Battle for Melbourne will be close: Bandt

Greens leader Christine Milne is confident her party can pick up seats in the Senate. Source: AAP

THE battle to retain the Australian Greens' only lower house seat will come down to a handful of votes, deputy leader Adam Bandt says.

Mr Bandt is confident of claiming victory against Labor's Cath Bowtell in the seat of Melbourne which he holds by a six per cent margin, but admits it will be a close call.

"We've probably got our noses in front at this point but it is going to be very close and it will come down to a handful of votes," he said outside a polling booth in Melbourne.

In 2010, Mr Bandt wrested the seat from Labor for the first time in a century but won via Liberal preferences.

This time the Liberals have preferenced the Greens last and the minor party needs a four per cent boost in primary votes to win.

"We know that we are trying to do something that hasn't been done before and that is win a lower house seat here in our own right," Mr Bandt said.

Mr Bandt says voters "certainly don't want Tony Abbott" and are fed up in a race to the bottom by the major parties.

He says voters have a choice between a Labor backbencher likely to be in a demoralised opposition or a party who will be in the balance of power in the Senate and be an insurance against Mr Abbott's "brutal" agenda.

"Unlike the Labor Party, I won't vote Tony Abbott to send refugees offshore," he said.

Ms Bowtell agrees voters are worried about getting a Liberal government, but only Labor can form government and protect voters from what she says will be the impacts of the East West tunnel, expand the rail network and invest in education.

"The only party that can form government and keep the Liberals out is the Labor Party," she said, after casting her vote in Melbourne.

She says the Greens are making lots of pledges they cannot deliver on.

"The Greens are promising lots of things but that is a dishonest promise that you make to people because the Greens will not form government and you have to form government to do the things that people want," she said.

"If I'm elected, I'll be a strong voice in the Labor caucus in government or in the alternative government and really, at election day, we choose the government."

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Cowboy hats popular at outback Qld polling

Many locals in Mount Isa turned out to vote in similar attire to Akubra-wearing MP Bob Katter (L). Source: AAP

FOR veteran federal MP Bob Katter election day is less stress and more catching up with old mates.

"You look good, you don't even look like you've had a heart attack," he said to one local man as he left a Mount Isa polling booth in Queensland's northwest.

As Mr Katter has held the seat of Kennedy since 1993, it's not surprising that he greets many in his political heartland by their first name.

He spent Saturday morning handing out how-to-vote cards and catching up with old mates outside Mount Isa Central State School.

Many locals turned out in similar attire to the Akubra-wearing MP.

"I better shake your hand before stealing your vote," Mr Katter's son Robbie, a state MP, said to a mate heading into the polling station.

Others were annoyed by being given up to four how-to-vote cards by various party volunteers outside the school.

"It's a waste of bloody paper," one woman said.

Katter Snr says he's had more positive feedback this election day than on any other.

"But as I've said, I've never gone into an election feeling confident," he told AAP.

Political analysts say Mr Katter will keep his lower house seat of Kennedy, and star candidate country musician James Blundell may pick up a Senate seat in Queensland.

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Lawyers defrauding PNG: attorney-general

DODGY lawyers have siphoned off as much as 1 billion kina (about $A425 million) from PNG's public coffers, the country's attorney-general says.

Kerenga Kua has told a law seminar in Port Moresby lawyers are using their skills and education to rip off the country.

"I don't want to pick figures out of the blue," the National reported him as saying on Friday.

"I think in the last six years or so, lawyers would have been involved and assisted in committing fraud against the state that could be easily estimated to be close to kina 1 billion."

Mr Kua was speaking on the subject of ethics and court etiquette at the PNG Law society.

He said some of PNG's 1100 registered lawyers were failing the rules of ethical or professional conduct.

Mr Kua was until 2012 a principal lawyer in law firm Posman, Kua, Aisi Lawyers.

He played a key roll in the 2011/12 political turmoil in PNG, representing the ousted government of Sir Michael Somare in court.

