The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 16

THE A TALEW REACHES gS in UNDAY 1 Come Perkin on Portsea AGE Matt Condon onfalm Beach QUIZ: WIN $400 WORTH OF BOOKS AGENDA 2 SUNDAY LIFE! isms 2 JANUARY 2000 WA'J'i' WJHW I U.IJI l.NIIJMl Villi A blue that lost Libs the election Church abandons gay cure group By MARTIN DALY By GEOFF STRONG 7 ft The portable cabin stands empty now, surrounded by earthmoving equipment and a high wire fence. A speck in the Gippsland bush, it seems an unlikely site for a discovery that set off a chain reaction culminating in the downfall of the Kennett Government. Inside this building two years ago, a young scientist noticed some bright blue material on one of his instruments. It was a clear indication that something might be seriously wrong with one of Victoria's most treasured natural assets, the Gippsland Lakes. In 1997, David Padula, a recent graduate of Monash University, had been hired to provide an extra check on just how much phosphorus, a nutrient Continued NEWS 3 An Idyllic scene belles phosphorus contamination In the Gippsland Lakes.

The problem was discovered by a scientist working in the portable site (right) at Cowwarr. wccdfIsbf sot fire By CHRISTOPHER KREMMER NEW DELHI and TREVOR MARSHALLSEA New life for aid man as hijack victims go home The Melbourne affiliate of an American religious group that teaches that homosexuals can be changed into heterosexuals has severed links with the parent body because of the latter's strong emphasis on reversing sexual orientations. The South Melbourne Restoration Community has amicably severed its ties to the US group Exodus International, which it has represented in Australia for eight years. The main reason behind the split is the church's belief that God would prefer Christians to take care of the poor and the downtrodden rather than try to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals. Exodus is the Protestant equivalent of the US-based organisation Catholic Courage.

Both organisations have international branches and a presence in Australia. Both are often criticised for claiming that gays and lesbians can be turned towards heterosexuality and marriage through a program of prayer and therapy. The American Psychological Association says there is considerable evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, plays a significant role in determining a person's sexuality. It also argues that sexual orientation cannot be changed through therapy. Catholic Courage has cited Exodus as an organisation doing God's work.

Ho.wever, critics describe both organisations as extremist and as holding views that are contrary to science and that punish homosexuals. The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne recently issued a pamphlet to the 300 priests of the diocese telling them that Courage "enjoys the blessing" of the Archbishop, George Pell. The reaction to the Pell pamphlet, as revealed in The Sunday Ageast week, was widespread and sometimes angry, notably in relation to the sexual-change theories and the teaching by Courage that homosexuals are "disordered" and as "sick as their Supporters responded that Courage was run by loving people who want only to help persuade Catholic homosexuals to live a celibate life, not to pressure them to change sexual orientation. But the decision by the Restoration Community to split from Exodus is seen also as a reflection on Catholic Courage because of their mutual support for change through prayer, group support and therapy. The head of the Sydney branch of Courage, Ms Lynn Ryan, told The Sunday Age that the links' between the organisations were such that Courage had referred homosexuals to Exodus for help.

The Restoration Community which is part of mainstream Protestant group the Churches of Christ was founded in South Melbourne 10 years ago to provide a place within the Christian fraternity for gay men and women, drug takers, sex workers and others who felt mainline Christian churches did not provide for them. The church works with homosexuals who want to be -celibate and helps teach members of, other churches to work against homophobia and to embrace people who are different. That work is to continue. But while it subscribes to many of the philosophies and theologies of Exodus, the Restoration Community became concerned by some of the group's extremes, notably its right-wing politics. Left: Peter Ward walks unassisted to freedom after the hijack ordeal.

Picture: AP Kandahar. It was not known when the hijacker was killed or why, but officials said his body was found in the cockpit. The hijackers, who seized the plane on a flight from Nepal to New Delhi, also had fatally stabbed a newly married man for removing his blindfold last weekend. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said the hijackers and freed militants had left the country, but it did not know their whereabouts, a Pakistan-based Afghan news service reported. "Those people (hijackers and militants) are no more in Afghanistan," a Taliban official told the Afghan Islamic Press.

The militants who included Maulana Massood Azhar, a senior leader of the oudawed terrorist group Harakat-ul Mujahideen, based in Pakistan had been flown to Kandahar with India's Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, who oversaw the prisoner exchange. with AGENCIES. Yugoslavian CARE Australia worker Branko Jelen will migrate to Australia and settle here with his family after his release from prison. Mr Jelen was set free late on Friday his wedding anniversary ending a nine-month ordeal. He was jailed with Australians Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace on espionage charges in March.

