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The federal government baulked at request to keep Holden manufacturing in Australia

Putting its hand out: General Motors asked the federal government for a total of $560m over seven years.

General Motors Holden’s decision to leave Australia was made after the federal government baulked at an extra $80 million a year for seven years, reports The Australian Financial Review.

The appeal for the extra subsidies was discussed at a meeting in Adelaide on October 2 with Holden managing director Mike Devereux, federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill and his Manufacturing Minister, Tom Kenyon.

A summary of the meeting seen by The Australian Financial Review reveals that in order to keep making cars in Adelaide from 2016 until the end of 2022, Holden wanted $80 million a year in addition to the $40 million it was set to receive from the Automotive Transformation Fund and $275 million already pledged for seven years by the federal and state governments.

The extra $80 million year would have taken assistance to Holden to a total of about $1.1 billion over seven years, or an average of $160 million a year. If Holden shut before 2023, it would have had to repay the money.

Read the full story at AFR.com

Jewish movie industry icon Jerry Lewis has been awarded the Order of Australia

Jerry Lewis awarded an AM

The 87-yr-old actor becomes an honorary Member [AM] in the General Division.

The citation reads: ”For service to the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation of Australia and for his long-time humanitarian contribution to those affected by the disorder”
Mr Jerry Lewis has been the international patron of the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Australia since 2009.

As international patron, Mr Lewis has enabled neuromuscular conditions to be better understood by Australians through numerous media interviews.

He has also assisted with raising financial support through his meetings with corporate leaders, politicians, union officials and the public during his visits to Australia, ensuring his message is heard and understood.

On an international scale, Mr Lewis has made a long-term contribution to the Muscular Dystrophy Association United States. He instigated and was the national chairman for over 60 years, raising funds in excess of $2.6 billion over the past 45 years.

Mr Lewis has given enormous support, including carrying out major clinical research on a global scale, to prolong the lives of many thousands of children throughout the world, including Australia.

Wikipedia records: “Throughout his career, Lewis has supported fundraising for research into muscular dystrophy. From the early 1950s until 2011, he served as national chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association(MDA).[44] Lewis began hosting telethons to benefit MDA in 1952.

From 1966 to 2010 he hosted the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, since renamed the MDA Show of Strength. It has raised over $2.6 billion.[45]

On August 3, 2011, it was announced that Lewis would no longer host any further telethons.“

Fares up and bus route changes for Sydney

Source: News.com.au

A government bus travels on Eddy Avenue in Sydney

Public transport fares will increase next year as the NSW government redesigns Sydney’s bus system. Source: AAP

SYDNEY commuters may have to travel further to reach their bus stops next year and pay more to climb aboard following a raft of transport changes.

The NSW government’s 20-year plan to redesign Sydney’s bus system aims to streamline more than 600 bus routes.

The plan, Sydney’s Bus Future, will introduce a three-tiered network and see more rapid routes, like the existing metrobuses.

The rapid routes will link major centres and create a “turn up and go service” with a bus every 10 minutes on weekdays.

However, routes will see fewer stops and commuters may have to walk further to reach them.

Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian announced the plan on Thursday, along with a public transport fare increase to start on January 5.

Opposition Leader John Robertson slammed the plan, saying it would create longer queues at fewer bus stops.

Customers on “suburban” routes will get a bus at least every 10 minutes in peak times and every 15 minutes during the day on weekdays.

“Local” services will have buses stopping every 400 metres.

The new plan’s 13 “rapid” routes will link Sydney’s hubs, but will only stop every 800 metres to one kilometre.

The government says the bus route changes will see 1.5 million Sydneysiders living within a 10 minute walk to “turn up and go” services on rapid or suburban routes.

Sydney Business Chamber executive director Patricia Forsythe said the government recognised that increasing buses was the problem, not the solution, for traffic congestion.

“The metro bus routes have been very popular and the development of more rapid services that have reduced stopping patterns, but faster trips, will be very attractive to passengers who travel over longer distances,” she said.

The Tourism & Transport Forum supports the plan, but deputy chief executive Trent Zimmerman wants more services to Olympic Park.

“We are disappointed the plan does not include express bus services from Strathfield to cater for a growing workforce and we encourage the government to keep the door open on improving bus links to Olympic Park,” he said.

While the government says it will not increase MyZone fares in line with an IPART recommendation, there will be an increase in line with CPI.

