Victoria must be taking climate change very seriously, we’ve just had a ministerial consumer affairs meeting here in Perth, and the Victorians came over by train.  Must be nice to have the time, money, and, of course, conscience, to take a three-day first-class train trip rather than a three-hour economy flight.  Then again, perhaps they didn’t tell anyone.

You’ve got to hand it to Adelaide’s political media (well not really, because that’s how the state government runs them) with their coverage of Wednesday’s sale of Mitsubishi’s old assembly plant at Tonsley Park. According to the media release from state Treasurer Kevin Foley, the state has bought the site for $32 million and will turn it into a hi-tech dreamland for businesses that don’t exist yet. This will create thousands of jobs, apparently.

But here’s the truth; Mitsubishi was required as land owner to remediate the site and was also required under federal law to provide and store 10 years of spare parts for the cars they built there. Part of the state government purchase deal is free rent at the site for Mitsubishi’s corporate headquarters and free rent for the storage of spare parts. Because they are still on the site (now as a lessee) and it is still zoned industrial, there are no clean-up costs.

The value of this bonus to Mitsubishi is $20 million. That value was not included in the purchase price announced by the Treasurer on Wednesday. If a company tried to hide such arrangements when declaring sale prices of commercial property, it would be prosecuted for evading stamp duty. So, why the secrecy? Why does Mitsubishi, who sacked several thousand workers a couple of years ago, get such a great deal from the state?

Wheels within wheels, my friends. And how is it that at a press conference to discuss this deal not one Adelaide journo asked about the value of the free rent and storage deal? Because all you have to do is “hand it to them”.

There is a huge investigation going on into massive rorting in the Victorian Department of Primary Industries. The Herald Sun has put in a FOI request in relation to credit-card fraud, huge drinking sessions disguised as planning meetings and paid for by taxpayers, long lunches with suppliers of services to the department, using petty cash to pay for long lunches, giving computers to the kids of executives. It is BIG. The department run by the brother of a prominent Herald Sun columnist?

Ben Sandilands wrote about the problems in using Richmond Air Base as a second airport for Sydney.  Having lived in the area, I can vouch for the noise from planes as they fly over Richmond and Windsor to land at the RAAF base.

What I haven’t seen mentioned is the problem of flooding in the area. Houses, railways and roads are often cut off from minor flooding from the Hawkesbury River, however, a really big flood has not been experienced for more than 140 years. When a similar flood happens again, as well as inundating all the houses in Richmond and Windsor area, it would flood the RAAF base, including the runway.

The SES asked for access to the base to evacuate people during a major flood, but it was told that the RAAF would need it to fly  staff and equipment out and would then close the base. As well as all the other issues with the Richmond Air Base, the severe flood problem makes this an unsuitable choice for a second airport.