The World Today

The Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has told her New Zealand counterpart that his nation's citizens won't be disadvantaged by changes to funding of Australian universities. New Zealand's newly-appointed Foreign Minister, Gerry Brownlee, has held talks with Ms Bishop in Sydney this morning. Earlier this week, New Zealand's Prime Minister Bill English said it was clear that Kiwis are not doing well out of recent Australian decisions.

Unions say today's casualised and part-time workers are too scared to join the movement and that's fuelled a fall in membership. New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal trade union membership has dropped to record lows. But a conservative think-tank attributes the declining membership to the movement's relationship with the Australian Labor Party.

US President Donald Trump is vowing to succeed where so many presidents before him have failed, in brokering a lasting peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Mr Trump has just held his first meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, but has not revealed how he plans to break the decades long deadlock between the two sides.

The issue of drug trafficking has been brought into focus again in this country by the 22-year-old South Australian woman, Cassandra Sainsbury, who has been detained in Colombia on cocaine charges. But trafficking analysts say drug mules are not the main pathway for illicit drugs to come into Australia. They say a far bigger concern is the Dark Web.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is an ambitious program to improve the healthcare of thousands of Australians who have a disability. However, since it's rollout, there have been a number of problems. Disability Services says teething problems were inevitable, but now is the time to act to make improvements where they're needed. The representative body has released a list of recommendations it says could improve its implementation, and it believes it can all be done within existing budget projections.

The Catholic education sector has raised concerns that its the proposed funding changes could force some schools to close. It says it's concerned about a lack of meaningful consultation on the decade long plan. Under the plan, 24 independent schools will cop a direct funding cut, while another 353 schools won't get as much money as previously expected.

The Senate crossbench looks likely to determine whether the Government can implement its new school funding plans. The Prime Minister says the Government will lift spending, taking it to more than $30 billion a year in 10 years' time. That is a significant increase on the Federal Coalition's previous commitment, but Labor says it will block the measure because it is not good enough. However, the Greens are signalling they are interested in the Government's plans and might support them in the Senate.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is on his way to the United States today, ahead of what will be a closely watched meeting with US President Donald Trump. The two leaders will meet face-to-face for the first time on board a decommissioned World War II aircraft carrier. Dr Michael Fullilove is the executive director of the Lowy Institute and he'll be at some of the commemoration events in New York tomorrow and he's joined The World Today with his take on how the contact between the two leaders is likely to unfold given the difficult start to their relationship when Mr Trump first berated and then hung up during his first phone call with the Australian PM.

The global insurance giant QBE is the latest multinational to outline its post-Brexit strategy amid growing concerns that Britain could be isolated as a results of last year's surprise referendum vote. In media news, Fairfax which has announced as many as 125 job cuts at its main mastheads.

The once mighty Fairfax media company is taking the axe to its newsrooms across the country. It will cut about 125 journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age in Melbourne The Australian Financial Review, and websites Brisbane Times and WAToday. That is on top of 120 jobs cut last year and brings to almost 500 the number of reporters and editors that have left Fairfax since 2011. After these cuts take effect only 500 journalists will remain.