Supermarkets' stance a load of rubbish

I don’t intend any pun, but I’ve just heard the greatest load of rubbish relating to the use of plastic bags at supermarkets.

The federal government says it wants plastic shopping bags banned. The response from The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) is that consumers will be the ones who pay if that happens.

It’s not clear from that stance what the ARA means. Do they mean pay (for an alternative carrying method) or pay (in terms of inconvenience).

By my logic, prices should fall because supermarkets won’t be buying the cursed things.

There’s sure to be a bit more argy-bargy on this issue in the coming weeks. But, let’s get on with doing away with plastic.

Whatever did we do before them anyway?

This blog also appears at http://www.prlab.com.au

PR without real meaning

Some companies do things by the book – the PR textbook. The result is often an insincere response to the issue or crisis.

Take BHP, one of the world's largest companies.

The Sydney Morning Herald (29 Dec) reported the company's coal mining activities could damage a heritage-listed canal, which in turn could affect part of Sydney's water supply.

With big dollars at stake, the company produced a mealy-mouthed statement from a PR spokeswoman.

The statement surely came out of a PR textbook: it was clinical, highly-structured and jam-packed with 'quaint' words like "stakeholders, infrastructure owners, structural integrity, rigorous risk assessment, independent peer review".

This is nothing more than BHP (the same company whose Ok Tedi mine gouges out pristine wilderness in Papua New Guinea) saying: "we went through the motions but we were always going to mine".

I'd have thought they could have written it without the jargon. If they're going to ruin the landscape, and perhaps part of Sydney's water supply, they could at least sound sincere about it.

This type of amateurish PR response should be consigned to the archives.

PS: BHP is currently being sued for $5b by PNG villagers.

More on Moose ... and Dr Karl

Moose Toys finally “got it” by posting a front-page link on their web site to information about the recall of the deadly Bindy’s Beadz. Only took 48 hours … too long.

Meantime, Senate candidate Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, did something people in political life don’t normally do … apologise.

He retracted his comments about “clean coal” being a “furphy”.

Nice of you to say so, Karl – for whatever reason. But I agree with Tim Flannery and still reckon there’s no such thing as clean coal.

Burning coal simply puts rubbish in the environment. When (and if) they get around to clean coal, it will still be pumping carbon into the atmosphere; just a lesser amount.

Howard calls election at last

It took him long enough. After months of fake campaigning and pork-barrelling, John Howard has called the federal election for November 24.

Now we'll really start to see and hear some spin ... though it's more likely to be seen, as elections these days are fought on our television screens.

The media maniuplation will be (hopefully) interesting to watch/see/hear. Every day a new photo opportunity and plethora of sound grabs. The same methods will be employed by Labor.

However, I detect that voters are wise to the tactics and have already cast their ballots. Certainly the polls have been consistently predicting a Labor victory for months.

As they say: "watch this space" (and lots of others).