It now seems that Melbourne is more than likely not going to see another big property boom for the next 12 months. This news comes according to a survey for leading property experts. The hopes that property would rise further this year have been wiped clear – mostly due to things like interest rates and affordability issues. This has forced thousands of buyers out of the market and thus, hurt the housing industry.

So far, the Victorian properties analyzed in March had predicted that property prices would rise about 5.8 percent over the next 12 months. In the past three months, their expectations have slumped to just 0.7 percent, according to the National Bank survey of more than 240 industry experts.

Experts go on to state that Victorian property prices will record the smallest price rise of all the states over the next year. The experts were at least optimistic about rises in Canberra of only 2.9 percent and Adelaide of 2.2 percent. A few were even optimistic about a rise in Sydney to 2.1 percent.

These results are big problems for vendors, who excepted the market to be flooded over the spring selling season. Buyers who do not believe prices are about to rise are less likely to bid strongly at auctions. Interest rate rises have added on some $317 a month to a loan of about $300,000. These are increases that some people just cannot afford to pay right now.

Right now, Spring is said to be the next really big test for the property market. Vendors are currently hoping that increased stock levels and higher interest rates will not lead to lower prices.

Not too long ago there was a 67-year-old woman that claimed that a toddler sitting across from her screamed so loud that her ears began to bleed. The lady had to be helped off the plane and taken to a hospital. This little event, of course, cut her holiday short. It was later found out that the boy allegedly left the lady stone cold deaf.

Well it appears that this lady has received an out of court settlement from Qantas. However, some reports claim that the woman was partially deaf before the event took place anyway. The lady, Jean Barnard, said that the pain was so excruciating that she didn’t even know she was deaf.

The lady has been left with permanent hearing damage and did sue the airline for physical and mental suffering. She went on to sue them for medical expenses and loss of income as well. Qantas Airlines had first argued in court that it was not their responsibility for a small child’s random impulsive screams. After all, the airline is not able to predict when a child is going to let out a deafening scream.

The airline had even argued that Mrs Barnard had a problem hearing before she even arrived in Australia and was already wearing a hearing aid. Counsels for Qantas said that there was no evidence that the child was screaming in the terminal and, therefore, no way the airline could have known that he would scream on the plane.

The airline even produced an email from Mrs Barnard to her travel agent that said that she guesses they are fortunate that her eardrum did explode and she was swallowing blood. She said, had it not been for that, she would have dragged that kid out of his mother’s arms and stomped him to death.

There is good news for travelers in Melbourne. This time the good news is that the Metropolitan train services in Melbourne, which is Australia’s second most populous city, has finally resumed. Apparently these train systems had been shut down after equipment failure at the biggest rail station caused some disruptions.

The problem was seen at the Southern Cross train station in the central business district. Apparently it had caused major delays with commuters facing waits for more than an hour. Normal services finally started to resume on all but one of the 16 metropolitan lines as of 5:25pm local time yesterday.

Apparently a train had pulled down overhead wires near Southern Cross station. This caused a power cut at about 4:55am yesterday. The metropolitan network has 211 train stations that carry about 400,000 people every single day.

Although people are upset about these delays, it does appear that those affected will get something in return. Apparently commuters that were affected will travel for free on July 30 as compensation. This came from reports that were citing the state’s Minister for Public Transport, Martin Pakula.

Right now train services and other forms of travel are locked in a bitter battle to win the heart of travelers. It now seems that a lot of short-haul destinations are starting to see people fancy train travel more than planes. Although this is great news for the train industry, it is not good for the airline industry, which has been suffering ever since the economic downturn.

Of course, people are not just choosing trains because they are cheaper most of the time. People are also starting to choose trains, because it is better on the environment and people are starting to think “greener.”

It now seems that federal government statistics that were just recently released apparently state that Tiger Airways is stimulating domestic air travel growth significantly. This is because it is offering Australia’s lowest airfares. Passenger statistics comparing May 2009 to May of this year show that routes on which Tiger Airways operates have shown far higher growth than on other routes that Tiger Airways does not yet operate.

Right now Tiger Airways is contributing more than 50 percent of the 98,957 additional passengers on some of the country’s busiest routes. For example, the Melbourne to Sydney route has seen one of the biggest surges in passenger traffic. It was up some 18.5 percent in May of this year when compared with 2009. Tiger Airways commenced flights on this route in July of 2009.

