The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 29

-ir it- -li-A frm i inrrf T-3 IWtiii iT 1 1 1 IB i i-1 EDITED BY ALAN KENNEDY feedon of- speech IS CK 1st Falcons have gone. Do you mind taking a BMW?" Mind? is the Pope Polish? Looking as flash as a rat with a gold tooth, Mr Hogarth cruised up to the Murwillumbah courthouse in the silver BMW, which had a few lawyers looking askance, as a BMW is the chosen method of transport of ICAC star witness Dr Roger Munro. Inside the court, Mr Hogarth and the remainder of the Sydney media found the press bench taken by local reporters. The southerners were directed into the dock, from where they reported yesterday's proceedings. ICAC Deputy Commissioner Adrian Roden, QC, found this most amusing.

"It's good to see the press in their proper place," he said. Droll, Adrian, very droll. ftttf- spfetM BKP refuses to face the fax The BHP public relations people down at Port Kembla took a sensitive posture yesterday when announcing the sacking of workers from its steelworks. A Herald reporter seeking some answers on employment patterns was told the PR division "was not. here just to answer questions at a minute's When the question about employment patterns was put, a public relations person said he could not respond to that question over the phone; it would have to be put in writing.

The Herald reporter said: "Okay, I'll play along with the game. If I fax you the question, will you fax me the answer?" The BHP person said a fax would not be acceptable. "It will have to be by mail." COP- IV ft a W. R. Courtney, of Darlinghurst, announcing the formation of a new political party to the next State elections.

The major plank of the party is changing the law so that any parent or teacher who hits a child is liable for assault. Commenting on caning, W. R. Courtney says: "I really find it hard to believe that adults possessing university degrees would think this way in the latter days of this century. "Do you realise that only Nazi Germany and NSW have, reintroduced this dirty practice? "It is a vice that prostitutes in Kings Cross regularly do for ex-Christian Brothers students, along with other deviant behaviour." W.

R. Courtney adds that, if elected, the party will legislate to ensure that "any schoolteacher engaging in this sexualsado practice is given a compulsory medical and psychiatric But W. R. Courtney doesn't say what the party name is, which would seem to be a bit of an oversight. according to a Queensland scientist.

"We need a central register so researchers know what others are doing," Dr Hugh Spencer, of Townsville's James Cook University, said yesterday. "Confusion arises when frequencies clash. It is possible to have a bat and a possum being tracked on the same frequency, resulting in a similar mix-up to the owl and the In a news release, Dr Spencer announced plans to study North Queensland fruit bats by radio tracking. This is all very interesting, but how many grizzly bears are there roaming around Queensland? Stand up that boy at the back who said: woman, which is interesting, but not really relevant. He has just written a book called TJie Forgotten Australians, which he began after learning that convicts sent to NSW were drawn from 27 countries.

According to Ethnos: "They came from colonial outposts of the British Empire, like India, Barbados, Tunisia, Bengal, Sicily and Greece." It's unclear whether the author of the article or Mr Donohoe raised the Union Jack in Greece and Sicily. But Sicily was colonised in 7BC by the Corinthians who, I am reliably informed, came from Greece. In 1085 the Normans invaded Sicily, but I don't think they were part of trie British Empire. As for Greece, having Lord Byron leaping around the place attacking Turks does not qualify as a full-blown English invasion. That came later, in the 20th century, with the invention of cheap charter airlines.

Arriving in style The Independent Commission Against Corruption travelled to Murwillumbah yesterday, with our reporter, the shameless self-promoter, Murray Hogarth, in tow. He arrived at a car hire place at the airport to hear all his dreams come true. "We're sorry, Mr Hogarth, all the Commodores and Speaking up is no Turkish delight Turkey's first speakers' corner, modelled on the one in London's Hyde Park to encourage freedom of speech, survived for only a couple of days. Police in Istanbul, which is not the capital of Turkey, confiscated the speakers' rostrum on Sunday. Bakirkoy District Mayor Yildirim Aktuna set up "The Free Speech Corner" in a park he named Freedom Square on Friday.

Police wrote to him saying a speakers' corner contravened a law restricting public meetings. "It's a black joke," Mayor Aktuna said. "They arrested the rostrum and are probably torturing it now on the grounds that it has not confessed." tfw fo an cu( wtUi a Burgle bungle They breed 'em dumb over in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania. A suspect left some evidence behind when he accidentally tape-recorded a telephone call in which he asked his father to give him a ride home from a house he had robbed. Paul Caliguiri, 24, was charged with burglary, theft and receiving stolen property.

