The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • 8

8 THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD FRIDAY MARCH 14 1997 Colston expected to resign uni post Mine manager weeps recalling fatal flood have not been able to concentrate on anything since the accident -1 have not been sleeping 9 By MIKE SECCOMBE The president of the Senate Mai Colston alleged to have used his position on the council of the Australian National University to influence his results is expected to resign the position today It is understood Senator Colston already has completed paperwork necessary to relinquish the position and will notify the board at its meeting today His move follows claims by Labor Senator Robert Ray made in a Senate committee hearing on February 26 that Senator Colston used his position to press for preferential treatment of his son Douglas He also was alleged to have demanded the parliamentary research service prepare at least one paper with footnotes and bibliography on a subject similar to one required for a university course Senator Colston has denied the claims and with the support of the Coalition and Independent Senator Brian Harradine defeated a move by the Labor Party to have him removed from the position to which he was nominated as a Labor appointee He has conceded however he may have double-dipped by claiming travelling allowance for coming to Canberra to investigate and when he arrived near where the inundation occurred he saw running before he was forced back by the gas situation is that you put your life at risk that night to go into that counsel for Gretley colliery staff association Mr Ian Strathdee QC asked said Mr Pritchard He had gone down the mine alone and sent the other miners out He broke down in tears while being questioned by Mr Strathdee and said he knew the men who died have not been able to concentrate on Mr Pritchard said have not been Mr Strathdee asked for an adjournment due to Mr distress Also giving evidence yesterday was Mr Bernard Brown a Gretley miner who had worked the afternoon shift before the tragedy Mr Brown 57 said during his shift was a little more water than but he said that if his deputy Mr Maclean was concerned about the water he would have expected him to say something for his own safety and the safety of the other miners mended that we stopped cutting and carried out he said Mining would have been temporarily abandoned while test drilling might be done to determine the condition he said back on it you should have looked at safety reports from the production Mr Hall asked hindsight Mr Pritchard said Six hours into the shift Mr Edward Batterham 48 Mr John Hunter 36 Mr Mark Kaiser 30 and Mr Damon Murray 19 cut through to the water-filled shaft and drowned Questioned by Mr Clive Steim SC counsel for the company Oakbridge Pty Ltd Mr Pritchard said he was never made aware of Mr safety report which mentioned a water problem believe Maclean was spoken to at the end of shift by the under-manager and it was resolved that it was nuisance Mr Pritchard said Mr Batter-ham the mine deputy who was killed in the accident would have inspected the face before allowing his men to start work that night At no time did Mr Batterham nor the previous deputy mention anything about water accumulation Batterham believed for one moment there was a danger of water emanating from the face it would have been incumbent on him to pull men out as soon as Mr Steirn asked follows therefore that the water was nuisance water and just Mr Pritchard said he received a phone call about 15 minutes after the accident from a mine deputy who was about the amount of water he had At that stage Mr Pritchard said he had no appreciation of the extent of the tragedy He decided to go down to attend University Council meetings while also claiming the allowance from the Parliament The Nine Network reported last night that Senator Colston was likely to step down from at least one of his Senate committee positions The senator is the subject of a wide range of allegations among them that he had converted a parliamentary postage allowance to cash misused Commonwealth car entitlements and claimed allowances for being in Canberra when he was not He is the subject of three investigations related to the various allegations The Senate inquiry was completed last week and has been sent to Senator Colston for comment It is due to be released on Tuesday By ELLEN CONNOLLY The under-manager in charge of Gretley coal mine when the flooding disaster occurred on November 14 wept yesterday as he told an inquiry about the events of that day Mr Phillip Pritchard said that since the mine accident the worst in nearly 20 years he had been unable to sleep or concentrate and was incapable of talking for some time after it events of the 14th are fairly traumatic for Mr Pritchard said matter has affected me quite a Under cross-examination by the counsel for the families of the victims Mr Peter Hall QC Mr Pritchard admitted that he had failed to read the safety report filled out on the previous production shift by the mine deputy Mr Alister Maclean which stated: seam was giving out considerable amount of water Mr Pritchard acknowledged that it was his statutory obligation under the Coal Mine Regulations Act to examine safety reports from the previous production shift I had seen report 1 would have recom Genuine moments of power but laughs too Nicholas Eadie and Kelly Butler share a scene Powerful tale of passion in dark days of Vietnam Theatre BY JAMES WAITES Third World Blues Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House March 13 THE NEW DISCOVERY RANGE STARTS RELOW 40 I DISCOVERY Greenhouse effect? No worries says Parer The Minister for Resources and Energy Senator Parer yesterday dismissed community concerns over greenhouse emissions comparing them to the of doomsaying