From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Who needs facts? A Crikey tipster in Surry Hills has got in touch to show us this homophobic pamphlet, in English and Chinese, urging a No vote in the upcoming marriage equality postal survey. The junk mail decries homosexuality as a “tragedy of the family,” scaremongers about HIV and wails that “transexual women” will infiltrate women’s bathrooms for evil intent. Unsourced pamphlets like this are just the beginning.

An offal mistake. The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window column finds itself in some hot stock over its coverage of 2016-17 annual results from struggling aged care operator Estia. The print column concludes that the improvement in profit was due to cost controls, one of which might just have been lower food costs to the residents at Estia’s homes.

Towards the end of the item in the paper, the column wrote:

“In her (Estia chief Norah Barlow’s) defence, she’s in very good company. Another listed company reported less feed for more residents last week: Inghams! Ben Gray’s last offload at TPG reported chicken and turkey volume growth of 11.5 per cent (7.5 per cent if you exclude the poor beasts’ feathers, blood and offal being ‘rendered’ for Maggi’s two-minute noodle soups and Campbell’s stock cubes) while feed volumes were up just 0.6 per cent.”

But on the website that was changed to:

“In her defence, she’s in very good company. Another listed company reported less feed for more residents last week: Inghams! Ben Gray’s last offload at TPG reported chicken and turkey volume growth of 11.5 per cent (7.5 per cent if you exclude the poor beasts’ feathers, blood and offal being ‘rendered’ for pet food and livestock feed) while feed volumes were up just 0.6 per cent.”

So what’s missing? The product names and products — no offal in two-minute noodles? The bottom of the online item carries this explanation:

“The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Inghams’ poultry offal is used in products for human consumption. It is not. We apologise for the error.”

Double oops! Sounds like the AFR will be dealing with some aggrieved representatives of two of the larger food companies around — Nestle (Maggi) and the Campbell Soup Co. In fact, Campbell’s don’t have stock cubes, they have liquid stocks.

Not to mention, Rear Window’s comments on Estia omitted the most important point about its ownership — how Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group Holdings emerged with a 9.3% stake in Estia last January, which was highlighted by the AFR and other papers at the time, and in the Seven Group annual result and accounts last week. The Estia holding is now one of Seven Group’s trio of big investments — along with 41% of Seven West Media and around 22% of Beach Energy. No synergy apparent there, just investment opportunism.

Who’s got the power? The bosses of Australia’s major power companies must be wondering how they got so lucky — they’ll have their second meeting with the PM this Wednesday in three weeks. Maybe they’re going steady? “PM to grill power firms over prices” screams today’s headline, and two weeks ago he promised to “eyeball” the same bosses over customers stuck on expired discount deals that weren’t the best value for money. Now the reason for the meeting is:

“The Australian has learned that an audit by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, provided to the government, has estimated that roughly one million households, or more than 10 per cent of all dwellings, were locked into the highest electricity rates, which were often up to 27 per cent more than the average cheaper plans.”

So a similar principle — people set and forget their bills and electricity companies make bank. We need another urgent meeting, of course. This time Turnbull won’t get the “hauling the bosses to the capital” headline — he’ll be on their turf in Sydney. The PM’s strategists must still believe the meetings kick political goals, as in March Turnbull tried the same technique with bosses of gas companies — “PM warns gas giants to tackle crisis” was the takeaway message from that one. We’ll be on meeting watch to see which industry is the next one to get “hauled in” and “eyeballed” before committing to do something that doesn’t require the PM to actually make any legislation but appear like he’s doing something.

We heart chat etiquette. Over at Fairfax they are moving into the 21st century (slowly), with all staff moving towards using online chat program Slack instead of using email for all internal communication. Your Crikey correspondents have been using the program for about a year, and we had a bit of a giggle at the “how to” manual that was sent to all staff. We especially liked this emoji guide, which translates specific symbols for use in the program. We wonder if there will be an official GIF policy as well.

Have your say. The euthanasia debate is very quietly bubbling along in NSW ahead of a vote on a bill in state Parliament later this year. MPs will be allowed a conscience vote on the bill, which was drafted by a parliamentary working group made up of cross-party pollies. North Shore MP Felicity Wilson — elected in a byelection earlier this year — has letterboxed constituents on the issue. She’ll hold community forums on the bill next week. Will Wilson’s conscience align with the consciences of her constituents? Have you been sent any material related to the euthanasia vote? Let us know. 

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