Media wrap - Tony Abbott the pin-up boy

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Regional development

Senator Barnaby Joyce calls for tax rebate to lure people out west - New Opposition spokesman for regional development Barnaby Joyce has warned southeast Queensland is heading for an "urban nightmare" unless more people move to regional towns - Brisbane Courier Mail

Health and hospitals

Rudd turns up heat on Brumby - Kevin Rudd will increase the pressure on Premier John Brumby to accept the national hospital plan by highlighting today that it would mean Victoria had an extra $3.8 billion to invest in economic infrastructure over the rest of the decade - Melbourne Age

Patients' lives ebb in 'ramped' ambulances - Patients with potentially life-threatening conditions are waiting more than 30 minutes in ambulances before being admitted to emergency departments, new figures show - Brisbane Courier Mail

Immigration

Island exodus grows as PM's 100th boat looms - Plans to transfer asylum-seekers from Christmas Island to the mainland are being stepped up as the Rudd government prepares for the prospect of receiving its 100th unauthorised boat arrival since taking office - The Australian

Rudd's hard line on asylum rejects - The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says his government makes no apology for deciding when to send rejected asylum seekers home while his Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, has expressed hope that the wave of boats might soon slow - Sydney Morning Herald

Economic matters

Federal Government mortgage boost is working, says Swan - A federal Government program to pump up to $16 billion into backing mortgages is paying off by pushing down home loan interest rates and keeping non-bank lenders in the market, Treasurer Wayne Swan says - Brisbane Courier Mail

Commonwealth Bank warns of four more rate rises - The CBA is forecasting that the Reserve Bank will increase the official interest rate at four of its remaining nine board meetings this year. This would push the official rate from 4 to 5 per cent. Based on the average SA mortgage of $242,500, mortgage-holders would pay an extra $151 per month, or a total of $1713 per month - Adelaide Advertiser

Elections

Teen pollie Wyatt Roy plays down his youth - Teen political sensation Wyatt Roy has set up house with his girlfriend in a bid to shake off attacks over his age as the 19-year-old launches his tilt at becoming Australia's youngest federal MP - Brisbane Courier Mail

Bright and Mitchell finally go to Labor in South Australian State election - Adelaide Advertiser

Bypass start stalls - As the state election starts to cool down, questions are being raised over whether the $30 million Kingston bypass has stalled - Hobart Mercury

Drugs

Keneally Government accused of advertising drugs to teenagers as "nose candy" - A postcard authorised by health officials targeting young people shows lines of cocaine and describes them as "nose candy" - Sydney Daily Telegraph

Local government

Spin doctors on rate rises - In a process deemed as "farcical", councils are spending up to $25,000 on "window dressing" rate rises on websites, glossy brochures and controlled meetings in five-star hotels where small numbers of people are fed and even paid before voting on a rate rise - Sydney Daily Telegraph

Political life

Ironman Tony Abbott finishes 14 hour triathlon in Port Macquarie - Sydney Daily Telegraph

The race of his life - and still beaten by Rudd - Just as Kevin Rudd beat him in debate last week, another Rudd rained on his parade. Jeff Rudd beat him across the Port Macquarie finish line by almost two hours. Was he a Labor plant? ''No, I didn't run for the government. I ran out of the goodness of my heart,'' he said. However, the other Rudd, a practised ironman with more than a decade of competition, not only shares the Prime Minister's surname but lives near his electorate. And at 54, Rudd gave Abbott, 52, a two-year start - Sydney Morning Herald

Bartlett vents his fury - Premier David Bartlett has launched a savage attack on political scientist Richard Herr, denying a jibe at the marital status of Greens leader Nick McKim - Hobart Mercury

Opinions

Something queer about Tony Abbott’s values - Malcolm Farr in the Sydney Daily Telegraph says robustly heterosexual Tony Abbott is close to becoming an unlikely item of gay admiration, given his striking figure in Lycra and togs displayed yesterday. 

Too much exercise is Abbott forming - Abbott loves exercise and is keen to show he is the antithesis of Rudd whom he considers a pasty bureaucrat. Rudd works out in a gym when he can but is otherwise renowned for working himself and his staff to death - Phil Coorey in the Sydney Morning Herald

For those of a certain age, health is everything - Glenn Milne looks in The Australian at the importance of health to an aging population.

Refugee trade puts security at stake - argues Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph

ENVIRONMENT

We must protect wallabies, wombats - Ken Henry - As a custodian of Australia's $1 trillion economy, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry is preoccupied with keeping the nation out of recession in uncertain global economic times - Sydney Daily Telegraph

World cool on Rudd's clean coal funding - Australian taxpayers are the only financial backers for Kevin Rudd's $100 million-a-year global clean coal initiative, as world leaders have failed to match their resounding endorsement of the idea at the G8 meeting last July with a single dollar - The Australian

Treasury boss Ken Henry's plea on climate - Treasury boss Ken Henry has railed against the disgraceful management of the nation's water resources. He also yesterday took aim at "free riders" who made it impossible to get agreement on global action to combat climate change - The Australian

MEDIA

Tablets will profit from doom of traditional media -Will this week's launch of the Apple iPad, to be followed by a full suite of competing imitators, be a game-changer for newspapers and magazines? Will it open a new world of internet-based video services to take our eyeballs away from free-to-air TV? I think there is a fair chance it will - Mark Day in The Australian

Stephen Conroy and US at odds on net filter - The Obama administration has questioned the Rudd government's plan to introduce an internet filter, saying it runs contrary to the US's foreign policy of encouraging an open internet to spread economic growth and global security - The Australian

LIFE

Cycling

Brisbane bikeways becoming danger zones as cyclists, pedestrians compete for space - Anger speed and near-death experiences are turning Brisbane's shared bike-pedestrian paths into danger zones. One woman is lucky to be alive after she was struck by a cyclist at Toowong earlier this year - Brisbane Courier Mail

Real estate

Home sales soar - The last big weekend for auctions in Melbourne before winter fell just short of the billion-dollar record of a few weeks ago - Melbourne Herald Sun

Housing shortfall likely to worsen - Official forecasts for the nation's housing shortage have worsened, with more than 100,000 prospective home buyers already locked out of the market by June 30 last year - The Australian

 

  

 

 

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