Vic bushwalker dies in rescue gone wrong

A MAN has fallen to his death while being winched to safety during a rescue operation in bushland northeast of Melbourne.

An air ambulance was sent after the man injured his leg while bushwalking near Mansfield at about 12.30pm (AEST) on Saturday.

The man fell as he was being winched to safety.

Ambulance Victoria CEO Greg Sassella said in a statement that Ambulance Victoria had immediately suspended winching operations and would assist all investigating authorities.

"Our thoughts and sympathies are with the man's family. We are also providing support to the flight crew and paramedics involved," Mr Sassella said.

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Coalition hiding costings: Bowen

Treasurer Chris Bowen says voters are being hindered by the Coalition's delay in releasing policies. Source: AAP

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott's decision to release a full list of election promises and costs late next week will leave voters scrambling to make an informed choice, the treasurer says.

Chris Bowen told reporters on Saturday morning the delay showed the coalition had something to hide.

"There are real questions to answer on the opposition's costings and where the cuts will come and we've seen Mr Abbott over the last 24 hours say, well, we'll release all of that at the end of next week," Mr Bowen said.

"Well hello, the election's next Saturday!"

Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos said the coalition had already released most of its costings.

"Once we've released all our policies then we're able to parcel them all up and see the budget bottom lines, the spends, the saves and the overall impact on the bottom line," he told ABC Radio.

But Mr Bowen said that strategy amounted to deception.

"If you're not going to put your cuts out until the last minute - after the advertising blackout, after people have had the chance to fully examine their cuts - then you are not being up front and honest with the Australian people," he told reporters.

Mr Bowen continued to back the government's "$10 billion fraud" claims about coalition policies.

He and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday released figures they said blew a hole in the savings the coalition says it will make by shedding 12,000 public servants, ending the low income superannuation contribution and abolishing the carbon tax.

In an extraordinary move, the heads of Treasury and Finance distanced their departments from Labor's statements, saying they had never assessed any coalition policies prior to the caretaker period.

On Saturday Mr Bowen directly contradicted them.

"We made it crystal clear... that we had commissioned this work, not the opposition, and two, that it was done before the election was called," he said.

He said he stood by the $10 billion black hole claims and that different assumptions - like whether a policy would begin on July 1 next year or be applied retrospectively - would lead to different outcomes.

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Teen refused bail over school stabbing

A 14-YEAR-OLD boy charged with stabbing another boy at school had the victim's name ticked off on a note titled "soul list" in his bedroom, a court has heard.

But the teen's lawyer has told the Brisbane Children's Court it was a playfully named note relating to a group of children selling lollies.

The boy was denied bail in court on Friday.

He has been charged with attempted murder after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed in the neck with a knife at Mt Maria College at Mitchelton, in Brisbane's north.

The stabbing happened in the school's auditorium on Thursday afternoon and sent the college into lockdown.

The 14-year-old's lawyer Adam Magill downplayed the significance of the list in court on Friday when he applied for his client's bail.

He said there were a number of people named on it including the complainant.

According to the boy's mother it was over a year old and related to a group of children involved in the selling of lollies, he added.

Outside court Mr Magill told reporters his client had been bullied by others at the Catholic school but would not elaborate.

"It appears to just be a set of facts which have spiralled out of control, unfortunately with some devastating consequences for everybody involved," he said.

The court also heard the teen allegedly talked with a friend about stabbing the victim in the hours before the attack.

The injured boy was taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital with non-life threatening injuries and his family have requested his condition be kept private.

Police charged the 14-year-old late on Thursday night.

In denying bail, Magistrate Leanne O'Shea said the stabbing appeared to have been premeditated and the teen needed supervision.

"With a child in this state I'm of the opinion it is an unacceptable risk to all people in society at the moment, including his parents," she told the court.

The boy is being held at a youth detention centre in Brisbane.

He was not in court on Friday although his parents were.

They are devastated, according to Mr Magill.

"They feel as though they've let their son down," he told the court.

He later told reporters the boy still had not grasped the gravity of his situation.

"I just don't think the penny's dropped at this point in time," he said.

"He's fully unaware of the ramifications of what's happening."

