Hardly galloping into recession. Those recent consumer confidence figures showing the mob are not yet panicking about their economic prospects make a little more sense after this morning’s official employment figures. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, jobs are still being created even if not quite fast enough to prevent a very slight increase in the unemployment rate.

These figures certainly provide some grounds for optimism that Australia will avoid the worst of the impact of the world financial crisis. Perhaps we will miss the dreaded R word after all.

Too long in New South Wales. It must be all the time I spent in New South Wales but for the life of me I cannot see what all the fuss is about over the charges being laid against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. From what I have read the only thing that Blagojevich has done that is not common place among politicians of all persuasions is that he gives the impression that he may be intending to keep some of the money raised for his own personal use. Normally such stand-over tactics are done in the cause of raising campaign funds.

The attempted shakedowns are certainly in the grand tradition of machine politics. What the story did do is remind me with admiration the response of Mayor Richard Daley (the father not the current son) when a pesky journalist was once impertinent enough to suggest impropriety at a rare Mayoral press conference held on the eve of an election. What, the journalist demanded, did the Mayor think about the insurance company that his son had just started working for being awarded a large slice of the city’s insurance business without tenders being called.

Without batting an eye the great political machine boss replied that any father who would not help his own son did not deserve to be called a father. He called “next question” and that was that. Re-election duly followed.

Drunk and dangerous islanders. Actions lead to reactions. Ban kava and encourage the booze. Without their traditional drug of choice, Pacific Islanders are no longer as pacific. The cultural meetings at kava clubs are being replaced by drunken gatherings. Increased violence is the result.

The ban introduced on kava imports last year by the Coalition Government was one of the more stupid elements of the radical attempt to protect Aboriginal Australians from harming themselves. Apparently the use of the drug in the Northern Territory was not instead of alcohol as with the Pacific Islanders but as well as. Without thinking of the broader implications the import of kava other than in small quantities as luggage for personal use was outlawed.

Our Customs Service was boasting last week that it had intercepted an illegal shipment of four tonnes of kava. They should be embarrassed at having to perform such duties.