The red-blooded Aussie bloke was found checking out chick pics in an email while one of his colleagues did a live cross to Seven News on the subject of interest rates in the background.

Cool and calm, Kiely managed a conversation with a camera-hogging workmate while considering Kerr’s considerable assets.

He hasn’t done anything wrong.

It wasn’t like he was surfing an X-rated porn site.

Someone sent him an email of classy shots from GQ (sample below) and he was inspecting the content before deleting it.

The mistake prompted Macquarie’s human resources unit to email the bank’s 11,500 staff across the world with a copy of its internet policy, which they should “familiarise themselves with”.

That should be the end of the matter, but Kiely is said to be facing an inquisition by company executives later this week.

Leave the bloke alone. He has already suffered global humiliation.

Update: Dave wasn’t sacked.

The standard flat rate for a text message at Telstra and Optus has remained unchanged at 25 cents, while at Vodafone, a text is 28 cents.

All carriers offer discount plans, generally for text messages to other people with the same carrier, eg the Telstra one-cent text to other Telstra users.

According to the article, the cost of texting on the GSM (2G) system is effectively free for the telecommunications companies, as they piggyback on the management channel used for the operation of the network. Costs on the 3G network are miniscule.

“The 25 cent cost of a text, for 160 bytes, means Optus and Telstra effectively charge $1560 per megabyte. If comparing with a $30 internet plan with a download limit of 10 gigabytes, the charge per megabyte is 0.3 cents, including free email.”

What a rort.

Even with discount plans there are strings attached and sorting through them is confusing.

I don’t send many text messages myself, and often use a free web-based service if I do, but the fact of the rort annoys me.

The Federal Government should step in and regulate if telcos can’t be trusted to give consumers a fair go.

However, the best Communications Minister Stephen Conroy could offer was: “It is important that consumers shop around for the best deal.”

Meanwhile, consumers who aren’t tech savvy are being ripped off every day.

The National Retail Association has felt compelled to defend Sunday trading in the Sunshine State.

In a statement issued today, the NRA said: “Right across Australia the consistent feedback from retailers is that Sunday trading is most preferred by families with children with both parents working, by small business men and women who work long hours and often over six days of the week, and by construction or trade workers who typically work over six days of the week.”

The row is over Toowoomba Regional Council’s decision to support Sunday trading, and objections from some shopkeepers that a survey was skewed.

“Right across Australia the consistent feedback from retailers is that Sunday trading is most preferred by families with children with both parents working, by small business men and women,” the NRA said.

Comment: Absolutely true. People love and need Sunday trading. While there might be valid debate surrounding extended trading hours on evenings, Sundays are an important shopping day for busy people.

With Timbercorp struggling and the future of Great Southern in doubt, the schemes must be reviewed.

Australia’s timber industry is under enough pressure without having to worry about government tax incentives, which should be the cream, rather than the cake.

According to ABARE, throughout 2008 Australia’s forest sector continued to perform strongly, however current economic conditions suggest difficult times ahead, with uncertainty regarding investment and employment in many regions.

The biannual report, Australian Forest and Wood Products Statistics, describes an industry exhibiting strong investment in new timber plantations and benefiting from continued housing sector and international demand.

“So far, the global financial crisis has not severely affected areas critical to the Australian forest sector, such as domestic housing and woodchip demand. Nevertheless, the effect of the crisis on these variables over the next few months will be critical for Australia’s forest industry,” ABARE executive director Phillip Glyde said.

He was commenting on figures from several months ago when making that statement.

The fact is conditions have deteriorated and many jobs have been lost. There is no sunshine on the immediate horizon for forestry.

Ms Burke expects the advertising market to hit a low this year after revising her forecast decline in advertising dollars this calendar year to $11.1 billion (excluding online and pay TV), down 7.2 percent.

She expects the brunt of the decline to be borne by metropolitan newspapers and television networks.

Anecdotal experience supports those conclusions.

Advertising column centimetres are down for most newspapers and the word among industry players is that television is discounting big time to retain bookings.

