FMG calls for 'use it or lose it' policy

FORTESCUE Metals has called for the enforcement of "use it or lose it" policies to ensure oil and gas companies develop fields they are sitting on.

The world's fourth largest iron ore miner announced in January it was switching from diesel to cheaper natural gas to power its operations.

However amid nationwide fears of domestic prices soaring as more gas is exported, Fortescue chief executive Nev Power said Western Australia had abundant gas reserves that should ensure enough cheap power locally.

Mr Power was launching a Fortescue-commissioned Deloitte Access Economics report that calls for the state's gas reservation policy to be dumped.

The policy - which reserves gas for domestic use - was not having its intended effect of keeping domestic prices lower than high-priced exports, but rather discouraging the development of some leases, the report found.

Instead Deloitte found imposing retention lease "use it or lose it" policies on gas reserves more suited for domestic use was a better idea.

If oil and gas companies did not develop the fields, Fortescue might consider doing it themselves as a last resort, Mr Power told reporters on Thursday.

Deloitte's report found the strict implementation of the retention policy should reduce domestic gas prices to $3.20 a gigajoule by 2020 and $5.74 by 2025.

Deloitte economist Chris Richardson said the impact of secure long term gas on Western Australia's economy would be significant.

It would generate 2,100 extra jobs and an estimated increase in gross state product of about $2.5 billion, he said.

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Search for man missing in Melbourne

POLICE are appealing for public help to find a Melbourne man missing since Friday.

Toni Rabottini, from Sandhurst, was last seen in Dandenong about 9am on May 24.

The 49-year-old suffers from a medical condition and police and family members are concerned for his welfare.

Investigators believe Mr Rabottini may be frequenting the Carrum Downs area.

He is described as Caucasian and about 165cm tall, with a solid build and short dark hair.

Anyone who sees Mr Rabottini is urged to contact triple zero immediately.

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Aquila takeover wins FIRB approval

CHINESE steelmaker Baosteel and Australian rail operator Aurizon have moved a step closer to sealing their $1.42 billion takeover of Aqulia Resources.

The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approved the deal on Thursday.

The offer still needs approval from Aquila's shareholders before it can go ahead.

Aurizon boss Lance Hockridge and Baosteel's chairman Zhihao Dai welcomed the FIRB's decision.

Aquila said shareholders should take no action until the company's independent board sub-committee comes up with a formal recommendation on the offer.

The Chinese steelmaker Baosteel and Aurizon plan to kickstart the stalled $10 billion West Pilbara Iron Ore Project if they succeed in their joint takeover bid.

Aquila Resources holds a 50 per cent stake in the project.

Analysts have said the deal is attractive for Aquila shareholders, but major hurdles remain for the completion of such a large-scale mine, rail and port project.

Aquila shares closed one cent higher at $3.52 while Aurizon was flat at $4.94.

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Aboriginal kids in care not about race: NT

THE over-representation of Aboriginal children in foster care has nothing to do with race, the Northern Territory attorney-general says.

A senior researcher with the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at UTS, Paddy Gibson, said on Tuesday that Aboriginal families who lived a traditional lifestyle were being punished with the removal of their children in "a new stolen generation".

He said cultural practices such as long-term travel and overcrowding in homes when family visited were being construed by child protection services as neglectful and abusive of children.

However, NT Attorney-General and Minister for Children John Elferink said that assertion was "fanciful".

"It's more about strapping on a black armband than it is about the reality of child protection," he told AAP on Wednesday.

"To simply say an Aboriginal practice is something we target is misleading and inflammatory. If there is an Aboriginal practice that does constitute neglect, then, quite frankly, the human right of that child will come ahead of the cultural right."

As of June 30, 2013, there were five times more Aboriginal children (624) than non-Aboriginal children (126) in care, the NT Children's Commissioner's annual report shows, and while the number of non-Aboriginal children has plateaued, the number of Aboriginal children is rising.

Mr Elferink said it was not about race but due to the over-representation of Aboriginal people on welfare or in jail as a result of a federal reliance on welfare.

"(Welfare) says to its recipients, 'You are useless' ... That is entirely the wrong signal to send to any human being, irrespective of their cultural background."

