It’s strongly rumoured that Bruce Matheson and his business partner will be the party that receives the pokie licence today. This culminates several years of strategy with the Labor Government to achieve. It’s further rumoured this started with a need for critical mass, hence his partner selection and purchase of 1,000 hectares of land several years ago that was re-zoned in the final week of parliament before the last State election. Let’s see what happens.

High Commissioner to Canada, William Fisher put the boot into John Howard during a speech in Vancouver over the weekend. Global warming has Willy in a dither, so he used the publicly funded occasion to denounce his former boss, while bathing in the glow of the new regime in Canberra. Tacky yet quite predictable.

Driving past the Democrats’ national headquarters today, I noticed it’s for sale. Short term lease? One wonders what funds they have left.

Have a look into the relationship between the developer Johnson Property Group and Sartor. Pitt Town, a small historic village just outside Windsor, NSW is being “demolished” to insert some 1000 house lots. Sartor has “called in” the development even though it is not state significant and Johnson Property Group and Sartor are now “working” together to get a “good” result.

Melbourne’s Eastlink tollway will be ready to open on ANZAC Day. Eastlink have advised the Government of this and would like to open over the long weekend, but the hold up appears to be an already crowded news cycle over that weekend with the AFL clash at the MCG that day and troubles balancing the requisite government photo ops.

I’ve heard that the Goldman’s brokers have been told to take their private phone numbers ex-directory over the Opes Prime fiasco.

Virgin Blue has recently been having numerous flight cancellations with it’s ongoing problem with a shortage of pilots. The company started to alleviate this by paying pilots overtime to come in on days off or annual leave and this had a positive outcome. The Head of Flight Operations, Michael Young has recently sent an email to all of the Operations staff banning the callout of pilots on annual leave and preventing the crewing staff from calling out pilots on days off. Numerous flight are being cancelled in order to save money on wages. This is particularly the case with flights to/from Darwin and flights between Melbourne and Sydney where flights are “consolidated” (read cancelled) on a daily basis.

The Age editor Andrew Jaspan has become so paranoid he has removed internet, email and calendar access from PAs for himself and deputy editor Paul Ramadge.

How bizarre is this? The West Australian editor Paul Armstrong has FOI’d himself. Armstrong has instructed his FOI editor Kerryn McKinnon to request any WA Government documents or correspondence mentioning his name. Paranoia or ego trip?

Nightmare alright! My partner who has worked at the ABC for nearly 20 years as a cameraman for the News and Current Affairs Division has had their crew room moved (the room where the camera crews store the cameras and sound equipment and wait to be assigned their jobs), from an airless room miles away from their cars to a markedly smaller former store room under an airconditioning unit. This tiny remote room in the bowels of the ABC is where the news crews are expected to wait and work on their equipment and be prepared to go on filming duties, whenever they are needed. With ABC management sacking studio cameramen and replacing them with “ROBOTS”, you have to ask yourself – 8 cents a day for ROBOTS or 8 cents a day to employ Australians so they can support Australian families? Go figure. It’s just the start of the end.

Is a current contestant of The Biggest Loser set to become the host next year? Rumour has it that current host AJ Rochester is not coming back for next year’s season, and there is only one current contestant who has media experience, whose name keeps popping up.