From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Chaplain questions. Some religious charities are earning big bucks from the federal government for Christian chaplains in schools. Crikey was interested to learn more about how these charities work, so we were disappointed to see some have not provided much information to the government’s Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (that’s an official body that keeps track of 59,000 charities, to bring greater transparency to the sector. Charities are supposed to file an annual information statement, or AIS, to the ACNC — which the government wants to scrap.)

Take Access Ministries, a major provider of chaplains in Victoria. Here’s Access’ page on the ACNC — and there’s precious little information there. We look forward to seeing Access’ AIS (questions include the number of paid and unpaid workers at the charity).

And here’s the page for Scripture Union Queensland. Not much there either!

So Crikey tried a new tack; what about these groups’ annual reports? Well, we couldn’t see one on Access Ministries’ homepage. We did find an old one, and were interested to see that a “special friend” to Access is the Trinity Presbyterian Church Camberwell. That church was found to be dominated by a heretical cult in 2008, according to The Age. We couldn’t see an annual report on Scripture Union Queensland’s page either.

And in case you’re wondering why we’re bothering — well, these groups will share in $244 million in federal government funding, after the recent budget.

ABC changes. It was with some sadness that Ms Tips tuned into Ellen Fanning’s last go at hosting RN Breakfast this morning. Fanning was drafted in to replace veteran RN voice Fran Kelly, who was given a stint on Insiders to replace Barrie Cassidy (who went on long service leave). Phew, complicated! We think Fanning has performed well in the important ABC gig and wish her well on her French holiday. The change has also given highly capable RN reporter and press gallery stalwart Alison Carabine the chance to show her stuff with some excellent political interviews.

As of Monday, James Carleton will take over the RN Breakfast gig, with Fran due back at the mic in August. Lets hope James keeps the standards high.

Meanwhile, Sarah Ferguson, who is filling in as ABC 7.30 host while Leigh Sales is on maternity leave, is kicking some goals with her calm, forensic interviewing style. Ferguson is cracking down on pollies waffling away and dodging the questions, and she gets praise from Crikey for that. She’s got those politicians squirming, all right! Ferguson is married to Q&A referee Tony Jones, so they’re certainly a power couple at the ABC. If you’ve got thoughts on the current hosts of flagship ABC programs — and we know you do — post them in the comments stream. Sales is due back in early September.

Those hipsters in Canberra. The New York Times has fallen in love with Canberra, which apparently has a “decidedly hipster underbelly”. The Times reporter was delighted to find a “Hipster Lane” (really?) and visit the “humming lakeside neighborhood of Kingston Foreshore” (more like a barren wasteland when Ms Tips lived there). But ACT-baiting aside, it’s a lovely story that sums up what is great about Canberra —  “big-sky beauty” and a “breezy civic pride”.

Now, when will the NY Times go to Queanbeyan?

Equal-opportunity questioning. Tired of the all-male panels at conferences? Crikey has an ingenious way to register your disapproval, inspired by an audience member at Mumbrella 360 last night. The conference’s closing session had heavy hitters the ABC’s Mark Scott, Telstra’s Andy Bateman, OMD’s Peter Horgan and Droga5’s Sudeep Gohil in a Q&A panel on the media. But the biggest round of applause went to a female audience member who asked: “Given the gender of the panel tonight, I wanted to ask them how they juggle their work and their family life?” Amen, sister.  (In case you’re wondering, Mark Scott “aggressively co-parents”, while Andy Bateman tries to only do one thing at once. The other two didn’t comment on their personal parenting strategies.)

Hockey off the mat. Treasurer Joe Hockey lifted his game on the budget front this week, making by our count four media appearances, after virtually going to ground last week. He also fielded questions in Parliament, and one answer caught our eye on Wednesday. No, it wasn’t his blaming Labor for “children floating in the ocean between Australia and East Timor” (stay classy, Joe) but a fiscal matter. Hockey has been at pains to emphasise just what disastrous fiscal managers Labor were, and as seems to be his current custom, doing so with a blizzard of numbers –$667 billion debt, $25,000 debt for everyone, $3 billion a month, etc, etc. But then at the end of an answer to Andrew Wilkie, he made this peculiar statement:

“We know the budget is difficult. We know the budget is tough. The fiscal consolidation is less than budgets we have brought down in previous years, and less than Labor’s previous budgets. But the budget is right for Australia and it is right for the Australian economy.”

Errr… So, despite Labor being such bad fiscal managers, they managed to have budgets that tightened fiscal policy more than this one, Treasurer? Doesn’t quite fit the narrative. Joe’s correct: the budget papers show that the 2014-15 budget only cut spending by 1.7% in real terms. That’s just over half of what Labor reduced spending by in 2012-13, the only budget in 40 years to reduce Commonwealth cash outlays; that budget also increased tax by 0.9% of GDP, while Hockey’s budget only lifted it 0.6%. So Wayne Swan gets the bragging rights for fiscal consolidation. Indeed, Swan had negative real growth in spending twice in his six budgets, a record matched or bettered so far only by Paul Keating, who cut spending three years in a row from 1986-89.

Hockey’s real point amid all the rhetoric about tough decisions and the need to don the fiscal hair shirt is that his fiscal consolidation wasn’t that big, and deliberately so, because he was too concerned about tipping the economy into a growth path well below trend or even into recession. But like so much else in this budget, that hasn’t gotten across to voters.

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips toboss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form