Month: May 2019

Sydney's controversial lockout laws are set to be wound back, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian ordering a review, saying it was time to "take stock" and rethink the laws.

The move to set up a cross-party committee to examine the laws comes ahead of a push in the NSW upper house from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and the Greens to scrap the lockout.

Shooters MP Robert Borsak and Greens MP Cate Faehrmann have each tabled motions to get rid of the laws, which apply to clubs and pubs across Sydney's CBD and Kings Cross.

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Ms Berejiklian said it was now time to revisit the laws.

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"After five years of operation, it makes sense for us to now take stock and examine whether any further changes should be made," Ms Berejiklian said.

Ms Berejiklian said that since the laws were introduced in 2014, the number of non-domestic violent assaults in Sydney's CBD and Kings Cross had declined.

"We have always sought to strike a balance between limiting alcohol-related violence and maintaining a vibrant night-time economy,” Ms Berejiklian said.

"During this period, we have also worked to relax certain aspects of the laws, such as extending trading hours for bars and clubs for major events, and making it easier for small bars, restaurants and cafes to start up and operate."

The lockout laws were implemented across the CBD by then premier Barry O'Farrell in February 2014 following a public outcry over a spate of violent alcohol-fuelled incidents, including the one-punch deaths of Thomas Kelly and Daniel Christie.

Ms Berejiklian said there had been a number of reviews into Sydney’s night-time economy, including a review of the liquor laws by former High Court judge Ian Callinan, QC.

Following his review, the laws were relaxed by 30 minutes, resulting in 2am lockouts and 3.30am last drinks in venues with live entertainment.

During this year's state election campaign, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers said repealing the lockout laws was one of the party’s priorities in the first term of the new Parliament.

"We just want to get Sydney going again and revitalise the nightlife," Mr Borsak said on Tuesday.

"If there is a problem with violence and policing, then fix that, but don't make venues close."

One Nation's NSW leader Mark Latham has also said he would support a relaxation of the laws, which he says have gone "way too far".

But former opposition leader Michael Daley said Labor would not relax the laws, although party leadership hopeful Chris Minns has indicated he would support winding them back.

Last last year, a leading alcohol policy group warned that winding back the lockout laws would be "violence over vibrancy".

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The NSW/ACT Alcohol Policy Alliance, made up of 48 groups including frontline emergency services, law enforcement and health experts, said repealing the laws would be a "curse" on Sydney.

The new joint select committee will be made up of five members of the lower house, including three government members and at least one crossbench member, as well as five members of the upper house, including two government members and at least two crossbench members.

It will examine how to "maintain and enhance" community safety and health outcomes as well as ensuring all "existing regulatory arrangements in relation to individuals, businesses
and other stakeholders, including Sydney’s lockout laws, remain appropriately balanced".

It will be chaired by a government member and will report to Parliament by September 30.

A new coal-fired power station is back on the federal government's agenda in the wake of its election victory, with ministers supporting a major project in Queensland despite calls from environmentalists to accelerate the shift to renewable energy.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan is backing the new power station proposal and pointing to the Coalition's strong vote in his home state of Queensland to warn off critics from southern states who want to halt the project.

Senator Canavan is also heightening pressure on the Victorian and NSW governments to open up more gas fields in order to prevent further increases in energy costs for households and manufacturers.

The message comes as Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese embarks on a "listening tour" of Queensland and prepares to reconsider party policy on climate change.

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The move also sets up a clash with the environmental movement over the Adani coal mine in Queensland and the Narrabri gas field in northern NSW, which Senator Canavan likened to "NSW's Adani" because its approval has taken so long.

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While some Liberals and Nationals avoided calling openly for more coal-fired electricity during the election campaign, Senator Canavan said a pilot scheme to build a new power station would go ahead and could be expanded into a major project within a few years.

"The government will progress investments in coal-fired power," he said.

"That was what we took to the election, it was a key part of our policy package in North Queensland – that we would look at building a coal-fired power station in North Queensland.

