Girl dead, men injured after plane crash

A YOUNG girl has died and two men have survived a plane crash into a northern NSW river believed to have happened after their aircraft hit power lines.

The pilot, a 50-year-old man who suffered only minor injuries, freed himself from the wreckage and called authorities seeking help for his two passengers following the crash southwest of Casino on Saturday morning, police said.

They were able to save a 39-year-old male passenger who was taken to Lismore Base Hospital by helicopter, where he remains in a serious condition.

A 12-year-old girl died at the scene.

"It's believed the aircraft hit power lines and then crashed into a nearby river," police said.

A crime scene has been established and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

The Australian Transportation Safety Bureau will investigate the cause of the crash.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ita to remain at category one strength

CYCLONE Ita is unlikely to drop below cyclone strength despite making landfall 19 hours ago, the Bureau of Meteorology has warned.

A cyclone warning issued at 5pm (AEST) shows Ita will remain at category one strength and will head out into the Coral Sea near Innisfail in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The bureau predicts Ita will remain at category one strength at least until 5pm (AEST) on Monday on a south-easterly track that runs roughly parallel with the Queensland coast.

Ita roared ashore about 9pm on Friday as a severe category four cyclone, forcing hundreds of people at Cooktown and nearby Hope Vale to take refuge in cyclone shelters.

At 5pm on Saturday, Ita was estimated to be 20km south-southwest of Port Douglas and 45 kilometres west-northwest of Cairns, moving south southeast at 11km/h.

It is likely to move southeast close to or just off the coast for the next 24 hours, with damaging winds with gusts to 120km/h likely between Port Douglas and Cairns for the remainder of Saturday.

A storm tide is expected between Cape Tribulation and Cairns.

Large waves may produce minor flooding along the foreshore.

Heavy rainfall that may cause flash flooding is falling in the coast and ranges between Port Douglas and Ayr, and should extend south to about Yeppoon during Sunday. Isolated 24-hour totals of more than 300mm are likely.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan sells out

THE Sydney Writers' Festival has been so overwhelmed with demand for Vince Gilligan that it's putting on a second event with the Breaking Bad creator.

Organisers revealed last week that Gilligan, who also produced the hit TV series, would be one of the main attractions during the week-long festival which kicks off on May 19.

On Friday they said the first Gilligan event broke festival records with the 1800-seat venue at the Sydney Town Hall selling out in two days.

"Due to an avalanche of interest in Vince Gilligan, we've released a second Sydney Town Hall event," festival organisers said.

The second event on May 1 will be an in-conversation with Gilligan and Sydney columnist and commentator Benjamin Law.

Internationally celebrated novelist Alice Walker will also headline this year's festival, which showcases more than 40 international writers and over 300 Australians.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Taxi fare hike for big night out in Vic

The Victorian Government says it will increase taxi fares in the state in a bid to improve service. Source: AAP

THAT taxi ride home after a big Friday or Saturday night out will soon cost a whole lot more in Victoria.

A new taxi fare system will take effect next month, and while fares will go up across the board it will particularly drive up the cost of a cab ride during the weekend's busiest overnight periods.

Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder said the hike would provide more incentive for taxis to be on the road in peak times, while the broad-fare increases would boost returns for drivers and operators and help to lift industry standards.

"We want to make that we have well educated, well presented and incentivised drivers who are prepared to work when taxis are required," Mr Mulder told reporters on Friday.

"And we want to make sure operators have a level of income that enables them to reinvest in the industry and to make sure that the vehicles they put out there are the best available - presentable, clean and well maintained."

Mr Mulder said it was the most significant change to Victoria's taxi fee structure in six years.

New flag fall, per kilometre and minute charges will apply for three distinct periods - day (9am-5pm), overnight (5pm-9am) and peak (10pm-4am overnight Friday and Saturday).

Late-night revellers across Melbourne can expect to pay around an extra $5.40 for a 5km ride home (total cost $19) during the peak, or an extra $20 for a 40km trip (total cost $98).

But for cab rides during the day, Mr Mulder said fare rises would be very modest.

"Daytime fares will only rise by little over $1 per trip, for trips of up to 40 kilometres," he said.

The fare hike is part of broader reforms of the taxi industry, which will also lead to cab drivers receiving an increased slice of the fare rising from 50 per cent to 55 per cent from July 1.

Taxi Services Commission chair Graeme Samuel said the changes were about striking a balance between the interests of the industry, drivers and passengers.

"Passengers trying to get home late on Friday and Saturday nights will pay more, but will be better serviced by the availability of taxis," Mr Samuel said.

The Victorian Taxi Association said it supported the changes.

However, the opposition said the reveller-targetting fare hike was in stark contrast to Labor's plan to introduce 24-hour train and tram services on weekends.

