Vic rally seeks end to offshore processing

MORE than 200 people have gathered at a rally in Melbourne, calling for an end to offshore detention.

Refugee activists chanted "Close Manus, close Nauru, let the refugees in" during Saturday's protest at the State Library of Victoria.

The demonstration comes after Iranian man Reza Berati died and 62 others were injured during a February 17 asylum seeker protest at Australia's Manus Island immigration detention centre.

The protesters want the Papua New Guinea facility to be shut down and for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to step down.

Australian Greens Senator Sarah-Hanson Young said Manus Island was untenable and must close.

"We can't be surprised of what happened last week on Manus Island but we can be ashamed that this government has let it happen. A young man's died on the watch of this government," she told the rally.

The senator said politicians on all sides had expressed upset at the recent events on Manus Island.

"They need to start crossing the floor and saying 'not in my name'," she said.

The Greens are expected to get Labor support on Monday to set up a Senate inquiry into the events of February 16-18 on the Papua New Guinea island where Australia operates the facility.

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Calls for more Korean family reunions

SOUTH Korea's president has proposed the rival Koreas hold reunions of Korean War-divided families on a regular basis, saying time is running out for the elderly separated by hostilities and politics.

South Korea has made similar proposals in the past, but President Park Geun-hye's latest overture came after the two Koreas last month held their first reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in more than three years.

"There are separated families in North Korea as well. I believe North Korea should also ease the anguish and pain of its people," she said in a speech marking Korea's 1919 uprising against Japan's colonial rule.

North Korea didn't immediately respond to Park's proposal. Analysts say North Korea has been reluctant to increase family reunions due to worries that doing so could open the country to influence from more affluent South Korea and threaten its grip on power.

The latest six-day family reunions were arranged after North Korea began calling for better ties with South Korea in what outside analysts say is an effort to win foreign aid and investment.

North Korea earlier threatened to cancel the reunions in anger over annual military drills between Seoul and Washington that it calls a preparation for invasion. The North let the reunions proceed after high-level talks with South Korea, though the drills went ahead as scheduled.

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Vic pilot unharmed after plane flips

A PILOT has escaped unharmed after his plane flipped over while he was making an emergency landing in a Victorian paddock.

After encountering difficulties the male pilot of the light plane sought permission to land in a paddock in Lethbridge, near Meredith.

While attempting to land, the aircraft hit a rock which caused the plane to flip onto its roof about 2.15pm (AEDT) on Saturday, police say.

The lone pilot aboard the plane escaped uninjured.

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Women charged for racist attack on Qld bus

TWO young women have been charged with serious assault after a partially blind indigenous man was bashed and racially vilified on a Gold Coast bus.

The pair, aged 17 and 21, handed themselves into police on Friday afternoon and are also facing public nuisance charges.

The women, both from NSW, have been remanded in custody and are due to appear in the Southport Magistrates Court on Saturday.

They handed themselves into police after footage of the bus incident went viral.

A video, filmed by a 13-year-old girl on the bus at Kirra on Tuesday, allegedly shows the blonde and brunette, punching, kicking and spitting at the 77-year-old man.

One woman can also be heard allegedly saying to the victim: "Oh bro, we're in Abo land."

Afterwards, the elderly man can be heard telling other passengers that he couldn't see his attackers because he was partially blind.

The elderly victim, also from NSW, made a statement to police on Friday and said he wanted to press charges.

Many Australians have expressed disgust at the attack which follows a string of similar incidents on public transport in Australia that have gone viral.

In June, NSW Police charged a 55-year-old NSW woman after she was caught on camera racially vilifying an Asian schoolboy on a bus in Burwood in April.

Another video shows a pregnant woman being called a "fat slut" after she asked a Perth train passenger to move her bags so she could sit down.

In November 2012, a French woman on a Melbourne bus was told to "speak English or die" by a man who also threatened to cut her breasts off.

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Date set for WA Senate election re-run

The re-run of last year's Senate election in Western Australia will be held on Saturday, April 5. Source: AAP

WESTERN Australia will go back to the polls on April 5, after the state's governor Malcolm McCusker confirmed the date of the re-run of last year's Senate election.

After meeting with WA Premier Colin Barnett and electoral affairs minister Peter Collier on Friday, Mr McCusker revealed the date of the election.

The September 2013 result was declared void by the High Court after some ballots were lost.

