NSW introduces risk-based liquor licensing

ROGUE NSW nightclubs and pubs with poor compliance records will be slugged with thousands of dollars of yearly licensing fees, the state government has announced.

Venues currently pay a small one-off application fee for a new or existing liquor licence, regardless of how long the licence remains in existence.

From July, venues will have to pay a yearly fee, which will be calculated based on a number of risk factors, such as the venue's capacity, location and operating hours.

Venues with a poor compliance history will also pay more.

The announcement has been slammed by clubs and bottle shops as being unfair but welcomed by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) which hailed it as a positive move against alcohol-fuelled violence.

State Hospitality Minister George Souris says the changes will make licensed venues safer.

"This scheme will hit bad venues where it hurts most - the hip pocket - and encourage good operators to stay on their game," Mr Souris said on Friday.

Office of Liquor, Gaming & Racing executive director Paul Newson said the plan targets "rogue licensees" with bad records and could have some venues paying up to $24,500 in fees a year.

"Do the right thing and you will pay a modest annual fee," he told reporters.

"Do the wrong thing and you will pay more."

Mr Souris stressed that three-quarters of the state's 18,400 licensees would only pay a base fee of between $100 and $500 a year.

AMA NSW president associate professor Brian Owler said the announcement was a positive move towards combating drunken violence.

"There is now a financial incentive to make sure venues do comply with the responsible service of alcohol and in reducing the number of violent incidents that occur in their premises and around them," he told AAP.

But ClubsNSW chief Anthony Ball said the industry could not understand why registered clubs were being treated the same as pubs and nightclubs under the changes.

"Venues which fail to comply with the law should be the main focus of any licensing system which aims to tackle anti-social behaviour," he said.

"Those venues deserve to be targeted, but punishing good community clubs simply doesn't make sense."

John Green, from the Australian Hotels Association, hoped the money raised from the licensing fees would go towards improving infrastructure for the late night economy, including on more transport, policing and on better lighting.

The Liquor Stores Association of NSW said the "disappointing" changes penalise responsible packaged liquor store owners "simply for having more than three stores".

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Nicaragua earthquake leaves one dead

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake has hit Nicaragua, injuring 14 people and damaging dozens of houses. Source: AAP

A 6.2-MAGNITUDE earthquake that struck Nicaragua has killed one person, left 33 injured, and damaged more than 800 homes.

President Daniel Ortega declared a state of emergency after Thursday's quake, centred in the Pacific coast region of the Central American nation.

He said it caused significant damage and triggered panic among the population.

The fatality was a 37-year-old woman who died of a heart attack, said officials at Carlos Roberto Huembes Hospital in Managua.

Three of the injured were in serious condition.

"There are thousands of families that lost their homes or saw them seriously damaged," he said.

The quake happened at 2327 GMT (0927 AEST Friday) and its epicentre was about 20 kilometres north of the capital at a depth of 10 kilometres, said the US Geological Survey.

The Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies put the magnitude at 6.2.

The president ordered classes suspended for Friday, and added there were more than 400 aftershocks.

People ran out of their homes in panic, he said. Managua was left without power for a few hours.

The quake was also felt in El Salvador, Honduras and the north of Costa Rica.

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Lorde fills Cobain's shoes

NEW Zealand singer Lorde has fronted Nirvana in New York as the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The 17-year-old belted out All Apologies with the remaining band members on Thursday as they performed Kurt Cobain's music for the first time since his death 20 years ago.

Lorde, who was born two years after Cobain died in 1994, tweeted after the show: "So honoured and happy i got to help celebrate nirvana's rock and roll hall of fame induction tonight. true f****** rock stars, all, forever".

Three other female artists - Joan Jet, Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth and Annie Clark from St Vincent performed with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear at Brooklyn's Barclays Centre.

Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility amid widespread speculation about whether they'd perform instrumental numbers and if not, who would step in for Cobain.

Novoselic, the band's bass player, said fans still came to him every day.

"Nirvana fans walk up to me every day and say thank you for the music," he said.

"When I hear that, I think of Kurt Cobain."

Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, hugged the two surviving band members, with whom she's had bad blood in the past.

"I just wish Kurt was here to do this," she said.

Kiss, thumbing their noses at critics who have dismissed them, them, also entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with Peter Gabriel, Hall & Oates, Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

The original four members of Kiss didn't perform because of a dispute between active original members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and retired members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. But the original four made peace and saluted each other in heartfelt induction speeches.

The theatrical quartet put on make-up, belched blood, shot fireworks out of Frehley's guitar and sang their classic anthem Rock and Roll All Nite.

