The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 5

PageS Sow Revellers see new year in with a splash ews over top polico ost The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday, January 1, 1987 br He also said that there would be serious staffing problems because public servants would be working alongside police on lower wages but with the same boss. The Police Board, in its annual report, said no progress has been made in resolving the division of responsibility. The board said: "Progress in rationalising duties between police and the Public Service components of the police service may only be satisfactorily achieved if both owe allegiance to the one head. "Increased civilianisation tends to exacerbate the difficulties of divided control and divided allegiance. "The board repeats its firm conviction of the necessity for the commissioner to be the permanent head of a united service as distinct from the police commander in a divided one." The Police Commissioner, Mr Avery, said it would be inappropriate to comment as Mr Vineburg was still secretary of the i-.

A major row is brewing over the appointment of the next secretary of the Police Department, and what power the position should have. Mr Leo Vineburg, the current secretary, is on holiday and will retire officially this month. The Police Commissioner and the Police Board want to downgrade the position significantly after his retirement The administration of the police force is different from almost all other government departments in that the Minister for Police, Mr Paciullo, has two heads reporting to him the commissioner and the secretary. With the retirement of Mr Vineburg imminent, the Police Board is pressing its case that two heads are not better than one. It is believed the Public Service Association wants the secretary's position and power to remain as it is, although a spokesman could not be reached yesterday.

Mr Paciullo has refused to take sides and says he will not be rushed into a decision until after Mr Vineburg retires. i s. 4 "i I Mr Avery downgrading of position sought. The 1981 Lusher report into the administration of the NSW Police recommended strongly against the commissioner being in control of public servants in the force, saying that the expertise in administration usually came from. Public Service experience.

Justice Lusher said: "The commissioner has not this experience. His experience is in a disciplined force which is vastly different to a Public Service department." 7 Revellers at The Rocks last night a cacophony of horns to usher in the new year. The weather failed to come to the party, but that didn't deter those who came to say goodbye to 1986 and welcome 1987. The rain drenched everybody and none of the hawkers had thought to stock up with umbrellas. The group of young people below hired a truck and came from Carlingford.

Aust UN Security Council role ends 1 1 JUi i i I ZmTr. 1 r20' otf-A By SIMON KENT It rained on Sydney's parade last night. Came down in bucket-loads. Wet. Who would have predicted it? Rain oa New Year's Eve? Certainly not the revellers who still thronged Sydney's streets in search of a good time.

Certainly not the vendors who joined them ia search of quick dollar. At The Rocks the crowds were just the same as ever. They staggered from one end of George Street to the other. Mostly out-of- towners. Mostly youths aged between 18 and 25 in search of toe one night of the year.

like the group from Carlingford who hired a 4V-tonne van for the evening. They parked on the other side of the police barricade at the top end of George Street. On the tray at the rear they had two old lounge chairs, a selection of fruit boxes and cushions. An 18-gallon keg stood in the corner. "Yeah, we all got drunk in the pub last night, you know.

Reckoned this would be a good idea. Piled in tonight, drove into Sydney. "We'll still be here tomorrow night, you wait and see. This is the biggest night of the year. What a way to do it, eh?" The local Rocks residents would probably agree.

Unfortunately none could be contacted last night for comment. Knocking oa the doors of the local terraces was a pointless exercise, one resident confirmed as she hurried through the packed streets and on to the comparative safety beyond Circular Quay. "I don't know why they do it. cil the USSR, USA, Great: Britain, France and China. Some progress had been however, with Security Council.

