Tree man’s protest ends

Thornlie’s tree man Richard Pennicuik has ended his 110 day protest and climbed down from the 20m-high eucalyptus melliodorain on the front verge of his home.

Mr Pennicuik has been living in the tree outside his Hume Road home since early December, including during Monday’s devastating hail storm that swept across Perth and caused more than $200 million damage.

The City of Gosnells wants to remove the tree, claiming it poses a danger.                                                                                                                

Mr Pennicuik claimed he won the moral battle before doing a lap around the tree and heading inside his home to have a shower.

He initially released a four paragraph statement, but re-emerged to speak to reporters, saying he felt great.

“The tree weathered the worst storm to hit Perth ever and it’s in good condition, it has proven itself,” Mr Pennicuik said.

“It is worth it because we have shown the people of Australia they need the constitution, they can’t do without it.

“I think I have (proven my point) I think the tree has.”

City of Gosnells Mayor Olwen Searle today welcomed the Mr Pennicuik’s decision to come down from the tree, but confirmed the council would go ahead with plans to chop it down.

Source  :  www.thewest.com.au

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End of the road for car registration stickers

THE days of scraping car rego stickers off windows are over in Western Australia, which tomorrow becomes the first state to abolish them.

Cutting-edge technology being used by West Australian police has made the stickers redundant, saving millions of dollars.

Police superintendent Lance Martin said hand-held computers were now providing officers with instant advice on registration expiries — as well as an extraordinary amount of other data — simply by tapping in a request.

A car’s owner, previous owners, registration status, even the engine number, were all available within seconds to officers on the beat.

“We can also do detailed searches on people, we can access the criminal records of every person in Australia, we can bring up their mugshots,” he said.

“I can even have an officer carrying one of these hand-held devices in the middle of Broome (1660km from Perth) and pull up an electronic mapping system to track where that officer is in real time, accurate to about five metres. It’s amazing.”

Western Australia is the only state with the hand-held TADIS-lite computers, which have revolutionised life for officers on foot patrol, horseback, pushbikes and motorbikes.

They were rolled out over the past few months.

Superintendent Martin said the expanded access to computers was “the tipping point” for getting rid of car stickers and motorbike tags. Previously, if police spotted an expired registration tag, they had to radio through to base and then wait for someone to run the registration on the land-based computer system.

“It was a very time-consuming approach,” he said.

“Today they just type in a registration number (from their hand-held computer) and within seconds they’ll have all of the information associated with that vehicle.”

The innovation had made the visible stickers irrelevant.

The West Australian technology is fast becoming the envy of forces across the nation, many of whom have sent delegations to Perth to examine it.

It began with larger TADIS computers fitted to police cars, reportedly the most advanced in Australia, and progressed this year to the unique hand-held version.

“Other states are particularly interested in the hand-held units,” Superintendent Martin said.

“This is far bigger than the registration stickers.

“Just in the metropolitan area now with our mobile data devises, we can do over six million enquiries a year. It’s massive.”

The West Australian Department of Transport, which administers vehicle registrations, confirmed it also had been approached by other states about the decision to phase out registration tags.

To ensure drivers were comfortable with the change, they can now phone a hotline or check online to clarify the status of their registration.

Source  :  www.theaustralian.com.au

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Perth man living in a tree

A Perth man has been living in a eucalyptus tree in his front yard for the past three days in an effort to stop the giant tree being cut down by the local council.

Thornlie resident Richard Pennicuik said he felt like he had no choice but to protest against a decision by the City of Gosnells to remove more than 20 native trees from his street over the next week. He said he would not be leaving until the tree was saved.

City of Gosnells chief executive Ian Cowie said council would be removing the tree and hoped to come to an “amicable” resolution with Mr Pennicuik.

But he said the city would not try to remove him from his tree.

The tree removal program follows a city survey last year which identified 22 potentially dangerous trees in Hume Road, mainly because of falling branches.

The natives will be replaced by 35 jacarandas. Further along Mr Pennicuik’s street, workers have been busy removing the remaining tall eucalypts.

Mr Pennicuik had been living uncomfortably in the tree since early Monday morning and had struggled to sleep throughout his protest. Neighbours and friends have been supporting him, bringing food, water and other items.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

“I feel as I’ve been backed into this situation. All I want is this tree,” Mr Pennicuik said.

“I don’t mind if other people want their trees cut down,” Mr Pennicuik said. “But I won’t back down.”

Mr Cowie said the city would try to reason with Mr Pennicuik over the next few days but would not force him from the tree or endanger his safety.

“Inappropriate trees were planted 40 years ago, trees which are beautiful in the Australian bush which are beautiful in parkland but aren’t suited for an urban environment and the city can’t live with the risk,” he said.