The government was not overly intervening in cases of Aboriginal children in care, he said.

"Government does not make a good parent; institutions generally don't make good parents. They are the lesser of a number of evils," Mr Elferink said.

"We have generated in recent years this nebulous concept that somehow government can make children happy and give them normal lives, but what we are doing is protecting their fundamental human rights and we are flat-strapped doing that. We certainly don't need or desire to go out and drum up extra business."

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Confidence clouds hints of economic joy

THE steep drop in consumer confidence in recent weeks risks overshadowing positive signs emerging in the economy.

A burst of new home building activity is providing a major boost to the economy at a time when resources investment is in decline.

And the good news for potential home buyers is that housing affordability is at its lowest point in over a decade thanks to low interest rates and a slow down in house price rises.

But among a raft of new data releases on Wednesday, there also are signs of a significant loss of momentum in the overall economy.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute May leading index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity three to nine months into the future, showed its weakest reading since late 2011.

Back then, the Reserve Bank had just started cutting interest rates, consumer sentiment had slumped and the European sovereign debt crisis was in full swing.

Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan says there are similarities with that episode now, not least the sharp fall in consumer confidence in response to the federal budget handed down two weeks ago.

The current slowdown in the index may be temporary, while the sharp decline in consumer sentiment may reverse or dissipate over time, he said.

Other new data showed construction work completed in the first three months of the year rose by a stronger-than-expected 0.3 per cent, buoyed by a 6.8 per cent jump in residential building.

This helped to offset a 1.5 per cent decline in non-residential building and a 1.6 per cent fall in engineering work, a consequence of the fading mining investment boom.

"What is clear is that the construction boom hasn't turned to a construction bust," Commonwealth Securities chief economist Craig James said.

The "baton pass" from engineering to residential building was proceeding nicely.

The federal government's resources forecaster highlighted the extent of decline in committed investment projects in its latest quarterly report, falling from a peak of $268 billion in April 2013 to $229 billion at the end of April 2014.

In the past six months, 21 projects were completed worth a combined $266 billion, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics report shows.

However, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane says the focus is now shifting to production and output.

That will last for decades and deliver sustained and substantial economic benefits.

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Dodgy travellers to be spotted in the air

SUSPECT travellers coming to Australia in the future could be identified while still airborne.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has outlined how technology will help catch criminals and identity fraudsters while cutting queue time for legitimate passengers.

The use of electronic passports, biometric data collection such as facial recognition technology and information swapping between countries is set to be ramped up.

In future, travellers coming from overseas will provide border clearance documents at the airline check-in desk.

Australian authorities will receive the information while travellers are flying and will be able to run security checks against information from other countries.

Upon arrival in Australia, passengers will pass through SmartGate, the automated passport control system, and the biometric data on their passports will be checked against the travellers.

Border protection officers will intervene if people are deemed a security risk; otherwise, passengers will walk free in less than a minute if they get the all-clear.

By 2016/17, a quarter of the 42.9 million passengers expected to pass through Australian airports will use the system.

"These systems ... both expedite the legitimate traveller and provide the best possible chance of identifying risk to Australia's security long before it reaches our border," Mr Morrison told a Biometrics Institute conference in Sydney on Wednesday.

Since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Mr Morrison says there's increased public willingness to provide biometric data to prove identity.

Two passengers on the missing plane were travelling on stolen passports and likely to be asylum seekers.

Countries are starting to sign information-sharing agreements that include swapping travellers' biometric data, biographical information, travel and identity documents and people's criminal and immigration histories.

The information sharing is also helping to catch asylum seekers arriving by plane who have had refugee claims rejected elsewhere.

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Housing prices suffer winter blues

THE weather across much of Australia is unseasonably warm, but the housing market is cooling down right on schedule.

After falling by 0.9 per cent the week before, prices in the five mainland state capitals were down by another 0.6 per cent over the week to Sunday.

According to the RP Data's analysis of the residential property market, all five capitals recorded falls last week, from 0.2 per cent in Brisbane to 1.0 per cent in Adelaide.

It was the third week in a row that prices had posted significant falls, but not necessarily an indication that the market has topped out and, at long last, begun the slump that pundits have been forecasting for years now.