After the 2012 election, he was appointed attorney-general by his one-time legal opponent, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

Mr Kua said the fight against corruption in PNG is going slowly because of a lack of resources.

"We cannot move on everybody because of the limited resources and skills that are available to the government," he said.

He added the government will act in the coming weeks and months to clean up the legal landscape.

"All the talking has got to come to a stop one day," he said.

Mr Kua's comments come just weeks after secretary to the government Theo Zurenouc told an anti-corruption forum in PNG's second largest city, Lae, the government was preparing to table legislation for an independent commission against corruption.

Mr Kua has also stated he wants the commission to have teeth and be able to follow cases through to prosecution "for better or for worse". The head of the government's anti-corruption watchdog Taskforce Sweep, Sam Koim, recently revealed as much as 40 per cent of public funds is squandered or lost to corruption annually.

In 2010, then-prime minister Sir Michael Somare tabled a commission of inquiry report into PNG's department of finance, which he said would make readers "shudder in awe" at the level of corruption revealed.

The report made 75 recommendations after revealing half a billion kina had been spent on questionable deals.

The day after Sir Michael tabled the report, the court placed a ban on its publication and implementation, following a challenge by former solicitor-general Zachery Gelu and lawyer Paul Paraka.

That injunction is now being challenged in the courts.

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Hockey ready to tackle Labor's debt

Joe Hockey concedes a coalition government would face a mountainous job paying down Labor's debt. Source: AAP

SHADOW treasurer Joe Hockey concedes a coalition government would face a mountainous job paying down Labor's debt.

But if opinion polls are correct and the coalition romps into government on Saturday, one of his first tasks as treasurer would be to legislate to increase the $300 billion debt ceiling.

This is because the budget under Labor deteriorated by $33 billion in 11 weeks between the May budget and early August, and that means the ceiling looks set to be breached before Christmas.

"It's not something we want to do ... (but) you cannot leave the markets in an uncertain position about the management of the debt," Mr Hockey told reporters in Melbourne.

The coalition says it will improve the budget bottom line by $6 billion over the next four years, while paying off $16 billion of debt.

Mr Hockey concedes that paying off Labor's debt can't happen overnight.

"This is a mountain to climb," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said a Labor government would just keep "maxing out" the national credit card.

"What we need to do is to turn this around from a situation where we are constantly living beyond our means, to a situation where we start living within our means, paying back the debt," he said.

Former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan responded by asking 'If Labor was spending too much, what were the coalition going to cut?'

"If they are elected they are going to have a 'commission of cuts' to hack into health and education," Mr Swan told reporters in his Queensland seat of Lilley, referring to the coalition's planned commission of audit into government expenditure.

Treasurer Chris Bowen continued his attack on the coalition's costings, released on Thursday, saying the inadequate documents had "holes all over the place".

The policies include scrapping the carbon and mining taxes, reducing growth in foreign aid, implementing a more generous paid parental leave scheme and massive road-building funding.

"This is a squib of a document, this is dodgy maths," he told ABC radio on Friday.

But former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello believes Australians have already made up their minds who they will vote for.

"People are going to decide, really, on whether they think this government's been a good government or a bad government," he told the Nine Network.

"Most people have made up their minds and I don't think they'll be worrying too much about costings in the last 24 hours."

HSBC Australia economists said the coalition's costings suggest there is little difference between the main parties' budget bottom lines, despite their different proposed approaches, in particular over mining and carbon taxes.

Commonwealth Securities chief economist Craig James said the best result on Saturday will be a clear election result.

"Removal of uncertainty is important for investors, businesses and consumers," Mr James said in a note to clients.

"There are good reasons to expect a stronger Australian economy once the election uncertainty is resolved."

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Hockey announces $6bn budget improvement

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey will release the coalition's full list of costings on Thursday. Source: AAP

SHADOW treasurer Joe Hockey says a coalition government will make some $40 billion of savings, if it wins the federal election.

Mr Hockey and coalition finance spokesman Andrew Robb on Thursday announced another $9 billion tranche of savings, on top of the $31.6 billion worth announced last week.

