The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 5

FRIDAY 22 MARCH 1996 THE ACE A 4. Picture: MIKE BOWERS ALP keew it would fail at polls, says Gray t) a-W 1 i Injury at sea dents sailorls record bid By QABRIELLE COSTA A Russian sailor has met with more bad luck in her attempt to become the first woman from her homeland to sail around the world. Ms Viktoria Ostrovskaya set off from Melbourne last Thursday, but yesterday sent out a mayday call Ms Ostrovskaya has suffered four broken ribs and will have to return to shore for treatment before she sets out again. Damage to her yacht, Victoria III, has not yet been detailed. It was in Bass Strait yesterday and was being towed back to shore last night.

Ms Ostrovskaya, 57, trained as a cosmonaut, but later became a captain in a Russian naval school where she trained cadets. Her friend, Mrs Nina Christe-sen, said Ms Ostrovskaya was "very brave, very determined. We tried to talk her out of going. It's dangerous enough when the yacht is fully fitted with all the safety She said the yacht on which Ms Ostrovskaya was sailing was 22 years old, but for at least a year had been docked at the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron in StKilda, where it had undergone alterations. Last night, a statement issued by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said Ms Ostrovskaya was not in grave danger.

She was being towed to Lakes Entrance by the fishing trawler Bianca last night and was expected to be on shore by about 9 pm. The rescue operation had been under way since 9 am yesterday. A helicopter ambulance was sent to help the woman, whose distress' signals had been picked up by the Bass Strait Oil Fields radio room. Ms Ostrovskaya first sailed into trouble when her first yacht was seized by Russian authorities in Ethiopian waters. On her return to Russia, she met the journalist Mr George Negus, who convinced her it would be easier to raise money for her voyage in Australia.

But she was left destitute in 1992 after Russian sponsors in Sydney who had offered assistance turned out to be "not bona -Ml' Even the party's political operatives "conspicuously suspended our disbelief in the facts and figures to celebrate the victory, too," he said. "We were not sensitive to the anxiety of the voters. We missed the mood. We emphasised the future and forgot the present," Mr Gray said. He did not directly criticise Mr Keating, whom he said was Labor's greatest strength while at times being a clear weakness among voters.

There was no doubt Mr Keating should have led Labor to the election. He said Labor spent $15 million on its campaign but it was not possible to achieve as a campaign what we were not able to achieve as a go. Mr Gray said the coalition Government had "a very small mandate" for change and Labor's traditional voters who had switched at the election would immediately return "if it goes hard into a 1996 revised standard version of Otherwise, Labor would have to "re-establish a mutual, trust-based relationship with them; and we can only do it by showing them not telling them that we are worthy of their He also said Labor would have to extend its relationship with its union affiliates at the expense of a direct partnership with the ACTU. "The ALP must now return to politics, to stop, listen and converse with the community to reconnect with the people we forgot," he said. "I wish we had learned our lessons earlier.

But then perhaps in our kind of democracy that's not on. Renewal in office may not be possible. An election defeat may be the only way to renew." fen By INNES WILLOX, political correspondent, Canberra Labor's organisational wing knew last August that it would lose the federal election and resisted demands by Paul Keating to step up its advertising attack on John Howard, the party's national secretary, Mr Gary Gray, said yesterday. "Paul wanted us to sharpen our attack on John Howard to give us more edge. He wanted more blood in the water," Mr Gray told the National Press Club, Reviewing the reasons for Labor's crushing election loss, Mr Gray said he resisted Mr Keating's demands in the campaign's dying days because he believed the party needed to present a case for re-election and that its few efforts to directly attack Mr Howard's credibility had rebounded on Labor.

Mr Gray said it became clear that Labor could not win the election from about last August when its Budget, a new Accord and a series of major policy announcements failed to shift voter support away from the coalition. "Their lead was as soft as stainless steel," he said. He attributed Labor's loss to the fact that Australians stopped listening to its message, it became too administratively-minded in government rather than political and could not change voter perceptions. "We forgot the critical interdependence of policy and politics. We'd taken our product to the market but we forgot to sell it we also forgot to provide any after-sales service," Mr Gray said.

He also said Labor neglected to analyse the reasons for its 1993 election victory which was based on a rejection of the coalition's Fightback manifesto. Paul Keating entertained at the Lodge for one last time yesterday, showing the new tenant, John Howard, around his new home and handed over the keys. Keating's end is Howard's beginning ft UIW? 'M 6oiff) him around his new home and hand over the keys. According to the Prime Minister's office, the pair had a pleasant chat about things that will not be revealed, and wished each other good luck in their new and very different lives. It was undoubtedly an emotional 45-minute visit, but the two, bruised and battle-weary, did not show it.

They did not break down, they did not embrace, and they did not kiss. But they did shake hands, not bad for warriors-to-the death who have made careers of publicly deriding By MARION FRITH When Paul Keating entertained at the Lodge for one last time yesterday it was a simple menu: nice cups of tea and tiny serves of fresh humble pie. By all accounts, his guest enjoyed it immensely. After all, with the hurly-burly of the past few months, John Howard has not had much chance to sit about in the sunshine and make idle chit-chat. Mr Keating, who has time enough on his hands to organise such informal functions nowadays, had invited his former opponent over to show nesday.

Mr Howard did not think twice about accepting what he regarded as a most gracious gesture. He was, as it happens, most impressed with the renovations that have gone on under the guidance of Mr and Mrs Keating. He found the decor of his new property vasdy improved after three years in the Keating hands. The changes had been he said, and the place was now far more attractive than in the Fraser days. Yes, Mr Howard found it "very He liked it very much.

