The $2 billion racing industry is too important to be left in the hands of anachronistic racing clubs guided by part-time boards comprising old racing buffs.
Sydney
End of the Great Australian Dream starts in Sydney
Sydney house prices have blown out to such a degree that the Great Australian Dream is fast becoming the Great Australian Fantasy.
Sydney: can’t plan, can’t build, can’t run
Sydney’s paralysis by power failure late yesterday is a reminder of how stuffed the city’s infrastructure is, writes Ben Sandilands.
Journalistic ethics, UTS and the Sydney Writers’ Festival
A nasty fuss has sprung up around the Sydney Writers’ Festival and New South Wales’ leading journalism school, writes Margaret Simons.
Botany Bay’s car park protesters gagged
Sydney’s Rockdale Council will stop at nothing to build a 100-vehicle car park on the foreshores of Botany Bay, writes Alex Mitchell.
Everyone loves Ambulances!
Ambulances are fun!
Setting Sydney’s coast on fire
Energie Future has applied for licences to explore for coal deposits to use in a gasification project that would involve the deposits being set alight to produce gas, writes Bernard Keane.
Sydney’s Metro Line goes down the gurgler
The train standing on platform 1 is the Labor Government special service to electoral oblivion. It will be leaving at the state election in March 2011, writes Alex Mitchell.
Hoges laughs all the way to the bank in ACC payout
Taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill of a multi million dollar payout to Hogan to cover his legal bills, writes Chris Seage.
NSW Planning Minister faces Currawong challenge
The newly-chosen NSW Planning Minister Kristina Keneally is facing the first big test of her ambitious rise in Labor’s hierarchy, writes Alex Mitchell.
Crikey Says: Crikey says
The lesson of Abe Saffron is still relevant today.
Earth Hour: Sydney turns off turning off
So to the Ugh Boot and the stump-jump plough we can now add Earth Hour as one of Australia’s gifts to the world, writes Michael Pascoe.
Media briefs and TV ratings
Crisis talks for Seven News and Today Tonight … Chris Bath gets a glossy publicity push … Last night’s TV ratings.
One engine gone, REX flies on to Sydney
The first acid test of the next Minister for Transport could involve REX and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, writes Ben Sandilands.
Reality check: The hard sell is still to come
The Crikey Reality Check on what people actually read on news web sites has been showing a decline in interest for weeks now and nothing changed this morning. Coverage of the Coalition policy launch barely rated in the lists of the top five most read stories, writes Richard Farmer.
Second casino shows how business is done in NSW
Today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph story that a second casino licence will be issued in NSW “within days” is highly unlikely. It has been planted in the media as part of the intense bargaining that has been conducted for almost three months between the Iemma Government and Victoria’s Tabcorp, owner of Sydney’s Star City Casino, writes Alex Mitchell.
Media briefs and TV ratings
Commercial talkback down as ABC lifts in latest radio figures … Eddie’s millions still not cutting through for Nine … BSkyB makes a typically Murdochian offer over ITV stake … Last night’s TV ratings.
Crikey Cabbie Panel: Can Howard survive another rate rise?
The newspapers are saying another rate rise will be politically disastrous for the PM, but what are the people who really know about these saying? Crikey referred the question to its election Cabbie Panel.
George Pell and racing — the argument gets nasty
Relations between the Catholic Church (and George Pell in particular) and the Sydney racing community have been in freefall for months, but yesterday they sunk to a new low, writes Jeff Wall.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups
World Youth Day … Flint, WorkChoices and myth … Turnbull and the pulp mill … Job Network and single mums … more sustance, less carping in Crikey … Iran and Israel …
Time to end ministers’ defamation protection
We saw an example of the gay abandon with which politicians can defame yesterday when Joe Hockey and Peter Costello disparaged a report by Sydney University academics in to Australian Workplace Agreements.
Introducing the first Northern Territory-based Federal Court judge
In a part of the country where customary law is still strong, payback can involve punishment – but can also carry rewards. Just ask Northern Territory QC, John Reeves. He is currently holidaying on the Greek islands, but tomorrow will be elevated to the Federal Court bench, writes legal commentator Gwen Byrnie.
A media melee over Rodney Adler’s release
Corporate criminal Rodney “Rocket” Adler will be released on parole from St Helier minimum security jail at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley on 10 October. Expect a media melee writes Alex Mitchell.
Condi Combo beats a Sydney Declaration: APEC s-x secrets revealed
Many people and media groups have asked me, “Did Putin or any world leader make a visit? The answer is no. I’m not saying that because of privacy reasons either. However, we did get secret service agents, trade envoys, economic attaches and overseas journalists spending an hour or so in some of our best establishments, writes Chris Seage.
Mungo: APEC’s conga line of flashers
The enduring image of APEC will be the Saturday night footage of 21 heads of government in their colour-coded Drizabones, waving sheepishly with one hand while trying to conceal their unwanted Akubras with the other. It was a picture fraught with embarrassment, and so it should have been, writes Mungo MacCallum.
