Hold the line, please: Forget the bush, what about Parliament House? Finance Minister Nick Minchin admitted when he was down at the Press Club yesterday talking Telstra that his mobile phone doesn’t work in Parliament House. Indeed. When digital mobiles first came in in the early nineties, pollies, lobbyists, mandarins and staffers were all dismayed to discover their flash new toys only seemed to get a signal in the courtyards. Improvements were made, but I remember being unable to get a line out on Budget day in 1997 because the capacity was full. Parliament House remains a notorious mobile phone black hole, despite the installation of transponders – and much to the embarrassment of the management of our telcos.

Queensland jostling: Sicilian feuds can be messy, and talk from Queensland says that new Liberal state MP Michael Caltabiano has rescinded an agreement to step down as party president for Senator Santo Santoro following his election win. Once a pollie always a pollie? Or is the right fracturing?

Distractions: “Local Government Minister Desley Boyle has been urged to use her whistleblower protection powers to support two auditors of Redland Shire Council who have been dismissed after raising concerns about financial management,” reports The Courier Mail. Will something coincide with the release of the Morris inquiry into Dr Death? “Pressure is mounting for a full public inquiry into links between developers and local councils in the state’s growth hot spots,” says the paper. Having three councils under the pump might shift media focus from health, but internal Labor party polling shows Queenslanders want to hear how they are being fixed. Still, coming out and fighting corruption wherever it might be is good ground for Beattie. It’s worked before, over corruption in preselection battles within his own party. When you’re in trouble you run home to something you know and know well.

DIMIA dross: Immigration is an evil and incompetent department. Just look at their response to the allegations 79-year-old Syrian woman Aziza Agha died two days after she was forced to travel to central Melbourne for a consultation with a departmental doctor earlier this month. Her GP says he warned the departmental droogs she should remain in her home, but John Williams says the doctor should have given clear instructions. “The advice to us was that she was fit to travel,” the ABC quotes him as saying. Yeah. As laid down in the manual with the procedures for purchasing paperclips? Use some special departmental form of words no one else knows? Is cultural change in the department possible?