History > 2007 > Australia (II)

A decade of John Howard

has left a country

of timidity, fear and shame

His power resided in his ability
to speak directly and powerfully to the negativity
at the core of the Australian soul

Monday November 26, 2007
The Guardian
Richard Flanagan

John Howard famously said the times were his, and for more than a decade it seemed they were. Australia experienced the greatest and most sustained boom in its history. Yet at its end Australia's indigenous population was in a ruinous state, its extraordinary environment was threatened on numerous fronts, and its people were beginning to ask where the wealth had gone: public schools and public health were in crisis, social welfare was straitened, housing was unaffordable for many, and wages and conditions were being cut under Howard's industrial reforms.

Howard had promised that Australia would be relaxed and comfortable under his rule, yet this year Australians had become more fearful and suspicious of each other than ever, a state of affairs that Howard's government seemed happy to exploit.

Howard's divisiveness and his skilful manipulation of public opinion obscured the strange paradoxes of his era. If he flirted with racism, it was nevertheless under him that Australia ended up with the largest immigration programme in its history. His foreign policy was notoriously sycophantic to the Bush administration. Yet while he often seemed little interested in Asia, over the past decade Australia became far more closely tied in terms of trade to China, India, Japan and Indonesia, and its destiny ever more deeply enmeshed with the coming Asian century.

If he was the most ideologically driven prime minister Australia has had, on occasions he acted entirely out of character: his courageous introduction of comprehensive gun laws in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, and again, under enormous public pressure, his sending of a peacekeeping force to East Timor to halt a campaign of repression covertly sponsored by the Indonesian military after the East Timorese voted for independence - flying in the face of Australia's long-standing policy of support for Indonesia.

Howard's seeming blandness disguised his ruthless determination radically to reshape Australia. His politicisation of the public service severely weakened that institution; his government's ceaseless and ferocious attacking of alternative points of opinion brought a disturbing conformity to Australian public life; and he stacked body after body with sycophants and far-right ideologues to prosecute his causes through society.

Then there are the lies: the most extraordinary was his declaration that he would not introduce a consumption tax, though he later did; and the most shameful was the infamous children overboard case. At the height of the 2001 election, Howard's ministers claimed that refugees on a boat approaching Australia had thrown their children overboard, leading Howard to declare: "I don't want people like that in Australia." Only after the election was it proven that the government had known the claim was false.

His condoning of the imprisonment of David Hicks at Guantánamo Bay without trial for five years, and the subsequent gagging of Hicks until after the election, suggested a growing contempt for human rights and the rule of law that was most frighteningly on display with his anti-terrorism legislation, much criticised for its provisions of secret trials and imprisonment.

The mandatory detention of refugees was vigorously defended and extended by Howard, though revelations of Australian citizens being locked up by accident for several months, and in one case deported to the Philippines, spoke not just of incompetent administration but of a darker heartlessness, echoing the infamous Tampa episode of 2001. When 400 refugees were rescued from a sinking boat and left stranded in the tropical heat on the deck of the Tampa, a container ship, Howard very publicly refused permission to land the refugees in Australia, an act that for many epitomised the brutal meanness at the heart of his government.

Though the country became far more chauvinistic under Howard, and though he often invoked the idea of Australia as justification for his government's actions, he had no compunction in frequently going against the will of the people - whether in refusing to say sorry to black Australia in the face of the reconciliation movement; slowly and expertly destroying the widespread desire for a republic; or committing Australian troops to the Iraq conflict following anti-war demonstrations that were the largest in the nation's history.

Then something strange happened: history changed and the times no longer were his. His ever lonelier support for the Bush administration's adventurism looked increasingly foolish and possibly dangerous. The very climate of Australia was transformed. Every mainland capital city now has a water supply crisis so severe that people have been murdered by neighbours for watering gardens. Yet in the midst of a once-in-a-thousand-years drought, Howard remained until late last year a climate sceptic. His supporters dismissed global warming as they had so much else - more hysteria from the left. But it wasn't: it was the world and the world had changed.

How odd then that, by voting in Kevin Rudd's Labor party, it seemed in many ways that Australia was simply replacing one older short man with glasses with a slightly younger short man with glasses. Where Howard was a reactionary radical, Rudd is a religious conservative once described by a fellow Labor MP as "about as interesting as carpet".

