Qld man charged over fire truck joyride

A MAN has been charged after a fire truck was stolen and used on a joyride south of Brisbane.

Police say the 25-year-old man, from Wynnum West, stole the specialist vehicle from Beenleigh Fire and Rescue Station about 9.20am (AEST) on Saturday.

Officers were able to use the truck's GPS to track it to Tamborine Mountain Road, more than 20km away, and put the 30-minute joyride to an end by deploying tyre-deflating stingers.

The man has been charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle and unlicensed driving.

He's due to appear in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on May 19.

No-one was injured and only the truck's tyres were damaged due to the stinger deployment.

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Police probe Vic woman truck jump

ANYONE who saw a woman jump from a moving truck on a Melbourne freeway, causing her serious injuries, is being urged to contact police.

The 30-year-old woman jumped out of the moving white 2002 Mitsubishi single cab tray truck on the Eastern Freeway in Kew on April 12, police say.

They believe she was travelling with a 35-year-old man about noon toward the city, when she jumped from the vehicle about 500 metres before the Chandler Road exit.

She was taken to the Royal Melbourne hospital for serious injuries.

Anyone who saw the truck, with JT Fencing signage, driving in the area prior to the incident should contact Crime Stoppers.

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Cabin crew 'attacker' refused bail

AN Adelaide man has been refused bail after allegedly attacking a cabin crew attendant on a flight to Sydney.

Andrew Nankivell, 30, is accused of launching the drunken assault during a flight from the Gold Coast on Thursday night.

The incident caused the pilot to send an emergency radio transmission and police arrested Nankivell at Sydney domestic terminal after the aircraft landed as scheduled.

The butcher and father of one from Findon, in Adelaide's west, appeared at Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday afternoon charged with assaulting the cabin crew staffer, endangering aircraft safety and offensive behaviour on an aircraft.

The offences, if proved, carry a combined jail term of more than 20 years.

Federal police allege Nankivell became intoxicated and abusive before attacking the flight attendant.

Magistrate John Bailey heard that he has a number previous convictions for alcohol and violence-related offences.

He refused a bail application that would have allowed Nankivell to travel back to Adelaide, where he has joint custody of his six-year-old daughter.

"The accused has been charged with some serious offences," Mr Bailey told the court.

"Acting like that within an aircraft puts other people at some risk and it's a matter of some great concern.

"I've no doubt this came about because of the intoxication of the accused.

"If we look at his record interstate there are matters of violence on his record, there are also matters in relation to alcohol."

The case was adjourned until June 25.

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Salon stabbing murderer jailed for 25yrs

A MAN who fatally stabbed his estranged partner in her pregnant daughter's Perth hairdressing salon in front of shocked customers has been sentenced to at least 25 years behind bars.

James Bill Payet, 48, pleaded guilty in February to five charges including murder and grievous bodily harm, and was on Friday sentenced to life in jail.

The West Australian Supreme Court heard Payet was unhinged without anti-depressant medication, used steroids and methamphetamines, and was angry about his deteriorating relationship with Angela Ferullo, 43, when he attacked her at Plush Hair salon in Como in June 2013.

The couple had a 12-year relationship and separated in 2011 after Ms Ferullo had an affair, but she allowed him to live in her new home.

Payet was violent and threatening to her in the lead up to the attack, including brandishing a knife to chase her out of the house.

Ms Ferullo became fearful of him after he responded badly to her spending the weekend at a hotel with her new boyfriend, and not being invited to a family christening.

She secured an interim violence restraining order (VRO) and had planned to obtain a full VRO on the day he killed her.

Before hunting her down at the salon, he hid overnight in the roof space of her house with two large hunting knives and duct tape.

When he emerged, he bailed up one of Ms Ferullo's lodgers, who escaped by jumping over the backyard fence. A short time later, Payer found the lodger on a nearby street and swung a knife at him.

At the salon, Payet stabbed Ms Ferullo's eldest daughter Selina Bello, 23, who was then 22 weeks pregnant.

She shouted out: "Dad, dad, the baby, the baby, don't."

Justice Lindy Jenkins said it was hard to imagine how traumatised Payet's stepdaughter must have been with someone who she considered her father - and who knew she was pregnant - attacking her.

After frantically calling police, Ms Ferullo flung herself across her daughter's bleeding body in a bid to protect her.

Payet then repeatedly stabbed Ms Ferullo, who later died from her injuries.

Ms Bello had serious injuries but recovered. Her baby was unharmed.

Justice Jenkins said a life sentence was entirely just as the murder was at the upper end of seriousness.

His victim had every right to seek to end a dysfunctional relationship, but he did nothing to stop his growing rage and controlling nature, and instead indulged it.

"You allowed your rage to build and build, and permitted it to spill over," she said.

Ms Bello said the family was satisfied with the sentence.

"No amount of time is going to bring our mum back," she told reporters outside court.

"We just plan to move on and continue our lives as best we can."