"It is important that we make sure that our taxi drivers are better paid and that, I think, will lead to better services ... but it is no replacement to all-night public transport," said Labor leader Daniel Andrews.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bigot? Snob? Not me, says Carr

A Labor frontbencher believes it was a mistake to recruit Bob Carr (pic) to federal parliament. Source: AAP

WHATEVER you think of Bob Carr - snob, bigot, high-flyer, avid organic oats eater - don't accuse him of being shy.

Revelations in his tell-all Diary of a Foreign Minister has prompted mirth and scorn, especially from less-than-impressed Labor colleagues.

Mr Carr insists his breakfast oats are steel-cut, moans about airline food and the rules that limit him to business class when flying overseas.

First Class Tosser was how one metro daily newspaper described him, emblazoning the title across its front page on Thursday.

It prompted an unrepentant Mr Carr to deny he was a snob.

The tome was intended to show Australians how government worked, he said - an observation largely unappreciated by others in the Labor Party.

Michael Danby accused Mr Carr of being a bigot over claims the pro-Israel lobby had an "unhealthy" level of influence over the Gillard government.

The federal MP said it had been a mistake to parachute Mr Carr from "obscurity" into a Senate vacancy and with the foreign affairs portfolio to boot.

Mr Carr responded to the bigot accusation by citing a record of supporting Israeli causes.

However, there was one description the former NSW premier was prepared to accept.

"You're not going to get into any position of leadership if you're a shy person," he said about his assertion that he had more energy than 16 gladiators.

Whatever, Mr Carr reckons if you haven't got a sense of humour then you shouldn't crack open his book.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bureaucrat warned about batts evidence

A senior bureaucrat has told an inquiry he warned superiors the home insulation scheme wasn't safe. Source: AAP

A RUDD government bureaucrat has been warned against giving false or misleading evidence at the royal commission into the troubled pink batts scheme.

Will Kimber, a former assistant director in the home insulation policy team who says he repeatedly flagged installer safety risks to his superiors, received the warning when he resumed his evidence on Thursday afternoon.

Counsel Assisting Keith Wilson said Mr Kimber should be reminded about his obligations under the Royal Commissions Act given his "lack of recollection" about matters earlier in the day.

Commissioner Ian Hanger QC said: "Mr Kimber there is some concern about some of the evidence you're giving as to whether it's reliable or not."

Mr Kimber said he understood it was an offence for a witness to knowingly give false or misleading evidence at a royal commission.

The offence carries a penalty of up to five years imprisonment or a fine as large as $20,000.

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Hanger cautioned Mr Kimber about the "very serious" evidence he was giving.

"Be careful to be accurate," Mr Hanger said.

Mr Kimber had told the inquiry that he repeatedly warned his superiors about installer safety risks in the home insulation program before the deaths of four workers.

Queenslanders Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes, Mitchell Sweeney, and Marcus Wilson from NSW, lost their lives working under the stimulus scheme rolled out on July 1 2009.

Mr Kimber said he had been worried about installers using metal staples to secure foil insulation, a dangerous practice linked to three New Zealand deaths in 2007.

Mr Fuller, 25, was electrocuted doing that on October 14, 2009.

Mr Wilson asked why the use of foil wasn't immediately suspended after Mr Fuller's death.

"I can't say way it was done, only that I made representations to that effect including before the death happened and that practice continued," Mr Kimber said.

The government should have taken "time out" from the program because of the risk of further deaths and fires, he said.

Mr Kimber said throughout 2009 he raised concerns about the program with his superiors, including environment department assistant secretary Kevin Keeffe, both privately and via email.

However the royal commission does not have copies of those emails.

Mr Hanger warned Mr Kimber to be careful not to put the commonwealth lawyer onto a chain of emails that didn't exist.

But Mr Kimber maintained he sent the emails, although he couldn't be precise about their content.

The Australian Government Solicitor (AGS) will conduct a search for the emails.

The inquiry resumes on Friday.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

David Jones: Under new management, almost

David Jones will remain a fixture of the Australian retail scene says its new overseas buyers. Source: AAP

THE Scotsman in charge of the South African company aiming to buy David Jones wanted to reassure Australians that they're not losing yet another local icon to overseas hands.

"Don't be despondent, we're not taking David Jones anywhere," Ian Moir, chief executive of Woolworths Holdings said.

"We've just paid $2.1 billion for it - we love it to death.

"We'll be looking after it like it's our own."

South Africa's Woolworths - which is unrelated to Australia's supermarket group of the same name - surprised almost everyone on Wednesday with a $4 a share takeover bid that has the full support of the David Jones board.

If shareholders of both companies approve the deal, David Jones will be foreign-owned by July, in the process making Woolworths one of the world's 10 biggest department store operators.

In name at least, DJs will not change but Mr Moir has signalled there will be a big increase in upmarket private label clothing, possibly sourced from Woolworths' own facilities, including Chinese factories, where it already makes products for its South African stores.