Mr Magill said there would likely be another application for bail.

The case is expected to return to court on October 17.

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Coalition drops fed Labor in ICAC

THE coalition has seized on a new report by the NSW anti-corruption body as evidence federal Labor needs time out from government to clean up its act.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Friday found that former NSW Labor government mines minister Ian Macdonald corruptly granted Doyles Creek Mining consent to apply for a coal exploration licence.

It found the grants were "substantially for the purpose of benefiting" the company's chairman, John Maitland, a mining union boss and "mate" of Mr Macdonald.

Two federal Labor members, former industry minister Greg Combet and parliamentary secretary Senator Doug Cameron, gave evidence at the inquiry.

No findings were made against them.

However the coalition on Friday launched a new television advertisement weaving a thread between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former NSW premier and now Foreign Minister Bob Carr, Deputy Prime Minister and NSW Labor powerbroker Anthony Albanese, newly appointed senator and former NSW Labor secretary Sam Dastyari and Mr Macdonald.

"Labor still stinks," the ad concludes.

Alleged corruption in the NSW ALP is damaging the government's prospects of retaining key marginal seats at the September 7 election.

Mr Rudd told reporters in Perth on Friday he supported ICAC's work.

"That is why I commissioned federal intervention into the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party," he said.

The prime minister said the intervention had led to "fundamental rule changes" to stamp out corruption in the branch.

Mr Rudd hit back at the Liberal party, accusing the candidate for McMahon, former police officer Ray King, of taking a political donation from disgraced former police detective Roger Rogerson.

"What is the truth here and what are the standards being applied to Mr Abbott?" Mr Rudd said.

Mr King says Labor is engaged in "reputation assassination".

NSW Labor leader John Robertson said the findings would affect the federal campaign.

"But these people are smart enough to distinguish between state issues and federal issues and I'm sure that they will be able to distinguish between the two Saturday week," he said.

The ICAC report tabled in the NSW parliament on Friday said Senator Cameron, who was the national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, had observed Mr Macdonald and Mr Maitland were "good mates".

The report said Mr Combet, who is retiring at the September 7 election, had written a letter of support for Mr Maitland's project to Mr Macdonald in September 2008.

Mr Combet told the inquiry Mr Maitland had spoken with him about a "training mine" in the Hunter Valley.

But he said there had been no discussion about the detail of the project, and the end product was "completely different from what he had been told by Mr Maitland".

Senator Doug Cameron told AAP on Friday there was never any prospect of findings being made against him.

He said ICAC had made it clear he was there to help the inquiry and was not a person of interest.

"They in fact thanked me for the evidence and help and said I was an impressive witness," he said.

Senator Cameron said Mr Combet also was not a person of interest in the inquiry.

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Obama hails King on anniversary

US President Barack Obama has hailed Martin Luther King Jr for saving America from oppression but says "constant vigilance" is needed to keep the civil rights icon's dream of equality alive.

Fifty years after the "I have a dream speech", America's first black president stood poignantly on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where King made an appearance in 1963 which changed history.

"He offered a salvation path for oppressed and oppressors alike," Obama said, in a ringing address, which he admitted beforehand would not match King's oratory.

"His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time," Obama said.

Obama also remembered the thousands of African Americans who joined King's March on Washington to demand their rights and to wake their country's "long slumbering conscience".

The president, who has faced some criticism for not doing more to help the African American community, which remains plagued by poverty and barriers to advancement, dismissed arguments that little had changed for blacks since King spoke.

"To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed - that dishonours the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years," he said.

But, in the speech below the monument honouring Abraham Lincoln, the president who ended slavery, Obama also argued that much work remained to be done for King's dream to be fulfilled.

"We would dishonour those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete," Obama said.

"The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn't bend on its own."

Obama delivered his speech next to a giant bell that was salvaged from an Alabama Church where four young girls were killed in an arson attack in 1963.

The president was joined at the ceremony by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, revered civil rights leaders like King confidant John Lewis and members of the King family.

Carter bemoaned the "racist bullet" that claimed King's life in 1968.

Clinton said that it was time to open the "stubborn gates" barring wider opportunity.

