SYDNEY BRIEFING May 2005

News this month

The HIHer they climb...

Another chapter in Sydney’s colourful history of corporate crime closed in April. Two leading figures in the failed HIH insurance group were each sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison by a Sydney court. Ray Williams, HIH’s former chief executive, pleaded guilty to three charges, including one of recklessly misleading HIH shareholders and banks about the company’s true financial position. The judge set a non-parole period of two years and nine months. Rodney Adler, a former HIH director, received a non-parole sentence of two-and-a-half years.

The collapse of Sydney-based HIH in 2001, with debts of A$5.3 billion ($4 billion), was Australia’s biggest corporate collapse, causing more than the usual hardship when it left many policy-holders empty-handed. Mr Williams’s lawyer said he would appeal against the “manifestly excessive” sentence; the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, a corporate watchdog, said the sentences sent a “strong message”. Seven others charged over HIH’s failure still face trial.

Forces for good

For a city that was once considered Australia’s crime capital, Sydney is rapidly cleaning up its act. The New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, a state government agency, announced on April 18th that the city’s murder rate in 2004—one per 100,000 people—was its lowest in 20 years. Property crimes dropped even more dramatically, to half their 2001 level. Don Weatherburn, the bureau’s director, told Economist.com that the fall in property crime had been more substantial in Sydney than in Australia overall, thanks to two factors: the city's booming economy, with rising real wages and record low levels of long-term unemployment; and a heroin “drought” from late 2000, which, he said, forced heroin prices up by 400%.

Bob Carr, the Labor premier of New South Wales, seized on the figures to claim credit for his government’s policies, including boosting police numbers. But Mr Weatherburn pointed out that Sydney’s police could not take all the glory: the Australian Federal Police, based in Canberra, had played a big role in targeting the heroin trade at its source in Asia.

In demand

Sydney is likely to see a bigger influx of settlers over the next year. In a bid to address Australia's shortage of skilled workers, Amanda Vanstone, the federal immigration minister, announced on April 14th that Australia would raise its annual quota of non-humanitarian immigrants by 20,000 to 140,000 in 2005-06. Eighteen occupations have been added to a list of 38 skills in demand, including dentists, cooks, civil engineers and podiatrists. The decision follows criticism from industry leaders and the opposition Labor Party that the government has neglected to invest in the training needed by Australia’s booming economy.

Despite the skills shortage, Bob Carr, the Labor premier of New South Wales, wants Sydney’s population pegged at its present level of 4.1m. He criticised the decision, to pointed rebuttal from Ms Vanstone: “For a premier of the state that has the city he wants to say is our financial, social and cultural capital, to then say ‘Well, we can’t have one more person here,’ is ridiculous.”

Endeavouring for better

HM Bark Endeavour, a meticulously built replica of Captain James Cook’s 18th-century ship of discovery, suffered an undignified return to her home port on April 17th. Four years after last gracing Sydney Harbour, the Endeavour was to have been welcomed back by a flotilla of vessels to her berth at the National Maritime Museum. Instead, she spent hours being pulled free after running aground in shallow waters in Botany Bay, where Cook made his first Australian landing in 1770, south of where Sydney was founded 18 years later.

Ever since she was launched in 1993, the Endeavour has been plagued by financial problems. The Sydney-based foundation that ran the ship handed ownership—and her debts—to the Australian government when she finally docked. After spending 12 years as a seagoing vessel with paying crew members, the Endeavour now seems destined to stay berthed in Sydney as a floating museum, with occasional outings around the harbour. Captain Cook would surely be dismayed.

Losing a legacy

A battle to save the Sydney residence of Patrick White, Australia’s only Nobel Laureate for Literature, has been lost. The Edwardian-era house at 20 Martin Road, Centennial Park, one of Sydney’s most elegant residential districts, was White’s home for 26 years until his death in 1990. It was here that he wrote “The Eye of the Storm”, the novel that won him the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature, and several other works that are now considered modern Australian classics.

The National Trust of New South Wales had lobbied Australia’s federal government, the state government of New South Wales and the Sydney City Council to each contribute A$1.5m ($1.15m) to buy the house and turn it into a centre for visiting writers and cultural events. When no government funds were forthcoming, the trustees of White’s estate sold the house in early April for a reported A$3m to an undisclosed buyer. Elsa Atkin, the National Trust’s director, said: “The apathy and neglect we have shown to the father of Australian literature is bewildering.”

Catch if you can

May 2005

“Tap Dogs”

Until May 15th 2005

This noisy, all-male company had its debut at the Sydney Festival in 1995. It made a name for itself by updating the form, trading in traditional tap shoes for Blundstone boots, an iconic Australian boot designed for toiling in the outback. Since that unlikely start, “Tap Dogs” has performed to audiences all over the world, and the show's organisers claims it is Australia’s biggest theatrical export.

Dein Perry, the company’s creator, left a career as an industrial machinist for one in show business, becoming a dancer in the Sydney production of “42nd Street”. He is still dancing energetically with men half his age in this tenth anniversary production, designed and directed by Nigel Triffitt.

State Theatre, 49 Market St, Sydney. Tel: +61 (02) 9373 6852. Bookings via Ticketek, tel: +61 (02) 132 849 (website). See the show's website.

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