Rudd's conservative agenda was often difficult to distinguish from Howard's. He was declared a "heartless snake" by the Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson after swinging to the right of Howard on Aboriginal reconciliation in the final days of the election. His claim to be strong on climate change rings hollow when he has promised a subsidy of A$110m to Gunns Ltd, a company intending to build one of the world's biggest pulp mills in Tasmania, which will burn half-a-million tonnes of native forest a year in the monstrosity of its electricity generator alone. Was this Howard's greatest victory: the creation of a Labor party in his own image?

In the wake of his defeat the attacks on Howard's legacy will turn ferocious, but at their heart will be an unease, a ritual exorcism of something deeper that Australians would perhaps rather not admit. For a decade Howard's power had resided in his ability to speak directly and powerfully to the great negativity at the core of the Australian soul - its timidity, its conformity, its fear of other people and new ideas, its colonial desire to ape rather than lead, its shame that sometimes seems close to a terror of the uniqueness of its land and people.

At the end of his concession speech, Howard claimed to have left Australia prouder, stronger and more prosperous. But it didn't feel that way. It felt like it had been a lost decade. It felt like the country was frightened, unsure of what it now is, unready for the great changes it must make, and ill-fitted for the robust debates it must have.

There was a strange sense that Australia, which had seemed so often to sleepwalk, mesmerised, through the past 11 years, had suddenly woken up. But where it might go and what it might do and be, no one any longer knew.

· Richard Flanagan is an Australian novelist whose most recent book is The Unknown Terrorist

A decade of John Howard has left a country of timidity, fear and shame, G, 26.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2217016,00.html

Australian Victory Ends a Conservative Era

November 24, 2007
Filed at 7:18 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australian elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and his country's role in the Iraq war.

The win marked a humiliating end to the career of outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, who became Australia's second-longest serving leader -- and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago.

In a nationally televised concession speech, Howard announced he had phoned Rudd to congratulate him on ''a very emphatic victory.''

''I accept full responsibility for the Liberal Party campaign, and I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition's defeat in this election campaign,'' Howard said.

Howard was also in danger of becoming only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to lose his seat in Parliament.

Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor well ahead with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted. An Australian Broadcasting Corp. analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament -- a clear majority.

ABC radio reported that Howard aides said the prime minister had phoned Rudd to concede defeat. Rudd was expected to formally claim victory later Saturday.

The change in government from Howard's center-right Liberal-National Party coalition to the center-left Labor Party also marks a generational shift for Australia.

Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, urged voters to support him because Howard was out of touch with modern Australia and ill-equipped to deal with new-age issues such as climate change.

Howard campaigned on his economic management, arguing that his government was mostly responsible for 17 years of unbroken growth, fueled by China's and India's hunger for Australia's coal and other minerals, and that Rudd could not be trusted to maintain prosperous times.

Rudd said he would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard had said all the troops will stay as long as needed.

However, a new government is unlikely to mean a major change in Australia's foreign relations, including with the United States -- its most important security partner -- or with Asia, which is increasingly important for the economy.

But one of the biggest changes will be in Australia's approach to climate change. Rudd has nominated the issue as his top priority, and promises to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

When he does so, the United States will stand alone as the only industrialized country not to have signed the pact.

Labor has been out of power for more than a decade, and few in Rudd's team -- including him -- has any government experience at federal level. His team includes a former rock star -- Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett -- and a swag of former union officials.

But analysts say his foreign policy credentials are impeccable, and that he has shown discipline and political skill since his election as Labor leader 11 months ago.

Rudd's election as Labor leader marked the start of Howard's decline in opinion polls, from which he never recovered.

Howard's four straight election victories since 1996 made him one of Australia's most successful politicians. He refused to stand down before this election -- even after being urged to do by some party colleagues. However, Howard earlier this year announced plans to retire within about two years if he won the election.

    Australian Victory Ends a Conservative Era, NYT, 24.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Australia-Election.html?hp

Sydney Man Killed While Watering Lawn

November 1, 2007
Filed at 3:49 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A 66-year-old man was bashed to death while watering his lawn following an argument with a neighbor over the city's water restrictions, police and media said Thursday.

Todd Munter, 36, was charged Thursday with murdering Ken Proctor, who lived on a nearby street in suburban Sylvania. Munter did not enter a plea and it was not immediately known whether he had an attorney.

