Left Field

Headline: Skilled nurses to be replaced by cheaper alternatives

The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 2008, Louise Hall, p.3

Registered nurses will be replaced by cheaper, less-qualified nurses and unqualified assistants, in the latest round of cost cutting by the State Government.

The plan to substitute university-trained registered nurses with enrolled and trainee nurses contradicts a $1.2 million study commissioned by NSW Health last year, which found that increasing the proportion of less-qualified staff in hospitals caused a range of preventable complications and deaths.

Hospital managers have been ordered to save $32 million within four years by downgrading nursing cover at small and rural hospitals.

Headline: Delta to start daily flights to Sydney

The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 2008, Scott Rochfort, p.34

Virgin Blue's plans to launch flights to the United States next year have been dealt another blow - the world's largest carrier,  Delta Airlines is planning to start daily services between Sydney and Los Angeles in July.

V Australia has already pushed back its launch date from December to February, and Delta's entry, coupled with the global economic slowdown, could make it even tougher for the Virgin Blue long-haul airline to make a profit on the route.

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Headline: New Pymble apartments

The Australian Financial Review, 19 December 2008, Robert Harley, p.52

Meriton Apartments has acquired a site at Sydney's Pymble for $16.3 million in a transaction negotiated by Luxcon Commercial.

Headline: Young guns change face of legal pursuit

The Australian Financial Review, 19 December 2008, James Eyers, p.19

Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg got creative recently on a case where two borrowers defaulted on a loan but could not be found for the purpose of serving a default judgement. A young lawyer at the firm Mark McCormack, using the defendants’ names and email addresses, searched on the Internet site, Google and found the defendants’ profiles on Facebook. Meyer Vandenberg got an application before master David Harper in the ACT Supreme Court that permitted them to use Facebook to serve the notices.

Headline: Headhunters are wielding the loppers

The Australian Financial Review, 19 December 2008, Jacqueline Maley, p.6

Head of recruitment companies HJB Priority, Deborah Wilson, said that the permanent job market has collapsed pretty much overnight’. HJB Priority, along with recruitment companies Peoplebank, Ambition and Manpower, have all made job cuts over the past few months. Ambition Group Ltd announced to the Australian Stock Exchange this week that it would cut a third of its workforce over the first half of 2009.

Headline: Banks brutal with the axe

The Australian Financial Review, 19 December 2008, Khia Mercer and Katja Buhrer, p.3

As employees in the financial services sector continue to face the prospect of being made redundant because of the financial crisis, details have emerged about recent staff cuts at some prominent groups in the industry. According to one version of events at Macquarie Group where 1000 staff were laid off two weeks ago, a senior manager who was asked to convey the bad news to employees shortly thereafter found himself shown the exit door. Some staff were unable to copy their BlackBerry contact lists before they were wiped. Citigroup sources said staff cuts at the bank were 'done with military-style precision.'

Headline: Qantas scraps $8bn British Airways deal

The Australian Financial Review, 19 December 2008, Vesna Poljak and Michael Smith, p.1

Merger talks between Qantas Airways and British Airways collapsed yesterday, after the companies failed to agree on an equal merger ratio for the proposed A$8 billion cross-continental carrier. British Airways had demanded a 50/50 merger ratio, despite having a weaker balance sheet and a 1.7 billion pound pension liability. Qantas maintained that it have at least a 51 percent share to satisfy legislative restrictions over foreign ownership.

Headline: Stockland downgrades again

The Australian Financial Review, 18 December 2008, Robert Harley, p.48

Stockland has downgraded full-year earnings and distribution by about 25 percent on last year to 35 cents a share and 34 cents a share, respectively, citing a $105 million impairment charge on its domestic residential assets and the effect of acquiring stakes in Aevum, GPT Group and FKP Property Group. But managing director Matthew Quinn said lower interests rates and the Rudd Government's bigger First Home Owners Scheme would help Stockland meet its single lot sales targets for fiscal 2009.

Headline: Towers for Double Bay

The Australian Financial Review, 18 December 2008, Robert Harley, p.10

Property developer Ashington has proposed redeveloping the Stamford Plaza Hotel in Sydney's Double Bay with two towers. The project will be assessed by the NSW Planning Minister under the part 3A provisions.

Headline: Confusion over renewable energy target

The Australian Financial Review, 18 December 2008, John Breusch, p.8

Yesterday's announcement of the Federal Government's renewable energy targets has prompted concerns that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has curtailed his ambitious climate change vision. Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said yesterday that while the draft legislation for the renewable energy targets contained some 'novel policy initiatives,' the plan also had 'potentially serious design flaws.' Critics singled out a proposal to give electricity produced by residential solar panels five times as many renewable energy certificates (RECs) as electricity generated by wind farms and other commercial-scale renewable energy operations.