Rudders steps in steaming meadow cocktail

Well, we were all just waiting for it weren't we?
You can't cobble together a summit born out of a media sound byte without quickly throwing around money to smooth the way.
* $60,000 to the wife of a ministerial staffer for the family company to handle summit media relations
* $284,5000 to Melbourne University for the loan of Professor Glyn Davis as summit convenor
* $71,000 for Australia 2020 website design and development
Rudders is walking around Canberra with a load of manure adhering to his heels.
Good one, mate. Really let's us know that the economy is in good hands, and that transparency and accountability are still the order of the day.

And Ernie Bennett demonstrates why NSW Nationals should not gain government in the next decade

The Tweed Daily News shows that Nationals Ernie Bennett is on his pet hobby horse again - the abolition of the states and the creation of 20 NSW super councils, with his favorite scenario being one fiefdom which stretches from Clarence to the Tweed containing advisory boards mirroring existing local government boundries.
Enrie obviously hasn't done the maths on any annual revenue required to support a super council.
With all the pressing issues that face the coast it is a pity that he is wasting his time as president of the Northern Rivers Regional Organisation of Councils in this way.

Window on a Gillard/McClelland/Conroy IT daydream?

One possible scenario envisioned by Labor ministers supporting corporate spying on email content.
Cartoon found at http://xkcd.com/208/

Fully-wired catfish on the loose!

In an effort to conserve the Freshwater (eel-tailed) Catfish in the wild, the NSW Dept. of Primary Industries (Fisheries) will be releasing a number of radio-tagged catfish into the Clarence River system at Jackadgery.
If you are dropping a line in the water over the next 12 months and catch one of these fish, please carefully return it to the river, creek or stream in which you found it.
Do your bit for declining coastal fish stocks.

Morris Iemma demonstrates why NSW Labor will not gain government again in the next decade

Morris Iemma turned Sydney CBD into a concrete gulag for the 2007 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, lost his sense of humour when The Chaser team showed that all that expensive and intrusive so-called conference security meant nothing, went against party policy to push for the unpopular privatisation of state electricity supplies, rolled back planning laws protecting home-owners from being swamped by rapacious developers, ignored holes in the political donations policy until predictable scandal surfaced, is underwriting World Youth Day's pinch penny pilgrims to the tune of tens of millions while the public hospital system haemorrhages, and yesterday had the hide to ban the general public from dedication of the statue of a New Zealand soldier on Anzac Bridge during the Anzac Day weekend.

Little Morrie Iemma is clearly as out-of-touch with the average voter as John Howard was in his latter years.

I see the same fate awaiting him and Labor, as neither are passing the pub test and Bluey is not happy.

Morrie may be content to take his super and run when the time comes, but if he continues in this high-handed strain until the next election he is creating a gold-plated guarantee that NSW Labor will rot in the wilderness for at least the next decade after.

Babbo!