Airport to get $500 million facelift over 3 years - The West; ASIC 'dainty' on details: Fortescue - The Fin; Oil firm faces loss of licence - The West; Telstra spin clears path for NBN - The Fin; Woodside's Pluto faces $520m blowout - The Aus
Airport to get $500 million facelift over 3 years - The West
ASIC 'dainty' on details: Fortescue - The Fin
Oil firm faces loss of licences - The West
Telstra spin clears path for NBN - The Fin
Woodside's Pluto faces $520m blowout - The Aus
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN:
Page 9: Westralian Airports Corporation is to spend $500 million over three years on new terminals and services so Perth Airport can handle growth fuelled by the resources boom and low-coast airlines.
Page 11: The company behind the Montara oil spill and explosion off the Kimberley coast last year could be stripped of its exploration licences in Australia and key staff could face criminal charges.
Page 11: Premier Colin Barnett has rejected a key finding of the inquiry into the Montara oil spill, declaring he would block the push for a new national regulator for the offshore oil and gas industry.
Page 12:The Federal Government is one step from its plan for a national Broadband Network after caving in to demands from key independent Senator Nick Xenophon yesterday.
Page 48: An Australian Government push for the country's rare earth miners to supply an increasingly frantic Japanese market has paid immediate dividends, with Lynas Corp revealing yesterday it had struck a funding and marketing deal with trading giant Sojitz Corp that could allow the $US250 million ($255 million) expansion of its Mt Weld project to start as early as March.
Page 48: WA Seems to be making the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards its own, last night taking out three of the seven categories as well as the top gong.
Page 48: Port Hedland Port Authority's well-regarded chief executive, Andre Bush, who championed the cause of the Pilbara's junior iron ore miners, has quit to become the biggest casualty of the State Government's review of WA port operations.
Page 49: Neptune Marine's founding managing director said yesterday the company's board should have axed its acquisitive chief executive Christian Lange a lot earlier.
Page 50: A series of contracts Fortescue Metals Group signed with Chinese firms for a $1.85 billion Pilbara project were binding build and transfer agreements but the ordinary investor would have understood they would not necessarily go ahead, the Federal Court to Appeal was told yesterday.
THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW:
Page 1: The Gillard government has sealed a historic deal to restructure Telstra and build its national broadband network after being forced to release plans showing the project would take three extra years to complete.
Page 1: Small and medium businesses that fail to pay employees' superannuation contributions will be targeted under federal government changes that will give the tax office new powers to penalise offending employers and company directors.
Page 3: The likelihood of Coalition or minority state governments being elected in NSW and Victoria is threatening the $3.5 billion in extra hospital funding and forcing the federal government to consider a watered-down health reform without the largest states.
Page 5: Federal cabinet wil be asked to endorse a plan for sports broadcasting which will give the Australian Football League and National Rugby League control over which games are shown on free-to-air or pay television.
Page 5: The company at the centre of Australia's worst oil spill has until the end of the year to convince the federal government it should not be banned from operating in Australian territory.
Page 6: The corporate regulator skipped over key terms in the agreements between Fortescue Metals Group and Chinese government-owned construction companies to bolster its case that the miner and its chief executive, Andrew Forrest, misled investigators, Fortescue's barrister told the Federal Court in Perth yesterday.
Page 8: The giant aluminium producer Alcoa is hoping to break a bargaining deadlock at its mines and refineries in Western Australia, which have been hit by hundreds of legal "mini-stoppages" by union members over the past year.
Page 9: The federal government is reviewing options to crack down on rorting the goods and services tax by some importers, but says it has no plans to increase GST for consumers buying goods from overseas internet sites such as Amazon.com and eBay.
Page 12: Multinational companiers would face joint audits by the Australian Taxations Office and its overseas counterparts next year as part of a global campaign to fight cross-border tax avoidance.
Page 13: The number of women appointed to the boards of Australia's top listed companies has risen five-fold before mandatory gender reporting requirements start in January.
Page 19: Airports and airlines have become one of the biggest beneficiaries of Western Australia's booming resources industry, with Perth Airport unveiling plans for a total $500 million upgrade to its domestic and international terminals as Virgin Blue schedules more flights to the west coast.
Page 22: Scout Capital, a New York-based hedge fund, has emerged as one of QR National's top investors after acquiring more than 5 per cent of the railroad group.
