Ad firm needs new CEO? One of the advertising world’s biggest firms may have lost its CEO and marketing directors, Crikey was hearing as we hit deadline. Stay tuned …

Westpac cuts rate, but delays implementation. Despite ringing up a $6.99 billion profit, one customer reports “technical issues” may prevent customers benefiting from Westpac’s rate cut for 13 days. And yet, they say, the very same technical issues didn’t prevent Westpac from increasing rates in 2010 — taking just five days (April), four days (November) and three days (May). “The bank’s latest ad claims ‘we know how’ — perhaps Westpac should apply that ‘know how’ to address its technical issues and apply rate increases and decreases consistently,” says the disgruntled mortgage holder.

Customs calls out mobile user. As Bernard Keane reported yesterday, Customs says it doesn’t mind people using cameras or mobile phones in its processing zones. But one Crikey reader has a different experience:

“I was yelled at by a Customs officer just last month for using a mobile phone while standing in a 45-minute queue at Sydney Airport waiting for permission to leave the country. I was just talking on the phone, and nowhere actually ‘being processed’. (I’m sure the officer’s time could be better spent processing passengers rather than roaming around and rudely enforcing pointless rules, so us non-VIPs don’t have to spend quite as much time in yet another airport queue. Or better yet, do away with those pointless little exit forms altogether.)”

Labor Policy Forum haggling continues. Labor’s factional war in the bid for the NSW State Policy Forum continues. Darcy Byrne dispatched the email below — which amused one recipient that “someone who purports to be a bastion of progressive social policy has to campaign on a platform of petty politics …”

Friends,

There are only a few days left to make your vote count in the NSW Labor Policy Forum rank-and-file ballot.

If you have already voted well done, you have sent a message to power-brokers like Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obied that giving members a real say is the way forward for Labor.

If you have not voted yet, do not miss your chance! There is nothing the Machine would like more than to see people like you fail to take advantage of this opportunity to make your voice heard.

Here is the link to the NSW Labor website where you can log in and make your vote count: https://www.nswalp.com/policy-forum-election/

I am asking for your support so that together we can take control of Labor’s policy agenda away from power-brokers and special interests and give it back to our members and the broader social justice movement.

TO VOTE YOU WILL NEED:

Your member number to log-in to the website

To provide an email address and a mobile phone number. A voting code will be immediately texted to your mobile that you can use to cast your vote

MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT HERE https://www.nswalp.com/policy-forum-election/

If you encounter any problems voting please do not hesitate to give me a call on 0404 528 277.

Yours in solidarity,

Darcy Byrne
Leichhardt Labor Councillor