PM

A public brawl has broken out between the WA Liberals and Nationals on the eve of the state election. It's over the Nationals signature policy, Royalties for Regions, which quarantines mining royalties for spending on country infrastructure. In a bid to save $800 million the Liberals have revealed a plan to divert some of the money to sustaining infrastructure rather than building more. WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls is seeing red and says he'll fight the plan until his last 'political breath'.

Despite a concerted effort by OPEC last year to cut oil production, the cartel seems to have been out-gunned by the United States. The price of oil came down sharply overnight after it was revealed US stock piles of the black gold were much higher than expected. Local analysts say if the price of oil stays around current levels, and the Australian dollar holds up, consumers could be as much as $500 richer by year's end.

The Federal Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis says her decision to quit politics at the next election should not be seen as a sign that women can't succeed in politics. Ms Ellis says she has quit because she doesn't want to be away from her son as he starts school. The former Democrats leader, Natasha Stott-Despoja has agreed that it doesn't send a negative signal to young women. But she says more women and men should have the chance for more flexibility at work.

The continuing scandal at the RSL has taken another scalp that of the League's National President Rod White. Six months ago the ABC revealed that Mr White was among eight current and former NSW state councillors who received undeclared payments from the League's aged care wing, Lifecare. Members are also angry about the spending of former President Don Rowe, who charged $475,000 to his corporate credit card over 6 years. It's not clear why Mr White has chosen now to stand down.

The Tasmanian Treasurer Peter Gutwein brought a glass of water from one of the 25 towns around the state where it's unsafe to drink the water into state parliament today. He challenged the opposition to drink it when under questioning about the governments plans to take over the council owned corporation that supplies drinking water to the state.

This weekend, it'll be 6 years since Japan faced a three-pronged disaster, an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. When the radiation cloud began to spread across residential and rural areas, it prompted immediate orders to evacuate. Hundreds of thousands of people grabbed what little they could and fled. Those people are starting to tell their stories and what they reveal is that the government's management of the forced relocations has been nothing short of a disaster in itself

With a crucial UNESCO meeting looming next week on the state of the Great Barrier Reef, the Queensland government has released a discussion paper on improving water quality on the reef. It hopes this will help reassure UNESCO that the world heritage listed site is not 'in danger'. Environmental groups say while the discussion paper is a good first step - it doesn't go far enough.

If you believe the opinion polls, Labor has a strong chance of winning Saturday's election in WA, but that's a big if. Britain's last General election, Brexit, and Donald Trump's Presidential win have all in their different ways left pollsters and pundits reeling. One poll in Western Australia last week showed the Coalition losing badly, another, from Fairfax, showed Labor falling just short of victory. Former Federal Opposition leader, West Australian Kim Beazley, says he's fairly confident of a Labor win, but he's hedging his bets.

The AWU says there's more than enough gas being extracted to deal with a supply shortage that threatens 235,000 jobs in heavy industry, and is calling on the Prime Minister to push for export contracts to be revisited. Mr Turnbull's indicated he's seeking an 'urgent' meeting with gas company bosses to hear how they would deal with the crisis. The industry lobby group says increasing supply by lifting moratoriums on coal seam gas exploration.

The energy industry has reacted angrily to concerns over the gas crisis, saying the warnings were there and governments have failed to respond. They've called on governments to intervene and stop playing politics, before more crucial businesses leave the country.