Oprah helps Barbara Walters say goodbye

Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton have surprised Barbara Walters as she taped her final edition of The View.

OPRAH Winfrey and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have surprised Barbara Walters as the legendary American newswoman taped her final edition of The View to end a five-decade career on television.

Actor Michael Douglas, a longtime friend and frequent subject for Walters' interviews, also dropped by for the tribute.

Looking smart in a cream-coloured blazer and a black skirt, the 84-year-old Walters was presiding over a studio audience of friends, colleagues and fans on hand to witness a bit of history.

Although she will retain a behind-the-scenes role as executive producer of the talk show she created 17 years ago, she is ending her daily on-air involvement, while limiting her appearances to the occasional story or interview.

Oprah has helped journalist Barbara Walters tape her final edition of the View and retire from TV.

"I can't believe this day has come, and I can't believe it's for real," Clinton told Walters, who began her career in 1962.

Typically, Walters couldn't let Clinton get away without fielding the question on so many minds: Is she running for president in 2016?

"I am running," smiled Clinton. "Around the park."

A bit later, Douglas brought the subject up again with Walters.

"If Hillary runs," he said, "I bet you'd be a great vice president."

Some of the best moments happened during commercial breaks, never to be seen by viewers. Then audience members could snap photos and interact with Walters and her co-panellists (Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy).

The audience erupted at the sight of Winfrey, who told Walters, "You're the reason I wanted to be in television."

"You shattered the glass ceiling for so many women," said Winfrey, who then brought on a startling parade of them, some two dozen prominent on-air women including Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Robin Roberts, Gayle King, Connie Chung and Joan Lunden.

"You are my legacy," Walters, visibly moved, said to them as they crowded around her onstage.

The hour had its comic twist: In a pre-taped segment, Walters (who, after all, has interviewed everybody else) lobbed some questions at herself, in the person of former Saturday Night Live cast member Cheri Oteri doing a spot-on Walters imitation.

Walters brought the hour to a close with a heartfelt statement looking back with amazement on her career.

But a more telling moment took place during a break, as the throng of women she had paved the way for posed with her for a group portrait.

"I have to remember this on the bad days," Walters said quietly, "because this is the best."

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Blazes lit in Melbourne's botanic gardens

A 100-YEAR-OLD pavilion was damaged and two others destroyed by an arsonist in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens.

Firefighters were called to a large blaze in the gardens just before 6am on Saturday and arrived to find two more fires burning.

Police said the arsonist was potentially in the gardens at the same time that firefighters arrived.

"It's too early to say, but it appears that they are all linked because obviously they were all in very close time frames," detective senior constable Megan MacInnes told reporters.

Professor Tim Entwisle, chief executive of the Botanic Gardens, said two buildings were destroyed and another significantly burned.

"Some plants were damaged doing this as well, which for us in the botanic gardens is just as distressing," Prof Entwisle said.

He said the Lakeview rest house is 100 years old and had been damaged, while the William Tell rest house had been burned down.

A toilet block was also burned down.

Prof Entwisle said security patrols spotted the fire, and said it was tough to keep people from getting in at night.

"It's very hard - without putting razor wire around the Botanic Garden - to absolutely keep people out," he said.

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Police hunt two sex predators in Melbourne

A man has tried to sexually assault a woman in the inner Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. Source: AAP

THE hunt is on for two sex predators who attacked three women in the same Melbourne suburb where Jill Meagher died.

Police say an assault on Friday night in Brunswick is not linked to two similar attacks a week earlier.

A 21-year-old woman was walking through a park at 8pm on Hope St in Brunswick West on Friday when grabbed from behind.

The assault continued until she called out to a passing cyclist and the attacker stopped and ran.

Another woman has been assaulted in Brunswick, Melbourne overnight as police hunt two serial predators.

Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Michael Phyland said on Saturday police would like to speak to the cyclist and anyone else who might have seen the incident.

It came after another man grabbed two woman from behind and dragged them down side streets in Brunswick in the early hours of May 10.

Both were able to fight him off and escape.

Jill Meagher was raped and murdered after being snatched from a Brunswick street in 2012.

Sgt Phyland said men and women should be careful when walking at night in the suburb.

"Where you can, take well lit areas, be aware of your surroundings, take the safest path that you can," he told reporters.

Sgt Phyland said descriptions of the two men were different and the attacks were not linked.

The Friday night offender is described as Caucasian, with a medium to solid build, aged in his 30s, with dark hair, blood-shot eyes and a beard.

Police have released CCTV footage of the other man wanted for the May 10 attacks.

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Cabbie car-jacked in NSW Hunter region

A taxi driver has been beaten up, robbed and car-jacked in the NSW Hunter region. Source: AAP

A TAXI driver had his nose broken during a terrifying ordeal in which he was beaten up, robbed, kidnapped and car-jacked by a drunken passenger in NSW's Hunter region.

The cabbie picked up a man in Kurri Kurri on Saturday morning and was asked to drive to Newcastle.

Police say that on the way, the passenger asked to be driven to a caravan park in Maitland to collect money for the fare.

Once at the caravan park, the driver and passenger went inside a cabin where it's alleged the passenger pulled out a knife, kicked the taxi driver in the head and took his wallet.

The passenger then allegedly forced the taxi driver into the passenger seat, cut the wires to the taxi meter, radio and CCTV system; and started speeding north on the Pacific Highway.

Police used road spikes to stop the taxi after detecting it travelling at 185km/h on the Pacific Highway at Moorland.

A 28-year-old man was arrested and taken to Taree Police Station, where a breath-analysis test returned an reading of 0.106.

He is still being questioned and is expected to be charged later on Saturday.

The taxi driver was taken to Manning Base Hospital suffering swelling, abrasions and bleeding to his face, and a broken nose.

