BER burns architectural firm. The Building the Education Revolution program just won’t go away. A case against a Sydney-based international architectural practice just getting under way in the Federal Court includes issues around the way it handled its commission to document more than 60 schools in western Sydney for the BER program. Rather than employ additional staff, it is alleged that it subcontracted the work to its offices in The Philippines and New Zealand.

The CEO and business manager so completely alienated directors and staff that the whole Heritage division of the practice has closed down, with all staff resigning along with the associate director of marketing. To add to its woes it was  recently sacked from a major project in Brisbane and several of its senior staff are applying for jobs. On top of that it is  alleged to have been in the order of $1 million in arrears to the ATO for PAYG payments in 2009. It has been given until May 19 to lodge a defence with a directions hearing set for June 9.

Pilot anger brewing over Jetstar contracts. Yesterday you had news of the Jetstar chief pilot writing to pilots justifying their new contracts. What you may not have been made aware of is that he also sent an email to his pilot body on Friday afternoon detailing the “need” for these new conditions within the airline. An unexpected response has developed with more than 170 pilots (more than 30% of the pilot body) hitting “reply all” to their colleagues, the chief pilot and Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan to express their concerns for safety and disgust with the attempt to bypass negotiated conditions.

Jetstar has arranged “town hall style” meetings at various ports with the chief pilot and CEO, but still wishes to bypass the negotiated conditions and refuses to sit down with union representatives to discuss the situation. It is a dangerous day for all involved when an employer will not negotiate with a union representative.

Manus Island: send the workmen. The proposed Manus Island detention facility in Papua New Guinea needs a lot of work before the government can ship boat people to it …

History lesson: the two-man Queensland show. Long-time observers of Queensland politics can see a very familiar pattern emerging from the conservative government in waiting up here. The Bjelke-Petersen administration was essentially a two-man show, and policy reflected whichever man won the day. Ministers didn’t really matter. On the one hand there was the conservative, primary school-educated premier who lived in a cow bail for 20 years. On the other hand you had the erudite Southport School-educated and more liberally minded Sir Robert Sparkes, president of the National Party and shire chairman for more than 20 years of Wambo Shire, around which he would drive or be driven in his gold Roller.

While Sir Robert was more liberal — particularly on social matters such as abortion — old Joh was the arch-conservative. From “the bunker” in Spring Hill (coincidentally the suburb to which the LNP has recently just moved), Sparkes would take potshots at Joh over party policy and Joh would fire back. Eventually Sparkes won when he engineered for Mike Ahern, whose father was good friends with Sir Robert’s dad Sir James Sparkes, to roll Joh for the premiership.

So it is interesting to see history repeating itself in the Queensland conservatives in 2011. Until recently, the only person that mattered in the LNP was president Bruce McIver — the dour, non-drinking Baptist who ran the family trucking firm in Dalby until it went out of business. A “my way or the highway” type of guy, his intellectual capabilities and regard for proper process have not endeared him to many former Liberals.

His almost total intolerance for internal dissent is all too reminiscent of Joh and has upset the urban Liberal solicitors who like to argue about two flies crawling up a wall. He has created and broken leaders and deputies since the merger in 2008.  But his most recent creation as LNP leader, former army officer, engineer and former Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman, may just provide the Joh to his Sparkes, although the educational attainments have been reversed.

The son of Howard government minister Jocelyn Newman, and Fraser minister Kevin Newman, Campbell ran Brisbane City as a one-man show. It wasn’t a Liberal council, it was a Newman council. After his first election, the Liberal name was never anywhere to be seen.  With Newman odds-on to be the next premier, and McIver secure in his role as president, it is clear there will only be two people that count in the next conservative government in Queensland too. It’s Joh and Sparkes redux.

ANZ pulls the plug on customers. ANZ internet banking went offline this morning. Credit card payments online look to be affected also.

Flying foxes will hang around for longer. How is it that less than two weeks ago, Botanic Gardens Trust was confidently advising of a June 1 start to the dispersal of flying foxes from Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and yet now it has pulled the plug and announced a postponement until next May? Perhaps the Trust was over-confident it could convince federal and state agencies that serious injuries sustained by animals fitted with radio tracking devices as part of last year’s (also aborted) dispersal program were isolated incidents that wouldn’t happen again?

US price gouging: readers respond #1. I have a few examples of photographic equipment.  Chief among these is a small book of coloured lighting gels.  They are essentially pieces of cellophane no larger than 5cm at their widest point. In the US: $US25. Here: $A90. It was cheaper for me to buy online and pay $40 shipping for an item that could be enclosed in a small envelope.

US price gouging: readers respond #2. The Kitchen Aid mixer sold at Matchbox Chermside shopping centre in Brisbane for $795. The same product is available at Macy’s in the US for $350 normal retail, and at a recent Mother’s Day discount of $250. I asked the sales assistant at Matchbox why the mark-up was so huge — different electrical fitting and some extra safety features, I was told (though they couldn’t tell me what the extra safety features were).