GRAY SLATED FOR CABINET AS GILLARD RESHUFFLES MINISTRY AND REPAYS BACKERS SAM MOOY Julia Gillard takes photos with shock-jock ‘Easter Bunny’ Kyle Sandilands, which she later tweeted, at a charity event at Kirribilli House yesterday DAVID CROWE NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR INSIDE TROY BRAMSTON P10 SURVEYING the wreckage, it is difficult to find a silver lining for Gillard other than again being able to cling to the prime ministership by her fingernails HENRY ERGAS P10 WITH Labor politics having ceased to be a cause and become a career, it is unions that provide the material foundation on which the party rests MAURICE NEWMAN P10 IF the polls are a guide, September 14 will see a change in government. While the Coalition will rejoice, the euphoria is likely to be short-lived Union loyalty to steer Labor UNION loyalties are helping to shape the next stage of Julia Gil- lard’s political strategy, as she embarks on a cabinet reshuffle that will promote key allies while sparing some of those who plotted against her last week. The Prime Minister is expected to reward the unions for their sup- port in last Thursday’s leadership contest by pressing ahead with policies that meet their demands for stronger bargaining rights and working conditions. The reshuffle, tipped to be re- vealed today, is expected to see Gary Gray promoted to federal cabinet as resources and energy minister, while a slew of Gillard supporters would gain positions as ministers and parliamentary secretaries. Lower-house MPs Kate Ellis and David Bradbury, and senators Don Farrell and Kate Lundy, are viewed as among those vying for promotion to cabinet. Ms Gillard’s advisers see Thursday’s result as an oppor- tunity to end the leaking and disunity that have undermined her leadership, leading to major decisions such as media reform being rushed through cabinet. Ms Gillard is seeking to bounce back from the departure of four senior ministers last week by enforcing greater cabinet disci- pline, perhaps with a smaller lead- ership team to prevent leaks and allow more candid debate on elec- tion strategy. She is also assuaging fears of retribution against those who lent support to Kevin Rudd’s failed leadership bid last week, with key frontbencher Anthony Albanese, the Transport Minister and leader of the house, keeping his position. Recriminations over the botched leadership coup con- tinued yesterday as caucus mem- bers took aim at Mr Albanese for staying in office while other Rudd supporters — Chris Bowen, Kim Carr, Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson — quit or were sacked. In a new argument over how Ms Gillard held her position, caucus members said that unions had applied pressure to some MPs to reject Mr Rudd, even though that meant losing a chance to hold their seats at the September 14 election. The accusation centres on cases where MPs told the Rudd camp that they would have to check with their unions before deciding whether to abandon Ms Gillard. ‘‘She bought the leader- ship by giving the unions what they wanted, and that is a corrupt process,’’ said one of Mr Rudd’s supporters. Another said that the outcome continued Ms Gillard’s debt to unions that have backed her con- sistently over recent years. ‘‘She’s always been beholden to the unions,’’ he said. ‘‘Do I think this has changed anything? No.’’ Unions blamed for influencing the result include the Australian Workers Union, Transport Work- ers Union and Health Services Union. AWU national secretary Paul Howes hit back at the claim by insisting he made no calls about the leadership to MPs last Thurs- day. ‘‘It’s a ludicrous accusation, which most anonymous accusations are, and I haven’t made a single call,’’ he said. The role of the unions goes to the heart of Labor’s internal debate over its future strategy, in the wake of calls from Mr Crean and Mr Ferguson — both former Continued on Page 2 MORE REPORTS P2 EDITORIAL P11 WWW.THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU I THE HEART OF THE NATION $2.00 MONDAY March 25, 2013 PRICE INCLUDES GST FREIGHT EXTRA PANPA NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR Your local cinema and entertainment guide { P12 } EXCLUSIVE MEDIA & MARKETING BACK AT WAR Seven and Nine rekindle the rancour {P24} SPECIAL 12-PAGE LIFTOUT The nation’s best resources writers on the role of gas in our future PERSONAL OZ SOMETHING IN THE AIR The fight against asthma { P14 } A GAS-FIRED FUTURE FUTURE MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 www.theaustralian.com.au/futureofresources Booming Gladstone builds for the future { P5 } Women’s role in beating a skills shortgage { P4 } Woodside’s Pluto onshore liquid natural gas plant at Karratha, Western Australia LNG’s moment of truth The questions that remain include