Another boat of illegal immigrants has been located in the Torres Strait. The vessel was apparently becalmed for several days, and the Government left it there while determining what to do about it.

Re. Recycling charges going up by 360%. We are in Sydney and have had a SME collector picking up our paper and cardboard weekly for over 10 years. He charges me nothing and give him about half a cubic metre a week. Ask around your local shops and you’ll find these SME. Local businesses tell me that Visy are a very arrogant company who have a take it or leave it attitude. They are overseas owned.

Following up from yesterday’s tip regarding Visy’s recycling strategy, I was talking to my local franchise micro-brewer about their canning option. He said it was cheaper for the chain to source empty aluminium cans from Wales on the other side of the world, than to get them from either Visy or Amcor. I’m surprised that Visy gets any business at all.

I’m an employee of Sensis, who has just retrenched 192 people. Good people. Necessary people. This is galling when Sol Trujillo is about to walk away with a $20 million golden handshake.

Sydney based home builder, Westminster Homes went into administration two weeks ago. 37 people were sacked from the company a week ago tomorrow. And tomorrow the administrators on $250 an hour (there are four of them) are very likely to get rid of the remaining employees and put the company into receivership or liquidation. The debt was $5 million. No one can understand why such a small debt was allowed to sink the company. Employees blame the banks. Westminster currently has more than 100 homes under construction and a further 150 consumers in pre-contract agreements. It’s the third NSW homebuilder to go into administration in recent months. One, Wincrest Homes, was restructured and is back trading.