Hip-hip-hypocrisy! Here’s yet another example of the government advertising your tax dollars buy:

Is this contempt of Parliament? From ABC News, yesterday : “The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, says he may not offer communion to the New South Wales Premier if he supports new stem-cell legislation in the State Parliament …”

No ID? So, Minister for Human Services Chris Ellison says that there will be an exposure draft of the Smart Call legislation available for comment in the next sitting fortnight, rather than an actual bill, and admitted that we may or may not see the legislation introduced this year? As the Natasha Stott Despoja rather cutely put it, “this announcement may mean a gentle death for the Access Card”. The London School of Economics famously found that the Blair Government’s ID card scheme would cost between £10bn and £19bn over 10 years. Our beloved Finance Minister Nick Minchin’s admission last September that it’s “impossible to eliminate” problems with major government IT projects doesn’t exactly fill one with confidence.

For our Latino readers . Welcome to Amigos de Obama — complete with salsa background music and a ringtone , too.

Even the PM is shunning the Parrot . Poor old Gloria. Not only has Channel 9 realised that there’s not much point paying him to deliver a daily rant targeted at elderly Sydneysiders , not only are NSW state ministers boycotting his program, but even his fellow matching-tie-and-handkerchief man, the PM, is shunning him. Keen Parrot-watchers had a treat last Friday when Howard stepped into the Parrot’s cage on 2GB. The interview descended into an extended rant by the Parrot over the pricing policies of Coles and Woolworths, as well as the way shopping centre managers handle small retailers in rent negotiations. For about 15 minutes the Parrot lectured the Prime Minister on the issue, barely letting him get a word in edgewise. The interview even extended seven minutes past the time for the 7:30 news bulletin. It was a bizarre piece of radio and the PM did not sound impressed. Which is, perhaps, why no transcript of the interview has appeared on the PM’s website. Normally these transcripts are published within a day, but five days later there’s still no transcript of the PM’s encounter with Gloria. Very odd.

Lookalike . A subscriber writes: “Have any of your readers noticed the similarity between that nice young man, Minister for the Ageing Chris Pyne, and the Flight Centre pilot? Could they possibly be related?”