Headlines Sunday 22nd June

Squeals of hypocrisy from Kevin Rudd
Piers Akerman
THE squeals from the Rudd government over plans to examine some Budget Bills would have sounded impressive if it were not for their arrant hypocrisy.

"Economic vandalism’’ was the favoured cliche du jour shared by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen but, try as it might, the Government’s lack of economic expertise - underscored by Mr Rudd’s inability to admit he didn’t have a clue what the Budget inflation forecast was - diminished its currency.

At critical moments, the Rudd government will always be cut off at the knees by its inability to admit that its much-vaunted Budget surplus was delivered courtesy of the policies of the Howard government’s internationally acclaimed Treasurer, Peter Costello.

It suffers further by its failure to acknowledge that the best part of the Budget for most Australians _ the tax cuts which come into effect at the end of this month - are also a legacy of the Howard government’s last Budget.

Which leaves the squeal and the hypocrisy.
===
Ministers complain
Andrew Bolt
No shortage of Rudd Government ministers prepared to complain to journalists, as Paul Daley is the latest to demonstrate:

(W)hy is it that more than a few Labor politicians will leave Canberra this winter with a gnawing sense of emptiness? “People are saying to me, ‘What next?”’ says a Labor frontbencher. “There’s a sense in caucus that we ... are treating government like one long election campaign. You know, announcements here and there but no longer-term story.”
===
Denmark, though, is still free
Andrew Bolt
Mark Steyn should move to Denmark:

A Danish appeals court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit against the newspaper that first printed the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons in 2005, saying they were not intended to insult Muslims.
===
Journalists brief India on Rudd’s latest world-saver
Andrew Bolt
Well, they’re not Chinese, are they?

KEVIN Rudd’s ambitious proposal for a new forum of Asia-Pacific nations has suffered an embarrassing blow, with revelations India has not been consulted and has not heard of the idea.
===
Neal battened
Andrew Bolt
Uh oh:
POLICE have been told federal MP Belinda Neal helped draft the Iguana-gate statutory declarations by her dining companions.

The explosive claim is one of many made by Melissa Batten, a former member of Ms Neal’s staff, during a five-hour interview with Central Coast police.
===
Coalition rising in Queensland
Andrew Bolt
Labor starts to sink- and fast- in Queensland:

PREMIER Anna Bligh has sailed her Labor team into rough seas - with a new opinion poll showing support for the State Government has sunk significantly…
===
Is this journalist insane?
By Liz Walsh
TV VETERAN Ray Martin says convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks should be allowed to sell his story as compensation for being locked up in Guantanamo Bay.

Martin said he had spoken to Hicks's advisers about interviewing the man who spent six years at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being captured in Afghanistan in 2001.

"I'm as keen as anybody to (interview Hicks) and I think it will happen at some stage, but who he does it with will be his decision," Martin said.
===
Syria help Iran with nuclear bid: report
Syria and North Korea helped Iran to develop its nuclear program through the construction of a suspected nuclear site in Syria that Israel destroyed last September, according to the German newsweekly Der Spiegel.

But Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is considering withdrawing his support for the Iranian program, the magazine says, quoting German secret service reports.

According to those intelligence reports, it said, a joint plan by Syria, North Korea and Iran for a nuclear reactor for military use was to have been developed at the Al-Kibar site in the east of Syria.

The site - to be inspected next week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - was destroyed by Israeli warplanes with Washington's support. Syria denied it has military purposes.
===
NATO fires shells in Pakistan
ARTILLERY shells fired from Pakistan landed in an Afghan army compound and close to an international military base in Afghanistan today and NATO forces returned fire, the alliance said.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, an improvised explosive device (IED) killed four US-led coalition soldiers in the southern province of Kandahar, the scene of a large anti-Taliban offensive and an insurgent jail break.

Tension has mounted between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened to send troops across the frontier to hunt down Taliban militants based in Pakistan's lawless border region.

"An ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forward operating base and an Afghan National Army compound in northeastern Paktika province were attacked with indirect fire from across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border today," an ISAF statement said.

No casualties were reported.
===
Actress assaulted in street was not targeted.
By Katherine Danks and Richard Clune
ALL Saints TV star Virginia Gay was rescued by an off-duty policeman in the terrifying moments after she was brutally attacked by two men, who then killed a chef nearby.

The hysterical actor was comforted by the officer after she flagged down a bus, on which he was a passenger, in Marrickville, just before midnight on June 13.

Moments earlier, Ms Gay, 26, had fought off two men who lunged at her, demanding her handbag before punching her to ground.
===
Parent anger at child sport photo ban
By Sharri Markson
PARENTS are furious after being banned from taking photographs of their children at weekend sporting events.

They say the Bill Henson affair has made sports clubs paranoid about allowing them to photograph their children.

Henson was cleared after police seized naked photographs of a 13- year-old girl from an art gallery. - This is not an insurmountable problem. Parents need only photograph their children naked, like that artist. - ed.
===
OddTran
By Evonne Barry
MEN are beginning to take their wives' names when they marry, reversing centuries of tradition.

When Chris Smythe and Emma Rudin wed next month, they will be introduced to guests as "Mr and Mrs Rudin''.

Mr Smythe said he was adopting his soon-to-be wife's surname because it was convenient and practical.
===
Rail staff threaten WYD strikes
Sydney could become even more chaotic during World youth Day celebrations - with rail workers now threatening strike action.
===
Public insists: warming debate isn’t over
Andrew Bolt
When a public gets to hear both sides of an argument…

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer…
===
Selling Rudd short
Andrew Bolt
When the guy you hire to sell you to the media makes the media hate you instead, it may be time for a sacking:

IT is extraordinary how quickly the Government of Kevin Rudd has lost the goodwill of the Canberra press gallery. Women in the gallery, in particular, seem upset with the approach of the PM’s media office.

Much of the alienation appears to be a consequence of the style of Rudd’s senior media adviser Lachlan Harris…

The aggression has been experienced by many. One journalist said she felt highly intimidated by a conversation with Harris. He was unhappy with a story she’d written based on a leak from a Labor frontbencher. Harris wanted a meeting; they met in Aussie’s cafe in Parliament House. She says he rarely made eye contact but what threw her off balance was that he almost whispered as he made it clear she would pay a price for writing the story.

“You know it’s over for you,” she says he told her. “Nobody’s going to deal with you. We’re not going to forget this.” -Rudd's problems do not end with his press secretary, Mr Bolt. Many of his problems are of his own making. - ed.