Turnbull goes to Perth while football comes to Washington

For the Love of Footy – Once Playing to Party, Team Now Rallies Around Wins – It was a story about the bonds that come from running around on a field hitting people and then hitting the bars. It was about a little Australian rules football and a whole lot of beer. Because for the first eight years of its existence, that is what the Baltimore Washington Eagles Australian Rules Football Club was all about. Until the young men discovered how much more they liked to win in a physically demanding game that is similar to rugby, but faster paced and with a different scoring system – Washington Post

THE FRONT PAGES

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Australia

Leadership

Coalition ‘will accept’ ETS changes – Turnbull has declared his Coalition colleagues will accept his proposed amendments to the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme and dismissed suggestions he could lose his leadership at a special party meeting on Sunday week – The Australian

The Liberal ship is surely sinking – Malcolm Turnbull’s hold on the Liberal leadership has been rocked by polling conducted by his own party tipping an election massacre – Sydney Daily Telegraph

Turnbull faces down enemies – Malcolm Turnbull has defied leadership threats and will fly to Perth this weekend to argue his case on climate change directly with the hostile West Australian division of the Liberal Party – Sydney Morning Herald

Economic matters

Jobless fall forces rethink by RBA and Kevin Rudd – A shock drop in the number of unemployed last month will force a radical review of the economic outlook by the Reserve Bank and the government and increases the chance of a 50-basis-point loan rate rise on Melbourne Cup day – The Australian

Jobs picture shows sickest state on the mend – NSW, long derided as Australia’s sickest state, is staging an economic comeback with a revival in the finance and construction industries in the state delivering a big fall in the number of jobless. For the first time in five years, NSW has a lower unemployment rate than either of the two resource states, Western Australia and Queensland – The Australian

Queensland, the unemployment capital – Queensland has earned the unwanted title of Australia’s unemployment capital, recording the nation’s highest jobless rate and throwing Anna Bligh’s pledge to create 100,000 new jobs this term into turmoil – Brisbane Courier Mail

Garnaut warns PM on stimulus – The doyen of Labor economics advisers, Ross Garnaut, has warned that Kevin Rudd’s attacks on neo-liberalism risk an expansion of government that could damage the economy and even erode Australia’s democratic values. And he warns that, by further fuelling excess spending, the Rudd government’s budget stimulus will have to be followed by “hard times” and lower living standards that the government has “barely begun to contemplate” – The Australian

Interest rates on upward spiral as economy heats – Financial markets predict the Reserve Bank will deliver two more interest rate rises before Christmas, after an unexpectedly strong rise in jobs in September suggested the economy is picking up speed – Melbourne Age

Big four banks act fast to lift rates – The Australian

Human rights charter

Battle looming on human rights as committee backs new act, role for courts – Battle lines were drawn yesterday for a fierce political debate after the government’s hand-picked committee said Australia should adopt a charter of human rights and give the High Court power to declare laws incompatible – The Australian

Law and order

$240,000 green grant from State Government to underworld Mr Big – A company started by a businessman connected to an underworld Mr Big has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the State Government – Melbourne Herald Sun

Prostitution

Sex work reform on agenda – Prostitution law reform will be back on the agenda after the next state election with at least two members of Parliament considering introducing legislation following next year’s poll if they are returned – Adelaide Advertiser

Property development

Labor lobbyist emerges as $60m developer – The Labor figure revealed as a key lobbyist to the NSW Planning Department, former federal minister Gary Punch, is applying as a developer to a Government-appointed planning panel to build a $60 million project – Sydney Morning Herald

Opinions

No one’s fooled by false levity – Michelle Grattan reaches the conclusion that when dissident Liberals have kicked the leader almost to death, he’s not going to be able to pick himself up and stage a credible election fight; especially when a substantial proportion of his troops dislike and distrust him – Melbourne Age

Brilliant but not made for politics – Christian Kerr in The Australian recalls Malcolm Turnbull was embarrassed back in August when Bob Hawke claimed the Liberal leader told him as his hopes for a republic slid beneath the waves on referendum night in 1999: “Bob, the only thing I can do now is join the Labor Party.” Turnbull, of course, never followed through. That could have added insult to the injury of the republic’s defeat. But it may have saved him from a looming catastrophe.

Besieged leader losing traction – Dennis Shanahan in The Australian says Malcolm Turnbull has spent the past 10 days under siege over his leadership and the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme. Yesterday the Liberal leader tried to get back on to less treacherous ground and attacked Labor over economic management and the handling of the stimulus spending to combat the global financial crisis.

