Richard Glover on ABC local radio 702 in Sydney needs to lift his game. Normally the best broadcaster in Sydney radio, he’s being splotching his copybook lately. First off, he has developed an annoying habit of calling some state Government ministers by their first names; witness his interview Tuesday afternoon with police Minister Michael Delaney. He’s Minister, or Mr, not Michael. Political interviews are not necessarily all adversarial, but some distance helps. It may be the ABC style to do that, but since when has an ABC journalist or broadcaster been on first name basis with a minister in any Government. (this also applies to other broadcasters).

Then he really pushed it later on Tuesday afternoon when he was talking to a bunch of critics, one of whom (Lisa Hemsley) was starting to review the movie Precious. She said Precious was obese and Glover injected “in wide screen” (meaning that the movie had to be shown in widescreen because Precious was fat). Why say that? It was gratuitous and stupid, and belongs with the likes of Chris “I’m in recovery” Smith on 2GB or other broadcasters who make their careers out of being lightweight and offensive. Glover isn’t either, but that quip was.

Rhetoric vs reality. While Kevin Rudd continues to spruik his credentials as the saviour of climate change and attack Tony Abbott as climate-change sceptic, it seems the rhetoric doesn’t quite meet the reality. The Rudd Government is failing to fund key researchers studying the phenomena, its impacts and solutions. After more than 12 months of asking, one of Australia’s pre-eminent research centres, the Cairns Reef and Rainforest Research Centre is still waiting for Environment Minister Peter Garrett to confirm their future funding, through the Government’s Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF).

Garrett’s delays is causing all manner of uprising, not just among the research community but within high levels in the Labor Government. Several of the 300-odd key researchers linked to the facility, including climate change specialists, have already left James Cook University because funding post-June 2010 is still yet to be confirmed. The federal Opposition is circling the issue and ready to pounce on yet another Garrett-induced Rudd Government failure.

Isn’t the story in the donations returns in Victoria, the totals. The Victorian Liberal Party raised more money than Labor for the first time since the defeat of Kennett …

How long will it take for the laggards at Fairfax Media to update their newspaper readership figures on their website? Shareholders are left in the dark as to The Sydney Morning Herald and other papers’ performance. The most recent Morgan readership figures are from September 2008 — 17 months ago.

The Qantas tail strike in the evening wasn’t the only Qantas incident yesterday. I was on QF400 in the morning (QF400, depart Melbourne to Sydney,  February 2, 6am) which had to do a last-minute “go around” (an aborted takeoff) — the pilot said he got within seven minutes of the next aircraft but the aborted takeoff was violent, suggesting it was possibly worse than the pilot said it was.

In Queensland if you can’t pay a traffic fine within the 30 days allowed, there is nothing you can do until the State Penalties Enforcement Register (SPER) contacts you to arrange payment in instalments. The privilege for this costs you another $52 on top of the fine. How can you expect governments to force some sections of private enterprise (e.g. banks) to curb their excessive greed when they themselves are guilty of such excessive greed. The poor who can’t afford to pay on time, such as pensioners, are being slugged this massive amount for what is really one keystroke to transfer details to this register.