Some of the other top performing routes now, in terms of passenger growth year-on-year, include between Gold Cost and Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, and Adelaide and Sydney. All of these routes have seen an improvement after Tiger Airways started offering flights for them.

Tiger Airways Australia Commercial Director, Steve Burns, said that four of the five fastest growing domestic routes in the country benefit from Tiger Airways’ low fares. Thus, Tiger Airways’ low fares are providing the much needed shot in the arm in terms of domestic travel. The total traffic on competitive routes where Tiger Airways flew in May grew by 8.9 percent. This is much higher than the market average of 5.3 percent. Tiger Airways is able to give Australia the economic stimulus package that it needs by offering low cost flights.

It now seems that, during the first five months of 2010, there has been an increase in interest in Thailand, or at least as far as Australians are concerned. Apparently there has been an increase of 18 percent in the number of Australians visiting Thailand when compared to last year.

When not including Thailand’s immediate Asian neighbors, Australia actually provides the fourth highest number of foreign visitors to the area. In fact, Australia is right behind Russia, Germany and the UK. There were more than 275,000 Australians that visited Thailand by the end of May. Due to this. Almost $3.23 billion was spent. This is the fourth highest recorded spending rate among visitors.

Despite this increase in visitors, there has not been a higher hotel occupancy rate. This is bad news for the hotels in Thailand. The marketing chairman of the Thai Hotels Association, Ms Suprawan Tanomkieatipume, said that Thailand’s 30,000 four and five start hotels have shown occupancy of only 45 percent. This is down a lot from the normal 75 percent mark.

She did not stop there. She went on to add that these figures would rise again soon. The hope is that these numbers will start to increase once more European and Australian visitors start flocking back to the country. A lot of people normally come to Thailand during June and July. However, they also come during December and January as well.

Due to the country’s recent political turbulence, people have been avoiding Thailand. However, this political turbulence has not affected investment. In fact, there should be some 4,000 new rooms available by the end of December.

There are some countries that are doing everything that they can to get their travel and tourism industry back up. They know that this will help get their economy moving again if people are willing to spend some money. Well it now appears that Australia may have just came up with the answer. Australians are set to get a tax rebate for taking holidays within their own country under a plan, which is being put into affect by the Federal Government.

The chairman of Tropical North Queensland Tourism, Bill Calderwood, said that the “No Leave No Life” campaign is not having a great effect, and a tax benefit would inspire some travel. This campaign was suppose to encourage Australians to use their annual leave on domestic holidays and avoid traveling overseas.

Bill went on to say that similar tax incentives have been offered for school uniforms and first time home buyers. Under this new proposal, people would get a retrospective rebate on airfares and accommodations booked within Australia at tax time.

He went on to say that he thinks that this would have a great effect on people and provide them with the incentive to take a domestic holiday. It is very hard to change deep rooted behavioral habits of people using a media campaign. However, people need to use a whole series of different devices, which are going to help them understand more effectively the benefits of taking a holiday.

However, he did not stop there. He went on to say that people need to help the tourism industry and regional Australia. Tourism employs around half a million people around Australia. These people are in danger of losing their jobs. It makes sense to encourage people to take domestic holidays. It is important for capital cities, as well as regional communities.

New reports are now saying that Tiger Airways announced, as of last Friday, that it would now be cutting its Hobart to Adelaide and Launceston to Melbourne services. According to these reports, this will take place as of August 2^nd.

The airline’s main commercial director, Steve Burns, went on to say that it was a commercial reality that Tiger Airways would operate only on profitable routes. These routes are not preforming as well as others. With these changes, the airline is simply responding to demand and adapting their network to reduce their costs and satisfy their customers.

As of right now, any customers that have booked tickets for flights after the date of suspension have received emails advising them to change their planes. They were also told that they would be fully refunded for the unused ticket.

Of course, not everyone is sad to hear that Tiger Airways will no longer be serving Tasman. In fact, Jetstar is looking to capitalize on this little event. Almost with perfect timing with Tiger Airways’ suspension of these routes, Jetstar announced they were looking to expand their services for Launceston and Melbourne. They are offering a $50 travel voucher to any Launceston passenger who had lost their original flight with Tiger Airways.