"That's been overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of North Queensland."

The Queensland Nationals within the Coalition party room, including Senator Canavan, have been buoyed by their ability to hold seats such as Capricornia and Flynn and are attributing this to their support for coal-fired power and the Adani mine.

Senator Canavan said former Greens leader Bob Brown had helped the Coalition in Queensland by leading a protest movement from the southern states to try to stop the Adani mine, galvanising Queenslanders who did not like the interference.

"Undoubtedly Bob Brown was a net plus for our election," he said, adding that the protesters encouraged an attitude that was ungrateful, ignorant and patronising.

"It's ungrateful because the coal industry delivers billions of dollars in royalties to the state governments and billions of dollars in taxes to the federal government.

"It's ignorant because a lot of people make comments about the coal market and they have no bloody idea about the coal market.

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"And then it's incredibly patronising because these out-of-town people think they have the right to come into someone else's community and tell them they're all evil and wrong and need to the be sacked or re-skilled."

Emboldened by their election victory, government ministers are challenging Labor to rethink its policies on the Adani mine, coal-fired power, a 45 per cent target to reduce emissions and the mechanism to be used to meet that target.

One day after Energy Minister Angus Taylor claimed an election mandate for the government’s 26 per cent target to reduce emissions, Senator Canavan claimed a mandate for coal-fired power.

Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt backed the continued use of coal in the wake of an admission by likely Labor deputy leader Richard Marles that he had been “tone deaf” to make light of the end of the coal industry.

"I completely reject any suggestion that Labor is a party that is against coal, that wants to see coal close down immediately – that's the position of the extreme Greens and it's not the position of the Labor Party," Senator Watt said.

Mr Albanese made no criticism of the Adani coal mine while visiting the Queensland electorate of Longman on Tuesday, but he disputed whether there was any need for federal support for a coal-fired power station.

"Markets make those decisions, not governments," he said during an interview with 2GB radio host Alan Jones.

"And the truth is that no one that I'm aware of in terms of any investor, in spite of the government's rhetoric over the last two terms, no investor has come forward saying I want to put my money into investing in a coal-fired power station."

But the government has chosen 12 electricity generation projects to support to add capacity to the national grid and one of them is a study into a new coal-fired power station in Collinsville, near Townsville.

Senator Canavan said this had support from industrial customers in Townsville and from potential investors, which meant it was the leading option for greater support if the study proved the need for the project.

"There's a strong case for a new coal-fired power station in North Queensland," Senator Canavan said.

"Any particular investment has to go through a rigorous assessment from all angles.

"There's obviously environmental approvals for it to jump, and in the case where it's seeking a level of government involvement, there's also an economic case that needs to be assessed.

"I don't want to get ahead of myself. Every particular investment will turn on the details of that particular investment, and there's still more work to do on the proposed Collinsville power station.

"But it's been abundantly clear to me for some time that there's a need for investment in baseload power in north Queensland and coal-fired power is a very attractive proposition."

Students face another day of NAPLAN testing after schools suffered more technical glitches during resit exams on Tuesday, including at least one Sydney class that was unable to log on.

About 30,000 students across Australia, including 9700 in NSW, had to resit tests after connectivity and platform issues plagued the first round of testing that began on May 14.

However, some have reported experiencing a range of problems again, including one Sydney principal who said the countdown for some year 5 students' tests started at the point they had left the tests two weeks ago, locking them out in as little as 10 seconds after they began Tuesday's test.

"We then had to get all students to reopen the tests … that whole process took 30 minutes and one class could not be restarted, they're still waiting [to do the test]," the principal wrote in an email to her representative body.

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She reported that her school never received the paper tests that the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) had promised to send as backups, meaning some students will either be unable to do the resit at all or will need to spend another day on NAPLAN, head of the NSW Primary Principals' Association Phil Seymour said.

Mr Seymour said teachers and principals had to contact the parents of each student who experienced glitches during the first round of testing to ask if they wanted to participate in the optional resits.

