Dear Sole Subscriber,

The Australian Medical Association came out swinging yesterday in response to an article in The Medical Journal of Australia by Dr Tony Webber, a GP who until recently headed the Medicare watchdog, the Professional Services Review.

In his article Webber estimates that $2-3 billion dollars are wasted annually through misuse of the Medicare Benefits Schedule, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medicare Safety Net. The AMA was wounded at the suggestion that doctors were rorting the system, suggesting Webber was attributing the actions of a few bad apples to the wider medical community, and the media up and ran with that line yesterday.

But as Croakey's Melissa Sweet points out today, there's a very big difference between dismissing doctors' rorts and taking a very serious long view at waste within our health system. And there's plenty of that to go around. Consider cost shifting between the federal government and states, the use of unnecessary or inappropriate tests and treatments, onerous red tape and the waste that comes with complex, inflexible systems for starters.

All of which leads in very neatly to kicking off a new project in Croakey. The Naked Doctor, conceived and run by Dr Justin Coleman, is dedicated to examining over-diagnosis and over-treatment in our health system. In Dr Coleman's words, the project "aims to encourage discussion and awareness of the opportunities to do more for health by doing less".

It might be a novel way of thinking about how our health system functions, but doing nothing, or more specifically, focusing on preventative health, is a concept worth considering in the context of Webber's paper -- and far less easy to dismiss than a few "bad apples".

Two of the country's top public relations operatives -- Kevin07 adman Neil Lawrence and spin doctor Sue Cato -- are joining forces to take on Clubs Australia's campaign against poker machine reforms.

The final strategy for the pro-reform campaign, expected to target marginal seats where big clubs are located, will depend on the outcome of this week's negotiations between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

"I will be putting my personal efforts towards doing whatever I can to counter the clubs campaign," Lawrence told The Power Index. "This is a strong personal issue [for me]. It's a serious issue.

"The support for the bought-and-paid-for position of the clubs is narrow, but it's very deep. Whereas support from people who want reform is very broad -- it's the majority of the population -- but it's harder to organise.

"It's a very David and Goliath situation. But I don't mind that challenge."

Lawrence, regarded as one of the best marketers in Australia, has been in talks with World Vision CEO Tim Costello about how to fund and organise the pro-reform PR effort.

He says Clubs Australia's campaign against pre-commitment has been slick but misleading.

"Their arguments about the social good they do are very thin ... If the cost of saving lives and marriages and homes is a little less money for the odd soccer club when they can probably get it elsewhere then so be it.

"Gambling addiction destroys lives. People lose money they can't afford; they lose homes; they lose marriages; and in some extreme cases they lose their lives."

As well as overseeing advertising during Labor's 2007 election campaign, Lawrence designed the Minerals Council of Australia's 2010 anti-mining tax blitz and has recently been working with Qantas.

Sue Cato, who provides some of Australia's biggest companies with communications advice, said: "Neil and I are at one in terms of coming to grips with the enormous damage that slot machines wreak on our community. Personally, I find the disingenuous, cynical and ugly campaign run by the clubs below even them."

Cato says she is opposed to clubs' depiction of mandatory pre-commitment as a "licence to punt" -- a slogan other commentators have taken aim at.

The former Liberal Party political adviser has done spinning work for Fairfax, Gunns, Pacific Brands and mining companies.

Clubs Australia spokesman Jeremy Bath today said the clubs' campaign had been "entirely based on facts".

*Read the full story at The Power Index

This story is just a taste of what Crikey subscribers will have access to on The Power Index.

Learn more about it from Paul Barry here.

Jesus, there are probably less appropriate places to spend Martin Luther King day than Myrtle Beach, a resort town at the northern end of the South Carolina coast, but you have to scratch to come up with a couple. Johannesburg, 1975 might be one. A Klan meeting, maybe. The place sprawls along the coast, and then for miles inland. The place has been a resort for almost a century, but any trace of the past is nearly gone now. Tract housing and trailer parks sprawl for miles inland, punctuated by theme parks and malls.

The town centre, such as it is, has a sort of rambunctious energy, although it's possible to feel that you've wandered into a museum of regional fast-food franchises. As it thins out towards the ends, it becomes somewhat grimmer, a peerless beach with concrete blocks, rather as if Tweed Heads had been redesigned by prison architects. "Welcome to the Redneck Riviera!" a bellboy on a golf cart yelled, unbidden, as I came out of reception, trying to find the right multi-storey car park, with hotel attached. "So this isn't a faded old lady of the south, a town seen better times?" "Hell no, sir. They're trying to sell it as a family resort these days, but this is where they come to paaaaarty. If it weren't for the biker rallies we'd be in deep shit."

He seemed insouciantly off-message. Was he on drugs? Or just high on life?

He wasn't alone -- in being high on life, that is. Drifting around the grounds, dressed in red, white and blue, chattering like lorikeets were the attendees for the South Carolina Tea Party convention. They were arriving en masse, parking their big white SUVs, moving their big white selves towards the featureless conference centre. They were old and gnarled and sun-spotted and, like most southerners, unfailingly gracious, as long as you stay off certain topics.

"God bless the USA," the karaokesque tones drifted down from the main auditorium (And I'm proud to be an American/where at least I know I'm free/And I won't forget the ones who died/who gave that right to me ...) as long-lost Tea Partiers greeted each other, from across the state. "It is ye-ahhhs since I been down here"(South Carolina is the size of Tasmania). "This is our first state conference," someone told me unbidden. "How's it going so far?" "Very well!" she said her eyes twinkling.

Well, maybe. For a group that sought to restore America by restoring the Republican Party, the South Carolina Tea Party is leaving its run pretty damn late. Its state is the last chance for conservatives to derail the Romney express, and the Tea Party here is relatively united, in the Tea Party Patriots network (there are three major Tea Party networks, and a couple of smaller ones). By contrast, a victory for Romney here, all but seals the deal. This is the year that the SC primary, which was inaugurated only in 1980, has fully become what it always aspired to be -- the true king-maker, displacing New Hampshire.

Politics, arguably, is about three or four key moments across decades -- taking the Winter Palace today, not tomorrow, sacking the governor-general before he sacks you -- and to flub them is to make a joke of your whole project. The Tea Party has a role to play in Congressional and Senate races, but all that is chin music compared to its one task, selecting a Presidential candidate who won't sell them out from the White House. There is no agreement within the Tea Party on the best conservative candidate, but any genuine movement would have, no matter what the bloodletting, found a way to endorse, and to reduce the split vote. What were they talking about instead?

Well, all those things you shouldn't talk about with southern conservatives, in sessions including "the Sharia law threat", "fair tax" and of course "securing our borders". One looked in vain for discussion of the economy that wasnt a flat-tax-now session, for a foreign policy session that wasn't an investigation of Obamesque treason. In the middle of the first day, a very young man ("I largely fund myself doing this, so there's a donation box outside") spoke about the five stages of Sharia takeover, announcing that "we're at level four".

Would the audience steer this guy to calmer shores? In an overflow question and answer session they struck out for deeper water. "I gotta friend who lives near to this Muslim compound up in the woods, and they're always firing guns. Can't we check the land registry against the terror watch list?" "Can you tell me, sir, what is the link between radical Islam and the spread of the global free trade agenda?" "They're even using our rights to protect themselves", one woman muttered to another behind me. They were both wearing the Americana that has become tribal war paint for the Tea Party crowd -- stars and stripes scarves, "don't tread on me" brooches, etc. They were good ol' boys and gals, the old southern ruling class, the occasional backwoods evangelical easily spotted under a bad haircut.

Yet their party was about to select a candidate who had run to the left of Teddy Kennedy in 2004, and helped design the healthcare system that they took as evidence of Obama's fasco-communism. Were they not disappointed by this? "Well there's no agreement on a conservative candidate," said a bespectacled Santorum supporter, as his surrendered wife nodded enthusiastically at his side. "Yes but that's the point," I said, "that's the problem. Should there have been an internal struggle" -- yes, I'm pretty sure I used the term internal struggle -- to send the Tea Party in one direction?". They looked at me again. "Yes but there's no agreement on which party we support," he said again.

