CANBERRA: The Albanese Labor Government has quietly abandoned a secret cost-saving plan to scrap the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The plan, hatched by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and endorsed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, would have seen ABC election analyst Antony Green (main picture) in sole control of declaring the winners and losers of all federal parliamentary seats.

“The AEC costs a couple of hundred million dollars each year to run, and much more than that in a federal election year,” a senior ALP source said.

“Given that everyone in recent years has been wetting themselves until Antony Green calls a seat or an entire election, Albo and Jim thought there were savings to be made by abolishing a clearly redundant AEC.

“But the ABC’s recent confident projections of ‘winners’ in seats like Goldstein and Bradfield (below) that have since been walked back – and likely proved totally wrong in Bradfield – means we’re stuck with the AEC, at least for the time being.

“Hopefully the government can revisit the idea in the future and do away with voting entirely by relying on a modified version of the computer program Antony Green has been using.

“We can just feed in all possible opinion polls and work out which party or independent wins what seat, thereby saving everyone the trouble of actually voting and saving a shitload of money now wasted on the AEC,” the source said.

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WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump is rethinking his decision to accept a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 jet as a gift from the government of Qatar.

Mr Trump had floated the idea of using the new jet as a substitute for his official presidential aircraft – two US Air Force Boeing 747s which carry the call sign Air Force One when the president is on board.

A White House source who did not wish to be named said Mr Trump’s rethink had nothing to do with claims that the handover of the jet breached laws and constitutional provisions covering the acceptance of gifts by US presidents.

“The fact is that because the Qatar jet isn’t an official US Air Force plane, it can’t carry the Air Force One call sign,” the source said.

“The USAF has offered an alternative (below) name but the President isn’t too keen on it so he’s rethinking the whole deal.”

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CANBERRA: The Liberal Party says it has no need for gender targets given the outcome and implications of the 3 May federal election.

“We as a party have always rejected the heavy-handed approach the Labor Party took to ensure women were preselected for 50% of winnable seats which took it almost 30 years to achieve,” a senior Liberal Party figure said.

“But thanks to Peter Dutton and our recent federal campaign we clearly have no need to take a similar approach.

“When you consider the seats which might be winnable for the Liberal Party at the 2028 election, I reckon we’ve already reached the 50% target. Possibly higher. No problem.

“Besides, as John Howard said we are a broad church. I totally agree. But, like all of the blokes who run our party, I also don’t believe it should be a church of broads,” the source said.

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