Chartering a plane at taxpayers' expense? $300,000. Having a go at Barnaby? Priceless.

BARRIE Cassidy can't wait until the ABC's Insiders on Sunday to make the opposition the issue.

Phillip Coorey in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

Through [immigration spokesman Scott] Morrison, the Coalition sought to score points by damning the government for flying 21 asylum-seekers and 17 corpses from Christmas Island to Sydney because it was not giving taxpayers "value for money". No cost has been given, but it would have been less than the $80,000 it will cost to replace the taxpayer-funded Toyota LandCruiser that Barnaby Joyce trashed before Christmas while trying to cross a swollen creek.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on 3AW yesterday:

Bowen: The plane costs would be several hundred thousand dollars.

Presenter Neil Mitchell: You put them up in a hotel. That's probably cost ten thousand?

Bowen: Well, they're not luxurious hotels that we use for these purposes, and then they were in the Villawood Detention Centre.

Mitchell: There was an elderly pensioner saying, "My husband came from Canberra. I wanted to bury him in Canberra but I couldn't afford to. And then when I finally paid for a funeral here -- I live in Sydney -- I had to pay GST on the funeral."

What do you say?

Bowen: Even if they'd wanted to pay their own way, we wouldn't have allowed that.

Hopping on the LandCruiser. Barrie Cassidy in ABC online's The Drum:

Barnaby Joyce intends to keep the issue running in Senate Estimates by demanding to know how much it cost to fly family members to the funerals. Just before Christmas, Barnaby Joyce wrote off his taxpayer-funded $80,000 four-wheel-drive when he drove it into floodwaters. The vehicle was insured and it will be replaced.

But did he take due care with a taxpayer-funded benefit? Maybe a question for Senate Estimates when they get through calculating the cost of the funeral arrangements. And just to save them the trouble. The cost, in round figures, was $300,000. That's 2c per taxpayer. You be the judge as to whether you got your 2c worth.

Round figures from Cut & Paste:

The sum of $300,000 divided by 21 asylum-seekers = $14,285 per asylum-seeker. Christmas Island airfares ex Sydney with Virgin. Cheapest one-way $805, return $1700. Flexible $1354, return $2600.

The last Barack Obama fan? Andrew Sullivan on NBC's Chris Matthews Show, February last year:

Sullivan: Everybody in this country understands Obama's the best thing we've got.

Matthews: Can President Obama get political credit for his jobs push he's making right now? We put it to the Matthews Meter, 12 of our regulars. If unemployment stays up there around 10 per cent until the elections this November, could Obama still get credit for his jobs push, all this talk about jobs? Eleven say no, it won't work. Just one says yes. That's you, Andrew.

Sullivan: Yes, because I think people see that he's sincere, he's trying. And they also understand there's no magic wand.

Not any more. Sullivan in The Atlantic this month:

This President is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short-term political interests. This budget is good short-term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road. To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this President has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change.