The High Court, operating as the Court of Disputed Returns, ordered the fresh poll following the loss of 1370 votes, discovered during a recount requested by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, who narrowly lost out in the initial count.

Because of the close result, a full recount was ordered but the loss of those votes meant Justice Kenneth Hayne could not determine who was duly elected.

The ballot bungle, which was investigated by former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, forced the resignation of the AEC's WA Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn and State Manager Peter Kramer.

The election re-run is expected to cost taxpayers as much as $20 million, nearly double initial estimates of $10-13 million.

Acting electoral commissioner Tom Rogers told Senate estimates earlier this week the lower figures had been an early estimate of the cost.

The key dates in the build up to the poll include the closing of electoral rolls on March 7, and nominations closing on March 13.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam said the poll was a "unique and extraordinary opportunity" for the electorate to a message to Tony Abbott not to take WA for granted.

"It is a chance for West Australians to say they've had enough of the Abbott government and we want our country back," Senator Ludlam said.

"Bring it on."

Senator Ludlam said it was not clear whether the AEC had fully implemented the recommendations of the Keelty report.

"And now with the resignation of two key officials, it's not clear whether those procedures will be in place," Senator Ludlam said.

"You'd have to hope so because people's confidence has been dented."

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Find the child abusers, inquiry told

IN a powerful plea from the witness box at a child abuse inquiry, a woman has called for the "carers" responsible for the abuse to be found and named.

Sixty-seven-year-old Wilma Robb was 13 when she was placed in Parramatta Girls Home, because her mother had cancer and her father was violent.

She was twice sent from there to the Hay Institution for Girls in the Riverina region of NSW, which was opened in 1961 to take troublesome girls from Parramatta.

For three days, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard disturbing details of brutality at both homes.

On Friday, Ms Robb, who gave evidence at a Senate hearing in 2004 and has featured prominently in campaigns highlighting the abuse, said: "I was subject to an institutional process of depersonalisation and physical and emotional abuse."

She told the commission "I want the carers who were responsible for the abuse to be located and named. We are still paying for their abuse and we will pay for the rest of our lives. I want to see people brought to justice."

For her, depersonalisation included daily strip searches, rape, having to prove the need for sanitary products by showing officers her underpants, and daily examinations in what was called the "medical parade".

"We were forced to go to the toilet in full view of the warders," she said.

"There were no doors on the toilets or showers. We had daily medical inspections where we were stripped naked.

"We had to hold our arms out to the side. Both male and female warders would inspect us."

She said that at Parramatta she was beaten by superintendent Percy Mayhew and his deputy, Gordon Gilford.

One held her hands behind her back and the other smashed her face into a sink.

At 15, she had to have a full set of dentures.

She was drugged daily with sedative Largactil, and was heavily dosed when she was sent to Hay and handcuffed to a train seat.

At Hay, girls were made to do hard labour by breaking bricks and laying footpaths.

"It was all about power," she said.

There was no mail, no books, no radio.

"We did not even see the sky because we were not able to lift our eyes up."

Ms Robb, who is on the steering committee of the Forgotten Australians Alliance, told Friday's hearing the NSW government had met demands for compensation with threats that it would pursue survivors of abuse for full costs if they took their claims to court.

Ms Robb did not know of anyone who had successfully sued the NSW government.

She had received $10,000 from a victims compensation scheme and another woman, Wendy Patton, nee Grey, had received $37,000.

NSW government representatives will give evidence at the inquiry when it continues on Monday.

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Ex-RailCorp exec told to burn documents

Former RailCorp executive Joseph Camilleri was told to burn documents by his daughter. Source: AAP

THE gambling-addict daughter of a former RailCorp executive told her father to "burn, burn, burn" documents in her room after a raid by investigators, a corruption inquiry has heard.

But the executive, Joe Camilleri, maintains the loans were personal and did not buy former employees favours.

In a tapped phone call played at an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) hearing in Sydney, Jessica Adouni is heard urging her father to "do it now".

The call was secretly recorded just after an ICAC raid on Mr Camilleri's home.

That followed his sacking by RailCorp after he had tapped work colleagues for large loans to help his daughter.

The ICAC heard on Wednesday that Mr Camilleri paid out more than $4 million over four years to his daughter, despite her increasingly questionable claims for money, which were supposedly to cover high legal costs and bank fees.

He borrowed money from work colleagues and enlisted his sister Carmen Attard to also borrow money to help Ms Adouni.

