I guess it would depend on the contract. Obviously, if the Minister has the
power to vary the contract, there's no issue. If she hasn't, that's
another matter which I am sure Sky will inform us of in due course.

In terms of penalties and contracts, the penalty paid for the cancellation
of the tunnel project would have paid for a couple of hundred trams.
Continuing with the tunnel, of course would also have precluded new trams
and any of the grade separation works. The point being that sometimes it's
worth cancelling a contract.

On Sun, 12 Aug 2018, 5:50 AM Prescott lenkaprescott@...> wrote:

> I would imagine that the supplier of streamed news to railway stations

> would have been chosen on the basis of a bid for a contract or as part of a

> bigger advertising contract to which they are a subcontractor. It is the

> Minister who has introduced politics into it, not to mention maybe dragging

> the government into a possible breach of contract situation, which is

> something that taxpayers would have to pay for. Having observed Sky for a

> few days (and having seen them elsewhere for years, e.g. on airlines), I

> find that they're no better or worse than any of the outlets nowadays, that

> is, like all them, pretty bland and mediocre but with no flagrant

> demonstrations of bias at least through these streaming outlets.

>

> So there is no partisan news or opinion involved in this case and thus no

> case for the Minister to do what she did. There is a huge problem, however,

> with the idea that she thinks it's OK to censor media and to deprive people

> of the opportunity of making their own minds up about the issues of the

> world. George Orwell wrote a thing or three about that. Somebody taking

> actions like that in central and eastern Europe would be setting off alarm

> bells left right and centre, as they know where it leads.

>

> From outside, the Andrews government isn't looking too pretty nowadays,

> but I know that the alternative there is poor. Between a rock and hard

> place politically is not a good place to be. As far as I can see, neither

> of them is promising any new trams beyond the current deliveries.

>

> Tony P

>

> On Saturday, 11 August 2018 19:37:46 UTC+10, Mark Skinner wrote:

>>

>> Keeping away from politics, I don't understand two things here. First,

>> why is the government allowing partisan "News" of any political persuasion

>> in any case? Second, even if there was some way of broadcasting "balanced"

>> news, most people can get it for free on mobiles and tablets.

>>

>> So, what public benefit is served?

>>

>> The only demographic that might benefit are those that have no mobile

>> phones. Given that nowadays, even many of those who are homeless have

>> mobiles, it's possibly only toddlers that might benefit. I'm not voting for

>> "Teletubbies" to be shown...despite its intellectual superiority to Sky.

>>

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