They also announced $33 billion of proposed expenditure and said the budget bottom line would be improved by $6 billion under a coalition government.

"Only the coalition will live within its means and get Australia back on the path of strong economic growth," they said in a statement.

The coalition is also promising a $16 billion reduction in government debt over the budget forward estimates.

It has submitted about 200 policies to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) and says its figures have been assessed by three public finance experts.

These are Geoff Carmody, co-founder of Access Economics; Len Scanlan, a former Queensland auditor-general; and Professor Peter Shergold, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The PBO found its plan to abolish the carbon tax would deliver a $1.1 billion contribution to the budget because of an associated surge in economic growth.

Mr Hockey and Mr Robb said the coalition's "prudent" economic plans would leave the budget better off and generate stronger growth.

"We have been careful and methodical in our assessment of our savings and responsible and prudent in our spending promises," they said.

A key part of the coalition's strategy is a major infrastructure package, involving almost $5 billion of additional funding over the forward estimates period on key projects.

"Unlike Labor we have not shifted important projects well off into the never-never," they said.

However, it wasn't feasible to continue with the current rate of growth in Australia's foreign aid budget.

A coalition would cut this growth and instead index future increases to the consumer price index.

This would free up $4.5 billion, which would be allocated to other coalition priorities, including road projects.

As previously announced, the coalition also plans to cut the company tax rate to 28.5 per cent, from 30 per cent.

It will also ditch Labor's $1.8 billion changes to fringe-benefit tax arrangements on vehicles.

The coalition has previously said Australia is facing a "budget emergency".

Asked whether a $6 billion budget improvement was enough to offset this, Mr Hockey said: "I don't see a $6 billion improvement in the budget bottom line as trivial."

"I see it as significant," he said.

"We are turning around the direction of the budget.

"Under Labor the deficits are getting bigger and the debt is getting bigger."

Mr Hockey said the current rate of increase in foreign aid funding couldn't continue.

"We have to cut the growth in foreign aid to fund Australian infrastructure, because the stronger the Australian economy, the more generous we can be in the future," he said.

He denied the coalition was breaking Australia's commitment to foreign aid.

"No, it's Labor that has broken it's promise every year in relation to foreign aid, every year," he said.

Mr Hockey said fixing the federal balance sheet had to come before the Millennium Development goal to increase foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of gross national income (GNI).

"We still are committed to the millennium goals but we've got to fix our budget first," he said.

"We are determined to fix this Australian budget and if we fix the Australian budget we can be more generous with foreign aid - I can't give you a timetable on that."

The current Labor government budget has committed Australia to boosting foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2017/18.

The aid budget was $5.7 billion in 2013/14.

Mr Hockey also said he hoped Australia's unemployment rate won't reach 6.25 per cent, as forecast by Treasury, under the coalition's strategy if it won government.

The "worst thing" a government could do was cause jobs losses.

"We've got to do everything we can to arrest the increase in the unemployment rate," he said, adding that improving growth would take the jobless rate down.

The coalition will provide more money for health, education, agriculture and disadvantaged regions, as well as fairer indexation of veterans military superannuation, policies to increase workforce participation, and more secure borders.

"When Australians head to the polls on Saturday there need not be any doubt in their minds about how we will pay for our policies and improve the budget position," it said.

The Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook prepared by Treasury and Finance projected a run of budget deficits before 2016/17 when a surplus of $4.2 billion is expected.

The coalition's figures show they expect to be able to improve that surplus figure by $576 million.

Mr Hockey said a coalition government would increase funding for health and education, despite what the prime minister said.

"Kevin Rudd said cut, cut, cut. We are not cutting health, we are not cutting education, and we're not cutting defence. As you can see our numbers are plainly there," he said.

Asked whether an incoming Abbott government would have a mini-budget, Mr Hockey said: "If the Australian people endorse us on Saturday I'd say we will talk about that afterwards."

Mr Hockey said the coalition was looking for voters to "end the chaos in Canberra".

