NSW man charged with drug supply

BEAT police in Sydney's southwest have charged a man with supplying drugs after a street search revealed ice and possibly heroin.

Officers were patrolling Gladstone Street, Marrickville, when they stopped and spoke to a man and woman standing on the footpath about 11.20pm (AEST) on Friday.

They searched the pair and allegedly discovered an amount of methylamphetamine, cash and a substance believed to be heroin.

The man, 41, has been charged with supplying a prohibited drug, possessing a prohibited drug, holding goods in custody and dealing with property suspected to be proceeds of crime.

He was refused bail and will appear in Parramatta Local Court on Saturday.

The woman, 30, has been released pending further inquiries.

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Man glassed in NSW Snowy Mtns fight

A MAN has allegedly glassed a 22-year-old in the face during a fight in the NSW Snowy Mountains.

The two men aged 22 and 30, were at a function on Kosciuszko Road, Jindabyne, when a fight broke out about 12.10am (AEST) on Saturday.

The older man allegedly hit the 22-year-old on the face while holding a glass, police said.

He suffered multiple cuts to his face and was taken to hospital for treatment.

The other man was treated at the scene for lacerations to his fingers.

He's been charged with grievous bodily harm by a negligent act and was bailed to appear at Cooma Local Court on October 9.

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Patient awarded $1m after botched surgery

A PATIENT has been awarded more than $1 million, after a surgery left the 27-year-old "grossly incapacitated" and in so much pain he tried to kill himself.

Aaron Peters was working behind a Woolworths delicatessen in August 2003 when he experienced a sudden stabbing sensation in his groin.

A few days later, he was referred to Dr Laurent Layani at John Flynn Private Hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast, who told him he had a "large bubble-like" hernia in his groin that required urgent surgery.

When Mr Peters woke up, the NSW Supreme Court heard he was in so much pain he couldn't get out of bed.

In the following weeks Mr Peters said he complained to Dr Layani but the surgeon simply told him that teenagers like himself could not handle pain.

As the afflictions worsened Mr Peters, who was living in Tweed Heads, was prescribed stronger pain medication and sleeping pills.

It got so bad that, in December 2003, Mr Peters attempted suicide.

"He was unable to return to work or study due to the pain and the medication which caused him to suffer from drowsiness, nausea, headaches and stomach cramps," Justice David Davies said in a judgment handed down this week.

Over the subsequent years, the court heard Mr Peters - who was once known to work 35 hour weeks while studying at high school - now has trouble holding down a job.

He reported a litany of disabilities, including a marked limp, an inability to run and depression.

He has previously lost consciousness due to pain and is now on double the amount of pain medication he was taking a year ago.

A 2011 medical report, tendered by a Dr Hopcroft, said the eleven staples Dr Layani placed into Mr Peters during the original surgery entrapped some nerves and caused heavy scar tissue.

He criticised Dr Layani's first post-operative review, saying he "virtually ignored" Mr Peter's complications, "leaving him grossly incapacitated for six years with no prospects of improvement".

Taking into account a raft of issues, including past and future economic loss, Justice Davies awarded Mr Peters more than $1.1 million in damages.

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Cold snap ends balmy NSW winter weather

BUSHWALKERS are being warned to rug up but skiers can get their boots out as a cold snap sweeps NSW.

The chilly weather brings an abrupt end to the unseasonably mild winter temperatures enjoyed by most of the state over the last few days.

From midday on Friday the mercury will plummet, while strong and gusty northerly winds buffet much of the state and snow falls on the highlands.

There will also be widespread rain and possible thunderstorms, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Weather services manager Andrew Treloar is warning locals in NSW and the ACT not to be caught out by the sudden change.

"We'll be going from the pleasantly warm and unseasonable conditions to biting cold in just a short time this weekend.

"Anyone planning to be out and about, particularly bushwalkers, snow sports enthusiasts, campers and boaties, need to keep a very close eye on weather forecasts and warnings."

He's urging people to plan for conditions that range from "pleasantly summer-like to winter extreme".

The cold snap is being created by a strong cold front that began moving into western NSW on Thursday.

It will bring snow to the lower levels of the Snowy Mountains and parts of the Southern and Central Tablelands, particularly overnight on Saturday and into Sunday morning.

Snow is expected down to 600-700 metres in the Southern Tablelands and the ACT and around 1000 metres in the Central Tablelands.

Up to 20mm of rain will fall over the inland and southern ranges on Friday, with some patches experiencing downfalls of up to 50mm.

Very windy conditions are forecast about the Snowy Mountains and higher parts of the tablelands, with the conditions hazardous for people undertaking outside activities.

The weather will slowly warm up next week, as south-westerly winds bringing cooler, more seasonal conditions, Mr Treloar said,

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Labor will stick to surplus plan: Bowen

LABOR will stick to its plan to return to surplus despite moving to a floating carbon price a year earlier than planned, Treasurer Chris Bowen says.

