Readers may be interested to see that the Monash Alumini web page for Kevin Andrews has now been altered to refer to his having “contributed” rather than “coauthored” certain publications. To date there has been no change in the resume at the sites Kevin Andrews himself controls.

The Coles board are becoming embarrassed, defensive and quite angry that their great revival strategy for the Coles Group is being proven a dud. The board hired Mckinsey to turn around Coles but all they did was cost millions without finding any cost savings. The board has blamed the management team for this, but it turns out the management team are actually now sorting through the mess that the board and Mckinsey have made and finding millions of cost savings themselves, much to the embarrassment of the board and Mckinsey. Seems the board can’t make a trick as they are also wanting to charge the management team for the $40m in sale costs they have clocked up in a sham to just agree to be taken over. If the $40m is taken off the 07 profit, the management team will miss out on their bonuses. This board just doesn’t want to accept the blame for anything. And they wonder why there is a culture of finger pointing – it starts at the top.

Nestle are looking at partnering Dairy Farmers in future business, with a view of taking Dairy Farmers over once they list.

Only a month after papering over the cracks of dysfunction at Queensland Health’s “flagship” Prince Charles Hospital, a microcosm of the wider problems faced by heart patients in Queensland it just keeps getting worse. Now the Director of the Heart Transplant Unit is on her way as well (following the head of transplant services and the director of surgery). That’s three senior specialists in six weeks!!!

Re. the marginals and what might happen. Kingston currently held by Kym Richardson with approx 119 votes. However there is a wild card in this called the City of Onkaparinga. Have a read of their minutes of 4th September specifically 8.3 so while there is the your rights at work campaign being run. Council seem a little annoyed over infrastructure and the quality of it.

I live in the electorate of Stirling, and was phoned on Friday night by an unnamed market research firm. They asked a lot of questions re voting intentions, important issues etc, but the most interesting question was a push poll style question which asked whether I agreed that Labor candidate Peter Tinley was too inexperienced as a politician. As opposed to Michael Keenan, elected in 2004? What an amazing question!

Howard call an election before he absolutely has too? You have got to be joking. He still needs time to spend $100 million on climate change advertising; once the election has been called he is on a level footing with ALP spending. Lib spending will be further impacted by those in the party that intend to still be there after the election as they will be loathe to underwrite massive debt that will cripple them into the future if they form the view that it’s all over red rover for this election.