NOT a lot of good news this week, and one big surprise when a Government survey showed 55 per cent approval of the light rail project.

Well, the government commissioned it, but Minister  Simon Corbell, who has led the charge, says: “People get the big picture”. Maybe so, Simon, but did the questions mention the cost? just as many preferred their money to be spent on health and education. Why not say so up front?

HAD Katy Gallagher acted sooner to legalise medical marijuana she would not have been faced with that terrible dilemma over the treatment of little Abbey. Of course, she had to tell the authorities about the supplier; and of course the police had to confiscate the gentleman’s pipette and casserole dish. But honestly, where’s the harm?

BY comparison, when it comes to really harmful substances, the conservatives seem much more relaxed. Ms Gallagher reminded the Feds that despite warnings in 1968, they allowed Mr Fluffy to keep spreading his toxic asbestos for the next 11 years! Employment Minister Senator Abetz said he would do nothing until “the whole issue is fully scoped both financially, legally etcetera”.

Time, you see, is the great healer… unless, that is, you have terminal mesothelioma.

AND what about those irresponsible Canberra women who, it was revealed this past week, smoke through their pregnancy – one in 10 no less! The phrase “child abuse” leaps to mind, but at the very least they need serious help to break their lethal addiction.

THE media have been tiptoeing around that increasingly ghoulish MH17 crash site. The Dutch, it seems, have already come to terms with the fact that further collection of remains is no longer feasible (or perhaps desirable). The memorial service for the poor souls on the aircraft is the nearest the relatives and loved ones will come to closure. Time, perhaps, for the politicians to leave the stage.

IT’S been unsettling for most Canberra’s public servants who’ve been re-applying for their jobs, graduates are waiting endlessly for their applications to be processed and Treasury officers are now to run the interview gauntlet. I guess the politicians figure if they have to face the slipper every three years, their servants should do the same.

SPEAKING of Slippers, surely the former Speaker would never have had to face the court for his Cabcharge indiscretions had he not committed the greater sin of giving Julia Gillard that extra vote after the Libs declined to re-endorse him for his Queensland seat. For one brief moment the Parliamentary world was at his feet. That must now seem like it happened to someone else.

ONE can but hope that the South African turned Pommy cricketer Kevin Pietersen gets the chance to play in the final of the Big Bash at Manuka next year after he reckoned the most exciting entertainment Canberra offered was “staring at walls and watching paint dry”. Our best barrackers should be out in force.

NOT sure why the sports commentators keep talking about our “triumph” in the Glasgow Games. The athletics coach was sent home, weightlifters got in trouble with the cops and we couldn’t even beat England in the medal count. And now the Feds are laying waste to the AIS and the Sports Commission.

Ah, well, we had some very nice snow. That’s something, I guess.

robertmacklin.com