Treaty tightens US military ties

AUSTRALIA'S defence co-operation with the US will be significantly upgraded under a new treaty that gives unprecedented access to the latest American military technology and equipment. The deal will provide lucrative opportunities for Australian companies to tap into leading US defence projects, including the $15billion Joint Strike Fighter project. The treaty will also ease restrictions on the purchase of Australian-made defence equipment by the US. The treaty was among several new measures, including more joint training and military exchanges, announced yesterday by John Howard and US President George W.Bush.

The measures usher in a new era of defence co-operation between the two allies, who have already forged closer links in recent years through their shared military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Bush described the new Treaty on Defence Trade Co-operation as an important step for the two countries. "It helps cut through the bureaucracy so that we can transform our forces better, share technology better and, frankly, enable our private sectors to work together to develop new defence capabilities to defend ourselves," he said.

The Prime Minister said the new defence initiatives were a significant enhancement of an already close relationship. He said the treaty would clear the red tape that had previously hampered Australian companies from acquiring US technology. Australia would now enjoy the same privileged access to the US market as British defence companies had.

Mr Howard said other measures included more joint training and operations with US forces. Joint training capability would be enhanced by the provision of additional support for training by US and Australian forces in Australia, and further co-operative efforts to develop access and capabilities for international surveillance and reconnaissance.

He also said Australia and the US would increase co-operation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to better cope with regional disasters such as the 2004 tsunami. This could involve the stationing by the US in Australia of equipment and stores that would be readily available for use in disaster relief in our immediate region, Mr Howard said.

The new defence trade treaty will allow the licence-free export of defence equipment, technology and information between Australia and the US, removing the logjam of delays caused by the slow licensing processes. It would also provide for greater access and sharing of equipment, technology, information and services between the twocountries, a Defence spokesman said.

Raytheon Australia, the country's leading missile systems integrator, said the treaty represented an important step forward insecurity co-operation with theUS. "It is a real plan for real jobs," said Raytheon Australia managing director Ron Fisher. "By giving Australia's emerging defence industry greater autonomy and enabling easier technology transfer, the agreement removes a big roadblock to the growth of jobs."

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Aspirational climate goals needed - APEC

Tokenism is probably the safest electoral strategy at the moment

APEC leaders have agreed to the need for long-term aspirational goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister John Howard said today, but they have not set any specific targets. "(They agreed) the need for a long-term aspirational, global emissions reduction, goal," he said in a statement read to camera.

After the conclusion of the first day of the APEC leaders' summit, Mr Howard released the so-called Sydney Declaration, which also requires all nations to be part of the solution to the global warming problem. "(It also includes) the need for all nations, no matter what their stage of development, to contribute according to their own capacity and their own circumstances to reducing greenhouse gases," Mr Howard said. The third component of the declaration is specific goals for the 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies on energy intensity and forestry, Mr Howard said.

The lack of specific greenhouse reduction targets was widely expected after a draft of the statement was leaked last month. "This is even worse than the low expectations people had because it doesn't even set a long-term aspirational goal, there's no figure like 50 per cent by 2050, or 20 per cent by 2020," Greenpeace's Ben Oquist said.

Mr Howard said the Sydney Declaration emphasised the "relevance of APEC". "It demonstrates that APEC is very much alive and kicking. It does illustrate again the strength in consensus-based diversity and informal meetings and this declaration does transcend a number of international divisions." The declaration affirms the primary importance of the United Nations framework to deal with climate change, a point China's President Hu Jintao indicated was critical to any agreement on the statement.

Mr Howard said APEC would add to the momentum on climate change, particularly a meeting of major economies dealing with the problem in Washington later this month and a UN forum in Bali in December. "The Sydney Declaration ... is very important in the march towards a sensible international agreement on climate change which recognises the need to make progress but also recognises that different economies bring different perspectives to addressing the challenge of climate change," he said.