Read the full story on our website

Dr Tony Webber, a GP who until recently headed the Medicare watchdog, the Professional Services Review, has kick-started a long overdue debate, about waste in health spending.

In an article in The Medical Journal of Australia, Webber estimates that $2-3 billion dollars are wasted annually through misuse of the Medicare Benefits Schedule, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medicare Safety Net. For this he blames poor public policy (for example, he calls the Medicare Safety Net "one of the most poorly thought-through pieces of health legislation") and the practices of a "minority of unscrupulous and greedy practitioners".

General practice management plans, team care arrangements, obstetricians, ophthalmologists, gastroenterologists and cardiologists receive particular mention as being involved in inappropriate use of public funds.

There is also a jab at the health bureaucracies. Webber says his efforts to tell the Department of Health and Ageing (DOHA) about cost shifting between the states and federal government fell on deaf ears, despite it being against provisions in the Council of Australian Governments National Health Care Agreement. "When this was pointed out to officers in the DoHA, I was told not to say anything," Webber writes.

Predictably enough, the AMA and federal government have been pouring buckets of cold water on to the media fire ignited by Webber’s article.

Rather than being dampened, however, this is a conversation that deserves to be made far more wide-ranging. Some media reports have focused on concerns about a few "bad apples". This focus is too narrow, for a few reasons.

First, what some might call "rorts", others might call a rational business response to policy-driven incentives. As the adage goes, every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it does.

Too often we seem to forget in debates about our mythical "health system" that much healthcare is provided by private interests, whether private practitioners or companies. Indeed, one of DoHA’s goals, as reported in its annual reports, is to support "affordable quality private health care". It should not be at all surprising that financial imperatives influence how services are delivered as well as professional practice.

Another reason for broadening the discussion beyond "bad apples" is that waste takes many forms. One area deserving systematic attention is the use of unnecessary or inappropriate tests and treatments.

For those who doubt the extent of these problems, see this new Croakey project, Naked Doctor, which is a measure of the growing interest internationally in over-diagnosis and over-treatment. It is a project of Dr Justin Coleman, a GP who works in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Brisbane and is president of the Australasian Medical Writers Association.

Webber highlights a lack of systematic policy efforts to tackle inappropriate spending. I have previously suggested at Crikey that a far-sighted minister or government might set up The Less is More Institute to identify and advocate for initiatives to reduce the use of health services that are unnecessary, harmful or not good value. This is not simply about the bottom line, but also is important for equity and patient safety (the Institute of Medicine in the US has identified overuse as one of three critical dimensions to patient safety, the others being underuse and misuse).

It is also about maximising population health. Indeed, a senior health service manager, Dr Patrick Bolton, a national councillor of the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, recently asked whether we might get better health returns from disinvesting in healthcare in order to be able to invest more in areas such as tackling global warming or in promoting greater equity.

Then there is the waste caused by overly onerous red tape, a particular problem for indigenous health services, as highlighted by Judith Dwyer and colleagues in The Overburden Report: Contracting for Indigenous Health Services report.

There is the waste caused by inflexible work practices and resistance to workplace reforms, as is so well illustrated by our seeming incapacity to make effective use of the physician assistant role.

There is the waste of a system that too often burns out those well-intentioned professionals, managers and others trying to do the right thing in the face of complex, inflexible systems.

There is no one party or "bad apple" to blame for waste. Adelaide surgeon professor Guy Maddern has also described waste caused by no-show patients at outpatient clinics and says, "worse still, failure to attend for elective surgical procedures is a scandal which receives little publicity".

When I see how the digital revolution is creating greater productivity, innovation and transparency in my own industry (while also damaging business models and creating uncertainty and insecurity), I wonder how much longer the health industry can avoid the crunch that surely is heading its way.

If the digital revolution can fell a dictator such as Hosni Mubarak, then surely it also has the potential to bring some much-needed changes in the health sector.

For more health debate, visit our blog Croakey

Younger Australians are saving more, spending less and shopping more online but it is older Australians who are fleeing major retailers, according to polling by Essential Report.

Last week Essential asked a series of questions about spending habits. The results appear to confirm several current retail trends, but age difference appears a key issue in the retreat of shoppers from major retailers.

While all voters were broadly equal in those saying they were saving more, or saving less, compared to last year (28% said saving more, 33% saving less), younger people were far more likely to say they were saving more than last year, with 41% of voters under 35 saying they were saving more compared to 29% saving less; only 19% of people over 55 said they were saving more; 40% said less. Those in full-time work tended to be saving more as well, they said.

Voters also strongly indicated they were spending more on food and groceries (60% said more, 10% said less), while spending less on clothing and electrical goods (20% more to 38% less) and entertainment (similar figures). Unsurprisingly, spending on gas and electricity was also strongly up, according to voters, but telephone and internet services spending had also increased, people said, by 38% to 11%. They also said they're shopping less at major retail stores (10% more, 36% less) and less at major shopping centres (11%, 32%) while shopping at local shopping centres had held up, and shopping on the internet had grown (42% up, 18% less).

The shift online has been led by 18-24-year-olds, 20% of whom said they were shopping online a lot more, and 25-34-year-olds, 16% of whom said they were shopping online a lot more. Over 55s, however, were more loath to go online and 20% of seniors actually said they were shopping online a lot less.

And consistent with what we know about the direction of retail, voters identified price and service standards as areas of dissatisfaction with major retailers. The range of products available at major retailers, and the quality of goods, were both rated satisfactory by voters, with little variability across demographics: 55% said they were satisfied with range and only 14% said they weren't; 46% said they were satisfied with quality and only 16% not.

But more voters were unhappy with prices at major retailers than happy -- 34% to 30% -- and 36% said they were unhappy with service levels, compared to 31% happy. Older voters in particular appear very unhappy with prices and services. Only 18% of seniors and 24% of 55-64-year-olds were happy with prices, and more than a third of both were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with them, and there were similar figures for service -- in fact, 50% of seniors were unhappy with standards of service at major retailers, and 43% of 55-64-year-olds.

This has had a direct impact on shopping behaviour: 46% of seniors and 47% of 55-64-year-olds were shopping either a little or a lot less at major retailers, and were also staying away from major shopping centres as well.

Seniors and middle-aged people tend to account for much less of the overall retail spend than younger people but in this case it appears major retailers can't win either way: younger shoppers who profess not to be overly fussed about issues such as price or service at big retailers are moving onto the internet in droves, while older shoppers, more resistant to moving online, are being turned off major retailers by poor service and high prices.

Another interesting absence from the results is any marked difference between men and women, despite the alleged difference in attitude and interest in shopping. If there's any difference, women are a little more likely than men to have reduced their shopping at major retailers in the past year, and a little more likely to have shopped more online.

There of course are all stated preferences, rather than revealed preferences: people's perceptions of their own consumer behaviour over the past 12 months may have been influenced by what they've been told by a media keen to emphasise the gloom and doom of retailing. But it appears that it's not all about the high dollar and the internet: old-fashioned things such as quality in-store service are also a problem for our ever-complaining big retailers.

The Essential Report is a weekly political poll conducted by EMC in partnership with Your Source. Drawing on an online panel of more than 100,000 members, the weekly poll tracks political performance and topical issues.

In the inconspicuous Victorian town of Merrijig, just down the hill from the mountains that inspired Banjo Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River, three men dressed in oilskins ride into an arena herding a dozen or so head of cattle. The men -- along with women driving horse-drawn buggies and two tiny, bonnet-clad girls riding in saddlebags -- are part of a parade to celebrate the heritage of the mountain cattlemen.

