Lead Balloon

Two days ago the Remuneration Tribunal floated a proposal for Federal MPS who lose their seats to receive a $15,760 redundancy payout to assist them to "resettle" in the real world (there's either one too many or one too few sets of scare quotes in that sentence). Today the proposal is dead in the water.

One possible loser from the Government's decision not to go ahead with this proposal is the current Member for Wentworth, Peter King. Mr King would have qualified for a payout of $7,880 (47,585.69 El Salvador Colones) if he gets rolled by loses his Liberal Party pre-selection to Malcolm Turnbull. As it is, he may have to settle for taking an unfair dismissal action against the Liberal Party.

Forex Update

The Australian dollar today continued its downward slide against the Dong, now trading at 10,648.52 Dongs to the Dollar. It held its own against the Angolan Kwanza, trading at 54.4666 to the dollar and rose to 4.80087 Lesotho Maloti.

Signage of the Times

I caught a tram into the city today; it was done up with a large advertisement down both sides, the kind that runs up onto the windows, on perforated sheets of plastic. I didn't pay the advertisement any attention till I got off; on a completely white background, in bold-face Helvetica, it said, "You'd notice if we weren't there."

How true. For a start I'd be able to see out the tram windows.

Later, in Swanston Street, I saw a shop that sold freshly squeezed fruit juice; the hoarding touted for business with the words "Fat Free Love Life". I hope they're still around in twenty years or so, when I expect to be looking for some consolation for a fat free old age.