Page 52: The housing malaise in Mandurah, south of Perth, is clear from the website for Port Bouvard, the developer behind high-end waterfront and golf course-adjacent apartment development Oceanique, which sits near the coast.
THE AUSTRALIAN:
Page 1: The Transport Workers Union has secured above-inflation wage rises of between 14 and 21 per cent for air freight workers in a deal the union has declared will be a benchmark for its national pay strategy on behalf of 50,000 aviation and transport employees.
Page 1: The National Broadband Network's pledge to pay back $27.1 billion in taxpayer funds rests on the ability to sign up 8.3 million customers and get a favourable ruling for a business plan that extends its monopoly.
Page 2: Crossbenchers are preparing to back the Greens' crackdown on bank fees, charges and rate hikes unless the major parties take tougher action.
Page 19: Concerns are mounting that new rules may be powerless to stamp out the widespread practice among directors of trading shares during sensitive blackout periods, after the Australian Securities Exchange disregarded a key recommendation of a government advisory committee made up of highly regarded legal experts.
Page 18: The major Australian banks could face an earnings hit of up to $2 billion a year, as a Greens proposal to scrap transaction fees and autoteller charges gathers support from crossbench members of parliament.
Page 20: Woodside Petroleum is facing a four-month delay at the $13 billion Pluto LNG project being built on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsular with first LNG output not expected until August, according to analyst speculation.
Page 24: A "cultural shift" in corporate Australia has been behind the fivefold increase in the number of women appointees to the boards of S&P/ASX 200 companies this year, Australian Institute of Company Directors chief executive John Colvin says.
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:
Page 1: Five days of hope have ended after a second blast in a New Zealand mine confirmed that 29 miners are dead after becoming trapped since last Friday; Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pronounced the next 10 years as the decade of infrastructure for Australia.
Page 2: The 18-year-old who witnessed the Belanglo State Forest murder of a friend by another mate has been refused bail.
Page 3: The NSW government will trial a radical approach to funding social programs by offering success fees to private investors.
World: The United States and South Korea have agreed to hold joint military exercises this weekend as a first response to North Korea's attack on military installation in the South.
Finance: Telstra will receive more than $14 billion in cash from National Broadband Network over the next 30 years in decommissioning and leasing payments.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH:
Page 1: A second blast in a New Zealand mine has confirmed that 29 miners trapped since last Friday are dead.
Page 2: More on the mine disaster.
Page 3: More on the mine disaster.
World: NATO chiefs in Afghanistan are embarrassed by a shopkeeper who fooled them into thinking he was the Taliban's second-in-command during secret peace negotiations.
Finance: Weaker than expected construction figures won't change expectations the central bank will keep the cash rate on hold in December.
THE AGE:
Page 1: For five days until a second massive explosion yesterday, a wave of grief had been held at bay by the sustaining power of hope in the small mining communities around Greymouth on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island; Experts have hailed research showing for the first time that a one-a-day pill can prevent, as well as treat, HIV.
Page 2: The Vatican has expanded Pope Benedict's historic shift to allow the use of condoms to avoid AIDS, confirming that the exemption applies to protect anyone, male or female.
Page 3: Prime Minister Julia Gillard will not travel to Switzerland next week to lobby for Australia's 2022 World Cup bid, leaving it one of few bids without a political heavyweight on board.
World: The US and South Korea are to hold joint military exercises as a first response to North Korea's deadly shelling of a South Korean military installation.
Finance: Virgin Blue highlighted the tentative recovery in air travel after it resisted giving earnings guidance for the full year because of the intense competition between airlines and weak consumer spending.
THE HERALD SUN:
Page 1-5: All 29 miners trapped in the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand have died following a second devastating underground blast.
Page 7: Confidential emails telling senior police how to use resources to dodge criticism have exposed political interference in policing.
Page 9: A relaxed James Packer has finally dispelled the myth he was forced as a child to face rapid-fire bowling at the behest of his cricket-mad father, Kerry.
World: With the tiger on the verge of extinction, officials from 13 nations have agreed on a program to double the population of the big cat by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger.
Finance: A surprise building slump in the September quarter has prompted analysts to lower expectations for economic growth but given hope to retailers that Christmas shoppers will not be hit by another rate rise this year.
