ANZ ranks lowest for business customers

THE Commonwealth and Westpac rank highest for customer satisfaction among the big four banks, while ANZ and National Australia Banks are still languishing.

A monthly survey of satisfaction among the big four's business customers shows the Commonwealth and Westpac tied for first place with an average satisfaction rating of 7.4 out of 10.

By contrast NAB had an average satisfaction rating of 7.0, but ANZ ranked lowest with an average score of 6.9.

The monthly DBM Consultants' Business Financial Services Monitor (BFSM) shows the Commonwealth had the highest satisfaction rating for small, medium and large businesses and was tied with Westpac among micro businesses.

DBM Managing Director Dhruba Gupta said ANZ was still making up ground with business customers after a difficult 2012.

Satisfaction with ANZ dropped sharply after the bank shifted the timing if its monthly interest rate decision away from the Reserve Bank of Australia's board meeting.

Mr Gupta said the bank's recent pledge to lend $1 billion to start-up businesses over the next year may help to improve its standing.

"It will be interesting to see if ANZ's pledge will impact positively on its business customers' satisfaction levels," he said.

The BFSM is based on interviews with 20,000 businesses a year.

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Vic family violence 'worse than feared'

THE scale of domestic violence in Victoria is worse than imagined, police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says.

Some 51,000 family violence incidents were recorded in 2011-12, but Mr Lay says he expects the figure to rise above 60,00 this financial year.

He told Fairfax newspapers that while the rise was mostly due to more reporting, it was an alarming situation.

"There's still a hell of a lot of work to be done, and still a lot of very vulnerable people being injured every night," Mr Lay said.

"We never had a true sense of how big this problem was ... it's quite frightening."

Mr Lay said he was undaunted by the high numbers.

"No matter how much pressure we put on the courts or broader system, we're keeping on going with this," he said.

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NSW prison staff win on back pay

HUNDREDS of NSW prison workers will share in thousands of dollars in back pay after the Industrial Relations Commissions found they were owed money.

In a statement, the Health Services Union (HSU) said around 250 of its members would share in about $650,000 in underpaid allowances, dating back to 2002.

The HSU said the payments were for a range of prison workers including social workers, cooks and cleaners.

HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said the IRC found the workers weren't being properly compensated.

"We began this court action after learning that on average, these employees were being underpaid by more than $20 a week," Mr Hayes said.

"Over time this has added up to thousands of dollars for some Justice Health staff.

"This is a big win for Justice Health staff."

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Abbott's hit on retail workers' super

KITCHEN hands, hospitality workers, retail staff and cleaners are among those that will be hardest hit by the coalition's plan to scrap the low-income superannuation tax offset, Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten says.

Mr Shorten said the super savings of 3.6 million Australians earning less than $37,000 will be $500 worse off under an Abbott-led government.

He said women made up 60 per cent, or 2.2 million of those affected.

"Mums working part-time while they care for young kids being hit with a $500 tax bill for contributing to her superannuation (is) not fair or smart," Mr Shorten said, adding that women were already retiring with less money because of pay disparity and time out of the workforce to raise children.

Mr Shorten has released new figures with a breakdown of 20 occupations that will be hardest hit by the opposition's plan.

These included retail staff, kitchen hands, hospitality workers, cleaners, receptionists, labourers, childcare workers.

"I'd rather see a $500 boost to the super account of a kitchen hand or a checkout operator or a farm hand than into Tony Abbott's pocket," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has committed the coalition to scrapping the low-income superannuation tax offset funded by the government's mining tax, which it wants to repeal.

The coalition is opposed to the federal government's plan to impose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation earnings over $100,000, a measure likely to affect some 16,000 high income earners.

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Brazil police jailed for prison 'massacre'

TWENTY-THREE Brazilian military police officers have been sentenced to 156 years in jail each for their role in the killing of 111 inmates during Brazil's deadliest prison uprising in 1992.

The 23 were among 26 officers on trial before the Sao Paulo state tribunal. The three others were cleared.

The officers, most of them now retired, were accused of killing 15 prisoners in Sao Paulo's Carandiru prison during the operation to quell the revolt on October 2, 1992, which came to be known as the "Carandiru massacre".

The defence, which argued the police officers fired in self-defence after being threatened and assaulted by the prisoners, said it would appeal.

None of the officers involved in the operation were harmed. In addition to the 111 prisoners killed, some 87 others were wounded.

Survivors accused police of firing on inmates who had already surrendered or were hiding in their cells.

Authorities initially claimed the police were trying to break up a fight between prisoners who had seized control of one of the cell blocks.

But evidence uncovered later suggested military police had shot prisoners and then destroyed evidence that could have determined individual responsibility for the killings.

The commanding officer of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in jail for his mishandling of the revolt and the subsequent killings.

But in 2006, a court voided the conviction because of mistrial claims. Later that year, Guimaraes was found dead in his apartment under unclear circumstances.

The massacre in what was then Latin America's biggest prison sparked outrage among inmates, and prosecutors said it was a key factor in the emergence of a criminal gang known as First Command of the Capital (PCC) in 1993.

The PCC is believed to have ordered the death of the director of the prison at the time, Jose Ismael Pedrosa.

From the prison, PCC bosses organised a series of assaults on police stations and other buildings that left more than 170 people dead and paralysed Sao Paulo for four days in May 2006.

The unrest eventually spread to other cities, and scores of suspected criminals were gunned down in a subsequent wave of police reprisal attacks.

Late last year, the PCC was also blamed for a wave of police killings and bus burnings.

The Carandiru prison was demolished in 2002.

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