Believing in the tooth fairy. Just a brief thought on that Council of Australian Government last Friday. Why would anyone who remembers Paul Keating’s L-A-W “law” tax cuts take seriously the commitment of the Commonwealth and New South Wales to finance a disability health insurance scheme from 2018? Give us a break.

Rorting the electoral roll. He has a strange definition of rorting does Christopher Pyne. The Liberal frontbencher was out this morning bemoaning the Labor move to have people not on the electoral roll put on it. Unfair! Unfair! The missing people are mainly young and young people mainly vote for Greens and Labor. These new electoral laws that automatically enrol up to 1.5 million voters are another example of federal Labor “rorting the roll”, he told Sky News. “Rorting the roll is routine for the Labor Party.”

Democracy coming of age in Indonesia. With the Independent Commission Against Corruption exposing the shenanigans committed by politicians in New South Wales it does not really behove an Australian to comment on political corruption in another country. I’ll take the risk of being called a hypocrite to draw attention to what is currently happening in Indonesia only because it seems to show that democracy is really taking hold in that country when a senior government minister can be charged with copping bribes.

The Jakarta Post reports this morning:

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has told Democratic Party executives to brace for the worst in anticipation of the graft probe of the party’s board of patrons member and former youth and sports minister Andi Mallarangeng.

Yudhoyono, the party’s chief patron, summoned all Democratic Party lawmakers to his private residence in Cikeas, West Java, Sunday evening.

A number of top party executives attended the meeting including party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, secretary-general Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono and head of the party’s faction in the House of Representatives, Nurhayati Ali Assegaf.

Board of patrons member, Achmad Mubarok, said that Yudhoyono told party members that they must remain united in the face of intensified efforts by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to uncover graft cases involving party members.

On Thursday, the KPK named Andi a suspect in the alleged massive budget misappropriation of the construction of the Rp 1.17 trillion (US$121.62 million) Hambalang sports complex in Sentul, West Java.

Doing a Troy. With WA’s very own Treasurer Troy Buswell in the news for a bit of dry humping, just a reminder of the wonderful sense of humour of Silvio Berlusconi, the man who is currently planning a new campaign to return as Italy’s Prime Minister:

A quote for the day. From The Weekend Australian:

News and views noted along the way.