Great news from the world of international commerce now that Australian vaccine company CSL Limited expects to make around $1.7 billion in profit this year immunising people all over the world from the flu and other illnesses and building up its official valuation to just over $84 billion for its troubles.
But why is PS-sssst! so excited?
Because from 1916 to 1994 CSL Limited was the publicly-owned Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), doing much the same thing as it does today but sharing its profits with the taxpayers of Australia.
When the Federal Government privatised CSL in 1994, Treasury received a cool $299 million in cash and the shares were valued at $2.30 each.
But looking back, it doesn’t look as if the taxpayer did very well from the deal.
The price CSL was sold for is an incredibly low 0.36% of its current value while the shares have skyrocketed 98.7% to reach today’s price of $182.95.
In this case ‘privatisation’ means ‘loss’ to the people of Australia and if that’s the best the Government that reigned in 1994 could leave to the generations that followed it, it could have, and should have, done better.
Dead end street
From our file of unfortunate names now comes an absolute killer from the private company in Canberra that runs the city’s airport.
Circulating a notice to pilots and others in the capital’s aviation industry advising that a new, upgraded airport lighting system had been installed, the company’s Manager of Aviation Projects and Infrastructure signed off by expressing the hope of seeing recipients at a special Aviation Safety Night to be held on the airport shortly afterwards.
But the company inadvertently left one tiny piece of information on its circular that had the unintended potential of sending many a flight-scared traveller’s blood pressure through the roof and his or her heart rate off the Richter scale, i.e. the managing officer’s unfortunate address.
Believe it or not, Canberra Airport’s Aviation Projects and Infrastructure section does business on the airport in a street frighteningly named: ‘Terminal Avenue’.
For panicky passengers, that could be the last address they’d ever visit!
Safe as acronyms
A quick visit to the wild world of acronyms now where road safety agencies around the country have turned their attention to ensuring rookie and aspiring motorists have the best chance of surviving in traffic by alerting them to what can go wrong and how to avoid it.
And what better way to do it than by conjuring up a memorable and meaningful acronym to cover a program on road safety targeted at schoolkids and calling it RYDA – Road-safety Youth Driver Awareness!
Well done to all concerned.
Giveaway goes East
To Rama’s weekly giveaway now in which two DVD copies of the complete TV series based on John Steinbeck’s masterpiece East of Eden were up for grabs simply by answering one of Rama’s far-too-easy questions.
To win the chance to win a DVD, all you needed to know was the name of the character characterised as a “psychic monster” in the series, and that was: Cathy Ames.
The two correct entrants plucked from the PS News Barrel of Booty were Susan M from the Commonwealth Department of Social Services and Jenny D from the Australian Taxation Office.
Congratulations to Susan and Jenny and thanks to all who took part by sending in an entry. The DVDs will be on their way very soon.
For another chance to be a PS News winner, simply follow this link and try you luck.
Good fortune to all who do!
The write stuff
And finally, it never ceases to be a workplace delight to be contacted by good-hearted and interested PS News readers keen to let us know when one of the thousands of moving parts that make up PS News each week has run off the rails or misbehaves, and so it was last week when Amy R of the Federal Department of Home Affairs wrote in to point out that something had gone awry with one of our feature stories.
“I have just clicked on the above article, and it appears a draft may have been uploaded?” Amy reported helpfully.
“There’s a heap of missing words, so I thought I’d let you know so you can update.”
How nice!
Indeed, Amy was right. There was a glitch in the body of the article – courtesy of a recalcitrant computer that had elected to leave out half a paragraph – and we were able to rectify the recalcitrance before anyone else noticed.
Thanks Amy. Good deeds such as that should be rewarded so expect a fabulous PS News book prize to come your way soon.
In the meantime if you have any comments, complaints, commiserations and even compliments about PS News feel free to send it to [email protected] where you can be sure it will be warmly received.
Till next week……