"No more minority parties, no more waste, no more lies from Labor - the Labor party is broken and the Australian people have a chance on Saturday to reclaim their country."

Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had an absolute problem with the coalition slashing $4.5 billion from foreign aid to fund infrastructure projects.

"We don't know where all that money is being spent, they say it's for infrastructure," Mr Albanese told Sky News.

"It doesn't add up. At the same time they are ripping $8 billion out from the infrastructure budget."

He said it was no wonder Mr Hockey was melting down on national television while announcing the savings.

"I mean if I was standing there talking about infrastructure when we were cutting $8 billion from the infrastructure budget, I'd be melting down as well," he said.

"It was a farcical performance."

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WA police ready for massive Rebels run

UP to 1000 Rebels bikies preparing to descend on Perth for their national run have been warned not to enter pubs or clubs during their time in Western Australia.

WA police will launch a massive operation from Thursday as they anticipate the arrival of hundreds of Rebels members from all over Australia and beyond.

Chapters from across the country have begun congregating in preparation for the run across the Nullarbor, with the bikies expected to arrive in Perth on Monday or Tuesday next week.

Up to 1000 patched members of the gang will be met with the state's biggest police presence since the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011.

Gang members have been warned that they will be barred from any licensed premises under a section of the state's liquor licensing act referring to those "known to be, or associates of, a reputed thief, prostitute, supplier of unlawful drugs, or person convicted of an offence involving unlawful drugs or violence".

Detective Senior Sergeant Jeff Christmass said he was expecting no trouble from the Rebels, who are set to be led by national president Alex Vella.

"WA police have been planning for this for many months, and we don't expect there to be any trouble - but having said that motorcycle gangs are always unpredictable," Sgt Christmass said.

"We are prepared to do anything we need to do to make the community safe. From the minute they cross the WA border, we will be shadowing them."

The Rebels will be met by hundreds of officers from units including the state's armed Tactical Response Group to be managed by the gang crime squad.

They will be followed from the WA border into Perth, where they are expected to congregate at the Rebels' WA clubhouse in Osborne Park, which will be watched 24 hours a day.

Airports will also be monitored for Rebels from international chapters arriving.

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Vic MFB takes firefighting to new heights

MELBOURNE firefighters will be able to cut emergency response times by using remote-controlled aircraft to hover over fires and relay live images.

As part of a one-year trial, the MFB will use two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which carry a camera into the air above an incident.

The aircraft can send high-quality images and thermal imaging back to a controller and help gather information for tactical decision making.

MFB commander Will Glenn said on Tuesday the technology will sharpen response times for units in critical incidents.

"If the trial is successful, UAVs could improve our ability to rapidly gather a more complete overview of an emergency situation with their rapid deployment, manoeuvrability and ability to provide real-time imagery to the incident management team," he said.

The craft, which are owned and operated by MFB, have already been used in emergency situations.

One helped gather information when a truck driver fell from the Bolte Bridge in a horror smash in May, and another was used last December at a fire at a Ringwood recycling centre.

Mr Glenn said the devices will also allow management teams to locate and monitor the positions of their crews and resources.

"Currently, MFB's capacity to undertake aerial monitoring and intelligence gathering during an incident is via ladder platforms, which have a lower level observation height and do not have cameras, thermal imaging or plume analysis capability."

The program commenced on August 23.

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No rate cut, but poll may provide relief

THE central bank has left interest rates unchanged, but business groups aren't too disappointed because the economy should get a boost once the federal election is over.

As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left the cash rate steady at the all time low of 2.5 per cent after its monthly board meeting on Tuesday.

"The board judged that the setting of monetary policy remained appropriate," RBA governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement.

The central bank will continue to keep an eye on the economy in coming months so that inflation remains under control.

Housing Industry Association chief economist Harley Dale believes the central bank could lower the cash rate later this year, to support a modest recovery in residential construction.

"A final round of interest rate cuts in late 2013 would coincide with a likely boost to household and business confidence following the federal election," he said in a statement.

