Kiwi gains against weak Aussie dollar

THE New Zealand dollar has climbed against its trans-Tasman counterpart after the Reserve Bank of Australia minutes for its last meeting showed an expectation of slower growth as the country's mining boom winds down.

THE kiwi climbed as high as 92.54 Australian cents shortly after the release of the central bank's minutes and was trading at 92.48 cents at 5pm in Wellington, up from 92.25 at 8am and 92.31 cents at 5pm on Monday.

The kiwi fell to 86.58 US cents at 5pm, from 86.78 cents at 8am and 86.85 cents on Monday."The RBA released its minutes this afternoon. They didn't say much different about the currency, but there were some hints that they were slightly less positive on the economy," said Raiko Shareef, a currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand."The kiwi/Aussie has had a bit of a move, and that's largely driven off the weakness of the Aussie dollar."In contrast, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is hiking interest rates to curb inflationary pressures, while Thursday's gross domestic product figures are expected to show the economy growing at a 3.1 annual pace in the first quarter."From a global investors perspective New Zealand has pretty good appeal from the interest rate side and also combined with the fact the New Zealand dollar currency volatility is at an all time low," Mr Shareef said.The kiwi slipped to 63.84 euro cents from 64.12 cents on Monday and to 88.26 yen from 88.34.The trade-weighted index fell to 80.70 from 80.85.

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Land Rights Act not an impediment: Peris

Nova Peris has rejected claims the Aboriginal Land Rights Act is holding indigenous people back. Source: AAP

NORTHERN Territory Senator Nova Peris has rejected claims the Aboriginal Land Rights Act is holding indigenous people back.

THE NT Minister for Community Services Bess Price said at a development conference in Darwin on Monday the Act has locked Aboriginal land away.

"It's clear it has now become outdated and a hindrance to moving forward in our communities," she said."I plead with the Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Senator Nigel Scullion (Minister for Indigenous Affairs) to give Aboriginal people their land back. When Aboriginal people are free to trade and deal with their lands, social, business and economic opportunities will flow."But Senator Peris said there were a number of things preventing Aboriginal economic development, such as a lack of infrastructure."For someone in Bess Price's position, when she opens her mouth she does speak for Aboriginal people but what she's saying is totally untrue," she told ABC radio, but admitted the approvals process was too slow.Under the Land Rights Act in the NT, landowners must negotiate with a land council for an Indigenous Land Use Agreement before they can sell or use their land for commercial purposes, and lending institutions prefer longer 99-year leases in order to guarantee funds for people to buy their own homes or launch businesses, which can only be approved by the federal minister.But land councils do not always act in the interests of traditional owners, said Senator Nigel Scullion."Sometimes a land council has a particular agenda and can assist with economic development; other land councils have other agendas and perhaps might not be so helpful because they have some fundamental opposition to independence from particular groups," he told ABC."There's no doubt that the system needs some adjustment but I don't agree with Bess that it's in the actual Land Rights Act. I can't see any circumstance that the (Act) can't assist with; it's supposed to be enabling legislation."Both the Northern Land Council and the Central Land Council have indicated that they don't like 99-year township leases "and they're actively working against the interests of traditional owners in some cases", Senator Scullion said."It's my task to make sure that land councils as commonwealth agencies dance to the beat of the traditional owners' drum, that's their role."They should be facilitators, not necessarily having particular fundamentalist views themselves."Indigenous people around the world would love to have a piece of legislation like the Land Rights Act to protect them, said Northern Land Council CEO Joe Morrison."The Land Rights Act is a very unique piece of legislation ... I know indigenous people around the world would love to have something like (it) that gives them communal property rights," he told AAP."We need to maintain that position and work on the strengths of the Land Rights Act to empower people."He said Ms Price and her government have been preventing Aboriginal people from participating in economic advancement by not setting up a strategic water reserve for indigenous people to access water allocations from an aquifer to irrigate and develop their lands."Because there's a separation of land and water titles, just having land doesn't mean you can develop it, you need water to be able to develop agricultural enterprises and the NT government's position has been to effectively shut out Aboriginal people from that process," Mr Morrison said.

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Shell to sell most of Woodside stake

Woodside, Australia's largest oil and gas company, has placed its shares in a trading halt. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA'S largest oil and gas company Woodside Petroleum will spend nearly $3 billion to get Royal Dutch Shell off its share register.

WOODSIDE'S largest shareholder, petroleum giant Shell announced plans on Tuesday to sell 19 per cent of its $6.3 billion stake.

