trusts are used mainly for tax evasion rather than for
other, non-tax reasons like asset protection and intergenerational transfer, it says.

If the Government perseveres with the sort of legislation now before Parliament, there
is a strong case to provide trusts with favourable arrangements for winding up their existing
structures, says the paper.

But it would be better if the Government could find a way to revert to the original
idea that non-corporate entities would be taxed according to the same principles and preferably
at the same rate as companies, the paper says.

AAP ra/cd

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.