Munter, who appeared distraught and close to tears, was to remain in custody until his next court appearance on Nov. 15.

Police prosecutor Sgt. Bruce Baldwin did not give details of the murder charge.

Police alleged in a statement that Munter approached Proctor Wednesday as he watered his lawn with a hose at 5:30 p.m. and an argument ensued. Television and radio news bulletins reported the argument was over Sydney's water restrictions.

Proctor reportedly sprayed Munter with the hose. Police allege Munter responded by punching and pushing Proctor to the ground and kicking him.

An off-duty police officer intervened and arrested Munter, the statement said. Proctor was taken by ambulance to hospital but died soon after, police said.

Proctor was complying with Sydney's water restrictions when he was killed. Watering with hand-held hoses is allowed on Wednesdays and Sundays before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m.

All major cities in Australia have water use restrictions as the nation experiences its worst drought in a century.

    Sydney Man Killed While Watering Lawn, NYT, 1.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Australia-Water-Slaying.html

Australian country life riven by drought, isolation

Sun Oct 28, 2007
9:57pm EDT
Reuters
By Michael Byrnes

CARAGABAL, Australia (Reuters) - In drought-hit lands of eastern Australia, the population of Caragabal is just 38, every shop is closed, water is trucked in, and a synthetic lawn at a bowling club is the last hope of survival for a dying town.

The town dam, which can store two years' supply, dried up years ago with the return of drought. As crops die for hundreds of miles around, the town's fate also seems doomed.

Last remaining locals have started to speak of the patch of plastic bowling green in reverential tones.

"It's a vision for the future," said Andrew Trotter, who runs the town's last operating business, an unprofitable farm-supplies outlet he opened in February on an unsuccessful bet on rain.

"It will hold the community together here. I think it will attract people back," he said in his small temporary office.

Larry McDonald, manager of the store, chimes in: "Go and have a bloody game of bowls. At least it will take it (the drought) off your mind for a while."

Nearby, the pristine bowling green has been incongruously carved out of dusty scrubland, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, next to an equally deserted "sand green" golf course.

"It shows as a community we can get together and build something spectacular," squinted leading farmer Peter Toole.

Caragabal is the worst case of a dying town in this part of central New South Wales state, 310 miles west of Sydney, but there are many more.

Another 10 people left Caragabal in the last 6 months alone, further shrinking the town from 500 or more in the 1950s.

Two general stores, a saddlery, cafes, a bakery, a butcher, a telephonist service, garages and a Westpac Bank branch have all closed in recent decades, leaving only one tiny pub, a small post office and Trotter's new PFC supplies outlet.

The pub has a "closed" sign scrawled on a blackboard at its front door. Nobody knows where the publican has gone.

Trotter complains that he opened his supplies centre in February because of forecasts by the weather bureau that last year's drought would be replaced by La Nina rains in 2007.

"They're clueless," he said bitterly of the bureau.

It sums up abject frustration felt by people being squeezed out, often after generations of farming, by extreme weather in this hardest-hit area in Australia's worst modern drought.

Barmedman is a bigger town 75 kms (47 miles) southwest Caragabal, but it too is shrinking, with rows of empty shops and deserted streets.

Mayor David Bolte says that apart from Caragabal, four towns have shrunk to almost nothing in his Bland Shire, typically with 300 people or less, one or two pubs, a small school and a garage.

The supermarket closed down in nearby Ungarie last year.

"It just keeps chipping away," Bolte said. "I don't think they will progress," he said when asked if the towns would die.

SOCIAL FABRIC TEARS

The number of farms in Australia has declined by 25 percent to near 130,000 over the past 20 years, as farmers leave the land and technology and mechanization increases the size of farms.

Severe drought is adding to a hollowing of society underway for decades in rural Australia, first triggered by falling commodity prices and farm incomes and by the lure of city life for young people.

Average farm cash income dropped sharply by almost 70 percent to just A$26,600 ($23,000) in the year to June 30 2007, because of drought.

"If the young ones start moving out in droves the older ones will move out too," said Larry McDonald.

A high number of suicides is the hidden tragedy of the tearing of rural social fabric.

"It's an issue in a lot of areas," said Mayor Bolte, who also said it had not so far had a dramatic impact in his shire of 8,500 sq km (3,280 sq mile) with its population of 6,500.

