Christian
Kerr writes:

An eye
for the ladies. First Peter Costello, now Tony Abbott. The Health Minister
flashes his female-friendly credentials with an op-ed in today’s SMH on Parliament’s pathetic lack of child care facilities.
We wait with interest to see what wannabes Downer and Dr Brendan may offer in
the way of a pitch. (Malcolm Turnbull has the looks so he doesn’t need to worry.)

Ta-ta Tink.The SMHreports today that “a recurring battle with shingles and an increasing tendency
to become “testy” at people has caused prominent NSW Liberal, Andrew Tink, to retire from
politics. Crikey understands that a recurring battle with political ennui
has also played a part. Liberal sources say Tink’s reputation in Sydney media as the opposition’s finest performer
and hardest-hitting frontbencher may have been true a parliament or two back,
but has waned with the years.

Only in
Queensland.Online Opinion on how Peter Beattie’s health spending may be
encouraging doctors to, er, go part-time
– and The Courier Mail on a cack-handed intervention by the local Libs in the
by-election for the seat of Gavan,
a poll where the conservatives could crash despite the forced retirement of an
MP, the conviction of his daughter for embezzling money from another Labor
parliamentarian on top of all the other state-wide stuff ups Beattie’s been behind.

The local league. More Victorian Labor
preselection fun, this time a wrap on the local league from the Non-Aligned
news.

The campaign in verse. Hospital spending is
the issue du jour as the South Australian campaign enters its final days, prompting these
thoughts from Democrat David Winderlich:

The cure for
electoral neurosis

Is to hire lots
more doctors to dose us.

Sickhouses we’ll
build ’em

And rapidly fill
’em –

And
prevention… What is its prognosis?

Recipe of the Day. Ah cross-ownership
laws. If Coonan gets her way the only way you’ll be able to get diversity, albeit deliciously, is on an antipasto plate.

Send
your snippets to christian@crikey.com.au