Poll has Labor losing in SA

THE South Australian Labor government will lose next year's state election in a landslide, if the results of new poll are repeated.

The Advertiser poll has put the Liberal Opposition ahead 59-41 per cent on a two-paty preferred basis in a result that would have Labor losing as many as 11 seats.

The poll is the first since Steven Marshall took over as Liberal leader earlier this year and comes ahead of his public debate on Friday with Premier Jay Weatherill which also marks one year until the election.

The Advertiser quizzed 412 people on Wednesday night with the poll revealing a big swing to the opposition.

It also has primary support for Labor slipping three percentage points since the previous poll in August to just 30 per cent and found support for the Liberals up nine percentage points to 54 per cent.

Despite Labor's woes, Mr Weatherill maintains a 36-33 lead over Mr Marshall as preferred premier.

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Late-night Sydney lockout 'not the answer'

Sydney won't be able to call itself a global city if patrons are "locked out" of pubs and clubs. Source: AAP

SYDNEY won't be able to call itself a global city if patrons are "locked out" of pubs and clubs to prevent drunkenness and alcohol-related crime after dark, a forum has heard.

Mental Health Minister Kevin Humphries told the NSW Alcohol Summit at Parliament House he wouldn't support expanding the lockout program already in place in areas including Newcastle and the Hunter.

The strategy involves restricting trading hours and entry to licensed premises and is designed to encourage drinkers to head home earlier.

"Lockouts don't necessarily work for everybody," Mr Humphries said during a panel discussion at Thursday's forum, adding it was expected Sydney would have a 24-hour entertainment hub like Kings Cross.

"Everybody expects a city like Sydney, a world city, to have that kind of precinct," he said.

"It's not going to be a blanket approach."

Earlier, central metropolitan police commander Mark Murdoch told the summit alcohol-related crime took up a disproportionate amount of his officers' time and energy.

He described lockout strategies in Manly, on Sydney's northern beaches, and Newcastle, as "successful".

Opposition Leader John Robertson told the forum NSW was in the grip of a binge-drinking culture, but closing doors at every licensed premises after a certain hour wasn't the solution.

"You can't just say we're going to be a global city ... but some things aren't going to be available," he said.

The Labor leader said the key was changing drinking culture.

"I think we've got to start looking and dealing with alcohol in the same we were dealing with tobacco when we started in the late 70s and early 80s," he said.

"That obviously includes what you do around advertising.

"If you accept that alcohol is a problem, advertising becomes part of the solution."

Former NSW minister John Della Bosca called for a "serious debate" over whether alcohol advertising should be banned.

Greens MP John Kaye said tighter restrictions were overdue.

"(Advertising) has to avoid glamorising the consumption of alcohol, which it currently does," he said.

"It has to avoid making the consumption of alcohol look like it has any benefits. It has to avoid making the consumption of alcohol look like it's a social necessity."

He said the question of trading hours for licensed premises was complex, but one compromise could involve requiring licence-holders to continue operating without serving alcohol after a certain hour.

"(But) we don't want to shut the city down at 10 o'clock at night," he said.

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China city searches for modern Marco Polo

A CHINESE city is searching for a foreign traveller to become a "modern Marco Polo", with a 40,000 euro ($A50,893) salary on offer to the winner.

Hangzhou in eastern China, renowned for its canals and bridges, was described as the "most beautiful and elegant city in the world" by the Venetian traveller, whose 13th-century journal was one of the first detailed accounts of China written by a European.

Now the city is "calling people around the world to follow Marco Polo's steps", said Chen Li, of Hangzhou's tourism commission.

The promotion is akin to Australia's "best jobs in the world" campaigns, the first of which required the winner to live on a tropical island for six months.

The new Marco Polo will be recruited via Facebook - which is banned in China - and will undergo intensive training before being flown to the city for a 15-day trip, the tourism commission said in a media release.

Duties include making a short video about Hangzhou and promoting the city online. Both men and women are eligible, it said.

"To be a modern Marco Polo is a very interesting job, it will maybe change their life," Chen said. "They may find inner peace, like Kung Fu Panda."

"The Travels of Marco Polo," composed in 1298, described a journey across Asia through realms of pygmies, exotic plants and cannibals.

The book had an enormous impact on European perceptions of the continent, but modern historians have questioned the veracity of Polo's account, and some query whether he reached China at all.

China was the world's third most visited country in 2011, behind the United States and France, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, with 57.6 million international tourism arrivals.

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Slippery track blamed for Qld train crash

Slippery tracks were to blame for a train crash at a Brisbane station, an investigation has found. Source: AAP

SLIPPERY tracks have been blamed for an accident in which a Brisbane passenger train crashed into a station, but investigators will still look at its brakes.

A preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on Wednesday found a black spot - a section of track covered with contaminants such as wet leaves, wood, rust, and oil or lubricants - caused the accident.

