DEPUTY federal Labor leader Tanya Plibersek has taken a swipe at West Australian Premier Colin Barnett, saying he has "broken promise after promise" since winning a second term.
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A Sydney man has allegedly been caught with $11,000 worth of the drug ice hidden in his underpants. Source: AAP
A SYDNEY man has allegedly been caught with $11,000 worth of the party drug ice hidden in his underpants.
Police say they were patrolling the Surry Hills nightclub strip Oxford Street on Saturday when they saw two men acting suspiciously about 4am (AEDT).
Officers stopped and searched the men's car, and a check revealed one was wanted on an outstanding warrant and he was arrested.
The 23-year-old was taken to Surry Hills police station, where it's alleged 41 bags of methamphetamine were found in his underpants.
Police estimate the alleged haul had a street value of $11,000.
More than $4000 cash was also seized during the search, police say.
The man, from Westmead, has been charged with dealing with property suspected of being proceeds of crime, supplying a prohibited drug and possession of a prohibited drug. He was also charged over the outstanding warrant.
He was refused bail during an appearance at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday, police say, and is due to reappear in court next week.
Fifty firefighters are battling a large blaze at a western Sydney furniture factory. Source: AAP
FIFTY firefighters are battling a large blaze at a western Sydney furniture factory.
Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) says no one is feared missing but the fire has spread into the roof of the single-storey factory on Warren Avenue, Bankstown.
The fire has been contained but crews were still working to extinguish the flames on Saturday evening.
One man has been taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation, a FRNSW spokesman told AAP.
"Firefighters have managed to protect adjoining properties," he said.
A Chinese official has blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement for a suicide attack in Beijing. Source: AAP
CHINA'S top security official says the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement organised an alleged suicidal vehicle attack that killed five people in the heart of Beijing this week.
Meng Jianzhu, chief of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the ruling Communist Party, named the group in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television when he was in the capital of Uzbekistan attending a regional security summit and seeking cooperation in counter-terrorism.
"The violent terrorist incident that happened in Beijing is an organised and plotted act. Behind the instigation is the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement entrenched in central and west Asian regions," Meng said, in a video footage aired on Thursday.
The SUV ploughed through bystanders, crashed and burst into flames near the Tiananmen Gate on Monday, killing three in the car and two tourists, including a Filipino woman, and injuring dozens.
Beijing police said the perpetrators were a man with an ethnic Uighur name, his wife and his mother. Police also have arrested five people - identified with typically Uighur names - on suspicion of conspiring in the attack and called it a planned terror strike - the city's first in recent history.
Uighurs are an ethnic minority residing mainly in China's northwest region of Xinjiang, and they have close cultural and language ties to Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
China believes the East Turkestan Islamic Movement aims to establish an independent East Turkestan in Xinjiang, and blames the group for the low-intensity insurgency in the region.
The United States placed the movement on a terrorist watch list following the September 11 attacks, but quietly removed it amid doubts that it existed in any organised manner.
Instead, human rights groups have questioned whether China uses the security threat as an excuse to suppress the Uighurs and said Uighur extremism has been fueled by China's heavy-handed policies in Xinjiang and discrimination against Uighurs by the country's ethnic Han majorities.
School children have fled a burning bus after it caught fire on the M2 motorway in northwest Sydney. Source: AAP
DOZENS of children from rural NSW had a city excursion to remember, with their bus bursting into flames on a busy Sydney motorway.
All escaped uninjured, but a quick-thinking off-duty policeman who inhaled smoke as he attempted to douse the flames is in hospital under observation on Friday night.
The Transport Safety Bureau will investigate how the fire broke out on the bus as it travelled along the M2 at Baulkham Hills just after 3pm (AEDT).
Inspector Phil Brooks from the NSW Police Traffic and Highway Patrol Command said the officer was riding his motorcycle home from work when the bus burst into flames.
As teachers led about 35 school children away from the burning bus, the officer ran toward it with a small fire extinguisher.
"He was able to intervene very quickly, and we'll certainly look at acknowledging his efforts," Insp Brooks told the Nine Network.
He said the students and teachers were on their way back to Orange in central NSW after a school excursion.
A Fire & Rescue spokeswoman told AAP the engine compartment of the bus had caught fire and the first emergency call came in at 3.13pm.
Three fire crews extinguished the blaze.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said the Office of Transport Safety Investigations would look into how the fire started.
THE secretive street artist Banksy has ended his self-announced month-long residency in New York City with a final piece of graffiti, a $US615,000 painting donated to charity and a debate: Is he a jerk or a genius?
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A ballot to select New Zealanders for the 2015 Anzac dawn service at Gallipoli has been delayed. Source: AAP
NEW Zealand's ballot for 2000 places at the centenary Anzac dawn service at Gallipoli has been delayed for a fortnight following a request from Australia.
The ballot was to have opened on Friday but has been delayed until November 15. It will still close on January 31 with results announced next April.
