From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Sting in the retail. More evidence that if business wants to punish workers with real wage cuts, strangely enough, they won’t spend a great deal. Today’s retail trade data for September from the ABS shows consumers are keeping their wallets closed: retail sales turnover grew by … nothing. Zip. Zero. That’s 0% in both trend and seasonally adjusted terms. That’s the third hole in the doughnut, in trend terms, in a row; the seasonally adjusted figures for the preceding two months showed falls of 0.5% and 0.3%, so at least with 0% for September we’re no longer actually going backwards. Of course, it’s retailers who are the most eager to slash workers’ wages through penalty rate cuts and dodgy deals with the Shoppies, so you might think it’s poetic justice that the sector is suffering the consequences — but this is a sector that employs over 1.2 million of us, and they’re suffering both ways.

Western front. Labor preselection in Melbourne’s west has been messier than usual in recent weeks. After the state government lost both the speaker and deputy speaker through expenses scandals, and with the retirement of one MP and one MLC, a number of safe seats are up for grabs. With the retirement of former federal senator Stephen Conroy, the long-held “stability pact” between the Victorian Left and Right factions is also not quite as stable as it once was. Members of the sub-faction connected to former small business minister Adem Somyurek challenged candidates from Conroy’s “short-cons” in a number of seats in the west last month. The candidates will eventually be chosen by a combination of votes in the seats and the Public Office Selection Committee.

Now, a tipster tells us, a group calling itself the Western Community Network was registered as an incorporated association this week. Its rules of membership ask that all members are either a member of a union or the Labor party, and says:

“The WCN is a growing group of Union & Labor activists that have come together to build a strong activist movement out in the West.

“We hold monthly meetings that focus on Local, State and Federal issues as well as regular training aimed at providing personal growth and development to make members of the WCN more effective Labor and Union Activists.”

It’s unclear what faction the group is aligned to, but could it cause headaches in the future?

Do you smell pork? Staying in Victoria, where Labor is fighting the Greens in a byelection for the seat of Northcote, following the death of minister Fiona Richardson. Labor’s candidate is Clare Burns, and in an incredible coincidence, she is a young renter in the inner suburbs, just as Premier Daniel Andrews has been announcing policies that are more favourable to renters than landlords.

Now, the Greens are accusing the government of education pork-barrelling in the seat. Lidia Thorpe, the Greens candidate says more than $12 million has been announced for schools in the area since the byelection was announced. Labor of course says the schools were already on the list to get new funding and the byelection has nothing to do with it.

A local tipster — from the neighbouring electorate of Preston has produced this map comparing the two electorates and the funding allotted to schools in each. According to the map, the Preston electorate has been pledged just $6.3 million for schools, while Northcote has been pledged $29.65 million (including for a new school in Alphington). In Preston, Labor’s Robin Scott polled 48.4% in 2014, with the Greens Rose Ljubicic on 16.1% and the Liberals on 21.2% — so nowhere near as much of a teetering domino as Northcote. 

(Click through to see funding allocations for each school)

Flying Heap of Crap Watch: the final chapter. Flying Heap of Crap Watch has been a stalwart of Tips and Rumours for years now, and we’ve lost count of the number of problems we’ve documented about the F-35. So it delights us to run one final revelation of just how rubbish this plane is. The Pentagon recently halted all deliveries of the plane for 30 days while a corrosion problem was fixed. Yes, the planes might be brand new but they’re corroding already. According to Reuters, USAF maintenance crews “detected ‘corrosion exceeding technical limits’ where the carbon fiber exterior panel is fastened to the aluminum airframe.” As a result, according to plane manufacturer Lockheed, “all F-35 deliveries to our customers were temporarily suspended by the F-35 Joint Program Office from Sept. 21 – Oct. 20 while we determined the corrective action plan.” How’d the old song go? “Come sit on the tarmac with me, come sit, come sit away …”

From the Crikey bunker: from next week, Tips and rumours will no longer be a daily column, but will still appear regularly in the Crikey Insider newsletter. Ms Tips is, as ever, keen to hear from you with any snippets of information you may have.

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