Australia already has a high suicide rate of five men and one woman a day in cities, in its population of 20 million. Rural suicide is already greater than in cities and likely to increase.

Drought is contributing to the high rate of suicides in the bush, John Macdonald, Professor of Primary Health Care at the University of Western Sydney and a member of Suicide Prevention Australia, told Reuters.

"The sheer economic and social hardship that comes about from people struggling to make ends meet and then men trying to support their families ... these guys are doing it hard, it's not just that they are stoic and don't talk to people," he said.

Farmer Angus McLaren says a worrying side of rural suicide is that it is hidden, occurring more among those who stay at home.

Margaret Bolte, wife of the Mayor, is puzzled by recent suicide attempts by two young men in Young, 150 kms (93 miles) east. Drought there is not that bad. Possibly farmers out west are more toughened by dealing with hardship, she said.

Larry McDonald knows one man who last week drove into a tree.

"Some think its the only way to help their family," he said.

Farmers laugh when asked if they will accept a recent offer by Prime Minister John Howard of A$150,000 to leave the land. Many may be forced to take jobs next year and will only return to farming when it starts to rain, said Mayor Bolte.

The local rural council is doing whatever it can to support declining communities. But Mayor Bolte says keeping the communities going is about as difficult as keeping local dirt roads maintained in the swirling winds of the drought.

"It's pointless putting gravel out in a dust bowl, it all just blows away," he said. "You're only moving one pile of dust to another pile somewhere else."

($1=A$1.13)

    Australian country life riven by drought, isolation, R, 28.10.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSSP21004320071029

Australian farmers

face bankruptcy from drought

Tue Oct 23, 2007
9:22pm EDT
Reuters
By Michael Byrnes

WEST WYALONG, Australia (Reuters) - Farmer John Ridley won't be harvesting so much as a bag of wheat this season from fields that stretch to the horizon as Australia's worst drought in 100 years takes its toll on the country's grain belt.

Beneath a cloudless sky, 60-year-old Ridley, a descendant of one of Australia's pioneering farming families, pulls a clump of brittle stubble from the dusty earth.

"It should be this high, waving green in the breeze," he says. "Farmers are in a stunned state at the moment. In a state of disbelief, shock, helplessness."

Ridley's farm is in the epicenter of devastation from the drought, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Sydney. Prime wheat growing territory, the district normally grows much of the wheat that makes Australia the world's second-biggest exporter. Yet this year the district will produce almost nothing.

Drought which has struck intermittently since 2002, and which farmers hoped had ended in April with rains that prompted them to sow their fields, returned three months ago and devastated the crops of entire farming communities.

This is the first time in over 40 years of farming that Ridley will not harvest any wheat from the 2,500 hectares he planted at a cost of around A$500,000 ($445,000). It is a total loss, and it follows drought which fried last year's crop too.

Farmers say that even after the massive financial loss of crop failure and the hollowing out of social structure in the countryside, it is the swirling clouds of dust from the parched earth that finally cracks nerves.

"I've never experienced so much wind in my life," Ridley says, batting at a swarm of flies buzzing around his face.

TRICK OF NATURE

It is like a cruel trick of nature, the normally laconic Ridley says. Good early rain in the planting season encouraged farmers to plant big crops to attempt to make up for losses inflicted by last year's drought.

Then drought struck to kill the crop, pushing already-indebted farmers to the brink of financial collapse. It costs around A$250 a ha for fertilizer and seed to plant wheat and Ridley's plant of 2,500 ha is typical of medium-sized farms.

Dan Mangelsdorf, chairman of the Grain Growers Association and another West Wyalong wheat farmer, says he does not know of even one farmer who is not significantly in debt.

National Australia Bank recently said that average Australian farm debt was A$412,000, up from A$150,000 in 1990. Many farms now owe much more than this, often millions, farmers say.

"No crops. No pasture. Fodder all gone. And no money," Ridley said. "Those of us who can, will face up to one more year and I reckon that will be it," he said.

Others have lost much more than Ridley.

Around 50 kilometers away near the dying town of Barmedman, population around 200 and falling, Angus McLaren planted 5,000 ha at a cost of over A$1 million.

"It's pretty much all lost," he said, batting at flies on a dirt road next to his failed crop.

