Labor’s longest-serving premier, Mike Rann, is in deep trouble in South Australia, where the ALP’s primary vote has been overtaken by the state Liberals, leaving tied after preferences. Labor’s primary vote in Queensland dropped five percentage points to 38 per cent, against 41 per cent for the newly merged Liberal National Party.

Scientists have fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The £5bn machine on the Swiss-French border is designed to smash protons together with cataclysmic force. Researchers hope the LHC will shed light on fundamental questions in physics.

The long-awaited Treasury modelling partly unveiled yesterday in Professor Garnaut’s interim report on emissions trading revealed that a 10per cent emissions cut - within a global agreement - would come at a surprisingly low cost for Australia, about 0.1 per cent of GDP a year or a 1.1 per cent reduction in growth by 2020.

The power-sharing arrangement between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard gives every appearance of being the most equitable of any political duo in recent political history, and one that Gillard’s admirers believe only establishes her more firmly as the Labor leader-in-waiting.

The Howard government’s policy of mandatory detention had essentially stopped the flow of thousands of people illegally entering Australia from Indonesia, Philip Ruddock, a former immigration minister during the Howard years, said today.

The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, said today that under Labor’s new policy detention, Immigration Detention Centres will only be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time. “A person who poses no danger to the community will be able to remain in the community while their visa status is resolved,” Senator Evans said.