On Nine’s A Current Affair last night Tracy Grimshaw boasted about a story on the world’s toughest prisons saying: “We were granted unprecedented access for this exclusive report.” No they weren’t. National Geographic TV was granted access to WA’s maximum security Casuarina prison and the footage shown by ACA is identical to the footage in National Geographic’s program on the world’s hardest jails. National Geographic asked for access to maximum security prisons in Victoria and NSW but it was refused.
Jetstar has recently cancelled the confirmed bookings of 5000 passengers travelling to Malaysia. Most of these 5000 booked during a May fare promotion when the price of oil was around $120. Now it’s only a little more at around $140, yet they are cancelling all these bookings — why did they have the promotion, do they have any management? It has cost a lot of people money in non-refundable hotel/car bookings. Not only that but Jetstar sell AIG travel insurance to their customers and take a 50% commission. These people who bought insurance and now have no holiday to insure cannot get refunds for the insurance, yet Jetstar get to keep the commission. A nice little earner. But wait, there’s more. Most customers found out about their cancelled bookings through the media, Jetstar still haven’t been organised enough to call them and deliver the bad news.
NEWS LTD CEO John Hartigan to call it a day soon? Watch this space…
BankWest has moved their rates 0.2% today. Refer to the advertisement in The Australian on page 33 — and I don’t think they reported it.
I don’t understand why none of the mainstream media has taken up cudgels on behalf of the hundreds (40 this calendar year, but it started in 2006, so say 240) of small Tattslotto agents in Melbourne who are losing their licences. They are not, says Tatts, meeting sales targets — but Tatts won’t tell them what those targets are. How do you meet a target that’s invisible? Some are going to lose their businesses — they are small suburban newsagents for whom Lotto provides as much as 30 per cent of their income. Others are fighting, threatening litigation (in at least one case Tattersall’s has run for cover and offered “mediation talks” on an unspecified date). Do some sums. Say each small agent brings in $5000 a week. Multiply by 40 agents (for this year). That’s $200,000. Multiply by a nice round 50 weeks and you have $10 million for one year for the 40 small agencies Tatts is shutting. Over two years, three years…. No wonder Tattersall’s share price has slumped even further than the recent market drop. Tatts says it has such expenses as computer terminal maintenance, supply of signs and suchlike. Gee whiz, say that comes to $1000 a week — a week! — for these small agencies … well, you do the sums. Does this have anything to do with the intrusion into the Victorian gambling market of Intralot? I’m going back to reading tea leaves.
Australia Post has put out a set of stamps called the Renewable Energy Stamps Series: Anyone buying one of these stamps could be fooled into thinking Australia is a world leader in renewables.
Government MPs have been instructed to turn down all sponsorships of lobbyist passes unless they personally know the applicant. This is causing problems for the staff of lobby groups and industry organisations, who need access to the parliamentary press gallery but who don’t necessarily interact with MPs. I know of several people whose applications were turned down even though their organisation has dealt with the would-be sponsor MPs for years — even when the application was for a pass renewal, rather than a new pass. Opposition MPs remain happy to sign off on pass applications from staff members of well-known lobby groups/industry groups with which they have dealings. This has resulted in quite a number of lobby group employees sporting two opposition MPs as their sponsors, even if they originally sought bi-partisan sponsorship and are not from a politically-aligned organisation.
NSW Government is going to take over all water and sewerage from coastal councils, this includes their dams for town water. Is this another grab for for a potential sell off to raise capital or a power grab. There will be no payment to councils for what the residences have paid. Another reason to get rid of State Governments, who are they acting for, certainly not the populations of coastal communities.
I was one of the poor schmucks who booked a return flight to KL via Jetstar (some time ago, I might add). While they did call to let me know that my (imminent) flight was cancelled, their rubbish solution was to book me a flight from Singapore, via Darwin, back to Sydney. That, of course, would mean I would be flying from Newcastle (in the UK) via Dubai to KL, from where I would need to find my own way to Singapore, thence to Darwin, and from there to Sydney — over the course of 36 hours, with only a 21 month old baby for company. Nice way to end a holiday. I was gobsmacked that they could come up with nothing better than to return my fare and offer me a $100 Jetstar voucher. Losers; as if I’m going to fly Jetstar again! I’ve had to rebook a much more expensive flight with Malaysian Airlines. Oh well, at least I won’t have to pack my own sandwiches. But if I had known Jetrats (not a typo) intended to abandon their customers in this way a bit sooner, I could have made that booking much more cheaply. They done me over.
I wish I had thought of the “Jetrats” typo – it pretty well sums them up. Customer service is a dirty word. I had a booking to the AICD conference changed four times, and notwithstanding the fact that I had confirmed these changes online, I still had some person ringing me up. I assume that this customer service Jetstar style more of what you don’t need and less of what you do need. I’m not surprised at the continuing stories of poor service because the organisation takes a minimalist approach in this area. I sincerely hope for the benefit of the travelling public the same attitude does not apply to the physical aircraft maintenance.