"That principal feels gutted that she had them go down this path and now the kids are distressed again," he said.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which is responsible for the tests, acknowledged problems with the timer during the resits and said some students may have had to revert to paper.

"In organising the resits, steps and processes were required to enrol students, including resetting the timer. For some students the timer was not reset appropriately," a statement by ACARA reads.

"Many of these instances were managed in-class using procedures available in the platform. Advice received so far from [local test administration bodies] indicates that the majority of students successfully completed the tests, while others may have reverted to paper."

Jihad Dib, the NSW Opposition's education spokesman, said the online tests were expanded to 50 per cent of all students this year from 15 per cent last year, despite widespread warnings that schools weren't ready.

"Educators, including teachers' and principals' groups, had warned that going online would cause problems and ACARA's resolution was to expand it to 50 per cent," Mr Dib said.

"We need to think about the disruptions this has caused. And there were schools that had booked in excursions or events that couldn't be refunded on Tuesday and couldn't participate in the resits, what about those kids?"

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Mr Dib and the heads of major teachers' and principals' groups are calling for this year's results to be kept off the MySchool website.

"We have schools that did the tests on paper, some did the online adaptive version, some students had problems, some had to resit new tests, there's no way in the world that this year's NAPLAN has data that is valid," he said.

A spokeswoman for NESA said in a statement it “is not aware of any schools, that notified of their intention to re-sit in time, not receiving paper contingency tests. NESA continues to provide follow up support to schools.”

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Head of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council Chris Presland said principals will raise their concerns about NAPLAN online and the publication of this year's results onto the MySchool website at their next meeting with NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell.

"They couldn't possibly push for NAPLAN to go completely online next year after what's occurred," Mr Presland said.

Most of the 9700 students that resat tests in NSW did so online but nationally, only half of the 30,000 students resitting tests did them online, while the remaining 15,000 did the paper versions.

Bitcoin volatility is rearing its ugly head once again, disrupting the relatively calm rally crypto enthusiasts have basked in for the past month.

Average daily up-and-down moves in Bitcoin have gotten more pronounced, mimicking trading volatility last seen at the end of 2018 when crypto prices suffered through an extended downward draft. The daily price change for the month of May averages 4.7 per cent, compared with 3.5 per cent in April and 1.1 per cent in March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The last time prices swung so wildly was in December, when the changes averaged 4.2 per cent.

The largest digital token dropped as much as 2.4 per cent on Tuesday, falling for the first time in four days, as many investors braced themselves for a new potential bout of turbulence. Tuesday's decline follows a jump of as much as 10 per cent when most US trading was curtailed during the Memorial Day holiday.

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Although it's not unusual for the price of cryptocurrencies to fluctuate wildly from day to day, investors had gotten used to a relatively tranquil market, with many digital tokens extending multi-month rallies as enthusiasm built. Greater interest from mainstream companies and a wider embrace by some of Wall Street's largest trading firms, for instance, fuelled much of that fervor, bringing Bitcoin within reach of $US9,000, a level last seen a year ago.

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But, as with many things crypto, most investors grasped for solid explanations for what's led the recent rally, with some chalking it up to exogenous circumstances that could ultimately push prices even higher.

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"The recent surges in Bitcoin are mainly based on the supply side," wrote eToro's Mati Greenspan in a note this week.

"There's already a shortage of Bitcoin in the world and with the halving event coming up next May, the countdown to even less supply has already begun," he said, referring to an event that happens every few years when the number of coins awarded to miners is slashed in half.

The increase in volatility can also be seen in the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, where the spread between upper and lower price range levels, also known as its trading envelope bands, has widened to the largest for the year. The index doesn't have many support levels in place should a significant move lower occur.

In addition, the Crypto Index tested its upper band in Tuesday's trading session and bounced down, potentially indicating that it's seen a top for the foreseeable future. Bitcoin, which makes up 30 per cent of the index, is nearing its upper band but has yet to test it.

For Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone, it's meant looking at 30-day volatility levels, which are near the December peak that marked the bear market bottom. The opposite could be happening now, he said.

"When volatility gets high it should be indicative of extremes in price," he said in a phone interview.

"The market is getting a bit stretched here from a trader's standpoint."

Bloomberg

Beijing: A witness says Australian navy helicopter pilots were hit by lasers while exercising in the South China Sea, forcing them to land as a precaution.

Scholar Euan Graham, who was on board the Royal Australian Navy flagship HMAS Canberra on a voyage from Vietnam to Singapore, said in an account of the incident that the lasers had been pointed from passing fishing vessels while the Canberra was being trailed by a Chinese warship.

China maintains a robust maritime militia in the South China Sea composed of fishing vessels equipped to carry out missions just short of combat.

China claims the strategic waterway virtually in its entirety and is sensitive to all foreign naval action in the area, especially by the US and allies such as Australia.

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"Was this startled fishermen reacting to the unexpected? Or was it the sort of coordinated harassment more suggestive of China's maritime militia? It's hard to say for sure, but similar incidents have occurred in the western Pacific," Euan Graham wrote on the website The Strategist run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank based in Canberra.

The account of the incident appeared on Tuesday.

Similar incidents involving lasers and the Chinese military have also been reported as far away as Djibouti, where the US and China have bases. Last year, the US complained to China after lasers were directed at aircraft in the Horn of Africa nation that resulted in minor injuries to two American pilots.

China denied that its forces targeted the US military aircraft.

Graham said that while bridge-to-bridge communications with the Chinese during the voyage were courteous, the Chinese requested the Australian warships notify them in advance of any corrections to their course.

That was something the Australian navy was "not about to concede while exercising its high-seas freedoms," Graham wrote.

He wrote that the constant presence of Chinese vessels shadowing foreign ships appeared to indicate that the Chinese fleet had grown large enough to allow it to have vessels lying in wait for just such orders.

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He said their trailing actions also appeared to show that China's over-the-horizon surveillance capability was also maturing, supported by technology based at points such as Fiery Cross Reef in the contested Spratly island group where China has built military installations and an airstrip atop coral reefs.

Five other governments have claims in the South China Sea that overlap with China's, and the US and its allies insist on the right to sail and fly anywhere in the area is permitted under international law, despite China's differing interpretation of such guidelines.

Graham, who is executive director of La Trobe Asia at La Trobe University in Australia, was one of several academics invited to observe Australia's engagement exercise Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019.

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St George Illawarra Dragons player Jack de Belin has been hit with fresh charges over his alleged joint rape of a woman at a Wollongong unit block last December.

De Belin will face Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday on not one but three rape charges after police quietly laid two additional counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent against the star forward earlier this month.

Charge sheets reveal the additional charges relate to the same alleged victim. It it understood they relate to individual acts alleged to have been committed by de Belin during the same sexual encounter that gave rise to the original charge.

Each of the three charges includes the description that de Belin was "in the company of another person" while the alleged offence was committed.

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Police will allege the second person involved was Shellharbour Sharks Group 7 player Callan Sinclair.

Sinclair is not facing any additional charges.

Police documents previously tendered in court revealed the two players stand accused of repeatedly raping the woman inside de Belin's cousin's apartment on Gipps Street in the early hours of December 9.

De Belin allegedly began having sex with the woman before inviting Sinclair to participate, saying "come on, have a go", as the woman lay on the bed, crying.

The two men were charged in December and first fronted court in February, when both entered pleas of not guilty.

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Wednesday's court appearance is expected to include a brief mention of both cases before a further adjournment of four weeks to ready the matters for committal.

Last month, the Federal Court ruled in favour of the NRL's stance in introducing a no-fault stand-down rule for players facing serious criminal charges.

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Glenn Maxwell is plotting a game of survival against Afghan superstar Rashid Khan with Australia's most aggressive batsman ready to take it slow against the legspinner.

