Media wrap - Did he or didn't he; will they or won't they - Sex and climate change





THE FRONT PAGES

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Leadership

Malcolm Turnbull faces acid test on climate change - It is crunch time for the Government's bid to introduce an emissions trading scheme and the fate of the legislation will depend on Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull winning over a clear majority of his Opposition colleagues – Sydney Daily Telegraph

Malcolm Turnbull faces down climate change sceptics – Malcolm Turnbull will today demand troublemakers in his party end the dissent and back a hard-fought deal on climate change that gives more compensation to big polluters – Brisbane Courier Mail

Liberal rebels in threat to Turnbull on emissions – Malcolm Turnbull's leadership was under renewed pressure last night as a former senior minister declared the Liberal Party was ''paralysed'' over the emissions trading bill and dissident MPs canvassed the possibility of ousting him – Melbourne Age

Turnbull cuts a deal – Malcolm Turnbull will fight for his political life today by urging his severely divided party to vote for an emissions trading scheme after he cut a deal with the Government last night. With the Liberal Party at boiling point, the former minister Kevin Andrews declared himself a leadership candidate should Mr Turnbull be brought down, while the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, turned up the heat on Mr Turnbull to get his party over the line – Sydney Morning Herald


Anger threatens powder-keg meeting – Denis Shanahan writes in The Australian that Malcolm Turnbull may have a deal with Kevin Rudd on an emissions trading scheme, but he's sitting on a powder keg of Coalition frustration and anger that could even turn into a leadership spill at this morning's partyroom meeting in Parliament House.

Political life

Ex-barmaid Michelle Chantelois challenges South Australian Premier Mike Rann to take lie-detector test over sex claims - In a scandal that has captured the nation, Michelle Chantelois called South Australian Premier Mike Rann sleazy while he insisted it was flirty.

SA Premier Mike Rann had 'sex affair with married woman' – Former Parliament House waitress Michelle Chantelois has challenged Mike Rann to take a lie detector test over her claims they had a long-running affair. The Premier yesterday put his career in the political crosshairs by vigorously denying claims by Ms Chantelois that the pair had sex in his parliamentary office and beside a public golf course – Adelaide Advertiser


SA Premier talks tough over sex claims – The tale of the Premier and the parliamentary barmaid who spilled all to Channel Seven is turning into a classic tale of she said, he said - with the leader yesterday insisting he had ''not had sex with her'' – Melbourne Age

Mike Rann denies sex claims – Michelle Chantelois has vowed to take a lie detector test after Mike Rann yesterday vigorously denied he had ever had sex with the former parliamentary waitress and dismissed the allegations against him as "sensationalist" and "totally false" – The Australian

Barmaid's estranged husband Richard Wayne Phillips says he's 'grateful' to Michelle Chantelois - Richard Wayne Phillips says his estranged wife went public about her alleged affair with Mike Rann because she wanted to counter suggestions he was an abusive husband and a thug – The Australian

Devil's in the elaborate detail of a he-said, she-said standoff – So it comes to this: does Michelle Chantelois have the equivalent of Monica Lewinsky's stained blue dress tucked away? – The Australian

Immigration

People smugglers reveal their secret methods – Arabic news network Al Jazeera has broadcast a report claiming to expose the methods used by people smugglers operating between Indonesia and AustraliaBrisbane Courier Mail

'Special team' to assess Oceanic Viking Sri Lankan asylum-seekers – A team of five Australian immigration officers has been assembled from posts around the region to process the claims of the 78 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers rescued by the Oceanic Viking, fuelling claims of a special deal – The Australian

Hospitals

Nursing staff levels at crisis point – Nurses have threatened to sue the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service over workload issues. Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Elizabeth Dabars says nurses, particularly at the Lyell McEwin and Royal Adelaide Hospitals, are so overworked patient safety is at risk – Adelaide Advertiser

Economic matters

Pensioners lose out in cost of living index - The latest tailored ''employed persons'' cost of living index shows that prices facing Australians who had jobs actually fell 1 per cent in the year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. It's the biggest fall in the decade since the figures have been compiled. By contrast the living costs facing aged pensioners climbed 2 per cent and those facing self-funded retirees rose 1.6 per cent – Melbourne Age

Scientology

Xenophon frustrated in Scientology pursuit – The Church of Scientology is denying claims by Nick Xenophon of a cover-up, while the senator remains frustrated in his call for a parliamentary inquiry into the religion – Sydney Morning Herald

Sports funding

Legal row over sport funding report – The Australian Olympic Committee is preparing legal action against a company behind the Federal Government's report into the future of Australian sport. The Crawford report, which calls for a shift in funding away from Olympic sports towards professional and ''national pysche'' sports, paid for advice from a company part-owned by former AFL star James Hird – Sydney Morning Herald

Lurks and perks

Call to simplify Parliament's perks – The complex array of pay, benefits and allowances for federal MPs should be simplified and brought into line with contemporary workplace standards, says the president of the Remuneration Tribunal, John Conde. But Mr Conde warns that any streamlining of existing benefits such as the Life Gold Pass, which provides free travel for former MPs, would have to preserve the overall value of the remuneration package for parliamentarians – Sydney Morning Herald

Pre-selections

One Nation candidate must go, says ALP – The Government has called on the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, to disendorse a former president of One Nation's national youth wing, Chris Spence, as the Liberal candidate in the seat of The Entrance – Sydney Morning Herald

Opinions

Statistics con the final nail in Rudd’s climate change coffin – Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on the publication of leaked e-mails which he says certainly appear to demonstrate that a group of the most prominent scientists advising the United Nations on global warming have systematically manipulated data to support their argument that global warming is both genuine and caused by humans.

