Lottery lunacy matches Cup fever

THE really big money on Melbourne Cup day rests not with 24 horses but 45 numbered balls.

Oz Lotto's record $100 million jackpot dwarfs anything on offer at Flemington on Tuesday.

The Melbourne Cup prize pool of $6 million includes $3.6 million for the winner.

A lucky Oz Lotto punter, therefore, stands to win 28 Melbourne Cups in terms of prizemoney.

The longest shot in the Cup, Voila Ici, carrying the unlucky number 13 saddlecloth, offered odds of around 125/1 for the punter's dollar.

For just 20 cents more, including agent's commission, the lottery punter could dream of riches beyond imagining.

But there's a good reason for that - the odds are like a quadrella on steroids.

Picking the correct seven out of 45 numbered balls in one game is a 45 million-to-one chance - 45,379,620 to be exact.

And there is always the prospect of having to share the division one prize pool if another punter, or punters, are as lucky as you.

And don't discount no one winning, and the jackpot ascending yet again.

Hearts were ruling minds as lottery fever matched Cup fever around gambling-mad Australia on Tuesday.

A record eight million-plus entries had been lodged, more than one for every three Australians.

"Sales have been bigger than anticipated, and we had anticipated very big sales," said a spokeswoman for Tatts Lotteries.

Victorian agents were opening on a public holiday to cope with demand.

The previous highest guaranteed division one pool offered in Australia was $90 million in 2009, which grew to $106.5 million because of "heightened player interest".

The booty was shared between an Adelaide man and a Queensland couple.

But gambling is a zero sum game.

One man's record first prize is another man's record number of losers.

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ACT airport hub still possible: NSW govt

THE NSW government has rejected federal government claims a decision to build homes near Canberra Airport will stymie its use as a second airport for Sydney.

The state government is set to approve the rezoning of the Tralee Housing Development to allow 1000 new homes south of Queanbeyan in a $400 million venture.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese says the move undermines NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's plan to use Canberra Airport as a second hub for Sydney.

But NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard disagrees.

"In fact everything we have done today allows that possibility still to occur," Mr Hazzard told reporters in Sydney after announcing the rezoning plan on Tuesday.

He said the development was "logical, sensible, and merit-based", striking a balance between allowing Canberra Airport to grow while delivering much-needed housing to the area.

He accused Mr Albanese of being out to score political points.

"The only issue he's been particularly interested in was having a political mudslinging fight today," Mr Hazzard said, adding that the move was supported by other ALP politicians such as local federal Labor MP Mike Kelly and NSW opposition planning spokesman Steve Whan.

However, Mr Albanese said the move showed Mr O'Farrell's plan to use the airport as a second hub was "farcical and completely contradictory".

He also queried the timing of the NSW government's announcement.

"Melbourne Cup day is known among politicians and journalists as one of those days known as 'put out your trash day'," Mr Albanese said.

He has refused to rule out court action over the issue, saying he had already appealed to the state government to review the decision.

Mr Albanese said passenger traffic at Canberra Airport was forecast to grow by 36 per cent in the next decade, with an average 97 flights a day over the Tralee area.

There was no curfew at Canberra Airport so residents under the flight path would be affected by aircraft noise around the clock, he said.

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said she hoped the federal government would do what it could to avoid such an outcome.

"But I think from the ACT government's point of view, there is very little we can do," she told reporters in Canberra.

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PM announces $60m for Laos programs

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has announced $60 million in assistance for a number of programs to help impoverished people in Laos gain skills and have access to small business loans.

Ms Gillard, in Vientiane for the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), was set to hold a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit.

Ms Gillard met with Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong on Sunday night.

The assistance packages announced on Monday provide $41.5 million for a rural livelihoods program.

More than 360,000 children under the age of five in Laos - half the childhood population - are stunted through malnutrition and about 1.8 million people do not have access to adequate nutrition.

The program aims to boost economic security and is expected to provide 350,000 people with access to financial services including loans.

Another $20 million will be provided to establish a new Laos-Australia Institute, which will provide training to help the country tackle key developmental challenges.

The institute will open next year.

Ms Gillard has a number of other bilateral meetings scheduled for Monday, including talks with Burmese President Thein Sein.

It will be the first time an Australian prime minister has met with the leader of Burma since 1984.

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Obama, Romney still neck-and-neck

PRESIDENT Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain in a virtual tie in the latest opinion poll released just two days before the White House election.

The survey by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News gave Obama 48 per cent support and Romney 47 per cent -- a statistical dead heat, given the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 2.55 percentage points.

"This poll is reflecting a very, very close campaign nationally," Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart, said in a statement on Sunday.

"It's a dead heat," Hart added. "This election is going to be decided by turnout, turnout, turnout."

The poll, conducted between November 1-3, sampled 1,475 likely voters. The findings were in keeping with most national polls which find the presidential contest too close to call.

