Daily Archives: December 5, 2014

Bill Gravanis.

Greek publican and massive hotelier Bill Gravanis covets the sun-kissed Australian landscape and is just about to spend 100 of his million dollars to get his hands on the Novotel Wollongong Northbeach Hotel from Canadian group Brookfield, after offering an aggressive $48 million for the regional hotel south of Sydney a few months back.

Brookfield secured a respectable number of hotels as part of its $410m takeover of Thakral Holdings in 2012. It recently sold the Sofitel Hotel at Broadbeach in Queensland for nearly $83m to a Chinese buyer, while it only retained the Menzies Hotel in the centre of Sydney.

The official acquisition of the 296-room hotel next March will in fact be the biggest move to date for the Oscars Hotels group. Gravanis aims at the city’s increasingly popular conference market at the same time the world is starting to notice a positive change on the business front, taking a bold step with an eye to the future.

The Greek businessman certainly understands the business of hotels. Oscars Hotel, which is headed by Bill Gravanis, who co-owns it with Mario Gravanis, controls the Southern Cross, Bankstown, Hotel Sweeneys and Camperdown Hotels as well as Bar Century and the Strattons Hotel in the Sydney CBD, Oscars Lounge Bar in Pyrmont, and the Towradgi Beach Hotel in Wollongong.

source: Neos Kosmos

A great white shark cruises next to the jetty at Murrays Beach, Lake Macquarie. Photo: Clinton Bambach

A fisherman was flicking out a lure on Lake Macquarie, near Newcastle. when a 2.5 metre-long predator with a fearsome reputation came by for a look.

The great white shark, still believed to be a juvenile, circled about 50 metres off a Murrays Beach jetty for an hour on Thursday morning.

It made two long sweeps within a metre of Clinton Bambach, the second after an onlooker started patting the water.

“It was doing loops and chasing baits,” Mr Bambach said of the encounter, which he caught on video.

“A bloke saw how excited I was getting as I filmed so he came over and slapped the water and the thing wheeled around …

“You could have stepped on it, it came in so close, in just two foot of water.”

The wharf is a favourite with children and is in a patch of water loved by skiers.

But it is known for bait fish and their predators, with a deep section of the lake between the jetty, Pulbah Island and Wangi Point.

Thursday’s close encounter has highlighted concerns about safety in the lake following a series of similar incidents.

The video footage shows the shark in the shallows of the lake before it heads past the jetty, out to deeper water.

Then, as the man starts patting the water, the shark becomes interested.

“You see the shark notice the attraction and he has done a U-turn and started coming back to where the splash was coming from,” Mr Bambach said.

“But then when it has got close enough to realise that it wasn’t prey, it wasn’t a food source it was used to eating, it diverted itself and swam out a couple of feet from the splash and swam past it.

“In my eyes, the shark has heard the splashing and come back to have a look at what was all the commotion, like a bait fish splashing the surface.

“But when he saw the human hand, it wasn’t a food source so he didn’t aggressively tail kick and attack that food source.

“Sharks are hungry and they will eat, but they won’t just eat a human hand because he sees it splashing.”

Fears for shark

Mr Bambach said he feared sections of the community would wish the shark would be removed or killed, while some might try to catch it.

“I would feel like I have done the wrong thing by the shark by opening my mouth and telling people it is there, if it’s going to get killed off for feeding,” Mr Bambach said.

“But if someone gets taken and I didn’t say anything about it, and I knew and I’ve got footage of it being in that water, I would feel bad.

“Being a fishermen myself and a lover of all creatures, I don’t want this shark to get injured just because it is feeding, it is just doing its thing.”

Mr Bambach, who has been fishing Lake Macquarie since he was a child, said the water was the domain of sea creatures and humans needed to respect it.

He said sharks had called the lake home for years. He could not recall ever hearing of an attack on a human.

“The shark may have been swimming there for God knows how many years past people, and never been spotted,” he said.

Just curious: CSIRO expert

CSIRO great white shark researcher Barry Bruce said the shark appeared to be a juvenile, probably about 2.5 metres long.

He said that, based on the vision he had seen, the shark was healthy and simply curious about its surroundings.

“It certainly wasn’t behaving aggressively,” he said. “It’s not unusual to see great whites in the shallows; we often see them in the surf zone at this time of year.”

What was unusual was that it was seen inside a coastal estuary.

“I think the people who witnessed it were incredibly lucky,” Dr Bruce said.

