11 - 17 June 2013 Issue: 467
HOCKEYROOS HEAD FOR the UK Catch them in action
sport P14
LONDON ON A BUDGET Top ten (free) London activities uk life p7
CAPTIVATING CUBA Havana's heady embrace
travel P11
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Leadership rumblings “gossip and flim flam” n
Labor MPs insist leadership rumblings are a fiction and voters are more interested in policy, despite a recent poll which shows reinstating Rudd would improve Labor's election chances. CABINET minister Bill Shorten has reaffirmed his support for Prime Minister Julia Gillard as reports persist he’s under pressure to tell her it’s time to go. A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten said he “absolutely” still supported Ms Gillard and she didn’t know where that information had came from. Parliamentary secretary to the prime minister Andrew Leigh said the latest leadership rumblings definitely fell under the category “fiction”. They re-emerged amid a media blitz by former prime minister Kevin Rudd last week at the end of a fortnight of parliamentary sittings which left Labor MPs gloomy about the prospects of holding government. Having lost a leadership ballot in February 2012 and declining to contest it this year when encouraged to do so by backers, Mr Rudd is saying he is only trying to help Labor and is not a leadership candidate. Ms Gillard kept a low profile on Monday, appearing at a photo-only opportunity with supporters of her Gonski school funding plan at Kirribilli House in Sydney, where journalists were not invited. Few other Labor politicians put their heads up on the public holiday, with the handful on Twitter only sharing good news. Mr Rudd used the social network ...continued on p3
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Authorities won’t retrieve asylum seekers bodies
AUSTRALIAN authorities are too busy to recover the floating bodies of asylum seekers whose boat sank near Christmas Island. Thirteen bodies were spotted during the air and sea search for the boat, which was believed to have been carrying about 55 men, women and children when it capsized northwest of the island. A three-day search for any survivors was called off on Sunday with not a single person recovered from the water. Customs says no attempt to retrieve the bodies will be made on Monday because border protection vessels and aircraft are involved in a number of “high priority operations” in waters near Christmas Island and elsewhere. “Our priority in those operations remains the protection of life, responding to other vessels which may require assistance and preventing further loss of life,” a Customs spokeswoman told AAP on Monday. “When those operations have been concluded and there is no further risk to life, Border Protection Command ...continued on p3
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