Saturday's World Cup clash with the South Asian minnows would usually be considered an ideal opening fixture, if not for Australia's struggles against their slow bowlers.

Khan has been one of the biggest names of the Big Bash League, his average of 16.02 the lowest of players who've taken more than 50 wickets.

Fellow Afghan spinners Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman have also both averaged under 24 in the domestic competition, giving the Australians a reason to be on guard.

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But on a wicket known to favour spinners in Bristol, it will be Khan who presents the biggest challenge with his wrong'un one of the toughest to pick in world cricket.

"At times I think I can," Maxwell said. "He's very difficult. He is probably one of the more difficult ones I've played against. He and [West Indian Sunil] Narine are probably the two you go through stages where you think you are going to hold them and then they bowl a ball that beats you.

"And you sit there shaking your head. I think for me I feel like I don't think I'm going to get out to him but I don't feel like I'm going to score much off him. It's about targeting other blokes and making sure I'm putting pressure on him to change his lengths. I felt like I did that against him during the Big Bash at different times."

Maxwell's conservative approach is telling given his ODI strike-rate of 121.95 is the highest of any Australian who has had more than three innings.

But after three warm-up wins since landing in England, the right-hander is well aware of the danger 20-year-old Khan presents.

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"I probably try and pick my spinners I go hard against," Maxwell said. "Whether it's history against them or I have confidence against them or that I've got a good game plan against certain players.

"But I think for him because he is such a dangerous player for them – they rely and him and Nabi a lot to stop [runs] and get wickets just after the powerplay. Just putting pressure on them to bring back the medium pace and faster bowlers might be the way we go."

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Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has formally tendered his resignation to the Pacific country's Governor-General rather than face a parliamentary no-confidence motion.

"At 9.35am this morning I delivered to his excellency … the Governor-General, my letter of resignation," he said in parliament at Port Moresby on Wednesday.

O'Neill had promised to resign on Sunday after a string of defections from his government plunged his leadership into question and cost him his majority.

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On Tuesday, an opposition bloc working to unseat O'Neill's government elected National Alliance Party leader Patrick Pruaitch as "alternate prime minister".

But O'Neill, who has been in power since 2011, has nominated former prime minister Julius Chan, 79, to replace him and said he was confident the government would have the numbers to stay in power.

More to come

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A three-pronged boost to the mortgage market over the last 10 days has sparked predictions the housing downturn in Sydney and Melbourne could reach its low point later this year.

If that ends up being the case, many home owners would not doubt breathe a sigh of relief. For prospective buyers, however, the message remains one of caution. After the sharp fall in prices recently, don't expect a return to the old days of quickly rising prices, even if things do start to stabilise soon.

To recap: last week we learnt that interest rates will almost certainly fall next month; banks will likely allow customers to borrow larger amounts; and negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions will remain untouched due to the election result.

Some experts believe this triple whammy should put a floor under house prices over the coming months, by encouraging more demand from buyers. The government's plan to guarantee some first home buyers' mortgages from early next year should also help.

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CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Kusher had previously been forecasting prices would fall by about 20 per cent from peak to trough, but he now says the falls could end up being a bit smaller than this

"Potentially, we could see the market bottom now by the end of this year," Kusher says.

He says the peak-to-trough fall in prices may instead end up being 17 to 18 per cent in Sydney, and 15 to 16 per cent in Melbourne, which are still substantial declines.

Time will tell if these forecasts are right, but there are indeed reasons to think the market could be closer to stabilising in the second half of 2019 (the rate of price decline has already slowed in recent months, and auction clearance rates are edging higher).

First, the election result increased optimism towards housing. How much Labor's policies would have really affected housing was hotly contested, but the result removed the uncertainty around negative gearing and capital gains tax, which was hanging over the market.

Second, it's now clear interest rates are likely to fall even lower, after the Reserve Bank last week all but confirmed it will cut rates next month. History suggests cheaper debt tends to push house prices higher.

