The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 1

TJHM A(SE JEEL in THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY 1998 144th Year No. 44,526 90c 1 Mot with dismay The ticket revolution NEWS Drawing tho lino Adult animation GREEN GUIDE Fcrowoll Orownlow Sydney steals the big night SPORT Win a $50,000 portfolio TOKEN PAGE A8 I 1 1 I S5 v. I.PP-.I.T.. 'I couldn't believe it could happen Picture: WAYNE HAWKINS Mils back 5 mi tax A town relives its terror Porte fbRine A Am))' HowPM farewelled father of The Split By MICHAEL GORDON, MARK BAKER and ANDREA CARSON The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, yesterday flew to Melbourne to pay a final personal tribute to Mr Bob Santamaria, one of Australia's most influential, controversial and enduring political figures. Mr Howard spoke with Mr Santamaria at a Kew hospice hours before he died yesterday.

Mr Santamaria had been in failing health since undergoing surgery for a brain tumor in October. He was 82. The Prime Minister later described Mr Santamaria as one of the "most profoundly influential figures in post-World War II Australian Mr Santamaria's wife, Dorothy, and son, Bob junior, were present for the 30-minute meeting at the Caritas Christi hospice. Advice from a Liberal colleague that Mr Santamaria was gravely ill prompted the visit. "His impact on the history of the Labor Party and through that his influence on the outcome of a number of elections was immense," Mr Howard said last night.

"To his critics he was a divisive figure. To his many admirers he was an Australian who brought great oratorial and advocacy skills to the causes in which he believed." Bartholomew Augustus Santamaria, Catholic intellectual and virulent anti-communist, was widely credited with engineering the split that kept Labor out of power for a generation. A lifelong polemicist and backroom political activist, he built a network of industrial groups to fight the influence of communists in the trade union movement, precipitating the 1955 split and formation of the Democratic Labor Party. The son of Sicilian migrants who ran a Brunswick fruit shop, Bob Santamaria went to Melbourne University to study law at the age of 16 and was quickly drawn into a circle of conservative Catholic intellectuals. With the blessing of his spiritual and political mentor, Archbishop Daniel Mannix, Mr Santamaria joined the national secretariat of Catholic Action in the 1930s and helped found the Catholic Worker newspaper.

In the early 1940s he was instrumental in mobilising The Movement the Catholic Social Studies Movement to form a network of industrial groups dedicated to breaking the spreading influence of communists within the Australian trade union movement. Mr Santamaria's association with the with the support of Labor leader H. V. Evatt, tore apart the ALP and resulted in the party's taking the Opposition benches until 1972. Through the National Civic Council, the successor to the Movement, and as a media commentator, he maintained a lifelong crusade for nationalism, decentralisation, industrial protection and conservative family values.

Late in life, Mr Santamaria Continued: PAGE A2 By SANDRA McKAY and LEONIE WOOD Crown casino yesterday hit back at the State Government's decision to reject its tax cut plea, hinting there was an agreement with the Government to provide tax relief on high-roller revenue. Crown also revealed it had found a foreign investor who might be interested in building its proposed second hotel tower at the $2 billion casino complex a move that might avert penalties of $50,000 a day. In a day when relations between Crown and the State Government appeared to deteriorate, the Gaming Ministry questioned how Crown could have thought that its high-roller revenue would escape the 22 per cent tax rate. "You can't misunderstand a piece of legislation. The issue of a super tax is in law," Mr Jason Laird, a spokesman for the Gaming Minister, Mr Roger Hal-lam, said yesterday.

Neither Mr Hallam nor the Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, responded yesterday. In one of three statements to the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, Crown said that considering existing competition in the casino industry and the present economic conditions, a tax cut was necessary and justifiable. In an unsigned statement faxed from the office of Crown's chief general manager, finance and corporate, Mr Peter Ronec, Crown said it had already agreed to pay the Government more than $370 million in casino licence fees and further special payments. "In agreeing to pay in excess of $370 million in licence and special additional tax payments, it was envisaged that super tax would not apply to gaming reve- By FERGUS SHIEL, TIM WINKLER and SUE CANT Residents of Macedon endured a terrifying reminder of the Ash Wednesday disaster yesterday when a bushfire raced to within metres of the towns edge. The town, where seven people lost their lives In the 1983 firestorm, was gripped by a full-scale emergency for several hours yesterday as a blaze roared out of control through a nearby pine plantation.

