'Decade of deficits' puts focus on spending cuts – The Aus; PM: put foreigners last – The Fin; No guarantee on rail pledges – The West; Woodside under pressure on Browse deferral – The Fin; China in WA grain cutback – The West
'Decade of deficits' puts focus on spending cuts
Australia faces structural budget deficits ‘‘as far as the eye can see’’, according to new economic modelling that will reinforce calls for a systemic review of government spending. The Aus
PM: put foreigners last
A defiant Julia Gillard has used her own life story to identify with the residents of western Sydney and vowed to make their job security her top priority, saying “foreigners” should go to the back of the queue. The Fin
No guarantee on rail pledges
Colin Barnett refused yesterday to guarantee that his two big public transport projects – the $1.9 billion airport rail link and $1.8 billion MAX light rail – would be built by 2018 as promised during the election campaign. The West
Woodside under pressure on Browse deferral
The slow take-up of Browse liquefied natural gas among customers has reinforced the belief in the market that Woodside Petroleum is heading for a deferral in the final investment decision of the $40 billion-plus project. The Fin
China in WA grain cutback
A Chinese agricultural conglomerate has scaled back investment plans for WA's grain industry but still hopes to finalise the purchase of more farms. The West
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
Page 3: City traffic congestion is likely to keep getting worse, with the RAC predicting there will be another one million cares on WA roads by 2020.
The union representing Perth train drivers has not ruled out strike action as drivers push for improved working conditions and changes to rosters to address fatigue and safety.
Page 5: Gina Rinehart's son-in-law was asked to quit the board of Perth mining company Mineral Resources in the month after his wife launched legal action against her mother amid fears it could be dragged into a public “bloodbath”.
Page 6: Julia Gillard's crackdown on gangs – which involves just one Perth-based officer from a national taskforce of 70 despite WA's chequered history of bikie-related crime – has drawn criticism from state politicians and the police union.
Julia Gillard has rallied the Labor base with a focus on kitchen table politics as she tries to reclaim the party's western Sydney heartland.
Page 7: WA schoolchildren in need of speech therapy are among the most disadvantaged in the nation, according to speech pathologists.
Page 9: A mine worker sacked for doing the Harlem Shake dance claims the group did not endanger safety during the stunt, abiding by requirements for helmets, portable oxygen and other measures.
Page 10: Over the past 25 years, 77 per cent of Perth's population growth has been in the outer suburbs.
Page 11: Colin Barnett refused yesterday to guarantee that his two big public transport projects – the $1.9 billion airport rail link and $1.8 billion MAX light rail – would be built by 2018 as promised during the election campaign.
Labor Leader Mark McGowan has pledged $50 million for public housing and promised to reinstate the Waterwise efficiency rebates program as he seeks to put cost of living pressures back on the political agenda in the election campaign's final week.
Page 12: The West Swan electorate is shaping up as a key test of Labor's ability to keep the Liberals at bay.
Page 13: The chance to hunt for abalone came to an end for WA recreational fishers yesterday after a season marred by two deaths prompted calls for future sessions to be cancelled in rough conditions.
Page 14: Hundreds of thousands of unwanted analog televisions are expected to be relegated to front verges by the time Perth makes the switch to digital TV in just over a month.
Page 16: A group of rural landholders whose properties are to be resumed for a highway expansion have blasted WA's planning laws as unfair amid claims they are treated differently to city folk.
Business: A Chinese agricultural conglomerate has scaled back investment plans for WA's grain industry but still hopes to finalise the purchase of more farms.
Australia's gold production rose sharply in the December quarter as new mines in WA began to make their mark.
The lure of Sandfire Resources' breakthrough DeGrussa copper discovery is still making waves 3 ½ years after it was first drilled.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy holds the key to mounting speculation about a round of mergers that could change the face of the TV industry.
THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
Page 1: A defiant Julia Gillard has used her own life story to identify with the residents of western Sydney and vowed to make their job security her top priority, saying “foreigners” should go to the back of the queue.
Australian corporate leaders have nominated the strong dollar, a high cost base and the political uncertainty of a long election campaign as the main impediments to maintaining profit growth in a slowing economy.
Regional MPs have raised concerns about moves by the Gillard government to dump so-called reach rules for television broadcasters unless they provide guarantees about local news content.