Most polls, however, give Obama a slight but significant lead in most of the crucial battleground states that ultimately will determine the outcome of the presidential, and therefore give the Democratic incumbent favourable odds of re-election.

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Aust stocks set for cautious start

AUSTRALIAN stocks look set for a quiet start to the trading week ahead of the US elections and a Melbourne Cup day interest rate decision.

CommSec chief economist Craig James says the battle for the White House between Democratic president Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney will be at the front of investors' minds on Monday.

Before Americans go to the polls on Wednesday (AEDT), the Reserve Bank of Australia is due to hold its monthly board meeting on Tuesday, Melbourne Cup day.

"I think the market is going to be super, super cautious," Mr James said on Sunday.

"There are so many uncertainties ahead.

"You are not going to take too many positions ahead of that."

Futures markets were pointing to a weak start on the local market, with the December share price index futures contract down three points at 4,442 points on volume of 5,644 contracts.

Some 12 of the 15 economists surveyed by AAP said they expected the central bank to cut the cash rate by 25 basis points to three per cent.

In other domestic news, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is due to release local jobs numbers and the RBA is scheduled to publish its quarterly statement on monetary policy.

In companies news, full year results are due from Westpac Banking Corporation, while first quarter profit numbers from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and a September quarter trading update from Commonwealth Bank of Australia are also slated for publication.

"There's plenty of fodder for investors to feed off and a lot of these things could go either way," Mr James said.

"It is a case of just finding out what the outcome is, interpreting it and moving forward from there."

Wall Street traded higher during the early part of Friday night's (AEDT) session in response to better-than-expected US jobs figures before fading into the close as nervousness over the upcoming US elections took over.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.05 per cent, the S&P500 eased 0.94 per cent and the NASDAQ ended 1.26 per cent lower.

The non-farm payrolls report showed the world's largest economy added 171,000 jobs in October, well above market expectations of a 120,000 gain.

The Australian dollar closed the US trading day at 103.37 US cents, down from Friday's local close of 103.85 US cents.

The Australian stock market closed flat on Friday - the benchmark S&P/ASX200 edged up 0.05 per cent and the broader All Ordinaries index rose 0.07 per cent.

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NAB CEO says funding costs on the rise

NATIONAL Australia Bank chief executive Cameron Clyne says there is little prospect of any official interest rate cut being passed on in full to customers any time soon.

Mr Clyne says funding costs for NAB are continuing to rise amid competition for retail deposits and ongoing pressures in wholesale money markets.

Most banks have lowered their borrowing rates by less than any cuts in the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) cash rate, citing higher funding costs, and Mr Clyne says this will likely continue.

"I think there's no short-term return to the RBA cash rate and bank interest rate movements being aligned," he told ABC television's Inside Business program on Sunday.

Mr Clyne said the period between the mid 1990s to the mid 2000s was the only one where bank rates actually moved in line with RBA.

"If you go back prior to that, and then obviously the period since 2007, this is actually more normal," he said.

"Funding costs are driven by a variety of factors - what you pay for deposits, what you pay for long term and short term borrowings."

Mr Clyne says the battle for retail deposits has put the most pressure on funding costs in recent times, while wholesale funding has been "a little more benign".

"That's not to say it may not spike up again if you have instability in Europe or elsewhere, but funding costs are still continuing to rise," he said.

"That will obviously impact us to a degree to which we are able to reprice."

On October 31, NAB reported net profit for the year to September 30, 2012 fell 22 per cent to $4.08 billion, compared with the previous corresponding period, with results dragged down by difficulties at its UK-based operations.

Mr Clyne said turning around the performance of NAB's UK businesses would depend on the state of Britain's economy.

"A patient approach, although it's difficult, is actually in the long term interests of the shareholders," he said.

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Suspect killed in Indonesian terror raid

INDONESIAN police have shot dead a suspected militant and seized bombs during a raid in a district that has been at the centre of an anti-terror crackdown in the past week, a spokesman says.

The raid on a house was conducted by local police and the anti-terror unit at sunrise in Kayamaya village in Sulawesi island's central district of Poso on Saturday.

"One suspect was killed in the raid and another has been arrested and taken to police headquarters in the city of Palu," national police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told reporters.

"The suspects resisted arrest and began throwing explosives toward the police, who opened fire in response."

Amar said police had seized several assembled bombs and other materials from the home.

Witnesses, who declined to be named, said the men had attended morning prayers at the neighbourhood mosque and were shot outside a school as they tried to run from the house.

An AFP photographer saw a pool of blood in the school courtyard after the shooting.

The raid came after an alleged militant was killed, two others arrested and explosives seized in a raid in Poso on Wednesday.

There have been three failed bomb attacks in the district in the past week.

Two policemen were found dead in Poso last month, with their throats slit, after disappearing while investigating an alleged terror camp linked to extremist Islamist group Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT).

Poso was the site of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians between the late 1990s and mid-2000s that left thousands dead. It has since been described by police as a hotbed of terrorism.

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