Reasonable chance of finding plane: RAAF

Three planes have left Perth to continue the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Source: AAP

LONG-RANGE aircraft have joined the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, boosting confidence that suspected debris from MH370 will be found.

The large debris that was captured on satellite imagery on March 16 and publicly revealed on Thursday after being analysed is the most credible lead so far in the hunt for the missing plane.

While it is yet to be spotted by search aircraft, the HMAS Success is due to arrive at the search area on Saturday afternoon.

Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss told a large international media contingent at the Royal Australian Air Force Pearce air base north of Perth, from where the search is being coordinated, that the Australian effort has so far covered some 500,000 square kilometres.

Mr Truss said there had already been 15 sorties from the base, mainly Australian and New Zealand Orion aircraft.

Two longer range aircraft being deployed this weekend had intercontinental capability and would be able to search the area for five hours, compared to the 2-3 hours that military aircraft had available over the past two days, he said.

Aircraft from China will arrive at Pearce later on Saturday and join the search on Sunday, when Japanese aircraft will land at the base.

They will become involved on Monday.

Several vessels from around the world are also en route to assist.

No aircraft or vessels have been sent from Malaysia to help with the Indian Ocean search, but it has sent military personnel to Pearce to act as liaison officers.

"They have other search areas where they are concentrating their efforts, in their own waters and nearby," Mr Truss said.

He said Malaysian authorities were being contacted every few hours

The search area has been adjusted to account for considerable drift.

Weather conditions had much improved and would remain so for the foreseeable future, Mr Truss said.

"If there's something there to be found, I'm confident that this search effort will locate it," he said.

RAAF group captain Craig Heap was cautiously optimistic.

"There's a reasonable chance of finding something," Captain Heap said.

At a press conference in Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the lead as "tenuous", while Mr Truss conceded the debris may be a shipping container.

He said the search would continue as long as there was hope.

"It is important from the perspective of those who have families, whose whereabouts are unknown ... and indeed for the future of the aviation industry, that we do whatever we can to firstly confirm whether or not the sightings as a result of the satellite imagery are indeed connected in any way with the Malaysia Airlines flight," Mr Truss said.

"And then if so, what can be recovered so we can learn more about what has happened on this flight and learn any lessons that are necessary to make sure this doesn't happen again." Australian authorities would their utmost to keep the public informed, he said.

"These families .... they're anxious for information," Mr Truss said.

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Qld police search garbage dump for body

A SEARCH is underway at a Queensland landfill site for the remains of a diamond miner who vanished a month ago.

David Hanson, 71, was supposed to catch a flight to Tanzania on February 22 but never made it to the airport.

Police believe his body and belongings were dumped in a bin south of Brisbane and on Saturday began searching garbage at a waste transfer station.

Fifty-two State Emergency Service volunteers began sifting through 5000 tonnes of compacted waste at the Browns Plains Waste and Recycling Facility using rakes and garden forks on Saturday.

Police won't speculate on a motive.

They say Mr Hanson was jailed for drug trafficking in the United States two decades ago and was not a particularly wealthy man.

Detective Superintendent David Hutchinson said police had set aside a month for the search, which would be a slow and methodical process.

"There's been no proof of life in relation to Mr Hanson since the 22nd of February," he said.

"We always hope for the best and we hope that there's been a reason why he's gone away ... but the evidence that we have would suggest otherwise."

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Pakistan crash kills at least 25

AT least 25 people have been killed and 30 others injured in a multi-vehicle collision involving two trucks and two passenger buses in Pakistan's southwest.

Senior officer Ahmed Nawaz says the accident happened early on Saturday near the town of Gadani, when a bus bound for the port city of Karachi collided head-on with a truck.

Nawaz says the second bus and truck then piled onto the two vehicles and all caught fire, mainly because the buses were also smuggling Iranian petrol- and diesel-filled canisters.

He says most of the victims were severely burned and the death toll may rise.

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Cops firing blanks in sex exemption debate

Police in Hawaii may lose a law that allows them to have sex with prostitutes while on the job. Source: AAP

POLICE in Hawaii are facing the prospect of losing an exemption that allows them to have sex with prostitutes while on the job.

