Vic ALP elects new shadow cabinet members

Labor's Martin Foley (pic) and Wade Noonan have been elected to the Victorian shadow cabinet. Source: AAP

THE Victorian Labor party has elected two new members to its shadow cabinet.

Albert Park MP Martin Foley and Williamstown MP Wade Noonan were elected during a meeting of the state parliamentary Labor Party on Thursday afternoon.

"I look forward to both Martin and Wade playing an important role in the shadow cabinet as we prepare for the 2014 state election," Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said in a statement.

The move follows resignations from several Labor MPs who have announced they won't contest the election, including high-profile former government ministers Justin Madden and John Lenders.

Portfolios will be announced in due course, Mr Andrews said.

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PM Abbott hosts his first COAG

Prime Minister Tony Abbott will host his first COAG meeting in Canberra on Friday. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott will use his first meeting with state premiers and chief ministers to start the groundwork for delivering the coalition's paid parental leave scheme.

Mr Abbott will host his first Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on Friday.

The coalition promised at the election to roll out a scheme to pay mothers who give birth after July 2015 up to half their annual salary for 26 weeks, capped at a salary of $150,000 a year.

COAG will discuss how the plan, costing $5.5 billion a year, will fit in with existing state public sector parental leave schemes.

Mr Abbott said during the election campaign there would be no extra cost to state governments and the national scheme would be an improvement to existing state schemes.

However, he said he wanted to have an "adult discussion" with the premiers about its details.

The scheme is to be paid for by a levy on Australia's largest businesses.

COAG will also discuss ways to fast-track and fund major infrastructure and boost jobs in manufacturing.

The manufacturing talks had been scheduled well before the announcement of Holden ceasing car production from 2017, but is now expected to take greater prominence.

Mr Abbott will talk to the premiers about his plans for a white paper on reform of federal-state relations.

The prime minister said in a speech when he was opposition leader that COAG had become "a talk shop, not a decision-making process" and the roles of the federal, state and territory governments needed to be better defined.

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Japan plans $60b economic stimulus

JAPAN'S Cabinet has approved billions of dollars of stimulus spending in a supplementary budget meant to perk up a faltering economic recovery and cushion the impact of a sales tax rise next April.

The Y5.5 trillion ($A59.49 billion) in fresh stimulus approved on Thursday is aimed at creating at least 250,000 jobs and is heavily weighted toward construction projects. It also includes Y600 billion ($A6.5 billion) in payments to home buyers and one-time payments of Y10,000 ($A108) per child to low and middle-income families.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised the extra stimulus to counter a 3 percentage point increase in sales tax to eight per cent in April.

Parliamentary approval of the stimulus in early 2014 is expected since Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partners hold majorities in both houses.

Japan's economy, the world's third-largest, emerged from recession in late 2012, growing at a brisk 4.3 per cent pace in the first quarter of the year. However, the pace of expansion slowed to 1.1 per cent in the third quarter as corporate investment remained sluggish and exports were sapped by lacklustre growth in emerging economies.

So far, the biggest driver for the recovery has been hefty government spending, which is also the type of spending the tax rise is aimed at making up for.

The economy may get a boost in coming months as consumers speed up major purchases to beat the sales tax rise. But the government has forecast a short-term contraction in the economy after the higher tax takes effect. Another increase in the sales tax, of 2 points, is expected in 2015.

Abe appears to have forced Japan out of its deflationary rut with a growth strategy centred on pumping trillions of dollars into the economy through public spending and aggressive monetary easing by the central bank.

The flood of money has helped weaken the Japanese yen, boosting corporate profits in yen terms and making exports of some Japanese manufacturers more cost competitive. It is also helping to spark inflation, thanks to rising costs for a wide range of imported commodities, from crude oil to soybeans to computer parts.

The supplementary budget approved Thursday, along with local government spending on public works and grants for lending to small enterprises, is meant to put another Y18.6 trillion ($A201.19 billion) into the economy. Abe says this will add a full percentage point to Japan's gross domestic product.