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Israel designs hi-tech fin to save turtle

A prosthetic fin has been built to save the life of an injured sea turtle in Israel. Source: AAP

A BADLY injured sea turtle's prospects are looking up - thanks to a new prosthetic fin designed by an Israeli team and modelled on the wings of a US fighter jet.

The green sea turtle, named "Hofesh," the Hebrew word for "freedom," was caught in a fishing net off Israel's Mediterranean coast in early 2009.

With his two left flippers badly wounded, rescuers had to amputate, leaving him with a pair of stumps that made it difficult to swim.

Yaniv Levy, director of Israel's Sea Turtle Rescue Centre, said on Saturday Hofesh was initially fitted with a diver's fin but it provided little relief and he bumped into things as he tried to swim.

Shlomi Gez, an industrial design student at Jerusalem's Hadassah College, read about the animal on the internet and wanted to help.

He designed a prosthetic based on a fish's dorsal fin. The contraption provided some improvement but Hofesh still had trouble breathing and rising to the surface.

Then, inspired by the design of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-22 Raptor warplane, Gez designed a new prosthetic with two fins.

The device, somewhat resembling the aircraft's wings, was strapped onto Hofesh's back on Thursday, allowing him to move easily around his tank.

"I discovered it worked better than one fin on the back," Gez explained.

"With two fins, he keeps relatively balanced, even above the water."

Levy said Hofesh will never be able to return to the wild.

But he shares a tank with a blind female turtle named Tsurit, and researchers are optimistic the pair will mate, potentially adding to the local population of the endangered green sea turtles.

He said it is difficult to say exactly how old the two turtles are but they are estimated to be between 20 and 25 and approaching the age of sexual maturity.

"We have great plans for this guy," Levy said.

"They will never go back to the wild but their offspring will be released the minute they hatch and go immediately into the sea and live normally in the wild," he added.

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Abbott hits back over state budget riot

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is confident he can get controversial budget measures through parliament. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has told the states they must accept there are "swings and roundabouts" when it comes to federal money.

Angry state and territory leaders have organised a meeting for this Sunday in Sydney to discuss the federal budget's $80 billion cut to school and hospitals funding.

The meeting comes as Labor and the Greens are poised to block many of the federal budget measures, with the government left to horse-trade with new Senate cross benchers after July 1 to pass a new Medicare co-payment and pension and welfare changes.

The next state leader to face an election, Victorian Premier Denis Napthine, said he had a long and strong conversation with Mr Abbott on Thursday about the budget.

"We have from between 2014 and 2017 to absolutely shake the federal government from their top to their bottom so they understand their responsibility to meet their share of public hospital payments," the Liberal premier said.

Mr Abbott told parliament he had made it clear to all the states and territories that in 2017/18 there would be a "lower rate of increase" in funding.

"Not a cut," he said.

Arguing that road funding was boosted in the budget, Mr Abbott said: "As far as the states are concerned there are swings and roundabouts."

Treasurer Joe Hockey backed up the prime minister, saying the states would still receive $400 billion in the six years from 2017 for schools and hospitals once agreements signed with the previous Labor government expire.

"It is not cost-shifting because we don't run the schools or hospitals," he said.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten accused the prime minister of "deceit", having promised before the election no cuts to health or schools, no new or raised taxes and no changes to pensions.

He said modelling from NATSEM (National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling) showed that some families would lose $6000 a year by 2016 because of budget measures.

Labor would fight for those families.

"If you want an election try us ... bring it on," he said in his budget reply.

Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey admitted getting the budget through the Senate could take some horse-trading, but said Labor should pass the legislation and take responsibility for leaving the books in a mess.

"I've got some advice for Tony Abbott ... why don't you horse-trade away your paid parental leave scheme and leave the pensioners alone," Mr Shorten said.

Labor has yet to decide whether to support a temporary income tax rise for people earning more than $180,000 a year, but it will oppose the Medicare co-payment, pension changes and the fuel tax lift.

Mr Hockey said the $7 Medicare co-payment was only about the cost of two "middies" of beer and much less than the $22 cost of a packet of cigarettes.

The Greens will support the fuel tax rise.

The treasurer rejected a challenge from shadow treasurer Chris Bowen to debate the budget at the National Press Club next week.

Delivering his budget-in-reply speech to parliament on Thursday, Mr Shorten said Labor would oppose deregulated university fees, the Medicare co-payment, the fuel tax rise and hits to pensions and the dole.

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Uncensored Rudd reveals batts flaws

Kevin Rudd move to expose cabinet discussions about insulation scheme had a short-lived opposition. Source: AAP

OPPOSITION to Kevin Rudd's plan to reveal the innermost secrets of the federal government lasted for a little less than 16 hours.

The former prime minister's 31-page statement to the royal commission into the 2009 home insulation program was initially heavily blacked out or "redacted" at the insistence of government lawyers intent on protecting cabinet confidentiality.

Mr Rudd's lawyer had insisted his client could not tell the truth about the disastrous program that claimed the lives of four young workers if he was not permitted to tell his story in full.

Resistance was strong on Wednesday afternoon but evaporated on Thursday morning, when government lawyer Tom Howe QC said the Commonwealth supported "public ventilation" of everything Mr Rudd wanted to say.

What emerged from the document was Mr Rudd's portrait of the prime minister and his ministers as entirely reliant on the information and advice placed before them by the public service - the people he described at the commission as the "wicketkeepers" of his home insulation scheme.

Starting with the reason for implementing the insulation scheme, Mr Rudd reveals that an all-weekend sitting of senior cabinet ministers - Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner and himself - in October 2008 was warned that Australia faced recession and a nine per cent unemployment rate if nothing was done to combat the unfolding global financial crisis.

One response was the $2.8 billion home insulation scheme, devised as a make-work scheme to boost the economy.

