Former Liberal minister Bruce Billson has admitted to receiving an undeclared payment from a "friend" through his personal consultancy business while still a member of parliament.

The payment was in addition to a $75,000 annual salary from the Franchise Council of Australia (FCA) that 7.30 revealed last year was paid to Mr Billson while he was still an MP.

A parliamentary inquiry into Mr Billson's failure to list the FCA salary on the compulsory register of members' interests handed down its final report today, recommending that the former member for Dunkley be censured.

It stopped short of finding that Mr Billson's conduct amounted to a contempt of parliament, which can lead to potential penalties of six months in prison or a $5,000 fine.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-26/parliamentary-inquiry-into-bruce-b...

See also:

And for those who really enjoy (?) cricket:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMb8LCJYZ-4

Our nation is united in outrage and "shocking disappointment" over a cricket scandal — not the findings of the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse or the repeated suicide attempts of a ten-year-old boy on Nauru, writes Noely Neate.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT a game of cricket could unite the country in this manner?

Well, unite them in outrage anyhow. Left, right, conservative, green, you name it, most Australians have finally found something they all agree on. Both online and offline, “Our cricketers are a national disgrace” and other sentiments along those lines can be found.

You would have to have been living under a rock in the past 24 hours if you missed Steve Smith’s insouciant press conference on Sunday (25 March) admitting to "ball tampering" in South Africa. As far as sins in cricket go in recent years, it is not really up there with the likes of "match-fixing", though considering Cricket Australia and Australian cricket fans in general, have screamed blue murder every time another nation has been pinged, well, the standards were considered much higher here for the so-called “gentleman’s game”.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/steve-smith-cricket-a...

Australia has become the latest country to expel Russian diplomats as part of a global response to the poisoning of a Russian spy in the UK.

PM Malcolm Turnbull said "the brazen attack in Salisbury was an attack on all of us".

More than 100 Russian diplomats from more than 20 countries were expelled in a co-ordinated response by the US and EU nations on Monday.

Russia vowed to retaliate to the "provocative gesture".

It denies any role in the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, southern England. The pair, who were poisoned with what investigators say was a military-grade nerve agent, remain in a critical but stable condition in hospital.

Australia is throwing out two diplomats suspected of being "undeclared intelligence officers".

Read more:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43550938

NOTE: THERE ARE STILL NO PROOF THE RUSSIANS DID WHATEVER. It's most likely (CERTAINLY) to be a false flag event like Saddam has Weapons of Mass Destructions and the Anthrax affair which was a massive fraud on the general public.

Meanwhile common sense prevails in NZ:

New Zealand has no plans to expel Russian diplomats in solidarity with a number of Western states in connection with the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom, country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday.

Ardern told Newstalk ZB broadcaster that the Russian diplomats, which will be expelled from these countries, were undeclared intelligence officers.

"We ran a check, we don't have those in New Zealand but if we did we would expel them," Ardern said as quoted by the broadcaster.

US President Donald Trump, in particular, ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats, including 48 employees of the Russian Embassy and 12 people who have been assigned to the United Nations in New York, as well as the closure of the Russian Consulate in Seattle.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201803271062930516-ardern-new-zealand-diplo...

https://www.rt.com/news/422393-austria-refuses-expel-russian-diplomats/

Steve Smith and David Warner have been banned from playing for Australia for 12 months as a result of Cricket Australia's investigation into the ball-tampering incident, the ABC's chief cricket commentator Jim Maxwell understands.

Maxwell said a source close to Smith had confirmed the bans to him.

"I understand that Steve Smith and David Warner are getting a 12-month ban from the game in Australia," he said.

"I don't know how that affects them elsewhere in the world, but I understand that is the nature of the penalty, the sanction as they like to call it."

He said he does not know the fate of the third Australian sent home, opener Cameron Bancroft.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-28/steve-smith-david-warner-banned-pl...

The end of the world is nigh...