There are two reason to doubt that the boom is now going bust.

One is that the market dipped at the same time last year, and to about the same degree - around two per cent or a bit more by RP Data measure.

Both times it had recovered all the lost ground by the end of June.

There is an obvious seasonal pattern.

The other is the auction clearance rates remains high.

Just over 66 per cent of properties whose auction results were tabulated by RP Data last week were sold.

The week before it was 65.4 per cent.

That was still down from the peak of over 75 per cent reached a couple of months earlier as buyers and sellers returned from summer holidays, but it remains high.

It's about level with clearance rates seen at the same time last year.

In other words, it still appears that demand is rising more rapidly than supply.

That could all change, of course.

Consumer confidence figures since the budget the week before last suggest households have had their equilibrium disturbed.

So the coming few weeks, especially the latter half of June when prices would normally be expected to recover from their winter blues as they did last year and the year before, will be a critical time for the housing market.

If the recovery does not proceed as normal, investors will be prompted to wonder whether the easy ride is over.

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Man, 21, burned in Sydney gas fireball

A GAS-FUELLED fireball in a busy northern Sydney shopping plaza has left a man in a stable condition with serious burns.

The 21-year-old was rushed to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital with burns to his lower body after a gas main caught alight at about 1pm (AEST) on Monday at the front of a shop in Lane Cove.

The local primary school was locked down and about 150 people were moved to safety as firefighters monitored the fire.

They decided not to put the fire out, opting instead to ask the gas company to shut the gas down - which it did an hour later.

"It's actually safer to allow the gas to burn," Superintendent Ian Krimmer told AAP.

"If you put the fire out, you create a bigger problem because the gas leak could go to other areas and cause explosions in other locations."

As the gas was being shut off, six fire crews were protecting buildings, while police kept Longueville Road closed to all traffic.

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Speaker stands by fundraising event

Speaker Bronwyn Bishop must explain what took place in her suite on budget night, says Labor. Source: AAP

SPEAKER Bronwyn Bishop has refused to reveal details of how her parliamentary office was used for a Liberal Party fundraising event.

Labor says a $2500 a head budget night function in the Speaker's Parliament House office - revealed in weekend newspaper reports and not denied by Ms Bishop - is unprecedented and breaches the independence of the role.

Ms Bishop told parliament on Monday that all members of parliament were entitled to use their suites "for their own purposes, but not for illegal purposes".

The opposition asked her to reflect on her ruling, but she stood by her statement.

Now Labor has written to the privileges committee asking for an investigation.

A motion asking the House to refer the same was voted down.

"This is a motion about smear and innuendo directed at the speaker's office," Leader of the House Christopher Pyne said, noting political fundraising events were held in Parliament House all the time.

As long as the costs were covered privately or by a political party there was no breach of the rules, he said.

Opposition frontbencher Tony Burke said the speaker's suite was a special case and the fundraiser represented "improper interference" in the independence of the office.

"This is not an ordinary venue," he told parliament.

"Your job is not owned by the Liberal Party."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is understood to have attended the fundraiser, told parliament Labor was looking for distractions from its lack of policy.

"They worry about what might be in what room at what time in this parliament," he said.

Taking aim at Labor leader Bill Shorten the prime minister said: "Really and truly, this man is no Bob Hawke - he is no leader."

Labor has been critical of Ms Bishop's appointment from an early stage, especially in her handling of question time and biased language.

She has suspended 101 opposition MPs from parliament, but none from the government.

That image was reinforced when Ms Bishop said, after Mr Burke finished his speech: "I find it a bit rough to be lectured on morality from you."

Earlier, the secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Carol Mills, told a Senate estimates hearing she was unaware of any rule preventing such a use of the speaker's suite.

"It is up to the speaker, president or the other holders of special suites to decide how to use them," she said.

Greens senator Lee Rhiannon asked for a list of events held in Parliament House over the past three years to ascertain how many were party fundraisers.

Two previous speakers, Anna Burke and Harry Jenkins, have said they never used the suite for political fundraising events.

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Australian snorkeller dies off Fiji resort

A 36-year-old Australian man has died while snorkelling off Fiji's coral coast. Source: AAP

A 36-YEAR-OLD Australian man has died while snorkelling off Fiji's coral coast.

