The World Today

The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced he'll introduce legislation this week to make it a criminal offence for employers to make secret payments to unions. The Government says this will bring into force a number of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Trade Unions. Labor leader Bill Shorten is also focused on industrial relations, introducing a private members bill to protect employees facing a cut to their Sunday penalty rates. .

The Federal Government says its child care changes must pass parliament this fortnight, but it's still facing an uphill battle to get the Senate on board. The Education Minister, Simon Birmingham says the Government will do what is 'sensibly required' to get the changes through, but he says the $1.6 billion plan must be accompanied by equivalent savings. A range of crossbench Senators say the bill is unlikely to pass in its current form.

The latest measure of national-wide spending paints a worrying picture of the heath of the Australian economy. The Commonwealth Bank's Business Sales Index, which tracks your spending at the stores via the bank's EFTPOS machines, rose just 0.1 per cent in February. That's the slowest growth in two years. The bank says the consumer is the driver of the Australian economy, but describes current spending growth at 'weak'.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has issued a warning to the Federal government about allowing first home buyers to use their super for a deposit. Mr Keating says that only the most reckless and wilful government would abort the superannuation policy settings.

At the child sexual abuse Royal Commission, Anglican Church clergymen have admitted that at times the Church has failed to properly screen trainee priests entering theological colleges. The Commission has heard 45 alleged abusers trained at St John's College Morpeth in the Newcastle diocese.

The people of Timor-Leste have started voting for a new president today. In Sydney and Darwin, some Timorese-Australians are voting for the first time since the country's independence referendum in 1999. Oscar Nunes is the former president of Darwin's Timorese and Portuguese community group. He spoke to our reporter Felicity James outside the polling station in Darwin, as he prepared to cast his ballot.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just completed his first trip to Asia since taking office. The trip has been dogged by controversy, from queries about his competence, to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea's nuclear grandstanding. Asia observer Brad Glosserman, Executive Director of the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Rex Tillerson sent many of the right signals, including pushing China to start doing more to deal with the North Korean problem.

The long-standing reign of John Coates as Australian Olympic Committee president is now under challenge. Danni Roche, a gold medal winning Hockeyroo and successful businesswoman, has thrown her hat in the ring as the first person to take on the powerful Mr Coates in 27 years.

The NRL says it's examining two incidents from weekend rugby league games where players appeared to receive serious head injuries but weren't formally assessed and were allowed to stay on the field. Experts say they shouldn't have kept playing and have pointed to new Australian research which shows a significant difference between the brains of former NRL players and men of a similar age with no history of concussion.

Featured:

Sam Burgess - Souths NRL player

Dr Alan Pearce - La Trobe University Neuroscientist

The Migration Council Australia has embraced the federal government's launch of its first multicultural policy in half a decade. The strategy is an attempt to counter threats to national security and strengthen the country's sense of diversity. But those on the streets of Melbourne have described the move as a only minor step in supporting multiculturalism.