A MAN and his dog have been shot on a highway in Sydney's south.
Police were called to the Princes Highway at Tempe on Saturday afternoon and found the man with a bullet wound to his leg.
The man's dog had also been shot, a police spokeswoman told AAP.
The condition of both was unavailable, she added.
She was unable to say whether the man was known to police.
No further information was available.
A bushwalker has fallen to his death during a rescue operation in bushland northeast of Melbourne. Source: AAP
AN injured Victorian bushwalker was at the door of a rescue helicopter after being winched almost 30 metres when things went wrong and he fell to his death.
The man had been hiking through a heavily bushed part of Victoria northeast of Melbourne when he broke his ankle on Saturday morning.
An air ambulance was dispatched, but the man never made it on board.
The incident has prompted a suspension of winching operations by Ambulance Victoria helicopters while an investigation is carried out.
Ambulance Victoria chief executive Greg Sassella said the man was at the door of the helicopter and the crew were attempting to get him inside when he fell.
The helicopter was hovering almost 30 metres off the ground during what was considered to be "a fairly standard winch," he said.
"The flight crew and the paramedic winched back down to the scene to attempt to resuscitate the patient but unfortunately he was beyond help."
He said that while it was very difficult to have a person extricated from the type of bush the man and his fellow bushwalkers were in, flying conditions were good.
"Once we understand what occurred and whether there's equipment involved or not, that suspension may be lifted," Mr Sassella said.
"It is a high risk environment and we must make sure that we understand what happened before we resume winching again."
SRI Lankan customs agents have seized 250 kilograms of heroin worth $US19 million ($A21.42 million) from a container sent from Pakistan, in the largest-ever seizure of the drug in South Asia, an official says.
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Shadow defence minister David Johnston says China's widespread cyber-espionage is a problem. Source: AAP
CHINA'S widespread cyber-espionage is a problem and China's libertarian attitude to ripping off intellectual property can't continue, shadow defence minister David Johnston says.
Senator Johnston, Australia's next defence minister in a Tony Abbott government, said the rules of engagement on acceptable cyber conduct need to be settled.
In that regard, the meeting between US President Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping in June was most important.
China has long been accused of widespread cyber espionage. In the meeting, President Obama said it was critical the US and China adopt rules on what is and isn't acceptable conduct for a national government.
Senator Johnston said he had been briefed on cyber threats by the Defence Signal Directorate.
"However, PLA 3 out of Shanghai is a problem ... the parliamentary website knows it because it has been hacked. The fact is the rules of engagement in this space are really important. We have the capacity to do things but the rules of engagement have to be settled.
PLA 3 - People's Liberation Army Unit 61398 - part of the PLA's third department, responsible for telecommunications - has been blamed for widespread cyber espionage and hacking directed at western companies and governments including Australia.
"The current state of China's libertarian view on intellectual property and its capacity to be ripped off cannot continue," he said.
Senator Johnston's comment came in an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) debate with defence material minister Mike Kelly, set to be defence minister in a re-elected Labor government.
The pair traded familiar criticisms but neither landed a knockout blow.
Senator Johnston said defence spending as a percentage of gross domestic under Labor had reached the lowest level since before world war two. Labor had also trashed its own two Defence White Papers.
Dr Kelly said the former government had presided over a succession of scandals and took Australia into an unnecessary war in Iraq.
ASPI executive director Peter Jennings said he wasn't declaring a winner.
"I like to think that defence has won on this occasion," he said.
Kevin Rudd will bring forward plans to replace supply ships to help the naval shipbuilding industry. Source: AAP
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is promising to bring forward a project to replace two defence supply ships to ensure continuity of work in the naval shipbuilding industry.
"This is an extraordinary day for how we make sure that we have viable defence manufacturing in Australia's future," Mr Rudd told workers at BAE Systems yard at Williamstown in Melbourne.
He was also there last week promising to deal with a looming "valley of death" in the defence shipbuilding industry.