Mr Bowen said the plan would ease cost of living pressures for families and support the non-mining sector.

The Australian Greens say the move means Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a fake on climate change while Opposition Leader Tony Abbott called it more fake change from the prime minister.

The move would see the current fixed $24.15 per tonne carbon tax dumped in favour of a floating price which could be between $6 and $10 per tonne.

Australia had previously planned to move from a carbon tax to an emissions trading scheme by July 2015.

Mr Bowen says Labor was moving to the floating price earlier to support the non-mining sector of the economy and families concerned about cost of living pressures.

"There is a substantial impact on the budget of doing this, of course there is, and it is several billion dollars, but we will be financing that in a fiscally responsible way," the Treasurer told Ten's Meet the Press on Sunday.

But he insists the budget will remain on track for a surplus with yet to be announced spending cuts to accompany the change because the government will be losing planned revenue.

"It means ensuring that our strategy of returning to surplus over the economic cycle - balance in 2015/16 - is adhered to, so it is a challenge."

The Treasurer said there would be no change to the household assistance plan, and any decisions on spending cuts will be made with families' cost of living concerns in mind.

"I think families will see a big benefit in what we are bringing forward," he said.

He didn't say how much families would save but said he'd seen figures speculating how much families might save on bills and they were "broadly right".

Mr Abbott said the shift would represent "more fake change from Kevin Rudd".

"If it's bad at $23 a tonne, it's bad at $10 a tonne, it's a bad tax, you've just got to get rid of it," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.

Senator Milne says Mr Rudd is a "fake" on climate.

"It is cowardly," she told ABC's Insiders program.

"If you believed that climate change was the greatest moral challenge or our time, and it is, we are living in a climate emergency, you would now not be moving to have the big polluters pay less.

"That is what Kevin Rudd is doing. It is all about politics and not policy."

John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, says emissions trading puts not just a price, but also a limit, on carbon pollution.

"Any decision to bring it forward a year should come with a statement of increased ambition, strengthened domestic policy and a continued integral role for the independent Climate Change Authority," he said.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said Tony Abbott couldn't have it both ways on carbon pricing.

"He's been complaining about carbon pricing, he's been urging a move to a floating price or an abandonment altogether," she told reporters in Sydney.

"He can't say 'why is the Australian price so much higher than Europe?', and then we move towards a floating price that brings us in line with Europe and the rest of the world, and criticise that as well."

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Track fault blamed in French derailment

France's state rail says Friday's deadly train derailment was due to a fault in the track. Source: AAP

A TRAIN derailment near Paris that killed six people was caused by a fault in the tracks, France's state rail company says.

The SNCF said Friday's derailment, which also left dozens injured, was caused by a connecting bar that came loose at a rail switch at the station at Bretigny-sur-Orge, about 25 kilometres south of Paris.

The joint bar "broke away, it became detached and came out of its housing", said Pierre Izard, general manager for infrastructure, on Saturday.

It "lodged itself at the centre of the switch, prevented the normal progression of the train's wheels and seems to have caused the train's derailment."

The company said the switch was checked on July 4 and it was immediately ordering checks of 5000 similar joints on its network.

"We have decided to check equipment of this nature on the entire network and are starting now," SNCF chief Guillaume Pepy said.

Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said human error was not to blame for the accident, praising the train's driver who he said "had absolutely extraordinary reflexes by sending the alert immediately", preventing a collision with an oncoming train.

But he said France's regional rail lines were out of date.

"We cannot be satisfied with rolling stock that is 30 years old," Cuvillier said, adding: "The situation is severe, with the deterioration in recent years of traditional lines because of a lack of resources."

A railway passenger association also denounced what it called "rust-bucket trains" and the practice of coupling different types of trains together, demanding proper inspections.

President Francois Hollande was likely to face tough questions about the accident on Sunday, when he is expected to be interviewed by leading French television channels to mark the Bastille Day holiday.

A minute of silence was held at noon on Saturday on all French trains and in all stations for the victims of the accident, which took place as many were leaving for summer holidays.

The local prefect's office said the dead were four men and two women, aged between 19 and 82.

A source close to the investigation told AFP the dead included a couple in their 80s from Bretigny, three men aged 19, 23, and 60, and a young woman whose exact age was not immediately clear. Formal identifications of the bodies were underway, the source said.

In what officials described as a "catastrophe", the train came off the tracks and crashed into the station platform at 5.14 pm local time on Friday, as it travelled at 137km/h on its way from Paris to the central western city of Limoges.

Four carriages of the train jumped the tracks, of which three overturned.

One carriage smashed across a platform and came to rest on a parallel track; another lay half-way across the platform. There were 385 passengers on the train.

The local prefect said the death toll of six was final after the first of the four damaged carriages was removed from the tracks.

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