Abbott praises political foe Rudd

Tony Abbott (pic) is convinced his former political foe Kevin Rudd will continue to serve Australia. Source: AAP

TONY Abbott is convinced that one way or another his former political foe Kevin Rudd will continue to serve Australia.

Mr Rudd stood up at the end of the 44th parliament's first full working day and announced that he was calling it a day as a politician.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott responded by saying it was a significant moment in the life of a parliament for a former prime minister to depart.

Mr Rudd had been one of the big figures in the life of this country for the best part of two decades, Mr Abbott said.

"As a political opponent, but as someone who has known the member for Griffith quite well for a long time, I salute him and I wish him and his family all the best for the future," he said.

"I express my confidence that one way or another he will continue to serve our country and his party."

Mr Abbott said it took an extraordinary person to lead such an extraordinary country.

He said Mr Rudd won an election which pitted him against John Howard, the most successful prime minister of modern Australia.

"It takes extraordinary ability, insight, guts and focus to win such a contest. He didn't just win that contest in 2007, he triumphed," he said.

"We must pay tribute to someone of such stature who was able to vanquish in fair political fight someone of at least equal stature."

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Mr Rudd was a large presence across the national political stage for some time, and could leave parliament with his head held high.

Mr Shorten attributed Australia's success in winning a seat on the United Nations Security Council largely to Mr Rudd's distinction on the world stage.

He also led Labor during a difficult time, and his return to the prime ministership before the September election had improved the ALP's fortunes.

"This is a tumultuous era in Labor, and with the member for Griffith's resignation tonight, part of it comes to a close," Mr Shorten said.

"I do not believe that we will see his like again in the Australian parliament."

He also said the former prime minister shared a special relationship with the Australian people, and attained a level of "above-politics celebrity".

Mr Shorten thanked Mr Rudd's family, saying they would now get their husband and father back after years of lending him to politics.

Treasurer Joe Hockey shared the limelight on breakfast television with Mr Rudd for many years.

"I have seen the Kevin Rudd that many haven't seen, including sharing semi-nakedness with him in a river in Papua New Guinea," he said.

"I think he is in many ways the luckiest guy in Australia: he married a beautiful woman."

Mr Rudd's second deputy prime minister, Anthony Albanese, lauded his achievements - but noted the former leader wasn't perfect.

"I probably regret the fact that Kevin called me 'Albo' at that first press conference," he said.

"Now everyone calls me Albo; it used to be just my friends."

But he said Mr Rudd's leadership during the difficult time after the leadership change was extraordinary.

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne praised Mr Rudd's passion and intellect, saying he could have chosen any distinguished career but had opted instead for a life of public service.

Mr Pyne thanked Mr Rudd for his friendship, especially while his wife was going through a difficult pregnancy a number of years ago.

"The member for Griffith could not have been more supportive to me as a human being," he said.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Mr Rudd had rallied the Labor Party to victory at the 2007 election and defeated John Howard, the most formidable conservative campaigner in Australian history.

Many believed they would not win that election, and it was no accident that they had secured victory, he added.

But he said Mr Rudd's best years were still to come.

"As a relatively young man, (he) has much to contribute to Australia and the world," he said.

"His contribution is still there to be made and for all to see."

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Christine Campbell quits Vic parliament

Labor MP Christine Campbell has announced she will quit Victorian parliament at the next election. Source: AAP

LABOR'S member for Pascoe Vale, Christine Campbell has announced she will quit state parliament at the next election.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Ms Campbell announced her retirement after 17 years of service.

"It remains my honour to represent the Pascoe Vale electorate in the Victorian Parliament and I have decided that on 28 November, 2014 I will conclude my time as a member of parliament," Ms Campbell said.

"Until the election, my magnificent electorate officers and I will continue to give the party and electorate our total service."

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Constitutional recognition 'big issue'

PROMINENT indigenous rights leader Noel Pearson sees constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians as the looming "big issue" for the nation.

And he is confident Prime Minister Tony Abbott has the conservative confidence to pursue it.

Speaking at the 2013 Gough Whitlam Oration in Sydney, Mr Pearson said there were two problems with the current constitution - non-recognition of indigenous people and racial discrimination.

The Cape York Group chair said while we should do all we can to assist disadvantaged people, it should be done on the basis of individual need, not race.

"A person is not automatically disadvantaged because he or she is indigenous," he said on Wednesday night.

"A person should be rewarded on their merits and assisted on their means.

"Race and indigenousness should be irrelevant to matters of public welfare and government assistance.

