Interesting news from the Federal Department of Finance this week that it plans to develop a vacant block of land not far from Parliament House in Canberra for residential, office and commercial accommodation, and has invited public consultation before clearing it of vegetation in readiness for the sale.
“Preliminary Documentation describes the impact and proposed offset measures for threatened species, communities and Commonwealth action and is on display for public comment from Saturday 4 August 2018,” the Department announced.
And then: “All comments on the Preliminary Documentation must be in writing and received by 5pm, Friday 17 July 2018.”
Interested consultees will have to write fast to get their comments written if they have minus three weeks to do so!
Unsubs sunk
Wonderful exchange with subscriber Ben F of Foreign Affairs and Trade this week with Ben imploring our subscription police to remove his name from the PS News subscriber list.
“I have ‘unsubscribed’ at least 5 times,” Ben pleaded heartily.
“At this point, I’m pretty sure HIV is easier to get rid of than PS News.”
Continuing his lamentations, Ben played his ‘nightmare’ card: “Imagine sending out unsubscription emails multiple times and only find yet another your inbox the next morning. O the nightmare.”
Nightmare or not Ben, our policy has always been to remove anyone’s name from our list as soon as we’re told about it and your request was no exception.
Ben was ‘unsubscribed’ back on 8 May.
Which leads us to this valuable lesson.
Believe it or not, PS News isn’t the only source of PS News.
There are many others who share our news and information with friends, colleagues, relatives and more, so it’s always a good idea to check where yours is coming from before choosing to wax lyrically Ben-like, when we can’t do anything to help.
We hope that helps!
Names count
The eventful reign of national Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd took an eventful turn last week with Mr Lloyd leaving his post early but not before delivering a ‘valedictory speech’ on the way out.
A colourful figure at the end of his tenure, Mr Lloyd didn’t give much away in his speech but did comment on a widespread practice across all PSs that seems to have taken hold in the past decade or two.
Recounting a career spanning 47 years in three separate Public Services, Mr Lloyd ticked off the various Departments he had worked for, passing comment on one of the more recent additions to the fold.
“I worked much of my Commonwealth career in the Department responsible for workplace relations,” Mr Lloyd said.
He said that over the years that workplace relations Department had been identified under a range of titles: “Labour and National Service; Labour and Immigration; Labour; Industrial Relations; Employment and Workplace Relations; Fair Work something or other and landing today as ‘Jobs and Small Business’.”
“An odd name!” he declared.
And then, as if to channel the secret beliefs of many a long-serving officer whose Department had been chopped and changed more times than can be counted Mr Lloyd confided: “I despise the tinkering with Departmental names.”
He’s not alone!
Straight to the prize
To Rama Gaind’s weekly giveaway now in which three lucky readers will go away with a copy of the classic noir cop thriller DVD Bent starring Karl Urban and Andy Garcia, just by taking part in Rama’s easy quiz.
To be named a winner, all you needed to do was read Rama’s review of Bent and then tell her who created the character of Gallagher?
The answer was J.P. O’Donnell and the three readers with the correct answer who also scrambled out of PS News’s Barrel of Booty first were Gerard V from Regional Development Victoria; Carol C from the Federal Department of Jobs and Small Business; and Usha V from the Department of Home Affairs.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who took part. The DVD prizes will be on their way shortly.
For another chance to be a Rama Winner, simply visit this week’s competition at this link and try your hand.
Good luck.
Maths still matters!
And finally, revisiting PS-sssst!’s consternation at a news report last month announcing the ACT had unveiled a 100MW solar farm which was four times bigger than an earlier one which was 20MW, Peter M of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has brought us all up to date.
“In researching the 4 to 5 times megawatt dilemma, I have made an odd discovery,” Peter declared.
“The online version of the story…now reads: ‘At 120 megawatts, the Springdale Solar Farm is five times bigger than the Royalla farm outside Tuggeranong, which was Australia’s largest solar farm in 2014 at 20 megawatts’.”
“So now 120 is five times 20!” exclaimed Peter.
He says it’s not so much a mathematical error as one of poor literacy.
“Someone … thinks that because you add four more twenties to 20 to get 100, or add five more twenties to get 120, then it is legitimate to say that 120 is 5 times as big as 20, or 100 is 4 times as big as 20.”
He even checked out the Cuisenaire rods: “I need to add another 4 red 2 rods to make up an orange 10 rod – so 10 is 4 times bigger than 2, right?”
“No, wrong.”
Of course Peter’s right. A fabulous PS News book prize is on its way to show our gratitude.
Till next week…..
