Compiled for Reuters by Media Monitors. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW (www.afr.com)
--A proposal from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service to levy a 15.45 percent tariff on imported steel to make BlueScope Steel more competitive has been strongly criticised, with some observers warning that it could prompt price rises in other sectors such as manufactured components, buildings and consumer goods. "We'd probably have to look at importing more finished product rather than manufacturing here, which would possibly affect the number of employees we have," Mick Eidam, product manager at sheet metal maker A D Coote & Co, said. Page 1.
--Mike Pyke and Ted Richards, two of the stars for the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League grand final recently, received applause from their colleagues when they stepped onto the trading floor of financial services giant Citigroup yesterday afternoon. "It's a good message for our young people to see these high achievers extending themselves we aren't paying them anything, but they are coming in here to learn and are thinking about their career three years in advance," Grant Eshuys, head of markets sales at Citi, said. Page 3.
--Michael Ward, managing director of United States-based defence contractor Raytheon Australia, yesterday said around 5000 jobs have been lost in local defence manufacturing because of the Federal Government's vast budget cuts and delays in implementing projects. "Defence and defence industry across the Western world are in a period of turmoil but the 2009 white paper encouraged industry investment and predicted considerable growth across the ensuing decade," Mr Ward added. Page 3.
--Ferrier Hodgson, the insolvency specialists appointed as liquidators of Great Southern, has filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Australia against the former directors of the failed agribusiness over claims that they inflated assets and understated costs and debts in financial accounts. Ferrier Hodgson is also seeking a declaration that the seven directors named in the suit violated their fiduciary and statutory obligations. The fall of Great Southern, the largest agricultural investment scheme in Australia, left investors around A${esc.dollar}1.8 billion out of pocket. Page 7.
THE AUSTRALIAN (www.theaustralian.news.com.au)
--New South Wales (NSW) Premier Barry O'Farrell has warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard in a letter that the Fair Work Act industrial relations legislation must be reformed to prevent electricity prices from rising again. "Your government is the only government in Australia with an explicit policy of raising electricity prices while the NSW government has been acting to place downward pressure on electricity prices, our actions have been overwhelmed by federal policies and green schemes which add costs to household electricity bills," Mr O'Farrell wrote. Pg 1.
--The New South Wales division of the Health Services Union has been accused of removing, deleting and obliterating paperwork under the orders of former boss Michael Williamson in an attempt to hide corruption and fraud. Authorities allege that Mr Williamson used five current or former union officials to block a police investigation. Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Prime Minister Julia Gillard should have "completely repudiated this kind of union activity". Page 1.
--Analysis from researchers Newspoll have revealed that Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott are struggling to recruit support from their opposite genders. Newspoll found that only 29 percent of female voters approve of Mr Abbott's performance as opposition leader, while only 27 percent of men were content with Ms Gillard's performance as Prime Minister. Page 1.
--Kim Williams, chief executive of conglomerate News Limited , yesterday raised concerns that journalism was "under attack" and that governments were attempting to introduce "creeping media censorship" by over-regulating the sector. "The answer to the changing media environment is to place our faith not in the supposedly superior wisdom of the great and the good but in the democratic common sense of the Australian people as consumers and citizens," Mr Williams said in a speech at the University of Melbourne. Page 1.
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (www.smh.com.au)
--Alexandra "Pippi" Bean yesterday said she reached her "lowest point" during her ordeal in Libya when Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the aid worker did not "require further assistance". Authorities in the Middle Eastern country interrogated Ms Bean, an employee of the International Organisation for Migration, for several days over whether Libya's deputy health minister, Almahdi Alamen, had raped her and whether she had manufactured the complaint. She was eventually allowed to leave the country after attending a later meeting with the support of consular officials. Page 1.
--New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell yesterday was warned by experts that a proposal to tear up Parramatta Road and replace it with the WestConnex motorway would not revive the road. "At the end of the day no on really wants to live on a motorway," University of New South Wales' Bill Randolph said. Chris Johnson, chief executive of the Urban Taskforce developer lobby group, said he did not believe the state government had "the ideal solution at the moment". Page 1.
--The Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales governments have pledged to pursue their own plans to combat rising electricity prices, including one reform that would make the Australian Energy Regulator a wholly independent body. "Ironically, when the Prime Minister [Julia Gillard] speaks about network overspending by state network business, she doesn't understand that it's her own Commonwealth body that regulates their capital expenditure," New South Wales Energy Minister Chris Hartcher said. Page 2.
--Federal Court Justice Steven Rares yesterday criticised James Ashby and his legal team for abandoning claims of criminality against Federal Speaker Peter Slipper only days before the case was due to be heard. The comments were made during a hearing for an abuse of process lawsuit filed by Mr Slipper, who represented himself after declaring that he was unable to recruit a lawyer to represent him. "This case has been quite debilitating in a financial sense across the board and also has consumed much of Your Honour's time and also of the time of the parties," Mr Slipper said. Page 2.
THE AGE (www.theage.com.au)
-- Mark Plunkett, the lawyer who uncovered the wrongful incarceration of children in Australia's immigration system, yesterday raised concerns that Indonesia could support legal moves for the affected children to be compensated if the Federal Government fails to handle the matter correctly. "It cannot pass that we would lock up more than 60 of the most vulnerable, uneducated children from another country without there being a proper inquiry. People should be brought to account for it," Mr Plunkett said. Page 1.
--Transurban, the operator of the Citylink tollroad in Melbourne, yesterday continued its campaign to revamp fees for future motorways as the company apologised for the closure of the tunnel earlier this week. " tunnel outage was completely unacceptable for all concerned. However, your board believes events are a truly exceptional circumstance," chairman Lindsay Maxsted said at Transurban's annual general meeting. One of the recommendations from the firm includes potentially increasing the cost of peak hour tolls. Page 1.
--Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, last year was informed that his deputy Ric Balletino had warned a whistleblower to "never" again raise concerns that a subsidiary of the central bank was using corrupt foreign agents, sources said yesterday. Brian Hood, former company secretary at Note Printing Australia, revealed in front of a federal parliamentary committee that he had provided detailed information to Mr Stevens in writing about the central bank's knowledge of bribery allegations enveloping two of its subsidiaries. Page 1.
--Deakin University in Victoria yesterday suspended at least one international student who is believed to be part of a larger syndicate which allegedly submitted assignments that had been paid for. "There was a series of allegations in respect to academic misconduct in a unit that in the first instance involved up to 100 students," Chris Kelly, deputy head of the business and law faculty at Deakin, said. "In the course of marking assignments it became evident that what they were reading from one group's submission they had read somewhere else," he added. Page 3.
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