$17 billion budget surplus and pork:

Karl Goiser writes: Re. “$17 billion is okay, but we’re no world leaders” (yesterday, item 2). Doesn’t having a surplus mean the government is taxing too much, or not spending enough to support the Australian people? How is that a good thing?

Lynda Hopgood writes: Wow. Fancy that. Must have fallen under one of the sofa cushions along with those old copper coins, odd socks and navel fluff. I mean, really. One can only hope that the electorate is smart enough to see this stunt for what it is: a means to provide more bare-faced, shameless and desperate pork-barrelling by a bare-faced, shameless and desperate Government. They are prepared to do and say anything to win the election, and bugger what the financial, social and human tolls may ultimately be. Where the hell is John Kerr when you really need him?

Beware the Cookie Monster:

Robert Molyneux writes: Smirky Pete creates yet another cookie jar to stash some of the loot his Government has extracted from Oz’s taxpayers. He pretends that the risk is that St Kevin might get his fingers in the jars – but we know from his previous indiscreet musings that it’s really Little John that is the Cookie Monster that we should all be worried about. I’m not an economist, but surely a commitment by the Cookie Monster to grab at least 2% of GDP every year to ensure budget surpluses is a commitment to keep over-taxing us? And when in due course the Cookie Jar Guardians need to buy shares to keep topping up the cookies, in competition with the rest of us, won’t this have some inflationary effect on the share market?

Nicholas Whitlam on Geoffrey Cousins:

Nicholas Whitlam writes: Re. “Geoffrey Cousins, all is forgiven” (yesterday, item 7). When ASIC brought their show trial on against me, Geoffrey Cousins gave evidence for ASIC. His evidence did not relate to NRMA proxy voting. It related to the draft minutes of IAG. Only last year, on 10 October, you yourself reported thus:

… he decided to give evidence against Whitlam in his battle with ASIC over NRMA proxies and board minutes and the three judges of the NSW Court of Appeal gave him a toweling in overturning ASIC’s original victory.

In talking up what Cousins offers, the PM is presumably aware of this 2003 judgment. Like any judgment, it should be read in full, but the most relevant line is as follows:

His honour erred in treating Mr Cousins’ evidence as reliable or sufficiently reliable having regard to its inconsistency with two sets of contemporaneous notes, the imprecision of his evidence and his own concessions that he may have been in error and that his recollection may have been coloured by subsequent events.

When it came down to the word of Cousins versus NRMA company secretary Gaye Morstyn and other directors, the three judges clearly didn’t back Cousins…

The court dismissed ASIC’s case on all counts and awarded costs against them. My suggested changes to the draft minutes, highlighted as in a legal document, were found to be an accurate reflection of the deliberations of the IAG board meeting. It, like all my actions as IAG chairman, was an example of good corporate governance. I do not know why Geoffrey Cousins chose to give evidence for ASIC, but I know – as does anyone who reads the judgment – that he got it wrong.

Crikey remains stuck in an inner-city progressivism:

Director of the Centre for Civil Society, Vern Hughes, writes: Re. Yesterday’s editorial. Why on earth would Crikey favour pouring an additional $4b into NT indigenous communities? The ANU’s Jon Altman is one the country’s least credible commentators on indigenous affairs. Altman has yet to acknowledge the existence of “passive welfare”, has fought Noel Pearson’s revolution in indigenous service delivery, and survives as an outpost (courtesy of that taxpayer rort called “academic tenure”) of advocacy for unreconstructed 1970s rights-based black politics. When Altman says another $4b is needed in indigenous communities in the NT, what is he measuring? There are only 50,000 aboriginal people in the territory — at $100,000 per head that’s $5b. Altman’s $4b does not include the existing (mostly failed) programs from three tiers of government and a plethora of NGOs. Despite some hesitant beginnings, Crikey remains stuck in an inner-city progressivism where throwing money at blacks is still your instinctive response to indigenous dysfunction. Read Noel Pearson’s lips, guys, it doesn’t work.

