Harto’s days at the cricket. While News Limited chief John Hartigan has been making headlines assuring his staff and the rest of the Australian public nobody is hacking phones here, Hartigan was quietly appointed to a cushy and privileged post on the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust board. While Hartigan was denying conservative leanings at his papers in a 7.30 interview last night, on Monday Liberal Sports Minister (and former NRL ref) Graham Annesley announced Hartigan would take up a four-year term along with ex-cricketer Stuart McGill.

The 14-member Trust is home to many of Sydney’s most powerful players, including shock jock Alan Jones, former Labor MPs Morris Iemma and Rodney Cavalier (the chair), insurance industry doyen John Cloney, Transfield chairman Anthony Shepherd, top silk turned academic John McCarthy QC and Sydney Olympics bid leader Rod McGeoch. Cavalier said on Monday: “John Hartigan has been passionate about sport and the SCG for all the years I have known him.”

Four Corners takes on Twiggy. Not everyone praises mining magnate Andrew Forrest for his handling of the Yindjibarndi native title claims, as Crikey has reported. And now the ABC’s Four Corners has investigated the saga for its program on Monday. We hear the program has a number of criticisms of its own …

Bullying at Vic govt department. Crikey exposed the culture of bullying at the state government’s Victorian Managed Insurance Authority. But an insider points to another government department with similar issues. Last year saw 50 staff in an office of 150 turned over, they say, though the figures may have been fudged in the annual report. “Everyone thinks there is no point complaining, because no political party is going to investigate,” says our spy. Do you know more?

Qld Health pay saga (cont). Queensland Health bureaucrats didn’t sound all that convincing when they said their botched pay system had been fixed… Along with the litany of complaints Crikey has published, here’s one of the apparently 0.1% of staff still having issues:

“I am a registered nurse and have not been paid correctly — yet again — for the past four fortnights pays. I have been paid for shifts not worked and not been paid for shifts worked! They don’t even match up! My last payslip received today: taxed $2084.61 and the current fortnight total gross was $2213.37 — go figure! And to make matters worse I restarted with Queensland Health AFTER the new system had been implemented and was assured that I would not have the hiccups as I was listed with a new payroll number. It is so frustrating. You have to go to work to chase the problem but get pushed into chasing it up out of work hours, yet your line manager has to submit and verify information for the pay office to sort out. So you spend your time out of hours chasing pay problems and then you have work calling to ask you to work extra shifts — which you know you’ll have to chase within the month to get paid for!”

Which bank has an unpopular app? The Commonwealth Bank has updated its Netbank app for Android phones. But most commenters in the Android Market reckon it’s even worse than the old one. Some of the one-star reviews declare it’s “embarrassing”, “clunky, cumbersome and on the whole fairly useless”, “terrible terrible terrible” and “not a proper app at all”. And the five-star spruiks wouldn’t be from the company itself by any chance…?