The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 2

2 The Sydney Morning Herald Wednesday, July 4, 1990 Couple's 'insatiable sexual appetites' lead to murder sentence because he had drunk his "usual sleeping draught" of two litres of riesling and two large bottles of beer and taken nine Sera pax tablets the night before, he had told Ms Virag that he was incapable of having sex with her and pushed her away as she undressed before him. McLeod said that she persisted and massaged him so he was able to get an erection but they had not had sex. Acting Justice Lusher said he did not believe McLeod because McLeod's semen was found inside the dead woman's vagina. McLeod had further said Ms Virag had from under his coat and fired at her, said the judge. She was shot in the mouth, neck and buttock and suffered partial loss of hearing.

McLeod, now divorced, then served about four years of a 12-year sentence for malicious wounding. As to what happened on July 19, the judge added, McLeod had given two versions. In his record of interview with police, he had said be had gone berserk after Ms Virag asked him for $100 because she had never asked him for money for sex before. In court, he had told the jury that told him he was lucky because, when she worked in the brothel, she had charged $100 for the kind of sex act they had just performed. The judge went on to recall that McLeod had first said the only reason he struck Ms Virag was because she asked for money, then said it was out of rage, claiming it was the culmination of six months of anger, mainly because of a row between them over his washing and other matters.

The judge said he did not believe McLeod had drunk as much as he had said or taken the Sera pax because, when his blood was tested by police, no trace of alcohol or drugs was found. "For some reason he struck (Ms Virag over the head and killed her, being fully aware of what he was doing," said the judge. According to McLeod, the judge continued, he had left the terrace house in Flinders Street which was, divided into bedsits, returned an hour or two later and saw Ms Virag's de facto husband. McLeod had told the de facto he had not seen Ms Virag but had told the police about the body the next day. He said McLeod's attitude to Ms Virag puzzled him "the prisoner doesn't have a good word to say for the deceased other than in their sexual The judge said that although the pair had been having sex regularly for 12 months and had insatiable sexual appetites, McLeod had described Ms Virag as being the girlfriend of Ma few of us in the building and said she was a former brothel worker.

It was the second time McLeod bad unleashed violence against his women. In 1974, while chatting to his wife in the street about children, he pulled a shotgun By JANET FIFE-YEOMANS George McLeod and his lover, Heidi Virag, had what a judge has called insatiable sexual appetites. At noon on July 19 last year, McLeod, 50, heard the familiar knock on the door of his Darlinghurst bedsit as Ms Virag, 46, arrived as usual on pension day. This time their routine afternoon of sex was to end in murder. After Ms Virag demanded $100 for.

her services, McLeod bashed her to death with an iron bar. In the Supreme Court yesterday, Acting Justice Lusher sentenced McLeod, an invalid pensioner, to life in jail. PM settles for reprimand. Unions taking new look at privatisation HAYICE'S GROWING CHORUS OF CRITICS WITH INSIDE KNOWLEDGE 4 Chinese students to get refunds By MICHAEL MILLETT CANBERRA: The Federal Government will pay out up to $40 million in refunds to Chinese students who paid for English language courses but were denied entry visas to Australia. Federal Cabinet has approved measures to help the students, many of whom have lost up to $6,000 because of the Government's decision last year to tighten regulations covering its overseas students program.

While the Government hopes to recoup the money from private colleges who had enrolled the students, the taxpayer will still end up paying some of the bill. This is because many of the institutions have since folded, their operators unable to survive a sharp drop in enrolments caused by the Government crackdown. Cabinet's, decision followed strong lobbying from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Evans. He argued that Australia's reputation was being tarnished by the refusal of the institutions to repay the students. About 16,000 applicants, the bulk of them Chinese, were owed refunds as a result of the crackdown last August.