Shark ‘sighted regularly’

Michael Ittensohn, a Murrays Beach resident who was near the jetty with his children later on Thursday, said his family go down to the water regularly, but they don’t swim, they only go up to their knees.

Mr Ittensohn said his dog swam in the water there all the time, but he had never seen a shark there.

Corey Reid, who works at Fishermans Warehouse at Marks Point, saw what he believed to be the same shark feeding on mullet in the same area for about an hour on Wednesday.

“It was a good-sized shark,” he said. “At first I thought, ‘That’s a big-arse hammerhead’, but then you could seen it wasn’t a hammer, it was a white. You could tell with the mullet around, it was actively working.”

Jason Nunn, who owns Fishermans Warehouse, said the great white had been sighted regularly in the lake over the past couple of months.

“We were talking about it on Saturday about how there hadn’t been any sightings for a while,” Mr Nunn said.

“But I was thinking he hasn’t gone anywhere. There’s been a lot of jewfish in the lake the last month or so and he would have been just chomping on those boys.

“But as it gets a little tougher, he will surface, and with all the mullet, when they school up, they are easier to target. Down along Cams Wharf, there has been a lot of mullet and they’ve obviously got this shark’s attention.

“They are commonly seen down there at this time of year.”

‘Hunting mode’

Mr Nunn was also in no doubt, after seeing the video footage, that the fish was in hunting mode.

“The shark is pumping. Normally the footage you get shows them just meandering round, but this guy is in hunt mode – its tail and dorsal fin were out of the water quite clearly,” Mr Nunn said.

“I reckon if you jumped in and started swimming at that moment, you’d have got nailed.”

Mr Bambach said he watched the shark chasing bait fish for about an hour after it swam off from the jetty.

“We had bait fish splashing around and seagulls dive-bombing him, so he was obviously chasing the bait fish that was coming into the shallows,” Mr Bambach said. “It was just an amazing sight.”

Great whites are protected. The maximum penalty for catching one is a $22,000 fine and/or two years’ jail.

source: smh.com.au

Abbott’s promised “bulldozers on the ground and cranes into our skies” have yet to materialise. Photo: Andrew Meares

 

A year after Tony Abbott pledged to be an “infrastructure prime minister”, he risks becoming the first Australian premier to preside over a recession since the early 1990s, in part due to the snail’s pace of new building projects.

With economic growth already slowing, and spending in the mining industry set to plummet, getting Abbott’s promised “bulldozers on the ground and cranes into our skies” could be critical to preventing a contraction.

Yet government figures this week showed public spending on capital works had actually shrunk in each of the past three quarters. Public investment was one of the biggest drags on the economy in the third quarter, when growth came in well below expectations at just 0.3 per cent.

As mega projects in liquefied natural gas come to completion over the next two years, the Reserve Bank estimates the wind-back in mining spending will slash 1.25 percentage points from economic growth next year, and perhaps as much again in 2016.

With the economy expanding by just 0.8 per cent from April to September, that raises the possibility of a couple of negative quarters for gross domestic product.

“We’re getting to the pointy end of the mining pullback, and a burst of spending on public works would be a great help to the economy,” said David de Garis, a senior economist at National Australia Bank. “So far, it’s been a missed opportunity.”

With borrowing rates near historic lows, he said there was a good case for the government to step up.

“Right now the government can borrow for 10 years at 3 per cent. There have to be plenty of public projects which would make greater financial and economic returns than that.”

The problem for Abbott is that despite his rhetoric on investment – which he put at the heart of Australia’s presidency of the G20 summit last month – he spent years in opposition demonising government debt and calling deficits a disaster no matter what purpose the money was put to.

The government hopes private investment, including the country’s $1.7 trillion pension funds industry, will help bridge an estimated $700 billion infrastructure funding shortfall.

But Matt Linden, chief policy adviser for pension fund advocacy group the Industry Super Network, said the government would struggle to attract financing for large greenfield projects until it re-thinks its approach to include long-term investors at the early planning stage, rather than after a project was underway.

“Governments really need to sit down and have a look again at how they structure these deals for the market because the way they’ve been structuring these deals has not been sustainable.”

Budget pressure

Treasurer Joe Hockey this week conceded things needed speeding up.

“These national accounts confirm necessity for the delivery of our plan to significantly increase infrastructure spending over the next few years,” he told reporters.

He blamed the state governments, which have responsibility for building much of the country’s infrastructure, for dragging their feet.