But they also symbolise a battle that is heating up between the Victorian and federal governments over cattle grazing in Victoria’s heritage-listed Alpine National Park -- a battle also characterised by a sharp city-country divide and claims of uninformed media hysteria.

Despite the issue only directly affecting about 100 cattle grazing families, the presence of 12 state and federal Coalition MPs at the weekend’s celebrations highlights the emphasis the Coalition is willing to place on its support for farmers in this conflict -- one of many similar battles nation-wide in which the agricultural industry is pitted against the environmental movement.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday was due to hand down a decision on whether the state’s reintroduction of cattle to the park was valid under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act. Victoria’s Environment Minister Ryan Smith -- whose office was still awaiting the decision -- told the crowd at the weekend’s celebrations that his federal counterpart was overstepping his jurisdiction in telling Victoria how to manage their parks.

"It’s not -- in my opinion -- up to Tony Burke to tell Victorians that their government shouldn’t be doing what they were elected on," Ryan said.

What they were elected on, as the minister put it, was a promise to let cattlemen and their herds back into the park under a study into the potential benefits for bushfire fuel reduction. But critics of the study, such as Environmental Farmers Network president Andrew Bradey, see it as a farce akin to Japanese "scientific" whaling, and a contradiction of the state government’s efforts to reduce damage done by cattle elsewhere.

Earlier this month, the Herald Sun reported criticisms of the study from academics at the University of Melbourne who argued the Sydney University-led trial should instead be headed by the CSIRO. The last significant study into the effects of cattle on fuel reduction, conducted by the CSIRO following 2003’s bushfires, found "no significant difference between grazed and ungrazed country in the proportion of the landscape that burned, in both grassland and heathland".

But Smith labelled coverage of the issue "hysterical" and "uninformed", tapping into the deep mistrust of city-based reporting and decision making that permeates the mountain grazier’s argument.

Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria president Mark Coleman said he was angry he had not been contacted by the Herald Sun, which also reported recommendations GPS collars be used in the trial were ignored.

"They have taken three lines out of a document, they have not shown that in context," Coleman said. "That is Age reporting -- it surprised me with the Herald Sun, it really did."

Coleman said he had not seen the document -- obtained by the Herald Sun through Freedom of Information -- as he had not yet been allowed access to a copy.

The trial has seen six graziers reintroduce 400 cows into the Alpine National Park.

One of those graziers is Bruce McCormack, who says his family has run stock in the alpine region since 1866. After being forced to move his cows from the park when the state Labor government introduced environmental protection legislation banning them in 2005, McCormack says the financial impact on his family is "fairly notable".

But the cattlemen’s association is keen to play down the financial impact -- whether out of a genuine lack of concern for the money, or a desire not to be labelled as "greedy farmers". Instead, it is the threat to a long and proud tradition and the fear of improper management of fire risks that is driving their passionate campaign.

"The high country is something you can’t read out of a book, you can’t learn it out of a manual, it is passed down through generation to generation," Coleman said. Graziers in the region are infuriated by people from the city telling them how to manage the land they had tended for 175 years, he said.

Despite the findings of the CSIRO study -- which he said was too limited -- Coleman says fire risks are best managed by cattlemen. He says environmental management under the Labor government had left the alpine region "overgrown" and a "mess".

"In 2006, when we got burnt out in our valley, we did not hear a bird for two years, did not see a bird for two years," Coleman said. "We’ve seen no snakes, no lizards; the fish were annihilated out of the streams once those streams silted up.

"That’s not management -- that is bastardry of the top order. And those people [alpine grazing critics], it doesn’t worry them, they’ve still got fresh drinking water out of the tap in Toorak or wherever they come from, and it just does our head in that they just don’t care."

Water supply was one of the issues that concerned Bradey the most, given the damage he says has been done to the park’s sphagnum bogs. The cattle farmer from Victoria’s west had, at one time, worked as a stockman in the alpine region of NSW.

Bradey says alpine grazing was recognised as a threat to water supply in NSW long before the environmental movement was even influential.

"From a farmer’s point of view, having a secure water supply coming out of the alpine areas of Victoria, because the topsoil’s still intact and it’s releasing water slowly over the summer and autumn into the catchments of the Murray-Darling Basin and the rivers that flow to the coast … is much, much more cost effective than having a few hundred cattle running up there smashing things up and providing people with an opportunity to ride around on their horses with big hats and Dryza-Bones and crack whips," Bradey said.

He says the state’s actions are ironic given the main message of the Landcare movement -- which the state government was trying to reinvigorate -- was to fence off waterways and stop degradation caused by animals.

"They’ve really put both of those things as a badge of honour -- that they’re going to increase the Landcare movement to deal with land degradation on farmland but on the other hand they’re promoting land degradation in national parks," Bradey said.

When asked whether he related to the frustration at city-based decision making that characterised the mountain cattleman’s battle, Bradey says the Environmental Farmers Network fully supported the state government’s actions.

"You can consult till the cows come home,” he said, before pausing to reflect on the unintentional pun. “But if you’ve got two sides who have got diametrically opposed positions consultation’s not going to get you out of the bind.

“Someone’s got to say 'well, we think this is better and that’s what needs to happen'."

A federal Department of Environment spokesperson told Crikey the Victorian government proposal required thorough consideration and was still being considered.

Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here.

When former Herald Sun editor-in-chief Peter Blunden celebrated 10 years in the hot seat in April 2006, so many Melbourne power players paid homage that an ill-timed terrorist attack would have ground the city to a halt.

Peter Costello, Steve Bracks, Robert Doyle, John So, Christine Nixon, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Janet and John Calvert-Jones, Jeff and Felicity Kennett and Eddie and Carla McGuire and then-prime minister John Howard were all present at the RACV Club in Collins Street, with the event written up a few days later under the headline "Salute to the Chief".

But while the guest list was widely reported, another curious aspect -- a lavish video tribute produced by News Limited's production arm -- left many onlookers wondering whether the adulation had gone too far.

In the video, Nixon -- who at that stage was yet to fall out of favour with the paper -- sat at her desk, in full regalia. Staring down the barrel in mock Crime Stoppers mode she said this: "We've found him, we have found the Mr Big of Melbourne."

That nervous tittering that ensued was surely the high water mark in Blunden's claim to the city. For the previous decade Blunden, a News lifer since his days as a cadet in mid-1970s, demanded loyalty from friends and making life uncomfortable for his enemies. Each morning 1 million sets of eyeballs admired his handiwork. His stories were then followed up on morning radio, and often, as the lead story on the 6pm news.

But nine months later he was out on a limb, "promoted" to deputy managing director at HWT to make way for his nemesis Bruce Guthrie, plucked from The Weekend Australian Magazine in Sydney as his replacement as the new editor-in-chief.

Blunden, who ironically recommended Guthrie's appointment, was left counting beans while his paper forged a new path. The eventual outcome, Guthrie's unfair dismissal, was entirely predictable. As Guthrie explained coyly in court: "I was worried that he was struggling to accept the editorial-commercial divide."

Now, nearly five years later, with Guthrie gone and three loyalists in Phil Gardner, Simon Pristel and Damon Johnston back under his wing, has Mr Big once again jammed his flag into the city's summit?

Legendary former Herald Sun business, Sunday Age, and Australian editor Malcolm Schmidtke, who until 18 months ago worked under Blunden, doesn't necessarily think so.

"He was the Herald Sun when he was the editor-in-chief, but he isn't the editor-in-chief now," he says. "He's still powerful, he's the managing director of Melbourne's biggest media organisation. But he doesn't have that naked power he once had ... Pristel especially is pretty much his own guy."

Still, Schmidtke agrees that his influence "was more direct after Guthrie left, for sure".

For someone so apparently fearsome, Blunden turns out to be a thoroughly genial interview subject. He alludes to the frustration when Guthrie took over, when he was effectively banned from the news desk.

