Economist.com Cities Guide: Sydney Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Hear no evil

An inquiry into a UN scandal reached the highest echelon of Australia's government, when John Howard, the prime minister, testified on April 13th. The inquiry centres on charges that an Australian wheat exporter gave about A$300m ($220m) in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime to secure wheat contracts under the UN's oil-for-food programme. Between 1997 and 2003, AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board) sold more than $2.3 billion of wheat to Iraq. Mr Howard-the first prime minister to testify in a judicial inquiry in over 20 years-claimed that he had no knowledge at the time that AWB could be bribing Mr Hussein's regime. Mr Howard was a strong critic of Mr Hussein, and his government was one of the first to commit troops to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Australia's inquiry was prompted by a UN report issued last year, which made allegations against AWB. Terence Cole, a former judge, has been leading the investigation since January and is expected to deliver his findings in June. The investigation has already claimed a victim-Andrew Lindberg, AWB's managing director, who testified in January and announced his resignation the next month. So far no government official has been implicated-both Alexander Downer, the foreign minister, and Mark Vaile, the trade minister, have testified, but like Mr Howard they denied knowledge of AWB's alleged wrongdoing. Still, the inquiry has caused considerable embarrassment for Mr Howard's government, with Australian editorial writers fuming that the prime minister ignored warnings of AWB's dealings. In 2002 Mr Howard congratulated AWB for doing a "very good job" in securing Iraq as a customer.

Seeking sanctuary

Sydney has become the temporary home of 12 athletes from Sierra Leone who fled their country's team during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Six of them secretly arrived in Sydney by train on March 24th, and were taken in by Rosemary Ashton, a member of the Northern Beaches Refugee Sanctuary, a group that helps asylum seekers. Ms Ashton informed police of their presence three days later, after learning that the athletes' Games visas had been cancelled and that they were therefore in Australia illegally.

Immigration authorities issued new "bridging" visas when the athletes argued their lives would be in danger if they returned to Sierra Leone. Three men claimed they faced prison because of their opposition to their country's regime, while three women said they feared being subjected to circumcision-one told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that her sister had bled to death after undergoing the ordeal three weeks earlier. Another six Sierra Leonean athletes arrived in Sydney a few days later, and were also granted temporary visas. The athletes have applied for permanent settlement, and will be allowed to stay in Australia while their applications are processed.

A helping hand

Australia has launched two initiatives to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region. A leading Sydney think-tank, the Lowy Institute, and AusAID, Australia's overseas aid agency, have organised a coalition of Australian businesses to help combat the disease. Margaret Jackson, head of Qantas Airlines, is leading the group, and at a meeting in May will ask Australian companies to commit money toward HIV education and treatment in the region. This initiative follows another launched in February by the Australian government and the (Bill) Clinton Foundation, set up by the former American president to fight AIDS. Australia will provide the Clinton Foundation with A$25m ($18m) to treat the disease in China, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea (PNG), Australia's closest neighbour.

The impact of HIV in the region is becoming dire: 2% of PNG's adult population is infected, and over the next few years, 40% of the virus's spread is forecast to occur in Asia. The Lowy Institute argues that AIDS could join terrorism as a source of regional instability. The spectre of AIDS in booming Asia, especially China, is as much an economic problem as a humanitarian one. The region stands to lose tens of billions of dollars by 2010 if the disease goes unchecked.

Trouble in the suburbs

Sydney's sprawling western suburbs are experiencing a surge in violence, as highlighted by three murders in late March and early April. Bassam Chami, a 26-year-old professional boxer, and his friend, Ibrahim Assad, were shot dead on March 30th in the streets of Granville. Then on April 9th Ashwoor Audisho was killed in another western area, Fairfield Heights. Police do not believe the murders are linked and have yet to make any arrests.

The shootings are part of a recent spate of violence in the western suburbs. Drug-related gang warfare has been blamed for some of the bloodshed, and police suspect that an Assyrian gang may be responsible for Mr Audisho's death. The New South Wales government has announced that it will create a new Middle Eastern crime squad to probe shootings in the region. The area's crime rate is out of kilter with those in the rest of Sydney, which are improving. The New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, a public body, announced on April 10th that the state's murder rate had remained stable, while armed robberies had dropped by almost 27% over the past two years.

Star turn

Few sports are more sacred to Sydneysiders than rugby league, which culminates each season in a Grand Final. But not even the most colourful Grand Final could compete with the recent drama at one of the teams, South Sydney. On March 19th Souths members voted to accept a privatisation offer worth A$3m from Russell Crowe, a Hollywood actor, and Peter Holmes à Court, a local businessman. But the members accepted the offer by only a narrow margin, and some were unhappy with the outcome. George Piggins, a former team coach and captain, argued that the Souths should stay in community hands, and Sol Bellear, a team director, threatened to challenge the vote as invalid. Mr Bellear finally accepted Mr Crowe as Souths' new owner on April 13th.

Mr Crowe, who was born in New Zealand and has a home in Sydney, says he has been a fan of Souths-or the Rabbitohs, as the team is known-since he attended his first game aged five. The celebrity takeover may provide the team with a much-needed boost. One of the oldest clubs in Australia, Souths is languishing-it has not won a Grand Final since 1971. Mr Crowe told club members that he hoped the cash injection would revive the team in time to win the 2008 Grand Final.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Archibald Prize 2006

March 25th-May 28th 2006

This annual exhibition of the finalists for Australia's most prestigious prize for portraiture draws huge crowds. This year's award attracted 787 entries, with 35 finalists. The winner, announced on March 24th, was Marcus Wills, from Melbourne, with his painting "The Paul Juraszek Monolith (after Marcus Gheeraerts)". The work (pictured) is based on an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the elder, a 16th-century Flemish artist best known for illustrating "Aesop's Fables". The painting contains 200 individual figures, including 29 of Paul Juraszek, a Melbourne sculptor of animals, and one of Mr Wills himself. It is a captivating, brooding work with seeming allusions to religious allegory. Yet Mr Wills, a first-time entrant in the competition, insists there is no universal message: "It's just about Paul making his sculptures," he told Economist.com. It is also an unconventional choice for the prize, whose winners over 85 years have been consistently more orthodox portraits of posed subjects.

Also on display are the finalists for two smaller awards: the Wynne Prize for landscape painting, won by John Beard for his painting of The Gap, a cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour; and the Sulman Prize for subject and genre painting, won by Jiawei Shen, for his painting "Peking Treaty 1901".

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery Rd, the Domain. Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9225 1744. Open: daily 10am-5pm. Admission: A$8. See the gallery's exhibition information and the official Archibald Prize site.

More from the Sydney cultural calendar