Tough budget decisions coming: Abbott

PM Tony Abbott has warned that "tough decisions" are coming to restore the federal budget. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has warned that "tough decisions" are coming to restore the federal budget.

In the last parliamentary sitting day before Treasurer Joe Hockey brings down his first budget on May 13, Mr Abbott said of all the government's commitments, the most fundamental was to restore the budget.

"Tough decisions are coming," he told parliament.

"They are necessary for the prosperity of our country."

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen asked Mr Hockey why, if he is concerned about the budget, did he double the deficit and add $68 billion of new spending, and change economic assumptions to his mid-year review in December.

Mr Hockey described this as "great fiction" which came from a party with a record of $190 billion of deficits in five years.

"The legacy of Labor is that over the next 10 years there is no surplus, there is no repayment of debt," he said.

"The Labor party legacy of debt and deficit wasn't just for the period they were in government, it is for as far as you can see in the years ahead."

He said the government plans were very clear, and entirely consistent in dealing with what were changing economic circumstances over the last few decades.

"We said government cannot afford to waste taxpayers' money," he said.

He said the pink batts program was a terrible waste of money and cost lives; GP super clinics were medical facilities that did not treat any patients; and the NBN was a litany of waste and incompetence.

"We are going to fix the mess," he said.

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Labor no confidence bid on Speaker fails

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has been banned from parliament for 24 hours. Source: AAP

SPEAKER Bronwyn Bishop has fended off a no-confidence motion after attracting Labor's ire for banning a frontbencher for 24 hours.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus was punted from the chamber on Thursday - the final day of parliament before the six-week pre-budget break - after he called out "Madam Speaker" in an exasperated tone over a ruling relating to the prime minister.

The government voted to suspend Mr Dreyfus from parliament for 24 hours after the Speaker "named" him.

The incident riled the Labor opposition, which has become increasingly frustrated over Mrs Bishop's perceived bias in her question time rulings.

Manager of opposition business Tony Burke used the wording of a successful 1949 no-confidence motion in Deputy Speaker Clark, in which he was described as showing "serious partiality" and "constantly fails to interpret correctly the standing orders of the House".

Among her sins had been throwing out a Labor MP for laughing, ejecting 98 Labor members and not one coalition MP, allowing name-calling and ignoring time limits on answers from ministers.

Mr Burke said Mrs Bishop, who has been in parliament for 27 years, was respected as a formidable MP who could launch "scathing and effective attacks".

"But we cannot support you continuing to behave that way when you want to sit in the Speaker's chair," he said.

House leader Christopher Pyne defended Mrs Bishop, saying Mr Burke clearly had been working up to the motion since the 44th parliament began.

"The fact that this is a stunt ... is so clearly indicated by the fact the manager of opposition business came into the chamber with a prepared speech," he said.

Mr Pyne said Tony Abbott had been criticised in the previous parliament by Labor for having "trouble with strong women" - such as Julia Gillard and then-speaker Anna Burke - but Mr Dreyfus had made a habit of bullying Mrs Bishop.

He accused Labor of being rude, aggressive and "behaving quite intolerably badly towards a woman in the chair".

Independent MPs Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan supported the government in fending off the suspension motion, while Greens MP Adam Bandt sided with Labor.

A spokesman for Mrs Bishop told AAP she remained confident of her position and took heart at the vote from the two independents as well as phone calls of support after the debate.

On her return to the office she had a cup of tea, followed by a meeting with the Solomon Islands high commissioner and the French ambassador.

Mr Abbott, who this week marked 20 years in parliament, told reporters he had faced tough decisions by Speakers but MPs had to cop it.

"I was ejected back in 2000 when I called the then leader of the opposition Mr Beazley a sanctimonious windbag," he said.

"I happen to have a much higher opinion of Mr Beazley now that he's our ambassador in Washington."

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Teen sneaks to top of World Trade Center

A 16-YEAR-OLD boy has bypassed security and climbed to the top of 1 World Trade Center, the US's tallest building, to take pictures in the middle of the night, police say.

