Bureaucratic Dixers. Are the bureaucrats turning on the NSW government already? A Crikey reader reports:

“I’ve got a few friends still working in the NSW public sector. My experience is that most of them, regardless of their political leanings, were looking forward to a change of management given the entrenched nepotism that had filled the top layers of the bureaucracy with Labor hacks. No incompetent was too high a hurdle when looking after your cronies was concerned. But the enthusiasm with the new regime has waned very quickly for various reasons. One that I found most alarming is that I am informed that public servants are being asked to prepare Dorothy Dixers to use to skewer the opposition on the floor of parliament. Surely this is a job for ministerial (political) staffers? My mate is at the RTA but believes the practice is widespread.”

Senate aviation inquiry redux. As Ben Sandilands has reported for Crikey, there is provision to re-open the Senate inquiry into aviation safety. Due to the high number of pilots and flight attendants contacting the government with concerns, that’s now highly likely, according to a “high-placed source”.

ABC drama over drama. There’s plenty of nervous staffers at Aunty with the axe swinging over several programs (including The New Inventors, as staff apparently found out via the photocopier last week). And questions are being asked about the decision to commission 22 episodes of new drama Crownies, which hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. It’s shedding viewers after a weak debut, but the whole series is already in the can. “It has no audience and no critics to prop up its survival,” says a source. “The question that should be asked is why the ABC put its eggs in one basket by committing to 22 episodes when it could have taken a more sensible approach of launching two 13 one-hour hour series with one on Thursday night and the other on Saturday night? With triennial funding reviewed next year the ABC remains very vulnerable to questioning over its commissioning of local content.”