In the statement, the APEC leaders declared their recognition that "economic growth, energy security and climate change are fundamental and interlinked challenges for the APEC region". "The dynamism of APEC, underpinned by open trade and investment, has reduced poverty, improved living standards and delivered economic and social development," the Sydney Declaration said. "Our success has relied in part on secure supplies of energy, the use of which has also contributed to air quality problems and greenhouse gas emissions. "We are committed, through wide-ranging and ambitious actions, to ensuring the energy needs of the economies of the region while addressing the issue of environmental quality and contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."

Mr Howard said it was a major international challenge to meet energy needs and development priorities while at the same time addressing the problem of climate change. "In the Sydney Declaration, the leaders have moved to forge a new international consensus," he said. "We are serious about addressing, in a sensible way compatible with our different economic needs, the great challenge of climate change. "Each of us comes to the APEC table with different perspectives, reflecting both our diversity and strengths. "And yet in the Sydney Declaration we have agreed on three very important and quite specific things."

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More encouragement to have babies?

HISTORIC legislation will be introduced to the Senate this week that aims to make all working women eligible for 14 weeks' Government-funded maternity leave at the minimum wage. Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, the Australian Democrats' spokeswoman on the status of women, will introduce the Private Senator's Bill on Thursday.

She said a national scheme of paid maternity leave was long overdue. "Australia lags miserably behind the rest of the world. We are one of only two OECD nations, along with the United States, that don't provide it," she said. "There's been a clear lack of political will on both sides of politics, and a continual under-estimation of the needs of working women in this country. "The fact we have a gender pay gap as bad as it was in 1978 suggests to me that women and work issues have fallen off the agenda."

Senator Stott Despoja, who became a mother in 2004 to Conrad Stott Smith, said this was a serious election issue. "We need to hear from Labor and the Coalition about what they will do for working women generally, and their commitment to paid maternity leave." Only about a third of working women receive paid leave.

A Newspoll survey in June found more than 75 per cent of Australians supported a national paid maternity leave scheme. The Workplace Relations (Guaranteeing Paid Maternity Leave) Amendment Bill 2007 updates Senator Stott Despoja's 2002 Private Senator's Bill for paid maternity leave, to reflect changes to the Workplace Relations Act.

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Don't have an accident on the weekend

MATTHEW Lawson was a code one patient who died at the scene of his accident near the Gold Coast. Despite his urgent need for medical treatment, it took ambulance officers 25 minutes to reach the father of two young daughters. Records obtained under Freedom of Information laws also reveal ambulance officers pressed the "on-scene button" more than five minutes before they actually arrived, a practice the Queensland Ambulance Service Commissioner has vehemently denied is used to falsify response-time records.

As concern continues to build about the state of our ambulance service, Mr Lawson's family desperately wants to know whether he could have been saved if medical treatment had been delivered sooner. Mr Lawson, 35, of Ormeau Hills, died about an hour after his motorbike collided with a car on August 26 last year at Ormeau, just a few minutes away from the closest ambulance station.

An ambulance spokeswoman said that station was closed on the weekends and the nearest operating station was about 10km away at Beenleigh. "At the time of the call, ambulance teams in the area were responding to a number of life-threatening cases, including two patients with chest pain and a patient with breathing problems," she said. Mr Lawson's family said they were told by a Queensland Health official that he might have been saved if medical help had arrived sooner because he most probably bled to death from his multiple fractures.

A coroner is investigating his death. An autopsy found he died of "multiple injuries due to a motorcycle accident". Mr Lawson's sister, Michelle Lawson, said the QAS was endangering lives with its lengthy response times. "It's just not fair. Matthew bled to death on the side of the road and I feel that the ambulance service and the Government as a whole are responsible for his death.," she said. "I think if the ambulance did get there within a certain time frame he probably could have survived."

Ambulance records show the first officers reached the scene at 6.19pm but treatment did not begin until 6.26pm after a second crew arrived. A statement from QAS said the time recording of 6.19pm was a mistake. "The Woodridge unit pressed the on-scene button at 6.19pm when adjacent to the incident but the crew then realised that they were unable to cross the Pacific Motorway at that location and had to proceed down the motorway to an exit and return along the service road to the incident," the statement said. The service also lost an electrocardiogram strip the family had requested.

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