Federal MP Christopher Pyne doesn’t get involved in leadership issues or preselections for the state parliamentary team, Greg Kelton writes in today’s Adelaide Advertiser. Would that be the same Christopher Pyne who bent the ears of political reporters in each state leadership tussle since 2006? Kelton knows it, so why does he print the version that best suits Pyne?
Who would ever have thought that the once venerable Australian Bureau of Statistics could become the nation’s Gestapo? The Victorian office has written to households with what appears to be a page right out of the Gestapo customer service manual. For instance, participating families have to set aside two hours plus a table and chair for the interviewer. Is it compulsory you ask? Well if you go to the bureau’s web page that question is asked — trouble is there’s no answer.
Staff have clearly not been schooled in customer service. Young working couples and families with children can’t set aside several nights in one week for a two-hour interview, yet when this is pointed out bureau staff are becoming agitated and abusive. Among details you are told you must provide are rate notices, body corporate notices, gas and electricity, insurance and repairs and alterations to your house. And, whatever you’ve spent on appliances and what not in the past three months. Yes, we all keep those.
Then there are health details, loans, income, bank statements, investments, union fees and credit card statements. And, if you’re angry enough by this stage to deny entry to your house to the Gestapo, then you must provide a table and chair outside. The census is one thing, but shouldn’t the expenditure survey be voluntary — and delivered with a dollop of niceness?
Is this an example of e-Bay opportunism? One entrepreneur is selling personalised NSW number plates with the names of three top Sydney radio stations. Bidding starts at $5000 — or you can buy them outright for $15,000 a piece. No takers so far …
While browsing the VicLink website I came across a page dedicated to free travel passes. One page caught my attention. The World War I travel pass, they say, is no longer available for issue — but if you hold one you can still use it. Last time I heard, there was only one WW1 veteran left — and he lives in Perth.
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