Spanx for nothing, say ACA staff. A Current Affair journo Amanda Patterson was seen wining and dining the Nine heavies again in Sydney recently. Seems her taking over the Sunshine State newsroom isn’t off the table, but is just under the radar for now.
Meanwhile, the present ACA head is taking the show even further down the trashy path by not listening to anyone. If we have to do one more story on Spanx, the office will explode. Nine is big on cross-promotion at the moment, that and putting Tracy Grimshaw in bad lighting during big interviews. Not that she cares any more — she is just there these days for the money to pay for horse feed.
Rhiannon to face review? Lee Rhiannon will be referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for an alleged abuse of parliamentary resources.
Bradbury’s childish remarks. Lots of talk in the new PM’s office and at the Labor Party’s campaign headquarters on Pitt Street late last week when David Bradbury — MP for the marginal seat of Lindsay — appeared on Sky News and stumbled badly in a media interview. When asked about the impact of the resignations of Lindsay Tanner and John Faulkner on Julia Gillard’s government, he dismissed it, saying “it takes a village to raise a child”. Gillard’s people didn’t take kindly to their boss being referred to as a “child” nor did the broader media team. Talk that Bradbury’s media appearances will be curtailed to avoid further stumbles.
Vote for Sex, say you voted Green. Behold one of three new ads in the Australian Sex Party’s new campaign. I bet you can guess what the other two are…
Our not-so-tough border control. Last night I was routed via Sydney out of Hong Kong — the flight arrived about 8.15 and I was one of about a dozen who had bags misplaced. After waiting in line to report, fill forms, complain, etc, we finally got to “try” and clear customs at about 9.15. The area was full of AQIS staff just waiting around for us stragglers and probably the next flight, but no customs officials. The very embarrassed AQIS staff told us that: “Customs had shut the exit door [border] and had disappeared.”
It appears that AQIS cannot process arrival cards (Customs responsibility) and nor do they have access to open the door to a free Australia. We were stuck. One poor Dutch traveler broke down in tears as she had no way of alerting her outside contact what was happening and with the door closed she assumed that those on the other side would think no more people would be exiting.
Eventually a very surly (and lonely) Customs official appeared (after frantic calls on radios, phones, etc) and gave the arrival cards a casual glance. He didn’t even look at mine, even though I had actually declared items. He hardly spoke to the AQIS staff before opening the door to release us. Seemed strange to all of us that AQIS had a full staff of probably 15-20 and Customs were no where to be found. Stranger too the relationship of AQIS and Customs; it appeared to me that the Customs guy was annoyed with the AQIS staff for calling him away from something else.
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