"It's unprecedented. We need a good year next year. We're just sliding into debt. At some stage you have to say 'enough is enough'," he said.

Ridley, McLaren and other farmers all say they will plant another crop next year.

"Go to the banks and have one more throw of the dice," McLaren said. "Plant wall-to-wall. How are you going to repay debt if you don't have a crop?" he asked.

But many may not be able to borrow enough to plant a full crop, Mangelsdorf said. The drought is beginning to eat into the structural size of Australia's A$4 billion wheat export industry.

CRUNCH TIME

Christmas will be crunch time. This is when farmers normally count their wheat harvest tonnages and start to talk to the banks about next year's finances.

"I'm fearful about what happens after Christmas," said Bland Shire Mayor David Bolte, himself a wheat grower.

"People will see how much money they need to survive. Do they go back to the banks and ask for more money? Do they plant again?" he asked, speaking over the kitchen table in his farm.

Bolte spent A$1 million to plant in the latest year, for virtually nil return. There is no way to cut the cost, he said.

Banks are so far supporting farmers but this may not last forever, Bolte and other farmers said.

The banks realized that it was not in their own interest to see property values collapse with foreclosures, and also felt safe because of high levels of equity, of around 60 percent, held by most growers in their farms, they said.

But farmers are also nervously conscious of falling levels of equity ownership, as bank debt mounts.

"If equity falls below 50 percent they panic," Ridley said of the banks. "Then if everyone sells, prices crash," he said.

So far farm prices are holding up well, at around A$400 an acre. But with foreclosures and forced sales, prices could easily crash to A$100 an acre, as occurred in the late 1980s.

Hard-headed farmers reject the notion that the drought is a product of climate change, and speak of weather cycles. Bolte points out that severe drought hit between 1895 and 1902 and that an 1830 drought forced farmers to flee to the coast.

This is producing visions of an eventually bright future.

"But getting through the next 12 months will be hard," McLaren said.

    Australian farmers face bankruptcy from drought, R, 23.10.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSSYD679320071024

Australian Fires Add to Fears on Climate Change

October 4, 2007
The New York Times
By TIM JOHNSTON

SYDNEY, Australia, Oct. 3 — As the first bush fires of the year rage through Australia’s national forests, concern over climate change and its effects is intensifying among Australians. A telephone survey of more than 1,000 people released today showed that 40 percent of Australians thought that global warming was a greater threat to security than Islamic fundamentalism. Only 20 percent thought it was less serious.

The survey, by the United States Studies Center, based at the University of Sydney, came a day after the government’s most senior scientific body said that rising temperatures and reduced rainfall were inevitable in Australia.

The report brought calls for more resources to be focused on mitigating the effects of future climate change rather than the current policy of concentrating on trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Extreme weather, including a drought that has persisted in some places for six years, has focused the Australian public on climate change, and it is shaping up as a major issue in the general elections that are expected to be called in the next few weeks.

On Tuesday, Australia’s most influential scientific research body, the government-financed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, released a report that said a temperature rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit was likely by 2030, along with many more days with temperatures of over 95 degrees and reduced rainfall across much of southern Australia, already the driest part of the driest inhabited continent.

“The message is that global warming is real, humans are very likely to be causing it and that it is very likely that there will be changes in the global climate system in the centuries to come larger than those seen in the recent past,” the report said.

Recent events have made the subject even more urgent for many Australians. Although the spring season started only a month ago, about 50 separate bush fires, fanned by unseasonably hot weather and strong winds, have burned about 76,000 acres, of bush and national forest and destroyed a house.

Large areas of the state of New South Wales, including Sydney, had a total fire ban in force today. “It is very interesting to see how climate change has moved from the environmental field to the security sphere,” said Alan Dupont, who heads the United States Studies Center, referring to the report released today. “Most of the government response has been about reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than trying to manage the effects of the change.”

The survey’s results echo comments last week by the head of Australia’s police, Commissioner Mick Keelty, that climate was a growing security concern. “We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water,” Mr. Keelty said. “Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move. Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century.”

His comments provoked a sharp retort from Prime Minister John Howard, who said that terrorism was a more immediate threat to security than climate change. Mr. Howard was until recently a climate change skeptic, and the opposition Labor Party has said that the new attention he is paying to climate change is driven more by polls than conviction.