"There was a time when there was some expectation that somehow I would sit in a corner and not be seen or heard from again and I'm afraid that's not my style and not the way I work," he tells The Power Index. "I'd like to think that I could actually offer something to editors and assist them on the way and support them rather than just hide in the corner and watch it all happen."

Guthrie, he says, is "ancient history".

The Hun, which last year celebrated its 21st birthday, remains influential, especially through its related website. Its market penetration is world beating. But rather than acting as the unaccountable and intimidatory overlord bemoaned by critics, Blunden says its power is drawn from its deep resonance with readers.

"I think it has a lot of influence. The Herald Sun's role is to act as an advocate, it can get up people's noses by doing that and that's part of the role," he says. But it has to represent its readers in the best way it can. It identifies issues that are relevant, interesting and important to its readership and brings that to the wider community."

But isn't the paper itself a player, helping to define what passes for the public interest? "I don't think you're ever too much of a player when there's an important issue."

It's a theme taken up by storied newspaperman-turned-author Les Carlyon and media buyer Harold Mitchell, who both say Blunden, like 3AW host Neil Mitchell, has a unique knack for taking Melbourne's temperature.

Still, for those on the receiving end of its wrath -- a lenient judge, an ailing police chief, a Greens politician -- the damage can be permanent.

"Peter still punishes people," says another former News editor. "You know that if you don't play ball with Blunden you're going to pay the price. In his world you're either a mate or a c-nt. And you can go from one to another pretty quickly and you can't go back the other way.

"News Limited is a company of half-back flankers, these little nuggety blokes with Hartigan as the old coach saying 'go and take him out', 'go and knock his head off', 'this bloke can't last past the first quarter' ... they're a strange company of bash artists".

When asked if there's anyone in Melbourne who won't return his calls, Blunden laughs and replies: "I guess not ... but I think it works both ways, I don't think I've ever been a person who's not returned a call. People take my calls just as much as I take theirs."

*Read the full profile at The Power Index

This story is just a taste of what Crikey subscribers will have access to on The Power Index.

Learn more about it from Paul Barry here.

Today’s cartoon is from January 17, 2008 and is titled "Four and a half thousand Kilometres or so Southwest of Fremantle":

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Which bank is shaking things up? What's up at Westpac? We'd heard major organisational structure changes were due to be announced today. Investors weren't aware of anything as we hit deadline and the bank's corporate spinner wasn't returning our calls. But our source insists the announcement could be big. Stay tuned ...

West Wing-style departmental meetings. "Which government department," asks our friend @CanberraInsider, "has staffers on the hop by promoting 'walking meetings' during the work day?" Look for the fittest bureaucrats around Canberra.

What's a police force without guns? Victorian Police have launched a recruitment drive to find some 2700 more sworn officers and 900-odd recruits to man train stations under a Ted Baillieu election promise. But is there enough equipment to go around, asks one barracks insider? "Seems there may not be enough guns, cars, space in stations or training for all the recruits. Concern over how this may play out in the field is being raised."

Plastic delays Melbourne trains. Still in the southern state, Melbourne trains operator Metro is blaming a spate of staff sickies for cancelling some 50 services yesterday. But driver illness had nothing to do with cancellations and delays on the Hurstbridge and Epping train lines yesterday morning, according to an insider: "Someone forgot to replace a small piece of protective plastic on the underside of a carriage, which led to dirt getting into the brakes and a broken-down train."

Cruise liner can't transmit, obviously. A Crikey reader poking around the website of Costa Cruises -- the company that owns the stricken Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy -- and found the company had yet to update the page detailing information on the ship ...

Suspended, indeed. The page now redirects to one offering various apologies from the company. Our reader also notes a local angle: the company now charged with salvaging the vessel, Dutch maritime services provider Royal Boskalis Westminster, was responsible for the dredging of Port Phillip Bay completed in 2009.

Do you know more? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here.

Yesterday Golden Globe nominees nervously anticipated a fresh spray of jibes from host Ricky Gervais, who returned as ceremony host. Among his targets this year: Justin Bieber, James Cameron and Kim Kardashian.

View our Video of the Day gallery

Anna Bligh is expected to take Queensland back to the polls within days, clinging to power in the face of a resurgent Liberal-National Party under Campbell Newman. In the final of a series of reports from Larvatus Prodeo, we look at the expected campaigns ...

One of the threshold assumptions in elections in a single member constituency Westminster system is that each major party is in it to win. But how true is this when defeat looks inevitable for one, and victory certain for the other? A good example of such a scenario is last year’s New South Wales state election. The ALP, surely, was aiming to save as much "furniture" as possible, not to pull off a massively unlikely victory. Yet, psychologically, that’s a bad place for a campaign to be in.

This year’s Queensland election, now most widely tipped to be called next Monday for February 25 or March 3, is still, in the opinion of most pundits, and no doubt in the mind of the Liberal National Party, likely to be similar in outcome to NSW, if perhaps not of quite the same dimensions. A good example of such thinking is Peter Brent’s latest Mumble blog at The Australian, where for reasons not clear to me, he seems to assume a 10% nearly uniform swing to the LNP (the last Newspoll had the prospective swing somewhat lower).

Yet, as both I and William Bowe have been arguing, there is a good case for thinking that an LNP landslide is not necessarily the most likely outcome of this campaign (though it certainly is a likely outcome, and an ALP majority government the least likely).

Bowe gives a range of cogent arguments. I’d supplement his take by drawing out the uniqueness of the situation where Campbell Newman leads the LNP, is not opposition leader in nor holds a seat in the Legislative Assembly, and claims he must win Ashgrove to become premier.

Under these extremely unusual circumstances, it makes sense for the ALP to aim at two objectives, to win Ashgrove or run Newman close, and to minimise the scale of its statewide defeat. For instance, if Labor were to contain its losses to 15 seats, it would be a very good performance indeed. So, too, would be holding seats such as Brisbane Central, Everton and Greenslopes, where the sitting MPs are potential future leaders (as is member for Ashgrove Kate Jones, for that matter).

Parties fear a near wipeout of NSW dimensions (or Peter Brent’s scenario) not just because it makes it incredibly difficult to be competitive in the next election, but also because its effects on the composition of the caucus are so dire. Some sitting MPs who are not or are no longer ministerial material retain their seats against the tide, a leader has to be picked from a small pool, and promising up-and-coming MPs and ministers go down to defeat. So the future of a party needs to factor into its calculations about which baskets it puts its campaign eggs into.

So, in a way, if it aims to minimise its defeat and does so intelligently, the ALP is most rational in throwing an enormous effort into Ashgrove. Ignore the increasingly ubiquitous robo-polls. If there’s a credible Galaxy or Newspoll during the campaign showing that Newman is in real doubt in Ashgrove, then the entire election dynamic shifts.

If, for example, he is in the low 40s and Jones approaching 40, it could be reasonably assumed that given the effects of optional preferential voting and the huge field of candidates (with One Nation being the latest hat thrown into the ring), Jones would be favoured to have a good chance of re-election.

That event would then give flesh to claims that Newman is a stalking horse for parliamentary leader Jeff Seeney, or indeed former leader Lawrence Springborg or the ambitious shadow treasurer Tim Nicholls. If this were to transpire, then the sole issue of the campaign, particularly when the LNP is running a small target strategy, would be its leadership.

And the ALP has improved its vote markedly when LNP disunity has come to dominate campaigns in the past.

The LNP should be worried -- now -- that there’s talk around of Newman having a fallback strategy of forcing a byelection somewhere if his party wins, but he loses.

Similarly, and again because the "Can Do" strategy is negative and predicated on a large win, the issues agenda has the potential to spin out of its control. On coal seam gas, for instance, the ALP will run on its contribution to jobs, the Premier’s plan to put half the proceeds of royalties into an education fund, and the government’s claims that its regulatory framework is appropriate. The Greens and Bob Katter will both be highlighting the dangers of CSG exploitation. Newman faces a difficult task in fudging this one, because much of his base effectively agrees with the Greens and Katter. If this issue eats up a week of the campaign, then things may get very interesting indeed.