The spending does not involve any new public debt since much of the money to be used was left over from previous, unspent budgetary allocations. The rest comes from taxes and other government revenues.

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PM tributes troops in valedictory speech

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has kicked off parliament's annual valedictory speeches, marking 2013 as the year Australian troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Following a tribute to retiring clerk of the House of Representatives Bernard Wright, Mr Abbott praised the service of Australian troops after almost a decade in the Afghan province of Uruzgan.

"Our troops have done a magnificent job, but they've paid a high price," he said.

"We hope that the years of service and sacrifice will be honoured by a province and a country that respects the values that we tried to bring to that province."

He said the nation had also endured floods in Queensland and fires in NSW.

"But so often in this country, nature at its worst brings out Australians at their best," he said.

He noted the change of government in September and promised it would be for the better.

"I am determined to ensure that it is a very long time indeed before this country has three prime ministers in one year," he said.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten acknowledged the thousands of Holden workers who will soon be out of a job following the announcement that the company will cease manufacturing in Australia.

"We will continue to stand up for their futures every day," Mr Shorten said.

He too noted the devastation of natural disasters across the country, which began with the Tasmanian bushfires earlier in the year.

"The worst in over 30 years, through one of the state's harshest heatwaves," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss described the past year as "long and somewhat tumultuous" while his Labor counterpart Tanya Plibersek said it had certainly been curious.

"I don't think history will look kindly on the last parliament," Mr Truss said.

"It was raucous and I don't think it reflected well on the process of our democracy."

Ms Plibersek said people watching the nightly news would have thought the past year was almost entirely one of conflict but parliament had achieved things.

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First anniversary of Hendra virus vaccine

A year since the launch of the Hendra vaccine, the push continues for mandatory horse vaccination. Source: AAP

A YEAR on from the launch of the Hendra vaccine, the push continues for mandatory vaccination of horses against the deadly virus.

Since the launch of Equivac HeV support has grown with the vaccine maker, Zoetis, last month saying 150,000 horses have been treated since it was released in November last year.

Racing Queensland, leaders from within Equestrian Australia, the CSIRO, The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) and the Queensland Horse Council, have backed moves towards mandatory vaccination.

Hendra, which can spread from flying foxes to horses and then to humans, was first identified in Queensland in 1994 when a trainer and 20 horses died.

The virus has since killed three more people and about 70 horses in Queensland and northern NSW, as it spread south.

Equestrian Australia chairman Warwick Vale says he supports mandatory vaccination at high risk events.

"I think that the events community will come to realise that the single best tool for risk mitigation of this disease is vaccination," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Associate Professor James Gilkerson, the director of the Centre for Equine Infectious Diseases at the University of Melbourne says Hendra is an endemic disease and is not going away.

"If you're worried about a disease that is carried by bats, the best thing you can do is make sure that the population of most concern, in this case horses, is highly vaccinated, he said.

Zoetis General Manager Mike van Blommestein said that in the face of the threat of the disease moving south, researchers were concentrating on rapid diagnosis and prevention, and ways to control outbreaks.

On Tuesday Zoetis launched a documentary about the battle against Hendra virus to mark the first year of the vaccine's use.

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Alleged killer feared death by fork

A Queensland man accused of murdering his wife was afraid she would kill him so he pushed her. Source: AAP

A QUEENSLAND man accused of murdering his wife was afraid she would kill him with a kitchen fork so he pushed her, causing her to fall onto tiles and die, a court has heard.

Klaus Andres, 70, has pleaded guilty to interfering with Li Ping Cao's corpse by dissolving her body in a wheelie bin of acid, but says her death was an accident.

On Tuesday, Andres told the Supreme Court the pair had argued about sex, money and their relationship in the kitchen of their Cairns home on October 30, 2011.

He says Ms Cao, 42, was screaming and that she scratched his face and then stabbed his hand twice with a fork.

Principal Crown Prosecutor Nigel Rees asked Andres if he feared for his life.

