Labor donation in ICAC sights

Labor's Queensland branch received a donation from AWH during the 2010 federal election campaign. Source: AAP

LABOR'S Queensland branch received a $2200 donation from Australian Water Holdings during the 2010 federal election campaign.

The infrastructure company is at the centre of a NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into alleged improper dealings involving former NSW state politicians and the state-owned Sydney Water.

The Liberal party has begun the process of paying back donations received from AWH dating back to 2009.

One of the Liberal bodies that has already refunded money is a fundraising group in Treasurer Joe Hockey's North Sydney electorate, which to date has paid back $33,000.

A search of Australian Electoral Commission records shows the ALP's Queensland branch received a donation from AWH of $2200 on July 15, 2010, during the federal election campaign.

ICAC heard on Monday the infrastructure company disguised political donations and other expenses as administration costs and charged them back to Sydney Water.

The inquiry heard that Sydney Water had "unwillingly, unknowingly been a principle donor to the Liberal Party".

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Friday there were clear laws for campaign funding in Australia.

"The laws have got to be adhered to. Full stop. No excuses. No exceptions," Mr Shorten said.

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Mining tax debate focus in parliament

The mining tax repeal and Qantas will feature in parliamentary debates in the coming week. Source: AAP

THE federal government will try to pressure Labor over the repeal of the mining tax next week as the re-run of the West Australian Senate election looms.

The repeal bills have been listed as the first item of business in the upper house when parliament resumes on Monday.

The Senate election on April 5 is expected to be a focal point of debate in question time, as the Liberals aim to retain the three seats they won at the 2013 election and Labor aims to pick up two seats.

The government has already targeted Labor over its decision this week to vote with the Greens to block the repeal of the carbon tax, despite former prime minister Kevin Rudd pledging in 2013 to scrap the tax.

"We always said that our two first priorities in terms of legislation was to scrap the carbon tax and the mining tax," Finance Minister Mathias Cormann told AAP on Friday.

"We are continuing to work down our to-do list."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott will also seek Labor support for a package of bills on his "repeal day" on Wednesday.

The legislation aims to remove thousands of regulations and pieces of legislation that are redundant, outdated or impose a burden on business.

Mr Abbott says the repeal package - coupled with other measures - will take $700 million a year in compliance costs off business and community groups.

Another repeal day will be held later in the year.

The Senate on Monday will receive a report from its economics legislation committee on the Qantas Sale Act, which would allow majority foreign ownership of the airline.

Labor and the Greens say the airline should remain in Australian hands and be based here, but there might be room for a compromise: allowing foreign airlines to hold more than a 35 per cent stake in Qantas or a greater than 25 per cent stake for any single foreign shareholder.

Senate inquiry reports will be received on Wednesday relating to ticket scalping, the coalition's Direct Action climate plan and people living with dementia.

On Thursday, reports will be tabled from inquiries into Operation Sovereign Borders, Qantas jobs and overseas aid.

The lower house will continue to debate laws to extend road funding and re-establish the Green Army of environmental volunteers.

Labor wants an inquiry into the Green Army legislation, saying it has concerns about workplace protections, the interaction with other welfare payments and the obligation of employers to provide training.

The House of Representatives will also debate a Labor motion on Monday seeking assurances from the government that ABC funding won't be cut and that it will stop vilifying the broadcaster.

It will be the last sitting week before the May 13 budget.

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Customers return as $A falls, says DJs

DAVID Jones says a lower Australian dollar has helped it to pinch customers back from international online rivals.

Earnings from the company's department store business grew by more than eight per cent to $91.6 million in the six months to January 25, thanks to a 3.8 per cent rise in sales.

But its net profit dropped by 4.6 per cent to just over $70 million, due to reduced earnings from its financial services division.

Chief executive Paul Zahra said a fall in the Australian dollar from around $1.04 a year ago to its current level of around 91 US cents had turned customers away from international websites.

"We've seen that as the $A has fallen below parity with the $US, shopping on an offshore website has become less interesting for our customers," he said.

"So we have seen a lot of customers return to shopping with us and of course now we've got our own online business that allows us to compete head to head."

David Jones relaunched its online store in 2013 and expects online sales to account for 10 per cent of total sales within four years.

Mr Zahra said a strong rise in Australian property prices during the past year also meant customers felt they had more to spend.

"Our core customer is feeling wealthier, not only in the price of their home but in the equity market as well," he said.