The teen was arrested early on Sunday and charged with misdemeanour criminal trespass, said Joe Pentangelo, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade centre site.

The teen got on the construction site of the nearly completed tower through an opening in a fence, Pentangelo said on Thursday. He then allegedly entered the tower by climbing scaffolding.

The teen eluded a guard on the 104th floor; the guard has since been fired, the spokesman said.

It was not immediately known how the teen got to the 104th floor without being noticed.

Port Authority police arrested him on the premises. His camera and mobile phone were seized after authorities obtained a search warrant.

The investigation was continuing into whether the teen may have entered other parts of the building.

"We take security and these types of infractions very seriously and will prosecute violators," Joe Dunne, chief security officer for the Port Authority, said in a statement.

"We continue to reassess our security posture at the site and are constantly working to make this site as secure as possible."

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Swiss Emmentaler named world's best cheese

A SWISS Emmentaler has won the title of 2014 World Championship Cheese in Wisconsin.

Cheesemaker Gerard Sinnesberger took top honours for his Original Schweizer Rohmilch Emmentaler, a large format, big wheel Swiss cheese.

Out of possible 100 points, the Emmentaler scored 97.85 in the final round of judging Wednesday. The cheese scored top honours out of 2,615 entries from 22 countries.

An Austrian entry, called Erzherzog Johann, was second. Another Swiss entry, Gruyere AOP, was third.

US cheesemakers scored big in the competition, winning gold medals in 59 of the total 90 categories judged. Switzerland came in second with seven gold medals, while the Netherlands had five.

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PetroChina annual profit rises 12.4%

PETROCHINA Ltd, China's biggest oil producer, says its profit rose 12.4 per cent last year after higher retail petrol prices helped to narrow heavy losses for its refining unit.

PetroChina said on Thursday that earnings rose to 129.6 billion yuan ($A23.95 billion). Total revenue rose 2.9 per cent to 2.2 trillion yuan.

A change in state-set retail petrol prices in 2013 helped to narrow state-owned PetroChina's loss on refining operations by nearly 45 per cent to 24.4 billion yuan.

China's government squeezes refining margins at its major oil companies and sometimes forces them into a loss by holding down prices at the pump when global crude costs spike up.

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Qld fruit flies set to lose their manhood

ONE of Australia's worst pests could soon lose its manhood or undergo a sex change.

It's part of a bid to save the nation's $7 billion fruit and vegetable industry from the dreaded Queensland fruit fly.

Australian and New Zealand scientists are working on a plan to alter the DNA of the insect.

They are exploring how feeding certain genes to larvae can alter their DNA so they grow into sterilised male flies, whether they start out as male or female.

If the five-year study succeeds, thousands of the flies will be released into infected orchards across Australia to breed with female flies, which mate only once.

Lead CSIRO researcher Dr Paul De Barro says the large-scale research project is a "game changer" in controlling the insects.

Researchers also hope to create 1.5-millimetre sensors, which can be glued to the flies to pinpoint their location and identify where they breed.

They will also look at creating traps that can notify scientists when a fly has been caught.

"The traps will then detect the flies and send that information back to fruit fly control," Dr De Barro said.

"A call will then go out to the factory which load up thousands of flies onto drones.

"Those drones will then go out on a pre-planned mission and they will drop the fruit flies."

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NGA director Ron Radford retires

Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Ron Radford, has announced his retirement. Source: AAP

THE National Gallery of Australia's director has announced his retirement.

Ron Radford will have served close to a decade in the gallery's top job when he leaves at the end of September.

During his time as director, Dr Radford has overseen an extension of gallery buildings, appointment of indigenous curators, the transformation and revival of Asian and Pacific collections, and is credited with initiating numerous blockbuster exhibitions.

There is no link between his retirement and controversy surrounding the purchase of a bronze sculpture, titled Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja), dating from 11th-century India.