of the early 1970s are now going through all this greenhouse Senator Parer told a mining conference in Ballarat Victoria have any figures to back this up but I think people will say in 10 years that it greenhouse was the Club of The so-called Club of Rome was a conference held in that city which concluded that much of the resources would run out by the late 1 980s due to over-exploitation and population growth Senator views aired at the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Annual Conference are at odds with widely-held beliefs of industry leaders and the Government that the greenhouse issue should be taken seriously The comments came as the Government prepares for a conference in Kyoto Japan in December when the international community is due to finalise a new agreement on greenhouse abatement measures Australia opposes binding emission reduction targets and timetables advocating instead an agreement which recognises the economic circumstances of each country in determining their abatement goals Senator Parer said the Government wanted to make mining attractive in Australia not focus on bad side-effects attitude of this Government is to look for ways to allow projects to go he said chairman-elect Mr Jerry Ellis complimented the Government for making conditions easier for the mining industry particularly regarding industrial relations reform the abolition of the three-mines uranium policy and the focus on micro-economic reform But Mr Ellis stressed the need for miners to take environmental issues seriously than ever before the community judges the minerals industry on its environmental he said CRA Ltd group executive Dr Ian Gould agreed greenhouse issue is a serious one we are very conscious that we can no longer take the approval for David Third World Blues a rewrite of his 1972 play Jugglers Three is about a young conscript who returns from Vietnam to find his wife shacked up with another man There is no doubt the new version is much more interesting Jugglers Three is embarrassingly blokey with wives and girlfriends little more than sexually useful hangers-on And for a committed anti-war activist as Williamson was this potentially serious early work is quickly overtaken by barely controlled comic business For Third World Blues First Night Williamson not only radically reorganises the plot but expands his themes and characterisations He also cleans up the sexist jibes trading them in for 1990s-style politically correct nods Joel Edgerton as Graham the soldier is outstanding in setting the stakes high Here is an already traumatised young man bitterly distressed by the news that his wife has abandoned him doubly so that she has not had the courage to tell him herself Instead he faces his replacement: Nicholas Eadie as Neville an academic in corduroy is also excellent as the tw men see-saw betw een open warfare and guerilla-style advantage aching liver He lost seven kilos and still experiences fatigue He will be claiming damages for pain and suffering medical expenses and loss of income In a statement of claim filed yesterday the council is accused of breaching its common law duty of care by allowing the water system in the lakes to be contaminated with human faeces causing the hepatitis A infection The council farmers and processors allegedly failed to ensure that the oysters were fit for human consumption The victims accuse the council of failing to warn oyster farmers and the public that it was unsafe to harvest and consume oysters Comedy slowly takes over as first one wife and then another appears These parts ably played by Odile Le Clezio and Kelly Butler are much enriched the men getting away with a lot less than they did in Jugglers Three There was always a crazy sub-plot involving a buddy from the war Dennis just returned home to be confronted by his own unfaithfulness Kidnapping their baby he has now-robbed a service station arriving at house for cover The plot is further complicated by the arrival of another of the ex-lov-ers and inevitably the law Acknowledging reduced tensions between the layers of plot comic and tragic the fact is no policeman in real life would pursue an armed robber into private property single-handedly even if this allows for the bribe which carries the to a happy ending David production is crisp the evening overall most engaging Best of all is the chance to rediscover the raw passion of young Williamson While there are many of the daring laughs we look for in a modern Williamson there are also genuine moments of power as we see inside the suffering of this young soldier and his personally and politically confused friends PAGE 15: world during the period of contamination They allege that the council failed to monitor and test the water quality to ensure that it was not compromised by sewage dumped or spilled into Wallis Lake The statement of claim says the council neglected to have an adequate system of inspection of sewerage ducts pipelines treatment and storage facilities Mr Andrew Grech of the law firm Slater Gordon said the oyster producers had to be included as parties to the action in order for consumers to obtain protection under the Trade Practices Act wheels cruise control and a driver's airbag While the SE7 has all this plus seven seats driver and front passenger airbags ABS brakes roof rails and a sturdy rear step And protecting you from the elements on all three Discovery models is a tough box-section chassis side intrusion-beams and a sophisticated climate control system Of course you don't have to go all the way to the Arctic Circle to test the multi award-winning Discovery range Just drop into your local Land Rover dealer or call 1800 809 308 The Arctic Circle One of the most hostile places on earth Hostile to man beast and 4WD That's why we have a 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