Although the students had advanced tuition fees and living expenses in line with the Government's regulations, they were refused visas by Immigration officials, who feared they would use the system to avoid immigration procedures. The Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Mr Dawkins, said yesterday that while 1 1,000 students had received refunds over the past six months, "a number of institutions have failed to honour their debts to the remaining 5,000 The Government will guarantee remaining refunds either through loan arrangements for institutions or by direct payments to students. Mr Dawkins said the cost was "impossible to predict at the "It may be that we have to advance a maximum of $30 million but we can expect to recoup that from the institutions over the next year or maybe a little more than a year," he said. Jet I 'SgO 'v y'f I By MILTON COCKBURN Political Correspondent CANBERRA: The Prime Minister said yesterday that Dr David Charles, the senior public servant who publicly criticised Government economic policies, would have had his overseas appointment revoked if there had not been compelling personal circumstances. Mr Hawke made his decision after considering a report on Dr Charles's comments by his departmental head, Mr Mike Codd, and after Mr Hawke dressed down Dr Charles for more than an hour yesterday.

In an interview published by The Australian Financial Review on Monday, Dr Charles, the former head of the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce, warned that continuing reliance on tight monetary policy could prove disastrous for Australian industry and was already undermining export growth. Mr Hawke said yesterday that it was clear from a transcript of Dr Charles's remarks that he had been accurately reported. He said this was a fundamental breach of the long established principle that public servants, particularly those at senior levels involved in giving policy advice, should refrain from public criticism of Government policy. Mr Hawke said Dr Charles accepted this was a fundamental breach of the principle and deeply regretted it. "In normal circumstances, this would warrant disciplinary action well beyond the reprimand already given and I have accordingly Mr Chaxles grind inflation out of the system." June 24, address to MTIA.

PETER JONSON, former head of research at the Reserve Bank: "A consensus that inflation is much too costly to tolerate would contribute greatly to the task of restoring Australia to the path of sustainable growth and prosperity. "Inflation: its costs, its causes and its published in Policy, June 27. KEATING: "Peter Jonson was the principal architect of the low Mr Hawke JOHN PHILLIPS, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank: "Monetary policy is not just about smoothing out the business cycle. That would mean just accepting whatever the inflation rate happens to be now." June 19, speech to CEDA. PAUL KEATING: "Stripped of code words, this fight inflatipn first policy amounts to no more than a strategy to keep the economy comatosed over a long period to Mr Jonson interest rates of 1987 I resisted that and found myself basically against the central bank and the Treasury." June 28 press conference.

DAVID CHARLES, retiring secretary of the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce: "If the Treasury keeps on driving macro policy as successfully as it has, there won't be an industry, fundamentally. "Unless Australia moved away Mr Phillips from its policy of high interest rates, it would have a "fundamental medium-to-long-term July 2. Financial Review. BOB HAWKE: "It is not simply the remarks as such, the criticism as such. But if one were to allow that to go unnoticed, unremarked and undealt with, then you obviously would have an untenable situation as far as government is concerned." July 2 press conference.

$630 million to $470 million which, he said, meant it had to cancel buying five planes. Telecom was not allowed to borrow at all. "Now these are issues the party is going to have to face in the next few years," Mr Keating said. Yesterday Mr Ferguson left the door open to have the issue reconsidered. "In ACTU terms the policy position is fairly fixed, but if there are problems with respect to ensuring national carriers such as Qantas have got a sufficient capital base then the union movement will have to sit down and discuss those issues with the Australian Government with a view to trying to solve them, in the same way they had to come to terms with the AIDC, where they set up a separate arm for raising investment," "Mr Ferguson said.

His comments were echoed by Mr Easson: "I agree with the Federal Treasurer's remarks that we should not regard everything which is currently owned by the public sector to be owned lock stock and barrel by the public sector forever and a day. "And we ought to be looking at maximising the public value in the assets it currently has. That inevitably leads to considerations of corporatisation and privatisation," Mr Easson said. PAGE 4: Qantas funding hope cut by $630 million. CANBERRA: Key union officials from both the Left and the Right may reconsider their opposition to privatisation following the turnaround by the Treasurer, Mr Keating, on the need to sell some of the Government's business enterprises.