"We need to move away from indigenous non-recognition to a recognition."

On making constitutional recognition a reality, Australia needs someone in conservative territory to gain the votes, Mr Pearson said.

"I think (Mr Abbott) can carry the confidence of rural and regional Australia and the old conservative Australia," he told AAP outside the event.

The question would be finding common ground on the constitution wording, he added.

Mr Abbott has flagged a shake up of indigenous affairs and has set up an indigenous advisory council to review relevant spending.

Mr Pearson supported the review, which he expects will find some programs are not serving the people they were meant to help.

"There is a lot of waste and a lot of need that is not being addressed so I see this as an opportunity really," he said.

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Gay activists seek end to criminality

Activists are using the CHOGM meeting to press for an end to the criminalisation of homosexuality. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA and New Zealand are being urged to use a meeting of Commonwealth leaders to lobby for an end to the criminalisation of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is a crime in 41 out of the 53 Commonwealth nations, including CHOGM host nation Sri Lanka.

Ahead of the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka on Friday, a new report produced by the Kaleidoscope Trust details human rights abuses against gay and lesbian people.

Former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Sir Shridath Ramphal, writes in the report: "It is a reminder that for most of the countries of the Commonwealth, the desecration of our fellow citizens began in the law.

"As with the abolition of slavery, the decriminalisation of homosexuality in our time must be an act of law."

The report details first-hand examples of attempted murder, beatings and harassment.

"I have lost two teeth, had my family property invaded and car damaged by two masked men," says Caleb Orozco, a gay man from Belize.

The report recommends that all countries which criminalise same-sex activity repeal the laws in line with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

It notes that while Australia had made significant progress in getting rid of gay discrimination from the statute books, there were still some flaws including the differing age of consent, adoption and civil union laws between the states and the gay panic defence in charges of assault and murder.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and NZ leader John Key will attend CHOGM on Friday.

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Labor to target Morrison at Question Time

Labor will pressure Scott Morrison to confirm reports of an asylum seeker vessel reaching Darwin. Source: AAP

THE federal opposition will pressure Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to confirm whether or not an asylum seeker vessel has landed in Darwin undetected.

The government has so far remained tight-lipped on reports a boat carrying Somali refugees reached Australia's northern coastline on Monday.

Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said Mr Morrison should rectify his "arrogant" treatment of the public by addressing the issue during question time in parliament on Wednesday.

"Information should be managed to the Australian people on a public interest basis. A needs-to-know basis for managing information is simply not good enough," he said.

Mr Marles said the public needed to know whether those on board were safe.

"And we need to know what the plans are for those people going forward," he said told reporters in Canberra.

"Today, in our nation's parliament, speaking to our nation, there is the opportunity to minister Morrison to answer questions fully and completely about that incident."

Mr Morrison currently limits his comments on boat arrivals to his Friday weekly briefings with the head of the government's border security operations.

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Snowden a criminal: Richardson

DEFENCE Department secretary Dennis Richardson says fugitive US defence contractor Edward Snowden should be regarded as a common criminal, not a whistleblower.

Mr Richardson, the former head of the Australian Security intelligence Organisation (ASIO), said he became irritated every time he saw a reference to Snowden's disclosure of US intelligence information as whistleblowing.

"I thought whistleblowers revealed things that were illegal," he told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute dinner in Canberra on Tuesday.

"As far as I am concerned Snowden is probably nothing more than a garden-variety criminal."

Mr Snowden, a former US defence contractor, revealed details of secret US surveillance programs that were later published worldwide. He's currently in hiding in Russia, where he has been granted asylum for a year.

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Two prisoners escape from Vic jail

Police are searching for two prisoners who escaped from a minimum security jail in Victoria's north. Source: AAP

A MANHUNT has been launched for two prisoners who have escaped from a minimum-security Victorian jail.

Police believe that Stephen Standage and Patrick Honeysett left the grounds of Dhurringile Prison, near Murchison in Victoria's north, some time after 5pm (AEDT) on Tuesday.

Police say Standage, 46, is 175cm tall with a medium build, black hair with grey flicks, brown eyes and of Aboriginal/Caucasian appearance. He has a moustache.

Honeysett, 38, is 175cm tall with a medium build, brown hair in a crew-cut style and is also of Aboriginal/Caucasian appearance. He has tattoos on his right upper arm and on his lower leg.

Investigators believe they may have discarded their prison garb and are now wearing street clothes.

Dhurringile Prison is a minimum security prison for low-risk offenders.

