Credit:Dilok Klaisataporn
A warm welcome back to the wise world of PS News where surviving 2020 for most of us was an achievement by itself and the best we can expect from the traditional Happy New Year wish is that 2021 be simply a Happier New Year than its perverse precedent!
And so it is that we open a new decade with the hope that the year ahead will behave itself, with PS News continuing to inform, educate and update its hard-working readership with all the news worth calling news relating to the public sector as it goes about its critically important and essential duties.
Now in our 15th year, PS News returns from its recess regrouped, recouped and renewed to serve the many services that service Australia in the service of Her Majesty and the people of our respective realms.
And as is customary at this time of year, PS News and its little brother PS-sssst! wishes all our readers the heartiest, happiest and most harmonious New Year ahead.
And so say all of us!
The typo type!
Starting the year with evidence, if it was needed, that PS-sssst! is just another human being we thank Justin C of the Queensland Department of Youth Justice for pointing out a string of typing errors that found their way into one of last year’s feature articles urging bank loan borrowers to look around for lower interest rates.
Entitled (sicly) as ‘Australians loose out with older home loans’ the headline and rest of the article prompted Justin to ask: “Did anyone do a grammar check on this?”
Apparently not.
“Very disappointing,” Justin continued.
“It’s not a good look for the credibility of this publication or the Public Service.”
While we’re flattered a few of our (unintended and unfortunate) errors are likely to bring an entire Public Service to its knees, we do accept that we could have and should have done better.
Lucky for us it’s 2021 now, so we can – and do – blame the devil year 2020 for the whole shemozzle.
And Justin can expect to receive a PS-sssst! Prize Pack for taking the trouble to set us right, which includes a free book/a light-up PS News pen/and a rare PS News T-shirt.
Come drive with me…
To NSW now where the ever-helpful Minister for Regional Transport and Roads went out of his way around Christmastime to direct motorists to the best routes to take when hitting the State’s roads as they head off for their well-earned holidays.
Declaring that the roads were likely to be busy and could end up in traffic entanglements, the Minister kindly offered the following suggestion to keep it all simple.
“Travel data” he said “suggested the best times to leave were between 6am and 9am or after 3pm if travelling north from Sydney and the same for return journeys; between 6am and 11am or after 6pm if travelling south from Sydney and before 9am or after 3pm for return journeys; and between 6am and 9am or after 3pm if travelling west from Sydney and the same for return journeys.”
Apparently the Minister spent Christmas at the dentist trying to unravel his tongue and the number of lost travellers won’t be known until they stop driving which is expected to be Christmas this year!
Past the last?
Frightening news from the national Minister for the Environment now with an admission that despite a good record for reducing greenhouse gases in recent years, all was in vain.
Discussing Australia’s 2030 target for bring the emissions down to 26 or 28 per cent less than in 2005, the Minister issued a written statement declaring that “over the last two years, Australia’s 2030 position had improved by 639 million tonnes, 13.2 per cent of the emissions budget”.
While the numbers look impressive, PS-sssst! has lost sleep in the knowledge that the Minister believes the past two years were our ‘last’.
“This is equivalent to taking all of Australia’s 14.7 million cars off the road for 15 years,” he predicted.
Right again!
Who’ll need a car if we’re not here?
Freebies on the way
And finally, great news for PS News’s Rama’s Army with the redoubtable Rama Gaind gearing up for another year of reviewed books and DVDs complete with gratuitous giveaways offering readers the chance to share the good (or the bad) subjects of some reviewed products at no cost to themselves and in the comfort of their own homes.
Rama’s Repository will fly open again in two weeks (from 2 February) with the first of a year-long parade of complimentary freebies made available to weekly wise and wily readers clever enough to answer Rama’s Riddle and then smart enough to emerge as a winner from the PS News’s infamous Barrel of Booty.
This year Rama promises her big and bright competitions will be bigger and brighter than ever, running over two weeks to give everyone time to take part.
In the meantime her latest reviews of books can be accessed at this PS News link and her DVDs at this link.
Good luck – in two weeks – for all who join in the fun.
Until next week…….
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