Firm monitors NBN Facebook page

Source: The Daily Telegraph

TAXPAYERS are funding a late-night NBN Facebook monitoring service while almost $25 million is being spent this financial year on advertising the broadband rollout.

Government contracts show $11,715 has been given to a Queensland digital consultancy to trial an "out-of-hours Facebook monitoring service".

A spokeswoman for the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy said the money was employing monitors until midnight on weekdays and periodically on weekends.

She said the Queensland firm had been "tasked with monitoring the NBN Facebook page out-of-hours from 6pm to 12am on weekdays, and four times, 30-minute blocks each day on weekends, so that the Department can respond promptly to any urgent questions''.

It comes as the NBN was due to embark on a new round of advertising with $9 million due to be spent this month and last month.

The money was to go towards television advertising in capital cities and comes after $15 million was spent previously with the Department saying a $24.9 million tax-payer funded splurge was listed at additional estimates for 2012-13 in February.

"Labor's NBN advertising is nothing but politically motivated spin,'' Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham said.

"At least $24 million is being spent advertising a service that virtually no Australians are currently able to access.

''Millions are also being spent on advertising other government programs with department officials saying the ads are crucial to inform the public.

"More than $17 million has been spent in the past 12 months advertising the compensation given to low income earners to counter the impost of the carbon tax.
Advertising the Schoolkids Bonus has cost $2.3 million in the past year.

"The advertising campaign helps inform parents about their eligibility for the payment and explains the differences from the previous Education Tax Refund scheme,'' a Department of Community Services spokeswoman said.

She said the carbon tax assistance campaign was necessary because "this is part of a public information process about changes taking place which directly impact on the financial circumstances of pensioners and families''.

No government money has been spent advertising the Gonski education reforms or the NDIS.
 
 

The government and IT experts have dismissed the coalition's broadband plan as slow and inadequate.

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Hawke didn't talk straight: US Embassy

Bob Hawke in his Canberra office on his first day as president of the ACTU in 1970. Source: Supplied

THE US Embassy in Canberra clearly considered Bob Hawke, who was then president of the Labor Party and the ACTU, a potential national leader, but also considered him capable of giving less than straightforward accounts of himself.

The latest WikiLeaks revelations, of almost two million mostly unclassified State Department documents from 1973 to 1976, show that American diplomats believed Hawke was prepared to risk the ANZUS alliance for his own personal political gain.

A cable dated September 17, 1976, titled ''Meeting with Robert Hawke'' states that the Consul General and embassy officers had a ''long conversation'' with Mr Hawke the day before, which began with him complaining he had been misreported on his position on ANZUS.

Mr Hawke had the week before signed a petition in the National Times, calling for a rethink on ANZUS.

He told the consular officials he felt ANZUS should move from being a military alliance and take on economic issues.

''He added somewhat weakly that it was for those reasons that he signed the petition which appeared in the Sept 12 edition of the National Times,'' the officials said.

''His reasons for signing it were not persuasive. We believe it was a tactical move on his part to gain left-wing support for parliamentary pre-selection.''

They said the ploy ''failed miserably,'' as evidenced by his announcement he would not go for preselection at that time.

But Mr Hawke, who eventually won preselection for the seat of Wills in 1980, was clearly seen an important player by the Americans, who assisted him meeting powerful players in the US, and considered him a ''powerful and effective'' force in industrial dispute resolution.

The Americans also gave Malcolm Fraser's government of the day ''low marks'' for its industrial relations policy, saying it had a ''heavily paternalistic approach.''

''If one takes position that success in achieving Fraser Government's number one domestic goal - reducing inflation - depends on working out some sort of mutually acceptable accommodation with country's trade union movement, one has little choice but to give Fraser government low marks for its performance to date in industrial relations,'' the US Embassy said in an August 1976 cablegram. 

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Gillard strikes major deal with China

PM Julia Gillard has signed an unprecedented diplomatic agreement with China's new Premier Li Keqiang.

