The Liberals have decided to preference the Christian Democrats. This is a high risk policy as if they don’t get an absolute majority initially all the preferences will keep flowing to the Christian democrat even from the Greens as I understand it. Fletcher might be responsible for electing the first Christian democrat(?) to the Federal lower house.

Myer has just announced a “Family, Friends and Suppliers” sale for this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which effectively offers substantial discounts of up to 30% across the store. It’s a one-day storewide sale run over three days by another name (the PDF invite is currently going viral by email which means anyone can be a “friend”). If Myer is going so well, why are they constantly on sale? All daily newspapers feature “One Day Offer” specials for today with deep discounts, so what’s going on?

New panel-style quiz show being piloted at GTV9… hosted by … Julian Morrow!

A glass and a half of get the hell out. Early last month, Cadbury employees at the National Distribution Centre based in Ringwood (an outer Eastern suburb of Melbourne) were informed that their continued employment was no longer guaranteed. Over 100 people, from managers, office staff, warehouse storemen and forklift operators, both full time and casual workers would be affected.

This impending decision is not because Cadbury is struggling in this economic climate. In fact, it is because sales are ever increasing. The existing warehouse facilities of Cadbury cannot cope with the increased turnover. This has resulted in the necessity of a new super-warehouse to be built, almost doubling the storage capacity and facilities for truck movements, after years of working with constrained facilities.

A decision had been announced to staff, that this new warehouse would not be operated by Cadbury employees but would be outsourced. At the same time, indications were also given that the existing jobs at Cadbury National Distribution Centre could also be outsourced.

The strong implication was that all people would be made redundant, but that everyone had to wait to the end of the year to find out for certain. An offer of re-employment with the new third party operator (yet to be announced ) could or would not be given to staff. Like “happy little vegemites” or should I say “Oompa Loompas” they just go on with their work waiting for their fate to be announced.

Cadbury has been in the news recently, especially with the takeover bid by Kraft. The CEO of Cadbury, Todd Stitzer, made an impassioned response, calling Kraft’s takeover bid “unbridled capitalism”. With patriotic fervour he even stated “his blood ran purple” and paid tribute to the origin of Cadbury, in particular to the Quaker founders of this company.

It may come as a surprise to Todd, but the many employees facing retrenchment have been loyal employees for a lot longer than he has, and for decades have been working for the success of Cadbury. The mantra of “maximise shareholder returns” at the expense of employees is a better definition of “unbridled capitalism”. To sell them short, or dispose of them like slaves, would have been an anathema to the guiding principles of the Cadbury family.

Regarding Monday’s article “Virgin’s Velocity Gold blue“. I got Friday’s email telling me I had luckily struck Gold – then got the “oops” email — and I have been a Gold member for a year!