Here we are in the midst of the biggest LPT-turmoil yet experienced and the Financial Review‘s “smartinvestor” magazine, delivered yesterday and date-stamped January 2008, gives on page 14 a description of the Centro Retail Trust under the introductory line, “Chris Wright looks over standout funds …” Timing!

Treasurer Wayne Swan has an unwelcome Christmas gift for Australia’s car industry and car dealerships, with plans to announce radical changes to the treatment of Fringe Benefits Tax and cars. The changes will make it much less effective for employees to salary package cars.

Melbourne will be declared by DRO on Thursday. Result to be (on 2pp terms): Green 45.29% to Labor 55.71%. Seat will therefore go from very safe Labor/Liberal to marginal Labor/Green. Seat had highest ever green primary vote in federal general election.

Channel Nine in Perth doesn’t care about ratings. Since WIN took over running the embattled station, media in Perth haven’t been receiving any preview tapes for new shows… because upper management dont want to waste the money.

I booked on the Spirit of Tasmania then had to cancel because I decided to fly instead, that was yesterday. I rang again this morning as the refund had not come through to my credit card. The response was “the banks will use it for a few days before they give it back to you, it usually takes 3 to 5 days for a refund to go through.” A refreshing piece of honesty there.

The BT (Bankers Trust) Christmas Party on Friday night at the Metro in Sydney had an 80s theme. To re-inforce this theme what else would any party planner choose but… pole dancers in bikinis! Remember all those pole dancers in the Dukes of Hazard, Dallas and Cyndi Lauper videos? No, neither do I. Classy. Maybe it is a reference to the 80s management style/attitudes? What would Gail think?

Bigpond have removed OpenOffice, a free Wordprocessor, Spreadsheet etc package, from their “Un-metered File Download site” because it competes with their new online “Bigpond Office” product. They are refusing customers requests to update the OpenOffice files because it competes with Bigpond Office.