<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side two <&>18:54 radio new zealand news for concert f m at twelve o clock read by grant walker tut the <&>19:00 australian labour party caucus is to make a second attempt starting about now to resolve the leadership issue the caucus met in canberra at ten this morning but broke up after a few minutes in what its secretary described as a confused mood prime minister bob hawke says he gave the labour m ps and senators a chance to vote on the leadership but no challenge was forthcoming from his long time rival treasurer paul keating tut labour politicians began to go home but an urgent call went out to stop some of them at canberra airport after it was decided to call the caucus back into session it's being said officially that mister hawke offered mister keating a second chance to resolve the issue earlier reports said mister keating had won over a number of supporters but still lacked the numbers to topple mister hawke from the prime ministership however mister hawke is thought to need to win by a wide margin if he's to settle the long running issue which has been destabilising his government <,> our government says any employer paying only a <&>20:00 dollar an hour to an employee aged twenty or over will face court action tut the employment minister maurice mctigue says any one abusing the statutory minimums provided under the code of employment conditions will be prosecuted tut he's ordered officials to enquire into reports of a christchurch employer paying staff a dollar an hour and telling them to get a top up from inland revenue under the guaranteed minimum family income scheme mister mctigue says the minimum wage act is quite clear in setting a minimum wage of two hundred and forty six dollars for a forty hour week or just over six dollars an hour for an eight hour day he's said that if people are being paid below the statutory minimum arrears are recoverable and the government will ensure that they are paid tut the christchurch employer a printing firm admits that it's paying some of its staff only a dollar an hour but says it's acting on legal advice and we've just heard that the firm has in fact agreed to pay the <&>21:00 statutory minimum wage tut a former power board official says electricorp is prostituting our electricity system to the wrong set of values dave boswell who was general manager of the wanganui rangitikei power board says the state owned company must review its priorities in the wake of two major blackouts this week tut technical problems cut power to the top of the south island and the bottom of the north island leaving south islanders in the dark and wellington people stranded when trains refused to run mister boswell who also served on the local government commission and is now a trustee of the wanganui board blames electricorp for the cuts he says it's putting profit before service and letting essential maintenance fall behind <,> police sat on a serious complaint from the railways corporation for more than four months the complaint was lodged in february after the corporation terminated the contract of its property manager jock lee for activities surrounding the sale of scrap metal but radio new zealand news <&>22:00 understands that very little action was taken by the police till a matter relating to a completely separate investigation by the serious fraud office became public this week in another development jock lee's successor at railways john feast has had a high court writ served on the railways corporation for his own suspension early this week over lease transactions mister feast says he wants an urgent investigation into the conduct of the sale of railways land worth millions of dollars <,> tut t v three is laying assault charges against two north canterbury men this follows a confrontation yesterday between two news crews and acquaintances of an american russell madliner who's been deported back to the united states t v three's christchurch bureau chief mark jennings says the crews had gone to the american's farm at waiau on legitimate business but he says that on arrival they were punched pushed and had mud thrown on them mark jennings says t v three takes exception to that sort of <&>23:00 behaviour against its staff and after legal advice is asking police to take action <,> the united states nuclear regulatory commission has declared a low level state of emergency at a nuclear fuel processing plant in north carolina tut it says one hundred and fifty kilos of uranium was accidentally poured into a waste tank and is now dissolved in the liquid already in the tank the n r c says there is no great danger while the uranium stays in solution but it admits that if it settled into a certain pattern there could be a critical reaction which would release radioactivity tut the commission says the danger will remain till the amount of uranium in the tank is reduced to about fifty kilos residents near the plant at wilmington are said to be sceptical of the reassurances because officials always tend to play down the danger from nuclear accidents <,> coloured members of the south african parliament have joined the ruling national party for the first time the coloureds are members of the house of representatives a <&>24:00 junior house of the er trisemeral parliament which represents people of mixed race thirty two of the thirty five coloured m ps have defected to the national party over the past three weeks and today they joined in its caucus for the first time the move comes less than eight months after the party opened its doors to all races it's also thirty five years since the south african government stacked the then upper house of parliament so coloured voters could be removed from the rolls after having been allowed the vote since british colonial times and that's radio new zealand news on concert f m <&>24:35