Abbott's plea to WA voters

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has pleaded for Western Australian voters to back Liberal candidates. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has made a last-ditch plea to West Australian voters as they head to the polls for a Senate election re-run.

Before jetting out of the country to Asia on Saturday, Mr Abbott recorded a message saying Labor and the Australian Greens in the Senate were standing in the way of his government's plan to repeal the mining tax and carbon tax.

"If you want to get rid of these anti-West Australian taxes ... that means voting Liberal," Mr Abbott said.

He said coalition candidates are "absolutely committed" to scrapping the taxes and the government hoped to get the numbers in the upper house from July to pass the repeal legislation.

"Send a strong message to Canberra, send a strong message to the Labor Party," Mr Abbott said.

"You can't say one thing in Perth and do the opposite in Canberra.

"That's my plea."

The outcome of Saturday's election is important for Australia's future, the prime minister added.

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Cyclone tipped to hit Queensland

Dramatic firsthand footage shows what it's like being in the different categories of cyclones. Produced by Christine Nestel.

A cyclone forming in the Coral Sea is expected to hit Queensland's Cape York Peninsula later next week.

The low pressure system which has brought torrential rainfall and flooding to the Solomon Islands -- killing at least 17 people and leaving thousands homeless – is forecast to intensify into a tropical cyclone, which will be named Ita, tomorrow.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Amber Young said the weather system was moving slowly south-west and expected to be about 750km north-east of Cairns by Monday morning.

"The conditions are very favourable for it to develop into a tropical cyclone,'' she said.

Information issued by the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre yesterday indicated the system could become a category two cyclone by Monday, strengthening to a category three by Tuesday.

Most models indicated it would continue to edge closer to Australia, possibly crossing the northern Cape York coast on Thursday, although some suggested it could stall and even turn back out to sea.

Cook Shire Mayor Peter Scott said they keeping a close eye on the developing weather pattern.

"We keep our fingers crossed every time one looms.''

Cr Scott said Cooktown had been quite fortunate.

"The last time Cooktown was hit was 1949.  This one looks as if it might cross at Lockhart River or north.'

"I think we are as well prepared as we can be and the same goes for the other communities up the Cape. They all go through cycle preparation exercises every year.

"But if it brings the sort of rainfall that has hit Honiara, it would cause a lot of damage to our road network.''

Lockhart River Shire Mayor Wayne Butler was not available to comment.

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SA and Canberra closer on road plan

The SA and federal governments have held talks on Adelaide's north-south road corridor. Source: AAP

THE federal and South Australian governments have held talks aimed at overcoming disagreements on how to fully redevelop Adelaide's north-south road corridor.

The two governments had been at odds before the recent state election, with the Commonwealth wanting to start the project with an upgrade at Darlington in the city's south.

The state government maintained a section of the road further north should be the priority.

But a meeting on Thursday between federal Assistant Minister for Infrastructure Jamie Briggs and new SA Transport and Infrastructure Minister Stephen Mullighan appears to have closed the gap.

Mr Briggs said he was now more confident about the project.

"We want to get the north-south corridor upgraded in a decade," he said.

Mr Mullighan described Thursday's meeting as productive.

"We've made very clear what our priority is and they've made very clear what their priority is," he said.

"What we're working on is how we can deliver both projects."

Mr Mullighan said talks would continue.

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'500 dolphins caught in WA nets' in decade

ABOUT 500 dolphins have been caught in the Pilbara trawl fishery in the past 10 years, West Australian scientists say.

Murdoch University PhD candidate Simon Allen and colleagues from the Cetacean Research Unit have made the claims based on independent observer data, which shows methods to reduce dolphin bycatch are not working.

"Independent observers reported bycatch rates of about 50 dolphins per year, which is double the number reported by the skippers of these vessels," Mr Allen said.

Under-reporting was not unusual around the world, especially where marine mammal capture was illegal, he said.

"This doesn't necessarily mean that skippers are deliberately under-reporting," Mr Allen said.

"Fishers are concentrating on the job at hand and may not see a dead dolphin fall out of the net on winch up."

A report by the WA Fisheries Department detailed similar findings, but instead suggested self-reporting mechanisms in place were accurate and the impact posed negligible risk, Mr Allen said.

