Senior Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot smuggled $25,000 into Iraq on behalf of Australia's biggest oil company and armed himself with high-powered pistols for protection Senator Lightfoot with Kurd fighters and an AK-47. Senator Ross Lightfoot has had more than a passing interest in Iraq during the past 12 months. He's been there twice – last year with a Woodside Energy representative and then in January with an Australian-based representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Simko Halmet. ; Lightfoot tells Senate: I didn't do it : Google on Lightfoot
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Project talks stall despite backlog
A high-level committee of eminent business leaders and five NSW Government ministers established by the Premier to fast-track urgent infrastructure projects has not met for 18 months, despite a backlog of public works.
The NSW Infrastructure Council was set up by Bob Carr in 2001 in response to private sector concerns that not enough was being done to build road, rail, water and energy facilities.
News of the council's demise comes in the wake of Mr Carr's failed attempt last Sunday to sell the 2004 capital works budget announcement as a new $30 billion infrastructure program.
• Coordination Unit [The Tax Office is cracking down on lawyers, accountants and other professionals using trusts to avoid paying tax, as John Howard insists the Government has been "very tough" on the rich Trusts under hammer as PM hints at tax cut ; We're beating the black economy: Tax Office Shades of black ; Eastern Europeans entrenched in black economy ]
• · The annual allowance for senators and members ; Larry Anthony moves from youth portfolio to childcare company, ABC ... ABC Learning Centres Ltd
• · · Diploma phonies used me: engineer ; OECD studies consistently indicate that failure to make an effective transition to permanent work or to full-time study is associated with long term risks of marginalisation Local investment: national returns ; Jennifer Talhelm of The State reviewed campaign contributions to South Carolina state lawmakers during the final six months of 2004, finding that “36 cents of every dollar … given to House and Senate lawmakers in the last two reporting periods of 2004 was tied to businesses, PACs or other special interest groups South Carolina Contributions
• · · · The F6 motorway from the Sutherland Shire to the city could be revived after the Roads Minister, Michael Costa, overturned his predecessor's decision to dump the $700 million road Scully buried it, now Costa resurrects F Six ; Casualizing, cobbling and e-Coping: Back to future cottage industries for older workers?
• · · · · Police Minister Carl Scully said he had written to Labor MP Jan Burnswoods, who chairs the upper house standing committee on social issues, requesting her committee to carry out an inquiry into the unrest About face: government now backs riot inquiry ; NSW Police officers involved in the Macquarie Fields riots today backed police chief Ken Moroney but condemned the state's opposition leader. Police back Moroney and blast Brogden
• · · · · · Argument raged today over immigration officers removing children from schools and locking them in detention centres Outcry over school 'raids' to detain children; Don't deport my son, detainee mother pleads