Page 6: The Tax Office would have the power to disclose the key tax data of big companies under a proposal Treasury is considering as part of the federal government's drive to make multinationals pay more tax.
Page 7: Prominent businessman and activist Geoff Cousins says West Australian Premier Colin Barnett's push to build the Browse gas hub on the Kimberley coast will be his political downfall.
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett won't talk succession, and he blames John Howard for that.
Page 9: Across-the-board increases of up to 70 per cent in apprentices' wages will cause job losses and erode Australia's skills base, business groups warn.
Page 13: Manufacturers and house builders in the United States are putting the world's largest economy on a surer footing even as other rich economies like Europe and Japan struggle for oxygen.
Page 15: Toll Holdings chairman Ray Horsburgh has backed calls for a “smarter” Australia, criticising the governments plans to cut research and development tax breaks amid expectations it will encourage companies to shift investment overseas.
Debt-laden wind power producer Infigen Energy is mulling a radical shake-up of its Australian business, involving the potential sale of its $1.2 billion of wind farms while remaining as operator as part of an overhaul of its capital structure.
Page 17: The slow take-up of Browse liquefied natural gas among customers has reinforced the belief in the market that Woodside Petroleum is heading for a deferral in the final investment decision of the $40 billion-plus project.
Perth-based engineering and construction firm Monadelphous Group may well be the envy of the contracting world.
Kerry Stokes' Seven Group Holdings will push ahead with moves to expand the product range of its WesTrac mining and construction equipment business in China despite weaker earnings in the region.
THE AUSTRALIAN
Page 1: Australia faces structural budget deficits ‘‘as far as the eye can see’’, according to new economic modelling that will reinforce calls for a systemic review of government spending.
The federal Coalition is considering replicating Victoria’s controversial crackdown on socalled union-friendly deals in the building industry if it wins the federal election, as part of a national assault on the influence of construction unions.
Page 3: Telstra chief executive David Thodey has ruled out renegotiating the $11 billion bounty the telco will be paid to lease its assets and migrate on to the National Broadband Network if the Coalition wins the September election.
Former Qantas boss James Strong died in Melbourne late last night, aged just 68.
Page 4: Labor has overseen a net decline in the overall number of officers protecting borders, guarding installations and fighting national crime.
MarkLatham’s description of opposition finance spokesman AndrewRobb as a ‘‘troubled character’’, following his struggles with depression, has been decried as both ‘‘clinically wrong’’ and ‘‘incredibly unhelpful’’.
JuliaGillard’s pitch for the hearts and minds of western Sydney is designed to stem the flood of voters who have deserted her government in droves.
Thirty-somethings complain they are overworked, crippled by debt and struggling to raise young families, according to a study released today.
Page 6: Australia's peak building body has called for the Gillard government to boost the first-home owners grant for new houses in a bid to stimulate residential construction despite Queensland conceding a similar scheme was being ignored by the market.
A US researcher has proposed a carbon dioxide sequestration method that would lock up one billion tonnes of the gas in solid form each year for five years in Antarctica.
Business: ANZ chief executive Mike Smith has reignited the explosive debate about the Four Pillars ban on major-bank mergers, saying a reversal of the policy sits at the top of his wish list for the September federal election.
Fox Sports viewers will see some dramatic changes when they tune in this week for the start of the National Rugby League season following a $25 million investment in the business that could herald the biggest change in its brand history.
It has taken almost six years and million ($588m) in funding to prepare the launch of NewSat’s, and Australia’s, first independently owned commercial satellite.
Increased government red tape is crimping mining growth in Australia more than in other developed nations, a survey of both large and small global miners has found.
A late spurt was not enough to prevent Australia’s annual gold production sliding 4 per cent to 256 tonnes (8.2 million ounces), worth $12.7 billion at current prices.
The tailing off of the minerals investment boom in Australia should be followed by a strong rise in non-mining business and house building carrying through towards the end of the decade, according to forecaster BIS Shrapnel.
VodafoneAustralia chief Bill Morrow says the recovering telecoms company will have the fastest 4G mobile network in Australia when it is launched this year.
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Page 1: Commuters travelling to Sydney's most overcrowded CBD train stations are vulnerable to "catastrophic" fire and smoke from accidents or terrorist attacks because governments have baulked at the cost of safety improvements.