The two Australians were released in September. Mr Jelen was greeted by his wife, Nadja, and their primary school-aged son and daughter after being granted clemency by the Yugoslavian President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic. "He walked out and just put his arms around his wife and children and held them for a long time. It was a very beautiful sight," said Aus- tralia's ambassador to Yugoslavia, Mr Chris Lamb. "It's wonderful just fantastic," Mr Jelen, 34, told Mr Lamb as he left Pozarevac prison, 70 kilometres east of Belgrade.

The family was expected to leave Yugoslavia almost immediately and fly to Canberra. The new millennium also brought freedom to the hostages in the Indian Airlines hijacking. Amid whoops of joy and a shower of bouquets, Australian Peter Ward was among 160 exhausted hostages who landed at New Delhi late on New Year's Eve, after an eight-day ordeal starting when the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked on Christmas Eve and forced to fly to Kandahar in Afghanistan. Mr Ward, 36, a banker, formerly of Melbourne, looked tired as he walked unaided from the plane into scenes of chaotic jubilation at-New Delhi airport. He was met by Australian officials and his wife, Anthea.

The officials spirited Mr Ward away to shield him from the hysteria, but the Australian consul, Mr David Poulter, said Mr Ward's condition was excellent. Another freed hostage, Ms Ginette Macharel, of Switzerland, said she had spoken with Mr Ward through the ordeal. "Peter was very cool and calm throughout the hijacking and after the first few days, when we were allowed to speak more freely, he was a great support," Ms Macharel said. The hostages were freed after the Indian Government partially agreed to the demands of the hijackers and released three Islamic militants held in its jails. Freed passengers said" they had been subjected to violence and threats and had been poorly fed during their ordeal.

"They are killers and murd- erers, said Sanjeev Chhabra. Prashant Khandelwarkar said the captors were "nice to the ladies but were cruel to the "They beat us up," he said, and were "on the verge of killing us" before the deal was reached. In a final twist to the drama, it was disclosed that the hijackers had killed one of their number and left the body in the Airbus 300 at One victim tells his story Hi' Garrie Hutchinson, right, is all too familiar with the terror of a hijacking. He tells his story. SDOQOMIESMJE takes a few hours for the toilets to clog, and a few minutes for a child to throw up.

Inshallah, by the time you read this Peter will be free. You don't get to choose your hijackers. My hijackers were a little naive, even crazy, and were undoubtedly impressed by promises of a chat with Colonel Gaddafi, of Libya, and perhaps also with President Mubarak, of Egypt. As I sat in the EgyptAir airbus in Libya three years ago, puzzling over which bunch of Islamists had hijacked the plane and why, I remembered what happened to the English hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s, when the Thatcher Government sacrificed a couple of citizens in the name of not giving into terrorism. I Continued NEWS 2 Ti On Christmas rl Day 1 heard JksUBBriliJ that an Australian, Peter Ward, was among the passengers aboard the hijacked Air India IC-814, Katmandu to New Delhi, as routine as any flight in the world.

My heart sank at the news and my mind flew back to March 1996 when I was the lone Australian aboard another routine flight, EgyptAir MS-104, Luxor to Cairo. Like Peter, I became a hijackee. My hijack experience was measured in interminable hours, not in Peter's endless days, but all of us aboard knew that it only takes a fraction of a second for a bomb to explode. I am thinking of Peter now, in the first few hours of the hijack, blindfolded, as the plane was shuffled from India to Pakistan to the care of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I wonder what he saw.

Did he watch as the poor soul was stabbed to death? Did he see the eyes of the dead man's wife as she was cruelly kept on board while a lucky few were allowed out? I feel for Peter freezing in the vomltorium that the aircraft would have become, in the dark of the night at Kandahar, circled by a few lights and Taliban fighters with grenade launchers on their backs, and a bunch of fanatical thugs patrolling the putrid aisles, the smell of fear and resignation mingling with sweat and piss. Peter has been inside the tube for six days, as I write. It only Continued NEWS 4 EES3 Tattstotto 2 Melbourne todav! pjl 16 Fine. AswMemrto 'Agenda' Max: 2S TV '''''iv'magairi'ne' Victoria today: Generally fine. Today's MUST read: I.

would like to finish my life as I started it on the warm sand beside the Portsea pier, semi-nude, swigging from a bottle. A Tate of Two Beaches wtth Corrie Perkin and Matt Condon -AGENDA 1 Which century? The dtftat countdown on tho Intonwt alto for Defence Y2K Projod Offico for tho rM.itiB.fan Defence OrEvAceon seM yesftentay mocnlnCt New Yeert Dftft tftet there were 366 oeye 14 hours, 11 maw and 10 CIIO! 771034 "102008 aconrJa urrtl Via yaar 2000. Monday; Late change, 27 Tuesday: Becoming fine, 19 Vnesdayj'iFlne, 20 Detalto! page 15 htm..