Josh Mehlman » state government http://mehlman.info Editor and writer professionally; observer and disdainer of trends in my spare time Wed, 16 May 2012 05:28:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Bob Carr’s five state ministries http://mehlman.info/2010/04/bob-carrs-five-state-ministries/ http://mehlman.info/2010/04/bob-carrs-five-state-ministries/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:46:53 +0000 Josh http://mehlman.info/?p=156 On last night’s Q&A, former NSW Premier Bob Carr said he believed the country’s state and territory governments were of diminishing importance. He predicted that within decades, the state governments would be reduced to a mere five portfolios, with the remainder of responsibilities taken up by federal or local governments.

Based on Bob’s track record, I suspect the five ministries he had in mind where:

  1. Department of Corruption and Bribe-taking
  2. Department of Under-investing in Infrastructure
  3. Department of Selling Public Assets at Ridiculously Low Prices to Macquarie Bank
  4. Department of Planning, the Environment and Overturning Any Regulations That Might Inconvenience Property Developers
  5. Department of Spin, Hypocrisy and Emergency Services

Any other suggestions?

]]> http://mehlman.info/2010/04/bob-carrs-five-state-ministries/feed/ 0 Busy week http://mehlman.info/2009/12/busy-week/ http://mehlman.info/2009/12/busy-week/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:53:55 +0000 Josh http://mehlman.info/?p=73 Gosh, it’s been a busy week; been doing so much I’ve hardly had time to self-promote about it. Outrageous.

The last issue of Nett with my mug on the editor’s page came out last Friday, including my interview with twin brothers Brian and Vincent Wu, founders of clothing retailer Incu.

The best interviews to do are the ones that defy your expectations. Plenty of small business owners aren’t shy about telling you how great they are, which gives you plenty of material for the story, but leaves you feeling a bit cheap and dirty at the end of it. Not these guys! You definitely don’t expect successful fashionistas to be friendly, humble and modest, but Brian and Vincent really are and I’m sure that has a lot to do with their success.

Over the last year, Incu managed to land a coveted deal: the rights to distribute UK brand Topshop in Australia. Considering how many Australian women buy from Topshop UK online, this is very big. The guys from Incu also told me exclusively about their plans to (finally) open an online store next year, and once again I think they have exactly the right approach.

I’ve also been doing some exciting news stories for ZDNet on stuff like telecommunications tenders, state government IT policies, how bad state governments are at looking after our personal data and ERP consolidation projects.

Aside from this, it’s all been about making clients happy by meeting their insane deadlines, finding somewhere to live and even showing up at the odd IT industry Christmas party. Phew!

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