Headlines Sunday 25th January 2009

Rudd steers us into economic disaster
Piers Akerman
DESPITE the international fiscal crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is still hell-bent on pursuing anti-business policies that he and senior ministers well know will cost even more Australians their jobs. - Thing with Rudd is that he can’t decide anything without a focus group. He criticized the former administration, but he said something interesting to the public too, in election mode. Rudd claimed to be an economic conservative, like Mr Howard. The demonstrably false assertion was accepted by the press for the code with which it spread. While Mr Howard was honest and made hard decisions which weren’t always popular, but which were affective, The media had branded Mr Howard a liar. So when Rudd claimed to be like Mr Howard, it was as if the public were being told that the stupid policies Rudd was presenting would be lies.
Rudd has remained true to his stupid policies, and this betrays the public and the press that have doggedly supported him.
Now we have Turnbull presenting a policy on climate change, and in its use of nuclear power, it challenges Rudd. Using Nuclear power, Turnbull can provide a working policy which makes the cuts to CO2 which Rudd cannot because he is hamstrung by an earlier ALP scare campaign.
We know Rudd can lie, what we don’t know is what he is lying about. Maybe his focus group can tell us. - ed.
===
Blood money: $850,000 to solve Sydney's gangland murders
The brutal underbelly of Sydney has been revealed as police investigate a string of gangland murders and offer a giant reward in a desperate attempt to catch those responsible.
===
Theophanous sues 'rape' accuser
Embattled Victorian Labor MP Theo Theophanous is suing for $10 million a woman who has accused him of rape.
===
Obama pitches plan to save US economy
President Barack Obama took to the airwaves on Saturday to promote his economic aid plan by emphasising how it would benefit ordinary Americans. - actually, it seems like he needs more money to stimulate Democrat pork barrels. - ed.
===
Man arrested over 100 child sex attacks
A Victorian man will appear in court next week charged over an alleged sex attack spree across suburban Melbourne stretching back more than five years.
===
Banks back Rudd's $4 billion plan to protect jobs
Property developers have welcomed the government's latest move to rescue the economy and keep Australian jobs. - actually, what happened is banks accept cash with no strings. - ed.
===
Claire Oliver's death to change tan laws
SOLARIUMS will be forced to cut UV intensity on sunbeds by 40 per cent and ban under-18s and fair-skinned people under a new national standard.
Sunbed operators will also have to warn clients that ultraviolet radiation from tanning units cause cancer.

The new standard is voluntary but will form the basis of legislative reform on the use of solariums across the country.

Today the Victorian Government will announce that it will adopt key measures of the standard as law.

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change is also expected to adopt the standard, after a public consultation period, which ends on February 6.

Standards Australia CEO, John Tucker said it would also be used as a guide for law reform in other states and territories.

The new AS/NZS Solaria for cosmetic purposes was rushed through after the death of Melbourne woman, Claire Oliver, in 2007.

The 26-year-old believed that her skin cancer was caused by her visits to solariums and used her dying months to warn of the risks.