I’m caving into writing a list again: if only I’d had time to develop each of these into posts themselves!

• The speculation earlier this week about possible tax cuts in the next episode of The Peter Costello Budget Show is amusing in the context of John Howard talking up his economic management credentials in Brisbane. It’s an election year, and you have to be pretty naive to think that the Budget will contain anything other than vote-buying measures. If only we could get some real economic reform out of these guys, like a desperately-needed simplification of the tax system (rather than just tweaking rates and thresholds) to cut down the gigabucks wasted on administration. Or better yet, how about some spending on economic constraints — on upgrading the ports that serve our mines, or on technical education to address skills shortages?
• Water from the Kimberly is back in the news; forgive me for not being excited. Lots of people are saying things like “forget the cost, we’d never get anywhere if we didn’t build expensive stuff!” … and sure, big visionary projects are wonderful, but there’s a difference between being a visionary and bankrupting the State. The best available assessment suggests that three thousand kilometres of water transport system, be it canal or pipeline or whatever, would fall into the latter category. (For those who failed physics: to move stuff, including water, requires energy. The amount required is directly proportional to the distance travelled. Energy is not free, and the Kimberly is a bloody long way from Perth.)
• The other part of Omodei’s proposal this week is far more sensible: an irrigation scheme to develop agricultural land near the Fitzroy River. I can see a lot of potential problems (the region’s ecosystems are more fragile than anyone in Perth seems to recognise) but there’s actually hope that these are problems that can be handled. So much so, in fact, that the idea sounds like a copy of what already exists.
• On the other side of the House, state Labor have always been pretty bad on the self-promoting propaganda front, but why do we need ads during the footy telling us that new liquor laws are coming and we can expect a “change of scene”?! Actions speak louder than words, kids.
• Finally, a brief mention of federal Labor: I don’t know enough to comment on the merits of the new IR policy, but for crying out loud, this obsession with throwing the term “fair” around whenever workplace relations come up is getting very tired, very fast.