The state's Senate Judicial Committee chairman, Clayton Hee, has announced plans to get rid of the exemption in Hawaii's prostitution law that permits police to have sex, so long as it's part of an investigation.

His announcement at a committee hearing this week followed expressions of outrage after police had lobbied to keep the exemption for the so-called morals officers who are charged with the responsibility of investigating prostitution.

"To condone police officers' sexual penetration in making arrests is simply nonsensical to me," Hee said.

State legislators have been working to revamp Hawaii's decades-old law against prostitution. They toughened penalties against pimps and those who use prostitutes, and they also originally proposed scrapping the sex exemption for officers on duty.

But Honolulu police said last month that they needed the legal protection to catch lawbreakers in the act. Otherwise, they argued, prostitutes would insist on sex to identify undercover officers.

The legislation was then amended to restore the protection and the revised proposal passed the House and is now before the Senate.

While police say the exemption is necessary, Myles Breiner, a former Honolulu prosecutor who now works as a defence lawyer, testified that some of his clients who are prostitutes often complained to him that police had sex with them before making an arrest.

"How do we expect people to follow the law when the police engage in criminal conduct," Breiner asked.

Police testified in writing and in person to the House Judiciary Committee in February that keeping the exemption protected undercover officers from being found out. They said internal department protocols protected citizens against abuses.

Law enforcement experts say there's never any need to have sex with a prostitute to make an arrest, because the agreement to exchange money for sex is sufficient evidence of a crime.

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Principal says school trusted staff

A FORMER Adelaide principal who hired a pedophile says he did not lie but made a mistake when he initially said he had done a police check on the bus driver.

Claude Hamam also said the school was extremely vigilant about supervision, but he had not known children went to the woodwork shed at lunchtime to see the driver, Brian Perkins.

"At the time we had an element of trust that we had for all the staff there," he told the royal commission into sex abuse on Friday.

It is investigating St Ann's Special School and Perkins who sexually abused intellectually disabled children between 1986 and 1991.

Mr Hamam hired Perkins, who had three child abuse convictions, without doing a police check, could not recall if he verified his references, and interviewed him alone which breached catholic school policy.

He told the commission he deeply regretted telling the Catholic Education Office (CEO) in 2001 that he had carried out the check, before revealing in 2003 that he had not done so.

"It is something I have got to carry for the rest of my life," he said.

It had been a mistake and an error of judgment, so he was shocked and devastated to be accused of lying and to be dismissed on the grounds of not being a fit and proper person.

Mr Hamam agreed that as Perkins took on more school activities, he had greater opportunities to be alone with children but said "we were extremely vigilant".

Perkins did volunteer respite care of students on weekends and helped out in the woodwork shed.

Mr Hamam said he did not recall a mother telling him that Perkins had placed her daughter on his knee in the shed and tried to feel her breast.

If that happened, he said he would have informed police.

He did recall a teacher raising concerns about Perkins bringing another man - whom the commission heard was now a convicted pedophile - onto the school premises.

"She felt perhaps he was a little creepy and she didn't like the look of this person," Mr Hamam said.

He told the man he did not want him at the school, but he could not recall if he brought up the incident with Perkins or if it gave him concern about the driver.

He said he first found out about the abuse claims when police contacted him in 1991.

Mr Hamam said he told Michael Critchley, who worked in the CEO's resources section, and expected him to take the case further.

He denied only approaching Mr Critchley for help in terminating Perkins' employment, saying "I thought it was a much more serious matter than looking at an industrial issue".

He did not tell parents their children may have been abused as police told him to keep the matter confidential so as not to compromise their investigation.

He did not raise the allegations with the Archbishop or at school board meetings.

Mr Critchley testified that he did not inform anyone in the CEO of his conversation with Mr Hamam.

"I can't recall why I didn't do it," he said, but agreed that in retrospect he should have.

Perkins, jailed for 10 years in 2003 after pleading guilty to sex offences, died in prison in 2009.

The hearing is continuing.

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Australia's real Pacific solution

Guards at Australia's detention centre on Manus island are ordered to carry hooked knives. Source: AAP

GUARDS at Australia's detention centre on Manus island are ordered to carry hooked knives.

The knives are used to cut ropes when asylum seekers try to hang themselves.

This is the harsh reality of Australia's so-called Pacific Solution.