It’s a funny world:

Michael Virant writes: Re. “Serving the PM’s pork will require timing” (yesterday, item 9). I’ve long doubted that ours continues to be a classless society but does Richard [Farmer] know something that we plebs don’t? I am caste down… As for the slipshod accounting skills that missed $3 billion in the surplus, could it possibly have been a technique to keep interest rates and inflation down? That’s an awful lot of our money we can’t get our hands on. Ditto those hundreds of billions getting blown away in Iraq. It’s a funny world.

Tax deductions:

Peter Hill writes: Re. “Andrew Murray: What to do with the surplus?” (Yesterday, item 14). Senator Murray’s points are well made, but one thing to keep in mind – you are actually allowed to claim tax deductions if your total income is below the threshold. Most don’t bother for the obvious reason there’s no tax payable to be reduced. But many tax agents will still claim tax deductions for clients below the threshold for 2 reasons. One, it creates a buffer, just in case the Tax Office feels differently about any particular client’s declared low taxable income amount. Two, if your deductions in fact exceed your income, a tax loss results, and this can be carried forward to the next tax year as, in principle, a deduction.

The Exclusive Brethren:

Graham Palmer writes: Re. “Double standards in pollies’ approach to religion” (yesterday, item 12). One really has to wonder how a group, the Exclusive Brethren, representing 0.01467% of Australia’s population, who pay no tax and do not vote, can gain access to the highest office in the land. I am sure it wasn’t to ask Mr Howard to deny Gay rights or no more working on the Sabbath but rather what can they can do for Mr Howard. For a sect whose basic premise is “separation” they sure like mixing it in politics with the big boys. I wonder if every minority religious order, sect, crazies will now get equal time?

Christian Kerr, used to annoy me, now I enjoy his writing:

Chris Davis writes: Re. “Christian Kerr and his Liberal Party loyalty pathology” (yesterday, comments). As a leftie, it has taken me a while to get Christian, and his admission of being a Liberal lackey that is about to vote Labor has nothing to do with this, but I think he just provides insights into how people could/will perceive certain situations, generally from a right wing view. He used to annoy me when I thought he was peddling his own views but now I quite enjoy his writing when I read it this way. Or maybe I am just being magnanimous in the belief that the Federal Liberals have truly run their race…

Like it or not, most Australians are conservative:

Peter Hatch writes: You are getting boring for a so-called independent journal. Your anti-Howard rants are not independent and you seem to go with the mob. This is not a thinking stance and can only lead you into obscurity. Like it or not, most Australians are conservative.

Never a chance:

Mark Cridland writes: Re. “TABcorp loophole lets NSW punters beg and borrow” (yesterday, item 8). Yesterday, Crikey wrote: “The stories – by Will Temple and news.com.au editor David Higgins – break ground for News Ltd in getting the jump on the usual mastheads and signal News investing more resources on-line” – Maybe, but you will never read anything too negative about the TABs and TABCORP in News Ltd papers – they all accept millions of dollars every year to list race form guides. Thus there was never a chance this story would be published in print.

Compromised to increase airline profits:

John Goldsworthy writes: Re. “Avalon no paradise for poor relations on Jetstar” (yesterday, item 7). As an Air Traffic Controller of some 18 years’ experience although not since 1986, my recollection of the rules for the operation of Regular Public Transport (RPT) aircraft in and out of terminal airports were that they operated under instrument flight rules (IFR) for departure, enroute and arrival/approach phases of their flight. This meant that they had to be provided with positive separation, either by radar or ‘procedurally’ by controllers from ‘push back’ from the departure terminal to arrival at the destination terminal. Additionally, Aerodrome Controllers (Tower Controllers) were responsible for providing clearances for aircraft taking off and landing (i.e. to ensure that the runway is clear) and providing an alerting service in the event of incidents in the Aerodrome Control Zone (CTZ) and on the ground to alert the aircraft fire and rescue services and ambulance services if and when necessary. Incidentally, another question arises. Are Fire and Rescue Services and Ambulance Services provided for all arriving and departing RPT aircraft; if not why not? How is it possible that the safety of human life has been compromised to increase airline profits?

