Is the Morgan poll skewed? Maybe one reason the Morgan poll was so inflated — they were door-knocking in Lyneham, Canberra, the week before last! More GetUp posters and Greens bicycle stickers per square inch than anywhere else in Australia.

Bandt’s Batman breakky. Adam Bandt seems pretty confident he’s got Melbourne in the bag. Last Sunday, while his loyal army of campaigners were out pounding the pavement, he enjoyed a lazy breakfast at the trendy Palomino Café in the seat of Batman — perhaps with an eye to future Green conquests…

Eden feels heat on climate change inaction. It’s not just Steve Gibbons feeling the heat over Julia Gillard’s citizens’ assembly idea to bolster support for climate change action. Nick Eden, the ALP’s candidate for the Melbourne seat of Goldstein, spoke at a local “road-test” of the assembly on Wednesday night, put on by local lobby the Bayside Climate Change Action Group. The audience of about 150 voted overwhelmingly against such assemblies, with about 80% calling for the government to get on with it.

Only two people thought the assembly policy was worth implementing — an awkward result for Eden, who sat squirming uncomfortably in his chair. Goldstein’s sitting member, Coalition finance spokesman Andrew Robb — who betrayed his then-leader Malcolm Turnbull by torpedoing his emissions trading scheme pact with the Rudd government — was a no-show at the event.)

Polling says Bradbury’s in trouble. Labor MP David Bradbury’s campaign in Lindsay is in trouble. A rallying call went out to the unions this week and additional staff and resources have been flooding in to help. Letterboxing and door-knocking has stepped up. The asylum seeker issue is biting and travelling from his landlocked electorate to Darwin to inspect patrol boats was seen as a stunt that has damaged his credibility. There are also reservations about his arrogance and competence. Look to the betting markets, too. The Liberals are now odds-on to win back the seat. Newspoll shows it falling to the Liberals and Labor’s polling is said to be similar. The Liberals western Sydney strategy is working and they are also now odds-on in Macarthur and Macquarie, too.

And the winner is … not NSW. I was one of 75 entrants in the Sydney Opera House-run “Graphic” animation competition that ran throughout July. The comp demanded entrants submit a series of short animations over three “knockout” rounds, with the winner receiving $20,000 in development funding “to be administered by Screen NSW”. And who won this competition, announced last Saturday? A guy from Toronto, Canada.

How can a non-Australian citizen win $20,000 in funding from a NSW government body whose “object” (as set out in s4A of the Film And Television Office Act 1988) is “to assist, promote and strengthen the film and television industry in New South Wales so as to promote Australia’s cultural identity, encourage the employment of Australians in all aspects of film and television production … (and) enhance the industry’s export potential”? Don’t these requirements necessarily suggest that non-Australians should not receive NSW taxpayers’ money? How does the Canadian winner’s piece hold any promise for promoting Australian cultural identity? How does it encourage employment of Australians? And how does it enhance export potential, when the creator is already an “export”? One of Screen NSW’s key objectives is to “secure maximum benefit for NSW screen businesses from NSW state and federal incentive”.

And how much on top of the $20,000 prize did the Sydney Opera House/Screen NSW pay to fly the winner out from Toronto at short notice and house him in a five-star hotel for a week? And to what advantage, when the opening night event was already sold out and had received a fair amount of press coverage leading up to the evening, without needing to pad it with the appearance of an “international winner”?

Keep waiting for welfare. My partner visited Centrelink today to ask about our Family Tax Benefit payment. They said the ATO are advising of delays of up to 30 working days to acknowledge receiving my tax return to allow this payment. Thirty working days!