The desire to split is mutual, with Woodside keen to remove the overhang that has capped its share price for years and Shell in the middle of a $15 billion global asset sale, including Australian refineries and service stations.Former treasurer Peter Costello blocked Shell's attempted $10 billion takeover of Woodside in 2001 on national interest grounds - one of only two such rejections in Australian history.Woodside will buy back 78.3 million of its shares - or 9.5 per cent of the company - from Shell for $US2.68 billion ($A2.90 billion) or $A36.49 a share, if shareholders back the deal.Another 78.3 million shares will be sold to institutional investors at $A41.35 per share.Shell will be left with a 4.5 per cent stake.Its chief executive Ben van Beurden said it would net $US5 billion ($A5.41 billion) from the deal.Woodside, which operates six of Australia's seven LNG processing plants predominantly in WA, described it as a new chapter.It was a natural transition in the evolution of the company, Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman told an investor briefing."It is the first time in many, many years we have not had a substantial shareholder on the register," he said."We now look very much like most of our peers in the marketplace."I think that it is a really good thing, the market will be able to fully value us, we will get full value on our ASX listing with respect to our weighting on the index as well."Shell had increasingly flagged its desire to sell over the years, reducing the incentive for other institutional investors to buy in until that happened, Royal Bank of Canada analyst Andrew Williams said."Who knows if the stock may have been at current share price levels earlier if that overhang had been removed," he told AAP.Shell reduced its stake by 10 per cent for $A42.23 a share in 2010, well above Tuesday's sale prices.Woodside's shares are in a halt and last traded at $42.85.Woodside will cancel the 9.5 stake it is buying back, delivering real value to shareholders through enhanced earnings per share, cash flow and dividends, Mr Coleman said.It can afford to do that, he said, through existing cash and debt, low gearing and last month's collapse of its planned $US2.6 billion ($A2.81 billion) share in the Israeli Leviathan gas project, freeing up capital.Woodside could now be vulnerable to a takeover, although Mr Coleman said that was not part of the company's plans.Mr Williams said the market remained concerned about Woodside's growth prospects, given the uncertainty around what new proposed projects would emerge to replace their North West Shelf and Pluto projects that would eventually decline.

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Iraq tensions weigh on kiwi dollar

THE New Zealand dollar may fall this week as growing Middle East tensions weigh on investor confidence.

THE kiwi increased to 86.84 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 86.68 at 8am and 86.66 cents at 5pm in Wellington on Friday. The trade-weighted index edged up to 80.85 from 80.68 last week.

Investors have sought relatively safe assets, lifting the price of gold to a three-week high, as increasing violence in Iraq has markets nervous OPEC's second biggest producer of crude oil may plunge deeper into conflict."The kiwi will remain elevated, but I think the risk-off trade will be more of a problem in the market" as investors are spooked by the rising Middle East tensions, said Martin Rudings, senior advisor at OMF."The market is already long on New Zealand dollars so it'll be like a fire in a cinema, the first one out the door or a rush for the exit, so I am a wee bit wary, and I certainly wouldn't be buying kiwi dollars up at these levels with what's going on."Government data on Thursday is expected to show the economy grew 1.2 per cent in the first quarter of the year, from a 0.9 per cent pace in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to economists polled by Reuters."We're expecting a good number from GDP, even if it is slightly less than what's expected, it is still probably a pretty strong number compared to most other countries around the world," said Mr Rudings.The kiwi rose to 92.31 Australian cents at 5pm in Wellington from 91.99 cents on Friday, was almost unchanged at 88.32 yen from 88.31 yen and advanced to 64.09 euro cents from 63.92 cents.

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34 die in militant attack on Kenya town

SOMALI militants wielding automatic weapons have attacked a small Kenyan coastal town, killing at least 34 people as they sprayed bullets into the street, assaulted the police station and set two hotels on fire, officials say.

KENYA'S top police commander, David Kimaiyo, also said that the gunmen attacked a bank. The assault came late Sunday night as town residents were watching World Cup matches on TV. Authorities blamed al-Shabab, Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked terror group.

The attack occurred in the town of Mpeketoni about 20km southwest of the tourist centre of Lamu. Any tourism in Mpeketoni is mostly local, with few foreigners visiting the region. The town is about 100km from the Somali border.Kenya has experienced a wave of gunfire and explosive attacks in recent months. The US, UK, France, Australia, and Canada have all recently upgraded their terror threat warnings for the country. US Marines behind sandbag bunkers are now stationed on the roof of the US Embassy in Nairobi.The Red Cross, which said it had personnel on the ground, put the death toll at 34. Kimaiyo had earlier said it was 27 but that it could rise.The Interior Ministry said that at about 8pm on Sunday two minivans entered the town. Militants disembarked and began shooting. Kenya's National Disaster Operations Centre said military surveillance planes were launched shortly afterward.The nearby town of Lamu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the country's oldest continually inhabited town. The region saw a spate of kidnappings of foreign tourists in 2011 that Kenya said was part of its motivation for attacking Somalia. Since those attacks and subsequent terror warnings tourism has dropped off sharply around Lamu.Al-Shabab has vowed to carry out terror attacks to avenge the Kenyan military presence in Somali. At least 67 people were killed in September when four al-Shabab gunmen attacked an upscale mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in October 2011.