Rumour-busters:

Christian Kent writes: Two corrections for the rumours section: Re. “SBS staff and APEC” (16 August, item 8). All the SBS staff working on the APEC public holiday will be doing the same thing they do on every public holiday — they are on a broadcast industry contract with 6 weeks’ annual leave. Most of them will take a day’s leave anyway. Re. “Spam’ (yesterday, item 6). The feared Hotmail break-in by 419 scammers is probably just a spam email with the ‘From’ header falsely substituted with a real email address, harvested from the address book of the infected Windows computer sending the spam. This was a new trick 5 years ago, when corporate spam filters would diligently ‘return’ spam emails to me, helpfully pointing out I was running Windows and sending spam – which I wasn’t.

Second Life:

Niall Clugston writes: Re. “Child’s play in Second Life” (yesterday, item 26). So the criminal law should be brought to bear on imaginary worlds in cyberspace? Matters electronic issues seem to emit a buzz that deprives people of their senses. In days of yore, kids played role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, where they were free to kill, steal – and potentially r-pe – at will. Sure, there was criticism and scaremongering, but no-one suggested the filing of charges for the murder of orcs! On one level this is an assault on basic human liberty; on another level it is an attack on basic human intelligence!

Mary Kostakidis:

Martyn Smith writes: Re. “Gerald Stone and the death of Mary Kostakidis” (yesterday, item 4). Glenn Dyer’s item is not particularly surprising to those of us who have seen Mary’s strained face over the last several months. Whilst Stan Grant is obviously competent, his involvement in undermining “our Mary” has lost many viewers completely. “Her” authoritative SBS news was a fixture in our house for the last twenty years. Her success was doubtless part of her problem. She probably stood up to the idiots who have been put in charge of SBS. Sadly the tactic of undermining and destroying long serving, loyal employees is often a part of a new CEO’s strategy when stamping their authority on their company. SBS mis-management have followed a well trodden path, profits will rise short term, but they will hollow out the SBS organisation, and in due course SBS will cease to exist in the form intended at inception.

Kyle Sandilands:

Simon Drimer writes: Re. “Kyle Sandilands, you are a big fat fake” (yesterday, item 23). Touché Helen Razer. I find your writing a bit overdone sometimes but I was happy about this piece on Kyle Sandilands. I have no real idea who he is, having never heard him, or seen him, and only read about him in the context of some spat at the Big Brother house. He called the house occupants peasants, and I have no doubt that they are, along with being exhibitionist, undereducated, witless dullards. But it struck me that our Kyle is merely a meister peasant — village elder perhaps? He reminds me of that D-grade plonker Bernard King, more than a passing physical resemblance of course. Keep it up Helen. We need to rid the country of plonkers!

Mark Davis writes: Who is Helen Razer? She sounds more up her own ar-e than Kyle ever does. Simple solution darling — turn off you radio/TV when he is on. I would like to see her ratings!

Benjamin James writes: The Crikey audience may want to be reminded of this wonderful episode involving Kyle, Jackie O and Jay Whalley of Frenzal Rhomb.

Kath & Kim was funny:

John Peak writes: To Colin James (yesterday, comments). Look at meui, Colin, look at meui. I have one word to say to you: “I can’t wear cassowaries. I have a square face.” Not sure if I have that quote right, but yes, Colin, it was funny.

Send your comments, corrections, clarifications and c*ck-ups to boss@crikey.com.au. Preference will be given to comments that are short and succinct: maximum length is 200 words (we reserve the right to edit comments for length). Please include your full name – we won’t publish comments anonymously unless there is a very good reason.