What Australian newspapers say Thursday, Feb 19, 2009

AAP General News (Australia)
02-19-2009
What Australian newspapers say Thursday, Feb 19, 2009

SYDNEY, Feb 19 AAP - The board of mining giant Rio Tinto is ignoring the national
interest," says The Australian in its main editorial on Thursday.

The paper says it is hard to tell whether the board is arrogant or inept.

"The company is based in London and run by a largely British board with little experience
of Australian mining," says The Australian.

Despite this, projects in Australia produce much of its revenue.

"Now, after rejecting a generous bid from BHP Billiton last year, the board wants (Treasurer)
Wayne Swan to approve a $30.5billion partnership between their company and state-controlled
Chinese business Chinalco, which already owns nine per cent of Rio," says the paper.

In case the Treasurer dares defy the board, Rio is warning that nearly 3000 existing
and planned jobs will go if Chinalco cannot kick capital into the struggling miner. And
- what a surprise - all but 100 of these jobs are in Mr Swan and Kevin Rudd's home state
of Queensland, where the local Labor Government is in election mode.

But this is not the end of the Rio board's bare-faced bullying, says The Australian.

In demanding approval for the Chinalco deal, Rio board members expect shareholders
and Australian citizens to save them from the consequences of their own errors.

The Sydney Morning Herald's main editorial says former federal treasurer Peter Costello
has provided pertinent background to the decision facing his successor, Wayne Swan, about
the proposed increased investment by Chinalco in Rio Tinto. Thanks to Rio Tinto's dual
listing in Australia and Britain, says the Herald, this will land on Mr Swan's desk for
approval via Treasury's Foreign Investment Review Board.

Mr Costello notes the board's bias is towards approving new foreign investments.

In 2001, when he knocked back Royal Dutch-Shell's proposal to take out its Australian
partner in the Northwest Shelf, Woodside Petroleum - which the board had recommended -
Mr Costello could find no precedent for refusal.

He details how the 1995 merger of the Australian subsidiary Conzinc Riotinto Australia
with its British parent, Rio Tinto, approved without conditions by the Keating government,
resulted in a shift of management and ancillary services to London.



Australians have learned a great deal in the wake of Victoria's horrific bushfires,
says the Sydney Daily Telegraph's main editorial.

"Particularly," says the paper. " we have learned to what extent local and state governments
are now reluctant to clear excess trees in fire-prone areas.

"Where extensive hazard reduction burns were once commonplace, attitude shifts among
councils and governments now either block such burning or place bureaucratic barriers
in its way," says the Telegraph.

Some Victorian councils even fined property owners for clearing trees on their own land.

Yet in at least one case, a house survived where others did not due in part to clearing
efforts that resulted in a $50,000 fine.

"Now we find NSW is also beholden to a trees-first mentality, with fire brigades sometimes
requiring a year for hazard-reduction approval and land owners told they can't clear escape
paths due to the primary needs of wildlife," says the Telegraph.

"Enough," says the Telegraph.

"The time is right for a change of priorities.

" Where there is a conflict between the protection of people and nature, the interests
of people must prevail.

"This is not to say nature can be despoiled without limit, but in cases where human
safety is jeopardised, the trees go first."



The Melbourne Age's lead editorial says a man charged with lighting the deadly Churchill-Jeeralang
bushfire in Victoria deserves a fair trial .

Brendan Sokaluk faces up to 25 years in jail - the equivalent of the maximum penalty
for murder - if found guilty of lighting the fire, which has killed 10 people, the editorial
says.

But his chances of a fair trial are narrowing, after a photograph of him appeared on
internet social networking site Facebook along with calls for him to be tortured and killed,
it said.

"It is no surprise that anyone accused of lighting a fire in which people died should
become a target of anger and outrage. All the more important, then, that Sokaluk should
receive a fair trial with the presumption of innocence," it says.



Melbourne's The Herald Sun's main editorial says Sydney Morning Herald economics writer
Ross Gittins should apologise for a column he has written about the Victorian bushfires.

In it, Gittins says Australians "enjoy a good natural disaster" as a form of entertainment
and mocks the sincerity of politicians expressing sorrow.

Mr Gittins is "an example of someone out of touch and labouring under dangerous misconceptions",
the Melbourne Sun editorial says.

"But while Ross Gittins and The Sydney Morning Herald have demeaned a magnificent response
to the fires, this newspaper wholeheartedly applauds the help the community has given.

"The bushfires will remain forever in the minds of those who have lost loved ones and
others who are still to find the remains of their families amid the ashes of Marysville
and Kinglake.

"In other circumstances, we would dismiss his ill-conceived opinions but they are an
insult to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have given so generously to the
bushfire appeal.



On a lighter note, Brisbane's The Courier Mail says summers will be missing something
special when Richie Benaud retires from the cricket commentary team of Channel 9.

Benaud has been a leading voice of cricket since he captained Australia 50 years ago.

His knowledge of the game and his skill at describing its nuances are outstanding, says
the Courier.

"Add to this his distinctive phrasing and you take away an essential character of the
game that, like all professional sports, is becoming stage managed to blandness. Happy
retirement Richie. We sure will miss you."

AAP it/

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

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