Bosses "on wrong path" in talent war

Full article from The Courier Mail http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,12514093%255E1702,00.html
By Kate Southam
11mar05

AUSTRALIAN organisations need to become better communicators, provide clearer career paths and create truly flexible work practices if they hope to counter the impact of the growing skills shortage.This was the message presented today by a range of experts to the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association 2005 Workforce Symposium on productivity.

The views of an academic and economist, management and human resources experts and recruitment consultants echoed one another in their warning to Australian organisations that they were already locked in a global battle for workers.

The experts urged employers to show more imagination in creating workplaces and work practices that reflected what employees actually wanted.

PM bucks World with Tax hIkes

From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
Full Story at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12497889%255E601,00.html
David Uren, Economics correspondent
March 10, 2005

JOHN Howard and Peter Costello have markedly increased the tax burden on Australians over the past eight years, in striking contrast to the sustained period of tax relief enjoyed by taxpayers in most nations around the world.
The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, one of the world's leading economic policy organisations, has found Australia stands almost alone in raising taxes over the past eight years – a period in which most other developed countries have been cutting. Iceland is the only other nation to buck the trend.

Putting further pressure on the Howard Government to pursue more taxation reform, the OECD annual review of the way countries tax wages shows that the poorest people in Australia have suffered the biggest average tax increases.

Senate probe on Iraq interrogations

From http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,12484781%255E1702,00.html
By Max Blenkin and Paul Osborne
08mar05

AUSTRALIAN involvement in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners will come under Senate scrutiny after Labor and the minor parties today voted to force an inquiry.The inquiry, to be conducted by the Senate foreign affairs, defence and trade references committee, would also examine whether reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were censored.

The Opposition, Australian Democrats and Australian Greens joined forces to ram through an inquiry against strong government objections, using their combined majority before the Government gains control of the Senate on July 1.

The committee must report back to the Senate by June 21.
A key witness is likely to be former defence official Rod Barton, an Australian member of the US-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) which had the job of tracking down the country's WMD programs.
It was his revelations on the ABC Four Corners program in February that he personally interrogated Iraqi prisoners that reignited the interrogation issue.
His claims directly contradicted Defence Minister Robert Hill who told parliament in June last year Australians had no role in interrogating prisoners.

The issue was extensively canvassed at Senate estimates hearings in February with the government sticking to a line that Australians attached to ISG were specifically barred from involvement in interrogations and what occurred were interviews.
The committee will examine:
whether any Australian played any role in interrogating or interviewing Iraqi detainees;
whether any knowledge of that reached the government or agencies and what they did about it;
whether ISG was able to report frankly and fearlessly without censorship; and
whether any Australian personnel gave information about their concerns to any part of the government.Labor Senate leader Chris Evans said the Government had been misleading the Australian public for nearly a year.

"Successive estimates hearings have shed more and more light on the affair but its time the Australian people got the full story," he said.
Greens Senator Bob Brown said the inquiry was needed to sort out conflicting accounts of Australia's role in interrogations in Iraq.

Beijing's ANZUS warning

From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12475488%255E601,00.html
John Kerin
March 08, 2005

CHINA is demanding that the Howard Government review its 50-year-old military pact with the US, warning that the ANZUS alliance could threaten regional stability if Australia were drawn into Sino-US conflict over Taiwan.Under the ANZUS alliance, Australia is obliged to support the US should China resort to force to resolve its long-running dispute with Taiwan.
But a top Chinese official - Beijing's director-general of North American and Oceanian Affairs, He Yafei - told The Australian that Australia and the US needed to be careful not to invoke the ANZUS alliance against China.
"We all know Taiwan is part of China, and we do not want to see in any way the Taiwan issue become one of the elements that will be taken up by bilateral military alliances, be it Australia-US or Japan-US," he said.

"If there were any move by Australia and the US in terms of that alliance (ANZUS) that is detrimental to peace and stability in Asia, then it (Australia) has to be very careful."
Asked if he were referring to Taiwan, Mr He said "especially so". "It (Taiwan) is our internal affair."