GOOD to see Andrew Barr’s mildly stimulatory Budget getting such a ready acceptance from the business community as well as Canberra’s highly discriminating populace. The Feds are great for drama;  down the hill and across the lake we want managerial competence. And Mr Barr has grown into his job.

NOT so Minister Shane Rattenbury who this week opposed the very sensible electoral reform for the Assembly to grow to five seats, each with five members. Shane wants three seats and lots more members in each. Why? Because he thinks his Greens would increase their numbers. He spells idealist p-o-l-i-t-i-c-i-a-n.

CANBERRANS love a political stoush and the ructions this week between Malcolm Turnbull and the shock-jocks – whom Tony Abbott called his “good friends” – made great theatre.

However, beneath the bluster is an Oxford boxing blue PM pummelled by public opinion. He’s desperate for a knock-out punch to his opponents’ collective chins.

Fans of “The Game of Thrones” know what comes next: Malcolm’s head on a pike from the ABC battlements!

SO, three judges are to decide whether David Eastman, who one of their brothers believes probably murdered a police commissioner, is to grace our fair community once again. I’m told those hoping hardest he’ll be released are his jail warders. During 19 years’ imprisonment Eastman has been moved from one jail to another, mainly to give warders a break from his behaviour.

SPEAKING of prisons, when will Minister Simon Corbell order a survey on the number of inmates of the Maconochie Centre who are psychiatric cases better housed in a treatment facility?

The figure is at least 30 per cent in Victorian prisons. Jail only compounds their problems and society suffers on their release. Of course, that means we’d have to build such a facility. And as Lib Leader Jeremy Hanson points out it’s been on the books for years with virtually no Government action; and the cost has mounted accordingly.

NO news to Canberrans in the weather bureau report that May was unseasonably hot and June is going the same way. And no coincidence that this week President Obama acted across a broad front in the fight against global warming while Tony Abbott called for it to be deleted from the G20 agenda in Brisbane later this year. Perhaps he’ll change his tune when he has grandchildren.

EGYPT’S judicial terrorists this week called for the “maximum penalty” of 25 years’ jail for Australian journalist Peter Greste who is banged up in a Cairo hellhole for doing his job. Australia’s pleas for justice have fallen on deaf ears. I say again, when is our famed SAS going to act? They have been training to release hostages for 30 years without ever putting their skills to use.

THE Schools Safety Review wants suburban speed limits reduced to 30kmh! And schoolkids’ play equipment is now so safe and boring it’s unused. However did an older generation survive to adulthood?

ON a darker note, Fyshwick’s ladies of the night, we hear, can barely contain themselves till the release of that $35,000 report from Liberal MLAs Giulia Jones and Vicki Dunne to rescue them from their fate. Whatever is holding it up?

robert@robertmacklin.com