The hike will range between a 20 cent increase on single adult tickets up to a $2 increase for MyMulti weekly tickets.

However, Opal fares will remain unchanged.

Unemployment rate 5.8 per cent in November

Source: News.com.au

The unemployment rate is 5.8 per cent in November. Source: ThinkStock

Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 5.8 per cent in November, official figures show.

Unemployment in October was unchanged at 5.7 per cent.

The total number of people with jobs rose 21,000 to 11.660 million in the month, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. The median forecast for the unemployment rate was 5.8 per cent in November, with total employment growth of 10,000, according to an AAP survey of 13 market economists.

Full-time employment rose 15,500 to 8.108 million in November and part-time employment was up 5,500 to 3.552 million.

The participation rate was steady at 64.8 per cent.

The participation rate is the proportion of the population that have a job, are looking for work or are ready to start work.

Employed people in Australia worked a total of 1.634 billion hours in November, the seasonally adjusted ABS figures showed. That was down by 11.7 million hours or 0.7 per cent from the 1.646 billion hours worked in October.

But it was up by 5.8 million hours or 0.4 per cent from the 1.629 billion hours worked in November 2012.

The average amount of time worked per employee fell to 140 hours and 10 minutes in November, from 141 hours and 26 minutes in October, a fall of 75 minutes or 1.0 per cent.

Compared with November last year, the average time worked per employee fell by 34 minutes or 0.4 per cent.

Same-sex marriage laws overturned by High Court in the ACT

Source: CanberraTimes

Six of the same-sex couples who got married in the ACT pose for a group photo at Old Parliament House.

Christians vow to fight on if High Court allows marriage equality in ACT
Same-sex marriage in ACT will go down in history

The High Court has overturned Australia’s first same-sex marriage law, according to a summary published on the High Court website.

The court is due to hand down its findings in the landmark case at 12.15pm, however, a judgement on the court’s website says the court has ruled against the ACT government’s historic Act, saying it conflicted with federal marriage laws.

Scenes from weddings around the capital as same-sex marriage becomes legal in the ACT.

Dozens of couples who married in a five day window before Thursday’s ruling have now had their marriages declared invalid.

The Abbott government swooped on the laws the moment they were passed in October, immediately launching action through the High Court to have the Act overturned.

Attorney-General George Brandis urged the ACT government at the time to wait for the outcome of the High Court challenge before allowing couples to marry.

But a defiant ACT government refused and at least 27 couples have married in the ACT since Saturday.

In its case, the Commonwealth argued it had sole power over marriage in Australia and that the ACT laws were inconsistent with both the federal Marriage Act and the federal Family Law Act.

The ACT government argued its law had created a separate status of same sex marriage that could operate concurrently with federal laws.

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said prior to Thursday’s ruling that, regardless of the outcome, the case had put marriage equality squarely on the national agenda.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott in talks to keep Toyota in Australia after Holden closure

Source: Yahoonews

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the Federal Government is holding talks with Toyota aimed at keeping the carmaker in Australia, amid union claims the company is seeing to use Holden’s closure to reduce pay and conditions for thousands of workers.

Toyota has warned that Holden’s decision to stop manufacturing by 2017 puts “unprecedented pressure” on its ability to continue building cars in Australia.

Mr Abbott has revealed that he spoke to Toyota’s Australian boss Max Yasuda last night.

“Obviously the Government will be talking to Toyota,” he told Channel Nine this morning.

“We want Toyota to continue.

“They are in a slightly different position to Holden,” he added. “Much more of their local production has been for export. Toyota locally have been much more integrated into the global operations of the company, it seems, than with Holden.”

The Federal Court will decide today whether Toyota can put a new pay deal to its 2,500 strong workforce, a move that would slash costs at its Altona production plant by $17 million.

But the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has advised Toyota workers not to accept poorer work conditions.

ACTU secretary Dave Oliver says Toyota is putting unfair pressure on workers, who will vote on the agreement tomorrow if it gets Federal Court approval.

“The problem with Toyota is that they’ve approached their workers to reduce wages and conditions without any plan of future investment,” he said.

“It’s not the wages and conditions that are going to decide the future of Toyota, it’s going to be the knock-on effect of what happens in the auto components sector and what kind of support the Government is going to do.”

Victorian Premier Denis Napthine says it is vital Toyota does not close its Altona factory.

“It is important in terms of jobs, but its also vital for manufacturing capacity, for skills capacity, for the future of these areas in our economy in Victoria,” he said.