agreement to remove dead items' from its agenda and increased) attention to the use of preventative diplomacy, Mr Hayden "Super-power rivalries inject an unnecessary East-West dimension into many issues and limit the' Council's capacity to act effec-r tively, Mr Hayden said. "Most permanent members had' shown themselves unwilling dur-i ing Australia's term to give serious' consideration to the process or reform. Mr Hayden said that the adoption by the Security Council of resolutions urging tougher arms; embargoes and selective sanctions against South Africa, condemning; hostage taking and providing the; Council's first impartial frame-i work for settlement of the Iran-Iraq conflict were the high points of 1985-86. But the veto of draft resolutions! calling for mandatory sanctions, against South Africa and the! failure to persuade Iran to join: efforts to end the Gulf fighting, were the big disappointments. By STEVE BURRELL CANBERRA: Australia ended its two-year term on the United Nations Security Council yesterday, disappointed that more had not been achieved.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Hayden, said one of the biggest disappointments was the failure of the Council to resolve the Iran-Iraq war. This was despite the efforts of the Australian representative at the UN, Mr Richard Woolcott, particularly during his month-long term as Council President in November 1985. Australia's latest term on the Council, its fourth since the establishment of the UN in 1945, had shown its limited capacity to resolve international disputes, Mr Hayden said. He said the core of the problem lay with super-power rivalries within the Council and the unwillingness of some disputing parties to accept that the Council had a role to play. Australia had encouraged Council members to review existing procedures, although reform had been impeded by the five permanent members of the Coun They're Just all youag kids.

Half drunk and shot to pieces. Why caa't they do it at their home and leave us alone? "I tell you. Most of the locals leave town tonight. It's just not worth the abuse, the filth, the bloody stapidity of drunken kids oa the razzle." End of interview. Outside the Observer Hotel the "drunken kids on the razzle" played a game of impromptu street cricket against a street awning.

The natch began at 8 o'clock and lasted until the sheer crushing weight of revellers drove them back into the pub. Further down the street at the Orient it was quieter. The Rocks police station is across the road. The only sign of the evening's festivities was a crackling carpet of discarded plastic cups oa the street. And empty beer cans, liquor bottles, broken horns, hamburger wrappings, three comatose drunks and a crying, lost child.

This was the cost of New Year's Eve at The Rocks last night. A beer, a nip of spirits, $230; Mr Whippy ice-cream, 80c; a not dog, $130; a donner kebab, a mock plastic bowler hat, aad a plastic, eardrum-wrenching air horn $4.00. The last item is the most important. From the Harbour Bridge to the Opera House the streets echoed to the long, mournful moan of these plastic abominations. When the fascination of sound ceased to appeal, they became items for hand-to-hand combat or flagging down relatives or friends.

nite recess because of budget limitations. "An apprenticeship would involve a minimum of five years study," Mr Simmons said, "and that's only if the students are working regularly with pianos. It might take 10 years before they acquire sufficient knowledge." Mr Philip Simmons, 28, who has followed his father's profession, said the course closing meant more work, "but it's a shame those wanting to learn won't have the opportunity to do Almost 7,500 pianos will come into Australia this year, according to Michael Flynn, sales manager with Palings Music Centres. He said a world-wide recession in the music industry had brought the numbers down from about 13,000. Mr Roger Taylor, 39, of Glebe, said a successful tuner was a skilled technician and "confident at running his business affairs and getting on with the diplomatic relations involved in the Most appear to charge about $60 for a standard service.

Mr Foulcher said: "It's like having a licence to print money when you do the job properly. If you're organised and allow yourself time to get established you can make up to $50,000 or $60,000 a year." I wM mm Maayb4il Mr Loosley says ALP branches and the trade union movement had given "incredible support" to campaign funding. He was more specific in his column in the October issue of NSW branch's publication, The Radical, writing that the Heathcote campaign would cost $135,000, of which the unions had contributed $100,000 and party branches $35,000. Labor's Heathcote budget subsequently was boosted to 1 50,000 to ensure a a saturation media campaign from both ends of the electorate. The northern end of Heathcote is served by city-based media while the southern end is served from Wollongong.

