A contest at last

THERE hasn't been anything as unseemly as a local government election stoush in the snobby shire of Peppermint Grove for 14 years.

THERE hasn't been anything as unseemly as a local government election stoush in the snobby shire of Peppermint Grove for 14 years.

But democracy is about to break out in the riverside suburb dubbed Western Australia's Monaco by Premier Colin Barnett. It is a tradition in Peppermint Grove for hopefuls to wait patiently to be quietly invited on to their council benches. But for the first time since 1995, there are more candidates than vacancies and residents are going to the polls on October 17. Gone are the days when six hand-picked councillors met for about half an hour of cordial consensus before retiring behind heavy wooden doors for a few glasses of top-shelf Penfolds. The council had to contend with unpopular decisions during the boom years, as sub-divisions and developments catered for cashed-up families clamouring to get into the suburb. Tensions famously boiled over in 2007, when then councillor Peter Bacich got into a heated exchange with a group of ratepayers and was reported to quip: "You can drop on your head".

Scoop on the swoop

THERE was alarm in political circles in South Australia yesterday for the welfare of Rann government minister and fellow Twitterer Jane Lomax-Smith after she posted a disturbing report. Lomax-Smith showed how important Twitter can be to affairs of state: "Shocked by intensity of attack by swooping large magpie". Obviously she wasn't referring to a Collingwood supporter's intensity (if there are such creatures in South Australia), given the Magpies' 12-goal thrashing by Geelong on Saturday night. Mike Rann, meanwhile, was participating in the annual City-Bay Fun Run with a record 29,722 other South Australians with nothing better to do of a Sunday morning. His office said he "walked quite fast", coming in at under one hour and 50 minutes. No word on whether that was a personal best. Lomax-Smith was not hurt by that giant magpie.

Pyne has a nice line

SHE'S powerful and popular, but for some reason Julia Gillard gets Christopher Pyne's goat. Pyne, in one of his better lines at the weekend, says Gillard is "all foam and no beer". It's not up there with Paul Keating's "a souffle doesn't rise twice", referring to Andrew Peacock's chances of reclaiming the Liberal leadership, but it's not a bad effort. Pyne reminds Strewth of the youngest but loudest kid in a big family. If we were advising Gillard on a line to offer next question time, we would suggest "all hair and no gel". Gillard has probably got a killer line ready to go.

Melb Cup crack-up

HAVE Kiwi publicans no sense of perspective? More than 100 of them are threatening to close their TAB terminals on Melbourne Cup day in protest at reduced commissions. Even in New Zealand, that might be seen as cutting off your nose to spite your face, but the publicans have a case. Their commission, now 2.5 per cent, is being cut to between 0.5 and 1 per cent. One says it will cost him $NZ50,000 ($40,815) a year "For some of them, they're not even getting enough commission to pay for the ink in the printers," says Hospitality Association chief executive Bruce Robertson.

Yacht goes dirt cheap

THE man thought to be Australia's fifth-richest, Clive Palmer, indulged himself at the weekend and bought a big boat. Palmer outbid three others to pay $5.3 million for a 30m super-yacht, Maximus, which is only a year old but has had a colourful life. Maximus was commissioned by a former Gold Coast squillionaire, Daniel Tzvetkoff, who a year ago, at age 28, was so cashed up with profits made from the internet that he invested $27m in combining five sites to build the ultimate beach house on the Gold Coast. But Tzvetkoff's company has moved into administration with debts of $61m forcing him to sell the mansion and other trappings.

Married to Fiji

TWO months out of jail, conman Peter Foster has taken chutzpah to a higher plane. As the founder of the Fiji Truth Organisation (no mistake), Foster says in a press release that Australia's bullying of Fiji is driving the island nation into the arms of the Chinese. He calls on Kevin Rudd to invite Fiji PM Frank Bainimarama to Australia for discussions. "Australia should be fair dinkum," Foster says. "It's like a rocky marriage; it's not time for Australia to divorce Fiji, but take up relationship counselling."