The man was staying with a friend at a five-star resort on the west coast of the main island Viti Levu when he went snorkelling alone on Saturday.

He was reported missing by the resort, Outrigger on the Lagoon Fiji, about 7.45pm when he hadn't returned his snorkelling equipment and his belongings were found on the beach.

"The person in question was snorkelling late in the evening and did not return to his accommodation," general manager Peter Hopgood said.

Resort staff and local fishermen searched until after midnight and were back out again at first light on Sunday.

The man's body was found by locals from a neighbouring village at 9.50am on Sunday, washed onto the coral reef.

His body was taken to a morgue at nearby Sigatoka.

The resort's management extended "heartfelt condolences" to the man's family and friends.

In a letter to guests, it asked them to "refrain from entering the ocean after dark".

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was in contact with the man's family.

"The department is providing consular assistance to the family of a 36-year-old man who died in Fiji," a DFAT spokesperson said.

It's the second death of an Australian in Fiji this month.

Ten days ago, Sydney father-of-three Mark Hardaker, 40, was killed in a collision between two boats while holidaying with his family.

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Shorten denies role in PM family attacks

Margie Abbott (pic) does not do enough charity work says former first bloke Tim Mathieson. Source: AAP

LABOR has angrily denied suggestions that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten orchestrated a series of attacks against Prime Minister Tony Abbott's family in the media.

Mr Abbott's family was thrust into the spotlight this week, with criticisms made about his wife's charity work and allegations of favouritism involving two of his daughters.

The prime minister accused some media outlets for "dirt digging", but one of his senior government ministers has now blamed federal Labor leader Bill Shorten for orchestrating the "repugnant" attacks.

Health Minister Peter Dutton accused Mr Shorten of withdrawing from the media at the same time his office "quite deliberately" launched these attacks against the Abbott family.

"I believe very strongly that this is an orchestrated attack by Bill Shorten and it needs to stop," Mr Dutton told Network Ten on Sunday.

Mr Shorten's office has rejected the allegations, calling them "wrong, hurtful and completely without foundation".

"Bill has made his position very clear that families should not be dragged into the political debate," a spokesman for Mr Shorten told AAP in a statement.

"This shows the government will stoop to any low it can to distract from its budget failure."

AAP understands the prime minister's office was contacted by Mr Shorten on Wednesday when questions started being asked about a $60,000 scholarship awarded to Mr Abbott's youngest daughter Frances.

It's understood Mr Shorten told the office Labor was not behind the story and believed families should be kept off limits.

A subsequent story carried complaints about the appointment of Mr Abbott's eldest daughter Louise to a government job in Geneva.

Yet another story published on Sunday aired criticisms from Julia Gillard's partner Tim Mathieson about Margie Abbott's commitment to charity.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister declined to comment on Mr Dutton's allegations, saying the stories about the Abbott family were of a personal nature and a distraction from the budget.

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'Callous' NSW thieves take surf rescue 4WD

SURF lifesavers in a small NSW town fear lives could be put at risk after "callous" thieves made off with their club's 4WD rescue vehicle.

Surf Life Saving's far south coast director Andrew Edmunds says thieves broke into the Batemans Bay Surf Life Saving club on Saturday night and took the 4WD.

Mr Edmunds told AAP the loss of the vehicle - which is used to tow rescue boats onto the beach and assist with launching them in emergencies and also to transport injured beachgoers - is a major blow to the community.

He said the thieves would have known precisely what they were doing.

"It's got 'Surf Rescue' written all over it," Mr Edmunds said on Sunday afternoon.

"I honestly have no understanding why someone would do something so callous."

He said the $20,000 replacement cost for the vehicle is a "huge" amount of money for the 12,000-strong town of Batemans Bay and could take years to raise.

Patrol season starts up again in September, but even in winter, lifesavers "can get called out any day of the week".

"It's a horrible thing to have happened to a local club and I just hope that it's not a local, and I hope lives aren't put at risk as a result of this," he said.

"It's a big blow. We'll still respond (to calls for help) and we'll still do our best but it's a major setback."

Anyone with information can contact Batemans Bay police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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