Christian
Kerr writes:

Cheap
dates. Only $1,500 for a night out with the woman Crikey readers voted
Australia’s sexiest female pol, Julia Gillard? Yup. That was the highest bid in the
Press Gallery Midwinter Ball auction when we checked this morning. Will a
Crikey “rich red ragger” put their money where their mouth is?

The mainstream catches up with Epping. “The
state executive of the NSW Liberal Party will decide tomorrow whether to clear
the way for its conservative right wing to take control of the numbers in the
seat of Epping, enabling it to install the former NSW president of Right to
Life, Greg Smith, as the candidate”, The SMHreports today.
“The move would all but spell the end of a political career for the federal Sex
Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward…” And it will raise more questions
about the PM’s influence in his own division of the party and the power of the
religious right – a topic, we hear, Four
Corners is taking an interest in.

Beattie not terminal. First the
conservative merger goes wrong, and now Crikey gets a whisper that internal
Labor Party polling from Queensland shows only a 5% swing against the Beattie Government in
the vital Brisbane city seats. No worries there. Indeed, we’re told senior Labor
figures regard it as a good way of cleaning out some riff raff without sacking
anyone.

Joseph Heller writes the script for the
White House. So the British Consul would like to meet David Hicks to hear him make
the oath of British citizenship but the US won’t allow access because Hicks is not a British Citizen? Make a
great theme for a novel.