Queensland elections are always subject to quite different trends in distinct regions, across a state with the most dispersed population and a huge geographical extent. Had John-Paul Langbroek remained leader, he’d have been able to take his own safe seat for granted and to maximise his campaign presence where needed, but Newman faces the real risk of being pinned down in Ashgrove. If he is pushed somewhat closer to the issues agenda in inner Brisbane and further away from the issues of, say, Cloncurry, then the LNP’s ability to sing from the same song sheet in Mitchelton and Mt Isa will be diminished.

How locals in Ashgrove will react to an almost unimaginable frenzy of campaigning and their local LNP candidate being followed everywhere by a media pack (and probably tripping over Kevin Rudd campaigning for Kate Jones) is also quite the factor. Ashgrove will no doubt break every record for dollars spent per voter in an Australian seat.

So the most salient question in Queensland this year might not be who will win the election, but what effect the perception of who is winning in Ashgrove will have on the election in the rest of the state.

It will be fascinating.

*This article was originally published at Larvatus Prodeo

An Australian activist is fighting an attempt by Boston authorities to subpoena information about her from Twitter in relation to the #occupy movement.

Asher Wolf, a transparency and information activist, is based in Melbourne and over the past 18 months has quietly become one of the key people on Twitter for following news about transparency issues, WikiLeaks, net surveillance and the Occupy movement, via her extensive and systematic retweeting of information from around the world.

Just before Christmas, she learnt that the Boston District Attorney Benjamin A. Goldberger had contacted Twitter and demanded user information about "Guido Fawkes, @p0isonANon, @occupyBoston, #BostonPD, #d0xcak3" in what is called an administrative subpoena, commonly issued by law enforcement agencies to holders of information such as telecommunications companies.

The subpoena itself is bizarre and quickly became an internet laughing stock, as it got the #occupy account for Boston wrong (it’s @occupy_Boston, inter alia), it spelt @DoxCak3 wrongly, and purported to subpoena information about any account that used the hashtags #BostonPD and #d0xcak3. ("Guido Fawkes" isn’t a reference to the British blogger but the pseudonym of the holder of the account @p0isonANon i.e. it’s redundant).

But in trying to subpoena a hashtag, the Boston DA, one Benjamin A. Goldberger, either through a lack of understanding of social media, or as part of an extraordinary international fishing expedition, has sought information about anyone who used the hashtags in a tweet during the dates identified in the subpoena.

Goldberger also demanded that Twitter keep the subpoena secret, a request rejected by the company in the absence of any legal basis for it. Twitter last year defeated an attempt by the Department of Justice to keep secret a judicial order demanding information on users associated with WikiLeaks.

Australian lawyers Doogue & O’Brien, acting for Wolf and another, have told Goldberger and Twitter that they will resist the subpoena, given its broad scope and the "fishing expedition" nature of the request. "The ultimate effect of your subpoena is to pose a direct challenge to our client’s right to free speech. This is particularly concerning in light of the fact that one of our clients is a journalist who uses Twitter, amongst other media, to report on current affairs. Twitter encourages the free flow of information and reportage. The course which you have taken will inevitably stifle this important function."

How much standing Twitter's Australian users have is unclear. The user @p0isonANon, with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, is currently seeking to overturn the subpoena in the Massachusetts courts. But the subpoena is directed to Twitter, and it is up to the company, which is registered in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, to determine its compliance. Lawyer Bill Doogue says the current goal is to get more information, particularly about the criminal investigation the subpoena says is currently under way. "The simple step of subpoenaing a hashtag captures people doing nothing wrong or potentially wrong -- so why should their details be made available?" Doogue says, "But the essence is that Twitter shouldn’t be logging details like IP addresses."

WikiLeaks recently launched a campaign to encourage Twitter, considered the most liberal-minded major social media company for its efforts to fight the Department of Justice, to end logging of real-time user information such as IP addresses. "In a progressive company concerned with protecting privacy and security of user data -- the defacto position should be no data retention," says Wolf.

The broader issue here is how governments (and the corporations they frequently act at the behest of) are seeking to respond to the borderless nature not so much of the internet itself as of internet communities. The issue takes a number of forms: the UK legal industry maintains it has a form of extraterritorial jurisdiction, and has so aggressively asserted its right to silence people via internet-related libel cases that US lawmakers have responded. But at the same time, the United States assumes an almost unlimited extraterritoriality in the application of its laws, both generally and specifically on online issues -- the NDAA signed by Obama recently arrogates to the US military the power to abduct and indefinitely detain anyone considered to be linked to the War on Terror; British student Richard O’Dwyer is to be extradited under anti-terror legislation to face a decade in jail in the US merely for building a website that linked to filesharing sites.

However, when the world’s biggest social media companies are based in the US, governments there need no extraterritoriality, leaving users in any country using sites like Facebook and Twitter, or services like Google, liable to monitoring by the US government or state agencies via US law.

As Wolf points out, geographic segmentation is currently a standard feature of internet commerce, which means that in effect non-US internet users get the worst of both worlds when it comes to the borderless internet: they are subject to US monitoring of social media networks but often can't access the full benefits of US internet commerce. "If Amazon and iTunes can segment their markets for restrictive purposes," Wolf says, "then why not Twitter, to meet legal requirements enacted by countries demanding privacy protection for their citizens?

"If the Australian government wanted to protect its citizens it could legislate to protect data owned or generated by Australian citizens -- by enacting strict laws against data retention," she says. "For instance, the government could legislate companies wishing to do business with Australian citizens must delete data and  traffic logs after a period of no more than three months after Australian citizens deleting their personal material. Australia should also place pressure on fellow common law countries to bring in similar legislation."

The only real solution is social media networks outside the jurisdiction of nation-states. WikiLeaks is currently establishing its own social network, Friends of WikiLeaks, and Anonymous has established AnonPlus; there have also been anonymous microblogging sites such as Youmitter established, but their lack of critical mass is a key impediment, as is resilience in the face of surges in traffic, and they remain vulnerable, to the extent that it's enforceable, to authorities claiming to exercise jurisdiction over whatever servers are used to host the networks.

Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here.

“It’s a girl!”— could be a death sentence. Stop telling women the s-x of their coming child until after 30 weeks of pregnancy is the call this week by the editorial in the Canadian Medical Journal. The aim of the change is to stop female feticide which is happening in North America in numbers large enough to distort the male to female ratio in some ethnic groups.

The editorial asks:

"Should female feticide in Canada be ignored because it is a small problem localized to minority ethnic groups? No. Small numbers cannot be ignored when the issue is about discrimination against women in its most extreme form. This evil devalues women. How can it be curbed? The solution is to postpone the disclosure of medically irrelevant information to women until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy.

A pregnant woman being told the s-x of the fetus at ultrasonography at a time when an unquestioned abortion is possible is the starting point of female feticide from a health care perspective. A woman has the right to medical information about herself that is available to a health care professional to provide advice and treatment.

The s-x of the fetus is medically irrelevant information (except when managing rare s-x-linked illnesses) and does not affect care. Moreover, such information could in some instances facilitate female feticide.

Therefore, doctors should be allowed to disclose this information only after about 30 weeks of pregnancy -- in other words, when an unquestioned abortion is all but impossible."

The editorial argues that research in Canada has found the strongest evidence of s-x selection at higher parities if previous children were girls among Asians -- that is people from India, China, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines. What this means is that many couples who have two daughters and no son selectively get rid of female fetuses until they can ensure that their third born child is a boy.

These researchers have also documented male-biased s-x ratios among US-born children of Asian parents in the 2000 US census.