"Definitely, yes," Andres said.

"A person or Li Ping could kill me with a fork if she got the right position."

He later added: "I protected myself".

Andres says he pushed his wife on the chest with one hand and she fell to the ground and died suddenly.

He went to dial 000 but didn't make the call as he thought he would be blamed for her death.

"... in my opinion there is nothing that could be done (to revive Ms Cao)," he said.

In the days that followed he put her body in a wheelie bin, dissolved her body in acid and poured the remains down a storm drain.

Only Ms Cao's prosthetic teeth were found by investigators.

Andres admits lying to police, his family and Ms Cao's friends to cover up her death, but says he didn't mean to kill her.

Mr Rees told the court Andres murdered his wife because it would cost him a lot of money to divorce her.

"I never attacked Li Ping in the whole five years and I never assaulted her," Andres said.

He also denied an accusation that he suffocated his wife.

Andres says Ms Cao wouldn't be entitled to his assets as they had been transferred to a family trust.

Specialist forensic pathologist Professor Johan Duflou told the court there are a number of circumstances in which a person can die suddenly after a fall or blow, but it is rare.

He says it's possible wounds on Andres' hand visible after Ms Cao's death were caused by a fork.

"To me it's a possibility, but there's nothing there that specifically says fork to me."

The trial continues.

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BHP focussed on reducing expenditure

BHP Billiton boss Andrew Mackenzie has confirmed plans to cut capital expenditure by 25% this year. Source: AAP

BHP Billiton chief Andrew Mackenzie says his main aim is not growing volumes, confirming plans to cut capital expenditure by 25 per cent this year and further next year.

BHP will also continue to cut costs after reducing controllable cash costs by $US2.7 billion ($A2.97 billion) the 12 months to June 30, he said at an investor briefing in Houston in the US.

The comments highlight the difference in leadership between Mr Mackenzie and his predecessor Marius Kloppers.

When Mr Mackenzie took the reins as chief executive in May it was with a mantra of controlling cost inflation in a world of lower commodity prices.

On Tuesday he reaffirmed plans to increase production by 16 per cent in the 2013/14 financial year and next, but believes the resources giant can grow while returning cash to shareholders and spending less.

"My principle aim is not to grow volumes," Mr Mackenzie said.

"My principle aim is to create value and free cash flow."

Capital expenditure had been allowed to run too high in the past, he said, with a level of $15 billion more appropriate than the $U22 billion spent last year.

Rio Tinto said last week it planned to halve its spend to $US8 billion by 2015.

Of the forecast production growth between now and 2015, 69 per cent will come from iron ore and petroleum.

Those two divisions have dominated capital expenditure in recent years, due to growth in Western Australian iron ore operations and an expansion into US shale oil and gas.

With much of the costly investment work done, capital was falling and output rising in petroleum, Mr Mackenzie said.

He defended the expensive shale assets as a fantastic opportunity for the future.

BHP's energy portfolio, which includes oil, gas, coal and uranium, would also benefit from an estimated two-thirds jump in energy demand from Asia's emerging economies by 2030, Mr Mackenzie said.

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ACCC appeals in ANZ price fixing case

The ACCC is appealing a ruling clearing ANZ of alleged price fixing in the mortgage market. Source: AAP

THE competition watchdog is appealing a recent ruling by the Federal Court clearing ANZ of alleged price fixing in the mortgage market.

The Federal Court in November dismissed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) application.

The ACCC had alleged ANZ had required mortgage broker Mortgage Refunds to limit the size of refunds to customers arranging ANZ home loans, which amounted to price fixing as Mortgage Refunds was a competitor in the home loan market.

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Federal govt suspends Ranger operations

THE federal government has told Energy Resources of Australia that it cannot resume processing uranium until regulators are happy with the integrity of the Ranger mine site at Kakadu following a massive leak of toxic slurry.

