480 by Jaxy - Issuu

10 - 16 September 2013 Issue: 480

CAPTURING AUSTRALIA

GREAT ESCAPE

entertainment P8

travel P10

Craig Silvey on Aussie literature

STRANGE BUT TRUE Ten fun facts about Australia

Dare to do Devon

uk life P5

41769

CONTRACTING? TIME TO EARN MORE TAX, FINANCIAL AND MIGRATION EXPERTS: Money Transfers, Tax Refunds, Visas, Limited Companies & Accounting, UK Bank Accounts, CV & Job Assistance, Travel Clinic, Shipping, Legal and Umbrella Services

ABBOTT’S APPROACH

Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott will wait at least six weeks to resume federal parliament, giving him time to set up his new coalition government and attend two summits. PRIME Minister-elect Tony Abbott will wait at least six weeks to resume federal parliament, giving him time to set up his new coalition government and attend two summits. Mr Abbott on Monday held a series of meetings in Canberra with deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop and Nationals leader Warren Truss and senior government officials. His mind is also turning to how to get legislation to repeal the carbon and mining taxes and toughen Australia’s approach to asylum seekers through a minorityinfluenced Senate in the coming months. “My job is to be respectful and courteous of every member of parliament - that includes independent and minor party MPs,” Mr Abbott said on Monday. “But in the end they all need to respect the government of our nation has a mandate and the parliament should work with the government to implement its mandate.” Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen, who on Monday nominated himself as shadow treasurer in the ALP opposition, criticised Mr Abbott’s decision not to bring parliament back until late October or early November. “I thought we had an emergency on our borders and a crisis in our

DANGER zone Aussie comedian David Quirk at Soho Theatre | Interview P9

budget,” Mr Bowen said. “Apparently everything is not all that urgent now.” Mr Abbott is expected to attend both the APEC summit in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei in early October. The incoming 28th prime minister said he was being “purposeful, methodical, calm and conscientious”. “The last thing I want to do is to rush the parliament back for a photo opportunity,” he said. The coalition’s asylum seeker plan, Operation Sovereign Borders, won’t start until after the new ministry is sworn in early next week. Mr Abbott said he wouldn’t be surprised if people smugglers tried to test his government’s resolve. Mr Truss, who will take on the transport and infrastructure portfolio, said the Nationals would have at least 20 members in the 44th parliament. “Under the coalition arrangements the positions are divided according to the number of seats we have in the coalition room from each party,” Mr Truss told Sky News. Meanwhile, Labor is now turning to settling on its new parliamentary leader but at the time Australian Times went to print, the two likely

Catholic Church believed pedo priests 'curable' CATHOLIC leaders simply could not accept that ordained priests might commit child sex abuse, a senior church figure has told an inquiry. And where they did, they believed it was a “one-off”. Asked whether there was a “cultural disinclination” among senior Catholics to confront claims of abuse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Monsignor John Usher replied: “It was not so much cultural but spiritual”. The monsignor on Monday fronted the special commission of inquiry into how church leaders and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against two Hunter Valley priests. He said that 20 years ago the first response from bishops and other senior Catholics to claims of child sexual abuse by a priest was disbelief. “(They thought), ‘this couldn’t be true’,” he said. “‘And if he did, it was only a one-off, and we’ll forgive him and he won’t do it again’.” Many in the church believed pedophile priests could be “cured” if they received counselling, he said. “I’m not saying it was a ...continued on p3