Owning a race horse used to be fun. At a time when politicians of all persuasions regularly talk about the need to cut red tape for small business people everywhere, how typical to find that from the end of this month there will be new forms to fill in if you want to avoid the risk of someone else legally grabbing your horse.

The culprit is the Commonwealth Government legislation that goes under the title The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 that will be supported by a single national online register of personal property security interests called the PPS Register whereby the ownership of assets such as racehorses can be recorded.

In a note to racehorse owners the industry's own Registrar of Racehorses advises that by making a registration on the PPS Registry the ownership of the horse is protected.

If you don't register your interest on the PPSA register whilst your horse is in someone else's care, a third party could register an interest over the horse and gain possession of it should the lessee or the carer strike financial trouble.

And don't think that this new layer of bureaucracy gets rid of the necessity of dealing with the Registrar of Racehorses.

For the purposes of integrity and administration of racing it will still be a requirement under the Australian Rules of Racing to register the name of the racehorse and ownership with the Registrar of Racehorses (RISA) and register syndicates, leases and transfers of ownership with the Deputy Registrar (Principal Racing Authority).

I couldn't agree more with my old punting mate and bloodstock agent John Brown who sent me the details of this absurdity: Who put the fun police in charge of racing? How can they allow this sort of big brother thing to go on?

A chart worth a thousand words. I don't know about you but I have trouble grasping the real significance every time our Treasurer talks about the benefit of having Asian countries as our growing trading partners.

This chart from The Economist website helped me understand what Wayne means and just how lucky we are compared with Europeans.

Interest rates to fall again? The Crikey Interest Rate Indicator reckons there are about two chances in three of of the Reserve Bank cutting rates again when it meets for the first time in 2012.

Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here.

As even keen observers of the Arab Spring will have noticed, the most important and powerful institution in Egypt is undoubtedly the military, headed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. They have always been at the centre of the story. From February 11 the story was how their support was decisive in helping the revolution topple Hosni Mubarak and his immediate circle. The story now is how their opposition has since been decisive in stopping it there.

Almost a year after the revolution began, key demands such as the end of the emergency law, freedom of the press, and a raising of the minimum wage, remain unmet. What's more, the army's repeated and increasingly deadly attacks on protesters and its insistence on holding political prisoners, have left it, in the eyes of a growing number of Egyptians and international observers, as no more moral or less brutal than Mubarak. Indeed the army's plummet from unassailable popularity to widespread disrepute in the space of just one year has been a demonstration of political ineptitude for which no comparison immediately jumps to mind.

It is possible that the 19 generals running the country did initially harbour ambitions of ruling unrivalled, following the ouster of Mubarak. Along with the president (himself once a military man) had gone the civilian cabal that had sprung up around his son. This network had begun to threaten their ultimate grip on internal power and their role as interlocutors and gatekeepers when dealing with outside powers.

With these competitors removed, and the cheers of the people ringing in their ears, it might have seemed possible then for them to re-create the situation immediately following the 1952 "free officers revolution" (in reality a military coup, if one that garnered general tacit support) when the military institution had direct and unalloyed control. The Egypt of 2011, it turned out, was not the Egypt of 1952, and they had not a Gamal Abdel Nasser among them. It seems clear by now that, perhaps even aware on some level of their own incompetence, they are adjusting to the idea of sharing the reins of power.

In the final months of last year, a source with good insight into the Egyptian military said that from the army's point of view "the revolution is over" and that politics now is centred on cutting a power sharing deal between "the Muslim brotherhood, the military and the United States". We can speculate, based on the priorities we know each of these institutions has, what such a power deal would look like. America would retain a decisive voice on foreign policy, thereby preventing Egypt from taking its natural role as  leader of the Arab world -- a move that would threaten America's control over the region's oil supplies and Israel's ability to act without regional consequences.

This submission would be bought with continued generous aid to the military ($1.3 billion per year since 1987). The military, while acting as America's guarantor, would retain control of the economy, in which, it as an institution, and its higher ranks as individuals, have substantial interests. It would also retain a decisive power in issues of law and order, security, as well as the ability to intervene in the public sphere when it felt its interests were at stake. The brotherhood -- through their political wing the Freedom and Justice Party, would hold sway on issues of social policy, betting on their their position as a compromise between the hard-line Islamists of the Salafist movement, and the Western-styled seculars to maintain popular support.

Complicating this plan is the question of each institution's internal cohesion; the Muslim Brotherhood's youth wing has shown signs of unrest, the army has seen a slow trickle of politically motivated desertions, and moves have been made in Congress to tie US aid to democratisation.

Leaving this question aside, there is no certainty that the pact between these parties would be stable. Down this road could await a scenario such as the deadly vortex of Pakistan, where Islamists, the military and the US embassy are also the main players.

Leaving both these questions aside, the plan still does not look a winner, as it leaves out the reclaimed agency of the Egyptian people.  Indeed less than a week after this smug assessment was transmitted, the streets around Tahrir were full again, after an attack on peaceful protesters triggered another massive response.

It is important not to simplify the revolution to the removal of Mubarak, followed by election results delivering an "Islamist majority", as if the only or most pressing issues facing Egypt were the name of the president, the headscarf and alcohol. The people of Egypt have demanded and expect a fundamental shift in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and substantial improvement to their material well-being.  Identity politics will not be enough to distract them from the multiple crises that currently beset them. If the brotherhood cannot deliver on these expectations, their support could collapse in much the same manner as the military's already has.

This means that in the longer term, whatever promises are made behind closed doors, the institutional imperatives of the military and the parliament will inevitably collide. This will be doubly the case regarding the president, when one is elected. A likely flashpoint is the military budget, which at present is completely free from civilian oversight, but there are many other points of possible friction. If the brotherhood is seen as shying from a fight at the expense of the Egyptian people, they will pay dearly for it. This might mean a collapse in their support before the next election, or things could happen faster than that -- with the politics of the street and the workplace overtaking formal structures of government, setting the agenda and forcing them to respond.

This could happen even before the parliament sits. The coming Jan 25 anniversary may well mark the beginning of a phase like this. The SCAF's plans to hold a formal ceremony in Tahrir Square -- where soldiers under their command have, beaten, arrested and killed demonstrators -- celebrating the revolution, and their role in it could be a recipe for confrontation. If this day passes without incident, it is only one of the next 365, any one of which could see a tipping point, where the collective demand of a long suffering people for "bread, freedom and social justice" once more asserts itself as the driving force of a long history that is far from over.

Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here.

There has been a flurry of opinion and outrage on Twitter and some websites as Australian blogger Jennifer Wilson claimed on the weekend that she was being threatened with legal action by anti-p-rn campaigner Melinda Tankard Reist. Wilson’s post infers that Tankard Reist is threatening action because of a post that revealed her attendance at a Baptist Church, while it’s been reported in The Age that Tankard Reist "says it’s not being called Christian she objects to, but the claim that she is 'deceptive and duplicitous about her religious beliefs'".

To comment on this article and for more toxic ink visit Crikey blog Pure Poison

Famous? Love pav? Be more famous! Are you a celebrity? Do you like pavlova? Some poor sap of a journalist wants to talk to you, according to SourceBottle's latest making-journalists-look-bad missive:

"We're looking for celebrities with a sweet tooth and a love for the Great Aussie Pav! If you're willing to comment for an artcile called The Great Pavlova Wars , discussing which country REALLY created the pavlova, or just love pavlova we'd love to hear from you. Pavlova samples also available upon request."

We're guessing the level of "celebrity" starts at D-list and below. Sadly, the journo isn't offering payment for participation.

Front page of the day. Yesterday, 83 years ago, Martin Luther King jnr was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the city in which King was assinated in 1968, paid homage to one of the United States' greatest heroes ...

The Department of Corrections. The NT News apologised today for running a front-page story yesterday about a stripper -- who wasn't actually a stripper ...

