Labor, coalition launch in Brisbane

LABOR and the coalition will both launch their federal election campaigns in Brisbane.

The coalition launch is scheduled for this Sunday in the Queensland capital.

Labor's launch will follow on September 1, heading into the final week of the campaign.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's home city of Brisbane also hosted the two major party launches during the 2010 election campaign.

The coalition launch's program is still being finalised, but it is understood Queensland premier Campbell Newman has been invited.

Mr Newman has been the target of a Labor attack calling his public sector job cuts the "entree" to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's "main course" of federal budget cuts.

Mr Abbott has promised a commission of audit similar to that run in Queensland after the Liberal National Party's landslide victory in 2012.

The Labor event will be the first time a major party leader has launched a national campaign in his own electorate.

Mr Rudd attended the low-key Labor launch in 2010, but did not play a role.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke introduced Julia Gillard to the party faithful, having ousted Mr Rudd less than two months earlier.

The coalition's 2010 launch was a set-piece event, marred only by a streaker protesting the treatment of refugees.

Queensland is the key to Labor's chances of retaining office.

It has 30 lower house seats, half of which are held with margins of five per cent or lower.

Labor holds only eight of these seats and must pick up a swag of others if it is to have any chance of winning on September 7.

15.03 | 0 komentar | Read More

Aussie shares dip on US stimulus thoughts

AUSTRALIAN shares have slipped as speculation about a winding back of US stimulus weighed on resource stocks.

Materials stocks were among the worse performers on Tuesday, with the mining giants losing more than the overall market's 0.7 per cent decline.

BHP Billiton lost 50 cents, or 1.35 per cent, to $36.54 as Rio Tinto ditched 63 cents to $59.51.

After the local market closed, BHP announced a 29.5 per cent fall in full-year net profit to $US10.9 billion ($A12.03 billion).

Speculation about a tapering of US Federal Reserve stimulus measures also buffeted Asian equity markets, and caused the Indian rupee to hit an all-time low against the greenback.

"It's a story of emerging market weakness, basically," IG markets strategist Chris Weston said.

The big four banks had mixed fortunes, with National Australia Bank gaining 21 cents to $31.57 after posting a $1.7 billion net profit for the three months to June.

ANZ was also up, adding 12 cents at $29.56, but Commonwealth Bank was down 88 cents at $70.27, and Westpac shed 43 cents at $31.14.

Investors appeared to overlook minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) August meeting, where members agreed the possibility of closing off more rate cuts should be considered.

"These minutes were stale," Mr Weston said.

Meanwhile, QBE Insurance Group shares lost 93 cents, or 5.46 per cent, to $16.10 after posting a 37 per cent fall in half-year net profit to $US477 million ($A526.29 million), following a fall in demand for US mortgage insurance.

KEY FACTS

* At 1615 AEST on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 34.3 points, or 0.67 per cent, at 5,078.2 points.

* The broader All Ordinaries index was 33.5 points lower, or 0.66 per cent, at 5,068.8 points.

* The September share price index futures contract was down 30 points at 5058 points, with 24,195 contracts traded.

* The spot price of gold in Sydney finished at $US1358.85, down $US14.45 from $US1373.30 on Monday.

* National turnover was 1.7 billion securities worth $4.5 billion.

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Vic parly to fill vacant Senate post

THE Victorian parliament is expected to hold a joint sitting on Wednesday to fill the vacancy left by Senator David Feeney.

He formally resigned from the Senate last week to run in the safe Labor lower house seat of Batman, vacated by retiring former minister Martin Ferguson.

The Victorian parliament is expected to hold a joint sitting at 6.15pm (AEST) on Wednesday to replace Mr Feeney with Mehmet Tillem.

Mr Tillem will become the first Turkish-born Australian member of parliament.

He will fill the casual Senate vacancy until July 2014, when Mr Feeney's term of office was due to expire.

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Aust ferry owner faces mass charges in PNG

AAP Papua New Guinea Correspondent

PORT MORESBY, Aug 20 AAP - An Australian expat is facing as many as 162 charges of manslaughter following an investigation into last year's sinking of the Rabaul Queen.

Peter Sharp, who owned the ferry when it sank in rough weather off Lae in February 2012, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon in Rabaul, in PNG's East New Britain province.

PNG radio station Legend FM is quoting police as saying Mr Sharp was charged on Tuesday afternoon with 162 counts of manslaughter and one count of operating an unseaworthy vessel.