His father, Albert Caliguiri, was charged with hindering apprehension. After someone reported a suspicious person outside a block of flats, police used a dog to search the area and found a home had been ransacked. The suspect had apparently broken into a second home, where he telephoned his father, unaware he had turned on the phone's answering machine. Say that again! The things you find when you have nothing to do. Browsing through an issue of Ethnos, the magazine of the Ethnic Affairs Commission, I discovered a deft piece of revisionism in a story about James Hugh Donohoe, former Deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

As is fitting for anything to do with the EAC, Mr Donohoe's pedigree was included in the, item. It is claimed he is descended from convict stock, including a gypsy i mo Caning the caners The Wagga Teachers' Association has been viewing the prospects of caning being reintroduced with some alarm and expressed its misgivings in a report in the Herald on August 30. The report prom'pted a letter from Confusion in the air A United States researcher tracking owls by radio walked into the clutches of a grizzly bear because of a mix-up in radio frequencies, COCICINGTON EDITED BY JAMES magistrate in the TV series Rafferty's Rules (and was last week signed up for next year's Australian production of Chess), is finding that people may be taking his role more seriously than intended. Wood has been invited to Brisbane in November as the guest speaker at the Queensland Law Society's annual dinner. crowd explained that the protesters represented the Animal Liberation movement, that they were protesting over the suffering faced by circus animals, and that previous, more vocal, protests had resulted in defamation writs against the protesters by circus owners.

A spokesperson (or in this case mimeperson) for the group indicated that circuses had already sued Animal Rights groups four times for alleging that animals were being maltreated. American reviewer Deirdre Donahue, who. found racist overtones in. one of Fergie's publications, Budgie The Little Helicopter, was severely underwhelmed. "I think 'perfectly ghastly' is about the kindest description," she wrote.

This was nothing compared to the review by the Duchess's daughter, Princess Beatrice. "When I showed it to her, she did her normal trick and tore it up and threw it in the dustbin," the Duchess admitted on British television. into what sounds like light industrial status. Currently Rancho Burt boasts a feed store, souvenir shop and petting farm (no, not him, the animals). Reynolds now wants to add a' petrol station and car wash, double the size of the souvenir shop and build a couple of shops and offices.

What, no bowling alley? The plans were initially approved by a Palm Beach County site planner but county commissioners will reconsider the plan at a public hearing next month. All the world's a stage Ladies, gentlemen, members of the legal profession: John Wood, the actor who plays the crumpled Style wars Cause for concern Marcel Marceau tactics: A group of protesters upped placards outside the Perry Brothers and Robinson Combined Circus in Brisbane on Sunday. Just what they were upset about was a bit of a mystery at first sight, as the placards were blank and the protesters wore gags. Leaflets distributed among the Idiot box blues Moving pictures: Don't be surprised if Kerry O'Brien, the best-known face on the 10 Network's Face To Face, appears on another channel soon. It is understood O'Brien, the network's senior political commentator and one of the highest paid of Canberra's journalists, is close to quitting the ailing network over a contract dispute.

Word around Parliament House is that O'Brien renegotiated with the network only a few days before it axed its short-lived current affairs program, Public Eye, for which he was the front man. Since the demise of the show, O'Brien has been left facing the prospect of losing money, or having to do some news reports, something he is not keen on. His services are still in demand for Face to Face, the only serious current show Ten still does. But with Ten simultaneously going downmarket and facing financial problems, even that program has been assured only until the end of the year. Yesterday neither O'Brien nor the network would say anything for the record, but it is expected the matter will come to a head within the next 24 hours.

Regal matters Don't give up the day job: The Duchess of York's two books for kids go on sale tomorrow, and she warns there could be more to come but not if the critics have their way. CULTURAL CRINGE CORNER 1 I Your Czech's in the mail: Little Miss Marker has tap-danced her way down Hollywood Boulevard and into the leading role at the American Embassy, in Prague. Now known as Shirley Temple Black, the 61-year-old all-singing, all-dancing child star continues to win the hearts of the Republican Parry hierarchy. Her latest Czech posting is her starring role so far. Mrs Black's diplomatic career began in 1969 when President Nixon appointed her US delegate to the United Nations.

President Ford made her Ambassador to Ghana in 1974. But Prague is seen by commentators as a difficult post, even for someone who can save the world with a cheeky grin and a wink. The position has traditionally been held by career diplomats. In her defence, Mrs Black said she had been in Prague in 1968 when Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks rolled in and ended President Dubcek's effort to remodel the communist system. She was representing the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies.

Czechoslovakia's President Gustav Husak is apparently a big fan of the films of Shirley Temple, or "Shirley ka" as she is known in Czech. Lifestyles of the rich and fatuous Home on the (multi-level) range: Beefcake actor Burt Reynolds's idea of a quiet country retreat differs from some. Reynolds wants to rezone his BR Ranch in sleepy Jupiter, Florida, Missing men of style: Our final notable omission from Giorgio Armani's 50 Australian Men With Style chic hit list, is the eternally tasteful Graham Kennedy, here nau-tically garbed. Isn't this how every relaxed man of style should look, Mr Armani? R..