The federal government has to provide some of the funding, but with falling commodity prices blowing a hole in the budget, the pressure is to tighten fiscal policy, not to spend on roads and bridges.

“The government will likely need to raise $30 billion in new taxes or via expenditure cuts over the budget horizon should it wish to meet its objective of returning to surplus by 2018/19,” says Tim Toohey, head of Australian research at Goldman Sachs.

He estimates this will take 0.6 percentage points off real economic growth in 2015 and 0.4 per cent the year after.

The squeeze on funding was already visible in the May budget. When the Coalition boasted that $50 billion in infrastructure projects were under way, it turned out almost all had been launched by the previous Labor government.

The few new road projects were instead funded by cutting investment in public transport, making it a zero-sum game.

Along with roads, the government is looking at investing in nearly 30 irrigation schemes and reviving a long-stalled programme of dam building to combat growing water shortages, which are constraining agricultural production.

But with the tax intake under such pressure, analysts are wondering if the bulldozers will ever arrive.

“From a policy perspective, a less restrictive approach to fiscal policy, especially through Commonwealth (federal) sponsored infrastructure investment, would be welcome,” says Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac.

source: smh.com.au

Παναθηναϊκός συνετρίβη στην Πόλη από την Φενέρμπαχτσε, ενώ απώλεσε και τη διαφορά (+18) της ευρείας νίκης του στο ΟΑΚΑ, στην πρώτη μεταξύ τους αναμέτρηση. Οι «πράσινοι» ηττήθηκαν με το βαρύ 84-62 από την ομάδα του Ζέλιμιρ Ομπράντοβιτς, σε αγώνα για την 8η ημέρα της Ευρωλίγκα, με τους Τούρκους να έχουν πλέον τον πρώτο λόγο για την κατάληψη της 2ης θέσης του 3ου ομίλου.

Ο Παναθηναϊκός έχασε γρήγορα με τραυματισμό τον αρχηγό του, Δημήτρη Διαμαντίδη (διάστρεμμα), ο οποίος αγωνίστηκε για μόλις 5 λεπτά στο πρώτο ημίχρονο, υπέπεσε σε 16 λάθη, τα… έσπασε από τα 6.75 (8/26), ηττήθηκε κατά κράτος στη μάχη των επιθετικών ριμπάουντ και δεν κατάφερε σε κανένα σημείο του δευτέρου εικοσαλέπτου να αντιδράσει.

Ο Ερντέν (14π., 7ρ.) έκανε μεγάλη ζημιά μέσα στην «πράσινη» ρακέτα, εκμεταλλευόμενος την απουσία των Μπατίστα, Μαυροκεφαλίδη, ενώ ο Γκάουντλακ «εκτέλεσε» από τα 6.75, τελειώνοντας τον αγώνα με 18 πόντους και 4/5 τρίποντα. Από τον Παναθηναϊκό ο Σλότερ με 20 πόντους ήταν απελπιστικά μόνος για την ανατροπή.

Ο Παναθηναϊκός ήλεγξε στο πρώτο δεκάλεπτο το ρυθμό του αγώνα, αλλά η εμμονή από τα 6.75 (2/6) σε συνδυασμό με τα λάθη (3) και τα χαμένα επιθετικά ριμπάουντ (2 έναντι 6 της Φενέρ) δεν του επέτρεψαν κάτι καλύτερο από το ισόπαλο 18-18. Παράλληλα, στο 3΄ ο Διαμαντίδης, μετά από αιφνιδιασμό του που διαμόρφωσε το 5-6, αισθάνθηκε ενοχλήσεις και έκατσε στον πάγκο, δίνοντας τη θέση του στον Μποχωρίδη. Πολύ καλός επιθετικά σε αυτό το διάστημα ο Ράιτ, ο οποίος απόντος του Μπατίστα ξεκίνησε βασικός και σημείωσε 6 πόντους.

Στο δεύτερο δεκάλεπτο, μετά από ένα τετράλεπτο αστοχίας και λαθών και από τις δύο ομάδες, ο Χίκμαν με λέι απ έγραψε το 20-18 για τη Φενερμπαχτσέ/Ούλκερ, η οποία σοβαρεύτηκε σε άμυνα και περιορίζοντας του «πράσινους» στους 8 πόντους μέχρι το 18΄ ξέφυγε για πρώτη φορά με +8 (34-26). Ωστόσο, ο Παναθηναϊκός βρήκε δύο κολλητά τρίποντα από Σλότερ και Χαραλαμπόπουλο και μάζεψε με τη λήξη του ημιχρόνου τη διαφορά στους -4 (36-32). Οκτώ λάθη, λιγοστές ασίστ και 4/12 τρίποντα ήταν τα… μοιραία στατιστικά για τους «πράσινους» στο πρώτο ημίχρονο.