Much of what was initially redacted from Mr Rudd's statement is simply anything mentioning cabinet processes, however mundane, but some reveal that even after people started dying, no alarm was raised about the program.

Mr Rudd described a briefing system used by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to warn cabinet about "any programs going off the rails".

The reports were colour-coded: green for "on track", amber for "maintaining close watch" and red for "in difficulty".

From its July 2009 inception to until February 2010 when its immediate closure was urged, the program was never rated anything other than green for "on track".

Among other details is Mr Rudd's recollection of a January 28, 2009, cabinet meeting that considered the rollout of the Home Insulation Program.

Issues discussed concerned timelines and costs, Mr Rudd says, but workplace safety standards never came up.

The statement also shows a public service task force was set up four days after the February 4, 2010, death of Mitchell Sweeney, who was the last worker to die during the life of the scheme.

On February 17, the taskforce advised Mr Rudd's cabinet committee of senior ministers of "significant program design risks, notably safety risks ... and the need to exit the overall program".

The same day the committee accepted the taskforce's recommendation to terminate the program.

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Johnston fights for more funds for defence

DEFENCE Minister David Johnston needed to convince colleagues defence would be unable to mount short-notice missions such as its search for the missing Malaysian airliner if it did not get more cash.

In hard negotiations before the government's expenditure review committee, Senator Johnston made the point that defence would face serious problems if it had to endure more cuts.

As it turned out, defence was a big winner from the tough budget, with an increase of more than six per cent, taking funding to $29.3 billion in 2014/15.

Senator Johnston said finance and treasury officials acknowledged that defence had done it hard in the past five years, losing $16 billion.

"If we had to endure more cuts or absorb measures, there would be serious capability issues and we would be courting substantial difficulties," he told AAP.

Missions such as the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which at its peak featured four Orion maritime patrol aircraft and five ships, could only be launched at short notice because these units were maintained at a high level of readiness, he said.

The same applied to aid missions following the Japanese earthquake and the Philippines typhoon.

Most recently, at Christmas, two RAAF transport aircraft were despatched to help the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

Senator Johnston said it was expensive to maintain the level of readiness needed to be able to launch such missions at short notice.

"Those are the sorts of things we would not be able to do (without sufficient funding) and we would have to tell the national security committee and the prime minister we can't do this because we haven't got the money," he said.

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Borders commander warns vigilance is vital

THE army general charged with preventing asylum seeker boats from reaching Australia says ongoing vigilance is vital.

There have been no successful people smuggling ventures to Australia since late December, but Lieutenant General Angus Campbell says people smugglers are opportunistic, organised criminals looking to exploit any vulnerabilities.

"To modify a well-known and very apt phrase - the price of border security is eternal vigilance," the Operation Sovereign Borders commander told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute dinner in Canberra on Thursday.

Threats to Australia's border security remain as asylum seekers bide their time in Indonesia, holding out for policy or operation changes, he said.

"There are too many prospective travellers susceptible to believing that Nauru is a town in Australia."

His team is proud to be preventing asylum seekers from drowning during dangerous voyages from Indonesia to Australia.

And Lieutenant General Campbell says safe procedures are in place, consistent with international obligations and domestic law, in relation to the policy of turning back boats.

He expressed doubt about whether authorities could have reduced arrivals without it.

The willingness of Nauru and Papua New Guinea to accept asylum seekers might not endure if the flow of people continued, he said.

Tuesday's budget allocated funds to establish a new super frontline agency, Border Force Australia, from July 2015, which the government says will absorb Operation Sovereign Borders.

The new agency will replace Customs and take on some functions of the Immigration Department.

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Labor pounce on second staffer conflict

Federal Minister Nigel Scullion is under fire over a staff member cited for conflict of interest. Source: AAP

LABOR has vowed to continue probing a second Abbott government minister over conflict of interest allegations.

William "Smiley" Johnstone resigned as an adviser for Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion after it was revealed he was also chief executive and majority shareholder of the Indigenous Development Corporation.

Senator Scullion has defended Mr Johnstone's employment, saying his sole role of devising the school attendance strategy meant his private activities did not create a conflict of interest.

But Opposition Senate Leader Penny Wong says Mr Johnstone's employment showed an "arrogant disregard" for the standards for ministerial staff.

Senator Scullion told the Senate on Thursday there had been "a couple of items that required follow up" in Mr Johnstone's private interests disclosure, filed at the time of his employment.

Five months later, that process was still under way when a media inquiry forced Senator Scullion's office to address the potential conflicts and ask Mr Johnstone to "amend some of his personal affairs".

Mr Johnstone never intended to stay on fulltime and chose to resign, Senator Scullion said.

Senator Wong promised to explore that in more detail.

"The Australian people are entitled to know why not one but two ministers in this chamber happen to have staff who have interest in the portfolio that they administer."

In February, Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash's staffer Alastair Furnival resigned over conflict of interest allegations.

Mr Furnival had a shareholding in his wife's public relations company, which has links to the junk food industry.

Unlike the case of Mr Furnival, who was accused of ordering the removal of a Health Department healthy food-rating website, there are no allegations Mr Johnstone made calls that affected his private interests.

The Abbott government's revised guidelines for ministerial staffers require divestment from private companies with a direct interest in their minister's portfolio.

The standards also forbid directorship of any company without written agreement of their respective minister and of the Special Minister of State.

Senator Wong asked Special Minister of State Michael Ronaldson if he had provided a written agreement regarding Mr Johnstone's employment on Thursday, which he took on notice.

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Italy diplomat denies abuse in Philippines

AN Italian diplomat facing human trafficking and child abuse allegations in the Philippines has denied any wrongdoing.

Daniele Bosio, who has been suspended as Italy's ambassador to Turkmenistan, submitted an affidavit on Wednesday denying the criminal complaints and spoke briefly to reporters for the first time since his arrest on April 5 while vacationing in the Philippines.

