The Sauce: NSW Education Department selling overstock on toilet paper
The NSW Education Department has started a side hustle in selling toilet rolls after landing a cracking deal on the necessity during the pandemic.
NSW
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It seems it wasn’t just shoppers clearing shelves of toilet paper at the start of the pandemic.
School officials from the non-government sector were recently approached by the NSW Department of Education, alerting them to a cheap deal on loo rolls should they need any.
One of the officials told The Sauce the department had “over-ordered” and was now offloading “excess stock”.
The deal offered included a six-carton lot of Scott toilet paper, each holding 288 rolls of “individually wrapped” rolls of white, two-ply sheets at the bargain price of $55.50 “including delivery”.
So just how much toilet paper had the department actually ordered?
According to a department spokesman, it had not “over-ordered” but had rather done a cracking — sorry — deal as part of a Whole of Government supply contract.
The department was simply sharing the love — or loo roll — by inviting the non-government sector to come on board.
“We continue to support our schools with regular dispatches of hygiene and cleaning supplies, including toilet paper,” the spokesman said.
The Sauce was told the department had supplied a total of 228,864 toilet rolls to schools as part of the COVID pandemic response.
However, school staff also made their own direct purchases to meet their individual needs, he said.
Well, everyone knows sometimes two-ply just isn’t enough.
OLD FRIENDS
When the Morrison government announced the make-up of its independent Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel, one Canberra observer was quick to note how one member appeared to have a history with a senior minister.
Set up to ensure Defence made the appropriate “cultural, organisational and leadership changes” as recommended by the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) Afghanistan Inquiry, the three-member panel included Professor Rufus Black, a noted ethicist and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania.
Black is also, according to a rival media magazine article, a long-time university friend of Health Minister Greg Hunt.
In the article, Black spoke of Hunt’s “lifetime propensity for hard work and self-care”, pounding the bayside tracks of the Mornington Peninsula around his Mount Martha home.
“He’s always been like that,” Black is quoted.
When living in Ormond College at Melbourne University, Hunt became the head of the university’s debating society and, together with Black, was runner-up at the world debating championships in Edinburgh.
A spokesman for Hunt confirmed the pair were “university friends” but said the minister had not played a role — nor been aware — of Black’s appointment to the panel prior being informed in Cabinet.
It was also noted how Black had been previously been appointed by the Gillard government
as part of its 2011 independent Review of the Intelligence Community.
SUCH A PAIN
When an MP can’t make parliament during an important vote, the other side can offer to withdraw one of their own as an act of good faith.
However, this deal only appears to apply between the Coalition and Labor MPs in state parliament.
When the Greens informed the Coalition government that one of their own — Cate Faehrmann — wouldn’t be able to vote on Thursday after fracturing her shoulder, the response was along the lines of “tough”.
Faehrmann was to have voted on a controversial Labor motion to refer Premier Gladys Berejiklian to the NSW ICAC.
The Greens, maybe somewhat optimistically, had hoped the Coalition would provide an informal pair by withdrawing one of its own MPs.
Despite Faehrmann’s absence, the motion received enough votes to pass through the Upper House, although it promptly failed in the Coalition-controlled Lower House.
Got some Sauce? Contact linda.silmalis@news.com.au.
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