AUSTRALIA has beaten every country in Asia to lock-in high-level annual meetings with China's leaders as it grows as a world super-power.

After talks with her counterpart in Beijing's Great Hall of the People today, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a new ''strategic partnership'' between Australia and China.

The deal has been Australia's top diplomatic priority for the past 13 months and was sealed during a telephone call Ms Gillard made to China's Premier Li Keqiang last month, shortly after he came to power.

In a world where every country wants to boost ties with China, it guarantees Australia's PM, Foreign Minister, Treasurer and Trade Minister formal talks every year with their counterparts, which will increase Australia's hopes to create jobs by cashing in on China's booming economy.

Ms Gillard said it was a landmark deal that gave Australia an edge over other countries.

''When the history of this relationship is written, I think this will be remembered as a day that a big step forward was taken,'' Ms Gillard said after her hour-long talks with Mr Li.

''We have had a very good week for Australia here in China.

The Premier of the People's Republic of China held a ceremonial welcome for Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the Great Hall, Beijing. Picture: Luke Marsden

''Right around the world countries are competing for China's attention...we won't have to compete every time to get to the table, we'll be there at the table working on the issues that deeply matter to both of us.''

China has only granted this special arrangement to three other countries - the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia.

It holds annual talks with the European Union and from time to time there are summits with the United States President.

While the US and New Zealand remain Australia's formal allies in the ANZUS treaty, this deal elevates Australia's relationship with China to the status of ''strategic partnership'' and puts it alongside Indonesia and India.

During the meeting between Ms Gillard and Mr Li, a $1.6 billion deal was signed for Hydro Tasmania and China's Shenhua Group to develop wind farms across Australia.

A $1.5 billion deal was also signed for China Minmetals to develop of Dugald River zinc, lead and silver mine near Cloncurry in Queensland.

Julia Gillard has struck a deal with China to hold annual meetings with top diplomats. Picture: Luke Marsden

Australia and China have also struck a military friendship pact which will involve the 70-member People's Liberation Army band coming to Australia in September for public performances and Australia sending a military band to China.

Australia and China will work together on aid projects in the Asia-Pacific such as fighting malaria in Papua New Guinea and water projects in Cambodia.

Both countries will also create a carbon trading experts group as China moves to have an emissions trading scheme for 255 million people in seven cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

And Chinese tourists with an electronic passport will from 2015 be able to use the faster SmartGate system to get through Customs.

Premier Li is also known as the Prime Minister and oversees economic and governing matters.

The deal with China will also involve foreign and strategic talks between foreign ministers from both countries and an economic dialogue led by Austrtalia's Treasurer and Trade minister and China's powerful chairman of the China National Development and Reform Commisison.

Australia will also enjoy continued access to China's new President Xi Jinping, who has visited Australia three times, and told Ms Gillard he also wanted to have annual meetings. 

Ms Gillard was given an impressive full military welcome on her arrival at the forecourt of the Great Hall of the People and a 19-gun salute.

Mr Li said he wanted to ''raise China- Australia relations to a new height''.

Ms Gillard said she told Mr Li a free trade agreement was a ''gap'' in the relationship and a new round of talks will kick off in May with Trade Minister Craig Emerson.

Dr Emerson said he had a ''high ambition'' for an agreement to be meaningful and not ''just a trophy''.

The PM said she raised human rights concerns, especially in Tibet, and the cases of Australians in jail in China.

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Howard rejects Iraq war 'lie' claim

Former Prime Minister, John Howard, has rejected claims Australia went to war in Iraq based on a lie.

FORMER prime minister John Howard has emphatically rejected the "most notorious claim of all" about his government's conduct - that Australia went to war in Iraq based on a "lie" about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

After Sydney protesters forced a last-minute change of venue for his speech on the 10th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, Mr Howard said there was a "near universal" belief that Iraq had WMDs, including from former Labor leader Kevin Rudd.

IRAQ, THE WAR AND HOW WE GOT IT WRONG.