Fifteen people on board the train and four people at Cleveland station were lucky to escape serious injury when the train ploughed into the station house on January 31, all but destroying the toilets.

Several people suffered minor injuries.

ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan says investigators will also look at the train's brakes to determine if they were properly designed for the conditions.

"The driver put the brakes on, and all the brakes worked, it's just that the wheels didn't have enough grip on the track to give them full effect," he told AAP.

"It's something that needs to be checked in a bit more detail."

The commissioner said older trains tended to have tread brakes, like bicycle brakes, which cleaned the wheels as they braked.

The train involved in the accident had newer disc brakes.

"They are more efficient at applying pressure to the wheels, but don't clean them if they've got slippery goo on them," Mr Dolan said.

"While we don't want to speculate too much, tread brakes might have reduced the risk of an accident like this happening."

The ATSB will also look into the train's anti-slip mechanism, which did not work properly before the crash.

The final report on the accident is due by the end of this year.

Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson said the report was a wake up call for Queensland Rail, but as there had been no catastrophic brake failure the government would focus on inspecting tracks for black spots.

"QR will now look to identify black spots where potentially this could happen," he told reporters.

Drivers will also be trained to handle such emergencies.

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Don't mine Qld uranium: Fukushima survivor

A SURVIVOR of the Fukushima nuclear accident is urging the Queensland government to reinstate a ban on uranium mining.

Japanese dairy farmer Hasegawa Kenichi is in Brisbane with a delegation from the Japanese disaster relief organisation Peace Boat.

"Uranium is something the human body cannot handle, cannot cope with. It's like opening Pandora's box," he told AAP.

"This government, all governments, must stop using this substance.

"It must be left underground."

Premier Campbell Newman has said Queensland has about $10 billion worth of known uranium deposits.

"Uranium mining and export is already providing jobs, royalties and crucial regional development in other parts of Australia," he said in January.

"It's time Queenslanders shared in these benefits too."

The Uranium Implementation Committee, tasked with developing a best practice framework for the resumption of uranium mining, will submit its recommendations to the government this month.

The committee has been examining the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia's uranium export industry.

But Peace Boat spokesman Akira Kawasaki is urging the government to think carefully about the Fukushima accident, which has devastated thousands of lives.

"Think about all those people, all those lives this substance destroyed, before making your decision," he told AAP.

"Don't make the mistake we did."

The Fukushima nuclear reactor was badly damaged in the 9.0-magnitude Japanese quake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 and had multiple meltdowns.

Residents were evacuated over an 80km radius and huge, continuing radioactive contamination of land and the Pacific Ocean, including sea floor and fish, remains.

The most powerful quake known to ever have hit the country killed more than 15,000 people.

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Fears quashed over stolen WA votes

FEARS that a ballot box was stolen with a car in the knife-edge West Australian electorate of Midland have proven baseless.

As counting continued in several contested WA seats on Tuesday, the state's electoral commission confirmed the car, belonging to a staff member, had been stolen from the Midland Sports Complex as counting got underway on Saturday night.

However, electoral commissioner Warwick Gately said there were no ballot papers in the car at the time.

Midland remains undecided, as does Collie-Preston, Eyre and Kimberley, with wafer-thin margins in each.

Belmont is still being tallied, but Liberal candidate Glenys Godfrey appears safe, leading by 299 votes.

The WAEC said the Kimberley seat was still a three-way race, with scrutiny of votes to continue on Tuesday afternoon.

The district's two-party preferred leaders are set to be revealed later Tuesday.

Labor's Josie Farrer leads the primary vote with 2,893, followed by Liberal Jenny Bloom with 2,645 and the Nationals' Michelle Pucci with 1,899.

The allocation of notional two-party preferred status has been delayed while votes arrived in Broome from remote and mobile polling centres.

All the votes will be examined by WAEC officials and party representatives to check for formality and to re-tally totals.

The WAEC said results in Collie-Preston, Eyre, Midland and Kimberley were still not expected until Saturday.

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China says bank lending shrank in February

CHINESE banks cut back lending in February from January, official data showed, due to a tightening of liquidity and fewer working days last month because of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Domestic banks extended 620 billion yuan ($A97.77 billion) worth of new loans in February, down from 1.07 trillion yuan in January, the central bank said in a statement on Sunday.

The figure was below market expectations for 700 billion yuan, according to a median forecast of 13 economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

Economists said the figure was distorted by the Lunar New Year which fell in February this year, and was also a sign of the central bank's efforts to restrain credit growth from January, when new yuan loans more than doubled from December.

"We believe this reflected a combination of Chinese New Year distortions and the PBOC's (People's Bank of China's) intention to tighten liquidity from a very loose level in January," Goldman Sachs said in a research note on Monday.

"The PBOC's view on the appropriate level of liquidity supply is probably better represented by the combined January and February data," the investment bank said, adding credit growth in March may rebound from February.