That's what the workers call a looming gap in work which was set to dry up by 2015, raising the prospect they would be laid off, then rehired a few years down the track for new shipbuilding projects.
"We understand your concerns about this gap," Mr Rudd told them on Thursday.
He said Labor would deal with it by bringing forward its plan to replace the navy's supply ships, HMAS Success and HMAS Sirius.
Labor would also "as a minimum, commit to a hybrid build for one of these navy supply vessels with construction to commence in 2015-16."
"The valley of death will be crossed and crossed well," Mr Rudd said.
He said it would ensure Australia maintains a world-class naval shipbuilding industry and would support skilled jobs as the economy transitions beyond the mining boom.
Mr Rudd said the acquisition of the two supply vessels was already funded at $1.5 billion.
It was not clear what the cost of bringing the project forward would be.
HMAS Success is an ageing 18,000 tonne French-designed oil tanker and supply ship constructed in Sydney and launched in 1984.
HMAS Sirius started out as a commercial tanker, MT Delos, constructed in South Korea, launched in 2004 and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy in 2006.
The 2013 Defence White Paper, released in May, said both would be replaced "at the first possible opportunity".
Replacement options include local build, hybrid build (part construction overseas and part domestically) and overseas build, or the leasing of an existing vessel.
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Joe Hockey (R) is due to release the coalition's "interim" costings during a debate on Wednesday. Source: AAP
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott insists bringing the budget back to surplus remains a very important priority under a coalition government.
But he can't be precise about the timing because of the "enormous" risks contained in the independent Pre-election Fiscal and Economic Outlook prepared by Treasury and Finance.
"There is a lot of unreliability in the figures," Mr Abbott told reporters on the NSW Central Coast on Tuesday.
"The trouble is we don't know what the starting point is."
Labor has budgeted for a surplus of $4 billion in 2016/17 while the Treasury outlook published on August 13 pointed to a surplus of $4.2 billion.
Mr Abbott says the outlook should be clear toward the end of the first term of a coalition government, if he becomes prime minister on September 7.
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey is due to release interim costings of the coalition's election promises when he debates Treasurer Chris Bowen at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
Mr Abbott is confident the coalition's "spends and saves" will show a better budget bottom line than Labor's.
"If we are spending less and saving more we will get (to surplus) quicker," he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said while Labor had been making the big calls on the economy and jobs, Mr Abbott was preparing to cut spending.
"Mr Abbott's priority continues to be cutting jobs, cutting health, cutting hospitals, cutting schools, all to pay for his number one priority, his unaffordable and unfair paid parental leave scheme," he told reporters in Sydney.
Finance Minister Penny Wong says history shows the Liberals cut hard when in power.
When the coalition came to power in 1996 it cut spending by the equivalent of $44.6 billion over two years, or 2.85 per of gross domestic product (GDP) - based on today's figures.
"This is the clearest possible sign of the scale of cuts to come if Tony Abbott is elected. Cutting is in the Liberals' DNA," Senator Wong said in a statement.
University of Queensland economics professor John Quiggin calculates every $10 billion of budget reduces GDP, or economic output, by one per cent and can cost 50,000 jobs.
Shadow finance minister Andrew Robb said Labor was trying to divert attention from its appalling record.
Based on Senator Wong's "fuzzy logic" Labor had cost the economy 780,000 jobs, he added.
"Instead of wasting time mounting pathetic scare campaigns ... Penny Wong would best serve our nation by outlining real plans to actually create jobs," Mr Robb said in a statement.
Senator Wong earlier this year boasted of reducing government spending by $156 billion since 2009.
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Victorian police have charged a man over the alleged assault on West Coast player Will Schofield. Source: AAP
A MAN has been charged with recklessly causing injury to West Coast AFL player Will Schofield, who was king hit in Geelong last weekend.
Victoria Police said a 25-year-old Bell Post Hill man had been charged with intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing injury to the Eagles defender, who was left with a broken cheekbone.