"After the fall of Saddam, and when it became apparent that stockpiles of WMDs had - to me unexpectedly - not been found in Iraq, it was all too easy for certain people to begin claiming that Australia had gone to war based on a lie," Mr Howard said.

"Not only does (that claim) impugn the integrity of the decision-making process at the highest level, but also the professionalism and integrity of intelligence agencies here and elsewhere.

Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets of Sydney in February 2003 to protest against a US-led war against Iraq, continuing a massive anti-war protests around the world. Source: News Limited

"Some of their key assessments proved to be wrong, but that is a world away from those assessments being the product of deceit and/or political manipulation."

A staunch ally of then US President George W. Bush, Howard angered many Australians by sending 2,000 troops to invade Iraq.

The anger lingers. Around 100 anti-war and anti-Howard protesters rallied outside the venue, their chants clearly heard by Howard's audience as he spoke.

WAS THE GULF WAR WORTH IT?

Former Prime Minister John Howard marked the 10th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a speech to the Lowy Institute in which he defended his decision to send Australian troops to war in Iraq and criticized US handling of the bloody aftermath of dictator Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Picture: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Howard has no regrets about committing Australia to the war, but detailed mistakes made after Saddam's defeat three weeks after the invasion.

A decade after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, few Iraqis mark the day as they face political and economic woes. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

Mr Howard said  that disbanding the Iraqi Army "was a mistake" and that efforts to remove Saddam's Baath Party from civil service "went too far."

The American interim administration that replaced Saddam, the Coalition Provisional Authority, "held sway for too long" and the US cut troop levels too soon, Howard said.

"The post-invasion conflict, especially between Sunnis and Shiites which caused widespread bloodshed, did more damage, in my judgment, to the credibility of the coalition operation in Iraq than the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs," Howard said in a speech delivered to the Lowy Institute foreign policy think-tank.

A statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in downtown Bagdhad. Picture: Jerome Delay/AP Source: AP

Disbanding the Iraqi Army converted many Iraqi veterans into "eager recruits for the insurgency," he said.

"As well as denying coalition forces a home-grown vehicle through which to help maintain order, disbanding the army put on the streets tens of thousands of unemployed and disgruntled Iraqis," Howard said.

Howard said it was too early to gauge the extent that democracy had taken root in Iraq or the impact of the country's transition from tyranny on the Middle East.

But he said Iraq was a probable influence on the Arab Spring, the popular revolutionary uprising that has forced regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen since 2010.

"Unlike most of its region, Iraq's polity has not been roiled by the Arab Spring," Howard said. "That must surely have something to do with the democratic framework which has been established there in recent years."

"To my mind ... it is implausible that the events we now know as the Arab Spring bear no relationship of any kind to the overthrow of Saddam's regime in 2003," he said.
 

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Undetected asylum boat to be reviewed

The boat carrying Sri Lankan asylum seekers which pulled into Geraldton Harbour.  Picture: Graeme Gibbons Source: The Daily Telegraph

• First vessel in five years to make to mainland undetected
• Boat intercepted within metres of mainland by locals in a dinghy
• Government says most boats head towards Cocos or Christmas Island

THE FEDERAL government will investigate how a fishing boat carrying 66 suspected asylum seekers from Sri Lanka managed to make it to the West Australian port of Geraldton without being detected by border patrol authorities.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said a review would be carried out into how the vessel made it to the mainland undetected, the first to do so in about five years.

Stunned locals spotted the blue and white fishing vessel floating near the shore around noon yesterday.

Despite Geraldton being one of Australia's busiest regional ports, the boat made it to within metres of the mainland and was intercepted initially by two local men in a dinghy.

Mr Clare said "99.9 per cent" of vessels from Sri Lanka headed towards Cocos or Christmas Island, where most surveillance operations were targeted.

A group of Asylum seekers who reached the Geraldton in WA will be detained and sent to Christmas Island.

"It seems like a very unusual circumstance in which people have travelled directly from Sri Lanka to the southern coast of Australia," he told ABC Radio today.