Disagreeable truth about the coming Copenhagen charade – Peter Hartcher writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that world leaders are displaying a disturbing symptom known as ''concerted unilateralism'' which is a sophisticated way of saying that countries can do whatever the hell they like, but they will write something pompous about it first. And they will all do it together. This is precisely the symptom that world leaders are now displaying ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit - the so-called COP15 - in two weeks.

Devilish ETS a scheme nobody should vote for – Terry McCrann in the Melbourne Herald Sun reckons that anyone in the parliament who votes for the Emissions Trading Scheme is betraying not just common sense but the country. They are voting for something that will seriously (and pointlessly) hurt every single Australian.

ETS a rush to judgement – The Melbourne Herald Sun in an editorial argues that a decision is not necessary before the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

Clumsy scheme, but there are no other options – Queensland Liberal Senator Sue Boyce writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that the CPRS is a clumsy mechanism but it is the only option on the table and it should be passed - hopefully with amendments that will not unfairly and unnecessarily put businesses and industry at an unfair disadvantage and destroy jobs.

In this climate, it's stupid to air your dirty linen – Gerard Henderson says in the Sydney Morning Herald that this week the Coalition should not be the political news. Yet it is, due to the insistence of the Coalition and, in particular the Liberal Party, to conduct internal arguments and disagreements in the media.

Vital issue is truth, not sex – A Susie O’Brien in the Melbourne Herald Sun asks if politicians are lying about events in their private life, what are they lying about in their public life?

Lies, damn lies and political spin – Tory Shepherd writes in the Adelaide Advertiser that what should be ringing the bell of doom is the way he immediately went into classic Rann mode. The way he swung into premeditated and carefully crafted sentences. A reporter asked him if he knew Rick Phillips, the man who allegedly thwacked him crossways with the Winestate magazine. "I've never met him before," Mr Rann said, then added he did not know why Mr Phillips attacked him. And that one little nugget arguably encapsulates the Rann Government's entire approach to the truth. Statements can be literally true, and simultaneously deceptive.

Sex life of politicians leaves little to desire – Rick Feneley in the Sydney Morning Herald explains how historically, Australia's media, unlike that in Britain and the United States, has been notably incurious about politicians' private sexual lives. Indeed, this has been the case for Mr Rann - until now.

Hot and bothered – Brendan O’Keefe writes in The Australian that change sceptics have pounced on the mass release by hackers of emails between climate scientists that appear to portray the scientists as fudgers and obfuscators of data and as plotters who would undermine their opponents' work.

Copenhagen deserves to fail – Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson writes in The Australian that the greatest error in the present conventional wisdom is that, if you accept the (present) majority scientific view that most of the modest global warming in the last quarter of the past century - about half a degree centigrade - was caused by man-made carbon emissions, then you must also accept that we have to decarbonise our economies. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have no idea whether the majority scientific view (and it is far from a consensus) is correct. Certainly, it is curious that, whereas their models predicted an acceleration in global warming this century as the growth in emissions accelerated, so far this century there has been no further warming at all. But the present majority view may still be right.

Tying down the householder in green tape – Malcolm Colless in The Australian says that as Canberra wrestles with the issue of an emissions trading scheme, federal and state bureaucracies are busily running out environmental red tape that poses a real and present economic threat unlike the hocus-pocus around global warming.

Hefty price tag for our sporting obsession – Richard Evans in the Sydney Morning Herald remembers how the poor results at the Montreal Olympics led to the creation of the Australian Institute of Sport.

Private college system a fiasco in need of a fix - Students have as many complaints about the big colleges as they do about the small ones. And many of these complaints arise from college operators putting profits ahead of education and welfare - something federal and state governments have condemned – Melbourne Age

Century-old lessons return to haunt modern-day Liberals – Paul Strangio writes in the Melbourne Age on the 100th anniversary of the Labor versus non-Labor party system within which politics has largely been played out in Australia ever since.

BUSINESS

De Bortoli's new red leaves a sour taste – De Bortoli one of Australia's largest private wine groups, has crashed into the red, posting a net loss of $1.6 million after saturated markets drained its margins and a slowing global economy triggered investment and foreign currency losses. The third-generation family business established in 1928 is not the only Australian wine company to buckle under the weight of the sector's chronic oversupply of grapes, which has helped flood the market with cheap product – Sydney Morning Herald

ENVIRONMENT


Email scandal rallies web climate sceptics - In one of thousands of emails and documents stolen from the British University of East Anglia last week, Professor Jones tells colleagues he has completed the ''trick of adding in the real temps'' for the last 20 years ''to hide the decline'' – Melbourne Age

LIFE

Child abuse

Prove your boy is an Aborigine, DOCS demands – A blond, blue-eyed baby suffered 18 broken bones, torn retinas and head injuries in a spectacular failure of DOCS reforms. The eleven-month-old boy had been assessed in the lowest risk category in the lead up to the injuries, which caused him to "die" twice before being revived on the way to hospital in March – Sydney Daily Telegraph

The drink

Q1 residents demand Schoolies ban after drunk threats – Residents of one of the Gold Coast's best known high-rises are calling for Schoolies to be banned after a hellish first 48 hours of "bedlam" in their residential building – Brisbane Courier Mail

Brisbane nightclubs to introduce fingerprint scanning - Five venues in the Fortitude Valley precinct will be introducing new fingerprinting scanning systems by the end of February in a bid to curb alcohol-fuelled violence – Brisbane Courier Mail

The drugs

Aussie troops not drug addicts, says chief – The Australian Defence Force has rebuffed claims soldiers were using illicit drugs and becoming addicted while deployed on tours of duty in AfghanistanNorthern Territory News



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