The company said its financial services division was hit by customers using their David Jones Store Cards less, though this was partly offset by increased demand for David Jones American Express cards.

The transfer of control of David Jones' electronics division to retail business Dick Smith had removed what had been a drag on earnings, Mr Zahra said.

Despite improving sales the company wants to reduce costs, and will close under-performing stores including Birkenhead Point in Sydney and Harbour Town on the Gold Coast once their current leases expired.

David Jones also said it had received positive feedback from Sydney City Council in relation to a proposal to develop the space above its flagship Market Street store.

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Aust imposes sanctions over Ukraine crisis

AUSTRALIA will impose financial sanctions and travel bans against a dozen Russian and Ukrainian individuals who have been instrumental in Russia's moves to annex Crimea.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin's move and said the referendum in Crimea could not form any legitimate basis to separate it from the rest of Ukraine.

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Ascot Resources aquires iron ore project

SHARES in Ascot Resources have risen after the minerals explorer signed a $2 million deal to acquire the Wonmunna Iron Ore Project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Ascot is hoping to produce five million tonnes of iron ore from the project, located near Rio Tinto's West Angelas and Hope Downs iron ore assets.

The deal with Ochre Group, an iron ore explorer, includes the issue of 88 million Ascot shares, a maximum of $2 million in cash and a further $29.75 million to be payable five years after the transaction is completed.

Ascot Resources shares were up 1.7 cents, or 22 per cent, at 9.5 cents at 1500 AEDT.

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Mum likely murdered beside Qld river

A WOMAN found dead beside a river on the Queensland-NSW border is likely to have been murdered, police say.

Mother-of-three Alexis Jeffery, 24, was found at the edge of the Macintyre River in the Queensland town of Goondiwindi late on Sunday morning.

The local resident was last seen alive in Goondiwindi's town centre at 3.30am on Sunday.

Acting Superintendent David Isherwood said the dumping of the woman's body on a levy bank made foul play likely.

"It's probably 20 metres from the actual top of the levy bank to where she was found," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"She was right on the edge of the water."

A post-mortem examination is yet to be carried out.

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Chinese investors fuel retail spending

AFTER five years of chronic frugality, Australians are finally starting to loosen their purse strings and retailers may have Chinese property investors to thank for it.

Australian retail spending has lifted close to five per cent in the past six months, which is more than double the growth recorded for the whole of 2012.

A key reason for the improvement, according to real estate business Colliers International, is Chinese investment in the property market.

Chinese buyers purchased around $5.9 billion worth of property in the year to June 2013 according to Colliers, and are now buying up almost one fifth of new housing in Sydney.

Coupled with low interest rates, that added demand helped drive Australian capital city home prices up 9.5 per cent in 2013.

That's bad news for first home buyers but good news for retailers, according to Colliers International head of retail Michael Bale.

"Increasing residential property values impact on how wealthy consumers feel and in turn their propensity to spend," he said.

So homeowners are feeling richer as the value of their property rises and are spending more at the shops as a result.

Mr Bale said foreign investors are also having a more direct impact on retailers by taking advantage of the recent slide in the Australian dollar to buy up luxury goods while Down Under.

The slide in the dollar has also pushed up the relative cost of travelling overseas and made goods purchased through international websites more expensive, which means Australians are spending more of their money with local retailers.

The dollar is currently trading around 90 US cents, which is down from around $1.04 a year ago.

"This level is supportive of not only attracting more overseas visitors to Australia, but also acts as a disincentive for Australians to take offshore holidays, particularly to the US," Colliers director of research Nora Farren said.

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Malaysia jet hunt focuses on cockpit crew

Officials say the final words from the cockpit of a missing airliner gave no clue of anything wrong. Source: AAP

AN investigation into the pilots of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has intensified after officials confirmed that the last words spoken from the cockpit came after a key signalling system was manually disabled.

Australia has also committed to join the search which has now moved to take in the far southern Indian Ocean.

US intelligence efforts were also focusing on Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, according to a senior US lawmaker.

"I think from all the information I've been briefed on from, you know, high levels within Homeland Security, national counterterrorism centre, intelligence community, that something was going on with the pilot," said Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee.

"I think this all leads towards the cockpit, with the pilot himself, and co-pilot," McCaul said on Fox News on Sunday.

Malaysia's transport minister confirmed on Sunday that an apparently relaxed final voice communication from the cockpit - "All right, good night" - came after the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) had been deliberately shut down.

The ACARS transmits to the ground key information on a plane's condition.