Thus, this once again shows an airline trying to capitalize off another airline’s business choices. However, this time it seems that Jetstar has made a good choice. People who have had their flights canceled with Tiger Airways are more than likely going to rebook with Jetstar due to the $50 travel voucher. Jetstar is likely to see an increase in sales on these routes now that Tiger Airways is no longer offering flights on these routes.

It now seems that one Qantas passengers has been left deaf after sitting next to a screaming child on a passenger plane. This is like a passenger’s worse fear come true, because everyone hates sitting next to screaming kids on planes.

United States tourist Jean Barnard had just recently embarked on her dream holiday to Australia and New Zealand. Her trip allegedly became a nightmare when she boarded a Darwin-bound Qantas plane in Alice Springs. Here she was assigned a seat that was next to a three-year-old boy across the aisle.

The boy had allegedly leaned back over his armrest toward Ms Barnard and let out a scream so severe that blood started to erupt from her ears. This left her stone cold deaf. No other passengers where injured from the boy’s very loud yell.

Ms Barnard had to be helped off the plane and taken to the Alice Springs hospital. This, of course, ruined her trip that started in Brisbane. Ms Barnard said that the pain was so excruciating that she did not even know that she was deaf at first.

Ms Barnard has been locked in a legal tussle with Qantas for more than a year now. This 67-year-old is claiming she suffered severe and permanent injuries due to the event. This does include sudden hearing loss from the child’s scream. She is seeking damages for physical and mental suffering. She is also looking for the airline to cover expenses and loss of impairment of earning capacity.

Qantas’ United States legal team is vigorously fighting the case. They say that flight attendants cannot predict when children on the flight will start to scream. There is no deviance that the child was screaming in the terminal or on board the plane.

It now appears that stunning Melbourne model, Pia Miller, is going to be one of the new faces of Qantas. Miller will be joined by David Whitehill as hosts of the airline’s domestic and international in flight program, Welcome Abroad.

The old face of Qantas, Deborah Hutton, ended her 12-year association with Qantas in May. Apparently she wanted to try and focus her energy on new TV projects. However, it is not known if she had anything else lined up or not.

Whitehill and Miller will present the latest lifestyle news, special offers and product innovations from Qantas each month. These two are suppose to give this little “news” briefing a little bit of flare.

The popular model and wife of the Melbourne footy club player, Brad Miller, first came to the attention of Qantas when she was named ambassador for the Qantas Australian Grand Prix in March. Although she was still in high demand in the fashion industry, this stunning mom of two has been slowly developing her acting and presenting skills as well.

In fact, not too long ago Miller joined the Channel 9 Victorian travel show Postcards. She also filmed her first movie role in the comedy Big Mamma’s Boy in April. Just last week she also became an Australian citizen. Miller was born in Chilean and has been given a permanent Australian resident since arriving in Australia as a toddler.

This is great news for Qantas to find a new face so easily. Although the company is sad to be losing Deborah Hutton, they are surely glad to have found Miller.

As predicted, the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just recently announced the date for the general election. Australians will now go to the polls on August 21^st, which is just 35 days away. This has all of the really major parties scrambling to their election campaign organizers to throw something together quickly.

Ms Gillard just recently visited the Governor General to discuss these plans before announcing the date during a press conference at parliament House. Although Ms Gillard has only been the Prime Minister of Australia for three weeks, her popularity has overtaken that of opposition leader Tony Abbott. Her fans say that her take on population, emigration and economy have been her strengths.

At first Ms Gillard softened her approach to emigration by saying that Australia did still need skilled emigration in order to keep the economy running strong. However, she has been in talks with the government of East Timor about new plans for a detention center to hold as many illegal emigrants that try to enter Australia by boat.

On the other hand, Mr Abbott has promised to stop illegal emigration as well, or at least the ones by boat. He has also taken a tough stance on emigration policies and pledges to stop the new taxes. He wants to lace industrial relations at the top of the priority list.

Ms Gillard wants to move away from the Labour government under Kevin Rudd. She said that she would like to go into this second term with some lessons learned. She promised that there would be no “big Australia”, but there would instead be a sustainable Australia.