He is also being charged with negligence.

When contacted by AAP, police would only confirm Mr Sharp was being interviewed.

"He is facing charges," assistant commissioner Anton Billie told AAP.

"The men are interviewing him now."

The exact death toll from the disaster is unknown because Mr Sharp's company, Rabaul Shipping, did not have a complete passenger manifest.

There were as many as 350 people aboard the ferry when it sank.

An official inquiry found the ferry was unsafe, overloaded and should not have been at sea.

Mr Sharp is expected to appear in court on Wednesday.

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NSW cyclist dies after being hit by truck

A CYCLIST has died after he was hit by a truck and became trapped underneath it in Newcastle.

The truck collided with the 36-year-old man on Minmi Road at Wallsend just after 8am (AEST) on Sunday morning.

Emergency services were called but the man died at the scene.

The truck driver was not hurt.

Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.

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Our robot future on display in Brisbane

Robot farming is just one possibility that was on display at the robot convention in Queensland. Source: AAP

SWARMS of robots tend to crops in central Queensland.

A robotic clone hosts a lecture at a Brisbane university for his master, who is more than 7000km away in Japan.

A band plays while flying robots light up the sky around them.

This isn't the future. It's Robotronica - a futuristic event held at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane on Sunday.

QUT creative director Jonathan Parsons says the event doesn't just showcase future possibilities, but highlights how advanced robotics presently is.

"We tend to use the term robots when it's something a bit alien or strange, but in the '50s dishwashers were robots, but we don't refer to them as that anymore," he told AAP.

"Now their completely part of the fabric of our society and one day, all these things will be too."

Swarm Farm Robotics Director Andrew Bate says his project is the future of agriculture.

One his farm near Emerald in central Queensland, Mr Bates is developing small tractors that will operate unmanned with others in a swarm, to replace the bulky, expensive models currently used.

"We keep getting bigger and bigger, but now the focus is on being smaller and more efficient," Mr Bate said.

"It's better for the soil and it's far more cost effective."

The star of the show was Geminoid, a robotic "clone" of his creator, Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro.

Geminoid, who blinks and has other subconscious human traits, had his crowd entranced when he re-presented a lecture his creator did at QUT just days before.

Robotics workshops and a gig from Brisbane pop group 7-Bit Hero, who incorporate smart phone gaming with their live show, was also featured at the event.

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PNG committed to boat deal: Rudd

Kevin Rudd insists Papua New Guinea is committed to his hardline asylum seeker resettlement plan. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA and Papua New Guinea stand by their agreement that asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent to PNG for processing and eventual settlement, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

Mr Rudd was queried on Sunday about the deal, signed on July 19, after PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill told Fairfax Media he had not agreed to settle all asylum seekers processed on Manus Island and found to be genuine refugees.

Mr O'Neill was reported as saying Australia would need to take back a share of them.

Mr Rudd said his PNG counterpart was simply reaffirming the conditions of their deal.

"These are all contained and outlined in absolute detail in the agreement that we reached with Papua New Guinea," he told reporters in Sydney.

"He stands by that, I stand by it and frankly, it's there in black and white."

On Saturday night, Mr O'Neill said PNG was "100 per cent committed" to the deal.

"People who are found to be refugees ... will be settled in Papua New Guinea and other participating countries in the region," he said in short statement.

"They will not be returned to Australia under the agreement."

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Tony Burke says media reports that people smugglers are now offering to fly asylum seekers to Australia show Labor's hardline policies are discouraging people from taking dangerous boat journeys.

Some asylum seekers in Indonesia are apparently being told they can fly to Australia on fake tourist visas to sidestep the Rudd government's Pacific resettlement policy.

"This is just another desperate measure from people smugglers realising that the game's up," Mr Burke told reporters in Sydney.

Mr Burke denied flying was a loophole available to asylum seekers trying to reach Australia.

"If they could have gotten away with this they would have tried it years ago," he said.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison also sought to downplay the report.

"We have very strong controls on who can get on planes and who can get into the country," he told ABC television.

"That's why people get on boats and pay people smugglers many times over what they would pay to get on an airplane to come to Australia."

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Fears for 3yo girl's missing NSW parents

SHE is a pre-schooler whose name is Monique or Nikki.

