From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Rival emission groups. There’s zero emissions, and then there’s zero emissions. Crikey brought you the story in March that the founder of environment group Beyond Zero Emissions, Matthew Wright, was stepping down. It wasn’t quite clear why, except that it seemed to be a decision of the BZE management team (equivalent to their board).

Now Wright has set up a new environment think tank called “Zero Emissions Australia” (both groups favour a blue logo, as you can see below). He told Crikey he’d been working on the project for a few months. When asked how it would differ to BZE, Wright said “it will focus more on the research and communications, and less on the community campaigns”. Crikey asked if there had been any bad feeling around his departure from BZE (he did set it up and all), to which he replied: “It’s all good.”

Is she Crossin? Departing Labor Senator Trish Crossin didn’t hold back on what she thought of Julia Gillard’s decision to dump her, telling the Senate last week it was “grossly unfair, it’s undemocratic and it is not the Labor way”. A caller to Melbourne’s 3AW radio this morning reckons a retiring Senator is considering lodging a claim with the “equal opportunity and racial discrimination tribunal” (there’s no body with that exact name, but you get the idea. The caller might be talking about the Australian Human Rights Commission). The host suggested it was Crossin. We’ve put that to her and will let you know.

Polls apart. It’s Monday, so everyone’s talking about the latest Newspoll — not to mention the host of other polling that picks up pace as the federal election draws nearer. But are they worth the internet they’re printed on? We heard this from a reader who was on the receiving end …

“Just got a poll call about the federal election today. It seemed to be from the Libs or some other conservative pollster.

Pollster: Name an issue that concerns you eg. ‘high electricity prices, law and order, stopping the boats, getting rid of the carbon tax’.

Me: the National Disability…

Pollster: Oh, um I don’t have that here.

me: The NDIS

Pollster: Oh OK, I’ll have to write that down.

To be fair the nice lady taking the poll was very unbiased and Kevin Andrews will be happy to hear that he’s premier of Victoria and nobody’s heard of Denis Napthine.”

Well! Tips has been eagerly waiting to be polled for years, but no joy yet. You don’t have to have a landline, right? If you’ve been polled lately, tell of your experience. We’d love to know which areas / electorates cop the brunt of polling.

The cost of a Fairfax safari. Last week we passed on a tip that Fairfax is “taking selected advertising agency staff and clients on a fully paid for trip Africa, it’s back to good times at Pyrmont”. We heard this in response: “The last great Africa trip cost one advertiser his Fairfax relationship. His boss saw it as a bribe and shifted him.”

As if it would be a bribe! Clearly any Australian advertising rep worth his salt has to have a good working knowledge of the savannah for professional development.

Fantasy Q&A. The wait will soon be over — in just a few short hours you can watch George Brandis take on The Oz columnist Judith Sloan on Q&A! And as if that double-bill were not exciting enough, throw in Graham Richardson getting all his Labor predictions wrong (again) and you’ve got a tantalising mix for your Monday night.

There’s been a bit of Twitter talk ahead of tonight’s ep that the lineup is unexciting. Here at Tips we want to love the program, but we do find some shows terribly tedious. Six months ago, Tips ran a fantasy Q&A series to come up with a better panel, with the assistance of our readers. The most popular names were Julian Assange, Paul Keating, Laura Tingle and Phillip Adams. We clearly need to update our series, as Tony Jones is not getting the message. If you’ve got a cracking panel in mind, send it in.

And from the grassy knoll … We’re not quite sure what to make of this one — but we have space for a bit of cray in Tips on a Monday.

“ASIO-connected source confirms rumours circulating about a sleeper cell in NSW preparing an attempted assassination on a senior political figure. Source can’t confirm if the government or opposition is the target.”

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form