Bosio has been detained in a municipal jail in Laguna province south of Manila since being arrested in the company of three boys aged 9-12 at a local resort.

Tears came to Bosio's eyes when more than a dozen children from a Christian school in Manila arrived to show support for him.

He has been giving financial support to the school for several years.

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Sony sinks to $A1.46bn quarterly loss

Struggling electronics giant Sony says it lost 128.4 billion yen in the fiscal year to March. Source: AAP

SONY Corp sank to a 138 billion yen ($A1.46 billion) quarterly loss because of expenses related to exiting the personal computer business.

The Tokyo-based maker of the PlayStation 4 game machine, Bravia TV and Walkman digital player also reported on Wednesday a loss of 128.4 billion yen for the fiscal year through March 2014.

It had recorded a 41.5 billion yen profit the previous fiscal year.

For January-March last year, Sony had reported a 93 billion yen profit.

Earlier this month, Sony acknowledged it would end up with more red ink for the fiscal year than it had earlier forecast because of costs related to its Vaio PC operations and a drop in the value of its overseas disc manufacturing business.

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NSW police officer charged with assault

A NSW police officer has been charged with assaulting a colleague during a domestic dispute.

The female senior constable, attached to a command in the Western Region, was summonsed to court after allegedly assaulting a police another officer during a domestic dispute.

Police say the charges relate to an incident that occurred on May 3, while the officer was off-duty.

She will appear at Wentworth Local Court on July 7.

The officer has been suspended from duty with pay.

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Gillard's book will be out in October

Former PM Julia Gillard says writing her memoir has been an exhilarating and cathartic experience. Source: AAP

FORMER prime minister Julia Gillard has worked through a special kind of therapy after losing her job: writing a book.

My Story will be published on October 1 by Random House Australia.

Ms Gillard said writing the memoir had been exhilarating and cathartic.

"Sometimes the words flowed quickly and easily," she said on Wednesday.

"On other occasions, days of reflection were needed to work through memories of difficult times and the resilience required during them."

She promises the book will tell the truth about what it's like to be prime minister, what happened to her and why it matters for Australia.

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Aust tennis great Court helps Ugandans

AUSTRALIAN tennis great Margaret Court has landed in Uganda on a week-long visit to promote the sport in the east African nation.

Court, 71, her husband Barry and tennis coach Matthew Carle were welcomed by hundreds of players when they touched down at Entebbe International Airport on Tuesday night, local time.

"I want to help Uganda nurture its own world champions," the 62-time grand slam title winner said.

Court likened her early life to that of young Ugandans.

"Coming from an underprivileged background, I became a world champion as early as a teenager of 17," she said.

"New champions can be made from places like this."

Tennis coach Robert Muganga said Ugandan players were delighted to host such an important sports personality.

"We are going to learn a lot from her," he said.

Court will help more than 100 children with their tennis skills at coaching clinics during her stay.

Court, who is a Christian minister, will also hold motivational talks at Lugogo tennis court and at Miracle Centre Cathedral in Kampala, where she is expected to preach on Sunday.

Court won 24 singles, 19 doubles and 19 mixed doubles grand slam events during her career in the 1960s and '70s.

In 1970, she became the first woman during the Open era and the second woman in history to win the singles grand slam in all four majors in the same calendar year.

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Aus twins parents ignore negativity

THE Australian parents of rare conjoined twins, Faith and Hope, ignored doctors when they advised them they should end the pregnancy when they knew the babies would be born with one head and two faces.

Now they are equally ignoring any negative comments that are coming from around the world on the news of the birth of the twins on Thursday.

"I don't know them, so I don't care what they think," their proud mum Renee Young told the Nine Network.

And the couple's seven other children are equally in love with the twins.

"They absolutely love them to pieces. We take them for a visit and they don't want to leave," their father Simon Howie said.

Mr Howie said the babies were stable and slowly feeding with tubes.

They have a hole in their heart and this will probably be operated on when they gain more weight, he said.

The babies have an extremely rare condition called diprosopus, and share a body, limbs and a skull, but each have their own brains and a set of identical facial features.

The twins were born at 32 weeks by emergency caesarean and astounded doctors when they were able to breathe on their own and are in a stable condition.

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Defence spending hike gets big tick

Defence funding will rise, but it will also lose staff. Source: AAP

THE Australia Defence Association has given the defence budget increase a big tick and reckons it might help the government achieve a funding promise.

After several years of severe budget cuts, the six per cent spending increase gives the federal government a reasonable chance of lifting defence funding to two per cent of gross domestic product, association executive director Neil James says.

"They are at 1.8 per cent this year and as long as there is sufficient real increases over the forward estimates and then the following five years, they may get there," he told AAP.

Mr James said two per cent was an ideological target.

"We really should base our defence spending on our real strategic risks, not on arbitrary figures like two per cent," he said.

Defence gets an extra $800 million to take defence funding to $29.2 billion in 2014/15. With further increases over the next four years, funding will reach almost $33 billion in 2017/18.

That takes defence spending to 7.6 per cent of commonwealth outlays, compared with six per cent last year.

However, defence doesn't completely escape the budget pain. The organisation will shed more than 2000 public service jobs over the next four years, starting with 600 this year.

That will be achieved through natural attrition and changes to recruitment practices. There are currently more than 20,000 defence public servants.

The budget also includes a significant change to defence superannuation with the generous but expensive Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme to be closed to new members by July 2016.

This is the last of the public sector defined benefit schemes, paying retirees a percentage of final salary as a fortnightly pension for life, indexed twice yearly in line with the consumer price index.

That's mostly unfunded, with pensions paid from future tax revenues. Closing MSBS will reduce the government's unfunded superannuation liability by $126 billion by 2050.

