Dingo bytes
It appears that NSW CityRail has forked out $84,736.72 in taxi fares in the last financial year as a way of transporting passengers whose trains were late or cancelled. Rail Corp, the company now in charge of the NSW train network, defended the policy saying, "it is often more cost effective to use taxis rather than buses". Taxis are also more readily available than buses. But internal taxi authority sheets showed that taxis are travelling distances of more than 100 kilometres in one trip to drop off passengers, with one fare between Maitland and Scone in the Hunter Region costing an estimated of $250. Figures show that the most of the taxi expense was incurred at the height of the train driver shortage crisis in March.* * * A food study commissioned for the Australian Sports Commission has found that declining physical activity is to blame for the rising child obesity rates rather than diet. But obesity experts are outraged by the report. There is little evidence to show the amount of physical activity of Australian children has changed and that dietary intake has increased dramatically over the past two decades, according to Dr Tim McGill of the NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Sydney. But guess who sponsored the research for the report. Wait for it. Coca- Cola.* * * More than 21 business and community leaders went back to school around Sydney as part of a Principal for a Day Program. Among them was Telstra CEO Ziggy Switkowski who would do to the public education system what he's doing to Telstra i.e. privatise it. Another of the 21 was singer turned ALP politician Peter Garrett who became a principal who dumped his principles at Matraville Soldiers Settlement Primary School where students asked him, "Do you shave your head with a razor or are you actually bald?" Garret had a "no comment". He's in the swing of his new job already.* * * Rapacious, money-grubbing owners of private childcare centres are turning the service into a super-profit monopoly. ABC Learning Centres was merged with its main rival the Peppercorn Management Group, without a whimper from the toothless consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The merger creates a childcare company that is responsible for looking after more than 780 childcare centres Australia-wide. ABC's net profit for the last financial year was $81.6 million, a net rise in profit of 77 percent from last year.* * * CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: Is the corporate drug monopoly. In order to fend off criticism that the Free Trade Agreement will undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and force up the price of medicines, the pharmaceutical industry body Medicines Australia have joined with the Australian Council of Social Service and other health organisations to investigate the "cost barriers" confronting the poor and chronically ill. Sickening, isn't it?