The CDP election plants. The Christian Democratic Party (and to some extent Family First) are running candidates in lower house seats for no reason other than to direct preferences to the Liberal Party. In my electorate of Dobell I just discovered the CDP candidate actually lives on the south coast (many hours drive from the central coast where the electorate actually is). The same candidate, Rhonda Avasalu, ran in Page (northern rivers region) last election.

Does the rail line have a business case? Transport Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement of the Parramatta to Epping rail link is an extension of the fight he had with Lindsay Tanner when the Building the Nation Fund bill went to caucus: Albanese believes that ‘winner takes all’ and ‘pork-barreling’ are core values. Tanner had no ministerial discretion, Albanese insisted it be put in. Eddington as chair of Infrastructure Australia must be embarrassed and is certainly nowhere to be seen. His fund was exhausted mere weeks ago and now has to stump up over $2 billion for something that has never made his priority list. The NBN doesn’t have a business case;  let’s see the one for this doosy.

Borders control: a question of stock. Regarding your story on Borders yesterday, I have a friend who was in management there. He was telling me a few months ago that Borders central warehouse was taking up to five months to process returns to publishers. With most stock on a three-month sale or return policy, that’s an awful lot of stock they wound up carrying because they couldn’t get it back to the publisher in time to get a credit. It is, according to him, the major reason their ordering has dropped — not because they can’t move volumes, but because they simply can’t process large volumes of stock, either coming in or coming back to the publishers.

They’re also, apparently, incapable of dealing with the idea that local markets have different needs — there was a running stoush this year between Borders in Perth and head office because the Melbourne people simply could not understand why the Perth store couldn’t shift the 100 copies of The Age‘s Good Food Guide that were sent over…

A gay old time… What is going on at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras? The board has just announced a loss of about $600,000 this year, having been making a profit of about $400,000 for the last few years. The (now-ex) CEO Anna McInerney booked the RHI and Horden for the annual party on the wrong night for 2010, causing the parade and party to be a week apart rather than on the same night. Less ticket sales meant party profit fell by $400,000.

So with a high risk season ahead of them, the board hired lots of new staff, increasing their staff/contractor bill by $400,000. Good strategy? And then they spent almost $200,000 on the Spencer Tunick nude photo at the Opera House. Good strategy?

Next thing, surprise surprise, it appears there was another “booking error” and this year’s Sleaze Ball will not be held in the Hordern Pavillion but next door in the smaller Dome and Forum with a Marquee in-between. Reeks of 2002 all over again when poor management sent ‘old’ MG broke. And it’s all being played out on Facebook.