MSBS will be replaced by a new accumulation scheme which members can transfer to when they leave defence,

"Given that most people leave the defence force short of 10 years, most will probably be better off, but there will be some losers," Mr James said.

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Welfare, benefits changes slammed

CHANGES to family benefits, work for the dole schemes and a $7 GP co-payment in the federal budget have angered welfare and health groups.

But business gets a tax cut and higher education lobbies back changes on course fees and support for students studying for sub-bachelor qualifications.

Treasurer Joe Hockey says his first budget is fair and will ensure all Australians contribute to the coalition's budget repair job.

"We are a nation of lifters, not leaners," he told parliament on Tuesday.

However, the government has been sharply criticised for delivering what many stakeholders believe is a budget that favours the board room but attacks the vulnerable.

Labor says it breaks election promises, by introducing co-payments on GP visits and pathology services, resuming fuel excise increases and tinkering with assistance payments.

"It is a budget built on Tony Abbott's act of mass deceit," shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said.

The GP co-payment attracted the most ire, with many groups saying it would make access to primary care more difficult.

"It sends a message to Australians that you shouldn't get sick ... and you shouldn't get old," Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association head Charmaine Crowe said.

Changes to family benefits, including a temporary pause on the indexation of payments and programs, and changes to the eligibility thresholds for Newstart also caused concern.

"There are measures in this budget that rip the guts out of what remains of a fair and egalitarian Australia," St Vincent de Paul Society chief John Falzon said.

Unions were angered by the impact on working families.

"They're going to pay more for their petrol, they're going to be paying more to take their families to the doctors, there's going to be questions around their welfare," Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon said.

The public sector union is looking down the barrel of 16,500 sector job cuts over three years.

"This budget is a con job," Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Nadine Flood said.

But business was happy with a 1.5 percentage point cut to the company tax rate and a government push to ramp up infrastructure projects across the country, particularly for roads.

The Abbott government's decision to set up a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund to drive treatment breakthroughs should boost the local research sector.

Universities are also pleased with the decision to allow to set their own tuition fees from 2016.

"These historic reforms reconcile access and quality and make growth affordable," Group of Eight chairman and ANU vice chancellor Ian Young said.

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Uni students pledge to fight fee hikes

Universities will be able to charge what they like while government contributions reduce from 2016. Source: AAP

A BODY blow or historic reform?

The reaction to the deregulation of university fees depends on whether it causes pain or gain.

University students say the Abbott government's "horror budget" will leave them drowning in debt.

They face a double financial hit from 2016, when universities will be allowed to charge what they like while government contributions reduce.

"Thousands and thousands of parents around the country will be worrying about how their children are going to afford their education," National Union of Students president Deanna Taylor said.

Meghan Hopper from the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations didn't mince words: "This budget sucks for students."

But the nation's top research institutions and private higher educators are thrilled.

ANU vice-chancellor Ian Young, chair of the Group of Eight, said the moves reconciled access and equality and made growth affordable for universities.

The government hopes the changes will force Australian universities to be more competitive.

It wants at least one local institution to break into the world's top 20, and more in the top 100.

The budget also provides subsidies for all diploma and sub-bachelor students - a massive expansion of the demand-driven system.

The Council of Private Higher Education chief Adrian McComb says the measure delivers everything the sector wants.

It's expected expanding places will lead to the government subsidising an extra 80,000 students by 2018 at a cost of $820 million.

However, it will still bank $1.1 billion from cutting an average 20 per cent from student payments.

Non-university providers will get smaller subsidies than universities.

Mr McComb said the finer detail of arrangements were still to be negotiated.

"Some of that is not cheaper to teach in fact, the sort of work you need to do with sub-bachelor degree students," he told AAP.

The group representing all universities was more circumspect about the changes, saying it was disappointing the likely increase in student fees was being offset by a significant drop in government contributions.

"In combination (with lower indexation) that represents a reduction of around $1.9 billion over the forward estimates," Universities Australia chief Belinda Robinson told AAP.

The budget changes will affect anyone who accepts a higher education place after Wednesday.

Students already enrolled at the time of the federal budget won't be affected unless they're still studying at the end of 2020.

In a small sweetener, universities will have to put $1 from every $5 raised from fee hikes into scholarships.

Students, however, don't think that is especially sweet.

"(Treasurer Joe) Hockey is claiming to provide more opportunity for low-SES (socio-economic students) and rural students while he's making them foot the bill for their own scholarships," Ms Hopper said.

Another $3.3 billion will be saved from changes to the higher education loans program.

Graduates will have to start repaying the loans once they earn $50,638 from mid-2016, almost $700 less than now.

Their debts will be indexed at a higher rate, capped at 6 per cent, depending on what it costs government to borrow.

At the moment, the rate is indexed in line with inflation - currently about 2.5 per cent.

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Non-mining industries told to fire up

THE mining industry has underpinned Australia's budget for a decade but Treasurer Joe Hockey says its peak has passed and it's now time for other industries to step up.

Treasury forecasts the Australian economy will grow below trend in 2014/15 chiefly because of a fall in investment in resources projects.

New engineering construction in Australia was expected to fall 13 per cent in 2014/15 and 20.5 per cent the next year.

Coal and iron ore prices are also tipped to continue falling due to growing world supply and moderating Chinese growth.

Iron ore is Australia's number one export and crucial to budget revenues, but its price has plunged 20 per cent in the last four weeks.

The economy is now going through an extraordinary period of transition, in a reversal of the shift during the boom of labour and capital into resources.

"Mining and resources represent about 10 per cent of our economy but two per cent of our employment," Treasurer Joe Hockey told parliament.

"So now we need to fire up the rest of the economy."

Despite the negative outlook for resources, miners will get $100 million in tax offsets to keep exploring for new minerals.