And as for the grounds, grounds where the Keating children had frolicked and the dog had bounded, Mr Howard found them most attractive, as well. Not that his own family will spend as much time on them, as they will all be staying in Sydney. But still, a very nice place for a Sunday barbie when he is in Canberra. The longest 45 minutes in Mr Keating's life was over, and it was a somewhat forlorn-looking host who was left waving his busy visitor goodbye from the front porch. one another.

Mr Keating had phoned Mr Howard's people last week and put the idea to him. I He had then rung again, finalised the details, on Wed Police hope room plans will help unmask girl's abductor Quarantine alert over mad cow disease Single shelf BEDROOM Double bed Window BATHROOM Possible window Basin Shower We'd love to tell you, honestly. But our Cheapest-Ever Analogue Sale prices are so low, we've been forbidden to put them in print. We can say this, though we've never sold analogues this cheap before. And big brands at that, like NEC, Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia.

But it'll all end in a flash. So instead of learning morse code, dash into your nearest Telstra Shop to discover the shocking truth for yourself. MM Floor-to-ceiling wardrobes with sliding doors 1 Ts'lAt least Bath jftvo shelves By DAVID ADAMS, chief crime reporter Police yesterday released details of two rooms a bedroom and a bathroom In which a 12-year-old girl was held against her will and sexually assaulted after being abducted from a Blairgowrie street two weeks ago. The head of the investigation Into the girls abduction, acting Superintendent Peter Blick, said a diagram of the rooms had been compiled from information the girl, who was held in the house for around 17 hours, had given to police. "We're asking anybody who has a holiday home in the area) anybody who may be a permanent resident in the area, any tradesmen, builders, delivery men, anyone at all who has been into a house on the peninsula that has a room or rooms which reasonably fit this description, to contact us," he said.

Police believe that while the plan, already circulated to real estate agents on the Mornington Peninsula, Is "relatively it may not be completely correct. "You have to understand that the girl, whilst she was being held in this house, she was being held In fairly traumatic circumstances," Superinten-dant Blick said. "So we would ask people when they look at this plan If they have some house in mind or some bedroom to contact us even though there may be some slight differences." Police would consider searching houses on the peninsula if given promising Information. The girl has told police she was forced into a white four-wheel drive at knifepoint on Canterbury jetty Road after getting off a school bus about 3.50pm on Friday 8 March. The man Is believed to have put a bag over the girls head after she got In the car and driven to a nearby house, which police believe Is probably located between Rye and Sorrento.

The girl was dumped in Lyons Street, Rye, about 9am the next day. Superlntendant Blick said that based on research and evidence, "thereto every possibility" the abductor would re-offend, although the Investigating team had not established any definite links with other cases, including the notorious Mr Cruel child abductions. He said the response to police requests for public help had so far been tremendous, with more than 400 calls since the girlb abduction. Police will conduct a door-knock of the area surrounding Canterbury fetty Road and Lyons Street this weekend. They also want to speak to the driver of a car which was forced to slow down behind the four-wheel drive only moments after the girl was dropped off In Lyons Street Police described the man as being about 50 years old, 150-160 cm tall, of medium build, with fair complexion, grey-white collar-length hair cut In a bob and a grey moustache.

Any person with Information Is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. oifl poo? By STEVE DOW, medical reporter, and agencies Australian meat quarantine authorities are on alert after the British Government yesterday accepted for the first time that "mad cow disease" may jump to humans. British ministers yesterday accepted new scientific evidence that 10 people aged under 42 had died from a new form of the lethal brain condition Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which had probably been acquired from eating meat. Until now, they had refused to accept that CID may be caused by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) dubbed mad cow disease which was first recognised in cattle in Britain in 1986. The backflip could be disastrous for Britain's meat industry, with scientists predicting that more CJD cases could follow.

Authorities have not found BSE in Australian cattle. The BSE scare prompted suspension of imports of live cattle, cattle sperm and embryos from the UK in 1988. Authorities believe BSE would have shown up in Australia by now if it had been brought in from the UK, given that it takes four to five years to incubate in cattle. However, BSE has also been found in cattle in Ireland, Switzerland, France and Portugal. An Australian Quarantine Inspection Service spokesman said cattle were not imported from these countries, although they were brought In from the United States, South Africa and South America.

All imported cattle were tested for BSE and local cattle were routinely tested, he said. While scientists debate the issue, there is strong evidence that BSE was caused by contamination of cattle feed with sheep tissues containing high levels of the lethal sheep disease scrapie. Australia has had one scrapie outbreak, on a Victorian farm In 1952. The AQIS spokesman said sheep were no longer Imported from the UK, while sheep imported from elsewhere were automatically tested for scrapie. CJD occurs at the rate of one in a million.

But some cases have been strongly linked to the use of human pituitary hormone treatment, a fertility treatment taken from the lining of brains of dead bodies. Five Australian women who received the treatment have died of CJD. PAGE AS: 'Mad cow' death report parka UK alarm. Cambcrwell. 684 Burke Rd.

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The navy claims that, after repairs, they will be operationally sound for IS years. When in Opposition, the coalition questioned the value of the purchases during Senate hearings. But senior navy officers played down the cost and corrosion prob-lemi In response to a question from' then Opposition defence spokes-' person, Jocelyn Newman, last year, Rear Admiral Peter Pureed said: "I do not believe we have found any greater prevalence of rust now than we had during our early examination of the vessels." Mr McLachlan ordered the review after extensive briefings from defence chiefs. By LINDSAY MURDOCH, International affairs correspondent, Canberra The Minister for Defence, Mr McLachlan, has called for a report into a $30 million blow-out In the repairs to two rusty navy ships Australia bought from the United States. The Royal Australian Navy was shocked to discover the amount of -rust in the 20-year-old ships, which have been renamed HMAS Kan-imbla and HMAS Manoora.

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