Με τον Διαμαντίδη θεατή στην τρίτη περίοδο ο Παναθηναϊκός των 11 λαθών και των «φτωχών» ποσοστών ευστοχίας δεν άντεξε απέναντι στην Φενερμπαχτσέ, η οποία με ρεκόρ παραγωγικότητας σε αυτό το διάστημα (31 πόντοι!) φρόντισε να οικοδομήσει μία διαφορά ασφαλείας.

Οι Τούρκοι μπήκαν «ζεστοί» από τα 6.75 και με τρία διαδοχικά τρίποντα (2 Γκάουντλακ, 1 Χίκμαν) ξέφυγαν για πρώτη φορά με διψήφια διαφορά πόντων (48-37 στο 23΄), ενώ όταν ανέλαβε δράση ο Ερντέν μέσα στην αντίπαλη ρακέτα (9π. στο γ’ δεκ.) ο φωτεινός πίνακας έγραψε το 67-45 στο 29΄. Με την εις βάρος του διαφορά να δείχνει μη αναστρέψιμη ο Παναθηναϊκός δεν μπόρεσε να αντιδράσει στο τελευταίο δεκάλεπτο και έπεσε με το τελικό 84-62.

Τα δεκάλεπτα: 18-18, 36-32, 67-48, 84-62

ΔΙΑΙΤΗΤΕΣ: Λοτερμόσερ (Γερμανία), Κόντε (Ισπανία), Γιασεβίτσιους (Λιθουανία)

ΦΕΝΕΡΜΠΑΧΤΣΕ (Ζέλιμιρ Ομπράντοβιτς): Γκάουντλακ 18 (4), Χίκμαν 10 (2), Μπιέλιτσα 6, Ερντέν 14, Μαχμούτογλου 6 (2), Μπογκντάνοβιτς 5 (1), Σαβάς 4, Ζόριτς 6, Ουγκουρλού, Βέσελι 12, Σιπάχι, Πρέλτζιτς 3 (1).

ΠΑΝΑΘΗΝΑΪΚΟΣ (Ντούσκο Ιβάνοβιτς): Χαραλαμπόπουλος 7 (1), Σλότερ 20 (4), Μποχωρίδης 5 (1), Γιάνκοβιτς 3 (1), Φώτσης 6, Παππάς 4, Διαμαντίδης 2, Γκιστ 9 (1), Διαμαντάκος, Μπλουμς, Ράιτ 6.

Πηγή:in.gr

Bible studies: Institutes providing religious training will be eligible for government funding under the Coalition’s proposed higher education reforms. Photo: Justin McManus

Taxpayers would subsidise the training of priests and other religious workers at private colleges for the first time under the Abbott government’s proposed higher education reforms.  

As well as deregulating university fees and cutting university funding by 20 per cent, the government’s proposed higher education package extends federal funding to students at private universities, TAFES and associate degree programs.

Religious teaching, training and vocational institutes would be eligible for a share of $820 million in new Commonwealth funding over three years.

“This raises serious questions about relationship between Church and State”: Labor higher education spokesman Kim Carr. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Labor and the Greens attacked the policy, saying it breaches the separation of Church and State. Earlier this year the government controversially announced it would provide $244 million for a new school chaplaincy scheme but would remove the option for schools to hire secular welfare workers.

In correspondence with voters, Family First Senator Bob Day has singled out funding for faith-based training institutes to explain his support for the government’s reforms.

Eleven theological colleges are currently accredited by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) to provide courses designed to prepare students to enter religious ministries.

Institutes such as the Sydney College of Divinity, Brisbane’s Christian Heritage College and the Perth Bible College, which currently charge students full fees, would be eligible for an estimated $4214 funding a year each student under the reforms.

The John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, which offers course units including “Theology and Practice of Natural Family Planning” and “Marriage in the Catholic Tradition”, would also be eligible for federal support.

The institute says on its website its mission is “promote marriage and the family for the good of the whole Church and the wider community”.

The Anglican Diocese of Melbourne requires all trainee priests to receive theological training at Ridley College or the Trinity College Theological School, both of which would likely be eligible to offer Commonwealth Supported Places under the government’s changes.