By taking the much longer journey directly south, it seemed the vessel had bypassed the main area monitored by Australian patrol boats and planes.

Mr Clare said the "highly unusual" case deserved review, and he flagged changes if required.

More detail would be known once those on board were interviewed by immigration department officials at Christmas Island.

Initial advice suggested the asylum seekers were headed for New Zealand, and had spent 44 days at sea.

Mr Clare said it was his understanding their processing would be treated no differently just because they reached on the mainland.

WA Premier Colin Barnett said the arrival was shocking and unprecedented, questioning how a vessel could arrive undetected at a busy regional port in broad daylight.

Mr Clare said he understood the concerns and had contacted Mr Barnett's office.

The coalition said Australia's border control situation had taken a "ridiculous" turn.

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No, really, our NBN isn't a costly dud

Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott insist their broadband plan is cheaper than Labor's and they deny claims their system will be slower and cost regional users more. Picture: Croucher James Source: News Limited

• Plan called a "lemon" and "fraudband" by some experts
• Regional users unlikely to pay more, says Turnbull
• Tony Abbott says the plan is more cost effective and speeds are sufficient

OPPOSITION communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has denied the coalition's broadband plan would see regional users pay "materially" more than those in the city.

The coalition has promised it will deliver high-speed broadband earlier and cheaper than under federal Labor's NBN.

However, its broadband plan has been dubbed a "lemon" and "fraudband" by some experts and by Finance Minister Penny Wong, because it will only provide speeds of 25 megabits a second (Mbps) compared to Labor's 100Mbps.

The opposition plan has raised concerns regional users will be forced to pay more for access to high-speed broadband, after the coalition proposed a cap on prices rather than the uniform national price in Labor's NBN.

Mr Turnbull said suggestions those in the bush would pay more were "absolutely untrue", and the price cap would be introduced to add competition to the broadband market.

"I think it is very unlikely that anyone in the bush will be paying more or materially more than anyone else," he told Sky News today.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) would set the national price cap and "no wholesale provider, including the NBN Co, will be able to go above that".

"So people in the bush will know that under us they will pay less for their broadband, they'll get the upgrade sooner, and the cap will be set by the ACCC," Mr Turnbull said.

The opposition plan would be a "win, win, win for regional Australia".

"What we will do is ensure that investment in the NBN fixed wireless network will enhance and augment mobile phone coverage in the bush."

But Senator Wong rubbished the coalition plan as "fraudband" and a "lemon".

"The coalition's fraudband policy is a policy that is akin to building a big freeway and having dirt roads off to the side as the way you get to your house," she told Sky News.

"It won't do the job that Australia needs this infrastructure to do, not just in the next 10 years, but in the next 30, 40, 50, 60 years."

Earlier today, Tony Abbott denied that internet speeds would be slower under the coalition's plan than under Labor's more expensive plan.

"The short answer is 'no'," he told the Australian Radio Network in Melbourne.

"90 per cent of households will get 50 to 100 megabit downloads and they will get it for one third of the cost of Labor's broadband."

Labor is rolling out fibre to the premises (FTTP), with download speeds the same to all premises along the cable.

Mr Abbott said Labor's NBN rollout was poorly managed and expensive.

"What we are proposing is much swifter to roll out and much more affordable."

The coalition's NBN plan is projected to cost $29.5 billion and be completed by 2019, with Labor's plan expected to cost $44.1 billion and be finished two years later.

Opposition communication spokesman Malcolm Turnbull later stressed how the coalition's NBN plan would deliver high speeds capable of providing the services people needed.

"In our network, what we will do is build in capacity with the option of upgrading as and when demand arises," he told Fairfax Radio today.
 

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Killer Aussie mum lands back home

AN Australian woman who drowned her two young sons in a bathtub in Canada has arrived back in Australia, refusing to comment to reporters at the airport.

AN Australian woman who drowned her two young sons in a bathtub in Canada has arrived back in Australia.

