What Australian newspapers say on Saturday, April 4, 2009

AAP General News (Australia)
04-04-2009
What Australian newspapers say on Saturday, April 4, 2009

SYDNEY, April 4 AAP - The G20 summit has delivered a boost of confidence, with reforms
designed to help capitalism work better, The Weekend Australian says in its editorial
today.

The meeting is an encouraging step towards the shared goal of solving the financial
crisis, with the nations pledging to improve monitoring and regulation at global and
national levels, with systems to be more disciplined, consistent and transparent.

Some of the most important goals will need arduous negotiation. And the problem of
removing toxic sub-prime loans from bank balance sheets will need attention, the newspaper
says.

"The G20, prudently, affirmed its faith in free markets, with some long-overdue fine-tuning.

Like economist Frederik Hayek, the summit understood that for competition to work beneficially,
a careful legal framework, subject to updating and change, is required."

The Sydney Morning Herald says other than achieving consensus, the G20 summit did not
live up to its sponsors' hopes.

There are no promises from governments to join in a big new stimulus package. In its
place, there will be a tripling of funds for the International Monetary Fund, plus a handout
of special drawing rights to IMF member states, multilateral lending to low-income countries,
and trade finance through the World Bank.

The summit also promised not to give in to protectionist pressures, yet member nations
promised the same thing in November and 17 states implemented 47 new trade barriers.

The G20 did manage to set up the Financial Stability Board to advise national regulators
when a country's banks and financial institutions are taking excessive risks, but it will
have no power to sanction and must rely on prestige or negative publicity to achieve anything.

"To compensate for the lack of substance, there was plenty of window-dressing, of which
the crackdown on bankers' pay is the outstanding example.

"But when markets stabilise and start to rise once more, financial institutions will
find ways around the G20's new rules."

Melbourne's The Age says the G20 London meeting has laid the groundwork for a new kind
of international politics.

The one-day meeting managed to exceed expectations of what it might do to end the global
financial crisis.

The meeting's willingness to shore up the world's most vulnerable nations is a praiseworthy
achievement because in the past the weak had been left to fend for themselves.

"The summit demonstrated both that some differences between nation states remain intractable
and that nations cannot pursue their own self-interest with impunity.

"It may be doubted whether this summit marks the beginning of a global recovery from
recession; it is clear, however, that the G20 has established itself as the forum world
leaders are most likely to choose to deal with global crises."

Melbourne's Herald Sun says Therese Rein, the wife of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was
looking poised at the G20 in London after her "pirate puffy shirt" episode in New York.

Ms Rein looked the "sophisticated first lady, poised and polished in midnight blue,"

in her meeting with Michelle Obama.

"Michelle Obama and Therese Rein are professional women who find they have a great
deal in common.

"Their husbands are highly visible world leaders and Ms Rein and Ms Obama add to the
way the world sees them men to whom they are married."

It said the two women are successful in their own right and will take increasing roles
in the way the US and Australia are perceived.

Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says much of the past decade has been wasted in terms
of placing bikie gangs on a more appropriate level of attention.

Indeed, they've managed to grow and thrive while eluding large-scale legal difficulties.

Not only must legislative means be enabled that will limit the ability of gang members
to gather but ongoing investigations must continue into businesses owned and run by bikie
gangs, the newspaper says.

"Many of these businesses, legitimate within themselves, provide vital capital to fund
gangs' other, less legal activities.

"The extent of these business interests is alarming, and identifies again the extent
to which the gang problem has grown without notice."

Brisbane's The Courier-Mail asks, now that it has publicised the growing problem of
so-called party drugs, how the newspaper and community can respond to the crisis.

It presents five relatively straightforward recommendations, which combined would represent
a substantial move forward in the war against drugs.

They are not the answer, but they are practical steps that could be introduced quickly
and, in some cases, with minimal public spending, such as introducing ecstasy drug education
programs in schools, or changing importation laws to ban the pill presses used to make
illicit drugs, the newspaper says.

"We need much more than knee-jerk reactions from our politicians in response to this
growing problem of party drugs. We need thoughtful, practical and imaginative responses,
such as those we have spelled out in today's newspaper.

"There are no easy answers, but answers there are ... and there is enormous desire
within the community to find solutions."

AAP jxt/rs

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

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