What Australian newspaper say Monday, Dec 8, 2003

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-2003
What Australian newspaper say Monday, Dec 8, 2003

SYDNEY, Dec 8 AAP - Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett's assault on Liberals Senator
Jeannie Ferris on Thursday night climaxes what have been a horrible two years for the
Australian Democrats, The Australian says in its editorial today.

The defection of Meg Lees, the undermining of Natasha Stott Despoja and the attempted
silencing of Andrew Murray have all reinforced the impression that the Dems are capable
of bastardry on at least the scale of those they are supposed to be keeping honest.

As the passage of the government's higher education reforms showed, the presence of
Senator Lees alongside the other three independents has given the government a new circuit-breaker
in the Senate, further reducing the relevance of the Democrats.

It is not surprising, then, that the party is languishing at about 2 per cent in recent
Newspolls.

Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says Senator Bartlett committed a more fundamental offence
on Thursday, one which would cost any other Australian worker their job.

He was drunk at work, drunk on the floor of parliament, drunk when the Senate was
debating higher education reforms, which have an immense impact on millions of Australians.

The job of elected politicians is to listen to these debates, to craft and put a position,
to think about amendments, to strive towards the passage of a workable bill.

For Senator Bartlett to be three sheets to the wind when his party should have been
100 per cent focused on the debate should rule him out for continued leadership of this
damaged outfit.

The senator should not only be gone as Democrats leader but be gone from the parliament
he has shamed.

Melbourne's Herald Sun says Senator Bartlett's drunken outburst was unforgivable, and
enormously damaging to the party.

The display was unworthy of an MP, let alone a party leader. The episode was squalid,
the act of a rough-handed bully.

While the former rugby player has vocally campaigned against violence to women, in
abusing Senator Ferris, his sodden actions speak louder.

His apology does not excuse the act. Nor does the tacky peace offering of wine.

Adelaide's The Advertiser says Senator Bartlett must not just step aside. He must step down.

His unacceptable behaviour on the floor of the nation's Senate, regardless of his apology,
has made his position untenable.

His manhandling of Senator Ferris would not be tolerated in the workplaces of the Australian
people he represents.

The magnitude of his behaviour is amplified by the fact that it happened in a place
where higher standards of behaviour are expected, even beyond that of most workplaces.

After senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle's heckling of US President George W Bush
during his parliamentary address in October, an outraged Senator Bartlett said their behaviour
showed "a disregard and contempt for the Australian Parliament".

Exactly. Australians are entitled to expect more from its politicians than the senator's
misbehaviour.

Melbourne's The Age says the government has yet to demonstrate why Australia needs
to join the $100 billion Son of Star Wars program.

It may be as concerned by the threat posed by the new Opposition Leader as it is by
aggressive acts of unnamed rogue states.

By declaring its intention to join the US missile defence program so soon after Mr
Latham's narrow victory in the party room, the government has thrown him a significant
diplomatic and policy challenge.

The Australian Financial Review says Mark Latham's modern Labor principles are a gulf
away from Labor's actual policies.

The Opposition Leader's ideas are sure to be fiercely resisted by the unions and the Left.

Labor's conservatives hope against hope that Mr Latham surrenders many of his ideas
in the interests of party unity and winning government.

But his approach is rooted in the moral obligations of civil society, which sounds
more appealing than the rights-without-duties culture.

If Labor as a whole embraces this, it will become a much more formidable foe for the
Howard government.

The Sydney Morning Herald says there has been talk of action against get-rick-quick
promoters for years, yet governments have sat on their hands and plenty are still in business.

The commonwealth and the states agreed three months ago to get their act together,
yet no plan of action

for an effective national regulatory regime is expected before March.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have signed up to schemes that promise to make
them millionaires.

Whether naive and greedy or merely aspirational, they deserve better from government watchdogs.

AAP rs

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

2003 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.