The ICAC is investigating whether people who contributed to the $1.5 million Mr Camilleri and Ms Attard raised for Ms Adouni received any personal or professional benefit.

Mr Camilleri told the ICAC he believed his daughter's reasons for needing money between 2008 and 2013, and only learnt later of her gambling problem.

He repeatedly denied he acted corruptly or favourably towards those who lent him money, despite some working for firms that were later involved in RailCorp tender processes.

Counsel assisting the commission Nicholas Polin played the phone call from August 2013 in which Ms Adouni was heard telling her father after the ICAC raid she wanted to "make sure there's nothing left".

"Dad, they will come back, don't be stupid.

"Any papers, burn, burn, burn, that's all you've got to do ... do it now."

Mr Camilleri denied destroying anything.

Mr Polin repeatedly asked Mr Camilleri if he was a liar after he denied to RailCorp investigators he had borrowed money from people working in organisations that had business with RailCorp.

"I wasn't lying at the time, but it can be perceived as a lie, yes," Mr Camilleri said.

Evidence tendered to the ICAC included an email to Mr Camilleri from a "Richard Dipshit" purporting to be Ms Adouni's lawyer, and a badly written letter claiming to be from an ASIO security chief about money in a bank account.

A later email from the purported lawyer apologised for the "Dipshit" reference, saying his grandson had been using his computer.

The ICAC heard Ms Adouni said her identity had been stolen and was being used by people to buy property overseas.

Mr Polin asked Mr Camilleri if he was "incredibly stupid" or telling the truth.

Mr Camilleri said he might have been "very naive and had too much trust in my daughter".

The hearing continues.

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Missouri executes another prisoner

A MISSOURI inmate has been executed for abducting, raping and killing a Kansas City teenager nearly 25 years ago.

Michael Taylor was lethally injected just after midnight on Wednesday. He was the fourth Missouri prisoner executed by the state in as many months.

His lawyers had argued the state's execution drug, bought from a compounding pharmacy, could have caused Taylor inhumane pain and suffering.

But his last-minute appeals were denied by federal courts and the governor.

Authorities say 15-year-old Ann Harrison was waiting for her school bus on March 22, 1989, when she was abducted by Taylor and Roderick Nunley. The men took the girl to a house where she was raped and stabbed to death.

Nunley is also on death row.

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Tap-and-go to higher Vic crime rate

Victoria's crime rate has risen with drugs, family violence and deceptions among the causes. Source: AAP

TAP-AND-GO technology is helping make credit card fraud the fastest growing area of crime in Victoria.

Drugs and family violence also contributed to an overall 1.2 per cent jump in the crime rate for the 12 months to December 2013.

Deception offences rose by 42 per cent and drug offences jumped by 12.3 per cent.

The introduction of tap-and-go credit cards has made deception easier and police have again expressed concern about the technology, which allow customers to make purchases without a PIN or signature, and say negotiations continue with the banks about a solution.

The 42 per cent figure is up about 12 per cent on quarterly figures released last November.

"It is not a policing issue, it is a whole of community issue and everybody should be working together to try and address these issues and to make it very, very difficult for people to commit offences," Deputy Commissioner Lucinda Nolan said.

A Mastercard spokeswoman said the company is surprised police are concerned about tap-and-go technology since industry data reveals there's been no increase in fraud specifically relating to such cards.

"We have asked Victoria Police to clarify the source and nature of their crime statistics," she said.

Family violence is also up with a big jump in the number of intervention order breaches which have caused the category of other crimes to rise by 15.5 per cent.

Ms Nolan said breaches of intervention orders had significantly increased, but that did not mean they were not working, just that police were stronger in enforcement.

"So that when there are breaches, whether they are minor or major police are taking action," she told reporters on Wednesday.

Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said 40 per cent of crimes committed against a person occurred in the home.

"This underlines the impact of family violence," he said.

There were 12,607 more offences overall committed in Victoria over the year, a rise of 3.1 per cent.

Ms Nolan said methamphetamines are challenging cannabis for the drug related to the most offences, with ice continuing to have a very bad impact on the community.

"You see the impact it has, particularly on the regional centres and rural communities, it is absolutely huge, how it has impacted on those families and those local communities," she said.

But there was some good news for police, with robberies down by 15.4 per cent and property crimes decreasing by 2.6 per cent.

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