Indigenous intervention a costly flop – Alastair Nicholson writes in the Melbourne Age how the advent of the Rudd Government brought new hope to those who would advance the position of indigenous people. It indicated that it proposed to support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Unaccountably, however, progress seemed to slow thereafter. The intervention was not abandoned, although several of its aspects were alleviated. It has proven to be a costly failure in achieving the object of protecting indigenous children. The plight of indigenous adults and children remains serious, despite countless reports and other interventions.

Elsewhere

Political life

Furore over minister’s sex with brothel boys – It was a bestseller, critically acclaimed and widely read. Now, four years after publication, the memoir by the French Culture Minister, Frederic Mitterrand, has sparked a national storm after a political opponent read extracts on national TV describing sex with boys in a Bangkok brothel – Sydney Morning Herald

BUSINESS

Packer in dumps as family money mountain slipped – James Packer’s retreat from public life this year is a sign of the emotional impact of losing part of the wealth he inherited from his late father, Kerry, says a new book on one of Australia’s most powerful businessmen – Melbourne Age

Bank scrooges – don’t spoil Christmas – Retaiol groups have warned Australia’s banks to hold steady on interest rates, saying increases could ruin the peak Christmas trading period for business – Adelaide Advertiser

ENVIRONMENT

Turnbull’s climate change – Michelle Grattan in the Melbourne Age writes that the prospects of Australia passing emissions trading legislation this year have dived, as Malcolm Turnbull prepares to yield to pressure from his Coalition critics to take a tougher line.

Evacuation alert raised – Expecting more destruction from nonstop rains spawned by persistent Tropical Depression “Pepeng,” weather officials on Thursday advised the immediate evacuation of people living near major river basins in Nueva Ecija, Isabela and Pangasinan – Philippine Daily Inquirer

Sydney’s $1b rubbish bin – Sydney households throw out more than $600 million worth of fresh produce every year – and that does not include leftovers, which account for another $182 million in the bin, university research has found – Sydney Morning Herald

MEDIA

Packer explodes over Seven’s knocking – Two of the Nine Network’s former heavyweight bosses – James Packer and David Leckie – clashed in a feisty public exchange at a birthday party at the Opera House yesterday – Sydney Daily Telegraph

International version of Kindle out for Christmas – Amazon will release an international version of its popular Kindle e-book reader, pitting the company against a growing number of competitors for the Christmas season – The Australian

Channel Nine apologises for Hey, Hey it’s Saturday blackface Michael Jackson sketch – Melbourne Herald Sun

69% of record nationwide response to poll on Hey Hey, It’s Saturday ‘blackface’ skit says the clip was neither racist nor tasteless – Melbourne Herald Sun

LIFE

The punt

Sports gambling a game breaker – A big match-fixing scandal will rock Australian sport within five years, an author probing organised crime in sport says – Melbourne Age

Religion

Anguish and absolution – Father Raymond J. de Souza writes in the Canadian National Post that while a reported accusation of child pornography in 1989 apparently did not get followed up, today, that would not happen. Today, parish volunteers — yes, including the pious church ladies of impeccable character — are subject to police background checks. I have had to demonstrate that I am not an abuser, criminal or miscreant in a half-dozen jurisdictions in the last few years. A routine part of being a priest today is demonstrating that you are not a pedophile; it’s not the state that asks that, it’s the Church.

Muslim group calls for burka ban in Canada – A Canadian Muslim group is calling on Ottawa to ban the wearing of the burka in public, saying the argument that the right to wear it is protected by the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion is false – Canadian National Post

Conrad Black: Why I became a Catholic – Canadian National Post

Food

Watchdog cries fowl over bugs – Up to three-quarters of fresh chickens sold in Australia carry bugs that cause food poisoning. The nation’s food watchdog has confirmed the bacteria campylobacter is rampant in raw poultry– Melbourne Herald Sun

Public hospitals

Public hospitals not failing, just starved of funds: Deeble – Public hospitals have performed ”extremely well” in recent years despite repeated claims of mismanagement and failure, the Medicare pioneer, John Deeble, has declared in an analysis that will confound doomsayers of the public system – Sydney Morning Herald

Unmonitored patient left to die – A young mother at risk of sudden death from a brain cyst was left without a heart monitor for 20 hours before going into cardiac arrest at Westmead Hospital – Sydney Morning Herald