The gallery paid $US5 million in 2008 for the statue and in 2014 has launched legal action in the United States against the selling dealer, amid allegations the artwork was stolen.

"If we are a victim of fraud then we will act," Dr Radford has said.

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Border protection team fronts Senate again

THE Operation Sovereign Borders band is getting back together to front another tough audience in a Labor- and Greens-dominated parliamentary committee.

Immigration department secretary Martin Bowles, customs chief Michael Pezzullo and operation commander Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell will front a Senate inquiry in Canberra on Friday to explain how navy and customs ships came to wander into Indonesian waters during the summer.

It's the first public hearing for the inquiry, which is due to report next Thursday.

The committee expects to grill the trio and other border protection officials for almost five hours.

It will also hear from legal experts and officers from the Australian Hydrographic Service, which is responsible for the production and maintenance of navigational charts.

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20,000 Sydney homes lose power in storm

STRONG winds have lashed the NSW coast, cutting power to about 20,000 homes in Sydney's north and 19,000 on the Central Coast.

Residents between Palm Beach and Freshwater lost power early on Sunday afternoon and, about an hour later, State Emergency Service volunteers were called to 120 jobs, predominantly in the northern beaches.

This is expected to climb to about 300 by the end of the Sunday, Fairfax reports.

"This storm has hit Sydney so quickly, all our volunteers have just had to scramble together to get each job covered as quickly as possible," SES spokesman Todd Burns told Fairfax.

Responding to customers on Twitter, Ausgrid said it may take "a few hours" to restore power.

"It may take a few more hours depending on damage and location. Sorry for delays today. storm came thru fast and furious," Ausgrid said on Twitter.

Wind gusting up to 90 km/h was recorded at Terry Hills and 16 millimetres of rain fell in about 15 minutes at nearby Hornsby, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said.

"The cell was moving so quickly it didn't have a chance to drop too much," a bureau spokesman told AAP.

Further north, winds blew across Evans Head at 115km/h and through Casino at 107 km/h.

At Williamtown, near Newcastle, wind ripped through at 95 km/h, and speeds between 90 and 100 km/h were recorded at Gunnedah, Glenn Innes on the northern tablelands, Scone and in the upper Hunter regions.

The storm is now well gone and the BOM is forecasting dry, sunny days in the high 20s for the start of the week after a cool Sunday night.

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Science back on political agenda

AUSTRALIA'S science community is pushing for specialist advisers across all federal government departments.

Following the Abbott government's scrapping of a science ministry, Science and Technology Australia boss Catriona Jackson said industry leaders are hoping to follow the UK's lead and spread expert knowledge throughout federal divisions.

"We have certainly discussed the idea with the government and there has been some movement, with an appointment in agriculture," Ms Jackson told AAP.

"It is certainly something we would advocate."

While there is a federal chief scientist, and one for each state and territory, greater consultancy would be valuable, she said.

After coming to power in 2013, Prime Minister Tony Abbott reshuffled portfolios and split science between industry and employment, removing the role of dedicated science minister, which had been in place since 1931.

"It's fair to say scientists around the country were concerned when no one was appointed as a science minister," Ms Jackson said.

"But we have suspended our opinions until we see the government's first budget."

In an attempt to fuse stronger bonds between science and politicians, hundreds of the nation's industry leaders will converge on Canberra from Monday to meet with parliamentarians.

Ms Jackson denies there is a greater emphasis on the 2014 event in light of the political restructure but said increased interest and resourcing of the science sector is essential.

"Education and training opportunities leading to jobs in science and technology are a must because those are the jobs that will secure the future," she said.

While Australia is punching above its weight in the sector, more must be done to harness, grow and capitalise on the knowledge, Ms Jackson added.

Mr Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who is also Labor's science spokesman, are both due to attend the Science meets Parliament event.

"Parliament will be filled with talk of ideas and possibilities, of better ways to cure disease, to build bridges, to search for new life on other planets," Ms Jackson said.

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