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And finally, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) last week flagged a change that will have the impact of boosting a customer's borrowing capacity.

Previously, APRA had a rule requiring banks assess all prospective customers at an interest rate of whatever was higher of 7 per cent, or their current rate plus a 2 per cent "buffer". Most banks assess customers at 7.25 per cent, to be safe.

APRA now plans to let banks test their customers at their current rate plus a 2.5 per cent "buffer," which is equal to about 6.3 per cent for a competitively-priced mortgage. The regulator will consult on the idea over the next month or so, but it's hard to see much resistance from the banks.

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The bottom line is that an average family in a capital city may see their borrowing capacity rise by about $100,000 to $1.2 million, Citi analysts predict. If the RBA does cut rates, the maximum amount of credit at this family's disposal would lift even further.

This should support the mortgage market, but there are convincing reasons to think we're not heading back to the old days of easy credit, or booming house prices.

For one, banks will continue to pore over borrowers' expenses more carefully than they did in the past. Moreover, they will not roll back a bunch of other conservative policies, such as caps on how much overall debt a customer can have, relative to their income.

CoreLogic's Kusher says it will still be harder to get a mortgage than it was five years ago.

AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver has also revised his forecasts and now believes house prices may now stabilise later this year, but he also says they won't take off.

"Given still high house price to income ratios and poor affordability, still very high debt levels, tighter lending standards and rising unemployment a quick return to boom time conditions is most unlikely," Oliver says.

The housing cycle may be getting closer to its bottom. But it is by no means a case of back to the races.

The last time Nick Cotric visited his family in Serbia, he was a boy who could only dream of one day playing for NSW.

When he returns to Serbia – where his mother was born before migrating to Australia –  at the end of this season, he will have fulfilled that dream.

And he will return to a country which has since embraced rugby league through the Balkan Super League, a competition established two years ago which carries six Serbian sides.

"They know what rugby league is now. I think they kind of knew what it was when I first started playing but now they have a whole league over there," Cotric told the Herald. "It started up two or three years ago so they fully understand it now. They love it.

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"I am going at the end of the year to catch up with all of them because it’s been a long time. I can't wait, I've got to go see them soon."

With the majority of his extended family still overseas, Cotric is surrounded by a small, tight-knit circle of family and friends in Canberra.

His father, in particular, has helped keep the 20-year-old grounded while being touted as a potential star since his early teens.

"I juggled a few sports but when I was 14 my dad said to me that I had to choose one sport. So I chose rugby league. Ever since then that’s all I’ve played," Cotric said. "My dad nearly cried when I told him I was going to play [for NSW]. It was a good moment, telling him that I was going to play. It meant a lot to me to be able to tell him it meant a lot to him, too."

Every time Cotric's family and friends packed into his Canberra home to watch Origin as a child, he would walk away dreaming of one day donning the sky blue jersey. One moment from Origin matches of yesteryear stands out.

"I remember Jarryd Hayne going down the sideline, kicking it and regathering and scoring. That always sticks in my mind," Cotric said. "As a kid, I remember watching that and just thinking how unbelievable it was. I’d never seen anything like it before."

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It was after that famous Hayne try in 2007 – when Cotric was eight years old – that the Raiders star knew what he wanted to do when he finished school. As he grew older and his friends started drinking, Cotric would always ensure his football came first.

"I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get here and to be where I am now. When I was 18, 19, even now at 20, all the boys are going out and drinking," he said. "I just have to tell them that I can’t, that I have to go home and prepare well for a game. They understand that my footy comes first and I have to go home and sip on the waters and watch the Snapchats roll in."

Those nights at home spent sipping on water while his friends were out have paid off before even Cotric could have possibly expected them to.

When he turns his childhood dream into a reality on Wednesday night, the clock will have just ticked past noon in Serbia. You better believe they'll be watching in Belgrade.

"I remember watching as a kid, getting all of your family and friends packed into the room and watching it all together," Cotric said. "I can’t believe I am going to go out there in a few days. It’s a dream come true."