Peggy Kew - a 67-year-old customer who Justice Jenkins labelled a hero for trying twice to stop Payet by pushing him with chairs - said she felt the sentence was sufficient.

Payet now had a lot of time to think about what he had done, but Ms Kew was also haunted.

"It just goes over and over in my mind that I wish I could have done more," Ms Kew said.

"It's not easy. I just feel very sad."

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Rudd accepts batt deaths responsibility

KEVIN Rudd has accepted "ultimate responsibility" for the "deep tragedy" caused by his home insulation scheme.

Queenslanders Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes, Mitchell Sweeney, and Marcus Wilson from NSW, lost their lives working under the then-Labor government's $2.8 billion scheme.

The former prime minister has told a royal commission into the program he had to accept the "good and bad" outcomes of his government's policies in 2009 and 2010.

"For those reasons, as I've said repeatedly before, I have accepted ultimate responsibility for what was not just bad, but in this case a deep tragedy, as it affected the lives of the families concerned," he told the commission on Thursday.

During his evidence, Mr Rudd said public servants should have requested more time to address safety concerns.

But none of them can be held personally responsible.

"I cannot point to any of the public servants involved or any of the ministerial or parliamentary colleagues involved and say 'this person is ... a negligent person'," he said.

"The public servants that I have known in this process are of the finest quality."

Mr Rudd said several oversight mechanisms, including appointing Mike Mrdak as coordinator general and senator Mark Arbib as parliamentary secretary, were put in place but it was clear some didn't work.

He said the relatives of the four men who died deserved to know what processes failed them.

"They have bore the brunt of this in terms of what's happened to them and their loved ones," he said.

"Therefore, it's important to understand which of these levels of implementation and oversight failed to deliver or which number of them."

Former environment minister Peter Garrett has already told the royal commission he bore ultimate responsibility as the minister in charge of the stimulus measure.

Lawyers representing the families of the four young men have begun cross-examining Mr Rudd.

Earlier, the father of a dead insulation installer, Malcolm Sweeney, told the inquiry no family should have to endure what his did, when his son Mitchell was electrocuted laying sheeting in February 2010, at a home in far north Queensland.

The home insulation program was cancelled after Mr Sweeney became the fourth fatality.

The inquiry continues.

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Abbott, Hockey stand by budget

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is confident he can get controversial budget measures through parliament. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott is confident his first budget can survive a two-pronged attack from state premiers and the Senate.

State and territory leaders have organised a meeting for this Sunday to discuss concerns over the federal budget's $80 billion cut to school and hospitals funding.

Labor and the Greens are poised to block many of the budget measures, with the government left to horse-trade with new Senate cross benchers after July 1 to pass a new Medicare co-payment and pension and welfare changes.

Mr Abbott does not believe the Senate will frustrate the budget, but he is open to negotiations.

"I'm not going to be absolutely unreasonable," he told Sky News on Thursday.

However, the prime minister put the responsibility in Labor's hands, arguing the previous government created the budget mess and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten needed to offer his own solutions if he did not accept those of the coalition.

Mr Abbott said Labor previously had supported co-payments for health services while pensioners would have more money in their pockets after the carbon tax was abolished.

Offering an olive branch to the states, Mr Abbott said he had indicated to the premiers the government would fund schools and hospitals based on rises in line with inflation "plus population factor".

Treasurer Joe Hockey says the states will still receive $400 billion in the six years from 2017 for schools and hospitals, once the agreements signed with the previous Labor government expired.

"It is not cost-shifting because we don't run the schools or hospitals," he told ABC TV.

Asked whether he was prepared to horse-trade with senators, Mr Hockey said any changes to the budget would mean debt and deficit would be reduced at a slower rate and medical research would not receive extra funding.

Mr Shorten, who will deliver his budget-in-reply speech on Thursday night, said the budget cuts would rip $5000 a year out of the average family budget.

"I've got some advice for Tony Abbott ... why don't you horse-trade away your paid parental leave scheme ... and perhaps leave the pensioners alone."

Labor has yet to decide whether to support a temporary income tax rise for people earning more than $180,000 a year, but it will oppose the Medicare co-payment, pension changes and the fuel tax lift.

Mr Hockey said the $7 Medicare co-payment was only about the cost of two "middies" of beer and much less than the $22 cost of a packet of cigarettes.

Mr Shorten said the treasurer's comments showed he was out of touch with ordinary Australians.

The Greens will support the fuel tax rise.

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Aust moves to ban Boko Haram

AUSTRALIA is cracking down on the Nigerian terror group that kidnapped 200 girls, banning Boko Haram under Australian terrorism laws.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the whole world was transfixed and horrified by the group's hostage-taking of some 200 schoolgirls.

The group is also responsible for the deaths of another 300 people in recent terror attacks.

"The government is taking steps to commence the process of banning Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation," Mr Abbott told parliament on Wednesday.

In taking such a step, Australia would be acting consistently with international partners, the US, UK, Canada and Nigeria, he said.