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Ministers worried about indigenous privacy

EDUCATION ministers are grappling with the question of how to track indigenous truancy without breaching students' privacy.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced in February he would add school attendance to the "closing the gap" targets aimed at improving the lot of indigenous Australians.

The country's education ministers discussed the matter when they met on Friday.

They want to collect and publish attendance data twice a year.

Ministers acknowledged there should be simple and timely snapshots of attendance to help work towards the target.

NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli told AAP attendance was crucial to help students do well.

But it's understood some ministers are concerned about the privacy of students.

One solution could be to only identify indigenous attendance records when there are more than five in a class.

However, in small jurisdictions with few indigenous students, like the ACT, this could end up meaning no separate data is published.

AAP understands federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne encouraged his colleagues to raise the issue with their premiers and chief ministers for further discussion in the Council of Australian Governments, which set the target.

A final decision is likely to be made on how the data is collected when the ministers meet again in October.

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Northern Victoria cops drenching from rain

PARTS of northern and north-eastern Victoria and are watching the skies nervously as heavy rain threatens flooding.

Some parts of the state's north have had up to 80mm of rain - well over the average for April - since Tuesday as a slow-moving low pressure trough crosses the state.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has renewed severe weather warnings for heavy rain and possible flash flooding in the Mallee, Northern Country and North East forecast regions, a wide area that spans Mildura, Swan Hill, Bendigo, Echuca, Shepparton, Benalla, Wangaratta and Wodonga.

BoM senior forecaster Terry Ryan said Rushworth, near Shepparton, had 50mm of rain to 9am (AEST) on Thursday while Bendigo had 45mm and Benalla 44mm over the same period.

Since 9am, a further 29mm fell near Benalla at Violet Town and falls around 30mm were common across the north of the state.

Mr Ryan said between 30mm and 80mm had fallen across the north, with the heaviest falls in the high country.

Flood watches have been issued for the Goulburn/Broken river catchment and for East Gippsland.

Severe weather warnings for the central district around Melbourne, the Wimmera and North Central districts have been cancelled.

Melbourne has copped its heaviest rainfall since November with 20mm falling over the past two days.

There, the main impact has been on the roads, with cars colliding in the slippery conditions.

There haven't been any serious injuries, Ambulance Victoria said in a tweet on Thursday, but paramedics have been called to 24 collisions across the state in the space of eight hours.

The State Emergency Service handled more than 70 assistance calls on Thursday, mainly for building damage and fallen trees.

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Qld locals prepare for category five

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has cut short a trade trip as the state prepares for cyclone Ita. Source: AAP

FAR north Queensland residents are preparing for the worst as category five Cyclone Ita heads their way.

Ita was upgraded to a category five late on Thursday afternoon and is predicted to land north of Cooktown on Friday night, with a strong chance of coinciding with a 7pm high tide.

This will create dangerous storm surges, about 1.5 metres bigger than usual high tides, along a 240km stretch of coast from Port Douglas to Cape Melville, Queensland's Bureau of Meteorology says.

The bureau's senior forecaster Pradeep Singh says heavy rain will also trigger flash floods.

He said while Ita was intense, it's a smaller system and would move slower than category five Cyclone Yasi in 2011 and category four Cyclone Larry in 2006.

It's expected to bring 280km/h winds when it hits the coast, with 9000 people directly in its path.

Cooktown mayor Peter Scott said cyclone shelters were being put up Thursday night as winds of up to 100 km/hr were forecast to hit the town on Friday morning.

"It's coming in faster and bigger than we first thought it was going too," he said while boarding up windows of his family home.

Premier Campbell Newman has pleaded for campers and residents in low lying areas to seek safer shelter.

"There'll be lots of rain, 100mm of torrential rain. That means flooding of creeks and road crossings," he said.

"If it's flooded forget it. Please don't put your life at risk."

Staff and tourists have left Lizard Island, while 50 mine workers have already abandoned the Cape Flattery silica mine township, north of Cooktown.

Some residents north of Port Douglas have already evacuated their homes.

Local Dianne Fursdon says an eerie quiet feeling has enveloped Cooktown.

"It's really strange, everything has gone quiet," she told AAP.

"There's no bird sounds, no geckos and the ants are all crawling onto higher ground."

Ms Fursdon feels confident her home will withstand the storm as she's used five rolls of tape to secure windows.

"Maybe the roof will come off, but what the hell," she said with a smile.

"All I need is my plonk and I'll be fine."

Fourteen-year-old Kathleen Stevens, her aunt and great aunt were buying buckets and jerry cans to fill with water and fuel at the 11th hour.