Police say the pair are in jail for burglary and handling stolen goods related charges and advise anyone who comes in contact with them to call triple zero.

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Bombing shows Syrian war risks: Dreyfus

Former Labor minister Mark Dreyfus warns Australians against involvement in the Syrian conflict. Source: AAP

A SUICIDE bombing in Syria by a man thought to be Australian highlights the risk posed by Australians taking part in the conflict, a former Labor minister says.

Former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus says it is a concern that Australians were participating in a "truly dreadful" conflict where barbarities were perpetrated by all sides.

"Australians who are exposed to that kind of activity, who become radicalised, who become trained in that kind of military activity, it is of course a concern that they might bring back to Australia that kind of knowledge," he told ABC television's 730 program.

During the program a bomber, identified by the ABC as a 27-year-old man from Brisbane, is shown in an online video posted by al-Qaeda-linked group Jabhat al Nusra.

The man, his face pixelated but identified as "Abu Asma al Australi", stands on the back of an explosives laden dump truck reciting passages from the Koran, urging others to participate in jihad.

The truck is then pictured driving away and exploding in the distance.

This occurred in September. Jabhat al Nusra claimed it was driven by the man and said he died in the blast that also killed 30 Assad government soldiers.

However, the man's brother told the ABC it was not true. He said his brother was alive in Turkey, doesn't agree with the war and could not speak fluent Arabic like the man in the video.

A number of Australians have died in the Syrian conflict, all apparently fighting with rebel groups.

In its annual report, ASIO warned of an increasing number of Australian Muslims travelling to Syria to fight - with the risk they could return radicalised and with skills to mount terrorist attacks.

Mr Dreyfus said this was why he proscribed Jabhat al Nusra as a terrorist organisation earlier this year.

That prohibits Australians from joining or participating in any of its activities in Australia or overseas.

Where the government knows a person is intending to participate in the Syrian conflict, it can cancel a passport.

"But of course it's not always possible to determine in advance that someone is intending to participate. They might, for example, state their destination as Turkey," he said.

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Woman, 80, cleared of murder, not bombings

A German octogenarian has been cleared of murder charges over a fatal 1975 attack on an OPEC office. Source: AAP

A GERMAN octogenarian has been cleared of murder charges in relation to a fatal 1975 attack outside the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, but still faces jail for involvement in a series of leftist bombings during the 1970s.

Sonja Suder, 80, had originally been accused of recruiting one of the assailants in an attack that left three dead outside the offices of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

However, prosecutors had confessed during the course of the trial, which began in September 2012, that it was impossible to prove her ties to the attack.

Instead, she was found guilty in several bombings in southern Germany during the late 1970s that resulted in damage, but no injuries or death. The former radical was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Her partner, Christian Gauger, had originally been charged in the bombings, but eventually had his case separated from Suder's. It was later suspended because of his health problems.

Suder, wearing sunglasses, showed no reaction as the verdict was read. However, she did wave at supporters who had gathered in the Frankfurt courtroom.

Both Gauger and Suder have been linked to the left-wing Revolutionary Cells, a group that followed similar aims to the more violent and better-known Baader-Meinhof gang.

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5% emissions reduction possible: expert

THE government can achieve its target five per cent emissions reduction through its direct action scheme at a cost of $7-10 billion, an economist says.

Danny Price, managing director of Frontier Economics Australia, said on Tuesday the task would depend on the difficult issues of scheme penalties and baselines which the government had yet to announce.

Initially the coalition proposed a $10.5 billion direct action fund out to 2020 but has now revised that down to $2.55 billion to 2018.

Mr Price said there would certainly be funds beyond this initial four year forward estimates period, although he couldn't say just how much more would be needed.

"It will depend very much on where the government sets the baselines and the nature of the penalties that are applied, but in the order of $7-10 billion, but probably on the lower end of that range. That includes the $2.55 billion," he told ABC television.

Mr Price is one of a small group of economists who favour direct action rather than a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions.

He said a couple of years ago the then opposition invited Frontier Economics to review costings and assess whether their proposed range of abatement measures were consistent with the literature.

"In both cases we concluded that the costs were reasonable and the level of abatement was very consistent, probably on the conservative side of the evidence available at the time," he said.

Mr Price said a carbon tax worked as a stick whereas direct action was a carrot.

But it also included penalties.

"Direct action comprises both a reward and also a penalty. So if any producer comes along and starts to emit at a much higher rate than they did before, that penalty could cut in," he said.

"Very much, the focus is on encouraging greater quantities of cleaner energy or cleaner forms of production."

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