Both the ACTU president, Mr Martin Ferguson, and the NSW Labor Council secretary, Mr Michael Easson, expressed views yesterday suggesting they were prepared to reconsider the traditional trade union opposition to 1 selling Government businesses. This followed comments by Mr Keating that the Labor Party had to face the choice of pumping billions of dollars from the Budget into public enterprises to keep them competitive, at the cost of severe cuts to social spending, or re-thinking its ban on privatisation. Addressing a dinner at the South Australian Labor Party State conference Mr Keating said the big issue for Labor was: Does it want to be in there for the "high quality change?" This meant, he said, "really facing up to the responsibilities of our platform to lift Australians up, to give them a better a higher standard of He said that for the first time he had to start cutting into the public trading enterprises such as Qantas and Telecom. Qantas last week had its borrowings bid slashed by overvalued dollar and make Australian industry less competitive, and would deter investment. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Reith, said the media coverage of Dr Charles's comments had tended to ignore their substance.

"Dr Charles has simply followed a long list of senior bureaucrats and ministers who have criticised the mix of government economic policy," he said. seriously considered revoking his appointment as Consul-General in Berlin," Mr Hawke said. "There are private circumstances, however, which I find compelling and which have led me to decide to take no further action beyond the reprimand given. It is understood Mr Hawke accepted concerns expressed by Dr Charles that his wife, who is ill, wished to be closer to her family in Switzerland. from the former Finance Minister, Senator Walsh, who said that unless there was a substantial cut in spending in this year's Budget, or some measures to increase government revenue, fiscal policy was likely to be looser next year.

In an article in the Independent Monthly, Senator Walsh said this would make it harder to relax monetary policy and cut interest rates. Senator Walsh said this would help to prop up an Mr Hawke took a much more serious view of Dr Charles's remarks than the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator Evans, who said on Monday they were "part of the rough and tumble of government" and no justification for removing a person from a post Senator Evans's frank comments earned him a rebuke from Mr Hawke. There was some support for Dr Charles's arguments yesterday Yotith escaped from centre SKI TOUR UNITED STATES 25 DAYS $3999 DEPARTING 4191 RETURN 28191 Ski Jackson Hole, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe, Vail. Price includes air fares and transfers, 1st class twin share accommodation, lift tickets. Deposit $750 by 12790.

Ask for Holder, Neil or Lola, at Uniglobe Travel. Telephone (042) 262222. 15, before he was sentenced for his part in Ms Balding's attack, he had 13 convictions including sexual assault, indecent assault, stealing and robbery. This was his second escape from a juvenile detention centre. The first was in 1987.

The Assistant Director of Juvenile Justice, Mr Laurie Maher, confirmed the youth's escape. He said yesterday the youth was initially under the supervision of two officers and was playing a game of volley ball. He asked to use the weight area in the gym and while there, kicked in a skylight and escaped. The youth was recaptured by administrative staff from the centre more than four hours later. He has since been transferred to the Minda youth centre.

By LINDSAY SIMPSON and JANET FIFE-YEOMANS A 17-year-old youth who was a member of the gang which abducted, raped and murdered Janine Balding escaped from custody before being recaptured near the Woy Woy railway station. The youth, whose criminal record has previously been described as "appalling" by a Supreme Court judge, climbed through a skylight while unsupervised at the Mt Penang Training Centre on June 8. At that time, he was due to give evidence at the trial of three of the other gang members who were charged with Ms Balding's murder. According to his records, the youth was made a ward of the court at the age of five as an uncontrollable child. By the age of Mr Maher said the youth was sentenced on JFriday at a Special Children's Court in Gosford for escaping from lawful custody.

He said the magistrate, Mr Geoff Thomas, said he should serve a further two months on top of the sentence he has received for his part in Ms Balding's abduction. The youth had been at Mt Penang since March 26. Four days -earlier he was sentenced to a minimum of seven years, with a maximum of nine years and four months, after pleading guilty to Ms Balding's abduction, four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, robbery, receiving stolen goods and obtaining money by deception. The court was told he did not take part in her murder and although he did not actually have sex with her, he did nothing to stop either. UniGlobe Licenced Tagent Tour Operator No 21A002544.

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