Source  :  www.thewest.com.au

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ANZ lifts interest rates

The ANZ has become the first major bank to lift its mortgage interest rates, announcing this morning it will lift rates by a quarter percentage point.

Following the Reserve Bank’s decision on Tuesday to lift the official cash rate, all the big four had held fire on following suit – until today.

The ANZ tried to dampen the pain of the move, saying it would also increase interest rates on some of its deposit products by a half percentage point.

The increase on ANZ mortgages, which will take the standard variable rate to 6.06 per cent, will kick in from next Monday.

As well, fixed rate mortgages at ANZ will go up by a quarter percentage point – to 5.7 per cent for a one year fixed rate mortgage and 6.69 per cent for a two year mortgage.

Longer term mortgages will go up less, while the 10 year term rate will be cut by a quarter percentage point.

Treasurer Wayne Swan had warned all banks against lifting their mortgage rates by more than the Reserve Bank’s increase in the official cash rate.

Source  :  www.thewest.com.au

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$100 million astronomy research centre unveiled in Perth

The Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett has officially launched a $100 million research centre in Perth, which has been set up to help Australia win a massive radio astronomy project.

Western Australia and South Africa are the front runners to secure the $2.5 billion Square Kilometre Array project, with the decision expected in 2012.

To strengthen WA’s bid, Curtin University and the University of Western Australia have set up the International Centre for Astronomy Research with extra funding from the State Government.

The International Director for the S.K.A project Richard Schilizzi says the centre will enhance Australia’s chances.

“It shows that the infrastructure for radio astronomy in Australia is very strong and that means that the ability to exploit the telescope role will be ensured,” he said.

Source  :  www.abc.net.au

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Work at Barrow Island could start by Christmas, Chevron

Initial work at the Chevron-led Gorgon gas project could begin before Christmas if final investment is approved by the three joint venture partners.

The proposed development, which was given final environmental approval today, will create as many as 10,000 jobs at its peak and underpin a major expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) production across Australia.

Chevron greater Gorgon area general manager Colin Beckett said a few other formal approvals were needed before a final investment decision was made.

He said he did not want to pre-empt the decision, which should be made “fairly soon”.

But Chevron was committed to the project, he said.

“We now need to just turn our attention to finalising a few other formal approvals which will be of much lower profile,” Mr Beckett said.

Once those are out of the way we will be able to finalise our final investment decision.”

Mr Beckett said that once a decision had been made the next step would be to place purchase orders and contracts for project construction.

He said the company had already committed to $2 billion of contracts.

“By Christmas we would be starting to do some of the initial work on Barrow Island while in other places we complete our design and get on with the procurement activity,” he said.

“So we’ll be making early strides there and by the end of next year we’ll be working pretty flat out on Barrow Island itself.”

Accommodation for 3,300 fly-in, fly-out workers will be included in the construction phase, which is expected to create 7,000 jobs for people working on the project and a further 3,000 in spin-off employment.

Mr Beckett said the project would draw labour from across Australia.

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The Reserve Bank of Australia expected to leave rates on hold

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)  is due to announce its decision on interest rates at 2.30pm (AEST) on Tuesday.

The economists surveyed by AAP said the cash rate will remain at a 49 year low of three per cent after the central bank’s board meeting on August 4.

“The RBA appears to have no intention of reducing the cash rate any further,” said Matt Robinson, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com.

“I think a housing market bubble is starting to form, and given the sentiment that governor Stevens expressed in his speech to the Australian Business Economists, that is something that the RBA is watching and that would be a reason for them to maybe hike interest rates earlier.”

There were doubts about whether the RBA would be deterred from raising rates if unemployment continued to rise.

The RBA has kept the cash rate at 3 per cent for three consecutive months.

Michael Turner, an economist with financial markets research group 4Cast, said the prospect of rising unemployment would mean the cental bank could keep rates steady until well into 2010.

“We’re still of the opinion the worse is yet to come and things look better now than they did a couple of months ago, which is why we’re now calling it on hold (in August) rather than going lower,” he said.

“But we still think there’s enough of a story in the lack of utilisation in the economy at the moment that price pressure might be moderate enough at 3 per cent.

“We’re currently chewing on a rate rise in 2010 at the moment. It’s possible, but not until late 2010.”

If you look at the split in the market or the way the debate was being conducted it was very much the idea that the RBA isn’t going to hike because they never have while the jobless rate has been rising.

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Oz Lotto jackpots to record $90 million next Tuesday

EXCLUSIVE: SUPER 7s Oz Lotto has jackpotted to a staggering $90 million next week.