whether Australia is too expensive to attract further investment Australia’s place in a gas-fired future is clouded by cost woes MATT CHAMBERS THE nation’s gas-fired future — which at least for the export sector is not in doubt — is rapidly becoming the present. After a 20-year liquefied natural gas history in which three projects have been built and only one, Woodside Pet- roleum’s Pluto plant at Karratha, has started in the past 10 years, a flood of new projects is set to come online. Next year, three new projects in Australia and one in Papua New Guin- ea are due to start, followed by another in 2015 and two more in 2016. Australia will become the world’s biggest LNG exporter, with the extra plants forecast to bring in $20 billion in annual export revenue. But while most analysts and indus- try figures agree the world’s future is gas-fired and demand will remain strong, Australia’s place in it and the role of gas inside our shoreline are still uncertain. The questions that remain include whether Australia is too expensive to attract further investment, what the impact of big Queensland coal-seam gas export projects will be on the east coast domestic gas scene, and whether vast amounts of gas trapped in shale across South Australia, Western Aus- tralia, the Northern Territory and Queensland can be released in any sort of replication of the US shale revolution. The head of the nation’s biggest LNG operator, Woodside Petroleum, is optimistic about Australia’s role, de- spite his company’s recent moves to look overseas for further growth. Peter Coleman, an engineer born in Sale, Victoria, who started his career with ExxonMobil in Bass Strait, then worked around the world with the oil giant, says while majors operating here, such as Chevron and Shell, are Continued on Page 2 D Remote housing row EXCLUSIVE AMOS AIKMAN NORTHERN CORRESPONDENT ONE house will need to be built almost every day between now and the end of June if the North- ern Territory government is to avoid financial penalties for miss- ing federal targets, amid alle- gations it is bungling its contri- bution to the nation’s premier indigenous housing scheme. On-site construction for these homes has yet to begin, and con- tractors are refusing work as con- cern grows that Darwin’s man- agement has rendered its own deadlines and budgets unachiev- able. Some tenders have been re- placed with a ‘‘select’’ process, in which bureaucrats pick firms without competitive bidding. FULL REPORT P3 can my memories follow me anywhere? 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My Book Live 2 TB $199 My Book Live Duo 4 TB $499 The WD 2go app allows users to manage and copy files between your WD personal cloud storage and Dropbox and SkyDrive, download files for offline access, upload files from your mobile devices to your Dropbox and SkyDrive and more. wdc.com WD 2GO TM File Viewer App WD PHOTOS TM Photo Viewer App I work with Dropbox ™ and SkyDrive ® Green tape ‘risks choking $200bn in export projects’ EXCLUSIVE DAVID CROWE NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR EXPORT projects worth $200 bil- lion are being shackled by overlap- ping state and federal laws, ac- cording to a new report, which challenges both major parties to remove ‘‘green tape’’ that discour- ages huge investments. Gas exporters are warning of long-term damage to the nation’s resources boom as the federal government adds to duplicate regulation rather than removing it in the way it promised less than a year ago. The industry report argues federal and state officials often repeat each others’ work to check on projects before approving them, leading to lengthy delays and adding to projects costs. Adding new heat to a long- running dispute, industry execu- tives are infuriated at the govern- ment’s move last week to implement new powers over coal- seam gas projects in a deal struck with regional independent Tony Windsor. Part of the new regime includes a provision that would prevent a future commonwealth govern- ment from streamlining some of the rules — those specific to concerns over water quality — by referring the responsibilities to the states. While Labor and the Greens have the numbers to get the legislation through the Senate in May or June, industry execu- tives are urging the Coalition to find a way to stymie the changes or repeal them if Tony Abbott wins power. Environment Minister Tony Burke stood by the changes and said there was no point delegating any of the CSG water safeguards to the states given the point of the legislation was to act on problems in state safeguards. Mr Burke said the federal government was funding work to check the impact of CSG projects on water supplies and should have the power to make that a factor in approvals under federal environmental law. The opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, warned against the CSG amendments and said they should not prevent a future government from striking bilateral agreements with the Continued on Page 4 Millions wasted training teachers EXCLUSIVE JUSTINE FERRARI NATIONAL EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT TENS of millions of dollars are being wasted training teachers who do not enter a classroom, with federal and state govern- ments spending at least $16,500 on each student teacher every year despite up to 90 per cent in some states failing to find a job. Universities graduate about 16,000 new teachers every year across the nation, half of whom are primary teachers, but an oversupply in the workforce means the vast majority of new teachers struggle to find work in schools. Shortages exist in maths and science teaching, but across the rest of the profession universities are producing more teachers than required, particularly in primary teaching, with tens of thousands of teachers on waiting lists in the biggest states. The true extent of the imbal- ance in the teaching workforce is unknown, with a Productivity Commission inquiry last year unable to compile a national picture. But about 90 per cent of teachers graduating university in NSW and Queensland fail to find a job, while about 40,000 teachers in NSW and 16,000 teachers in Queensland are on departmental waiting lists for a permanent job. The Victorian education de- partment says it employed about half its teaching graduates last year, but this still left about 2500 new teachers looking for a job. The issue was highlighted by the Productivity Commission in its report on the schools work- force released late last year, which says surpluses, and short- ages, in teaching can impose ‘‘considerable costs’’. ‘‘A sizeable part of the community’s investment in teacher training is providing no direct benefit to the schools workforce. Further, the specific investment by schools in provid- ing practicum (practical training places) for students who do not find employment is largely unproductive,’’ it says. Of the 5500 teaching gradu- ates every year from NSW uni- versities, only 450 obtained jobs in state government schools and about 300 found a job in Catholic or independent schools. It’s a similar story in Queensland, where more than 1600 new tea- chers graduated last year but only about 200 have a perma- nent job and about 350 gained temporary employment. In a bid to control teacher numbers, and raise the standard of people entering the pro- fession, the NSW government this month outlined reforms Continued on Page 4 Misogynist? No, that’s the other Mr Rabbit TEN NETWORK Tony Abbott on Ten’s The Bolt Report yesterday ADAM ARMSTRONG Kevin Rudd and wife Therese Rein in Brisbane RICK MORTON FOR a woman who can spot a misogynist at 10 paces — ‘‘misogynist Tony is back’’, she muttered across the parliamen- tary chamber last week — Julia Gillard is spending a lot of time in the company of Kyle Sandilands. The radio DJ who questioned a 14-year-old rape victim on-air about her sexual experiences, and who called a journalist a ‘‘fat slag’’ without enough ‘‘titty’’ to carry off a low-cut blouse, is fast becoming a favourite with the Prime Minister. On Friday, Sandilands and his 2DayFM offsider Jackie O landed one of only two radio interviews given by Ms Gillard after the Labor caucus had re-endorsed her leadership the day before. Yesterday, she fulfilled a prom- ise by inviting him to her official Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, to take part in an Easter egg hunt for a children’s charity, even posing with the DJ, who was dressed as a giant Easter Bunny, for ‘‘selfies’’ pictures that she later posted on Twitter. (Ms Gillard’s only other radio interview on Friday was with ABC Melbourne’s Jon Faine, who dur- ing the 2010 election campaign ac- cused the Prime Minister of del- iberately mangling the Opposition Leader’s name to make it sound like ‘‘Mr Rabbit’’.) Labor elder and former prime minister Bob Hawke yesterday implored the current leadership of the party to ‘‘get on with the busi- ness of governing’’. But the toughest woman in politics opted for the soft-boiled approach to strategy after high drama divided her government in two last week. As the vanquished backers of Kevin Rudd headed home to their electorates for the weekend to lick their wounds, the Prime Minister issued a photo-op only alert for fluffy pictures. Leader of the house Anthony Albanese, who kept his role and portfolio despite his status as a Rudd supporter, was one of the few to go to work in his commu- nity, attending the 10th anniver- sary celebrations at St Matthew’s Anglican church in Ashbury. Mr Rudd kept to a familiar routine, attending church, but Continued on Page 2