Wheaty responsibility comes with weighty powers

Where is the strongest concentration of executive power in the Australian government? Is it in the police, with the wide-ranging power to enter private premises and seize evidence? No, they are required to apply for a warrant from a member of the judiciary, thus diluting the concentration of power.

Is it in the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who may declare war and mobilise the military? No, they are too accountable to Parliament and to the people. They could never get anything done before it was vetoed.

Is it the Commissioner of Taxation, with the unprecedented ability to at his whim prohibit a person from travelling, and whose staff may wander through your records looking for anything “of interest”? No, 100 years of case law has walled up his powers into limited circumstances.

In reality, there is only one truly powerful bastion of executive power in this country. From June 30, the almighty Wheat Export Authority will have the discretionary power to enter a person or corporation’s premises and take information, on suspicion of that person…

possessing information relating to wheat.

Wheat.

When it comes to what is truly important to this nation, we do not mess around. Don’t play with our wheat market, or you’re dancing with fire.

Reference: Herald Sun Thursday 14 June 2007.

Key words include Export Wheat Commission, Australian Wheat Board (AWB) and silly laws.

Email: how to sort my inbox

I’ve recently wrestled with the problem of ballooning inboxes full of unnecessary emails. So here’s the treatment plan I’ve come up with:

1. Mail arrives in my inbox on the mail server.
2. Mail is transferred to my system inbox.
3. It stays there until it’s done with. Get Things Done!
4. Messages then go one of several ways:

• Receipts, invoices and other evidence goes in a folder called ‘Records’.
• Anything sentimental, like warm and fuzzy conversations, love letters and really good jokes, goes in a folder called ‘Sentimental’. I could probably do away with these messages by transferring them to my diary. But then I’d need a diary…
• I’ve also created a special folder called ‘Account Information’. This is for those emails from web sites saying “welcome to Such-and-such, your account name is Bob and your passwords is sadfjghafd”. I find these very handy, in case I forget passwords.

I ask you then: Well, what’s your system?