The man has been bailed to appear in Geelong Magistrates Court on October 1.
The Eagles released a statement on Monday saying the attack was unprovoked, and that Schofield was set upon while walking to his vehicle with friends after a night out.
The 24-year-old, who has played 94 games for the Eagles, was among a group of players who were granted permission to stay over after the club's loss to Collingwood in Melbourne on Friday night.
Schofield has been ruled out of the last game of the AFL season this weekend.
Tony Abbott's plan to buy boats from Indonesian fishermen has been criticised in Jakarta. Source: AAP
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott's plan to buy boats from Indonesian fishermen to prevent the vessels being used by people smugglers has been slammed by Jakarta as unfriendly and an insult to Indonesia.
The buyback plan has met with heavy resistance in Jakarta, with a senior member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ruling coalition saying it showed Mr Abbott lacked understanding of Indonesia, and the broader asylum-seeker problem.
Mahfudz Siddiq, the head of Indonesia's parliamentary commission for foreign affairs, said on Monday that it was Mr Abbott's right to suggest the policy but warned that it had broader implications for the relationship between Jakarta and Australia.
"It's an unfriendly idea coming from a candidate who wants to be Australian leader," Mr Siddiq told AAP.
"That idea shows how he sees things as (an) Australian politician on Indonesia regarding people smuggling. Don't look at us, Indonesia, like we want this people smuggling.
"This is really a crazy idea, unfriendly, derogatory and it shows lack of understanding in this matter."
Mr Abbott, who has previously accused the Labor government of damaging Australia's relationship with Indonesia, announced the buyback scheme last week as part of a new $420 million package aimed at stemming the flow of refugee boats to Australia.
Under the plan, millions of dollars would be used to buy boats from Indonesian fishermen, many of whom are poor and who in recent years have been easy prey for people-smuggling syndicates that offer much more money for their rickety vessels than can be made by fishing.
But Hikmahanto Juwana, an international affairs expert from the University of Indonesia, has described the plan as "humiliating", and says it shows the coalition has a poor understanding of its northern neighbour.
Mr Juwana warned the plan would risk a deterioration in relations between Australia and its northern neighbour, adding that it suggested Mr Abbott viewed Indonesian fishermen as "mercenaries who did dirty jobs".
"I think the (Indonesian) government should voice protests to the coalition's very insensitive plan which clearly shows their poor knowledge about the situation in Indonesia," Mr Juwana told The Jakarta Post newspaper.
"The coalition wants to make Indonesia look inferior because they just want to provide money and ask Indonesians to get the job done for the sake of their interests."
He said buying the boats would just cause the fishermen, many of who are already very poor, to lose their livelihoods and warned it would lead to resentment and even risk conflict between the local population and foreigners.
"The program could trigger vigilantism and (attacks) on foreigners ...," Mr Juwana said.
Mr Abbott did not say how much would be paid for each boat.
"It's much better and much more sensible to spend a few thousand dollars in Indonesia, than to spend $12 million processing the people who ultimately arrive here," he told reporters.
The broader plan announced by Mr Abbott in Darwin on Friday includes funding of $67 million to increase the presence of Australian Federal Police in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Close to another $100 million would be spent to boost the aerial surveillance and search and rescue capacity of Indonesian authorities and $198 million to boost interception and transfer operations.
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey suggested on Network Ten that the coalition's proposal may have been misunderstood.
"I think it was misinterpreted," he told The Project.
Asked if the coalition was not after all going to buy up old, rickety boats, Mr Hockey indicated it would depend on the situation.
"If it disrupts the activity of the smugglers, say if they were about to load people on a boat or something, if you have a situation like that, when you could disrupt the activity, then you would do it," he said.
"I don't think we are going to be buying every boat in Indonesia."
A TWO-YEAR-OLD boy has been found wandering alone on a street in Cairns.
The boy, who has dark hair and brown eyes, was found wearing only a nappy at an intersection in the Cairns suburb of Westcourt about 1.45pm on Monday.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police.
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