But researchers said modified bycatch reduction devices with top-opening escape hatches could be more effective.

The scientists have also called for a reinstatement of independent observers and in-net video collection to accurately measure bycatch.

"The next step is to calculate the acceptable levels of human-caused dolphin mortality, which requires an estimate of the dolphin population size in the region," Mr Allen said.

"If the ongoing bycatch exceeds that threshold, switching to alternative, less destructive fishing methods, like trap or line fishing, should be considered."

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Safety overlooked in batts scheme rush

FORMER prime minister Kevin Rudd's "horrendous" timeline for the home insulation program denied bureaucrats adequate time to consider safety risks, an inquiry has heard.

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Aboriginal alcoholism worsening: inquiry

ALCOHOLISM in Aboriginal communities is bad and getting worse, says the chairwoman of a federal inquiry into the issue.

After hearings in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs is in Darwin conducting its inquiry into the harmful use of alcohol by indigenous communities.

Chairwoman Sharman Stone says the feedback from communities is that the situation is dire.

"An overarching message is things are getting far worse than they've been before ... People now are desperate about finding a solution to these problems," Dr Stone told AAP.

"As a woman said to us in Tennant Creek yesterday, 'our young people are getting angrier and too many people are dying'.

"And that's just an appalling situation in a developed country like Australia - one of the richer countries in the world - to have this circumstance for its indigenous population."

Homelessness and housing pressures are a key factor in explaining why indigenous people drink to excess, the inquiry heard on Wednesday.

Indigenous people are highly mobile but often have trouble finding somewhere to stay when they come to cities such as Darwin to attend events, to see family or to seek work, and end up putting stress on relatives and overcrowding properties.

Those who end up in the long grass, or sleeping rough, are usually the problem drinkers, said Toni Vine Bromley, CEO of NT Shelter.

She said accessing the NT rental market was difficult enough before taking into account the obstacles Aboriginal people from remote areas might face when moving to towns.

The NT has 15 times the national average of homeless people, 30 to 40 per cent of which are children aged under 18.

Young disadvantaged women who drink during pregnancy are having babies with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, and the inquiry is looking at its prevalence and whether it should be declared a disability.

Dr Stone called it a form of "cultural genocide".

"(Brain-damaged children) who will never be able to learn like others, who will probably end up incarcerated as soon as they reach adult status, who will be more likely to suicide, more likely to be victims of violence and to perpetrate violence - that is a tragedy for any community," she said.

Dr Stone also said she was disappointed the NT government would not permit its employees, such as the police and doctors, to give evidence to the inquiry, but rather would submit a "whole of government report".

"It's an inquiry loaded with politics and emotional stress for a lot of people, because the Australian population as a whole has a major problem with alcohol consumption," she said.

Hearings will continue in Darwin on Thursday.

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Mine application filed despite concerns

A COMPANY under administration has applied to restart and expand work at a Blue Mountains mine rejected previously due to "unacceptable environmental impacts," environmentalists say.

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BP Brisbane workers weigh up their futures

DREW McQueen knew his two decades at BP's Brisbane oil refinery were coming to an end.

The 53-year-old crane rigger is one of 355 workers who will lose their jobs when the Bulwer Island plant ceases production in mid-2015.

The Pinkenba site in Brisbane's north will stop refining 102,000 barrels a day, ending half a century of history.

It will instead be used to store jet fuel, leaving another 300-plus contractors out of work.

The closure of yet another oil Australian refinery has energy experts predicting the end of a local industry within a decade, as Asian refineries continue to produce much higher volumes more efficiently.

The news also follows Holden and Toyota heralding the end of local car making by 2018, and a string of retrenchments at Qantas and throughout the resources industry.

Mr McQueen, who still has a teenage daughter to support, knew there was bad news before Wednesday morning's announcement.

"There's always been talk of closing these joints. Today we hear about it," he told AAP outside the front gates.

"I've been here 20 years. I've had a good run."

Fellow crane operator John, who is also in his mid-50s, said the news gave him "a bit of sadness" after seven years at the plant.

He is now weighing up whether to leave Brisbane to find work.