"David Jones is one of the most recognised brands in this country - why wouldn't you capitalise on that," he said.

Private label clothes have delivered fatter profits to Woolworths because of the bigger margin the retailer receives.

Along with improved online operations and customer loyalty programs, those private label clothes are supposed to help meet the ambitious $130 million-a-year increase in pre-tax earnings Mr Moir says he can deliver at DJs within five years.

Commonwealth Bank retail analyst Andrew McLennan said the target was "quite a big number", considering DJs' forecast earnings before tax for the current year are $141 million.

David Jones chief executive Paul Zahra - who only recently unwound a decision to leave the company - is another feature that evidently won't change.

Mr Moir said he has met with Mr Zahra once and he liked the local CEO and his handling of DJs.

"We don't own the business yet - when we do we'll speak with Paul straight away," he said.

Woolworths' formal wooing of David Jones began in March with a phone call from Mr Moir to David Jones chairman Gordon Cairns but the South Africans had been eyeing their target for much longer.

They had looked at all potential Australian candidates - Myer included - and even checked out options in Brazil but none offered the fit that David Jones did.

One benefit was the "big Southern Hemisphere advantage" of shared seasons - a crucial factor in fashion lines - and the other was scale.

Mr Cairns said scale is the only defence in an environment where spending is tight and big Northern Hemisphere stores and lower-end retailers are squeezing department stores in a pincer movement.

Mr Cairns said the response from David Jones' major investors has been "almost universally positive" because the deal offers a significant premium and has the attraction of being all-cash.

Woolworths' $4 offer represents a 25.4 percent premium to the April 8 closing price of $3.19.

The Commonwealth Bank's Mr McLennan said the deal makes "a lot of sense" and David Jones shareholders were getting a significant premium, even after stripping out the value of the company's property holdings.

However Mr McLennan said there was still room for another bidder to pay more for DJs - meaning that, even after Myer's formal withdrawal of its bid on Wednesday, the battle for the grand old retailer may not yet be over.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Union labels inquiry a witch-hunt

Royal commission hearings into the unions will begin in Sydney before a former High Court judge. Source: AAP

A ROYAL commission into trade union governance, slush funds and corruption is nothing more than a witch-hunt and taxpayers will be better served if more money went to enforcing existing laws, unions say.

The royal commission into trade union governance started in Sydney on Wednesday, with commissioner Dyson Heydon saying the inquiry's both broad and restrictive terms of reference will probe the facts behind a range of union practices.

Justice Heydon says the commission does not want to see unions abolished or curbed into insignificance.

But Australia's leading union body has branded the move a witch-hunt, and accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of delivering on a political agenda to damage and weaken the union movement's role in Australian society.

"The Royal Commission has been designed to tie unions up in a long and expensive inquiry that will ultimately make it harder for them to represent their members," ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver said in a statement.

"The terms of reference released by Prime Minister Tony Abbott show the narrow focus of the Royal Commission is to smear and damage unions rather than get to the bottom of any genuine issues of corruption."

Justice Heydon said the inquiry rests on assumptions which are not hostile to trade unions.

"The terms of reference do not assume that it is desirable to abolish trade unions," the former High Court justice said in his opening remarks at Wednesday's preliminary hearing.

"They do not assume that it is desirable to curb their role to the point of insignificance.

"Instead, they assume it is worth inquiring into how well and how lawfully that role is performed."

The Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia (CEPU) has pledged to cooperate fully with the Royal Commission.

But the union says taxpayer dollars would be better spent on enforcing existing laws.

"Our members are concerned that the current Royal Commission is driven by politics, rather than a genuine desire to assist working people to eradicate criminal elements from Australian workplaces," the CEPU said in a statement.

"The CEPU believes there are already appropriate laws in place, and that state and federal police are the appropriate agencies for identifying and prosecuting cases of criminal behaviour."

The Health Services Union (HSU), Australian Workers Union and the Transport Workers Union will also be the focus of the inquiry.

Master Builders Association chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch says he hopes the inquiry will lead to changes in union practices and worker productivity, as occurred following the 2001 Cole royal commission.

Former federal Labor ministers Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson, one-time presidents of the ACTU, have also called for sections of the union movement to get their house in order.

Counsel assisting the commission Jeremy Stoljar SC said the inquiry would look into slush funds, the legal structures of which could be "infinitely various".

The inquiry's final report is due by December 31.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Woman killed in Vic collision

A WOMAN has been killed in a collision between a car and a truck in wet conditions in Melbourne.

Police said the woman died at the scene following the crash on Tuesday afternoon at Doreen, northeast of Melbourne.

It was not clear if the truck driver was injured.

Victoria's road toll stands at 74, eight more than at the same time last year.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Free WiFi for Vic country rail services

COUNTRY Victorian rail commuters will soon join the information super-railway, as the state government rolls out wireless internet on regional trains.