Lu Ting, a Hong Kong-based economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said China's monetary policy stance may be shifting from relatively loose to "neutral".

"The current economic recovery may not be solid enough, and inflation is surely not a big threat now to force for an imminent tightening," he said in a research report on Sunday.

The government on Saturday announced a series of economic indicators for February, including slowing industrial production growth and retail sales increases, providing further signs that a budding recovery may be fragile.

But China's inflation hit a 10-month high of 3.2 per cent in February, up from January's 2.0 per cent, data also showed, as holiday season spending and rapid credit growth accelerated price rises.

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Why you should stop using social media

STOP and smell the roses once in a while - not constantly take fancy pictures of them and plaster the results all over the internet.

That is the rather surprising message from a mobile phone sim card company that says Australians are missing out on "the moment" because they're so busy constantly sharing pictures and videos online.

At a restaurant? Point, click, share that roast chicken, baby!

Wedding? Oooh, Instagram the bride.

New baby? Facebook that cutie.

That's what most of us do according to sim card provider Amaysim, which says we need to stop social networking every now and then - and just enjoy life as it happens.

The company surveyed 1000 people about their social media habits and found 56 per cent had forgotten how to "live in the now" because they're always Facebooking, Instagramming or tweeting.

The answer? Well, rather incongruously for a company that makes money out of mobile data, it says we need to turn off our phones and tablets entirely.

"While Amaysim is in the business of keeping people in touch, we also reckon you sometimes need to turn off and enjoy life as it happens," its social media manager Ged Mansour said.

Amaysim's survey also found that one in three Australians thought mates shared too many pictures and videos online and the culprits should be de-friended or unfollowed.

But 38 per cent of all respondents thought that sharing plenty of videos and pictures online was fine.

Australia's love affair with social networking is being driven in a big way by mobile devices.

Figures released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) late last year showed that smartphone ownership increased by 104 per cent in 2012.

More than half of the nation's adult population now own a smartphone.

There are about 11.36 million Facebook users in Australia and 9.67 million YouTube users, according to the ACMA figures.

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Budget will pay for Gonski reforms: Swan

FEDERAL Treasurer Wayne Swan will outline the savings in May's budget to pay for the government's school reform plan.

Mr Swan says investment in education is a priority for federal Labor and Australia.

"As a country, we're kidding ourselves if we think we can stroll complacently into the Asian Century assuming we'll enjoy economic wealth without developing the skills we need to harness its opportunities," Mr Swan said in his weekly economic note on Sunday.

The treasurer said the government's proposed Gonski school reforms were central to improving skills and education.

"We will put in place the savings to ensure it's a key part of this year's budget," he said.

The treasurer will hand down his sixth budget on May 14.

The Gonski review proposed an extra $6.5 billion spending in total by the commonwealth, states and territories for schools.

Mr Swan is yet to outline the spending cuts or areas where more money will be raised to pay for Gonski and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

He also lauded the latest economic growth data, which he said showed why Australia had one of the lowest jobless rates in the developed world.

Australia's economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the December quarter for an annual rate of 3.1 per cent, according to official data released last week.

Mr Swan said Australia's job market remained one of the most resilient among developed countries despite local firms becoming circumspect in employing more workers.

"We know that ongoing global uncertainty, the sustained high dollar and changing consumer patterns have made some businesses more cautious in their hiring," he said.

The eurozone's unemployment rate rose to a record 11.9 per cent in January, while the US rate was 7.7 per cent last month.

Local jobs data will be released on Thursday.

The market forecast is for 10,000 jobs to be added in February while the unemployment rate is tipped to rise 0.1 percentage points to 5.5 per cent.

Mr Swan again attacked the opposition for its plans to roll back income tax cuts linked to the carbon tax if elected in September.

"Under the Liberals' changes, seven million Australians will have their taxes hiked up," he said in a statement.

"For a mum and dad earning $65,000 each, the Liberals' tax hike would mean their family would pay $600 more a year in income tax alone, while Tony Abbott himself would only pay an extra $3."

The treasurer said the government would introduce legislation in the next fortnight to provide more funding for the independent parliamentary budget office to cost the policies of all political parties.

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New Mexico state tourism minister killed

THE tourism minister in Mexico's western Jalisco state has been shot dead, officials say.

State officials say Jose de Jesus Gallegos Alvarez was shot on Saturday while driving in Zapopan outside Guadalajara, which is Mexico's second-largest city.

State Government General Secretary Arturo Zamora says a preliminary investigation indicates the attack may to have to do with Gallegos' private business dealings and not his recent appointment as Jalisco's tourism secretary.

Jalisco attracts many tourists as the birthplace of popular Mexican traditions, including mariachi music and tequila production.

Local political and police officials are often targets of assassinations in Mexico, but rarely tourism officials.

President Enrique Pena Nieto has condemned the attack in his Twitter account and says he has ordered a thorough investigation.

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