"The choice remains as it was on that distant summer day 50 years ago. Co-operate and thrive or fight with each other and fall behind."

The march helped set the stage for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed major forms of racial discrimination, followed a year later by the Voting Rights Act, designed to guarantee the franchise for all black US citizens.

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Boy asked for maths help, teacher gave sex

AFTER more than 20 years in the profession, a "huge need to feel love" caused a teacher to turn to a teenage student for sex.

The 51-year-old known only as EP sobbed as she told Sydney's District Court on Thursday why she began having sex with the 15-year-old boy.

Following the breakdown of an unhappy marriage in 2006, the woman said she became depressed and suicidal.

"I felt that the last eight years of my marriage that my husband didn't love who I was and just liked me being around as a housewife," she told her sentence hearing.

"I had this huge need to feel love and it was a distorted view of what I thought I needed."

While in this frame of mind, she interpreted the boy's request for help with maths "totally inappropriately".

"I thought I read them as someone loving me or seeing me as someone of value."

The woman, who has pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse, embarked on a series of encounters with the boy over a period of two months in 2008.

Sometimes EP, herself a mother of three, would pick the boy up in her car with other students but would ensure he was dropped off last.

In 2011 an anonymous phone call sparked an investigation into the matter and brought an end to her 27 years as a maths and religion teacher.

Since then the woman recounted how she has struggled to hold down work, with another anonymous tip-off alerting a former employer to the charges.

She said she had "feelings of total disgust about what I had done", adding, "It is really hard trying to like myself again."

In a victim impact statement read to court, the now 20-year-old man said the experience with his former teacher continued to affect him.

"When I was 15 she made me feel excited and powerful but as I matured I felt ashamed, angry, guilty and confused."

Anger management issues, post traumatic stress symptoms and depression are just some of the side-effects that continue to plague him.

Defence barrister Peter Gow said his client was remorseful, had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and had good prospects of rehabilitation.

He also submitted the offences were of the "low to mid" range, with EP using no force, coercion or pressure.

"She has certainly brought things on herself. But she has lived with the stigma of what she has done."

But Judge Colin Charteris said "parents do not send their children to school to become sexual opportunities for teachers".

The woman wept as two Corrective Services officers entered the court and Judge Charteris said no sentence other than a period of full-time imprisonment was appropriate.

She was taken into custody and will be sentenced on Monday.

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Beach Energy forecasts growth

BEACH Energy says it will boost spending and production this year after achieving a better than expected full year profit and lifting dividends.

Net profit of $153.7 million in the 2012/13 financial year was down 6.4 per cent from the previous year, but was higher than analysts had expected.

Beach Energy blamed the fall partly on a drop in the market value of its convertible notes - bonds that can be converted into shares - which had gained in value the previous year.

The company's grew underlying profit in 2012/13 rose by 15 per cent to a record $141 million.

Managing Director Reg Nelson said he expected underlying profit to improve further as oil production increases, Australian dollar oil prices strengthens, and new gas sales contracts began.

Beach Energy has forecast a rise in oil and gas production in the 2013/14 financial year of up to 16 per cent, to between 8.7 million to 9.3 million barrels of oil equivalent.

That rise will be driven by its Western Flank oil portfolio in the Cooper Basin.

Beach Energy is Australia's sixth largest oil producer and the largest net oil producer in the Cooper Basin, with current oil production of more than 10,000 barrels a day out of the Western Flank assets.

Gas production is expected to increase by 30 per cent by 2015, with Beach Energy saying it was well placed given the worries about a domestic supply crisis in natural gas when Australia's large gas projects begin exporting in the next couple of years.

Beach recently struck a sales agreement with Origin Energy for up to 139 petajoules gas for eight years.

The company forecasts its capital expenditure to jump by up to 13 per cent in 2013/14 to $420 million to $480 million, including a 35 per cent increase in drilling activity and work on its shale projects.

Beach will pay its shareholders a final dividend of two cents per share for the 2012/13 year, up from 1.5 cents in the previous year.

The company's shares were flat at $1.355 at 1148 AEST.