They've been warned they may have to go without water and power for some time.

The family is hopeful their home can withstand the force of potentially destructive winds.

"But if it gets really bad we're going to head to the cyclone shelter," Kathleen told AAP.

"Or the bathroom because it's sturdy," her aunt Stacey Stevens added.

A cyclone watch has been declared for areas up to 300km inland, including Kalinga, Laura, Palmerville and Chillagoe.

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ASIC rejects corruption allegation

AUSTRALIA'S investment watchdog has hit back at claims of corruption within its ranks.

Australian Securities and Investment Commission chairman Greg Medcraft has rejected, in a Senate hearing, suggestions staff acted inappropriately when authorising the use of online superannuation calculators in 2005.

The accusations stem from lawyer James Wheeldon, who was engaged by ASIC as part of a team tasked with granting permission to superannuation funds to offer customers the online tool to tally their super savings.

Mr Wheeldon claims ASIC failed to comply with its own standards when issuing an exemption that meant fees and charges were not necessarily included in the calculations.

Mr Wheeldon has previously told the senate hearing he reported to a senior lawyer, Grant Jones, who was on secondment to ASIC from the wealth management division of National Australia Bank, MLC.

Mr Wheeldon said Mr Jones acted as a "enthusiastic advocate within ASIC" for the benefit of MLC.

He also told the hearing that head of the team, Mark Adams, was driving an outcome which would see permission granted across the industry for the use of online calculators.

In response on Thursday, Mr Medcraft discredited Mr Wheeldon as a junior lawyer who was employed by ASIC for only nine months.

"ASIC completely rejects Mr Wheeldon's allegations," he said.

There was no special treatment for any parties and if ASIC considered the matter again, the same outcome would be achieved, Mr Medcraft said.

The Senate Economics References Committee's inquiry into the performance of ASIC is due to report back in late May.

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ICAC hears how Tripodi baled up Kelly

Former NSW minister Tony Kelly has admitted a cabinet minute that didn't favour AWH was rewritten. Source: AAP

FORMER minister Joe Tripodi says he took a 10-hour round trip to rural NSW to learn about hay, not straighten out a story with ex-MP Tony Kelly.

Counsel assisting the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), Geoffrey Watson SC, on Thursday accused Mr Tripodi of trying to elude investigators by switching his mobile telephone off for most of the trip to Wellington.

But Mr Tripodi did not realise his sat-nav system was tracking his every turn, Mr Watson said.

"You turned off your telephone that day, deliberately," Mr Watson put to the witness.

"You didn't want anybody to have the facility to track where you were going."

The corruption watchdog has heard allegations Mr Tripodi and Mr Kelly helped create a sham cabinet minute that boosted Australian Water Holdings' (AWH) prospects of securing a lucrative public-private partnership.

The document replaced - and effectively reversed - expert advice prepared by external consultant Brian McGlynn.

The two men agreed they had a hand in altering the original minute: Mr Kelly agreed it was his decision to put up a new "positive" minute, while Mr Tripodi said he provided "working notes" that were incorporated in the paper.

But both men deny penning the final minute or working to further AWH's interests to benefit crooked ex-MP Eddie Obeid, whose family allegedly had a secret stake in the company.

It was revealed on Thursday that Mr Tripodi visited Mr Kelly's Wellington property in central western NSW early last year.

Mr Kelly said his old parliamentary colleague showed up unannounced with a hamburger in one hand and a coffee in the other and the men chatted about what fellow ex-MPs were up to.

Mr Tripodi mentioned that former planning minister Frank Sartor was writing a book "bagging out Labor" and that the notorious cabinet minute alteration would get a mention, Mr Kelly said.

"And then he finished his hamburger and said, okay, good to catch up with you and off he went," Mr Kelly said.

In a bizarre afternoon of evidence, Mr Tripodi claimed he was in the area to scout out a possible hay export scheme for a Chinese friend.

"You know lucerne costs about $12 a bale. It's not even economic to move lucerne (the 100km) from Wellington to Orange, so why would someone be exporting it back to Shanghai?" Mr Watson asked incredulously.

"Did you go down there for the sole purpose of getting stories straight about the cabinet minute?"

"Absolutely not," Mr Tripodi said.

The inquiry heard about extensive telephone contact between Mr Tripodi and former AWH chief executive Nick Di Girolamo.

"Like two young lovers," Mr Watson said. "You were at it all day."

Mr Tripodi denied he did anything wrong by putting Mr Di Girolamo in touch with then-water minister Phil Costa.

"I did that for many, many people on many, many issues," Mr Tripodi said.

