From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Meditation fail. Rupert Murdoch is clearly delighted to think he’s scored one over Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who investigated the ethics and standards of the British press in the wake of the News phone-hacking scandal.

Murdoch is revelling in reports of an alleged affair between a Leveson colleague and a laywer representing a victim of press intrusion. Crikey is concerned that Murdoch’s glee doesn’t fit well with his intention to pursue transcendental meditation. How about some spiritual reflection, Rupert?

Indigenous debate on Cape York proposal. The Australian brought us the story today of indigenous leader Gerhardt Pearson’s bid to mine bauxite at Aurukun on Cape York (Pearson says he would offer equity to traditional owners). A tipster raised this point:

“No one asked Mr Pearson if he was Wik and therefore entitled to be involved in the Aurukun bauxite negotiations. He is not and I wonder what his interest is, i.e. does he hope to skim the earnings from someone else’s land like any whitefella?”

To be fair, in the article Pearson does not claim to be a traditional owner of the land in question. But the story does raise once again the contentious question of defining and negotiating indigenous ownership, which was such an issue with the now-defunct James Price Point gas hub development in the Kimberley.

Radio National slashes space. The folks at ABC Radio National are a notoriously change-averse bunch; within Aunty it’s said there’d be a revolt if you tried to change the colour of the carpets. So how will staffers cope with management’s new “co-location” push? Until now RN has been spread out over two floors at the ABC’s Ultimo HQ — soon everyone will be on one floor. This means most staffers — even some high-profile presenters — will move out of private offices into an open-floor plan.

“A lot of people are pretty upset about it,” an RN insider said.

“It’s not like they’re luxury offices — they’re tiny. They’re small, drab offices that afford space for research and program making.”

Crikey hears management is alert to the sensitivity and is consulting with staff about storage and privacy issues.

Animal welfare. We hear a “big name in the free-range pork industry” is soon to go down over animal welfare issues and labelling. This tidbit comes after Tips asked around about claims that non-free-range eggs are been labelled as free range and sold to unsuspecting consumers, who pay a premium to be dudded. An activist told us this:

“We know of numerous farms that fit the bill and many we have lodged complaints to the ACCC over. Some big names. No action has been taken at this stage.”

Free-range egg farmer Phil Westwood told us this:

“There are heaps of dodgy egg producers out there because state and federal governments allow the industry to self-regulate. There are  truth in labelling egg bills currently before State Parliament in NSW and SA, but the governments aren’t enthusiastic because of the lobbying power of the big egg businesses.”

One might expect that if one is buying a product stamped “free range”, it is free range — surely for a market to function properly, consumers have a right to accurate information? The ACCC is mostly in charge of policing eggs. It has acted against what’s called “substitution”, taking on a SA producer last year for allegedly selling cage eggs as free range (she was fined $50,000).

Say what you will about Crikey, we’re not in the pocket of big egg. We’re keen to crack this issue wide open.

Government sells its soul. Fellow weather bores have been helping Tips work out if the imminent start of commercial advertising on the Bureau of Meteorology is a first. Has any other federal government website done this? Here are some responses:

“SBS has been advertising on its websites for years … not sure if you would count that”. That’s correct — but would SBS be considered a government department or agency? Its website is www.sbs.com.au (not .gov) — at the moment it’s advertising for you to go on holiday in WA. Of course, SBS has ads on television, too.

Here’s another suggestion:

“Wasn’t there talk, years ago when the ABC was building up its online presence, that they were going to run ads? I remember because there were news articles at the time with government and ABC denying there would be ads on ABC TV or radio. But I did not see any ads appear on ABC online” — Toby.

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