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NZ stocks edge higher despite tensions

NEW Zealand shares have edged higher as growing violence in Iraq kept markets nervous and as local investors mulled a spate of new initial public offerings.

THE NZX 50 Index rose 8.292 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5178.8 on Monday.

Within the index, 28 shares rose, 13 fell and nine were unchanged. Turnover was a smaller-than-usual $94.9 million."Until things are sorted out in Iraq, and it's not going to be a quick fix, it will remain a concern. It will affect oil prices which affects every economy in the world so no one is isolated from the Iraqi situation," said Grant Williamson, director at Hamilton Hindin Greene."Unfortunately investors are getting very much used to these sort of conflicts over in the Middle East and even Eastern Europe."Xero climbed 0.6 per cent to $29.31 after the cloud-based accounting software firm said it hit annualised sales of $100m for the first time in May.Fletcher Building dropped 0.5 per cent to $8.93 after it said it faces an $11m charge on the sale of its Australian-focused construction materials distribution business Hudson Building Supplies for $20m to HTH Stores.Stock market operator NZX advanced 0.8 per cent to $1.30 after more companies announced plans to list.Hirepool said it plans to raise as much as $262m in an initial public offering and list on the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges next month with a market capitalisation of as much as $340m.Pushpay, the mobile payment app developer, said it will raise $9m in a private share issue before it seeks a compliance listing on the New Zealand Alternative Index in July.Two other tech companies Serko and Gentrack plan to list later this month."With the spate of IPOs that are on the table at the moment, we may see one or two stocks weaken a little bit as investors look to liquidate funds to pay for the IPOs," Mr Williamson said.Pacific Edge was the best performer on the day, climbing 3.5 per cent to 88 cents.

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Afghan voters defy Taliban threat

Afghans have braved threats of violence and searing heat to vote in the presidential elections. Source: AAP

THE United States praised millions of Afghan voters who defied Taliban threats and attacks to vote in a presidential run-off election securing the country's first democratic transfer of power, with counting set to begin.

WITH turnout higher than expected after a largely peaceful day of voting, Washington hailed the polls as a "significant step" for the country's democracy, commending "the voters, electoral bodies and security forces for their commitment to the democratic process".

"These elections are a significant step forward on Afghanistan's democratic path, and the courage and resolve of the Afghan people to make their voices heard is a testament to the importance of these elections to securing Afghanistan's future," the White House said.Ahead of the ballot, which decides the next president of the country ahead of the withdrawal of NATO troops later this year, the Taliban had threatened to kill voters and officials, saying the election was an American plot "to impose their stooges".Polling day saw no major attacks in cities, but there were at least 150 minor attacks - including a Taliban rocket that hit a house near a polling station, killing five members of the same family.Eleven voters in the western province of Herat had their fingers - which were dipped in ink to register their ballot - cut off by insurgents, Deputy Interior Minister Ayoub Salangi said on his Twitter account.The polls result, due out next month, will confirm whether former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah or ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani will lead Afghanistan into a new era of declining international military and civilian assistance.The two candidates came top of an eight-man field in the April first-round election, triggering the run-off as neither reached the 50 per cent threshold needed for outright victory.Abdullah secured 45 per cent of the vote with Ghani on 31.6 per cent.Counting the ballot will take weeks. The preliminary result is due on July 2 and a final result on July 22.The United Nations also praised the elections, congratulating the "courageous" Afghans who set out to cast their ballots in the face of Taliban threats."With the same determination, resilience and courage the world saw in the first round of elections, the people of Afghanistan today once again decided to take their destiny in their own hands and demonstrate their desire for a peaceful, prosperous, and united Afghanistan," the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, said.While high turnout may lend legitimacy to the winner if the gap between the two candidates is clear, a close count could mean a contested outcome.Both candidates swiftly alleged fraud after the closure of the polls Saturday."We know there has been fraud, you have seen it, we have seen it," Abdullah said.Ghani called for a full investigation into vote-rigging, saying "unfortunately there were cases of security forces involved in fraud, we have the evidence".A smooth handover in Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power would be a major achievement for the 13-year US-led effort to establish a functioning state after the depredations of the Taliban era.President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled Afghanistan since 2001 and was re-elected in a 2009 vote marred by ballot-box stuffing, is constitutionally barred from a third term in office.