Labor machine organisers have moved in for the duration of the campaigns in Heathcote and Bankstown. Labor is sitting on a 1 1 per cent majority in Heathcote and 14.5 per cent in Bankstown, historically safe margins. But these by-elections may write their own history, p.iven the anti-Labor swings of 16 per cent in next-door Bass Hill and 14 per cent in Rockdale, in by-elections in July. 1. 1 CO! wr Piano tuners' forte hits a sour note Injured boy dies A 13-year-old boy died in hospital yesterday from severe head injuries sustained while leaning out of a train to spray graffiti.

The boy, Mahmoud Taleb, of Carlton in Sydney's southern suburbs, died in St George Hospital an hour after being taken off his life-support system. Escapes from jails A prisoner escapes from NSW jails on an average of once every, three days, the State Opposition spokesman on Corrective Services, Mr Michael Yabsley, said, yesterday. He said that despite a decrease in the number of escapes over the past two years, the latest figures still raised serious questions about prison security in NSW. Robe River writs The Robe River company filed writs in the Supreme Court of Western Australia yesterday for damages against unions over the 15-day-old strike hitting the export of its iron ore. The strike, by 800 employees at Robe River in the Pilbara, began on December 16 and grew yesterday when, workers staged a sit-down.

Quads named The parents of Australia's latest set of quads have chosen names' for their test-tube family Katrina, Diana, Veronica, and Anthony. The in-vitro quads were born to a Canberra couple, Mar-cia and Ivan Prgomet, in Sydney's King George Hospital on Tuesday. Crime, punishment. An armed bank robber who( recently fled by train could only' be fined $10 under Queensland' Railway bylaws, but faced a $100, fine if caught with his feet on a seat, the Australian Bank Employ-' ees' Union secretary, Mr Mark Lynch, said yesterday. "The rail-' way bylaws impose penalties of $100 for spitting on the floor or placing feet on a seat but only $10' for carrying or firing a gun on a train, he said.

Super award The NSW Industrial Commission has awarded transport workers a $12-a-week superannuation, payment, effective from today. The commission, in a decision released yesterday, said the pay-, ment of $2.40 per day had been agreed between the NSW Road Transport Association and the NSW branch of the Transport Workers' Union. It said it had reservations about some aspects of the claim, which it heard two weeks ago, and would detail these when it published its full judgment on the matter in the new year. EE Cliff-hangers tipped for January 31 1 C- v. Jet could be cost-cutter for Qantas A new version of the DC-10, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, is to go ahead, and Qantas is one of the airlines strongly interested in placing orders.

The three-engined MD-U would be capable of carrying about 240 passengers non-stop from Los Angeles to Sydney, against headwinds, for lower operating costs than the stubby SP 747 Qantas now uses to carry 220 passengers on the route. Its use would mean that Qantas could also fly viable one-stop services between Sydney and London via Singapore and offer them more frequently than it would using the 747-400, an advanced model of the 440-pas-senger jumbo jet due in service late in 1988. However, Qantas has. capital-raising problems which have so far prevented it ordering any of the new-technology aircraft which are being snapped up by privately funded airlines abroad. The MD-11, costing roughly SUS100 million million) an aircraft, would first fly in commercial service in 1990.

irs From Page 1 ition has never come within 10 per cent of winning in all their history," Mr Greiner said. "For them to be spending $200,000 indicates how panic-stricken the NSW machine is." Mr Loosley predicts that the Liberal Party will "follow Labor in with every Liberal officials counter that Labor will outspend them by four to one because their budget for both campaigns is limited to $50,000, with perhaps $10,000 extra for a late burst on television in Heathcote. The Liberals' Heathcote budget is $30,000, with $20,000 for Bankstown. "When you are out of power for more than 10 years you don't have access to big donations," said one Liberal official, with first-hand knowledge of slush funding. The Liberal campaign fund for Heathcote was set first at $24,000 but has since been lifted to $28,000 and before the campaign is over is certain to exceed $30,000.

