7’s lies, damn lies and medal counts. One of the things that has given me the $hit$ watching Channel 7s coverage of the Olympics is the adjusted medal count; this thrown up when the “real” medal count doesn’t appear to meet early morning breakfast expectations. — Larvatus Prodeo

Why is Tasmania scheduling its election to coincide with SA? In 2006, the Tasmanian government called an election for 18 March, choosing the same date on which South Australia was already legislated to have an election, and on the first weekend of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. With continuing controversy over the proposed Gunns pulp mill for the Tamar Valley, the election date appeared a deliberate strategy designed to minimize pesky coverage of the election by mainland journalists. The next election is already set for Saturday 20 March 2010. Unfortunately, this is the same date that Tasmania’s politicians currently seem determined to use as the date for the next Tasmanian election.

My question for the Tasmanian political parties is, why legislate now to hold an election on the same day we already know South Australia is going to have an election? — Antony Green, ABC

Pacific Island workers a welcome move. It is a sad sign of how low the modern ‘Liberals’ have sunk that a National Party MP, Kay Hull, is taking a less protectionist, less anti-migrant position. — Andrew Bartlett

WA Labor takes aim at the Liberals ‘boys club’. I suspect none of the major parties federally or in any of the states and territories could entirely escape the accusation of being a “boys club”, but I’m very interested to see – for the first time I can think of – gendered cultures within a political party being raised as an election issue in Australia. — Larvatus Prodeo