But that's all the little girl, who is aged about three, has been able to tell police after she was found wandering along a street at Springfield on the NSW Central Coast about 10am (AEST) on Sunday.

By Sunday evening, fears were growing for the welfare of her parents, who have not yet come forward to claim her.

Police officers spent the day canvassing the local area, but no one was able to shed light on the child's identity.

A photo of Monique went viral on the NSW Police Facebook page, garnering 167,000 views in just a few hours, a police spokesman told AAP.

The little girl is described as having shoulder-length blonde hair, green eyes and pierced ears.

She was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt bearing the logo 'CUTE', pink three-quarter-length pants and pink slip-on shoes when she was found.

The Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) has been alerted.

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Vic killer Knight says he's no psychopath

HODDLE Street mass murderer Julian Knight says jail authorities are dashing his hopes for freedom, because of their mistaken view he is a psychopath.

Knight is eligible to apply for parole next May, but the parole board has already said he is not ready for release, the Victorian Supreme Court was told on Friday.

Knight, wearing a black suit and representing himself, was back in court to apply for leave to bring proceedings against jail authorities.

He accuses them of failing to provide him with a detailed sentencing plan to improve his chances of release.

He also wants to be transferred to the Judy Lazarus transition centre which gives selected prisoners near the end of their sentence a supervised pathway back into the community.

Knight needs to ask the court's permission to start legal proceedings, because he has been declared a vexatious litigant, and is fighting jail authorities in up to 14 current matters before the courts.

Knight, who is in maximum security Port Phillip Prison, complained to the court he is being treated differently to other murderers.

"All other cases, they've all progressed out of maximum security within a third of their minimum term," he told Justice Anthony Cavanough.

Knight was jailed for life for killing seven people and wounding 19 in a shooting spree in Melbourne in 1987.

He is serving a minimum 27 years and last August was reduced from a maximum security to a medium security prisoner.

Knight says that having a minimum term gives an expectation he will eventually be released.

"Corrections Victoria have the mistaken belief, apparently forever, that I'm a psychopath with a personality disorder," he told the court.

Knight says this is affecting his progress through the jail system and if the parole board believes he is not ready for release then it should "hurry up and get me ready for release".

Claire Harris, for Corrections Victoria deputy commissioner Brendan Money, denied Knight's claim authorities failed to consider psychological reports recommending his gradual integration into the community.

Ms Harris said sentencing plans were tailored to each inmate and were not fixed.

She said Knight's sentencing plan was reviewed in August last year and again last December.

Ms Harris added jail authorities had no duty to transfer Knight to the transition centre.

Justice Cavanough will rule on the matters at a date to be fixed.

15.04 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ramsay and Medibank fight over funding

AUSTRALIA'S biggest private hospitals operator, Ramsay Health Care, is urging patients to quit Medibank should a dispute with the insurer over funding not be resolved satisfactorily.

But Medibank, which is Australia's largest health insurer, says Ramsay's requests are excessive, and payments to hospitals are outstripping growth in health insurance premiums.

Ramsay said on Friday that Medibank had lifted health insurance premiums by 6.2 per cent in April 2013.

But the insurer had offered to pay Ramsay only two per cent more for the provision of healthcare services.

Ramsay said a two per cent increase was less than the inflation rate, far less than the rising rate of healthcare costs, and so low that it could threaten the quality of care for patients.

The hospitals group said Medibank appeared to want members' premium income but not actually spend it when members needed access to quality healthcare.

"To ensure that patients' choice is not compromised by Medibank's actions, Ramsay would be suggesting that patients transfer to another health fund," Ramsay said in a statement.

Ramsay said Medibank had not passed on sufficient increases to private hospitalS for some years.

In was essential that health insurers pay appropriate rates to private hospitals given the rising costs of wages and healthcare technology and infrastructure.

Medibank has written to 9,000 doctors at Ramsay Health Care, saying that each year its payments to hospitals grow by more than the increase in premiums.

"Medibank contracts more than 450 private hospitals across Australia on behalf of our members," Medibank group executive of provider networks, Dr Andrew Wilson, said in a statement.

"We believe Ramsay Health Care's current request is excessive.

"We will not simply sign a contract with a hospital at any cost."

Medibank said hospital charges must be affordable, otherwise they would not be sustainable and would affect member premiums.

Shares in Ramsay Health Care were $2.25, or 6.29 per cent, lower at $33.52 at 1531 AEST on Friday.

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