You write about the sacking of Jane Wolfe from DMO. Wolfe was engaged, among other things, to implement some of the Kinnaird/Mortimer reforms, particularly those that had to do with more businesslike contracting and improved financial management. DMO is developing a centre-led contracting model, which in theory works really well, but is being implemented by the very people who were doing things so badly before.

This is the trend across the whole organisation. Good ideas generated either internally or through external reviews are watered down by incompetent people who have been responsible for the problem that is trying to be fixed. These people are often given responsibility for implementing the reform. Wolfe was not able to deliver on Stephen Gumley’s wish to break through this bureaucracy and didn’t support what he was trying to do. It looks like, for the first time, Gumley is holding one of his senior staff to account for this.

There’s a long history of senior staff failures. Gumley, for all his qualities, has underestimated the difficulty of working the politics of a large bureaucracy. He wants to employ go-getters, but can’t attract them (the pay’s not enough). Instead he ends up with recycled public servants or middle managers with no meaningful senior management experience. None of them can align to what he aims to achieve.

Belinda Neal and John Della-Bosca are about to go overseas on a joint “study tour”. The itinerary includes Canada and Mexico. The Iguanagate international road show perhaps? No doubt Federal and NSW Government policy will benefit enormously from the trip!!??

It should be no surprise to anyone in WA that Mathias Cormann has been named as a key figure in undermining Julie Bishop, along with his “Northern Alliance” mates. Bishop has returned fire in the Tangney preselection fight which features ex-NCB MP Dennis Jensen fighting Northern Alliance candidate Matt Brown. Mathias tells his colleagues in Canberra that he is “not factional” yet over in the “Wild West” he will routinely do things such as scrutineer Young Liberal votes for one particular faction. Last year he was involved in a screaming match with the then current WAULS president over delegates at a branch meeting … not a bad effort for a guy “who doesn’t get involved in those things”.

DLA Phillips Fox has retrenched 13 lawyers not 12.

Further to a report submitted to Crikey some years ago from two so called “ex-employees”, about News Limited doctoring their circulation figures, it has come to light that there are several copies of the “actual” figures floating around showing how News defrauded the system… Stay tuned…

Whilst watching the Agenda programme on Sky News, I was shocked to hear the Labor Party Spin machine Hawker Britton is also the Chinese Lobbyist and are used by China to influence the Government’s decisions. Surely this is a conflict of interest should not be allowed to happen. It is like having a spy in our Government Ranks. I also found this quote in a newspaper column: “Chinalco is using Hawker Britton, the country’s most overtly Labor-aligned lobbying firm, to knock on the doors of ministers and backbenchers in Canberra. Established by Bruce Hawker and David Britton, former advisers to the then NSW Labor premier, Bob Carr, Hawker Britton has parlayed its close connections to the NSW branch of the ALP into national expansion, opening offices in other states and in Canberra.”

Mark Kennedy, the weekend overnights fill-in Presenter at 2GB, is rumoured to be under investigation by 2GB management for his remarks last Sunday morning about Muslims in Afghanistan, and after calling China a “disgusting country.” The ABC’s Media Watch program is apparently investigating the remarks, which many people believe are in direct contravention of the radio code of practice.

CBA’s IB and M division (institutional banking and markets) are making its entire staff sign a “professional practice” certificate. Which says if you have financial problems you will be fired. So if you have borrowed from the bank you work for and the property you bought is revalued at less than the loan, you lose your job! Which means the bank that you borrowed from, that also paid your salary, will risk this. Independent legal advice suggests this is ludicrous.

Nine News director, Ian Cook, known internally as “the smiling assassin”, has finally been “boned” by the dots. He started with at least a competitive newsroom and managed to take them to record depths in less than two years. Boned before his contract expired. Totally fitting for a man who boned so many undeserving people.