Following up your story on the Film School, you might like to look at how many head teachers and senior executives have left since the coming of Sandra Levy. Two senior executives have left in the past few months and several heads of department (eg. Head of Television) have also left.

A birdy with told me that BHP has engineers working on the 12-metre underground optimisation at ODX and that this will delay the expansion. Your postulation about waiting for the Rio takeover to complete itself before abandoning the ODX therefore seems entirely feasible.

Welfare to work legislation involves sending disability support pensioners for medical examinations even when they are known to be unsuitable for employment or training. This is a welfare payment to doctors that can not be justified.

As you are probably aware, things are not rosy in the Australian Air Traffic Control world. Chronic staff shortages are leaving major airports and huge chunks of airspace undermanned on an almost daily basis. Airservices have even recently offered to repay airlines the fees charged, when services were not provided. With this in mind, it is timely to note that negotiaitons have meant to have commenced on ATC’s new enterprise bargaining agreement.The first meeting was supposed to have taken place by 21 April. Airservices, however, have chosen to snub the Union-appointed negotiating commitee. The first time they will sit down and meet is not until 15 May. With this attitude, staffing levels are only going to get worse. There is already a trickle of controllers heading off overseas for better pay and conditions, and any goodwil from current staff is rapidly evaporating. It won’t be long before major, long term closures happen, because overworked staff will no longer come in on their days off.