Appetite for power. Spotted recently at a Pymble servo: NSW Deputy Liberal Leader Barry O’Farrell – not buying petrol, but a handful of jelly snakes. Is his appetite for tucker starting to assert itself over his appetite for power? Should we stay tuned for the return of the beard? Or is he going places so quickly he needed a glucose fix?

Crikey, that’s not right. ACT Liberal Bill Stefaniak has denied he has been approached about taking over the leadership of the ACT party in the wake of internal blues, the ABC reports. Last week, ACT Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth demoted MLA Vicki Dunne over claims she had shown disloyalty to the party room and a corridor contretemps with fellow Liberal Steve Pratt. Stefaniak says he knows nothing about claims he has been offered the leadership. “Apparently according to Crikey.com or whatever, I’m supposed to have been approached by several MLAs in relation to me being leader, and if that’s the case then its news to me,” he said.

Notes on the Nats. New on the ABC’s Elections website – two items on the Nationals by Antony Green. One looks at the future for the partywhile the second catalogues all the seats they have lost around the country in the last 25 years and charts the rise of independents. And keep an eye out for a Tasmanian election site from the great man soon, too. As the Good Book says, ye know not the day nor the hour.

What are they on? Tensions in the Greens are rising after Bob Brown announced last month the party had backed away from proposals to investigate the regulated supply of illicit drugs after talking to health experts. The plan was ridiculed during the 2004 federal campaign – but as the South Australian and, even more vitally, Tasmanian election looms, party critics are even turning up in letters to the editor saying it’s all just a plan to win votes.

Send your snippets to christian@crikey.com.au