"I'm in a situation where I don't particularly want to do that but if it arises, then it's something I will have to eventually look at," he said.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Queensland secretary Rohan Webb said the retrenched workers were "quite shell shocked".

"We're seeing massive job losses across the state so the employment opportunities for these workers are going to be somewhat short," he told reporters.

Addressing reporters on site, the Bulwer Island refinery's managing director Tim Wall said much higher production volumes in Asia were to blame, stressing Australia's carbon tax wasn't responsible.

"There's a very large difference between the operating costs of a 100,000-barrel-a-day refinery compared to a refinery ... in India that's operating at over a million barrels a day," he told reporters.

Australia has just four refineries left, including BP's Kwinana plant near Perth.

BP Australasia president Andy Holmes said its West Australian refinery was not yet earmarked for closure but declined to commit on its future.

The future is considered marginal for Brisbane's other refinery at Lytton, run by Caltex, and the other refineries in Geelong and Melbourne.

Energy analysts including Credit Suisse's Mark Samter and State One Stockbroking's Peter Kopetz believe the end of local refining may be less than a decade away.

BP's latest announcement follows Caltex closing its Sydney refinery during the second half of 2014 and converting it to an import terminal.

BP's latest announcement also comes just four months after the company sacked 300 workers at its Australian headquarters in Melbourne.

The Bulwer Island refinery was built in 1965 by Amoco and bought by BP in 1984.

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Deja vu all over again for WA voters

Tony Abbott (L) and Bill Shorten are campaigning ahead of the WA Senate election re-run on Saturday. Source: AAP

HAVEN'T we heard all this before?

That is surely what the West Australian electorate was thinking on Monday as the state's looming Senate election re-run brought politicians by the planeload to Perth - with plenty to say but little of it new.

While Prime Minister Tony Abbott was rebranding his agreement with WA Premier Colin Barnett for the national disability insurance scheme, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was preparing to appear at a teachers rally - just as he did the week before September's poll.

And with Clive Palmer making plenty of noise, micro-parties threatening an upset and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam battling hard for his political future, the fourth WA election campaign in just more than a year has been a case of deja vu for the election-weary west.

Mr Abbott made an early-morning swoop into RAAF Pearce to meet the troops searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight before hitting the hustings in the city.

The PM accused the opposition of untruths over school funding, defended his reinstatement of knights and dames, and pushed for the abolition of the mining and carbon taxes.

"The people of WA need to know that Labor is not being straight with you, and Bill Shorten won't give you a straight answer about the carbon tax and the mining tax here in Perth," Mr Abbott said.

With a teachers strike set to close more than 100 WA schools on Tuesday, Mr Shorten got in early to attend a school in Belmont, in Perth's east, with a message about Liberal education cuts.

"Education cuts are occurring in Western Australia and if Tony Abbott gets a rubber stamp in his Senate ... we'll see further cuts to West Australian schools," Mr Shorten said.

Meanwhile, Mr Palmer's pre-election advertising blitz for his Palmer United party (PUP) reached fever pitch, with claims the Liberals and Labor are "taking bread out of the mouths of WA babies".

While up to three radio ads ran in each break on local stations, an animated YouTube slot from PUP claimed the flow of WA's GST share to the east was denying food for the state's children.

"They send our GST to Melbourne and Sydney - get it back," the PUP ad urged.

Meanwhile, the Australian Sports party - whose candidate, Wayne Dropulich, won a Senate seat in the recount - has been criticised for posting a topless woman on its Facebook page as part of its campaign.

The image - accompanied by a joke involving a weight-loss program that encouraged an overweight man to chase naked women - appeared on the party's site late last week.

The campaign will continue on Tuesday, with Mr Abbott set to host the entire federal cabinet in Perth, while Mr Shorten will rally on the steps of state parliament along with the teachers union.

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Big demand by abused for private hearings

THE royal commission into child sexual abuse is receiving about 40 requests by abuse survivors for private sessions each week.

After about 12 months of private and public hearings, the royal commission chairman Peter McClellan says the demand for private hearings with a commissioner is not abating.

Almost 1500 private sessions with sex abuse survivors have been held since the commission started and more than 1000 people are waiting to be heard.