University of Melbourne business and economics professor Neville Norman said he was more optimistic than the government about the resources industry, saying they may be underestimating its strength.

"It will make a big difference to corporate revenue and mining revenue if prices do go up," he told AAP.

"There is nothing more speculative in the budget than speculating on that."

The mining tax, which the government wants to repeal, was expected to raise $100 million in 2013/14, down from $200 million last year, and well down on original forecasts for $10.5 billion in those two years, the government said.

How Australia emerged from the transition would depend chiefly on how quickly non-resources business investment started picking up from its subdued state, Treasury said.

Australia's suite of new liquefied natural gas projects offer hope for new revenue, but there exists uncertainty about gas prices, and investment is falling now mega-projects were mostly built, it said.

The gas industry today is part way through an investment of around $200 billion on seven LNG projects, and will roughly double in export value by 2015-16, overtaking coal, the government said.

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Australian feared dead in Nepal mountains

HUMAN remains found in the Nepalese mountains are suspected of being that of a 23-year-old West Australian man who has been missing for six months.

Matt Allpress has been missing in the Annapurna region since November after he failed to arrive in Sydney following a solo 10-day trek in Nepal.

A Facebook page set-up by Mr Allpress' family and friends said on Monday that two local Nepalese people foraging in the mountains above Sikles, about one hour off the main track, found human remains on Saturday.

The next day, authorities went to the site and reported finding personal equipment belonging to Mr Allpress, the page said.

Police remained at the site on Monday, gathering information but the remains have yet to be formally identified.

The Facebook page said Mr Allpress' mother was in Nepal and his father would arrive later on Monday.

"Matt's family and close friends ask for respect at this difficult time," the Find Matt page read.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said Australian officials in Canberra and Kathmandu were continuing to provide consular assistance to the Allpress family.

Mr Allpress' friends and family had remained optimistic of finding him alive, creating a social media campaign to help locate him.

Almost $10,000 was raised in December to help continue to fund the expensive aerial and land search.

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Arbib blames Garrett for pink batts

Former Labor senator Mark Arbib is to front the home insulation royal commission on Monday. Source: AAP

FORMER senator Mark Arbib has put the blame for Labor's botched home insulation program squarely on the shoulders of his ex-colleague Peter Garrett.

Mr Arbib claimed the former environment minister was the man in charge of the program, which has been linked to four deaths, when giving evidence at a royal commission into the scheme on Monday.

Before the hearing even began, Mr Arbib caused a stir by slipping into the Brisbane Magistrates Court complex through a back door and avoiding the waiting media scrum.

The commission later said the former Labor powerbroker had been allowed to make the unusual entrance after he raised "security concerns".

In the witness box Mr Arbib laid the blame for the home insulation debacle on Mr Garrett, who will get his chance to respond on Tuesday.

He said while he'd co-ordinated the government's stimulus programs as parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, Mr Garrett was the one designing the program.

"I didn't have any decision-making role in terms of the HIP (home insulation program), I was working with the co-ordinator-general's office," he said, adding that Mr Garrett was the minister responsible.

Mr Arbib said he didn't know that three tradesmen had died under a similar scheme in New Zealand in 2007.

He claimed he never saw an email sent to the government in July 2009, which raised the risk of electrocution and the NZ deaths.

"I would have been ringing alarm bells," he said.

Mr Arbib said the prospect of deaths or serious injuries was never raised as a safety risk.

"Death was never mentioned as a prospect," he said.

But death became a reality under the program when Queenslander Matthew Fuller, 25, was electrocuted while driving a metal staple into an electrical cable while installing foil insulation on October 14, 2009.

It was the same practice that led to the deaths of the three NZ installers.

Mr Arbib said he never thought about suspending or reviewing the program after Mr Fuller's death.

"I don't recall considering that," he said.

He said he wasn't involved in any high-level discussions about Mr Fuller's death either.

"I was informed that the prime minister's office and Mr Garrett were dealing with it," he told the inquiry.

"I wasn't being asked into those meetings."

The royal commission is investigating what advice Labor received about the scheme and whether the four deaths could have been avoided.

Mr Arbib is due to finish giving evidence on Tuesday, while the man he claims was responsible for the scheme, Mr Garrett, is expected to enter the witness box immediately afterwards.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd is due to appear on Wednesday.

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Teacher charged over NSW mine protest

A QUEENSLAND school teacher faces a possible jail term after chaining himself to an excavator and disrupting work at the NSW Maules Creek mine.

Simon Wells, 55, became the 159th person to be arrested this year at the Leard State Forest in the state's north, following a series of protests aimed at halting development of three open-cut coal mines.

Mr Wells, from the Sunshine Coast, locked himself onto the excavator at Whitehaven Coal's $767 million Maules Creek mine before dawn on Monday and unfurled a banner reading "coalruption".

He was arrested several hours later and charged with entering inclosed land, remaining on inclosed land and interfering with a mine, the latter of which carries a maximum seven-year prison sentence.

Mr Wells was released on bail and is due to appear at Narrabri Local Court in a fortnight.

He said the development of the mines, which involve the clearance of wildlife habitats, was "damaging environmentally, economically and socially."

"It became clear to me that it was time I did something concrete as a citizen and also as the parent of a teenager," he told AAP.

"I've been involved in environmental activism for over 30 years and I decided I would finally take the step of doing some civil disobedience and risking arrest."

Aside from the Whitehaven project, Japanese firm Idemitsu is developing the neighbouring Boggabri mine and Idemitsu and Whitehaven have a joint venture mine also nearby.

The Leard State Alliance is calling for a judicial inquiry into approval of the Maules Creek mine, which has been under development for five months.

The call for a judicial inquiry follows allegations at NSW's Independent Commission Against Corruption on May 5 that two Aston Coal directors and their wives gave donations to the NSW National Party in 2011.

