The head of the Federal Government's new Climate Change Commission says he is saddened by the Opposition's response to the body.

Scientist Tim Flannery has been chosen to chair the commission, which will help build community support for putting a price on carbon.

The Opposition says the Government is using the body to justify its plans to push up power prices.

Coalition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt says the public will question what value for money they will get from the $5.6 million body.

"The Climate Commission is just another piece in Labor's jigsaw puzzle to try to justify their plan for an electricity tax," he said in a statement.

It took just two days for the price of bananas to jump in supermarkets after Cyclone Yasi hit, but the early price rise is the result of a gesture from the major chains to help farmers recover.

Coles and Woolworths have back-paid farmers for bananas picked before the cyclone in anticipation of crop damage.

Banana Growers chief executive Jonathan Eccles says it is a positive move on behalf of the supermarket chains.

"What both supermarkets have done - the fruit that's already in their warehouses - they have backdated payments to the growers at well above what was the normal price they were paying," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced $2 billion of cuts that he says the Government should make instead of imposing a flood levy.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposes to raise money for flood reconstruction through a mix of the levy and spending cuts.

But Mr Abbott says there is enough room in the budget to find the money without the levy.

"I think Australians have suffered enough without having to suffer through a new tax," he said.

Mr Abbott says a Coalition government would save $600 million by deferring water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin.

NSW Labor will put the cost of living at the heart of its re-election campaign, promising to ease the impact of surging electricity prices with a $250 rebate on power bills and restrict increases in public transport fares and government charges.

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, has also promised to legislate to keep Sydney Water, Hunter Water and the desalination plant at Kurnell in public hands, prompting the Coalition to rule out privatising Sydney Water and Hunter Water if it wins on March 26.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/labors-900m-pitch-20110206-1aiey.html

Genetically modified crops will be allowed to enter the UK food chain without the need for regulatory clearance for the first time under controversial plans expected to be approved this week.

The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.

Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU's "zero tolerance" policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.

Donald Rumsfeld, much loathed and despised as a perpetrator of war and torture, has a message for the world: Don't blame me. That turns out to be the theme of his upcoming memoir, Known and Unknown, extracts of which appeared yesterday in the American press ahead of the book's publication next Tuesday.

News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.

Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.

The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

GetUp is extremely successful at running campaigns and does not shy away from High Court challenges.

The detail of the proposed law is that it will criminalise:
* all plants that contain DMT ie:Our beautiful wattles(our national emblem!)
* all plants that contain mescaline ie:Most of our ornamental cactus
* Catha edulis
* all Brugmansia species
* all Datura species: adored by proud gardners everywhere for their beautiful flower

Mother courage or mother knows best? The mother of WikiLeaks founder has launched a scathing attack on Julia Gillard, claiming her son faced a lynch-mob mentality if handed over to Washington, especially after another mother, Sarah Palin, described her boy as an ''anti-American operative with blood on his hands''.

President Barack Obama didn't say much about foreign or military policy in Tuesday night's State of the Union address. To the extent he did talk about it, he spent more time on economic agreements with India, South Korea, and China than on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and, given the state of the economy and the nature of the political battles ahead, the balance was probably right.

The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.