THE hot news flash is that the PM is sold on the idea of a bridge between Victoria and Tasmania.
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And this columnist's nephew Derek, a committed Tassiephile, is right chuffed about it.
"I'd certainly be able to see you lot in Tassie more often if there was a bridge," Derek announced down the eau-de-cologne from his Yarraville, Victoria, residence.
Mind you, Derek caught only the fag end of last week's ABC-TV series Utopia in which Tony Abbott apparently gave the whole bridge thingie the nod.
Hang on, you may well gasp (before choking on your cornflakes), all this can't be right?
Surely it's all a bridge too far?
What's more, had Mr Abbott agreed that a quicker trip to - or from - our state may be facilitated by motor vehicle, or omnibus, wouldn't we have heard more about it?
The doubtful reader may, of course, further muse that the amazing news of a vehicular Bass Strait link may have got lost in the welter of "ers" and "ums" with which Mr Abbott peppers his public pronouncements.
We should now break this to you gently that any sort of permanent "over water" structure from Tassie would see the certain destination as Fantasyland.
Because the "really, really long bridge to Tassie" project is on the design board of the Nation Building Authority.
And the NBA is the imaginative - and fictitious - child of television's Working Dog satirists who have produced the aforementioned fast-paced Utopia.
It's described by its producers as "a satire about the difficult process of taking grand, uncosted, inadequately planned, fundamentally flawed schemes and passing them off as nation building".
They've really nailed the bureaucracy, and its argot, as it plans new highways, fast rail networks and industrial hubs.
Office procedure gets in the way as staff cope with new technology, performance reviews and indicators, rostered days off, staff turnover and the other idiotic obfuscatory lingo upon which massive government corporations thrive. (For goodness sake, what made us think of the very real National Broadband Network?).
Thinking outside the square, debate parameters and team building are in the mix here, too, plus visits by overseas delegations keen to tap into our "expertise".
It's during a visit to so-called Hillside Primary School that NBA project manager Tony (Rob Sitch) stands in front of a blackboard, and a bunch of kids, and brainstorms new projects.
One little tyke puts up his hand and suggests that the NBA initiate an Australian space program.
Another chubby chap urgently pumps the air with his fist and reckons a "bridge to the moon" ought to be a priority.
Obviously inspired by such heady blue-sky thinking, a pupil backs "a bridge to Tasmania".
Tony momentarily looks dumbfounded before agreeing "that's a good idea".
The unfortunate aspect of all this is that NBA staff back the bridge to the island state and spread the word.
"The PM is very impressed, he likes the idea of that really, really long bridge to Tassie," a hapless Tony says at episode's end.
Wouldn't we all?
Is it really just an impossible dream?
Cast an eye over the map of land masses converging on Bass Strait and it may be feasible to at least run combined bridges and highways from the state's north-east across 22 nautical miles of water and through to the Furneaux Group including Flinders Island.
Over Cape Barren Island connecting to Flinders and then through to the top end with a tunnel running through Mount Strzelecki just to make things more sexy.
OK, granted, so things get a bit tricky any further north, but maybe a shuttle ferry service over the remaining kilometres to Wilsons Promontory would sort it.
When do we start?