Labor higher education spokesman Kim Carr said: “This raises serious questions about relationship between Church and State. The Church has traditionally funded the training of its own personnel.”

Mr Carr said there was a difference between federal funding for theoretically-focused religious studies courses and courses designed to prepare graduates for the priesthood.

Greens higher education spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon said: “Mr Pyne has gone one step further than robbing Peter to pay Paul – he is attempting to rob Australia’s public and secular university system to pay private, religious colleges.

“Courses that Mr Pyne wants to extend funding to include those teaching prescriptive Christian ideology on sexuality and marriage – is this really the best use of the higher education budget?”

On its core values page on its website the Perth Bible College says, “We believe in the urgent need to reach our broken world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and to train men and women to be effective servants for God.”

A spokesman for Education Minister Christopher Pyne said courses offered by private colleges would have to be approved by the independent regulator to gain access to federal funding.

“Consistent with current practice, the government will not distinguish between faith‑based and secular higher education institutions for registration and funding purposes,” the spokesman said.

Family First Senator Bob Day said, in a letter to a member of the general public, that it is unfair that public universities receive federal funding but religious colleges and other private providers do not.

“The Government’s proposals … reduce the subsidies given to universities, while for the first time addressing inequity by providing significant subsidies for non-universities (but still less than universities),” he wrote. “Some of these non-universities that will receive funding for the first time – if this Bill passes – are faith-based training, teaching, theological and vocational institutions.”

University of Divinity Vice-Chancellor Peter Sherlock declined to comment, but in a recent Senate submission the private university said federal funding would bring down course fees for its students.

The government’s reforms were voted down by the Senate this week but will return to Parliament, with some amendments, next year.

Figures released on Thursday by the Universities Admissions Centre showed a slight increase in year 12 applications on last year despite claims of vastly increased fees under a deregulated system.

source: smh.com.au

There is growing speculation Treasurer Joe Hockey could be replaced by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Joe Hockey has pointed the finger at ministerial colleagues angry about having to find savings in their portfolios to explain speculation Malcolm Turnbull could replace him as Treasurer.

Mr Hockey also said it was up to the other members of the Abbott government, not just him, to do the hard work selling the budget to the public. Mr Hockey said he faced a tougher job than any treasurer in the past 15 years and that predecessors Peter Costello and Wayne Swan were able to hand money to taxpayers “without constraint”.

But to say there is not a problem is barking mad. The backbench wants Malcolm

Mr Hockey’s comments come at the end of a week dominated by headlines about tension between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and infighting in the office of Defence Minister David Johnston.

Mr Abbott tried to fend off attacks on Mr Hockey on Thursday, saying he would one day be regarded as one of Australia’s best treasurers.

Asked about reports that colleagues had lost faith in him, Mr Hockey told the Sunrise program on Friday morning: “Look, this is part and parcel of being Treasurer. When you have conversations with your colleagues about asking them to live within their means, in their portfolios, some of them don’t like it but we have got to do what is right for the Australian people.

“I know it’s hard for people. I know it’s hard for the community. I know it’s hard for colleagues but we have to do what is right.”

News Corp newspapers reported on Friday that there is growing support for Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to replace Mr Hockey as Treasurer next year if the government’s fortunes do not improve.

“Everyone wants Joe to ­succeed,” one of his colleague was quoted saying. “But to say there is not a problem is barking mad. The backbench wants Malcolm.”

Mr Hockey said commentary about his performance was an “inside the beltway” issue in Canberra.

“I mean, for a decade and a half, treasurers have been able to spend more and more money without constraint,” he said. “Under Peter Costello, he had surpluses and could hand them back. Under Wayne Swan, he borrowed money, sooner or later, a treasurer had to come along and say, ‘we need to live within our means, we need to have a plan that ensures that Australia does not end up with an insufferable burden of debt’.

“I do it because it’s right for everyday Australians.”

Mr Abbott conceded on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday that the Treasurer had been the subject of criticism but said Mr Hockey “is going to be one of the great treasurers because he’s someone who bounces back and that’s what he’s doing now”.

Mr Hockey, previously regarded as one of the government’s best communicators, has had a difficult year. His colleagues have been frustrated by several gaffes, including saying the “poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far”, being filmed smoking cigars on budget eve, and comparing a new $7 GP fee to the cost of beer and cigarettes.

source: theage.com.au