Crispin Hull

In general population statistics, some groups of women with special needs stand out.

In August, 1992, there were 1.6 million married women with children, 1.5 million women over 60, 1 million single young women and 2.2 million women living outside major urban areas.

Twenty-one per cent of Victorian women were born in non-English-speaking countries compared to 5 per cent in Tasmania and 8 per cent in Queensland.
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Women do not take part in sport as much as men and one suggested reason was a lack of confidence in their abilities, the ABS book shows.

“”Women have higher rates of participation than men in some areas of leisure activities, e.g. arts and crafts, and entertainment and cultural activities,” it said. “”These tend to be the more passive recreational activities. Discussion papers such as Equity for Women in Sport have suggested that part of the reason why women participate less in active leisure pursuits such as sport is a lack of confidence in their abilities.”
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The gains in women’s life expectancy are off-set by a large increase in the incidence of lung cancer among women, according to the section of health in the ABS book. It shows that women’s life expectancy in Australia passed 80 in 1991.

It is higher than Britain, the US and New Zealand, but lower than Canada France and Japan. Interestingly, Australian male life expectancy is higher in all these countries except Japan.

Life expectancy figures for males and females are converging after a peak of divergence in the 1980s due to higher male heart attacks.
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Women have achieved greater equality in the past decade, but there is a long way to go and the gains are far from secure.

These are the broad conclusions that can be drawn from Women in Australia, a 300-page book of statistics published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday.

Women are still lower paid, with and average of 76.2 per cent of male income, and tend to have the worst jobs. Yet women do far more of the housework (despite increased employment). The bureau estimates the value of unpaid domestic and community work at $151 billion, 68 per cent of it done by women.
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The Real Estate Institute of the ACT welcomed yesterday the ACT Government’s draft planning proposals for North Watson.

The institute’s general manager, Bruno Yvanovich, said the plan would present a better northern gateway to Canberra and be a more efficient use of schools, roads, sewerage and water.

He criticised the narrowly based, extravagant claims by some community groups that the development would put a strain on shops and schools and would cause traffic congestion and lack of open space.
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People who helped Pol Pot and engaged in “”ethnic cleansing” in former Yugoslavia are not covered by Australian war-crimes legislation and should be, according to former war-crimes investigator, Bob Greenwood, QC.

Mr Greenwood said this week that present war-crimes legislation applied only to World War II, and even these investigations had been stopped, leaving unfinished cases, including one involving systematic multiple murders by a Latvian who joined the Germans. The man, in his late 70s, now lives in suburban Melbourne.

The war-crimes legislation should be extended to all conflicts, Mr Greenwood said. He expressed concern that people who engaged in crimes with Pol Pot were resident in Australia or citizens and there was no law to prosecute them. There was some evidence that there were such people in Australia. They could not be extradited to Cambodia because the country was a shambles and there could be no trial, similarly with former Yugoslavia.
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The Latvian is now an Australian citizen and lives in Melbourne.

He will never be prosecuted, though Australian authorities have a great deal of evidence against him. The evidence is that the Latvian joined the German Arajas Kommando squad; that he trained and commanded 100 men who were sent to Minsk to round up and murder Jews. From the middle of 1942 to mid-1943 he took part in the murder of at least 10,000 Jews, who were buried in mass graves outside Minsk.

He now looks like any other other old just another elderly man walking the suburban streets of Melbourne.
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The Federal Government has spent $22.6 million on war-crimes investigation since 1987.

Of that $19.2 million was by the special investigations unit; $2.2 million by the Director of Public Prosecutions and $1.2 million in legal aid to the accused.

There is now only one case before the courts. A trial is expected later this year. After that, there will be no more war crimes trials or investigation by Australian authorities, though there have been calls to change the War Crimes Act to make it apply to all conflicts. At present it applies only to the European theatre of World War II.
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A very-fast train link between Canberra and Sydney could enable Sydney’s second airport to be built in Canberra instead of Badgery’s Creek, according to a technology consultant.

Dale Budd, who formerly worked for the VFT consortium, said no-one questioned that Australia should have world-class road and air links between Canberra and Sydney, with dual carriageway and new jets. However, as soon as world-class state-of-the-art rail was mentioned, the sceptics said it would not work.

Mr Budd was speaking at a forum, including a panel of 15 academics, at the University of Canberra last week on “”Future Options for Canberra”. It was a lead-up to the September “”Canberra: Face of the Nation?” conference sponsored by the university, the Canberra Business Council, the ACT Government and the National Capital Planning Authority.
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His motives for his high profile pro-Republican stand were under vicious and severe scrutiny. Did he want a Republic only so he could be president?

Why had he turned against what would seem to be an anglophilic, high Tory upbringing: Sydney Grammar School, Oxford, the Bar and a merchant bank?

The attack was coming from Bronwyn Bishop, merciless cross-examiner of taxation commissioners, and Paul Lyneham, pitiless exposer of political hypocrisy.
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