“I’ll seize that opportunity to talk to Mr Abbott about the future of Toyota and how the Federal Government can work with the State Government and Toyota and the entire automotive supply chain industry to secure the future of Toyota.”

Toyota worker Phil Hird, who has been employed with the carmaker for 25 years, says he is not confident that his job is safe and that he will be looking for work elsewhere.

“If it’s got to happen, it’s got to happen. [I’m] just seeing what’s out there now and finding out what’s going on,” he said.

“Very shocked and gutted … [I’ve] been here 25 years and the feeling is very empty. It’s been a very very bad 24 hours.”

Political storm erupts over Holden pullout

Source: News.com.au

GENERAL Motors blamed a “perfect storm”, but Labor threw responsibility squarely at the federal government for Holden’s decision to stop making vehicles in Australia.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott called it a “sad, bad day” for Australian manufacturing and pledged a strategic response to help workers affected by Holden’s decision to stop making cars in Australia from 2017.

The government will in coming days release a “considered package” of measures to rebuild confidence in the long-term future of manufacturing and the regions of Adelaide and Melbourne where Holden operates, he told parliament.

“I don’t want to pretend to the parliament that this is anything other than a dark day for Australian manufacturing,” Mr Abbott said.

But there had been hard times before and Australian industrial centres had come through, he urged.

“It is not the time to play politics, it’s not the time to indulge in the blame game, it’s not the time to peddle false hope,” he said.

But Opposition leader Bill Shorten didn’t hold back in blaming the government for losing a high stakes game of poker.

“A major company who has been building motor cars in this country since after the Second World War has effectively been goaded to give up on this country,” he told parliament.

The opposition was “appalled” by the government’s handling of the crisis.

Something had changed between Holden and the government in 24 hours, Mr Shorten said.

“They were told by the federal government of Australia, who were elected to govern for all, that there would be no more support, no more investment, and I believe, that Holden were pushed,” he said.

Mr Shorten called on Mr Abbott to urgently deal with the mess and chaos that has occurred while both leaders were in South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s memorial service.

“We understand that structural change happens in the Australian economy, what we don’t understand is when the Australian government tries to sabotage its own industry,” Mr Shorten said, prompting Treasurer Joe Hockey to storm out of the parliament.

Earlier, parliament erupted during question time with Labor blaming the Abbott government for the loss of the 2900 jobs in Victoria and South Australia by 2017, while Mr Hockey angrily rejected Labor’s “confected anger”.

An emotional Acting Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek later castigated the coalition for withdrawing $500 million of car industry support and not properly engaging with Holden’s US owner General Motors since it won the September election.

“It was Joseph Benedict Chifley who watched the first car roll off the production line at Fishermans Bend and it will be Joseph Benedict Hockey who sees the last car roll off the production line,” she told reporters.

She said Mr Hockey has got his way after “goading and daring” Holden to withdraw from Australia.

Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss rejected the claims, saying he had been told by Holden the government’s actions had little influence on GM’s decision.

Mr Hockey said GM was right when it cited a “perfect storm” of “the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, small domestic market and arguably the most competitive and fragmented auto market in the world”.

But he did add the former Labor government’s carbon tax, its now scrapped plan to alter the fringe benefits tax arrangements on cars and high labour costs to the mix.

World-first Melbourne-led clinical trial reports stunning results in people with advanced leukaemia

Source: PeterMac

Researchers and clinicians from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research are leading an international trial of a new therapy, for people with advanced leukaemia for whom no conventional treatment options are available, which has completely cleared cancer in 23 per cent of patients.

Reporting preliminary results of the ongoing first-in-human clinical trial of the novel compound to treat chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in New Orleans today, Professor John Seymour: Chair of the Haematology Service at Peter Mac, revealed 84 per cent of patients experienced remission, despite participants’ disease having failed an average of four prior treatment regimes.

Professor Seymour says the results of the trial are unprecedented in the quality of the disease responses.

‘Patients on the trial were typically incurable, with an average life expectancy of up to 18 months, so to see complete clearance of cancer in nearly one quarter of these patients, after taking this single therapy, is incredibly encouraging.’

‘By comparison, the phase I study of ibrutinib, now hailed as a game-changer in CLL, reported cleared disease in only two per cent of a similar group of patients.’

