Last month, you reported that Chakriya Bowman, the former chief trade adviser to AusAID, had taken up her position as head of the Economic Governance unit at the Forum Secretariat in Fiji. Now Ms Bowman is back in Australia, working from the Forum Secretariat office in Sydney. Seems she has been having some trouble getting the visa exemption that is normally provided by the Fiji government to people working for regional agencies. Seems she had to leave last week after her temporary visitor’s visa ran out.

Frank Bainimarama seems to be a bit annoyed that Forum chair Kevin Rudd and trade minister Simon Crean have been rallying the troops to keep Fiji out of the negotiations for the PACER-Plus regional free trade agreement. By inconveniencing Bowman, Fiji’s regime gets two for the price of one — pissing off Kevin and rallying support from the small island states who are wondering why an Australian is running the Forum trade section in the middle of regional trade negotiations.

Maybe our parliamentary secretary for Pacific Islands affairs could get over to Suva to sort it out. What’s that? No one’s been appointed to replace Duncan Kerr after he resigned last month! It seems no one in the Canberra press galley has noticed …

NT Auditor-General is investigating the granting of free water licences to four members of a ministerial advisory committee in the Katherine area. Recently water licences were taken off existing licence holders and given to local farmers, some of whom were members of the ministerial committee. While the NT Water Act requires public advertising of an intention to grant specific licences, in this case the intention to grant the licences to the committee members was not advertised. The minister has ordered an internal departmental review of the licences issued, and local growers have initiated Supreme Court action to quash the issuing of the licences in question.

Kuringai “Creative” Arts High School does not appear to have benefited from the recent round of school improvement funding — other than adding a very nice fence. Nothing, for example, to replace the “binishell”. Even though on 15th November 1988 Dr Metherell said: “Over the past decade many of these binishells have had serious structural problems, including the collapse of two shells.”

Even though Dr Metherell also pointed out that “The binishell at Ingleburn High School is unsatisfactory. The steel scaffolding that supports this structure at present seriously limits the area of the dome that can be used.” Similar to the circumstances to Kuringai Creative Arts High School.

Furthermore, 21 years ago Dr Metherell said that “To repair the dome would be almost as expensive as building a new conventional structure, but there would be no long-term guarantee that it would not need further major maintenance work.” And the binishell was to be demolished and replaced with at “a conventional multipurpose centre worth $1.2 million.”

Plans to build a reasonable standard hall (announced by the previous principal, now Northern Sydney regional director Jane Simmonds) for the “Creative” Arts High School — have disappeared, presumably “shelved”. Perhaps it’s because there’s no point in improving the property if the Knox bid for the land is to go ahead.

Meanwhile building work continues at Knox School for Boys.

There are nine new shires in the Northern Territory that have been operating for just under 18 months. Four of the nine shire CEOs have been sacked in this period. In one of the central region shires, there has been a 150% staff turnover for shire services manager’s positions (the shire services managers are responsible for service delivery to the remote communities they work in). There are nine SSM positions in this particular shire, and there have been 15 resignations of SSMs in less than 18 months. WTF?

Service delivery by the shires is almost non-existent in many of these remote communities. The shires say they are close to broke and need still more money. Yet two Central Australian shires have allegedly paid $4.4 million to purchase a building as their (urban) headquarters. Makes you wonder where the money is coming from.

Suzanne Carbone, gossip columnist at The Age (“Postcode 3000” column), has been raising some eyebrows in high places recently re the amount of coverage she gives to underworld identity Mick Gatto, with the latest in a string of items appearing on Friday November 20.

We hear some of the head honchos at The Age are not pleased about the number of mentions Gatto has been receiving during his quest to ingratiate himself with Melbourne’s social scene. And a certain society mistress has been muttering that invitations may have to stop coming Carbone’s way if the man that most call, under their breath, “The Godfather”, gets any further publicity in her column.

The Sunday Telegraph does it again. According to the Sunday Telegraph, (November 22, page 85,) Gough Whitlam lost the famous 1972 election to Malcolm Fraser — and they have a famous front page to prove it. The Sunday Telegraph has celebrated its 70th anniversary by re-printing famous front pages and December 11th, 1972 proudly proclaims — “Fraser is Back, Massive Win Shatters the Labor Dream”. Doesn’t anybody proof-read the Tele?

Someone mentioned to me that Crikey has been speculating that National Archives of Australia Offices are closing. This is not speculation, it is fact. A carefully hidden missive on the NAA website in the “From the Director General” section (not the media statements sections) is the very words that confirm it. Director general Ross Gibbs:

You will now be aware that on 2 November the Australian Government, as part of its Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) statement, announced that the National Archives, along with other government agencies, are required to find significant budget savings.

For the current forward estimate years 2009–10 to 2012–13, the savings are $700,000 in the first year and $1.4 million each year thereafter … To achieve this, as well as reducing service costs in Canberra, we are closing state offices in Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart over the next two-and-a-half years as building leases expire.

There you go. Straight from the horse’s mouth. My husband works at one of the non-Canberra annexes, and he tells that it has been the worst-handled issue he has seen in his 30 years in the public service. Apparently the minister has just ordered the archives to find the savings and in a hurry … The NAA has not even done any costings to see how much closing these important facilities will save them.