Aston Coal was a subsidiary of Nathan Tinkler's Aston Resources, the company that initially developed Maules Creek mine, and the donations were allegedly not disclosed in a development application for the mine.

Aston Resources merged with Whitehaven Coal in 2012 and Mr Tinkler sold his stake in Whitehaven Coal in mid-2013.

A Whitehaven Coal spokesman strongly rejected the suggestion that the company had been implicated in any wrongdoing at the ICAC.

"Opponents of Maules Creek freely claim the moral high ground but shamelessly resort to lies and misrepresentation in pushing their radical agenda on the rest of us," the spokesman said.

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Victorian baby's murder 'inexplicable'

Prosecutors say the savage murder of a baby by a Victorian burglar demands a life sentence. Source: AAP

IT was an evil and ferocious killing of an 10-month-old baby boy with no explanation.

Harley Hicks used a homemade baton made of copper wire wrapped in tape to bludgeon Zayden Veal-Whitting more than 30 times about the face and head during a burglary spree in Bendigo in June 2012.

Zayden's murder will haunt his mother, 24-year-old Casey Veal, forever.

"Zayden was my mini-me, full of my physical appearance. Just catching my own reflection can destroy my day in seconds if I'm not strong enough," Ms Veal said.

"Just the simplest moment can destroy my heart and mind."

Ms Veal found Zayden covered in blood in his cot.

"Some days I am scared to close my eyes to relive that experience again."

She says she is a shadow of her former self.

Zayden's older brother, five-year-old Xavier, has also been shattered.

"His grief has consumed my daily life," Ms Veal said in a victim impact statement.

"I constantly worry about his thoughts and sometimes what he has to express.

"For his age, he has lived through more than most adults - without a large voice and a large vocabulary."

Prosecutor Michelle Williams SC said no one would ever know what sparked the attack, but said perhaps baby Zayden stirred.

"We consider what he did was an extreme, extreme way to respond to any thought of self-preservation, to react in such a violent way," she said on Monday.

"It is an evil killing without any rational explanation."

Prosecutors want Hicks, 21, jailed for life but with a minimum term.

Ms Williams compared the case to other child killers like Robert Farquharson, who drowned his three boys in a car on Father's Day 2005.

Farquharson is serving a life term with a minimum non-parole period of 33 years.

"This is different, in some ways maybe worse, because this was a cold, calculated killing of a baby in a vacuum," she told the Victorian Supreme Court, sitting in Bendigo.

Defence barrister David Gallowes said Hicks used the drug ice before the murder.

"Perhaps it goes some way to explain the inexplicable," he said.

He urged the judge to consider other sentencing options, citing Hicks' troubled childhood, drug and alcohol use, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anti-social personality disorder and youth.

"There is some prospect of rehabilitation even if the prognosis is poor," Mr Gallowes said.

But Justice Stephen Kaye said he was concerned Hicks carried the baton intending to use it "if necessary".

"You couldn't argue the proposition that this case falls squarely into the most serious cases of murder," Justice Kaye said.

Ms Williams said Hicks had an extensive criminal record, with nine court appearances before his murder trial dating back to 2007 for crimes including wilful damage, thefts and burglaries, and had breached almost all orders made against him.

The last, a community corrections order for a 2011 armed robbery, was made two months before Zayden's murder.

Hicks, of North Bendigo, will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.

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Union cash handover at Gillard's house

A former union official told an inquiry he gave cash to workers at former PM Julia Gillard's home. Source: AAP

A FORMER union official went to the home of former prime minister Julia Gillard and gave cash to workers doing renovations, a royal commission into union corruption has heard.

Ralph Blewitt, the former secretary of the Western Australia branch of the Australian Workers' Union, told the commission he had $10,000 or $20,000 in cash when, in 1994, he went to Ms Gillard's Melbourne home to meet Bruce Wilson, his union boss and Ms Gillard's then-boyfriend.

In an extraordinary opening day, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption heard the payment was one of a series of cash deliveries drawn from a secret fund and flown across the country by Mr Blewitt.

The cash was from the Workplace Reform Association - a secret entity allegedly set up by Mr Blewitt and Mr Wilson with legal advice from Ms Gillard, who was a lawyer advising the AWU at the time.

Allegations surrounding the fund dogged Ms Gillard's political career, although Ms Gillard has maintained she knew nothing about any impropriety.

Mr Blewitt told the inquiry Ms Gillard was at home when he arrived for the 1994 meeting, and the future PM directed him to the back of the house to find Mr Wilson.

Mr Wilson was in the kitchen or veranda where three men in "workers'-type overalls" were doing renovation work, he said.

Mr Blewitt said Mr Wilson asked him to pay one worker $7000.

"I counted off $7000, gave it to that gentleman. He stuck it in the front pocket of his bib and brace overall and went back outside to join the other two workers," he said.

He said he gave the rest of the money to Mr Wilson, but Ms Gillard was not present during the handovers.

In an eventful day, Mr Wilson was spotted outside the commission building on Monday after a meeting with his barrister, and shoved, swung a punch and shouted abuse at a news photographer who took his picture.

Mr Blewitt detailed a series of flights in which he carried cash, drawn from the Workplace Reform Association, from Perth to Sydney to give to Mr Wilson.

In one 1993 example, Mr Blewitt took $50,000 that he gave to Mr Wilson at a Travelodge hotel in the inner-Sydney suburb of Camperdown, the commission heard.

Mr Blewitt also said that $93,000 from the fund was used by Mr Wilson to buy a $230,000 house in Melbourne in 1993.

The commission heard the Workplace Reform Association was established without the knowledge of the broader AWU in 1992 to receive payments from construction firm Thiess, which had a major infrastructure project in Western Australia.

Mr Blewitt said he submitted invoices to Thiess, including one for more than $25,000, to cover the cost of a union-appointed workplace safety adviser, but no work was ever done.