Professor Andrew Roberts: head of clinical translation at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the Metcalf Chair of Leukaemia Research at The University of Melbourne and The Royal Melbourne Hospital, says the therapy works by overcoming the action of a key survival signal within leukaemia cells which allows them to avoid dying.

‘Although CLL cells are slow to proliferate, they accumulate inexorably because they fail to die, creating large tumours that standard treatments have not been able to adequately combat.

‘This novel compound selectively targets the protein-to-protein interaction responsible for keeping the leukaemia cells alive and, in many cases, we’ve seen the number of cancerous lymphocytes simply melt away.’

To date, the phase I study has involved 67 patients, whose cancer was resistant to up to eleven cancer treatment regimens.

Professor Seymour says a further promising aspect of the phase I results is the presence of the same survival instinct in malignant cells of other cancer types.

‘Pre-clinical studies at Peter Mac and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have shown this protein interaction can keep cancer cells alive in other haematological malignancies and breast, lung and prostate cancers — and we have already seen extremely exciting effectiveness of this compound in laboratory models, when combined with other anti-cancer treatments.

‘We certainly feel there is potential for therapies similar to this to enter clinical development as complementary therapies for these diseases.’

The final phase of this study in leukaemia is expected to complete accrual around the end of the year.

Great Barrier Reef could be dead by 2100: study

Source: News.com.au

RISING sea temperatures could kill off the Great Barrier Reef by the end of the century, a scientist claims in a new book.

The coral would have to move 4000km southwards over 100 years to survive scientists’ worst-case scenario of a 4C degree rise in sea temperatures by 2100, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg says.

In his book, Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a hot world, the University of Queensland reef specialist says the outlook for the reef is bleak.

“In a four-degree world, the Great Barrier Reef will be great no longer. It would bear little resemblance to the reef we know today,” he wrote.

“There is little evidence that marine resources like the Great Barrier Reef possess the resilience to withstand the impacts of a dramatically warming world.”

Even a more conservative 2C temperature rise estimate would likely be too much for the reef to handle, he wrote.

The death of the almost 2300km-long reef would destroy its $6 billion tourism industry as well as other areas like fishing.

The book looks at how Australia will adapt to a warmer and drier climate in the next 100 years.

Warmer and more acidic seawater is a knock-on effect of increased atmospheric carbon levels.

Prof Hoegh-Guldberg wrote that sea temperatures rose by 0.5C in the 20th century but the effect is expected to speed up this century.

The result is that coral cannot move fast enough to cooler southern seas or genetically adapt fast enough to stay where they are.

“Unless we dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions which are acidifying our oceans and leading to their warming, we will face the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and serious decline in our marine resources,” he wrote.

Before and After: IKEA transforms Bear Cottage in Manly

Source: thelifecreativeblog.com

Welcome - HEM

I love a feelgood moment – especially when it involves decorating and homewares. Throw in my fave store for on-trend affordables (that’s IKEA) and you’ve got a decor transformation dreams are made of. A few weeks ago, a 25-strong IKEA team from the Rhodes and Tempe stores got together to do-over two family suites at Bear Cottage in Manly, making the lives of the families who stay at the hospice all the more comfortable!

The whole concept for this makeover was to give the spaces the families used at the hospice a bright and fresh feel, while ensuring they operated from a practical perspective and had plenty of durability. The cottage is 12 years old, so has been the recipient of some wear and tear over the years (making this transformation very timely indeed).

Here are some of my fave shots from the makeover and why I love them:

Above: The power of a well-executed feature wall is illustrated perfectly here. Notice how the rug unifies the space perfectly and picks up the colours in the couch and cushions? The soft hues make the room feel incredibly calm.

Above: Orange and blue are an undeniable power couple and their magic really shines in the living space above. The room feels lively but not overwhelming. That’s because the furnishings have been kept to a minimum. I also love those yellow chairs; very summery.

Below: A monochromatic colour scheme like the one here brings a real sense of serenity and calm (exactly what you want in a bedroom). The wall canvas gives some visual interest, while the netting above that cot injects some whimsy into the space.

HEM - Master Bedroom A

“Bear Cottage is designed to be a home away from home to support families who are caring for a child with a life limiting illness in the comfort of a homely environment”, IKEA’s Sustainability Manger Richard Wilson tells me. “IKEA is honoured to have been able to make such a difference to Bear Cottage and the environment provided for these families”.

Kudos to the team at IKEA. I’ve been a long-time fan of their furniture and homewares – and I love what they’ve done with it in this transformation!