Politics often makes for strange bedfellows but Rail Tram & Bus Union Queensland honcho Owen Doogan has lately taken things a little too far for some of the ALP Bruvvers. Doogan’s been hard at work trying to kill off the Bligh Government’s asset sales program. No surprise there — considering one of the assets up for the taking is Queensland Rail. But his cosying up to Queensland’s Liberal-National Party has put a few federal noses out of joint and left some in his own union asking serious questions about his judgement and leadership.

After months of chest beating, threatening press releases and spending membership fees on a spurious anti-Labor government ad campaign in a federal election year, other left unions and the Left national executive had finally had enough and read Doogan the riot act at a meeting in Canberra on Friday. One of the tipping points was a tawdry Doogan media release backing an LNP mud chuck against Anna Bligh for saying asset sales were as necessary as gun control laws post-Port Arthur. Only problem was Bligh never said it.

Fellow factional members were also none too impressed that Doogan’s been dispatching RTBU footmen to spread rumours he’ll continue to take the fight up to the ALP national executive and will attempt legal action to ensure a state conference proceeds and asset sales are killed off.

Insiders say Doogan received such a carpeting behind the scenes that when given the opportunity to talk to a motion on the issue of conference cancellations he went strangely quiet, and when the time came he failed to even cast a vote on the motion. Well and truly slapped.

It is rumoured that the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, not satisfied with all of the damage done the last time that they changed disability employment services, are having another go at destroying the community goodwill among service providers. The tendering system is one that fails to reward performance and last time good providers were lost.

You would think DEEWR would learn having just launched the Social Inclusion Policy but now that there is a policy is the time to start worrying, just as when customer service was talked about it stopped happening. It seems that those who know how to get disabled people into work are going to have their livelihoods threatened and will leave the industry in droves as DEEWR drives their wages and conditions down.

Those people who were so keen on WorkChoices are in charge of this department and it is showing.

Minister Emerson issued a media release with the first sentence “toys and baby products which contain a potentially dangerous chemical have today been banned” on January 25. In fact, the ban is not in place and the ACCC and NICNAS are still consulting with stakeholders on a potential ban for a chemical used in PVC plastic, known as DEHP.

The Minister’s office is aware of the mistake and has not issued a correction. Because of the minister’s statement, consumers concerned about chemicals in plastics might think that no toys and baby products currently on the market contain DEHP, when in fact the chemical is not yet banned.

Apparently the Feds vacated vocational training for the unemployed, handing it over to the states. In the case of NSW I’m told the Feds gave the state  $600 million-plus to continue the work early last year.

One basic premise of the Rudd government was that if someone qualified, say for Certificate IV in Project Management, they could go on to diploma in Project Management making them even much more marketable in the unemployment market — the upgrade paid being paid for by the government. It seems in NSW the money has simply gone — upgrades are unavailable, are not being funded and the funds were provided a year ago.

Is this another case of NSW grabbing federal funds and “converting” them to other uses (e.g. the 10% project management charge on school funding while every project has a project manager)? The $600 million kitty would help a lot of unemployed people get back into the workforce. I may have this wrong but if it is the case, it is unfair. If the state is still planning use of the funds after one year then it is just incompetent.

Can you find where the $600 million is?

Re. Aussie passports and speculation about Mossad agents. This is not the first time Tel Aviv-Canberra relations have cooled.

In late 2003 Israeli embassy second secretary Amir Lati was frequenting Kingston and Mankua bars and  smooth-talked a DIO and DPMC officers before he snagged an invite to then-AG Phillip Ruddock’s family Christmas lunch. Yes, the same AG who is accountable for ASIO.

Lati was asked to leave Oz around Jan 04. But he was not a spy! He was just some Jewish bloke wanting to have a traditional Aussie Chrissy lunch with an ordinary family. Those passports appear to have been issued in 2003. Coincidence?

Re. Matt Campbell and SBS’ funding woes. This performance has been going on since the May Budget last year and does elicit sympathy from independent producers who SBS relies upon for content. We would like to know now how much money SBS has to spend on each content area, make decisions quickly and not take three to six months to respond to program ideas. And this is only at the development stage.

Perhaps the legal department should also know that it is not acceptable to take months to contract simple projects with simple precedents and to fight with producers about ancillary rights, which SBS has little capacity to exploit anyway. I hope new SBS board members start asking these questions because the independent sector is frustrated and bewildered. It doesn’t happen in commercial networks and shouldn’t happen at SBS.

Some publicists are feeling somewhat frustrated by the editorial policy of News Ltd’s free daily paper MX, after being told that MX refuses to take photographs of anyone over the age of 35 years as they’re “too old”.