"I still cannot identify how many people will ultimately want to come and talk," Justice McClellan said in Melbourne at a conference on Monday.

"We have only just begun to engage with people in prisons, people with disabilities, and people in remote communities."

He said many people in the private sessions said that their story has been heard and accepted for the very first time.

The demand is so huge that if the royal commission stops its public and private hearings at the end of 2015, as initially expected, about 2000 people would miss out on private sessions.

Justice McClellan said he has raised this issue with the attorney-general.

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UK army cuts 'hell of a risk': general

A senior UK general says Russia has now become a "strategic adversary" of NATO. Source: AAP

RESTRUCTURING the British army is "one hell of a risk" that will weaken the armed forces, one of the country's most senior generals has warned.

General Sir Richard Shirreff warned that the "jury is out still" on plans to slash numbers in the regular army and substitute them with reservists, saying if the idea is going to work "the nation needs to get behind" it.

The general said defence cuts had "hollowed out" the armed forces, particularly the Royal Navy, which have been "cut to the bone" and left unable to take part in NATO maritime operations.

Russia's takeover of Crimea meant it was imperative for the UK to protect its defence budget, he said, even if that meant other departments suffered.

The general, the army's third most senior officer, stepped down from his post as NATO deputy supreme commander on Friday and will leave the army in August.

His warning, in an interview with the Sunday Times, comes days after MPs warned Prime Minister David Cameron against any further cuts to Britain's armed forces after Russian's annexation of Crimea.

The government is cutting the regular army from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020, while the newly-renamed Army Reserve - formerly the Territorial Army - is being expanded from 19,000 to 30,000.

General Shirreff said those implementing the changes had "made a pretty good fist of a very difficult hand of cards", but added: "I wouldn't want to let anybody think that I think that Army 2020 is good news, it's not.

"The sort of defence cuts we have seen ... have really hollowed out the British armed forces and I think that people need to sit up and recognise that."

He told the newspaper his biggest concern was the impact of cuts on the navy, which have left it without an operational aircraft carrier until 2020 and a fleet of just 19 frigates and destroyers.

The general said the Royal Navy's ability to participate in NATO naval maritime operations have been compromised, which affected how people think about the UK.

He said: "A hollowed-out navy means you can't project power. I've heard this said in the Ministry of Defence: 'The yardstick by which we measure ourselves is our ability to punch above our weight'. You can't do that now. By that yardstick, therefore, we're failing."

General Shirreff warned the question of whether the army being more dependent on reserves would work or not was still unanswered, but he said it was "one hell of a risk".

He said it would need a "complete shift in culture" and support from the wider public and employers if it is to succeed, saying: "... the nation needs to get behind this. It's not just the armed forces - this is everybody's business."

The general, who has been co-ordinating NATO's response to the crisis in Crimea and Ukraine, warned of further aggression by Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Sunday Times said.

After Russia's "armed illegal aggression", the country has now become a "strategic adversary" of NATO, rather than a "strategic partner", General Shirreff said, and he argued that the UK and other European countries now need to protect their defence budgets to deter Russia, meaning cuts to other Whitehall departments.

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Plane diverted from MH370 search

AN Australian air force plane has been diverted from the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 to respond to a fishing boat's emergency distress beacon near Antarctica.

The P3 Orion was on Sunday afternoon sent from the Indian Ocean search zone to look for a fishing boat in trouble about 3240km southwest of Perth and 650km north of the Antarctic mainland, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.

"The rescue coordination centre was unable to establish communications with the vessel and the nature of distress is unknown," AMSA added.

Authorities sent the P3 as it is capable of dropping survival equipment.

"A broadcast to shipping has been issued, however due to the remoteness of the location it is unlikely that any other ships will be near the area," AMSA said.

"The weather forecast for the area is extremely poor with low cloud, rain, snow and a water temperature of 2 degrees Celsius."

The beacon is registered to a fishing vessel, but no details of the nationality, crew or size of the vessel have been released.

To replace the Orion in the search for MH370 a civilian jet has been dispatched from Melbourne.

That jet is expected to take five hours to travel nearly 4000km to the search zone, where it can fly for a further two hours before having to turn back.

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