Archive for the 'Australia in the News' Category

Page 2 of 21

Smart Meters Raise Electricity Bills By $300 On Low Income Households

Published on February 2, 2010 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Here is what you can expect to happen in the US if these so called smart meters are ever implemented in the US:

ENERGY bills for low-income households could rise 30 per cent a year through the introduction of smart meters, a system that charges consumers higher prices during peak consumption times.

Backed by the nation’s governments, smart meters are being rolled-out across Victoria and NSW, with other states set to follow.

The system, which allows power companies to set their prices based on peak or off-peak times, aims to help consumers better manage electricity use.

The Victorian roll-out already has been criticised by the state’s auditor-general, who found consumers paid an average of $150 more a year more for power.

A new study by the University of Melbourne shows it will come at an even higher cost to the the nation’s most vulnerable consumers, including pensioners and single parents.

The study, prepared for the Ministerial Council on Energy, found that the time-of-use pricing system increased power bills by up to $300 a year for low-income families.  [AAP]

Remember politicians love gimmicks like this because they can say they never raised your taxes, but are still increasingly fleecing you through your utility bill with these smart meters.  Expect this gimmick to come to the US at some point with the justification of fighting global warming.

Australian Passengers Face Full Body Scans for US Flights

Published on January 31, 2010 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

For those of you in Australia thinking about flying to the US; get ready for full body scans:

AUSTRALIAN airline passengers face tougher security screening – including possible full-body scans on US flights – in a $400 million-plus strategy to tackle terrorism.

Religious rehabilitation programs to halt the spread of radical Islam in prisons will be unveiled and security at international gateways to Australia, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, will be strengthened.

According to the Herald Sun,domestic travellers can also expect more routine security screening, including swabs to detect explosives.

After lengthy delays and the rewriting of eight earlier drafts, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his senior ministers will today finalise a White Paper on Counter-Terrorism.

The document aims to ensure Australia is better able to cope with threats from home-grown terrorism and follows the arrest of Muslim terrorism suspects in Melbourne last August.  [Herald-Sun]

I think people should have a choice of the full body scan or getting a pat down.  I have no problem taking a full body scan if it gets me through airport security faster.

Ghan Train Service Suspended Due to Heavy Rain

Published on January 9, 2010 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Well fortunately they were able to stop the train before it hit the flooded section of track:

Passengers almost halfway through a train journey across Australia have had to turn back because of flooding in the desert.

The Ghan, travelling from Darwin to Adelaide, was 230 kilometres north of Alice Springs when it came across a flooded section of track.

Great Southern Rail’s commercial director Russell Westmoreland says the decision to turn back the train was unavoidable.

“We can’t control the weather, so our role is to do the best we can to get people back on track after that,” he said.

The company says 280 guests are affected.

Freightlink owns the line and spokesman Tony Aldridge says it is too wet to start repairs.

“There’s still significant surface water residing in the area at this point in time and it’s going to take a couple of days for the area to dry out sufficiently,” he said.

The Ghan and its passengers are due to arrive back in Darwin tomorrow afternoon.

Meanwhile heavy rain around Alice Springs has also caused the partial closure of the Stuart Highway.

The Department of Infrastructure says flooding 50 kilometres north of Alice Springs has made the road impassable to all but high-clearance four-wheel drives.  [ABC News]

As many of you reading this know, my wife and I have traveled on the Ghan train twice and even though the train travels through mostly desolate Outback there are still many bridge crossing over dry river beds and when the ground in the Outback gets wet it gets extremely muddy which would only further make train travel dangerous.

Aussie Explorers Find Remains of First Airplane On Antarctica

Published on January 2, 2010 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It is pretty bold when you think about that someone tried to bring an airplane to Antarctica all the way back in 1911:

Heritage carpenter Mark Farrell points to the spot where the pieces of plane were found. (Reuters: Pauline Askin)

An Antarctic expedition has found what it believes to be remains of the first aeroplane brought to the frozen continent, on an icy shore near where it was abandoned almost a century ago.

Australia has searched for many years for the old single-propeller Vickers plane at Cape Denison, where the nation’s most famous polar explorer, Douglas Mawson, abandoned it after it proved to be a failure during his 1911-14 expedition.

“Luck has been on our side and it’s been a great episode in the history of Antarctic aviation,” said Dr Tony Stewart, leader of the current expedition, after the chance discovery on New Year’s day.

Another member of the expedition, which is dedicated to restoring Mawson’s original wooden huts at Cape Denison, stumbled on pieces of rusted metal tubing among ice-encrusted rocks on the shore of Commonwealth Bay at an especially low tide. They match structural iron tubing from the single-winged plane’s fuselage.

Mawson’s dream of staging the first human flight over the Antarctic ice cap, less than a decade after the Wright brothers made the first powered flight, was shattered even before his expedition sailed for the Antarctic from Australia in late 1911.

The plane crashed in a demonstration flight in October that year, weeks before Mawson was due to set sail. No one was hurt, but the wings were damaged. With no time for repairs, Mawson removed the wings and took the rest of the plane, aiming to use it as a flightless “air tractor” to haul equipment across the ice.

Even as a tractor, with its wheels replaced by sled-runners, the Vickers was a failure. Its engine seized up in the cold.  [Reuters]

Australian Woman Give Birth Without Knowing She Was Pregnant

Published on December 24, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: .

Having just gone through the whole pregnancy period with my wife I find it even more amazing now than I did before that some women give birth to children without ever knowing  they were pregnant:

A MELBOURNE woman who had given up hope of ever having children described the unexpected birth of her son as her “Christmas miracle”.

Jody Palmer, 38, had been trying to have a baby for 20 years and didn’t know she was pregnant when she woke up with excruciating stomach pains about 3am on Saturday.

