Put interest rates on hold

Standing still. No sign today of the booming economy which has the Reserve Bank continuing to push up interest rates. Sure the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show an increase in the number of people employed in March rising nearly 20,000 from the February figure but that was not enough to lower the unemployment rate from its 5.3% level.

This latest release will increase the pleas from within the business community for the Bank to put rate rises on hold.

Better get used to them. The major parties in Tasmania are still refusing to deal in any way with the Greens but they had better soon change their minds because the Greens will not be going away. Whatever Liberal and Labor it is, Nick McKim and his four other members will decide what passes in the House of Assembly — unless the party which does not form the Government decides that it will forego the traditional role of becoming an Opposition. That is a most unlikely prospect and one which the Governor of Tasmania should be taking into account as he contemplates who will get the nod as Premier. Greens Leader McKim is showing that he knows how to play the game by making it clear that he will support a Labor Premier but not a Liberal one.

The Prime Ministerial lolly bag. Every day that the Prime Minister opens the public purse to provide some new hospital facility or other in yet another town or city, the prospect of the States finally agreeing to his hospital change program (I refuse to use that reform word) increases. In the end there is no principle that will stand between a State Premier and extra money and Kevin Rudd is banking on just that.

A Peter Garrett comeback. Good to see Peter Garrett finally getting out and about again. His absence from public activities was leading to a wave of speculation that he was about to quit politics — something that his staff vigorously deny. Now the shaved headed one is off to examine from the air the work being done to contain the oil spill on the Great Barrier reef.