In the many valuable questions put to our government departments and agencies as part of Senate estimates, there are also the small things, which can make for some fun reading. For some reason Labor Senator Catryna Bilyk has asked many departments if they have coffee machines on their premises and the costs associated with such. Not all departments provide coffee machines, but the Productivity Commission has machines in Canberra and Melbourne — they’re Nespresso and were $430 each (excluding GST) if you were wondering. Can’t be productive without coffee, right? Staff buy their own pods. Over at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science though, the coffee machines were $12,431.43 (including GST) when they were purchased between 2006 and 2008. Now’s a good time for a shout out to the Productivity Commission as well — in answer to a question on subscriptions taken out by the agency, it was revealed the PC subscribes to “Crikey electronic magazine”.