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IAG names new Asia boss

INSURANCE Australia Group has appointed a new head of its Asian operations after the current boss was named its new chief risk officer.

The company behind NRMA Insurance and CGU said Justin Breheny, IAG's current chief executive in Asia, will return to Australia to be chief risk officer from October 1.

He will be replaced in Asia by Duncan Brain, the deputy Asia chief executive.

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US panda birthed live cub and stillborn

A PANDA at Washington's National Zoo which has been tending to her squealing newborn cub has also given birth to a stillborn cub that wasn't fully formed, a zoo official says.

Mei Xiang gave birth to the motionless cub on Saturday night after giving birth to its live twin the night before, zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said.

The mother groomed her stillborn cub for 17 minutes before letting it fall to the floor, she said.

The panda still hasn't let zoo staffers get close enough to get a good look at her live cub but it was squealing throughout and appears to be doing well, Baker-Masson said.

The zoo began performing a necropsy on the stillborn cub late on Saturday in the hope this will explain why the cub stopped developing and died in-utero, she said.

When caretakers do get to check out the live cub, which is the size of a stick of butter, they will try to listen to its heart and lungs, record its weight and collect a DNA sample.

Brandie Smith, the zoo's curator of mammals, said she and others are "cautiously optimistic" about that cub's health.

She compared the planned exam to a race car pit stop - a fast and highly choreographed checkup before reuniting mum and cub.

The live cub was the 15-year-old panda's third. Mei Xiang gave birth to a cub last year which died after just six days. Its lungs hadn't fully developed and likely weren't sending enough oxygen to its liver. Mei Xiang's first cub, a male named Tai Shan, was born in 2005.

Zoo staff have made several changes in preparation for the new cub. Mei Xiang's den was altered to allow keepers to get closer and the zoo invited a panda expert from China who specialises in newborns to help.

Two of the zoo's panda keepers also recently spent time in China learning more about examining newborns.

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Loans to boost apprenticeship rates: TAFE

A COALITION plan to give young apprentices $20,000 interest free loans is a "novel" way to boost training numbers and address cost-of-living issues for students, educators say.

Mr Abbott announced the apprentice loans at the coalition campaign launch in Brisbane, saying they would encourage young Australians to start, stay in and finish a trade.

The $85 million four-year pledge would provide trade apprentices with the payments, which like the university FEE-HELP scheme, would be paid back after they complete their training.

The loans were "a hand-up, not a handout" that will help meet the country's skills needs for the next 40 years, Mr Abbott said.

Peak body TAFE Directors Australia said only half of apprenticeships were completed, with lack of disposable income cited as a major disincentive.

"One of the largest issues in exit interviews given has been that disposable income has been really tight," chief executive Martin Riordan told AAP on Sunday.

"We have a critical issue in terms of apprenticeship numbers and if the economy were to have some sort of recovery the first thing we will have is a skills shortage."

The $20,000 loans will be split into four tranches, with $8000 offered in the first year, $6000 in the second, and $4000 and $2000 in the third and fourth.

Apprentices who complete their training would be given a 20 per cent discount on the loans.

"This will be available to the 60,000 mostly young Australians who next year will start learning the trade skills that are in short supply - the electrical, plumbing, carpentry, cooking, welding and mechanical apprenticeships," Mr Abbott said.

"Choosing a trade, no less than going to university, is a good way to make something of your life."

Labor and the Greens criticised the plan, saying the coalition should be pledging more money for the TAFE system.

Labor accused Mr Abbott of harbouring plans to cut $1.1 billion from Trade Training Centres, and said the Rudd government was already providing assistance through programs such as the $5500 Tools for your Trade payment.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne accused the coalition of pushing costs onto students in a bid to privatise vocational education.

"Opposition Leader Tony Abbott should increase TAFE funding as it is not much use having tools if there are no quality training courses available," Senator Milne said.

Group Training Australia, which claims to be the largest employer network of apprentices and trainees in the country, said the loans plan would help lower apprentice drop-out rates.

Importantly, the policy proposal acknowledges apprentices up-front needs, "as well as their capacity to repay down the track, once qualified, and only when it is financially possible to do so," chief executive Jim Barron said in a statement.

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