Listing a terror group under Australian law makes it illegal to belong to it, to provide funding or any material or other support.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Labor was also extremely concerned about the kidnappings.

"It would be every parent's worse nightmare," Mr Shorten said.

He promised Labor would do everything it could to assist, including consulting over the decision of whether to list Boko Haram in a "constructive and bipartisan way".

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Qld man's legs caught in farm machinery

AN elderly Queensland man is in a critical condition after his legs got caught in a cattle feeding machine.

It took two hours to free the man, whose legs were trapped in the rake-like device as he fed stock at a Nobby property, south of Toowoomba, on Wednesday.

He's suffered extensive leg injuries and blood loss.

He's been flown to the Toowoomba Base Hospital in a critical condition, the RACQ CareFlight Rescue helicopter service said.

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Holden and Ford post big losses

Car maker Holden has announced its biggest financial loss of more than $500 million dollars. Source: AAP

HOLDEN has announced its biggest financial loss of $553.8 million while Ford is $267 million in the red, its second-worst result on record.

Both car makers are preparing to close their manufacturing plants in Australia by 2017.

Holden says the cost of winding up those operations had driven up its losses.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has published the car makers' latest financial results online.

Holden issued a statement on its website saying the company was hit with a $500.4 million one-off impairment charge on property, plant and equipment after announcing that it would stop manufacturing in Australia.

The company also recorded a $122.3 million charge for employee separation costs.

Holden chief financial officer Jeff Rolfs said the decision to stop domestic manufacturing was the right one for the company's future.

"Clearly, there are significant costs associated with our decision ...," he said.

"These costs drove the financial loss for Holden in 2013."

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Baird clamps down on lobbyists

THE Baird government has unveiled its first tranche of reforms to "clean up" politics in NSW.

Under the measures, ministers will have to publish diary summaries of scheduled meetings with lobbyists and the Electoral Commission will have its powers extended to act as an independent regulator of lobbyists.

The plan has been criticised as having too many loopholes for lobbyists to exploit.

But Premier Mike Baird says it's an "important first step" and will nail shut the "back door to government".

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WA residents warned about storm season

WEST Australians are being warned to prepare their homes for destructive winter storms.

Monday marks the start of Storm Awareness Week, when people are reminded to clear their gutters and trim tree branches around their property before winter officially begins.

Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis said last week's storms across the state were a timely reminder of the havoc severe weather could cause.

"The devastating impact of severe weather can often be underestimated because most storms are short lived and major damage only occurs in small areas," he said.

Between May and October last year, there were 87 storm-related incidents across southern WA, Mr Francis said.

Department of Fire and Emergency Services personnel and volunteers responded to more than 880 calls for help from people affected by roof damage, flooding and fallen trees.

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Assaults and drugs at WA concert

MORE than 20 people have been charged with drug and other offences during the Groovin the Moo concert in Western Australia's South West region.

Police said most of the 20,000 patrons at Hay Park in Bunbury on Saturday were well behaved, but 22 were charged - half of them with possessing drugs.

A police officer and a security guard were assaulted, but neither of them was seriously injured.

A Perth man, 34, was also knocked unconscious and suffered a swollen lip, bruises and swelling to his temple and jaw.

A man is assisting police with their inquiries.

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Puffing Hockey silent on cigar tax

JOE Hockey probably hoped he had got away without being questioned about having that sly cigar with his finance minister.

But in any interview there is always that last question.

Twitter has been abuzz since Friday ridiculing photographs of the treasurer and Senator Mathias Cormann having a cigar after putting together their first budget.

"There's nothing like the satisfying flavour of other people's dreams ... going up in smoke!" was one tweet.

Having a puff is not illegal, but having a celebratory drag on a fat cigar when you are about to impose the budget with the toughest impact on Australians in almost two decades isn't a particularly good look.

The latest ribbing came in a more traditional form.

In an interview on Channel Nine on Sunday, political stalwart Laurie Oakes just had to ask one last question after a 15-minute grilling that covered broken promises, infrastructure, rising petrol prices and a freeze on politicians pay.

"For some reason there has been speculation on Twitter about the impact for the budget from the price of cigars. Will tobacco excise go up?" Mr Oakes teased.

Mr Hockey declined to comment on that.

"But I do note that I think in the first budget in 1901 they had taxes on opium, so I can assure you that's certainly not in the budget. There is certainly nothing to tax there," he said.

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Dozens hurt in China protest

A PROTEST in eastern China over a plan to build a waste incinerator has turned violent with state media reporting at least 10 demonstrators and 29 police injured in clashes.

State-run Xinhua News Agency says 30 vehicles were overturned as protesters on Saturday set two police cars on fire and blocked a highway linking Hanzhou with another city.

One protester and a policeman have been reported seriously injured.

An official in the city's Yuhan district government confirmed the incident on Sunday but would not offer details.

An online statement posted by the district government says construction on the incinerator would not begin until the project had won public support.

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