Briefly

The Sunday Age

Sunday January 14, 2001

Near-death fall

WELLINGTON. A Melbourne student who plummeted about 200 metres while abseiling near the summit of Mount Cook on Friday is keen to return to the New Zealand mountain. James Wong, 22, and his climbing partner Andrew Fyfe, also a 22-year-old student from Melbourne, were negotiating the summit rocks when the anchor that Mr Wong was attached to gave way. He required four stitches and suffered several cuts and bruises.

$60m payback

The Australian Tax Office is trying to contact almost 30,000 businesses to refund $60 million in GST payments after the owners failed to provide their bank account details. Businesses were asked to give bank account numbers when they first registered for an Austalian Business Number to collect their new tax, but 28,000 failed to do so. An ATO spokeswoman said letters had been sent out to every business involved and tax officials had followed them up with phonecalls.

Raid arrests

Armed police officers arrested two men after seizing high quality electric guitars, handguns and an unspecified quantity of powder drugs during a Friday night raid in Melbourne's east. Police said the special operations squad was called to a Noble Park house after a two-month investigation into commercial burglary across Melbourne. Two men, aged 32 and 33, were charged with firearms, burglary and drug-related offences and released on bail.