Apparently, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet have asked for volunteers within its Department to take notes at the 2020 summit. That’s volunteers … i.e. unpaid work over a weekend. They are selling it as a great development/career opportunity. Fabulous!

Those hoping for a night of the long knives scenario in the senior ranks of the federal bureaucracy after the Kevin 07 caravan rolled into town were sorely disappointed. However, indications are that a more gradual purge of overzealous mandarins is underway. Jane Halton, the head of the health department, who proved her unfettered loyalty to the Howard government during Children Overboard Affair, was told by her new Minister at the beginning of the year that she should be looking for a another job in six months.

On the same day that the ASX was sending its people into Tricom what were they meeting with Opes about in the ASX Sydney office? Did the ASX give in principle agreement to Opes shifting its stock lending business outside the reach of the ASX market participant rules?

Imparja Television, the remote area TV Broadcaster based in Alice Springs covers most of inland Australia. It has recently sold its soul to the Nine network and become “Nine Imparja”. It used to source programs from the Nine and Ten networks but is now exclusively Nine programming. This means that remote area viewers were denied coverage of the Australian Grand Prix and other Ten network events. Instead of producing its own news bulletin as it used to, it now takes the Nine Brisbane bulletin off the satellite with no local coverage at all. The Brisbane bulletin has no interest in any area outside the Greater Brisbane area and has no relevance to the Imparja audience, even to those living in remote Queensland. I believe it has something to do with Nine funding Imparja’s conversion to DTV.

Not so much news as the current state of affairs at Coles — shambolic and getting worse. Industrial action in the WA DC has led to loads not being delivered into stores — most loads have had carton count limits placed on them (most stores can only order half of what they want). After Goyder publically named and shamed Coles Mosman Park and Claremont the state leadership team was sent in — to no effect. The problem started when a Coles staffer refused entry to a very senior Wesfarmers executive after 5pm on a Saturday. Internal store, state and national structure changes are to be completed by June — this means that based on Goyder’s five year turnaround timetable, 12% of that time would have been spent on finding new job titles for demoted senior executives. Currently there exists no plan for the future except that Woolies is offering “whatever” to Coles staff to get them to jump ship. Finally, in swipe at the Coles WA state team, no Coles executives from WA were invited to Goyder’s recent Breakfast talk in Perth, they couldn’t even buy tickets.

The firing at the top is not far off at AirServices Australia with the unceremonious departure of National Party retainer Nick Burton Taylor as chairman on the expiry of his appointment last week. During his chairmanship Airservices made good money for the government but gave bad air traffic control, in fact, no air traffic control, not even around major cities, at crucial moments, which is one of the factors pushing Australia down to third world status under the terms of its obligations to the International Civil Aviation Organisation ICAO. Watch for the Maltese falcon, Anthony Albanese, to cover himself with more blood and feathers as the transport and infrastructure minister works out who else is a waste of oxygen.