It has not been confirmed who gave that final voice message. But the assumption is the person would have known the ACARS system had been disabled.

The plane's transponder - which relays radar information on the plane's location - was switched off 14 minutes after the ACARS went down.

Shortly afterwards the plane disappeared from civilian radar, but Malaysia has since confirmed that the air force tracked it for hours on military radar - without taking action.

The plane went missing early in the morning of March 8 with 239 passengers and crew aboard, spawning a massive international search across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean that has turned up no trace of wreckage.

Two-thirds of the passengers on board the flight were Chinese, and state media in China attacked Malaysia anew on Monday over its handling of the crisis.

"The contradictory and piecemeal information Malaysia Airlines and its government have provided has made search efforts difficult and the entire incident even more mysterious," the China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial.

"What else is known that has not been shared with the world?" it asked.

For relatives of those on board, the indications that the plane was taken over in some way provides a slim hope that it might have landed undetected somewhere and that those on board are still alive.

"If they found the wreckage of the plane then that would be finalised because there's no hope," said Australian David Lawton, whose brother was on the plane.

"But while you've got hope, you've got worries too. Because if they're alive, are they being treated well, or what's happening?".

The number of countries involved in the physical search for the jet has nearly doubled to 25, after satellite and military radar data projected two dauntingly large and contrasting corridors the plane might have flown through, to the north and south.

"We are now looking at large tracts of land, crossing 11 countries, as well as deep and remote oceans," said Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's minister of both transport and defence.

The southern corridor extends deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia, while the other stretches north in an arc over south and central Asia.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday said he had no information that the aircraft may have come anywhere close to Australia.

"But all of our agencies that could possibly help in this area are scouring their data to see if there's anything that they can add to the understanding of this mystery," Abbot told reporters.

The China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre has asked Chinese merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the waters to the west of Australia to provide assistance.

The Malaysian authorities have stressed that the backgrounds of all the passengers and crew are being checked - as well as engineers who may have worked on the plane before take-off.

Police have searched both pilots' residences and are examining a flight simulator that Captain Zaharie had installed at his home.

Zaharie was a member of the party of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

A day before the flight, a Malaysian court overturned Anwar's 2012 acquittal on charges he sodomised a male former aide and sentenced him to five years in jail.

Anwar calls the charges a sham cooked up by Malaysia's long-ruling government to drive him from politics.

There is, however, no indication yet that Zaharie's political affiliations have figured in the investigation.

First Officer Fariq's record was queried after a South African woman said he had allowed her and a friend to ride in the cockpit of a 2011 flight, in violation of security rules imposed after the 9/11 attacks in the US.

Hishammuddin noted that the two pilots "did not ask to fly together" on flight MH370.

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Stolen BMW crashes into driver: police

POLICE in Perth are investigating a pursuit that ended with a 51-year-old man in a critical condition after his car was hit by a stolen BMW driven by a teenager.

Police say officers tried to stop the BMW on Albany Highway in East Victoria Park on Saturday night, but the 16-year-old driver sped off.

A brief chase by officers on the ground was taken over by the Police Air Wing, which continued to pursue the car.

Police said the BMW ran a red light at the intersection of McDowell Street and Orrong Road in Welshpool and struck another vehicle.

They said the young BMW driver ran off after the crash but Air Wing officers spotted him hiding in bushes and he was arrested a short time later.

He remains in custody.

The 51-year-old man is in Royal Perth Hospital in a critical but stable condition.

Investigators from WA's major crash unit have been called in to investigate the crash, which will also be probed by the WA police internal affairs unit.

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Newman told to sideline health minister

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman is being urged to sideline his health minister. Source: AAP

QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman is being urged to sideline his health minister as doctors at public hospitals threaten to resign en masse over individual contracts.

Mr Newman returns to Queensland this weekend after a 10-day trade mission to the US.

But with senior medical officers continuing to resist plans for individual contracts, Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk says the premier needs to intervene.

"The premier today needs to sideline his health minister and take action, take control of the health crisis and fix it," she told reporters in Brisbane.

"This is a crisis that has been building for a period of months and the government has been failing to listen."

The Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation of Queensland is understood to be in the process of sending out mass resignation letters to its medical specialist members, working in public hospitals, from Monday.

The Australian Medical Association is also opposed to plans for local hospital boards to have more power in dismissing senior medical officers.

Health Minister Lawrence Springborg last week held talks with doctors' groups but the government is adamant it won't revisit legislation, which has removed the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission from disputes resolutions.

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