To me that may be snake oil research but I'm eating Vegemite because it's back to being Australian owned after several decades of American ownership.

We're less stressed about that and it's put a rose again on Aussie cheeks.

ALTHOUGH there is no doubt that Australia badly needs electoral reform, it would be wise to tread carefully. Fixed terms, for instance, seems to be on the surface a good idea. But tell that to those who lived in NSW during the Iemma/Rees/Keneally administrations. In this case the government could not be forced to the polls because of the nature of the fixed electoral term. The situation was not helped by a vacillating governor too timid to act. In the meantime, shielded by constitutional dictate, corruption thrived. Let us change our archaic electoral laws by all means, however by doing so we must protect the interests of the constituency at all times. A fixed term allowing corrupt representation is in nobody’s interest save those who profit from it.

I HAVE been driving around our state lately wondering what makes so many Australians such pigs. You cannot drive anywhere for more than three metres without seeing litter along the side of the road, and it cannot just be the tourists who are doing it, because there is so much of it.

I wonder what the tourists think of it, though, when they come to a lovely place like Tasmania, which is supposed to be clean and green and special, and they see it has been turned into a public tip?

Why can't these pigs take their rubbish home and put it into a bin?

People do that in many overseas countries, where you just would not see any litter.

Come on, Aussies, we can do better than this.