Page 2: The Sydney Morning Herald goes compact because readers want a smaller sized paper.
Page 3: Former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser says the big banks have room to cut their home loan rates but are failing to do so because they put their shareholders' interests ahead of customers.
World: Russian authorities, in a legal twist bizarre even by their standards, are pushing ahead with the trial of anti-corruption whistle blower Sergei Magnitsky posthumously for alleged "tax evasion".
Business: Gina Rinehart has reached a settlement with her estranged daughter Hope, who has split with her husband and fallen on hard times as she struggles to support her two young children in New York without an income.
Sport: South Sydney are not concerning themselves with Sonny Bill Williams before Thursday night's season opener.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Page 1: Julia Gillard fired the first salvo in the battle for western Sydney by pledging billions of dollars for the West-Connex motorway network - on three strict conditions.
Page 2: Labor's newest frontbencher Ron Hoenig has been forced to reveal he accepted a ticket to the NRL semi-finals from Eddie Obeid last September - a fortnight after being elected to parliament.
Page 3: My Kitchen Rules' Bondi boys Luke Hines and Scott Gooding believe their cool, calm approach to the kitchen will help them overcome their fellow NSW rivals, hot-heads Ashlee Pham and Sophia Pou.
World: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed Islamist who masterminded a brazen attack on an Algerian gas field, has been killed.
Business: The Australian market is expected to open the week on a flat note with weaker commodities prices putting a dampener on resources companies.
Sport: Australian boxer Sam Soliman has been dubbed "the nation's cleanest athlete" - his fight team insisting even breakfast takes 70 minutes to prepare each day.
THE HERALD SUN
Page 1: Secret tapes lifting the lid on confidential dealings and payouts behind the police command crisis have rocked the Baillieu government.
Page 3: A volley of shots and billowing smoke marked the end of Antonio Mad Dog Loguancio's eight days at large. Popcorn is going gourmet at a cost. A 12g bag of organic popcorn is priced at $2.35, or about $195 a kilogram.
World: The South African government says it has begun efforts to help repatriate the body of a Mozambican man who died in police custody after being dragged behind a patrol van.
Business: Australia faces another two years of economic volatility as the strong dollar undermines growth outside the mining sector before the start of a new boom.
Sport: Travis Cloke helped keep Collingwood's hopes of an NAB Cup grand final alive in a 20-point win against West Coast in Perth.
THE AGE
Page 1: Explosive new evidence has revealed the Bushfires Royal Commission got it wrong on the cause of Black Saturday's deadliest blaze, the Kilmore East fire, which claimed 119 lives and has sparked the state's biggest civil class action. The major banks are supercharging their profits at the expense of customers. Their funding costs have fallen, not risen, as they claimed when refusing to pass on Reserve Bank interest rate cuts.
Page 3: A group with links to the Church of Scientology is targeting Australian kindergartens to warn that new health checks will put children at risk from psychotropic drugs. The homicide squad will investigate the death of Antonio Mad Dog Loguancio after Sunday's fatal end to a Glenroy siege.
World: An Iranian boat seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran's support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the US.
Business: Australia's unconventional oil and gas industry is way behind the US, according to Woodside Petroleum chief executive Peter Coleman, who says American specialists eat our lunch.
Sport: In an exclusive interview, Travis Cloke explains to Jake Niall why he signed his contract, but why Buddy might not.
THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER
Page 1: Holden V8 driver Shane van Gisbergen was yesterday crowned the king of Clipsal 500, as organisers declared its first-ever sell-out day to be perfect.
Page 3: Parents should limit children's use of mobile and cordless phones because of a lack of knowledge about the harm they might cause, Australia's radiation watchdog says.
World: US President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans refused yesterday to concede any culpability for failing to stave off huge, automatic spending cuts.
Business: Australia is facing another two years of "structural volatility" as the strong Australian dollar undermines growth in non-mining sectors of the economy, a new long-term forecast warns.
Sport: Shane van Gisbergen came face-to-face with the team he walked out on moments after shocking the sport he almost quit by storming home to steal a spectacular Clipsal 500 win from reigning champion Jamie Whincup yesterday.