Queensland ALP shuffling decks. The suggestion in this column yesterday that Jackie Trad, Linus Power and Chris Forrester are fighting over the Queensland state secretary spot is just silly. The Australian Workers’ Union owns the spot, and Power would be the only one in the running unless the AWU have an outside candidate.

Incidentally, Anthony Chisholm got the Queensland spot after a series of AWU-supported state secretaries moved on in rapid succession after Wayne Swan, Mike Kaiser, Cameron Milner and Cameron Dick all got better jobs elsewhere. Chisholm has been underwhelming, losing the Brisbane City Council, heading backyards in the state election and almost single handedly losing the Gillard government the last federal election. The federal party would be wise to leave him where he is, as he would be the last thing Gillard needs next election. Not that Bligh needs him either.

Seven takes bite out of Nine News. The 6pm news war in Sydney is getting serious. Seven is believed to have spent $40,000 buying an exclusive television interview with shark attack survivor Lisa Mondy. It wasn’t enough to help the once-dominant news service though; last night they lost to Nine by 43,000 viewers (essentially losing a viewer for every dollar spent).

A PR agent for Lisa had been shopping the “exclusive” around, looking for a combined TV/magazine deal. Approaches had been made to 60 Minutes, Sunday Night, Today Tonight, A Current Affair and Nine News, but all of them rejected the high figure of $60,000 that was being asked for. Seven was desperate after being beaten on Monday night by 68,000 in Sydney. Looks like the one savaged at the end of the day was Seven.

Xanadu died, but the Hun didn’t hear. The company behind Xanadu the Musical, owned by producers Mark Pennell and Phillip Corr, has gone bust — but no word in the Herald Sun, a sponsor of the musical. Head honchos at the tabloid knew about administrators being called in but there was no story. The Age has reported the matter.

Registering complaints at ASIC. A recent tipster suggested Commonwealth government agency ASIC was going to make a “mess” of registering business names. ASIC is supposed to take over registering businesses from the states in 2012 (the start date was supposed to be 2011, but like most things ASIC does, this is not going well). The new legislation is on the Department of Innovation’s website at the moment, but it seems impossible to get any feedback on comments you make, even though the public can supposedly make comments.

But there is an “invitation only” series of supposedly “public” consultations being held — so if ASIC really likes you they might invite you to have a talk! The new ASIC fees to create a business will be higher than they currently are in some places. What value-add from ASIC justifies this? Naturally the affected businesses are not being told.