Tips and rumours, Mar 31, 2015

From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

He’s not heavy. Laurie Ferguson has weighed into the debate about his brother Martin Ferguson’s support for the NSW Liberals policy of selling poles and wires, saying that he doesn’t think Mar’n should be expelled but that he disagrees with his views on privatisation. We hear from a tipster that Laurie may have more than a few reasons to speak out, as he is facing the real possibility of losing preselection for his seat of Werriwa before next year’s election. The seat has already come up in negotiations over state preselection. Laurie was parachuted into the seat under a factional deal before the 2010 election and was challenged for preselection before the 2013 poll, so it’s not completely new, but we’ve been told to watch out for “factional/sub-factional chaos”. Sounds like an interesting Easter dinner ahead at the Ferguson household.

Ewe-nited we stand. At Crikey we’ve been racking our brains all morning trying to work out the logic behind the name of Jacqui Lambie’s proposed political party, the “Jacqui Lambie Network”. Is it designed to appeal to the fishing industry? (Think about it.) Is it designed to tap into voter angst and alienation as per “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” from the movie Network (now appropriated by Shaun Micallef)? Is it a reference to the distributed nature of power in the new party — knock out one node and it will still work? Or is it an Oprah reference? We prefer the last one. This could turn Lambie into Australia’s newest media mogul and the only female one now that heiress Gina “heiress, did you call me an heiress? I’m not an heiress, OK? Don’t call me an heiress” Rinehart has stopped using her (inherited) fortune to try to buy Fairfax. The Lambie Network could double as both a Tasmania-based political party and a sub-par women’s channel, which the market is literally crying out for more of. The flagship program surely is a political commentary show “Roast Lamb(ie)”, in which Jacqui gets stuck into her political opponents.

Spud Stasi. Careful readers of The Australian might remember a front-page story in January detailing the iron fist of the Western Australian Potato Marketing Corporation, which makes spud farmers fill out complex forms before putting a tuber in the ground, determines the prices and varieties of potatoes farmers can sell, and even limits how many spuds farmers allowed to transport in a vehicle (no more than 50 kilograms — and beware, the board has search powers). Free marketers will appreciate a new ally in the spud wars: federal Small Business Minister Bruce Billson’s told The West Australian the state should abolish the body to avoid being a “spud laggard”. Today’s Harper review into competition laws has unsurprisingly fingered the spud board as a less-than-ideal bit of public policy.

NSA doesn’t want phone records. While Australia’s major parties have embraced mass surveillance, the evidence continues to accumulate that it’s useless at preventing terrorism or solving crime. As we’ve explained until we’re blue in the face, we know from Germany, Denmark, the USA and the Netherlands that various forms of data retention (involving, in some cases, even more extensive data collection than Australians will be subject to) don’t help security agencies do the job they profess to do of protecting the public. Moreover, as we saw in the Charlie Hebdo attack, France’s extensive mass surveillance laws did nothing to prevent attacks by terrorists already well known to authorities. But now comes possibly the best evidence of the pointlessness of data retention of all — from the National Security Agency itself. America’s PBS yesterday revealed that key figures within the NSA planned to advise the then-head of the NSA that data retention of phone records should be scrapped. NSA staff were concerned not merely that the program of storing fixed line phone data was illegal — not something that overly concerns the NSA, admittedly — but that the benefits were meagre. This was the same conclusion reached two years earlier when the NSA had decided to stop collecting email metadata — that the expense of collecting it was unjustified by the benefits. Phone and email metadata will both be collected under Australia’s mass surveillance scheme. It’s one thing to adopt stupid, draconian policies. It’s quite another to do so after it’s become obvious from overseas experience that they don’t work.

Love me tender. If you ever wanted to get married by Elvis at an ungodly hour of the morning, it’s now possible without a trip to Las Vegas. The Church of Bang Bang Boogaloo is set to open in Melbourne tomorrow, and it will offer weddings, commitment ceremonies and vow renewals 24 hours a day. The venue’s website says that Elvis isn’t the only celebrant available, but if you do choose the King for the big day:

“Each ceremony is personalised complete with Vegas style vows and the King’s best love songs. ‘Elvis’ is a non-religious civil celebrant with a background in radio broadcasting. Now you and your Teddy Bear can have a Hunka, Hunka Burning Love!”

We’re pretty sure you can’t get married on a whim in Victoria, but maybe the idea will catch on.

Sizing up the PM. A tipster seems to think there is a conspiracy of the highest order — Tony Abbott’s height:

“All the Abbott bios I have seen list his height as 5′ 11″ or 180.3 cm. Compared with the people he is seen standing next to, he looks far shorter. Surely he wouldn’t exaggerate his height.”

Ms Tips wasn’t able to take Abbott’s measurements today, but we’ll be on the lookout from now on.

No land, no pay. After our tip yesterday that the No Land Tax party wouldn’t be paying anyone bonuses for handing out how-to-vote cards, we hear from a tipster that some people handing out how-to-vote cards won’t be getting paid at all. Our tipster saw one pack up and go home after Liberal campaigners told the person there would be no payment.

Passing on the baton. The University of Melbourne Liberal Club has announced Charlie Cartney as its new president. If that name sounds familiar it’s because he’s one of the club members whose sexist comments were revealed by The Age last year. Cartney recommended a particular restaurant because there were “lots of sluts” there. Looks like nothing much is changing at MULC.

Bins are back. Readers may remember that last year we followed the disappearance of bins from many train stations across the country due to security concerns. Now it seems they are back at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne at least. We’re not sure whether they look more like a giant toilet or a giant spew bag. Both are equally gross images that we’ll leave you with.