Sydney - Australian politicians learned Tuesday that the country's oldest practising lawyer had died aged 100 and that they would need to look for a new exemplar of grateful employment and retirement postponed.

When he succumbed to a stroke last week, George Bilbie was still working in the Newcastle law firm that he founded in 1944.

"I'm one of the luckiest people out there," Bilbie said a few months before his death. "When you are brought up poor, you appreciate everything you get."

Sydney - Supported by Wall Street, the Australian stocks continued their climb in early trading session on Tuesday.

Sydney - Australians are keen on others saving the planet: in an opinion poll from the privately funded Lowy Institute, they rated the economy, employment, terrorism and food scarcity more problematic than global warming.

It's no surprise that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is paying lip service to curbing climate change but not doing much about it.

"What I would say to leaders around the world, and the community here in Australia, is that the problem of climate change and global warming doesn't disappear because of the global financial crisis," he said.

Sydney - Identical triplets scored identical grades in their final year at an Australian high school and were each awarded prizes for top achievement.

"It's nice coming out equal because we always get asked who's the smartest," Kate Stevenson, flanked by sisters Amy and Lisa, said Friday.

"It was something we all were hoping for when the prizes came out and we got three each," she told Australia's AAP news agency.

Never before in the 50-year history of Brisbane's Wavell State High School had the award for the top student in the graduating class been split.

Sydney - Investors piled out of Australian stocks Thursday in response to Wall Street registering its biggest one-day percentage loss in 20 years.

The ASX 200 fell 286 points, or 7.1 per cent, to 4,013.

The US market buckled on fears that the global financial turmoil would lead to a recession.

Macquarie Bank economist Martin Laycoss said the slippage was a "follow-through from Wall Street's 7.8-per-cent fall. It was impossible for us to ignore that."