Less than three hours later, she gave birth to a boy, Jesse, with the help of her partner, Tim Martin.

“I woke Tim up at about 5am and said: ‘You have to call an ambulance because I’m really sick’,” Ms Palmer said. “Then I felt something and I thought I was having a miscarriage or an alien.”

A triple zero operator guided Mr Martin through the surprise labour in the bathroom of their Reservoir home.

“I heard the paramedic say, ‘if she wants to push, she can push,’ so I gave an almighty push and the next minute the baby came flying out with the cord wrapped around his neck,” Ms Palmer said.

Mr Martin said yesterday he was still in shock.

“I didn’t have much time to think, but the girl, Andrea, on the phone who helped me out was great,” Mr Martin said.

Jesse weighed a tiny 1.114kg on arrival and was quickly transferred to the Royal Women’s Hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit where he will stay for the next few months.

Ms Palmer said being a mother was the only thing she had ever wanted from life.

“I’d given up hope I would ever hold my own child, so this was a Christmas miracle,” she said. “I had been told I was not able to conceive and was even seeing a psychiatrist to deal with being childless.”  [Herald-Sun]

Dad Forces 14 Year Old Son To Have Sex With Prostitute

Published on December 24, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: .

Some people buy their kids shoes or video games for Christmas and others buy prostitutes:

A FATHER is accused of forcing his 14-year-old son to have sex with a prostitute because he feared he was gay. In December 2007, the father from Rockhampton, Queensland, father allegedly arranged to meet a prostitute at a local motel.

It is alleged the father then drove his son to the motel and told him he was not allowed to leave until he had sex with the prostitute.

The boy’s mother this week gave evidence in the committal hearing in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court which found there was sufficient evidence for the father to stand trial for the rape of his son.  [The Courier-Mail]

Full Contact Christmas Carol Singing!

Published on December 23, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

This is called getting into the holiday spirit in Australia:

A SYDNEY police officer has Tasered a man during a Christmas carols event after being punched in the face and surrounded by an angry crowd. Patrolling officers were required to assist when a number of altercations broke out at a Carols by Candlelight function at Five Dock, attended by about 4000 people last night.

“About 10pm, further police were called to the venue due to the swelling crowd and reports that a teenage girl had been assaulted,” police said.

It is believed the incident led to a number of men attending the venue, two of whom allegedly became aggressive toward others in the crowd and were approached by a sergeant, police say.

“One of them allegedly turned on the officer, punching him in the face,” police said.

“The policeman, who at this stage was surrounded by the volatile crowd, Tasered the man, bringing him under control and diffusing the situation.”  [AAP]

First Hybrid Car Manufactured In Australia

Published on December 11, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

It took long enough, but Australia finally has its own domestically built hybrid car:

AUSTRALIA’S first locally-built hybrid-powered car will roll off Toyota’s Melbourne production line today.

The cleaner, greener Toyota Camry is the first market-ready hybrid car to be completed at Toyota’s Australian headquarters at Altona, in Melbourne’s west, Toyota spokesman Glenn Campbell said.

Dignitaries at the event will include federal and Victorian government representatives and Toyota Motor Corporation executive vice-president Yukitoshi Funo, who is visiting from Japan.

Other hybrid Camrys have been produced under a pilot program operating at the Altona factory since August, Mr Campbell said.

The car is powered by a 2.4-litre four-cylinder petrol engine combined with an electric motor that kicks in when the car is cruising.  [AAP]

It is actually a pretty nice looking car.

Is An Iceberg Going to Hit Australia?

Published on December 10, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

You would think so with how prominent this story has been in the media:

A massive iceberg — more than twice the size of New York’s Manhattan island — is drifting slowly toward Australia, scientists said Wednesday.

The iceberg, measuring 140 square km (54 square miles), cleaved off an ice shelf nearly 10 years ago and had been floating near Antarctica before commencing on its unusual journey north.

Named B17B, it was about 1,700 km (1,056 miles) off the coast of West Australia, according to the country’s Antarctic Division.

“B17B is a very significant one in that it has drifted so far north while still largely intact,” said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young, who spotted the slab using satellite images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency.

“It’s one of the biggest sighted at those latitudes.”  [CNN]

If you are wonder know this iceberg isn’t going to hit Australia:

It is unlikely to drift too close to the coast in its current form, Young said. The warmer waters will cause it to melt.

“As the water warms up, the iceberg is slowly breaking up, resulting in hundreds more smaller icebergs in the area,” Young said on the Australian Antarctic Division Web site.

Also if you the rest of the article these icebergs have nothing to do with global warming either.

Australian Real Estate Sales Booming Before Christmas

Published on December 7, 2009 in Australia in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It is good to see that at least some where real estate sales are booming:

HOMEBUYERS are shrugging off the pain of interest rate rises in a race to secure houses before Christmas.

Sydney clearances were down by 2.3 per cent to a still impressive 65.1 per cent, while Melbourne’s slipped by only 0.9 per cent to 72.6 per cent.

The real estate industry has predicted that the auction market in Australia’s two largest cities will power on to Christmas.

Although last Tuesday’s 25 basis points increase in official interest rates – the third 0.25 per cent rise in as many months – is expected to slow booming real estate sales in the new year, November and December are historically the busiest for auctions.

According to Australian Property Monitors, Melbourne had 891 Saturday auctions and Sydney 466.

The highest price paid in Sydney was $4.7 million for a 1901 federation manor in Kirribilli.

Melbourne’s most expensive property was a house in South Yarra, that sold for $2.885m.  [Herald-Sun]

Bad Behavior has blocked 778 access attempts in the last 7 days.