"There was a dry cleaner at Wynyard that approached me when I was catching a train, raised some issues, and I went and raised it with a minister."

"We haven't got to that inquiry yet," Mr Watson quipped.

The inquiry continues on Friday with Mr Di Girolamo due to give evidence.

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'Greed and lies': Obeid faces ICAC

Former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid is due to give evidence to the NSW corruption watchdog again. Source: AAP

FALLEN NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid says he was motivated by duty, not greed, in requesting ministerial meetings and approaching a premier on behalf of Australian Water Holdings (AWH) and its boss Nick Di Girolamo.

His statement is at odds with the silk leading an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) probe into the firm, who believes Mr Obeid was motivated by pure greed.

Counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson SC has told the inquiry the Obeid family had a secret stake in AWH and stood to make up to $60 million from a proposed public-private partnership (PPP) with the NSW government.

Mr Obeid took his much-anticipated turn in the ICAC witness box on Wednesday, where he admitted approaching former senior NSW Labor politicians Michael Costa, Phil Costa, Morris Iemma, Kristina Keneally and Nathan Rees on Mr Di Girolamo's behalf.

He conceded he even called Ms Keneally at home during her time as premier, to urge her to consider the AWH proposal on its merits and not let the fact his son Edward was working for the company colour her judgment.

These comments came despite telling the ICAC in a private interview last year he was "positive" he had never mentioned the firm to Ms Keneally.

And although he denied lobbying fellow former MPs Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly, he conceded he attended one meeting between Mr Di Girolamo and then-treasurer Michael Costa where a long-running dispute between AWH and Sydney Water was discussed.

"That's the way I treated every constituent that wants my help," Mr Obeid told the inquiry.

"I object to (suggestions I was) 'doing favours' - I did what my duty allowed me to do which was solve a problem that could blow up as far as the government's concerned."

But Mr Watson claimed Mr Obeid had attempted to further AWH's aims at every turn.

"You knew at all times that your family was closely involved with Australian Water Holdings, you knew from November 2010 that your family owned one quarter of the company," he said.

"Mr Obeid, at all times, you were motivated by nothing more than just personal greed to try and secure an improper outcome."

Mr Obeid spat back: "That's your version and it's rubbish."

Moments later he was outside the commission, wearing a thin smile and telling reporters: "I never lie."

Anyone found to have wilfully given false or misleading evidence to the commission can be jailed for up to five years.

Mr Obeid echoed the testimony of his sons Paul and Moses, who have each claimed a 2010 agreement recorded a $3 million loan to AWH chief executive Nick Di Girolamo, not a share purchase.

He said he would not have approved of the loan if he had known about it and thought the proposed PPP was "stupid" but never meddled in his sons' affairs.

"I do not go and second guess what they're doing."

Late in the day, former planning minister Tony Kelly denied altering a cabinet minute to favour AWH's PPP bid.

He will return to the witness box on Thursday.

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Special constable attacked 'midget'

WHEN Heath Kelly was bashed by a special constable in Sydney more than a year ago, he says he was shocked someone would attack a "midget".

Fadi Chafei, 40, was found guilty on Wednesday by Magistrate Harriet Grahame of assault occasioning in actual bodily harm against Mr Kelly in November 2012 in Surry Hills.

He was also found guilty of intimidating bystander Matthew Harper who stopped Chafei from leaving the scene by making a citizen's arrest.

In handing down her decision at Downing Centre Local Court, Ms Grahame criticised Chafei's claims he was acting in self-defence.

"Mr Kelly describes himself as a midget," she told the court.

"When I observed him giving evidence, he looked younger than his 30 years and he was childlike."

Ms Grahame said she believed Mr Kelly's statement to the court that "no one expects a fully grown man to come up to a midget and smash the f*** out of him".

"I found his (Mr Kelly's) evidence lacking in guile or artifice," she said.

A special constable is not a sworn police officer but a person involved in law enforcement for a agencies such as local councils.

Chafei's defence team had argued that the special constable had punched Mr Kelly because he was one of a group of six who had been intimidating their client.

But Ms Grahame said this was inconsistent with CCTV footage and that his evidence was "at best" exaggerated.

The court was told that Mr Harper heard Chafei say to Mr Kelly "shut your f***ing mouth" before punching him.

Mr Kelly then fell, striking his head on the pavement.

Mr Harper told the court that after the attack, Chafei had said to an unconscious Mr Kelly "you just learnt your lesson" before he turned to him and sneered, "do you want to have a go c***".

Two nearby security guards stopped the 40-year-old from getting into a taxi and helped Mr Harper make a citizen's arrest.

Ms Grahame will sentence Chafei on May 20.

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