Jenny Craig cancels Kyle & Jackie O ads

"Weight loss brand Jenny Craig has pulled its sponsorship of the Kyle & Jackie O Show after just one day, admitting that it 'badly misjudged public perception of Kyle Sandilands'." -- mUmBRELLA

Google calls Murdoch's piracy allegations 'nonsense'

"News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is talking nonsense, according to Google. Murdoch, a Twitter user for only the past several weeks, used the service to fire a barrage of accusations Saturday night against President Obama and Google." -- CNET

AP opens first full news bureau in North Korea

"The Associated Press opened its newest bureau here Monday, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures and video." -- The Washington Post

Unable to offer cash, Pirate Bay wants to make you famous

"Latching on to the headline-making political controversy surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) the Pirate Bay is starting a new initiative -- get this -- to help the people the bill is supposedly trying to protect." -- The Atlantic Wire

Murdoch rant claims are untrue, says Gordon Brown

"Gordon Brown has made a dramatic intervention in the Leveson inquiry into press ethics, categorically denying he had phoned Rupert Murdoch threatening to "destroy" him after the Sun switched allegiance from the Labour party to the Conservatives in 2009." -- The Guardian

The Winners: Seven's evening tennis session from 7pm to about 10.30pm averaged 757,000 viewers. For the late session, 420,000 tuned in and 492,000 viewers watched the day session, which started at 11am and ended at 6pm.

1. Seven News (6pm) -- 1.238 million
2. Nine News (6pm) --- 1.045 million
3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) -- 1.033 million
4. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (7.30pm) -- 1.022 million

The Losers: The Glades on Ten at 9.30pm, 364,000.

News & CA: Seven News beat Nine News in Sydney and Melbourne, thanks to the tennis finishing just before 6pm. Seven also won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Today Tonight also won Sydney and Melbourne. A Current Affair won Brisbane, TT won Adelaide and Perth.

1. Seven News (6pm) -- 1.238 million
2. Nine News (6pm) --- 1.045 million
3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) -- 1.033 million
4. ABC News (7pm) -- 948,000
5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) -- 908,000
6. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) -- 722,000 (+47,000 on News 24 simulcast)
7. Ten News (Ten) (5pm) -- 669,000
8. Ten News (6pm) -- 405,000
9. SBS News (6.30pm) -- 219,000
10. ABC News (10.20pm) --215,000
11. The Drum (ABC) (6pm) -- 118,000
12. SBS News (10.30pm) -- 67,000

In the morning:

1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) -- 356,000
2. Today (Nine) (7am) -- 319,000

The Stats:

• FTA: Seven (3 channels) beat Nine (3), 28.8% to 28.6%, with Ten (3) on 21.1%, the ABC (4) was on 15.7% and SBS (2) ended on 5.8%. Seven is a narrow leader for the week, 27.9% to Nine's 27.7%.
• Main Channel: Seven won even more narrowly, 20.4% to Nine's 20.3%. Ten was on 12.0%, ABC 1 was on 11.1% and SBS ONE ended with 4.3%. Seven leads the week with 20.0% from Nine on 18.3%. ABC 1 was on 12.7% and Ten is on 12.1%.
• Digital: 7TWO won with 5.2%, from GO on 5.0%, ONE was on 4.9%, Eleven on 4.2%, Gem was on 3.4%, 7mate was on 3.1%, ABC 2 ended with 2.6%, SBS TWO was on 1.5% and News 24 and ABC 3 ended with 1.0% each. That's an FTA viewing share last night of a high 32.0%. GO leads the week with 4.7% from 7TWO on 4.7% and Eleven on 4.6%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) beat Nine (3), 22.9% to 22.8%, with pay TV (200-plus channels) on 18.0%, Ten (3) on 16.8%, the ABC (4) was on 2.5% and SBS (2) ended on 4.6%. The 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 82.0. The 10 digital channels had a share of 25.3% with the five main channels on 56.7%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

1. Fox 8 -- 6.78%
2. TV 1 -- 2.27%
3. Disney -- 2.08%
4. Nickelodeon -- 1.84%
5. Lifestyle You -- 1.77%

The top five pay TV programs were:

1. 69th Annual Golden Globes (replay) (Fox 8) (7.38pm) -- 136,500
2. 69th Annual Golden Globes (live) (Fox 8) -- 125,500
3. Wife Swap Australia (LifeStyle YOU) -- 108,400
4. 69th Annual Golden Globes (live) (Fox 8) -- 74,300
5. Inside Cricket (Fox Sports 3) -- 71,300

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 32.0% from WIN/NBN (3) on 29.7%, SC Ten (3) was on 18.6%, the ABC (4) was in 14.0% and SBS (2) ended with 5.6%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with a share of 21.7% (thanks to the tennis), from WIN/NBN on 20.9%. 7TWO won the digitals with a share of 6.6%, from GO on 5.4% and ONE on 4.3%. The 10 digital channels had a total share of 32.5% in prime time last night. Prime/7Qld on 30.2% leads the week from WIN/NBN on 29.3%.

Major Markets: Seven won Melbourne and Adelaide overall and in the main channels. Nine won Sydney, Brisbane and Perth overall and the main channels. GO won Sydney, ONE won Brisbane and Perth. 7TWO won Melbourne and Adelaide. Nine leads in Sydney and Brisbane. Seven leads in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer's comments: Seven got home narrowly on the raw data because of a very solid win in Melbourne, where support for the tennis was strongest. Nine did well with a collection of repeats from 7-9.30pm.

Tonight: More tennis on Seven from seven o'clock. Nigella Kitchen on the ABC at eight o'clock (what a shock). Nine and Ten have various repeats, again.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports.

Read more from the world of TV on Dan Barrett's blog White Noise

Money might not bring happiness, but it does allow you to make problems go away. This is why many would have thought it strange that the Pratt family was so determined to go to court to end attempts by one mistress of the late Richard Pratt to claim $10 million from his estate.

Madison Ashton, a former escort who was one of Pratt’s mistresses, claimed the late billionaire had in effect breached a contract he had established with her. Ashton said that in return for giving up her work as an escort, Pratt promised to provide her with a $500,000-a-year allowance, $36,000 for rent, $30,000 for travel expenses, a $100,000 car and two trust funds worth $2.5 million for each of her children.

Despite the fact Ashton accepted a $50,000 settlement in November 2005 in return for dropping all claims against Pratt, she pushed on seeking $10 million.

During a week-long trial last year, the NSW Supreme Court heard stories about three-in-a-bed romps, trained assassins working as bodyguards, slush funds, drugs and a bitter feud between Ashton and another Pratt mistress, Shari-Lea Hitchcock.

Given the Pratt family is worth $5 billion, would $10 million have been a small price to pay not to have all that dirty linen aired?

The Pratts have never said much about the case, but it is clear that they have been trying to deal with various claims by Ashton for more than six years. Ending the claims definitively in court clearly had some appeal.

In addition, it’s also worth noting that the Pratt estate faces another claim by Shari-Lea Hitchcock. Perhaps there was an element of using the Ashton case to send a message to current or future claimants who seek large sums.

If that was the idea, then the message was loud and clear.

Justice Paul Brereton ruled that Ashton and Pratt "did not intend to enter into binding and enforceable legal relations":

"Ms Ashton's claims are not maintainable, because they were the subject of an accord and satisfaction in February 2005, when she accepted $100,000 in full and final satisfaction of all her claims against Mr Pratt; and they were again released in November 2005."

Ashton has also been ordered to pay the Pratt's costs.

It’s a win for the family. An ugly win perhaps given the claims made in court, but you feel a point has been made.

*This article was originally published at Smart Company

Qantas took a lot of flak from financial analysts over its faltering Asia initiatives last week, making this week’s aggressive business travel initiatives by Virgin Australia and a left-of-field grab for its shrinking UK and Europe market from China Southern even more stressful for a brand that can be seen as having lost its way.