According to party officials, the original $24,000 budget was a record for a Liberal by-election. Mr Philip Simmons, following his father's profes-. sion, tunes a piano at the family shop in Bondi Road. "Learning to tune a piano is the same as learning any trade, only in this case you keep practising with your ears, said a piano tuner, Sam Simmons, 54, of Bondi. "I've been tuning for 35 years and I can sit at a piano, have the radio on, talk to you, and hear nothing but the sounds I want to hear from the instrument." But it is a fading fraternity.

With an estimated 150 piano tuners in Sydney and no apprenticeship training scheme, he was concerned that skilled piano nicians may soon be hard to find. "Before long a lot of the really top tradespeople will start dying or retiring and there won't be anyone to follow them," he said. Mr Trevor Foulcher, 58, from the Conservatorium of Music's School of Piano Tuning, said the average age of piano tuners in Sydney was approaching 70 in 1974, when the school began. "We've produced some very successful trainees who now handle a great deal of the concert work in Sydney, he said. But from next year the conser-vatorium's course, which had an intensive six-day working week for its annual intake of six students, would go into an indefi iria, said the report did say there were areas where changes and improvements should be made and the department was taking steps to implement these changes.

A spokesman for Mr Aquilina said yesterday that the prices paid for the properties mentioned in the report were within 10 per cent of the Valuer-General's valuations, which was acceptable. However Mrs Chadwick said she did not know that buying properties for prices within 10 per cent of the Valuer-General's valuation was acceptable, particularly when taxpayers money was involved. The Minister's spokesman said the department had been forced to pay market prices for some properties, especially those in inner-city areas, which were above the Valuer-General's valuations. "But we can't not open an office because it's too expensive. We're there to provide a service to the people in locations that are convenient to them," he said.

YACS 'slack' in use of taxpayers' money HAVE SOME LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY CANCELLATIONS fT-1 JANl IHN2 Art Gallery of NSW 10am-5pm 10am-5pm Banks Yes Home bread deliveries Yes Buses Sun timetables Thursday. Normal timetables Friday. (Hol. timetables, some routes. Ph: 2 0543).

Butchers Yes Ferries Sat. timetables Thursday. Normal timetables Friday. Govt offices 1 Yes Hotelsliquor stores Yes Yes Mail deliveries Milk deliveries Yes Yes Museums (Australian 10am-5pm 10am-5pm and Applied Sciences) Metropolitan newspapers Yes Yes Petrol Yes Yes Retail stores (major) Yes State Library 9am-9pm 9am-9pm Trains Sun timetables Thursday. Normal timetables Friday.

Vet (emergency services) Phone: 771 3333 Zoo Yes Yes Dental Emergency Phone: 267 5919 (24hrs). Information Service: Some bungalows available mid to late January. Excellent food and we are right on the beach at Toowoon Bay just 1 12 hours north of Sydney. PHONE (043) 32 1566 FM1606 i3EPICAL CESHTOE MOW OPBM OPEN 24 HOURS EVERY DAY 938 6866 IMMEDIATE MEDiCAL CARE DOCTOR AVAILABLE 24 HOURS A DAY EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR FULL BULK BILLING ALSO Chemist Extended Hours Every Day Specialist Clinics Dentist, Optical Dispensary X-Ray and Pathology, Physiotherapy, Chiropractor, Stress and Laser Tests CUR PIITIVATER mi CROSS ST, DROOIIVALE (opposite bus depot) By PIUTA CLARK A confidential Public Service Board report has revealed that the Department of Youth and Community Services bought and leased property throughout NSW for more than the Valuer-General's recommended valuation. The Opposition spokeswoman on youth and community services, Mrs Virginia Chadwick, said the report showed "quite clearly there is some serious slackness" in the purchasing and leasing of property by the department.

The report shows that one-third were bought or leased for more than the Valuer-General's valuation and a further seven were purchased or leased at a price in the top half of the valuation. In a survey of 32 YACS properties only four were in the bottom half of the Valuer-General's valuation. The report also said that no papers could be found for 11 of the 32 properties surveyed. The Minister for Youth and Community Services, Mr Aquil- Herald Classifieds on JUL the 55.