From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Guess who’s coming to dinner. Last month we reported that former PM Tony Abbott was the star attraction for a fundraising dinner hosted by ultra-conservative backbencher Kevin Andrews right before parliament was due back from the Winter break, which was great timing considering how much he wanted a platform from which to lob grenades at his successor Malcolm Turnbull. Now we realise Abbott wasn’t actually the star attraction, he was the ring-in after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton couldn’t make it on August 3. The good voters of the seat of Menzies in Melbourne’s outer north-eastern suburbs aren’t going to miss out though, Dutton is now scheduled to appear at an $85 a head dinner at the same venue in Templestowe on Monday September 18. If the postal survey on marriage equality goes ahead, this will be right after the ballot papers have been sent out, and right after the next parliamentary sitting fortnight. Perhaps Andrews will expand on why Australia shouldn’t include same-sex couples in marriage because he doesn’t want to marry his cycling mates.

Stop the denim. Which government department recently held a fundraising day for Jeans for Genes Day but forbade staff from actually wearing jeans? We hear that a federal government department sent out a copy of its uniform policy while also asking for donations. While the cause may have benefited, we wonder what it does for staff morale when fun is stamped out where it dares to rear its head.

Good sports? What is going on at the Victorian branch of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia? They are currently holding board elections and Crikey has received a copy of a letter sent to SSAA Victoria secretary Ross Farmer from independent candidates, alleging several contraventions of the association’s by-laws in the way the election is being run.

The Victorian branch has 36,000 of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia’s 170,000 national members. The SSAA is a lobby group that promotes sports shooting, hunting and protecting the interests of firearm owners. It has revenue of almost $5 million a year, so those in charge of the organisation have a fair bit of influence.

The correspondence alleges that they were not given the opportunity to witness the draw of candidates which lead to a ballot order weighted in favour of incumbents. They further allege there has been persistent opening of ballots without the presence of scrutineers, allowing the identification of who has voted and how. They allege that the membership list for candidates was sent to them with emails and phone numbers missing and in a format that they could not mail merge (thus making it more difficult for them to contact those members for the purpose of campaigning). They also claim they have previously raised these issues with SSAA Victoria several times and not received any response. We contacted SSAA Victoria and put these allegations to them, but they declined to publicly comment.

Road tweetin’. There’s nothing more off-putting on social media that someone who is clearly just trawling for followers but won’t say it. So there’s something a little refreshing about an honest request. In that regard, if no other, you have to give ConnectEast credit. ConnectEast owns and operates the EastLink tollway in Melbourne, and a tipster sent us through some very direct, polite and humble promotional material they received: 

“EastLink has a twitter feed,” it gently reminds us. “Please follow us, we won’t tweet too often.” As if the disarming tone of the request weren’t enough, they conclude: “If we have more followers we will be able to provide some interesting content on Twitter that is not available elsewhere.” Quite apart from rewarding good manners and honesty, Ms Tips hopes this follower drive is successful, if for no other reason that her curiosity about what kind of exclusive content one gets from a twitter feed that seems exclusively dedicated to updating the traffic conditions of a toll road. 

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au, use our guaranteed anonymous form or other ways to leak to us securely