SHAMELESS SUNDAY: The Age's newest circulation scam troubles country newsagents

Worst newspaper in Australia being sent up country as punishment. What has Rural Press got against country folk?

What do you do when you publish a newspaper that’s so bad, even your average gluten-free, soy-latte sipping, Fitzroy-dwelling, hairy-legged, sandal wearing, fringe-festival frequenter has stopped buying it?

Ship it off to the country. That’s what.

The Sunday Age is now acknowledged by newspaper afficionados and everyday readers alike as the worst newspaper in the country. Not only is its readership plummetting (down 12,000 readers in the most recent Morgan survey), but even to the untrained eye, it seems an utterly banal waste of paper. By the time most households even notice the Sunday Age, it is generally sporting a fine layer of bird seed and cocky sh*t, and yet, even partially obscured in this way, one can still discern the tragic pointlessness of this once entertaining broadsheet.

What, therefore, are the Rural Press Gang doing about it? If we were them, we’d shut down the Sunday Age and write it off as a life lesson in what inner-suburban nuff-nuffs can do when given free rein. But the good ‘ol boys have had another idea. They figure that their family of regional daily newspapers – the Bendigo Advertiser, Ballarat Courier, Latrobe Valley Express, Albury Border Mail, Sunraysia Daily and Warrnambool Standard – are in need of some Sabbath support. Each of those local newspapers publishes six days a week, but rests on the seventh. Those godless warriors at Rural Press think that no-one should rest just because it’s the weekend, and so, they thought, let’s make the Sunday Age work a little bit harder by delivering it to our country subscribers each week as part of their local paper subscription arrangements.

That’s right. If you’re a subscriber to one of those Rural Press titles, you’ll now get the Sunday Age tossed over your fence every week for free. Aty least the price is right, if nothing else.

Fairfax/Rural Press might think this is an efficient way to achieve “sales” of their sagging Sunday product, but we say it’s more likely to tarnish the reputation of each of the regional dailies that associate themselves with this stupid idea. Newsagents are already up in arms about the extra accounting involved, but the bigger question is this: how desperate are Fairfax that they would seek to foist the Sunday Age on decent, upstanding, God-fearing country folk without asking them first?

Our prediction? This will last about 6 Sundays, by which time our country cousins will be raising their voices and shouting aloud as one – no more!

OUR SOL: Greedy man gobs off to government over GST

One of Australia’s most prolific importers of Chinese made clothing and toys, Solomon Lew is now demanding the Commonwealth government reduce the Goods and Services Tax by half and a further reduction in the fuel excise.

The proposal would plunge the Commonwealth into a massive deficit, blowing a $30 billion hole in the government’s finances.

The move is designed to arrest the collapse in consumer confidence that has seen retail sales fall to low levels.

Lew’s acquisition of Just Group, the large apparel retailer, prior to the retail bust has so far cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Even worse, the shareholders in Just Group who accepted Lew’s part scrip part cash offer have taken a hiding if they’ve held onto stock in Lew’s company.

Lew’s company Premier Investments at the start of the year, mainly supported by the cash it had in the bank, was trading at $8.66 a share. It’s now trading at $3.36, almost certainly the biggest financial wipe-out ever faced by Lew, with around $700 million of shareholders’ money shredded.

His solution?

Unleashing a gushing torrent of $30 billion worth of taxpayers’ money in his general direction so that consumers are able to spend money on the high-margin imported goods he sells. Lew argues that that cuts on retail taxes would be much better than infrastructure projects which he belittled:

“It’s very nice that they’re building a lot of swimming pools and talking about new parks.

Not every big importer agrees, with Gerry Harvey saying while he hates the GST that it’s “a very fair tax”.

JENNY'S JIHAD: Banyule councillor involved in bashing a Member of Parliament

The leafy northern suburbs of the Banyule municipality have been rocked by a vicious attack perpetrated on state Labor MP Craig Langdon by the husband of Councillor Jennifer Mulholland.

The revitalised Herald Sun reports Langdon was brutally assaulted by the hard-faced hubby involved in the waste management industry, David Mulholland at an RSL function held in the city.

The Victoria Police have been called in to investigate the Mulhollands over the complaint.

A well informed source familiar with the Mulhollands’ form says the husband would only ever operate under strict instruction from his “domineering” wife, a former political opponent of Langdon who polled surprisingly well as an independent in Ivanhoe pulling some 10% of the vote by scare-campaigning about people charged with crimes who were found not guilty by reason of mental impairment and ordered to be placed in a secure wing of a local hospital. Mulholland did her best to demonise them for political gain.

SANE Australia, a charity that works to reduce misunderstandings about those suffering mental illness, condemned the councillor, described as an “opportunistic grub” by local critics, over her scaremongering remarks about the mentally ill.

The charity expressed concern that Jennifer Mulholland’s hate-speech about the mentally ill was both “alarmist and inappropriate”.

In further developments, Cr Mulholland has been accused of exploiting her children in the current council contest.

When Craig Langdon – the victim of the vicious assault described previously – was leaving the Banyule pre-poll, the councillor invented a tall tale that the MP had attempted to run down one of her children.

VEXNEWS has learned when the councillor dragged one of her sons down to local Police to complain that the officers were none too impressed. They declined to investigate the matter, with the lingering prospect that the nineteen year old son, Evan Mulholland, and the councillor could be later prosecuted for making a false report to Police.