The new, all-time record lottery draw will take place next Tuesday after there were no first division winners in last night’s $50 million draw.

A rush for tickets for last night’s game saw the division one prize pool boosted to a massive $59 million.

Tattersall’s Lotteries PR manager Karen Anning said next week’s Super 7s Oz Lotto
draw will shatter all existing records for lotto games in Australia.

“We were expecting the game to jackpot to $60 million next week if there were no first division winners but, due to the unprecedented level of interest in last nights draw, the decision has been made to offer a minimum guaranteed jackpot level of $90 million, Ms Anning said.

“The lotto frenzy we have already experienced over the past week is expected reach epic proportions in the lead up to next Tuesday nights draw.”

source  :  www.news.com.au

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Skilled Migration: Dispelling the Myths

Source  :  Alan Collet   www.gomatilda.com

Since Australia’s Immigration Minister announced changes to the skilled migration program at the end of last year there has been a lot of misunderstanding among intending skilled migrants. In this article we try to dispel some of the myths.

In no particular order, here are some of the comments we have heard in recent months:

Australia has stopped accepting skilled migrants

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Australia’s skilled migration program (the amount of visas the Immigration Minister requires his Department to grant annually) is the highest on record this year, with a planned 115,000 skilled visas to be granted in the year to 30th of June, 2009.

The skilled program for 2009/10 is planned to be 108,100, which is the third highest program on record.

By way of comparison the skilled program in the last few years has delivered the following outcomes:

 
2007/08: 108,540
– 2006/07: 97,920
– 2005/06: 97,340
– 2004/05: 77,880

My occupation is not on the Critical Skills List and I can’t be sponsored by a State or Territory Government. That means I will never get a visa.

It is true to say that the Minister’s announcements have impacted quite significantly on the processing of skilled visas, with occupations on the CSL and State/Territory Sponsored skilled visa applications being the only offshore skilled visa applications that are being processed to a decision at the moment.

However, there will come a time (we anticipate in the next 3 to 4 months) when Department of Immigration case officers will have to move onto the next category on the Minister’s priority list, namely applications where an occupation on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (or MODL) is nominated.

We anticipate that many applicants with MODL occupations will have sought sponsorship from a State or Territory Government (as MODL occupations have tended to be included on their Wanted Skills Lists) and as such we think it likely that remaining skilled visa applications will start to be looked at with a view to visas being granted during the.

It should also be remembered that when the total skilled migration program was in the region of 70,000 annually processing times were typically 9 to 12 months – even allowing for heightened demand in recent years the large program total that is now available should allow visa application processing times to be closer to 12 months over the next year to 18 months.

And as ever, the sooner a visa application is lodged the sooner a visa will be granted.

I won’t be able to obtain sponsorship from a State or Territory Government

To a verying degree all of the States and Territories in Australia are sponsoring skilled individuals for the grant of visas. Some are sponsoring for the grant of provisional subclass 475 visas (which provide for permanent residency via a second visa application once subclass 475 visaholders have been residing and working in a regional area for the required period), while others are sponsoring for subclass 176 permanent residency visas.

The key question for intending skilled migrants is therefore which States and Territories are sponsoring my occupation, and for what subclass of visa.

If I am sponsored by a State or Territory Government I will have to live there while I remain in Australia

Technically, that is not the case. If applying to a State or Territory Government for sponsorship you will be asked to provide information that demonstrates you are genuine in your intentions to reside in that State or Territory.

Indeed, in most cases you will be asked to sign an undertaking to reside in the sponsoring State/Territory for at least 2 years.

We would add that when applying for sponsorship you should be completing the application in good faith, with a genuine intention to reside in the State or Territory to which you are applying.

Note also that if applying for sponsorship of a subclass 475 (provisional) visa you will be subject to a visa condition that requires you to live and work in a regional area of Australia, and that you can anticipate that this will be checked when you apply for permanent residency in due course. 

Employers are no longer able to sponsor individuals for skilled visas

This comment is typically heard in the context of subclass 457 visas – which is the long term temporary residency visa.

It is fair to say that Australia’s Immigration Minister has sought to change 457 visa sentiment amongst employers by issuing “clarification” in the last few months in the form of policy guidance to his Department. This has included (amongst other things) requiring employers to more clearly demonstrate the benefit to Australia arising as a consequence of the employment of the nominated individual following the grant of a 457 visa.

However, this amendment of policy settings has not caused a cessation of 457 visa grants – far from it. Indeed, Go Matilda has had many 457 visas granted in the last few months.

Even if I obtain a visa, the global economic crisis means I won’t be able to get a job when I move to Australia

The Australian economy has held up remarkably well in comparison with other first world countries, and indeed has thus far avoided a technical recession. This is quite possibly due to its closer associations economically with South East Asia and China, and the financial boost associated with a growth in population, most notably through the large migration programs of the last few years.