Whipped by northerly winds, the fire at stage licked at the edges of houses. massive operation by fire crews, by water bombing, eventually the 200-hectare blaze. night, more than 200 firefighters still building control lines to prevent spreading this morning when more conditions are expected, with a of 37 degrees. the height of yesterdays emergency, firefighters battled the blaze on the and in the air, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and falling ash as the climbed above 35 degrees. fire tankers were used, while 40 were on standby In the area.

residents fled their properties as bore down on the town. Others, of whom had lost homes In the 1983 stayed to hose down their houses. was absolutely horrendous," said Mrs Fife, one of those who fled. "We even see the trees outside our this morning and there was ash all over the car and house. thought we were not going to get away although I couldn't believe it could twice." Richard Gates said the Are came to 50 metres of neighboring homes.

"It the trees behind our place and some neighbors' trees caught fire." Residents were allowed to return to their last night. Are began beside the Melbourne-Bendigo railway line about 10am and by had reached the edge of town. Police the fire may have been sparked by a IV. A A from Lebanon, now faces the consequences in his family and his church. Will the couple be expelled? And will his wife accept his decision? Mr Peter Price, who works in hospital information services at the Jehovah's Witnesses' national headquarters in Sydney, said the church would regard the woman's situation as akin to rape.

"Just as with a victim of rape, we would see that she needs all the emotional and spiritual and physical support we can extend to her," he said. "We don't say that because you were given blood, we will cut you off. On the contrary, we would do all we could to help that person. "We feet that everybody, the whole population, has the right to say what will and will not be done to their body. So, if this is overridden, that is assault if It's done against their will." As for the husband, his future Continued: PAGE A2 Uan HMMU9 WW -if; i -4- care unit of the Western Hospital.

The man spent most of yesterday at his wife's bedside, at times accompanied by relatives and friends. But by late in the day it is believed she was yet to be told that her husband had gone against her wishes and allowed a blood transfusion. As she slowly returned to consciousness after several days of fighting for her life, a hospital spokesman hinted at the issues the 20-year-old woman and her husband, 27, now must confront. "It's a matter for her and her partner to establish a relationship now she's regained consciousness," said the hospitals director of clinical services, Mr Mike Hampton. "Inevitably, when there are two opposed views, someone is going to be helped and someone else is going to suffer." But with his wife's life apparently saved, the man, originally MctraS 1 mmmmmmm Jk Judge quits Hindmarsh hearing After months of political pressure, High Court Judge Ian Calllnan has disqualified himself from the Hindmarsh Island Bridge case.

The controversial Judge decided to stand down yesterday after admitting his Initial decision not to stand down over claims of potential bias was based on factual error. The court la expected to decide whether the Government can pass laws detrimental to Aborigines and Is a key test of the Government Wlk legislation. The decision Is victory for Aboriginal women who were pursuing moves to have justice Callinan disqualified. PAGE A3: Report one A backed contained Last were the fire hot, dry maximum At 400 ground huge temperature Eighty another Many the Are some fires, "It Ema couldn't home falling "I with It, happen Mr within was In of our homes The 2pm believe train. Faith or love: husband faces hardest choice nue," it said.

Crown refused to elaborate on its statements and its executive chairman, Mr Lloyd Williams, was unavailable. But the Opposition's gaming spokesman, Mr Rob Hulls, said Crown's statement raised serious questions about the Government's relationship with Crown. "The Government must come clean immediately on whether or not there were secret negotiations that gave the casino the impression it would not have to pay a high-roller tax," Mr Hulls said. Crown has been lobbying the Government for several months for a new tax rate on winnings it derives from high-stakes gamblers. It pays a sliding scale of tax from 9 per cent to 21.25 per cent and a further 1 per cent as a community levy.

But Mr Hallam on Tuesday said the party room had rejected Crown's request for a flat tax rate of 9 per cent. The Government, he said, was not convinced that lower taxes by themselves would resolve Crown's financial squeeze. Crown reported a $40 million loss for the six months to 31 December and blamed big losses from high-stakes gamblers as well as high operating costs. PAGE A16: Editorial. PAGE B1: Report.

By GARRY LINNELL and CLAIRE MILLER The keys, to the Kingdom of God are hard to obtain. Yesterday, a confused and frustrated man sat down in a hospital room looking for a way to tell his young wife that he may well have thrown them away. But if that task sounds difficult, consider the dilemma he faced earlier this week. On Tuesday, he broke the strict covenant governing all members of the Jehovah's Witness religion when he let doctors give his wife a life-saving blood transfusion against her wishes. The woman had been bleeding profusely after she gave birth to their first child a few days earlier.

The husband's decision has sparked a medical and religious debate over the rights of patients to decide their treatment. But the debate was nothing compared with the personal turmoil inside the intensive- -imm A haniw BrttJafi PHP I Martm Rarugan, George PeN Gerard Henderson, A fBermeTafi 'i (oIloKglAJD I V-ST irfflllTIII har too tc'i tooc-f-'tr---y-' IL-JI 'i C13 I III III I II 11 1 Mlllil ..9 "770312 UOOU 1 ir -Tff. -V-.