Peter Costello won’t be in town for the resumption of Parliament – he’s overseas. Where is he and what’s he doing? Scouting for jobs…?

Exclusive footage of the aftermath of the Nando’s explosion in Ultimo, Sydney:

Worthwhile looking here and at the Victorian Energy Minister’s request for a Victorian Jurisdictional Derogation (Advanced Metering Infrastructure Roll Out). Why would you give a monopoly to the mostly foreign-owned distributors at the expense of local firms and innovation? Why would you establish a monopoly anyway when the Victorian market is the most competitive in Australia if not Asia/Pacific? In any event, check the typo in the subject line of the Minister’s letter copied on the AEMC site.

Is it true that Boston Consulting has been engaged by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to investigate where the Department of Immigration and Citizenships (DIAC) “Systems for People” project $450M went? It is said that Boston has been engaged at a cost of $750K to review the spending of DIAC’s Systems for People project. It maybe remembered that DIAC returned a $30M deficit in 06/07. Looks like further woes for this Department. More savings to be found here Mr Rudd.

We are getting a number of clients calling us saying that they are no longer able to place trades with Tricom. Tricom are only accepting orders that close out positions. I would imagine a good portion of their client base are also desperately trying to open new Broker accounts.

I am reliably advised that Qantas will no longer be supplied with woollen blankets made in a Tasmanian mill but will get cheaper ones from overseas. Australian airline?

Sitting on international flight QF136 at Sydney on Monday waiting for 9.30am departure to Melbourne. Departure time comes and goes without a word. At 9.45am the clearly annoyed pilot announces there would be a delay because of staff shortages. He said control had told him there was no-one to load late arriving connecting passenger baggage, so we would have the wait. The flight was eventually pushed back at 10.40am. Surely a couple of extra baggage handlers are cheaper than keeping 200 plus people on a plane for over an hour.

In Air Traffic Controller news: West Radar was closed for three hours Tuesday morning due lack of staff (yep, again).