"That combination would help set the platform for a sustained recovery in new home construction and a turnaround in renovations investment."

For most of this year, the impending election has been the "elephant in the room" keeping a lid on economic activity, according to mortgage provider network 1300HomeLoan managing director John Kolenda.

"There will be widespread relief this weekend that it will finally be done and dusted with hopefully a clear result one way or the other," he said.

Mr Kolenda also expects another RBA rate cut before the end of the year.

Loan Market director Mark De Martino said the proximity of Saturday's election would have been in the mind of the RBA board because of the potential for a change in government.

"The spending or savings initiatives promised by a new government will be important for the RBA to consider," he said.

Master Builders Australia chief economist Peter Jones said whichever party wins power, they can't just rely on low interest rates to support the economy.

"The new government must immediately take action to get economic policy settings right and commence the process of kick-starting increased growth, productivity and employment," he said.

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Young tradies to get boost from Labor

YOUNG tradies will be given a leg up under a re-elected Labor government, with Kevin Rudd promising apprentices more cash to buy tools and guaranteed jobs on federal construction projects.

The prime minister says apprentices finishing their training will receive an extra $500 to help them get out into the workforce.

The increase to the "tools for your trade" payment means apprentices get $6000 instead of $5500 over the life of their traineeship.

"This would give 70,000 Australian apprentices more cash in their pockets to buy the tools they need," Mr Rudd said at Labor's campaign launch in Brisbane.

The measure is an incentive to keep apprentices in training, as currently half don't finish their qualifications.

Mr Rudd said Labor wanted apprentices to get the best start, unlike the coalition who offered young tradies a $20,000 loan.

"That is a $20,000 debt to hang over your head before you even get started," he said.

Labor also announced it would be mandatory for major construction projects funded by the federal government to hire a minimum number of apprentices and trainees.

Government projects worth $5 million or more would be required to use apprentices, trainees or cadets to meet a minimum of 10 per cent of total labour hours.

Further, Labor would legislate so that all projects worth $300 million or more give Australian suppliers early information and opportunities so they can bid for contracts.

This measure is aimed at ensuring local firms have a chance to win contracts, instead of developers using overseas suppliers.

Mr Rudd also announced a shake up to the employment services system, which will be rebranded as Jobs and Training Australia under a re-elected Labor government.

Workers will receive employment services within two days of losing their job and new local training boards will help people find jobs that suit their needs, skills and location.

Job seekers will also be guaranteed access to either a publicly-funded apprenticeship or traineeship at certificate three level or access to loans to acquire other skills.

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Hawke swoops in to help Beattie in Forde

Former Labor PM Bob Hawke has campaigned with former Queensland premier Peter Beattie in Forde. Source: AAP

POLITICAL heavyweight Bob Hawke has turbo charged Peter Beattie's campaign at a barbecue south of Brisbane, with both men saying Labor is ready to fight to the end.

After poor polling earlier this month, Mr Beattie knows he has got a tough week of campaigning.

"We're fighters - none of us are going to be wimps - we have to be, this is about Australia's future and it is worth fighting for," he said.

About 100 starry-eyed Labor fans fussed over the political stalwarts and asked for photos.

Some also asked for help with their personal situations such as public housing issues, workers rights and unemployment.

"We had the entree with Campbell Newman and we will get the main course with Abbott," Mr Beattie told one supporter who shared concerns about last years' 14,000 job cuts in the state.

One supporter even brought a small plastic keg which had been moulded to look like Mr Hawke.

Labor's longest serving prime minister was happy to sign the homage.

He gave a spirited speech to the party faithful and asked them to remember Labor's legacies, like Medicare and HECS.

He enlisted them to convert 20 of their friends who are still undecided.

"I'm issuing a challenge. If you can persuade 20 people you will win the election of Forde for this man," he said.

"Just on the basis of education, you should be able to win every one of their bloody votes."

Mr Beattie returned to politics after a six year hiatus to run in Forde against the Liberal National Party's Bert van Manen, who holds the seat by a 1.6 per cent margin.

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