Checkpoint FOR TUESDAY 6 JULY 2010
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants New Zealand involved in setting up a regional centre in East Timor for processing asylum seekers and appears to want this country to take more refugees. Ms Gillard is trying to clear away another controversy in the lead up to the general election and today unveiled a tougher stance on border protection saying she wants to wreck the trade in people smuggling. She's says the proposed new processing centre in East Timor is a regional solution.cut.So what are the implicatons for this country? Here's the acting Prime Minister Bill English.Pre-rec
Julia Gillard says the new plan is not simply a reworked Pacific Solution. Under that policy brought in by the Howard government, boat people were intercepted before they reached the Australian mainland and held in detention camps on Pacific islands such as Nauru until it was decided if they were genuine refugees.A high-profile human rights lawyer in Australia, Julian Burnside QC is keen for more details on today's announcement.Pre-rec
The latest economic forecast says the economy is stalling and warns the Reserve Bank risks inflicting further damage if it continues to lift interest rates. The Institute of Enonomic Research's latest Business survey shows confidence has fallen in the three months to the end of June with a worrying dip in the manufacturing and construction industries. This is a turnaround from the survey in March when businesess were over-optimistic about what lay ahead. Here's institute economist Shamubeel Eaqub (yarkob) Pre-rec
The Property Council says public opposition to the possible sale of a group of Crafar family farms to Chinese interests is scaring off other foreign investors and threatening the economy's recovery. Offers close tomorrow on 16 of the North Island dairy farms in receivership.Federated Farmers says it has problems with both the foreign bid and a counter offer endorsed by the Prime Minister from the state owned farming company Landcorp.Ian Telfer reports. pkge
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH PATRICK O'MEARA
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The motor industry admits new rules for cleaning up exhaust fumes actually come at a cost to the climate. It says trucks and other diesel vehicles which meet strict new standards on tailpipe pollution use less biofuel and so emit more greenhouse gases.
Eric Frykberg reports. PKG
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17.30 HEADLINES
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The Police Minister, Judith Collins, says assaults against police and prison officers are an attack on the rule of law and she wants the courts to take a tougher line on sentencing those offenders.
She's planning to amend the Sentencing Act, so that judges will have to treat these assaults as an aggravating factor. Between 2004 and 2009 the total number of assaults on police officers rose by a third to almost two-and-a-half-thousand while serious assaults increased 38-percent to 412. Judith Collins is the Minister of both Corrections and the Police and she joins us now.
LIVE
Australia's new Prime Minister has announced plans to set up a regional processing centre for asylum seekers - and she tries to clear away another controversy in the lead up to the general election. Ms Gillard says she's already held talks with President Jose Ramos-Horta about the possibility of establishing the centre in East Timor - and discussions have also been held with Prime Minister John Key. She made the announcement after Opposition Leader Tony Abbott earlier in the day revealed a number of new prongs to the coalition's asylum-seeker policy. They include turning away asylum seekers who deliberately discarded their passports before arriving in Australia. The chief political reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald - Phil Coorey - joins us now:
LIVE
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17.45 TRAILS
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WAATEA
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Some New Zealand businesses are losing confidence in the economy and are uncertain about the future. The Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research shows business confidence has fallen from a net 36 to 28 percent seasonally adjusted. Craig McCulloch talked to a number of businesses around the country. PKG
The Civil Defence in Gisborne is on full alert with another twelve hours of rain expected to fall on the already saturated district.
River levels are high and flood-warning systems are in place around the area. One of those cut off by flooding is Jeremy Williams. He lives on a farm, inland from Ruatoria in the Mata River Valley and he joins us now. LIVE
First Australian band Men at Work were found guilty of ripping off a classic children's song - now they've been ordered to pay royalties to the song's owners. Here's a version of Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree: CUT and this is a section of the 1980's hit song Down Under. CUT In February a court ruled that Men at Work had plagiarised that riff from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. Now the band has been ordered to pay the owners of the song - Larrikin Music - 5 per cent of future profits, as well as profits dating back to 2002.
ABC court reporter Jamelle Wells has been covering the story and joins us now: LIVE
The international forces in southern Afghanistan say they've largely completed the first phase of a campaign to improve security in and around the city of Kandahar. Thousands more American troops with new equipment and the backing of military police have been deployed as part of a planned surge. The BBC's Frank Gardner is at the NATO headquarters where commanders expect the next phase to meet determined opposition from the Taliban: PKG