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Qld chief justice critics told to shut up

Queensland science minister has lashed out at critics of Tim Carmody's appointment to chief justice. Source: AAP

A QUEENSLAND government minister has lashed out at critics of Chief Magistrate Tim Carmody's appointment to chief justice, saying they should "shut up".

SCIENCE Minister Ian Walker, a former lawyer, says the "war of words" over Mr Carmody's promotion to chief justice of Queensland has got to stop.

"People have got to put a sock in it, they've got to shut up, and they've got to let Justice Carmody get on with the job," he told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday."He deserves a fair go at the job, the debate should stop and Justice Carmody should be allowed to get on with the job that he's been appointed to do."Mr Walker's comments follow calls for Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie to step down over the appointment, which has caused great unrest in legal circles.Bar Association of Queensland president Peter Davis quit on Friday saying private discussions with Mr Bleijie in which he didn't recommend Mr Carmody for the job were leaked to others, including Mr Carmody.Australian Bar Association president Mark Livesey said it was accepted practice that consultation before any appointment is kept confidential."The Attorney-General of Queensland must consider whether the breakdown in trust can be repaired," Mr Livesey told The Sunday Mail."If confidentiality in the judicial appointment process cannot be assured he must reconsider whether he can continue in his position."State Opposition leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said Mr Bleijie couldn't be trusted and wasn't fit to hold office.Mr Carmody's appointment has been criticised by senior Queensland legal figures who question his experience and say he's too close to the government.It's been revealed that days after Mr Carmody was appointed chief magistrate in September 2013, he and Mr Bleijie had a private dinner at an upmarket Brisbane restaurant.The attorney-general has described the meeting as a social catch-up.

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Firies cancer law not ruled out: Vic govt

Volunteer firefighters rally in Melbourne for access to compensation for cancer contracted at work. Source: AAP

THE Victorian government says it hasn't ruled out changing the way firefighters access cancer compensation as hundreds rallied in Melbourne to try to break down barriers to claims.

THE government says it simplified cancer claims for firefighters and encouraged both career and volunteer firefighters to lodge a claim if they believe they had contracted cancer as a result of their duties.

"The Victorian government is not ruling out presumptive legislation and will continue to consider new medical and scientific evidence as it becomes available," a government spokesperson said.Volunteer Fire Brigades president Bill Watson said firefighters wanted a law that lists the 12 typical "firefighter" cancers and presumes them to be work-related, providing the firefighter has enough years of service behind him or her and relevant risk exposure.Mr Watson said there is plenty of evidence firefighters are more likely to suffer certain cancers, but it can be difficult to prove which fire or chemical incident caused their illness."It's not like a broken bone where you know exactly when and where it happened," Mr Watson said."The burning car or house fire you attended today may cause a cancer that doesn't show up for decades, which makes it nearly impossible to prove it was work related."The federal government introduced presumptive legislation in 2011.Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia also have laws that recognise the link between firefighting and cancer.Mr Watson said any legislation would have to include eligibility guidelines."We're not after a free ride," he said."We just want to make sure they're looked after if they get sick."The Victorian government has been under pressure to make changes to the way compensation is accessed after a 2012 report found firefighters who trained at the CFA Fiskville site had been exposed to dangerous chemicals going as far back as the 1970s.Last year they introduced a review panel to assist both volunteer and career firefighters seeking compensation for cancer caused by their work.Opposition leader Daniel Andrews said Labor would introduce the legislation if elected in November."I have committed to the introduction of presumptive rights," Mr Andrews said.

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Palmer may be 'saviour' like Hanson: Truss

NATIONALS leader Warren Truss reckons Clive Palmer could go the way of other political "saviours" such as Pauline Hanson.

HE said those who voted for him in protest were ignoring their obligations to democracy and putting their country at risk.

Mr Truss, acting prime minister while Tony Abbott is overseas, said the coalition took its responsibilities seriously and would get on with the job of delivering what was important for Australia.He said other parties could worry about themselves.Asked if Mr Palmer's Palmer United Party was just a "flash in the pan", he said there had always been independent parties."We have had plenty of saviours in the past, like Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter. They all made a little bit of an impact for a while," he told reporters at the NSW Nationals conference in Queanbeyan.Mr Palmer was the big winner at the 2013 federal election, gaining his own seat and three Senate spots.Pauline Hanson roared onto the Australian political landscape in 1996 but was only in federal parliament for a single term.Despite big predictions, the vote for the Katter's Australian Party of longtime Queensland MP Bob Katter was disappointing at the last election, and Mr Katter's personal vote slumped.Mr Truss said there was always a protest vote."Sometimes these people will gain support from that element," he said."Those who throw away their vote in some kind of protest are in fact ignoring their obligations to their democracy but also putting their country at risk."

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