The Australian government suspended processing operations at the Northern Territory mine after a leach tank with a 1.5 million litre capacity burst and spilled out a radioactive and acidic slurry at 1am on Saturday.

ERA have not yet said how full the tank was at the time.

"I have told ERA that they cannot resume processing at Ranger until the company demonstrates the integrity of the processing plant to the satisfaction of the regulatory authorities," Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said in a statement on Monday.

He said ERA must also prove that Kakadu National Park and human safety are protected.

"I understand the concerns of traditional owners and local residents and can assure them that governments will continue to ensure the mine operates to the highest standards."

About 30 people attended a snap rally at ERA's Darwin office on Monday, where the director of the Environment Centre NT accused ERA of covering up environmental damage caused by the spill.

"I think they're lying," Dr Stuart Blanch told AAP.

"It's clear there's contaminated water from the burst tank on soil."

The Environment Centre NT said the slurry spill overflowed levee banks designed to contain it and got into the mine's stormwater drain system, and want independent scientists to be permitted on-site to determine the damage.

The supervising scientist, who is the federal regulator of the site, has already begun a full investigation.

"Preliminary reports indicate that the spill was contained within the plant area and that there is no threat to the surrounding environment or human health outside the immediate area," Mr Macfarlane said.

But the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which represents the Mirarr traditional owners of the land, says it has no faith in regulators.

Supervising Scientist Richard McAllister was a water and environmental engineer for an ERA subsidiary for several years during the 1990s.

"There's historically been a revolving door of personnel between the Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS), the NT government and the company, and it speaks to the need for a clear independent assessment," GAC CEO Justin O'Brien said.

He called Ranger "a hillbilly operation, run by a hillbilly miner with hillbilly regulators".

Bryan Wilkins, regional organiser of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, said that during the tank's construction and installation in 1993 or 1994 the welding was not properly tested.

"I know it wasn't - I was there," he told AAP.

Mr Macfarlane has established a taskforce consisting of the NT Department of Mines and Energy, NT WorkSafe, the Supervising Scientist and the Department of Industry to manage the response to the leak.

There have been more than 200 safety breaches and incidents over the past 30 years at the site, according to the Environment Centre NT, and this is the third incident in the past month alone.

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US approves new hepatitis C drug

HEALTH officials in the United States have approved a highly anticipated hepatitis C drug that is expected to offer a faster, more palatable cure to millions of people infected with the liver-destroying virus.

The Food and Drug Administration says it has approved the medication Sovaldi from Gilead Sciences Inc in combination with older drugs to treat the main forms of hepatitis C that affect US patients.

Current treatments for hepatitis C can take up to a year of therapy and involve weekly injections of a drug that causes flu-like side effects, an approach only cures about three out of four patients.

Sovaldi is a daily pill that in clinical trials cured roughly 90 percent of patients in just 12 weeks, when combined with the older drug cocktail.

Between 3 million and 4 million Americans are estimated to carry the blood-borne virus, though most do not even know they are infected. Others have tested positive but are waiting for more effective treatments to become available. Hepatitis C symptoms may not appear until two or three decades after infection, though the virus can cause liver failure, cirrhosis and cancer if left untreated.

Dr Donald Jensen of the University of Chicago said he's optimistic that new drugs like Sovaldi will increase treatment of the disease, which is blamed for 15,000 US deaths per year.

"I'm hoping that these new, less toxic therapies will drive more people to get tested and more primary care physicians to test their patients, knowing that the therapy is going to be more effective and easier," said Jensen, who directs the university's center for liver diseases.

Gilead said it will price the drug at $US84,000 ($A92,282.34) for one 12-week supply. Patients with a less common subtype of the disease may need to take the drug for 24 weeks, raising the cost to $168,000 for one course of treatment. Drugs already on the market run between $25,000 and $50,000 for a course of treatment.

The approval comes as the US government urges all baby boomers to get tested for the disease. People born between 1945 and 1965 are five times more likely than other age groups to have hepatitis C, with many having contracted the virus by sharing needles or having sex with an infected person in their youth.

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