The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 2

2 kswj the Sunday age 4 MAY 199 PMsettb launch attack on Hanson i -1 THE YEARS -'m jm II 1987: Fire destroyed much of the prison. i Mfe. I fl 1 ,1 I I I Jika Jlfca: Escape proof. Five inmates died in a 1989 fire. Picture: ROBERT BANKS CoM comfort: A painting in a cramped Pentridge prison cell is a solitary reminder of the many troubled souls who passed through the door into the system.

By Paul Daley, national affairs THE Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has resolved to toughen his Government's stand against Ms Pauline Hanson with plans to personally attack her views on Aborigines and Asian Immigration. Sources close to Mr Howard said he would use a speech at the inaugural Australian dinner of the Asia Society in Sydney on Thursday to launch the Government's attack on Ms Hanson and her fledgling One Nation party. In Perth last night. Ms Hanson was splashed with water as protesters demonstrated outside the Perth stadium where she was to give a public address. Ms Hanson appeared shaken as she entered the front door of the Challenge Stadium about five minutes before her speech was to begin.

She was splashed as she stepped from a car at the front door of the stadium. Some of her supporters were reduced to tears as they ran the gauntlet of protesters. The government's apparent back-flip in the Government's handling of the Hanson issue came late on Friday after a telephone hook-up between Mr Howard, the Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Tim Fischer, the Treasurer. Mr Peter Cos-tello, and the Government's upper house leader, Senator Robert Hill.

It also followed the release last week of the Government's worst opinion poll ratings since the 1996 federal election. The Sunday Age' understands the Government's leadership team has received complaints from MPs who say their constituents are attracted to Ms Hanson's views. Ms Hanson has criticised Australia's immigration program, multi-culturalism and Aborigines, who she claims are one of the most privileged groups in society. Ms Hanson announced plans for her candidates three weeks ago when she launched the party in her Oxley electorate. A spokesman for Mr Howard yesterday confirmed that, because Ms Hanson now planned to field candidates in all federal seats, Mr Howard would subject her to an increased level of scrutiny.

Ms Hanson could not be contacted. Pioneer for the cause. P9 Editorial. P20 Final muster in a dark and lonely place JOHN ELDER 1967: Protest on the eve of the hanging of Ronald Ryan. is the shower block, a room that glares bright and stark behind its rust red gates.

There are traces of foot powder and soap on the concrete floor and the green steel bench. There are cracks in the tiles and white smeared stains on the stainless steel sinks. The stains are wet to your touch. Most of the wooden towel pegs are missing. The men showered along one dark green wall, standing in a trough of stainless steel.

Eight nozzles and soap dishes. What man wasn't afraid to get soap in his eyes? You wonder how many slipped, how many were surrounded at the sinks. Thoughts obvious and impossible to shrug off. There is no one here so you give a pretend scream and hear it come back at you. You sit on the green steel bench and feel the cold bite through your trousers.

You listen to the hum from the ventilation vents. There is no silence. You get out of there and walk PENTRIDGE, Division: Across the yard, near the front gate where (he vistors used to huddle and worry and wait, the guards are having a barbecue and saying goodbye to one another. The governor is handing out redundancy cheques and the laughter bouncing off the walls has a strangled tiredness in it. Standing in the doorway with your back to the darkness, looking over the flowerbeds and listening to the laughter, you have the odd notion that this could be a seminary or a university.

Men gathered together in the name of something. The last prisoners left Division two days ago for a swanker place to prowl and sleep. The flower beds are already whiskered with weeds. The swimming pool is green. The chook pen.

where the men were set loose to wander and scratch at the earth, has all the joy of an abandoned schoolyard. Torn and worn. Soaked with a century of secret conversations and threats along the cells. Small dark rooms where the smell of the men is thick and hot. The prisoners have painted the lights black.

They have painted the plexiglass over the small barred windows different colors. To keep the jail away from where they were sleeping. To make in the darkness a world where there was no conniving or competing or conforming. This was the heavy place, Division, where the heavies could walk around and do a little business. On the other side of the compound is I Division, abandoned months ago.

It has college dorms, private showers and wooden fittings. A big view of the yard. A comfortable place for the long-term guests; many murderers among them. All they had to do was keep themselves clean. But there were Division heavies who refused to go over there.

They wanted to stay where they didn't have to be nice. They took the cold and the fear and the darkness over comfort. The governor later tells you all this and you don't understand it. You walk around and find small mementoes of the lives that left this smell. One man has left his bed neat and lucked in.

You pull back the bedding and find it planted with hair. Brown gum- givy. Glued to the wall are ragged fragments uf Penthouse pets. You enter Cell 54. A double bunk.

A stainless Mcvl toilet. A steel cabinet and stiinll si' If table butted to the wall. You lie down mi Ihe mattress and all die smells of the jail parade by your nnstiils. Sweat. Cigarettes.

Unwashed parts. Phlegmatic lungs, soap. You look to the lelt and see a thawing of a black hand holding a curved and serrated knife. Ncaihy is a drawing of a bald head behind bais, uiih a speech balloon: "ISnouo!" You Hun our Lite to a miner where il is daikest. You stare into it until the governor ulfeis to show you the test of 1 1 if compound.

And you remember where ou are. and fretting. You turn around and walk along the entrance hall. The steel gates are open. On the walls, mounted between posters of the Victorian high country and the Antarctica wasteland, are cabinets containing breathing apparatus.

