Christian
Kerr writes:


North Shore
pullback. All that jewellery
rattling scared them off! Former councillor Steve Russell now won’t be challenging
Liberal moderate Judy Hopwood in the state seat of Hornsby. Hornsby Mayor, Nick
Berman, has quit the contest, too. He will now have a go at Epping, where
sitting MP Andrew Tink is retiring at the next election.

Legal
jargon. It’s been announced that a very lucrative contract for one of the big
legal firms to provide a branch manager for the Department of Families,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs will terminate at the end of the
year. Could it have anything to do with the vast volume of tendentious emails
of legal and departmental gossip that seem to have flowed from the deal?

Open
government? Penetrating the mysteries of government in Australia might get just
that little bit harder this winter as getting into Canberra itself might be more
of a task. Fog is always a problem at Canberra Airport on winter mornings, and a project
now underway to extend and strengthen the runway means some of the equipment to
help aircraft land in fog will not be operating.

Recipe of the Day. Will they, won’t they? We may not be able to predict where interest rates will head, but here’s one recipe that’s guaranteed to rise (if you’re a decent enough chef) – and one that’s not.

Send your
snippets to christian@crikey.com.au