The $40 million package will deliver free wifi on V/Line's newest V/Locity trains from Melbourne to Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, Seymour and Traralgon, along with improved mobile reception along rail corridors.

Premier Denis Napthine said the government will seek expressions of interest to install the free service, which he said will be ready by the end of next year.

"It's a great new service for commuters and a great thing for populations in rural and regional areas," Dr Napthine said.

Part of the package will be used to improve mobile coverage in bushfire-prone areas, which Dr Napthine said had hampered the issuing of warnings and community response to fires in the past.

"It will hopefully be complemented by funding out of the the $100 million commitment of the federal coalition government to fix mobile blackspots across Australia," he said.

"We are certainly putting a strong case for our share of that money, which we estimate will be $25 million".

The government has already announced free wifi in central Melbourne and the Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat CBDs.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

PM coy on audit report release

PM Tony Abbott is still not saying when the Commission of Audit reports will be publicly available. Source: AAP

THE Abbott government is still keeping Australia guessing on when it will release its Commission of Audit reports, which are expected to detail savage budget cuts.

The federal government received the final report in late March but it has had the interim report since mid-February.

Labor had demanded they be released before Western Australia's Senate election re-run, so voters would know what cuts were on the agenda for the May 13 federal budget.

A day after the WA poll, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is still not saying when they will be publicly available.

"We will release the Commission of Audit before the budget so people will have plenty of time to read its report, to digest its recommendations and to debate them," he told reporters in Tokyo.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann would not speculate on how many of the commission's recommendations the government was looking to act on.

"There's going to be things you act on immediately, there are going to be other things you will be able to do over a medium to long term," he told Sky News.

"Then there's going to be some things probably that the government decides are not sensible."

The Daily Telegraph is reporting the Commission of Audit has recommended increasing the pension age and reviewing indexation arrangements.

Mr Abbott would not comment on the matter but maintained pensioners would get a good deal from his government when the carbon tax was scrapped because they would keep the household assistance compensation.

Labor's shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh seized on the Telegraph report, warning that lifting the pension age could increase poverty among older Australians.

He said it was rough to expect blue-collar workers, doing jobs that were physically taxing on their bodies, to work until they were 70.

"Government is all about values and priorities and the question is, do you want to stop Australians on the verge of poverty from accessing the pension so you can put in place a parental leave scheme that gives $75,000 to affluent women who have a baby?" he told Network Ten.

"I don't think that is a good use of public finances."

Labor families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said the Abbott government was blaming pensioners for the "fictional budget emergency".

Treasury boss Martin Parkinson last week called for the GST to be raised or broadened.

Senator Cormann reaffirmed the government's commitment to the status quo.

"We will not change the GST, full stop, end of story," he said.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More

Gold Coast drug ring busted

GOLD Coast nightclub owner Ivan Tesic has been identified by police as the alleged mastermind behind a massive interstate drug ring involving at least six bikie gangs.

They claim Tesic, who is listed as an extreme risk by national law enforcement agencies, distributed cocaine through his Surfers Paradise establishment Club Liv.

Tesic was arrested in Sydney on Friday and was expected to be extradited to Queensland to face charges under the state's anti-bikie legislation.

Bandidos sergeant-at-arms and Cleo Bachelor of the Year entrant Josh Downey, arrested at Airlie Beach, was also among those nabbed in three days of raids.

Arrests were also made in Darwin and Newcastle.

The drug ring allegedly involved dozens of bikies including associates of the Bandidos, Finks, Mongols, Rebels, Highway 61 and Lone Wolves as well as DJs and club managers.

Police say drugs were sourced from Sydney and were driven to the Glitter Strip in cars modified to hide the stashes.

A covert operation was launched 19 months ago and officers had been picking off offenders.

The investigation climaxed over the last three days when 100 police raided homes and Surfers Paradise nightclubs, arresting the alleged bosses.

"(The operation) targeted the higher level offenders that aren't normally touched by police," Detective Superintendent David Hutchinson said.

To date, 152 people have been arrested, including 37 alleged outlaw bikies and associates.

More than 15kgs of cocaine, MDMA and methamphetamine were seized as well as six litres of methylamphetamine oil which could have been used to make $11 million in drugs.

The whole operation stopped $26 million worth of drugs hitting the streets.

Police will seek to retain four luxury homes and cars, including a Porsche, as well as $500,000 in cash and a watch, also worth $500,000.

"They're been living the high life at the expense of our youth and the rest of the community," Det Insp Hutchinson said.

"The may think that they are safe but we are always watching and they never know when we're going to pounce."

Anyone found guilty under Queensland's new anti-bikie legislation faces an extra 25 years mandatory jail on top of their sentence.

00.51 | 0 komentar | Read More