Here's another reality - in one sleeping area in Foxtrot compound 122 men sleep in a steaming hot, darkened room with no air-conditioning.

Large, industrial fans are spaced unevenly between the beds, leaving little room for people to move.

And another reality: these are men - 1296 of them - living with the dark memories of the February 17 riot that claimed the life of 23-year-old Iranian man Reza Berati.

Broken window panes in the dining hall at Oscar compound, missing windows in Mike compound, bullet holes in a large white container exposing - like wounds - the rusted brown interior.

"They hit him and he fell from here and they hit him till he died," one asylum seeker said of Berati, pointing to a stairwell in Mike compound.

"They hit him in the head until he died." Guards and immigration officials quickly moved us on.

On Friday, a select group of media organisations including AAP was permitted rare access to the centre by court order as part of a Papua New Guinea human rights inquiry into the treatment of asylum seekers.

We were not allowed to interview staff or detainees.

Men in Delta, Foxtrot and Oscar compounds held pictures of Berati.

"Please report this, we want freedom," shouted one man, who gripped tightly onto the shoulder of this journalist.

"Please, we can't sleep. We are scared all the time."

Another became visibly upset. "Six months, seven months, eight months like this here," he said.

"We have no (running) water, no safety."

In Delta compound, media were shown filthy toilets with no running water, while in another compound there were broken showers.

This part of the facility is constructed on the remains of the old Manus Island detention centre, built so the Howard government could implement the first instalment of the Pacific Solution.

Tightly packed shipping containers in rows, each one sleeping four or five men.

Facing each other, the walkway between them is shielded from the heavy and frequent Manus rains by a metal roof.

Peering down, you can barely make out the faces of the men in the dark.

There are vast differences in the quality of the compounds.

While Delta and Foxtrot compounds are extremely run down, others are not.

Mike compound is made up of blazing white shipping containers stacked on top of each other. Each room sleeps four men.

In Oscar compound - made up of a dining hall and large marquee sleeping halls for up to 50 men - showers were broken.

In one of these sleeping halls the words, "you'll never find a rainbow if you keep looking down", are scrawled on a wall above one of the bunk beds.

The beds are spaced about a foot apart.

The court party was informed there are fewer tables in the dining halls since the riot, with none in one compound.

Next to Oscar compound, behind a large corrugated iron fence, is the mental health sleeping quarters.

Inside, a bearded man clutches his violently shaking right hand to his chest.

"I am from Syria, please I want freedom," he said.

Next to Mike compound is "the green zone" where asylum seekers can make calls to their families at night.

But there's nothing safe about it.

An asylum seeker points out a bullet hole in a metal support beam - another memory of February 17.

As the team of court officials and media walks between Oscar and Delta compounds, men hang against the fences and stare at us silently.

One group of about eight men stand with their faces pressed against the rusted metal.

To their right: a sign ordering guards to carry the hooked knives.

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Nats will do better at re-run poll: Joyce

THE Nationals will improve their performance at the re-run West Australian Senate election, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says.

The party - which began in the west - missed out on a seat at the September poll because of preference deals wrangled by minor parties including the Australian Sports Party.

Shane Van Styn and Colin de Grussa are running again at the April 5 election, but former AFL star David Wirrapanda has decided he won't.

"We had David Wirrapanda and he did a good job - we got a better vote than one of the senators that got in, it's just that our preference flow wasn't right but this time, the preference flow is better for us," Mr Joyce told Fairfax radio on Friday.

"We've got a better position (on the ballot paper) in box B.

"There was an overwhelming desire for change at the last election and I suppose the National party, because they stand on their own, got run over a bit in it.

"But this election is different."

Mr Joyce said the party's policy platform was centred on abolishing the carbon tax, progressing trade agreements and more infrastructure in WA.

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No sweet tooth for Australian cake champ

FOR an award-winning cake decorator who spends Monday to Friday surrounded by the temptations of her sugary creations, Jacquie Goldstaiz's palate is a blessing in disguise.

"I never bake for me. I just really love fresh fruit and vegetables," she said.

"The only time I really taste cake is to make sure it's the right flavour or it's not too dry."

Ms Goldstaiz's artistic flair earned her the championship title and a $2000 prize at the Australian Cake Decorating Championships in Sydney on Friday.