In case of fire. It is already a museum. Dead, for sure; but a fresh kill. The smell of the men is still strong, a complex and earthy bouquet. Entering the main hall, with the cells off to the sides like pockets on a pool table, the smell catches in your throat and a faint edge of panic rises and turns to dismay.

To your left is the guards' office. The desk glows white from the lamp near the phone. To your right Only plate: Registration plates were made there for years. BRIEFS mm ill ttt mhimm nit 1 1 III- Workers say risks are rife in meat industry SCIENCE: Australian Nobel winner dies Sir lolm Carew Ixcles, an Australian scientist whose brain" research earned him the Nobel prie for medicine, died in on Friday at 94. Sir lolm.

born in Melbourne, was awarded the prize in 1963 for his work on chemical transmissions' between nerve cells. TOLL: Two killed on Victorian roads IWO men died in crashes at the weekend. On Friday night, man. Tii. died and three people weie injured when two cars collided in Leopold, south-east of lifelong.

Yesterday a man, 39, died when the car he was driving ran olf the road at Weiribee. The deaihs hiought the road toll to 12(1, 42 feiver than the same time last year. POLICE: Random drug tests for NSW force KANDOM drug and alcohol testing is lo be introduced in the New South Wiles police force after a study found that almost one in two male officers drink alcohol at dangerous levels. RESERVOIR: Thief holds up store A man with clothes wound round his aim said he was holding a gun when he robbed a Not guile Might store, at Heservoir. Fifteen customers were in the store.

He demanded cash and lied. SPEEDING: Police must work cameras, says ALP, Die Victorian Opposition has criticised Government plans to replace police speed-camera operalois with civilians, saying the task requires people with police discipline and ethics. Tattslotto i export works" However, an unpublished copy of lhe( Sll(t) study p.ut-lunded by the meat industry contains dala indicating tlieie weie tlilieienies in the level of contamination of expoit and domesik meals. A table. led hv the author of the lepoit.

the progiam mauaget for food sale-ty, Mr Hairy Shay, slates that salmonella was found in 2.24 per cent of domestic boneless beef meat samples and in (1.311 per cent of expoil samples. I he study also tumid higher levels of hatleiia on domestic caicases. "Domestic winks did not pei ft a in as well as ilie expoit works, with the lotal loiinl In domestic samples being nearly tit) limes higher," the sillily said. Mr Shay said the bactetial count was simply an indicator of poor Ingienc and likely spoilage, rather than safely. He saiil the salmonella lindings weie based on loo small a sample to be meaningful.

Tlie secretary of the Mealwmkeis Union, Mr Wally Curiau, said the auditing system was a joke" anil there should lie spot Inspections of meatworks. "I here are scoundrels in the industry because the lit and pioper person test is so weak and penalties for breaches are so minimal," he said. Mr Curtail said most lamb sold in Vic torian markets was in fact "Iwo-tciolh" mill ton. which had been reclassified will) the collusion of some inspectors. Some smatlgood manufac turers weie substituting goat and mutton for pork, he said.

A 1 144 Austialian Oiiatantine and Inspection Seivite memo about the new Victorian regulations stated: "It is AtJIS's view that they are grossly deficient as a legislative basis lor regulatory slandatds." From PI an independent inspection of their works. Two said' the production lines would then be slowed for the day to avoid problems. Those plants with a registered quality assurance program are only inspected four times a yearl "We've never had a surprise visit' at our plant," one inspector said. "You are notified at least two days before. "I'm seeing unsafe things all the time, things that go past the critical control point, bile and spillage from the intestines, splitting of carcases.

I've seen splitting of diseased animals when they have abscesses in the lungs, in the liver, on the backbone and they split them with no sterilisation, spray them and all that does is spread the bacteria out of the abscess. "You should actually stop production when you have either a risk of contamination from some pathological condition or spillage of intestinal contents. That's just not happening." Sick, injured or dying animals were being slaughtered without veterinary supervision, potentially creating a major health risk, the inspector said. The moment we talk about these problems we get a reaction of anger or aggression from management, the inspector said. The prime objective is to keep production flowing, not safety.

"The public should be desperately worried, and, if they knew what we knew, they would be." One inspector, employed at a processing plant supplying packaged meat products said it regularly recycled expired and returned products, "They take the product back from the supermarkets, they heat it rapidly, cool it, vacuum-pack it and it resold as pressed Off the hook? Victoria's meat safety is being questioned meat, original product," he said. "It's very serious, the returns come in on Friday and are reprocessed on Monday, its done as a matter of course." The VMA's Mr lolin Watson said there were a "certain number" of announced, inspections that took place but could not say how many. He said recent food scares related to processed, not raw, meat. Company inspectors who did not report safety breaches were committing very serious offences, Mr Watson said. He agreed that some cases outlined to 'The Sunday Age' were concerning, but said businesses should be reported so the authority could take action.

He said a CSIltO study had shown no differences in the quality of domestic meat compared to export meat. A recent press release from the chief of the CSIKO division of Food Science, Dr Michael Eyles, said: "The study did not reveal differences in the incidence of salmonella or in overall levels of product safety between domestic and Draw M4T. Prize Pool: $9,336,032.42. Division 1: $2,446,040.50. Super 66: 8, 4, 5, 0, 5, prize pool: $366,338.13.

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