"There was a request from the Australian government for a two-week delay to give them more time to get organised, because we're running the dates in parallel," a spokesman for New Zealand Veterans Affairs Minister Michael Woodhouse told NZ Newswire.
A total of 10,500 places will be available at the centenary commemorations in 2015, with 2000 allocated to New Zealand, 8000 to Australia and 500 for official representatives from Turkey and other countries.
The four-to-one ratio for Australia and New Zealand allocations is based on the relative number of casualties during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.
Attendance passes will be free, but New Zealanders who are successful in the ballot will need to make their own travel arrangements and meet all their own costs.
Further details on the ballot are available on www.gallipoli2015.govt.nz
QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman is likening his crackdown on bikie gangs to Tony Fitzgerald's landmark inquiry into institutionalised corruption.
But Mr Fitzgerald is predictably angry at the comparison.
The government's tough new anti-bikie and sex offender laws were rushed through with minimal consultation and the former judge says it's foolhardy for politicians who lack expertise to make major changes without thinking through the consequences.
"The administration of criminal justice is not a political plaything or a suitable area for political grandstanding," said Mr Fitzgerald, whose inquiry led to the 1987 resignation of premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
The premier has spent the past fortnight defending the laws and is refusing to withdraw comments that judges should respond to the community's desire for protection.
"It is astonishingly short-sighted for a government to attack the judiciary in a bid to foster redneck support."
The new laws impose mandatory sentences on bikies and gives the government power to lock up dangerous sex offenders for life, bypassing the courts.
Mr Newman's comments caused Supreme Court Justice George Fryberg to put on hold a bid to revoke a bikie's bail on Thursday, saying the remarks could be perceived as an attempt to influence judges.
The premier tried to get the wider judiciary on board when he spoke in parliament.
He said the state's bikie problem was bigger than the systematic corruption exposed by Mr Fitzgerald.
"Undoubtedly it's far worse in my view," Mr Newman said.
"This is a time for us to all work together."
The opposition says the premier's comparison shouldn't fool anyone.
"The only comparison I can see between Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Campbell Newman is that neither of them understand the separation of powers," Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
Ms Palaszczuk also called on Ken Levy, chair of the Crime and Misconduct Commission, to resign for publicly backing Mr Newman with an opinion piece that said the new laws reflected the will of Queenslanders.
"It is unprecedented for a chair of the CMC to support the government's agenda," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"He should be impartial, he should be independent, and he's clearly showing bias."
A BRITISH billionaire paid $43 million for a Monet masterpiece that investigators say turned out to be stolen by a former Imelda Marcos aide, and now the big-bucks buyer has shelled another $10 million to keep himself — and the painting — from being dragged into court.
THE champagne is still on ice at Lotterywest headquarters in Perth, as the identity of the state's $30 million Powerball winner remains a mystery.
One lucky entrant picked up the entire $30 million division one prize pool last Thursday night, equalling the largest lottery prize ever won in the state.
The only details released by Lotterywest is that the winning ticket was sold in Perth's northern suburbs.
But despite the size of the prize, no winning ticket holder has come forward to claim the massive prize, although he or she has 12 months from the date of the draw to bring in the winning ticket.
The win is the latest in an amazing run of luck for lottery players in the state in 2013.
In February, the state recorded a $20 million win, followed by a $10 million win in May, another $20 million win in August, followed by the $30 million jackpot last week.
About 70 WA players have collected a division one lottery prize in 2013.
And WA players will have another chance to win big this weekend, when $22 million goes on offer in Saturday's Gold Lotto Superdraw.
UPDATE: Details have emerged of the chain of events that resulted in a bus ploughing into a house on Brisbane's bayside, injuring nine.
A FREAK accident in which a kangaroo was catapulted through the windscreen of a car, killing a little girl, underlines the hazards of Australian country roads, say police.
TWO alleged Hells Angels kingpins charged with over a $2.5m drug ring still in custody as lawyer works on bail bid to beat new gang laws.
A year after the Jonathan Lord incident, the YMCA hadn't completed its working with children checks. Source: AAP
A YMCA middle manager whose evidence to a child abuse inquiry changed within a month has denied it was because she discussed it with senior management.
Jacqui Barnat, a children's services manager with the non-profit organisation told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday that she was changing her evidence on the policy covering the recruitment of childcare workers.
Ms Barnat told a private hearing of the commission in early October the 2006 policy was in place in 2009.
But at Monday's public hearing, she said she did not believe the YMCA Australia Safeguarding Children and Young People's policy 2006, was current in 2009.
"Upon reflection I don't believe it was still current in 2009 because from memory other policies were in place," she said.
When the discrepancy was pointed out to her by Gail Furness, SC for the commission, she said she could not recall her earlier evidence.
When asked if she had discussed this policy with anyone at the YMCA in the past month and its application to her work she said "no".
