Reaching the bottom of the pork barrel
THE Coalition used a controversial grants program to make a flurry of election-eve handouts and has funnelled millions of dollars into projects in marginal seats against departmental advice, an audit has found.
One week left to save PM's political skin
JOHN HOWARD has a week to engineer a dramatic shift in voter sentiment or suffer defeat at the ballot box, the latest Herald/Nielsen poll shows.
Greens caught up in the Newhouse net
THE Greens have split over the controversy surrounding the Labor candidate for Wentworth, George Newhouse, as they fight off accusations of hypocrisy and betrayal.
- Coalition's prime targets are just not getting the message
- Howard's plan to move elderly out of hospital
- Targeted union boss quits Labor
- Fiery ads urge PM's electorate to dump him
- Whiff of Hanson as poster boys do battle
- Downer stands by commitment to Iraq in foreign policy debate
- Water efficiency boost to give Snowy a chance
- Annabel Crabb: Burgeoning promises cut down to size
- Mark Metherell: Suddenly, lean is healthy
- Jessica Irvine: Easy maths to balance book of promises
- The Stump: The Minister from Armentieres
- Your Say: Pork barrelling and the election
- Poll: Who won the foreign policy debate?
Haneef visa decision tested
KEVIN ANDREWS was right to cancel Mohamed Haneef's visa on
character grounds, because the Migration Act "sets a very low bar"
to allow for wide ministerial discretion, lawyers for the
Immigration Minister argued in court.
Cleric rejects ASIO request to deport himself
ASIO has asked a prominent Sydney Shiite cleric, Sheik Mansour Leghaei, to "voluntarily deport" himself in the latest, bizarre twist in a lengthy bid by the spy agency to enforce an adverse security assessment.
It's arrested development for councils
EIGHTEEN NSW councils take an average of 100 days or more to process development applications, the Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, said yesterday.
Taxpayers' $95m bill for World Youth Day
AN ELEVENTH-hour compensation deal worth $41 million for the racing industry from taxpayers has given the Catholic Church the green light to stage the World Youth Day Papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse.
League greats dine metres from street shooting
MEMBERS of the Penrith Panthers rugby league coaching staff, including two club legends, found themselves metres away from a shooting in Leichhardt yesterday, in which one man is believed to have been wounded.
The rocky rise of a hard man to the top
SYDNEY lawyer Jack Grahame has known Ron Woodham for 35 years. He met the up-and-coming prison officer in the early 1970s, around the time Woodham was divorcing his first wife.
Battle over prison paper leaves little time to vote
NSW prisoners will have to wait until Wednesday next week before they know whether they can get a special edition of a newspaper for jail inmates that will advise them how they should vote in the federal election.
Tristar backs down over redundancy
A MARRICKVILLE car parts company that allegedly paid workers to do nothing rather than offer them their redundancy entitlements backed down yesterday after an 18-month industrial dispute.
Murdered man cited in kill threat, court told
THE Sydney business figure Jim Byrnes used the name of Max Gibson,
an associate who died in suspicious circumstances, to threaten a
Victorian businessman, the inquest into Gibson's death heard
yesterday.
Non-urgent patients not to blame: doctor
PATIENTS who could be treated by their GP but instead turn up to the emergency department at Royal North Shore Hospital cannot be blamed for worsening overcrowding, the hospital's head of emergency said in a submission to a NSW parliamentary inquiry.
Firefighters tell of struggle to rescue family
FIREFIGHTERS pulled a family of four from the burning wreck of their third-floor apartment in inner-city Sydney yesterday.
Police union boss suspended from the force
VICTORIA's police union heavyweight, Paul Mullett, has been suspended from the force after the head of a corruption inquiry said it was logical to assume he had interfered in a murder investigation.
Activists arrested after occupying power station
FIFTEEN Greenpeace activists who occupied a coal-fired power plant on the Central Coast to protest against the climate-change policies of the two main parties have been arrested.
Tourism hit by climate change fears
THE tourism industry wants to conquer the fears of Europeans that air travel - and therefore a flight to Australia - is a primary cause of global warming.
Experts ignored in climate funding
THE Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has sidestepped Australia's leading climate impact scientists and awarded $50 million in funding to a little-known Queensland research centre.
O Sister, where art thou?
A brother's search for his sister revealed the grisly truth behind a 20-year mystery, writes Debra Jopson.
Virtual vouchers make it safer to buy online
Online shopping holdouts can now buy virtual Visa vouchers to pay for internet purchases without the need for plastic cards or even a bank account.