As a discretionary spend, advertising normally takes a hit when times are tough.

It will be interesting to see how media owners react. It’s not easy to keep cutting costs without compromising on product quality.

I’m not an economist, or a solvency expert, but surely market capitalisation reflects what investors believe to be the value of the assets?

Maybe the market is wrong and the assets might fetch more than $1.5 billion if sold piecemeal.

And presumably Fairfax is running most of its sites at a profit with positive cashflow.

However, it’s disturbing that a major listed company has such a high debt level compared with its market capitalisation.

It’s little wonder that Fairfax shares have collapsed below a dollar.

Given there are significant challenges ahead to revitalise the business, the options appear to involve selling assets and/or raising equity.

Radio stations and regional publications that are non-core to strategic operations might be placed on the market.

Fairfax would have been an obvious bidder for APN if it had any cash.

While you can’t easily pick the top or bottom of any market, the price Rural Press paid towards the top of the boom for Albury and Wagga mastheads, for example, would probably not be offered today.

My idle speculation is that Western Australia is an area Fairfax might look to exit if cash needs to be raised.

Eddy’s estranged wife has slapped him with a $44.2 million lawsuit.

news.com.au reports Dr Le Neve Groves is suing her husband and co-founder of ABC Learning Centres and two margin lenders for $64.2 million she says she is owed.

Mr Groves, 42, is living on the Gold Coast and is in a relationship with a former ABC employee, Viryan Collins-Rubie, 44, with whom he has shared property interests in the past. In her Supreme Court claim, Dr Groves says that Eddy Groves was “unjustly enriched” at her expense by the sale of millions of her shares in ABC Learning Centres.

Life must have looked good for Eddy 18 months ago when the ABC share price was trading around $8.

I held some of them because I believed the story that childcare was a growth industry and the company was well managed.

Fortunately I got out of the stock without suffering a major loss. Others were not so lucky.

ABC Learning is facing an Australian Securities and Investments Commission probe and a $100 million lawsuit from shareholders is pending.

That’s a lot of money and nobody is even sure if it will work.

I wonder how a Communist government in the former Soviet Union would have reacted to such turmoil?

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thinks government intervention in financial markets is a good thing.

“This is a positive step forward in restoring stability to the global banking system,” Mr Rudd told reporters in Sydney.

“But there is still much much more work to be done.

“The stability of the banking system is important to all working families everywhere.”

Mr Rudd praised the US administration, Republicans and Democrats, for putting aside their differences and passing the package.

“Now the challenge is globally consistent financial regulations on transparency, on prudential standards and on corporate governance,” Mr Rudd said.

Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull also welcomed the handout and said it would ease pressure on Australian banks and financial institutions.

“It is an important step to resolving confidence throughout global financial markets,” Mr Turnbull said.

“As for Australia, while we do have a much more secure financial system – better regulated, better capitalised, lower level of default – nonetheless we are part of the world and we have been affected by the global crisis.

“We are in the midst of a global economic storm. We will get wet but we will not sink … (the move will) benefit Australians and ease pressure on banks and other institutions in Australia.”

Mr Turnbull warned that the move was no “silver bullet” and there could still be “rocky” times ahead.

Whatever happened to the free market?

The wild fluctuations are unsettling for investors, and frankly, unless you have cash to burn there is little motivation to put money in stocks just at the moment.

There are several times I wished I had cash on the sidelines to invest in bank stocks, in particular.

I bought ANZ and Westpac around the $25 mark, saw them slide and recover, and finished up selling around $23 to buy a property instead.

ANZ closed at $15.45 yesterday before recovering to $17.71 today. I thought they were good buying at $22 and $20.

Bank interest is returning around eight percent now on some accounts. It is a much safer place to park some money.

The banks are crying poor about “funding costs” on the wholesale market.

Sorry, but they really have to accept a small drop in profits and pass on the reduction if it occurs.

If they don’t, the government should pressure them and if that doesn’t work they should legislate.