Ms Furness asked what had occurred that made her say now that it did not apply to her work in 2009.
"Was it assisted by any person or you looking at any other document?"
Ms Barnat did not reply. She could not identify what other policy was in place.
"I have a recollection of a policy in force in 2009 and I cannot recall the name ... I think I did try to find it. I have not been able to find that policy."
She later said she might have instigated a conversation with the YMCA's business service manager, Irene Minos.
In answer to questioning by commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan, Ms Barnat said she was reviewing the content of the policy after her private evidence and that is how she recalled the 2006 policy was not in place.
"Upon reflection, I just tried to fit the dates".
Ms Barnat who has been with the YMCA since 2004 had shared responsibility for recruitment in the Caringbah area when Jonathan Lord was employed.
Lord is serving a 10-year sentence for sexual assaults on 12 children while he was with the YMCA.
Ms Barnat said that prior to January 2013 she could not make decisions on staff selection and would need approval to conduct interviews. However, generally but not always, there was a more senior manager with her when she interviewed new recruits.
Ms Barnat was questioned on the reporting levels within the YMCA.
She said her duties were to identify staff training needs and she passed those on to her managers who were also based at Caringbah.
Ms Barnat will continue her evidence when the hearing resumes on Tuesday.
Tasmanian Opposition Leader Will Hodgman is demanding the state government name an election date. Source: AAP
TASMANIAN Opposition Leader Will Hodgman is demanding an increasingly beleaguered state government name an election date.
A poll is due in the state on March 15 but Premier Lara Giddings is yet to confirm the date.
A new bout of turmoil has hit the Labor-Green alliance with rogue ALP backbencher Brenton Best calling for Ms Giddings to quit as leader.
Mr Best has been a ticking time bomb for the party for months, criticising it over its partnership with the Greens, who have two ministers in the government.
He says Ms Giddings should now step aside for police and economic development minister David O'Byrne.
Labor is languishing in the polls after 15 years in power with Ms Giddings' most recent approval rating at just 18 per cent, its lowest level yet.
Mr Hodgman, the son of late former federal minister Michael Hodgman, has used his address to the Liberals' state council to call for an election.
"It should be called today," he told members.
"(It) will be the most important election in our lifetime, probably in our state's history."
Mr Hodgman said Labor had reached the point where it was unfit to govern the economically ailing state.
"Infighting has now escalated to open warfare," he said.
"It is appalling for Tasmanians who want to see a government that's focused on them, not on itself."
The Liberals have long drawn a comparison between the state's Labor-Green power-sharing arrangement and the former federal minority government headed by Julia Gillard.
Mr Hodgman's address came under banners reading "Jobs. Growth. Majority Government".
He repeated a warning to Labor voters that only by voting Liberal will another hung parliament be avoided, since Tasmania has the unusual Hare-Clark system which delivers five members per seat.
He said a vote for minor players like the Palmer United Party, which won a Tasmanian Senate spot in September's federal election, could also mean no clear majority.
"Don't risk it and don't waste your vote," he said.
Mr Hodgman has ruled out deals with any other party.
The state Liberals' buoyancy was boosted when prime Minister Tony Abbott addressed the conference on Saturday, 50 days after supplanting three Tasmanian Labor members at the federal election.
FORMER foreign minister Bob Carr is urging the federal government to consider ways to ban Australians who go off to fight in the Syrian conflict from returning home.
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Labor is demanding Treasurer Joe Hockey justify his reasons for giving the Reserve Bank nearly $9bn. Source: AAP
LABOR is demanding Treasurer Joe Hockey justify his reasons for giving the Reserve Bank nearly $9 billion in what it's calling a bid to score "expensive political points".
The federal government this week announced it would make an $8.8 billion payment to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to ensure it was in the best shape to face the financial challenges ahead.
Mr Hockey said RBA governor Glenn Stevens had written to him indicating the bank wanted to boost its reserve funds, which had been depleted in recent years by the high dollar and "extraordinary" dividend withdrawals by the former Labor government.
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen called on Mr Hockey to publicly release this letter, saying the government was trying to score "expensive political points" instead of justifying its decision.
"If he can't, then he's got something to hide," he told Network Ten on Sunday.
There was a case for allowing the RBA to build up its reserve funds but Mr Hockey had come nowhere near justifying how this payment was necessary, he added.
Mr Bowen said at no point did he or former treasurer Wayne Swan receive advice from the RBA or Treasury suggesting it would be appropriate for such a payment to be made.
"On the contrary, the former Treasurer received explicit advice that that would be a retrograde step," he said.
Labor has also questioned Mr Hockey's other decision this week to seek parliamentary approval to raise the debt ceiling to $500 billion.
Mr Bowen said the treasurer would have to release the midyear economic forecast before putting the legislation to raise the cap to a vote in parliament.
"I don't believe he's come anywhere near yet justifying that extraordinary increase to the debt limit," he said.