Mr Wilson told him the association's purpose was to raise funds for union elections, he said.

Mr Blewitt said he was instructed by Mr Wilson to regularly withdraw cash and keep it until it was time to deliver it to him in Sydney.

Once, he had so much cash at his WA home, Mr Blewitt buried almost $10,000 in his yard and the money was water damaged.

He followed Mr Wilson's orders because he was afraid for his job, he said.

Mr Blewitt, 69, flew in from his home in Malaysia for the hearing and will continue giving evidence on Tuesday.

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Flat open for Aust shares on budget eve

The Australian share market is tipped for a flat start ahead of Tuesday's federal budget. Source: AAP

THE Australian share market is tipped for a flat start ahead of Tuesday's federal budget.

CommSec chief economist Craig James says the futures market is pointing to no change at all at the local open.

"I suppose when you weigh up all the factors, it tends to make sense," he told AAP.

"The US share markets were higher but European markets were lower and we have had declines in the oil price, gold price and the iron ore price as well as quite a number of the base metal prices."

The Abbott government will deliver its first budget on Tuesday, ending the intense speculation around spending cuts and a debt levy.

Mr James said investors would be watching closely in case the government took significant dollars out of the economy and prompted the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut interest rates.

"I suppose the good news is once the budget is out of the road, all the speculation will stop and we can focus on the measures and how they are going to affect the economy," he said.

Mr James said investors could be encouraged by the continuing rise in US share markets but the volatile situation in Ukraine was still on the radar.

Back home, the National Australia Bank's monthly business survey for April will be released on Monday followed by Australian Bureau of Statistics housing finance data on Tuesday.

As for the Australian dollar, which was trading at 93.56 US cents on Friday, Mr James tipped little change.

Late on Thursday night, the Australian dollar peaked at 93.96 US cents, the highest since early November, helped by strong local jobs figures and Chinese trade data.

At the close on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was 17.7 points, or 0.32 per cent, lower at 5,459.1 and the broader All Ordinaries index was down 16.1 points, or 0.30 per cent, at 5,439.8.

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Militants kidnap, kill 20 Iraqi soldiers

A series of bombings in Iraq has killed 19 people, authorities say. Source: AAP

MILITANTS who attacked a military base in north Iraq kidnapping 20 soldiers later shot them dead.

The soldiers were abducted by a large group of militants in several vehicles from a small base in the Ain al-Jahash south of Mosul, and their bodies were found in the area on Saturday night, sources said.

But accounts of when the attack took place varied, with a police major and morgue employee putting it on Saturday night, while an army major general said it had taken place earlier in the week.

The police major said the soldiers had been shot in various parts of their bodies and that their hands had not been bound.

The attack comes after militants killed 12 soldiers and wounded 15 in an April 17 assault on a military base west of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province.

The province is one of the most consistently violent areas in Iraq.

Militants opposed to the Iraqi government frequently target members of the security forces, but it is rare for such a large number of soldiers to be kidnapped at once, especially from a military position.

The killings come as Iraq suffers a protracted surge in bloodshed, the worst to hit the country since the brutal sectarian fighting that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

The government has repeatedly blamed the unrest on external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

But analysts and diplomats say widespread anger in the minority Sunni Arab community over alleged mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led authorities has also played a major role in the violence.

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Dozens hurt in China protest

At least 29 police have been injured in China during a protest over a proposed waste incinerator. Source: AAP

A PROTEST in eastern China over a plan to build a waste incinerator has turned violent with state media reporting at least 10 demonstrators and 29 police injured in clashes.

State-run Xinhua News Agency says 30 vehicles were overturned as protesters on Saturday set two police cars on fire and blocked a highway linking Hanzhou with another city.

One protester and a policeman have been reported seriously injured.

An official in the city's Yuhan district government confirmed the incident on Sunday but would not offer details.

An online statement posted by the district government says construction on the incinerator would not begin until the project had won public support.

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Missing Queensland girl found safe

Police say 3 men and a woman who abducted Queensland toddler Bella Goulding are known to her family. Source: AAP

A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl abducted from her father's southeast Queensland home has been found safe and well in a Brisbane suburb.

Bella Rose Goulding was located at Archerfield, in the city's south, on Sunday night and police say they're questioning a man and a woman.

"Investigations are continuing," the Queensland police service said in a statement.

"A man and a woman are currently assisting police with inquiries."

Bella was taken from a house at Willowbank, near Ipswich, on Saturday night and police say her abductors are known to the family.

On Sunday evening, police released the names and images of Lisa Maree Carroll, 21, and Michael Kenneth Winning, 42, saying they say may be able to assist their investigation but refusing to disclose details of their relationship to Bella.

The 8pm abduction occurred on Sancroft Street, which is near a park and the Cunningham Highway.

The girl's father Steven declined to speak publicly on Sunday.

Witnesses saw the abductors in a white Holden Commodore and a silver Mitsubishi sedan.

Further information is being sought from Queensland police.

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Man stabbed by teen at NSW house party

A teenager has been charged after a man was stabbed at a central west NSW house party overnight. Source: AAP

A YOUNG man has been stabbed in the back, chest and stomach at a central west NSW house party.

The man was arguing with the teen at the party in Orange on Saturday night when the 17-year-old allegedly ran inside and armed himself with a knife.

"He then approached the 23-year-old man he was arguing with and allegedly stabbed him in the stomach, chest and back," police said.

"A number of people intervened and the injured man was placed into a car."

Police at a nearby address where then asked for help and they rendered first-aid to the man.

Paramedics were called and he was taken to Orange Health Service where he was treated for "not serious" stab wounds.

The 17-year-old was arrested at the party, charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

He's been denied bail and is due before Orange Children's Court on Monday.

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