Allyson McConnell, 34, flew into Sydney Airport this morning on an Air Canada flight out of Vancouver with her mother Helen Meager.

She refused to answer reporters' questions as she and a female companion pushed a luggage trolley to the airport car park, with blank stares and "no comment" the only response.

McConnell is expected to travel to Gosford on the NSW Central Coast where Mrs Meager lives.

McConnell's former husband, Curtis McConnell, along with prosecutors and the Alberta justice minister, fought to keep McConnell in Canada until the appeals for her six-year sentence and acquittal on second-degree murder charges were heard.

Convicted killer Allyson McConnell, arrives back in Sydney after being deported from Canada. Picture: Ross Schultz.

McConnell admitted to drowning her sons, two-year-old Connor and 10-month-old Jayden, in a bathtub in her adopted home town of Millet, Alberta, in 2010.  

At the non-jury trial last year, the judge found McConnell not guilty of the second-degree murder of the boys, but guilty of their manslaughter, and sentenced her to six years' jail.

With time served and credits, McConnell spent 10 months in the Alberta hospital psychiatric ward.

Appeals against the not guilty murder verdict and sentence were lodged and Mr McConnell and prosecutors had hoped McConnell would be forced to stay in Canada until they were heard, but Canadian authorities ordered McConnell to be deported.

Allyson McConnell pictured with one of her sons. Source: Facebook

Convicted killer Allyson McConnell arrives back in Sydney after being deported from Canada. Picture: Ross Schultz. Source: The Daily Telegraph

Mr McConnell fears his ex-wife could kill again in Australia.

"Will anyone there know about the murders she committed here?'' he asked.

"Being only 34 years old, will she start a new family and have another child in her care?''

Curtis McConnell and his wife Allyson Meagher on their wedding day in undated photo on his Facebook site.

Alberta Justice Minister Jonathan Denis said on Monday he wanted McConnell returned to Canada if the appeals were successful.

Curtis McConnell with his two boys. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied

"We will be in contact immediately with Australian officials and have her brought back to Canada so she can serve the rest of her time here," Mr Denis told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.

"Under the treaties that we have, my understanding is that if the sentence was overturned in favour of some larger sentence, Australia would be required under these conventions to bring her back to Canada to pay her debt to the province."

McConnell, 34, met her Canadian husband in 2006 when they were working at a ski resort in British Columbia.

They married, but after the birth of Jayden the marriage broke down. Mr McConnell filed for divorce and successfully blocked McConnell from taking their sons to Australia.

McConnell has battled depression and admitted she drowned the boys.

However, the judge who heard the murder trial found there was reasonable doubt McConnell "had the specific intent to kill her children".

On the day of the children's death Mr McConnell received a phone call from Edmonton police informing him his wife had fallen off a bridge and onto a roadway.

She survived, but was in hospital.

"Where are the kids?'' Mr McConnell asked the officer on the end of the phone.

The officer didn't know.

Mr McConnell jumped in his car and drove to the family home, where the doors were locked, the volume on the TV was turned up and the power was out in certain rooms.

There was no sign of two-year-old Connor and 10-month-old Jayden.

He frantically searched the house and came to a bathroom, but the door was locked.

Desperate, he used a butter knife to open it.

"I could smell their dead bodies,'' Curtis McConnell, speaking through tears, testified at his wife's murder trial in a Wetaskiwin court last year.

Connor and Jayden were floating in the bathtub.

"I just dropped to my knees and I reached into the water, and the water was so cold.

"They were so cold and stiff. I had to pull them out.

"She just left them there to rot.''

On the toilet seat next to the bathtub was his wife's wedding ring.

Allyson McConnell had lunch at a hotel before jumping off the bridge.

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Call this croc big? Hell yes

A HUGE saltwater crocodile has been caught at a dam, popular with bird watchers and nature lovers.

Department spokesman Edwin Edlund said rangers kept a close eye on the popular dam. Rangers had caught seven crocodiles at the reserve last year and 12 in 2011.

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