Australia has one of the world’s highest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases. The government has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying it is meaningless because it does not impose restrictions on the two greatest emerging emitters, India and China.

Environmentalists say the time to tackle climate change is running out and that the major global economies need to commit themselves to radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Both the United States and Australia have resisted efforts to set hard emissions targets, and have encouraged the development of technologies like nuclear and clean coal in an effort to improve the efficiency of carbon-based fuel sources.

The United States Studies Center survey relied on 1,213 telephone interviews conducted between July 13 and July 29, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

    Australian Fires Add to Fears on Climate Change, NYT, 4.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/asia/04australia.html

Australia gives more money to drought-hit farmers

Tue Sep 25, 2007
5:00am EDT
Reuters

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Australian government on Tuesday announced an extra A$714 million ($621 million) to help farmers survive a record-breaking drought.

About 65 percent of Australia's viable agricultural land is currently in drought, with 23,000 farming families on some form of drought relief payments.

"They are going through the worst drought on record. They are living, many of them, in quite pitiful conditions," Prime Minister John Howard told reporters on Tuesday.

"A lot of their hope, and that of their families, is draining away. At a time like this, a wealthy nation can afford to be properly generous to its hardworking farmers."

Howard, who is facing a tough election due within weeks, has announced more than A$1 billion in drought aid in the past fortnight, taking government drought support to more than A$3 billion since 2001.

Howard remains well behind in opinion polls and the drought package, which could be the government's last major announcement before the election, should appease rural concerns that their plight is ignored by Canberra and city dwellers, who are enjoying the benefits of a resources-led economic boom.

The extra drought money includes grants of A$150,000 each to help farmers who want to leave the land.

Farmers had hoped early winter rains marked the end of six years of drought, but low rainfall and high temperatures in August have led to low water inflows into the nation's rivers and forced many farmers to abandon hopes of a return of bumper crops.

The extra drought aid came as Australia's New South Wales state cut its forecast wheat crop by 44 percent to 2.26 million tones.

The private group Australia Wheat Forecasters also said Australia's wheat crop could shrink to as little as 12 million tones -- less than half first forecasts of 26 million tones -- if rain does not fall in the next two weeks.

The government's official forecaster, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, earlier this month slashed its wheat crop forecast by a third, to 15.5 million tones.

Farm groups welcomed the extra funding on Tuesday, saying the money would help protect the country's agricultural base, particularly in the Murray-Darling river basin, where irrigators face no or little water allocations over the coming summer.

"The desperate situation confronting farm families is unprecedented, and becoming more serious by the day in the wake of failed winter rains," National Farmers' Federation president David Crombie said in a statement.

About 150 farmers, government representatives, councils, affected businesses and community groups attended a drought crisis summit in the central New South Wales town of Parkes on Tuesday, where the government announced the assistance package.

The summit agreed that unmanageable debt, accumulated over years, was the biggest issue facing farmers, summit spokeswoman Kristie Down told Reuters.

"Another year of crop failure has just been the tip of the iceberg," she said.

($1 = A$1.15)

    Australia gives more money to drought-hit farmers, R, 25.9.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSSYD15206720070925

Sydney Installs Terror Loudspeakers

August 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:32 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australia's largest city has installed dozens of loudspeakers to tell residents what to do in a terrorist attack, an official announced Wednesday.

The speakers should be operational in time for next month's meeting of 21 world leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, said New South Wales state Police Minister David Campbell.

''If there were a terrorist event or a major building fire and there were people in the streets, this is a way of giving them information,'' Campbell told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

A wailing siren would attract residents' attention, followed by a police announcement directing people to evacuation points plotted around the downtown area.

The move comes just weeks after Sydney's city council urged locals to prepare survival bags -- including maps, first-aid supplies, important documents, spare change and an extra set of keys -- in case of emergency.

Critics accused the council of unnecessarily stoking fear among Sydney residents and ridiculed some of the recommended measures -- such as packing toilet paper and stuffing pet cats into pillow cases for evacuation.

Australia, a close ally of the United States and its global fight against terrorism, has troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Prime Minister John Howard has repeatedly warned that Australia could become the target of a terrorist attack, though there is no intelligence information that one is imminent.

Sydney Installs Terror Loudspeakers, NYT, 1.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Australia-Terror-Loudspeakers.html