Tips and rumours, Jun 12, 2014

From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Keep your friends close… Some associates of Right wing think tank, the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), are getting increasingly antsy about the think tank’s increasingly close embrace with UK “libertarian” outfit Spiked. Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill has recently spent some time in Oz on a fellowship with the CIS, and Spiked guru Frank Furedi has been a frequent visitor. Neither have been reticent about Spiked’s antecedent — the ultra-Leninist Revolutionary Communist Party, which Furedi founded in the late 1970s. Known as the “Socialist Workers Party with hair-gel”, the RCP dissolved itself in 1996, arguing that the Bolshevik period of history was over for the moment, and that the key fight was now for basic liberal freedoms.

But they have been less forthcoming about the RCP’s string of advocacy for Irish republicanism in the 1980s, and support of the “armed struggle” — the murderous and nihilistic endgame of the Provisional IRA. Their most disastrous foray — forming a 1987 electoral alliance, Red Front, with a violent Leftist group, Red Action, whose leaders are still in prison for subsequent terrorist bomb-attacks in London — is something they really hope doesn’t come up over the Coonawarra at the next CIS “consilium”. The company we keep…

Mixed messages and the rumour mill. We received a tip this week that a Centrelink office in Western Australia had already started drug testing clients, asking for a urine sample from a welfare recipient. We were incredulous and a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services quashed the rumour quickly, but it isn’t unusual for the rumour mill to take headlines from “drug tests if you’re on the dole” to a foregone conclusion, despite Human Services Minister Kevin Andrews ruling it out. Some doctors have reported a drop in patient numbers since the budget, blaming misunderstanding over the $7 GP co-payment. Is the political literacy of the populace to blame, or the communication kerfuffle from the government?

Buds in business no more. Liberals pride themselves on their entrepreneurial background, but one state minister is curiously shy about his early initiative — turning a share house doing a bit of dope-dealing into the major mari-h-uana supplier for a third-tier university. Now he is getting nervous about a few former customers angry at their onetime connection’s current policies. Word is they’re not planning to let the grass grow under their feet…

NTEU’s Che nowhere to be found. After yesterday’s tip about Che Guevara at the NTEU in South Melbourne, we received this reply from the academics union:

“We enjoyed reading the observations of your source and spent a good while stalking the office to find said photo of Che. Unfortunately all we could find were the attached. The only things that will die hard are our revolutionary loves of a smooth espresso and good music.”

Royalty pain in the… Senor Tips has just received his latest notification of fees owing from the Copyright Australia agency. About $2000 in all, it is barely worth tackling the four different spreadsheets, which require 16 different final amounts to be filled in. More recent payments are done by clicking on to a gateway to a website — which goes nowhere. Couldn’t CAL simply get bank accounts on file, deposit fees owed annually — and put the onus on anyone wanting to challenge their adding-up, to get the spreadsheets by special request? Or is the system designed to discourage claims below a certain amount as not worth the hassle?

The not-a-campaign campaign. While launching her new book Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton has been quick to say that she hasn’t made a decision on whether to run for president in 2016. If she does commit to run sometime soon, it’s hard to imagine how the frenzy surrounding her could actually increase. Fans are waiting up all night to get their copies signed and the Hillary Bus (from the ‘There for Hillary’ PAC) is already following Clinton’s book tour. Tips found this set of instructions for fans of Mrs Clinton particularly interesting. If fans of a presidential hopeful are told when to pee, what are the rules like for meeting a sitting POTUS?