The Gold Coast woman's marzipan fruit creation took two months to make.

While the competition version was not edible, Ms Goldstaiz estimates a real cake would take two weeks to create and would weigh about 10 kilograms.

Throughout her five-year career, Ms Goldstaiz has created cakes in the shape of a Louis Vuitton bag, a Native American head and a diving helmet.

But somehow the former florist manages not to overindulge.

"To me, it's an art," she said.

"I never look at it as a cake and never look at it as something to eat."

Her winning confection will return to Queensland to take prime position in her cake-decorating shop.

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Bungling Labor gets Sinodinos' scalp

Despite bungling its plan to bring down Arthur Sinodinos, Labor has got its first ministerial scalp. Source: AAP

LABOR managed to finish the day with a ministerial scalp of sorts, but not before it bungled its parliamentary strategy to bring down Arthur Sinodinos.

Senator Sinodinos started Wednesday as the government's assistant treasurer, notwithstanding questions about his involvement in a company being investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in NSW.

By question time he was sitting on the coalition backbench, freed from the obligation to take questions from non-government senators.

A few minutes earlier he had told the Senate he was standing aside as a minister in the Abbott government.

Opposition senate leader Penny Wong was clearly frustrated by the announcement.

She and her colleagues had planned to use question time to quiz the minister about his involvement with Australian Water Holdings (AWH), a company associated with corrupt former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid and being investigated by ICAC.

Senator Wong lamented that Senator Sinodinos was not required to answer any questions.

Earlier the opposition parties failed by one minute to bring the minister to account.

When the Senate began proceedings on Wednesday morning, Labor and the Greens moved to have Senator Sinodinos front the chamber and explain "inconsistencies" between a statement he made to parliament in 2013 and evidence heard at ICAC this week.

Labor and the Greens set Senator Sinodinos a deadline of midday to explain himself.

But the motion making the call did not pass the Senate until 12.01pm. As a result, the government argued the senator could hardly be given proper notice to appear by midday.

That point was argued for another 45 minutes before the Senate's standing orders deprived Labor of making good on its threat to move a tougher motion against the minister.

But it was only a temporary reprieve for Senator Sinodinos, who presumably was working on his stand-aside statement.

In question time Labor was forced to ask questions about what the prime minister knew about the issue and what steps he took to ensure Senator Sinodinos was a fit and proper person to be a minister.

Tony Abbott was answering those questions in the other place, also known as the House of Representatives.

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School canteens break sugar rules: expert

A nutrition expert says school canteens are breaking the rules by selling sugary drinks and lollies. Source: AAP

SCHOOL canteens are breaking the rules by selling sugary drinks and lollies, says a nutrition expert who is calling for a revamp of guidelines and controls.

Many parents don't realise that there is almost a complete ban on confectionery, says Dr Kieron Rooney, a senior lecturer in biochemistry and exercise physiology at the University of Sydney.

Some states allow lollies and chocolates only once or twice a term but the rules are not enforced, he says.

Another concern is that school guidelines are out of sync with the latest national dietary guidelines, which recognise that sugar leads to obesity and dental cavities.

Liquid breakfast and other sugar-sweetened products are allowed because the guidelines focus only on the kilojoules, saturated fat, salt and fibre content of food and drinks, says Dr Rooney.

"The canteen rules are outdated."

The World Health Organisation says no more than 10 per cent and preferably five per cent of a person's diet should come from added sugar.

For a child that's about three teaspoons of added sugar a day.

"Natural sugar in foods like fruit and dairy is perfectly fine. But people should be avoiding added sugar in processed food as much as they can," says Dr Rooney, who is giving a public lecture at the university on March 26.

He says the word "natural" has been hijacked by processed food manufacturers.

"There is absolutely nothing natural about taking something that was grown in earth, extracting it, boiling it, breaking it down, crystallising it and then putting it into a bunch of jelly.

"My talk focuses on the failure of federal and state governments to update canteen rules in line with the latest dietary guidelines.

"Lollies are banned. However, you can take some low-fat milk and add sugar to it and that's perfectly fine.

"Canteen guidelines are failing our kids because they don't comply with the 2013 Australian dietary guidelines."

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