By contrast the UK has found itself more closely aligned with the fortunes of the US, and with the collapse of wealth through banking and housing failures.

No-one can say that any one individual will be certain to secure employment when they move to Australia. However, the prospects for work are generally considered to be brighter in Australia than in the UK, US, etc, which should augur well for intending migrants.

I won’t be able to sell my house and the GBP – AUD exchange rate is awful

Yes, the economies of the world are in a dreadful state at the moment, and the bottom has fallen out of the housing market in the UK.

However, there is no requirement for you to move to Australia as soon as your visa is granted – permanent skilled visas require you to enter Australia by an initial entry date, which is usually 12 months from the earlier of the date of police clearance certificates and the date medical examinations were attended.

That required initial entry can be on a holiday, and the permanent move can be a few years later – at any time up to 5 years after visa grant – by which time we suggest the economies of the world and the currency exchange rate will be somewhat different, most probably better than they are today.

This means that applying for a skilled visa now rather than waiting could actually mean that you find yourself migrating at a better time than those who have been granted their visas in the last 12 months.

If you are a skilled individual and are contemplating a move to Australia some of the above issues might have crossed your mind.
If you would like to talk about your concerns and to discuss the migration process more fully please contact us.
Go Matilda has many years of experience assisting with Australian visa applications, and we will be pleased to have a free initial discussion about your situation, your visa strategy, and how we might help, after which we can send you a no obligation proposal as to our fees.

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Swan slams ‘selfish’ CBA rate decision

Treasurer Wayne Swan has taken aim at Australia’s biggest home lender, labelling it selfish for lifting its mortgage and business lending rates. 

Other banks have refused to rule out following the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA’s) surprise decision to lift its home and business loan rates by 10 basis points to offset higher funding costs.

The opposition said the government’s huge debt burden was putting pressure on interest rates, while a prominent market economist said it may force the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to cut the official rate again to counter any impact from CBA’s move.

CBA said it took Friday’s decision “reluctantly”, but at a standard variable mortgage rate of 5.74 per cent, up from 5.64 per cent, it was still the lowest on the market.

The rate hike will add $18 a month to repayments on a $300,000 home loan over 25 years.

The bank said it had absorbed as much of its additional funding costs for as long as it could.

“Unfortunately, we have seen the bank’s wholesale funding costs remain high and continue to increase as previous long term funding matures and is replaced with new funding at significantly higher cost,” CBA group executive of retail banking services Ross McEwan said in a statement.

Such reasoning drew no sympathy from the treasurer.

There are ups and downs when it comes to those decisions over time, but there are few decisions I can think of that are more selfish than this one,” Mr Swan told reporters in Brisbane.

“I think Australians, rightly, will be furious with the Commonwealth Bank.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd echoed those sentiments during a speech to a business lunch in Brisbane.

“We are all in this together – businesses, workers, government and the Reserve Bank – and today’s decision by the Commonwealth Bank runs counter to this nationwide effort,” Mr Rudd said.

The other three major banks – ANZ, National Australia Bank and Westpac – said their rates were constantly under review.

NAB said it had no current plans to raise its home loan rate but noted “all Australian banks” had been incurring significantly higher funding costs for some time.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said the government was putting pressure on interest rates by running up a huge debt.

“Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan feigned outrage about this interest rate increase, yet they are directly responsible for it,” Mr Hockey told reporters in Sydney.

“This is the beginning. You will end up with higher interest rates directly as a result of the spending binge of the Rudd government and the massive debt they are accruing.”

Home buyers may be enjoying the lowest mortgage rates in 41 years, but have already missed out on about 30 to 40 basis points of the RBA’s total 425 basis points of official rate cuts, with banks refusing to pass on the cuts in full because of the cost of funding.

For small businesses it has been even worse, being short changed by about 140 basis points.

The CBA’s decision comes in a week that saw massive boosts to both consumer and business confidence, as well as data showing sustained growth in home lending – sucked in by low mortgage rates and a more generous first home owners grant.

April mortgage data showed loan demand has grown for seven straight months to a 14-month high, as well as record demand from first home buyers and the strongest interest from investors in nearly two years.

It also showed that the banks have cornered more than 92 per cent of all loans – a 33-year high.

Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said CBA’s decision could well be countered by another cut by the RBA.

“If it does have an impact, particularly on confidence in the housing market, which has been the most encouraging source of recovery in the Australian economy, it may bring a rate cut back on the table at the Reserve Bank,” Mr Evans told Sky News

Source  :  www.thedaily.com.au

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