The best indicator of an imminent election for at least the past 12 years has been the Electoral Commission checking if post offices have sufficient enrolment forms on hand to meet possible demand. They just checked.

The “danger” from mobiles and laptops, and other electronic devices, in flight is a fiction. ACMA has approved the testing of mobile phone jammers on aircraft to force passengers to use airline provided mobile services. These emit radio signals a magnitude stronger than anything from a handset or CPU.

Some of the incumbent ABC Board may well have the knives out for management over The Chaser debacle. But there are two new members on that Board, new Labor appointees with real skills and understanding of arts bureaucracies who may help the Board to focus on some issues confronting ABC Television management.

They may well ask why Courtney Gibson, who took up the position of Head of Content in November 2007 didn’t watch The Chaser episode herself. After all it is the most contentious show on ABC television and the one program the responsible senior manager should watch. Next they might ask why does the ABC need a Head of Content at all. It managed very well without one previously with the Heads of Departments reporting directly to the Head of Television.

But now the ABC has demoted Amanda Duthie to a humble executive producer role and will appoint another Head of Comedy and Entertainment. So we now have another salary that the ABC doesn’t need to pay. There is of course a simple, equitable and elegant solution. Get rid of the position of Head of Content and reappoint Courtney Gibson to Head of Arts and Entertainment, the position she had before her promotion to the new position.

Interestingly the BBC recently got rid of its equivalent of Head of Content so the departments’ heads report directly to the head of television. With the ABC recently receiving a large increase in television funding predicated on being spent on commissioning independent producers, there couldn’t be a better time for the ABC Board to clarify what this relationship should be and where the buck will stop with management.

Or perhaps Mark Scott should just ask The Daily Telegraph what it thinks and act accordingly.

Good to see Michael Ronaldson is capable of changing his mind. Sort of. In April he savaged the Government via the Herald Sun for having too many imported cars in its fleet, particularly those used by public servants.

“I wonder how the Ford workers in Geelong feel, knowing that fat-cats in Canberra have snubbed them for a foreign-made luxury vehicle,” Ronaldson lamented.

Then, last Wednesday, Ronno was again talking to the Hun about the Government’s car fleet, criticising the lack of “green cars” in favour of “petrol guzzlers”.

“Mr Rudd talks a lot about protecting the environment,” said Ronno, getting stuck in, “but when it comes to fixing up his own back yard he is missing in action. In those few departments which actually have them, Prius vehicles are just there for show.”

Damn straight. Except, um, Priuses — Pria? — which start from $40,000, are made in Japan and China.

One wonders how the Ford workers in Geelong would feel, knowing that fat-cats in Canberra have snubbed them for a foreign-made luxury vehicle.

On the eve of the Brisbane City Council, in which words such as “horror”, “slash” and “cut” are expected to feature, is anyone looking at how much it costs to advise the Lord Mayor Campbell Newman? At last count, he enjoyed five media advisors (that’s more advisors than there are media outlets on Brisbane!) and 31 political advisors. This does not take into account the other political appointments such as Brisbane Marketing. On raw figures alone, that means the Lord Mayor of Brisbane has more media advisors than Premier Anna Bligh. A comparison with Lord Mayors past is also unflattering to the incumbent, proving Can Do Campbell can only do at great cost to the ratepayer.

Undoubtedly a story you won’t read about in The Courier Mail. It was a case of “clipboards of death” in the Courier Sunday Mail newsrooms on Friday as the editor’s secretary walked around asking various people to go to the boss’s office and get given the pink slip. And if that wasn’t bad enough, some of the people asked to walk the plank were then asked to hang around and assist with the “restructure”. Can you imagine if some other workplace did that … it would have been splashed all over the front page.

Pigs are porn … according to the Chinese Government! Thought you might enjoy this story. The Chinese government’s latest attempts to regulate the internet highlights just how much they are struggling to deal with their digital dilemma. Last week the government issued a ham-handed directive every personal computer sold in the country must include new software that filters pornography and other content from the view of China’s 300 million internet users. The software, called Green Dam/Youth Escort, is designed to keep web surfers from sites the government deems dangerous. There seem to be a few kinks as according to the software pigs are pornographic.