At home, Virgin Australia confirmed what is only the first substantial addition of wide-bodied A330 capacity to key interstate markets that it will make in the nearer term.

By mid-May there will be daily double Virgin Australia A330-200s between Melbourne and Perth, and an initial morning peak-hour rotation of the large Airbus between Melbourne and Sydney.

Less widely known is the ambush the Virgins will spring on the Canberra routes next month, with a new business-class on all of the Embraer E-jet services to the national capital, as well as to Hobart, which Qantas neglects in favour of Jetstar, and on important Adelaide and Perth routes among others.

This is not a matter of gratuitous Qantas bashing but a simple matter of geometry and cabin amenity.  The Qantas domestic configured A330s and aged 767s are, in terms of space and style, inferior in internal specs to the Virgin jets, whether up front or in the main cabins.

The head scratcher for Qantas observers, and quite a few insiders, is why Qantas allowed this to happen, since it knows anything material that is decided within Virgin Australia faster than most of those working for it.

The not-so-funny joke within Virgin Australia and before it  Virgin Blue, was that Qantas knew more about how its challenger was tracking than it did, because it invested more in the analysis of its operations than Brett Godfrey or Richard Branson could afford.

Yet the result is Qantas conceding a superior configuration for business travellers that it has taken no steps to counter,  and in Canberra,  the use by Virgin Australia of a truly spacious small jet with no middle seats that makes Qantaslink turbo-props seem like riding hard class.

Maybe Qantas kept believing the hype about the 787 Dreamliner, which turns out to be late and heavy and for some of the purposes it originally had in mind for it, close to useless.

Compared to the very young fleet of jets flown by Virgin Australia, through a policy of churning leases, Qantas is burdened with aged 747s and 767s that drag back the gains it has made with A380s, A330s, and some recently delivered and much improved 737-800s.

Most of the emphasis in Qantas in recent years has been on the development of the Jetstar low-cost franchise, a product that Qantas full service customers despise, giving ex-Qantas executive GM John Borghetti rich pickings in his new role as CEO of Virgin Australia.

On Sunday night, at the Sydney Festival for which it has become a major sponsor, China Southern’s ruling cadre, in the form of  president and CEO Tan Wangeng and  executive vice-president He Zongkai rocked up to declare open season on what’s left of the Qantas kangaroo route services to London and Europe, declaring that a "Canton route" would provide additional frequent capacity to London, Amsterdam and Paris, via their shiny modern airport at Guangzhou, which they intend to make even larger than Singapore, Bangkok and Dubai.

It is China Southern’s policy to eclipse the size of today’s stake in the Australian international market held by Emirates by the end of 2015, an ambition that is already provided for in the Australia-China air traffic agreement and the mind-boggling consequences for air travel demand of 1.2 billion people making a new long march to their place in the sun in the Asian century.

This comes amid persistent rumours that Qantas will quit its services to Frankfurt, its last destination in Europe, following its decision last year to slash London flights in half in order to invest in a single-aisle carrier somewhere in Asia that would make so much money that it in five years it could start reinvesting in the long-haul Qantas brand CEO Alan Joyce says the airline can no longer afford to support.

The obvious logical disconnections in this policy have recently started to alarm finance sector analysts, especially as there is no sign of such an airline in that form taking shape, and the shareholders are in their third year without dividends and wearing a pathetic share price.

It is all converging on Qantas. Unhappy shareholders, unhappy customers, shrinking services, and sharp competitors, at home and abroad, who are making much smarter moves in terms of fleet, product and network without resorting to hiring a lingerie model to lift (!) brand perceptions.

Visit Crikey's aviation blog Plane Talking with Ben Sandilands

The market is up 46. The SFE Futures were up 9this morning.

US Market were CLOSED overnight for the Martin Luther King Holiday. A French bond auction went better than expected -- suggesting the country's debt downgrade had had little market impact. Greek officials are due to meet with the IMF to try to break a deadlock in debt swap talks which has caused talk of a default and Nicolas Sarkozy said France losing its triple-A credit rating with Standard & Poor's would not change the country’s plans for reform and budget reduction. Metals were mostly up on the LME, the oil price put on 99c to $99.69 and the Gold price increased $12.70 to $1643.50. The Aussie dollar put on 103.11c from 102.92c.

Main points

• Paladin Energy (PDN) up 10.5% to 169c after announcing record quarterly production figures. They have reiterated their FY production targets. Production totaled 1.82m pounds in the Dec Q, up 47% from 1.24m pounds in the Sept Q. Patersons maintain their Buy recommendation and 237c target price.
• African Iron’s (AKI) major shareholder Cape Lambert Resources (CFE) has formally accepted Exxaro’s $338m takeover offer. Exxaro offered up to $338m for African Iron, or 57¢ per share if they get 75% acceptances. AKI unchanged at 56c.
• Ausenco (AAX) has acquired North American oil sands specialist Reaction Consulting. Ausenco CEO Zimi Meka said the acquisition would enhance Ausenco’s energy portfolio expertise and provide an immediate strategic local Calgary presence pivotal to North America’s growing oil sands market. AAX up 4.2% to 276c.
• Boom Logistics (BOL) says it has been nominated as the successful bidder for a five-year contract to supply crane services to BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam operations. Patersons has a Buy recommendation on the stock with a 38c target price. BOL up 10.6% to 26c.
• Grange Resources (GRR) -- Quarterly Results -- Grange said they have improved cash, term deposits and trade receivables position of $226.7m and have no net debt at the end of the quarter. They say their Southdown project is on schedule and under budget. GRR up 1c to 55.5c.
• Fortescue Metals (FMG) up 2.4% to 473c on quarterly production numbers. They shipped 14.8 million metric tons of iron ore during the final three months of last year, up 19% on the last Q.
• RIO -- We are waiting for production numbers later today.
• ABS Lending Finance numbers fell a big 9.6% in November -- feeding talk of a rate cut next month. The chances of a rate cut next month rose from 84% to 97% after the Job Ad numbers yesterday.
• Chinese GDP data is due today with estimates of a fourth straight quarterly slowdown in growth from 9.1% to 8.7%.

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Sydney bashing:

Brad Pace writes: Re. "Melbourne dreams of new airport but Sydney's still stuck in gridlock" (yesterday, item 9). Last week it was a comment about the maturity of Melbourne's business environment over Sydney's, and now we get a comment on the inability to build infrastructure in NSW.

All framed around pie-in-the-sky rubbish around a third airport for Melbourne, which would seem to me to be far less vital than:

1. A train line from the airport that's already in Melbourne, and;
2. A second airport in Sydney that will stop Melbourne visitors from flying around in circles for half an hour every time they visit.

What's with the Sydney bashing? Is this a Michael Clarke thing? Or is everyone just a bit happy with themselves down there because the tennis is on.

The fact is both cities will continue to grow, and a co-ordinated approach is the only way to go forward. Fast train anyone?

The territories don't exist, do they?:

Kim Lockwood writes: Re. "Poll Bludger: double whammy for major parties in Qld" (yesterday, item 1). William Bowe gives Anna Bligh the usual unwarranted accolade when he says hers was "still the only parliamentary majority ever secured by a woman leader in an Australian federal or state election".

Yeah, federal or state. The territories don't exist, do they? If they did, Bowe (and others who try the same sleight of hand) would acknowledge Clare Martin, who took the ALP to a one-seat majority victory in the Northern Territory in 2001, eight years before Bligh won in Queensland. And Martin turfed out the Country Liberal Party, which had been ruling for 27 years.

Taiwan:

Tom Richman writes: Re. "With China watching, Taiwanese vote for pragmatism" (yesterday, item 12). Often overlooked when commenting on Taiwanese elections is the fact that DPP support is not simply based on its stance on independence but, more importantly, because, as a left of centre organisation, it supports, for example, universal health care, workers' rights, government  investment in agriculture, education reform and the cessation of nuclear power … all of which were instituted during its eight years in office.

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