Headlines Wednesday 11th March 2009

Manly defy NRL: Stewart to play despite sexual assault charge
Manly has rejected the advice of NRL boss David Gallop and will play Brett Stewart this weekend despite a sexual assault charge. - just as well there are no women in the opposition team. - ed.
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Insect eyes inspire Aussie weapons of the future
A weapons defence system modelled on how insects like bees forage and navigate is being developed by Australian companies.
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Terrorists warn of more attacks
An IRA splinter group has warned deadly attacks will continue after two men were arrested for the shooting murder of a policeman in Northern Ireland.
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Carers force disabled men into 'fight club'
Profoundly disabled young men have been forced into "fight club" style battles by the people hired to care for them.
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Man's jaw broken by hammer during robbery
Wall St boss to plead guilty to fraud
Fisherman's great escape like 'winning lotto 100 times over'
Two charged over eBay fraud syndicate
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Rudd and Obama's socialist agenda
Pat Buchanan has it right: Barack Obama and Kevin Rudd are taking their respective nations down the path of socialism, according to Alan Jones.
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Piers this Heiner Affair has it gone to court and if so what was the result. I’ve not heard of it -was it disclosed before the last election that KRudd may be guilty of shredding this stuff. This is pretty serious wouldn’t the police be involved.

anne

Heiner Watcher replied to anne
The type of court action, I would envisage, over the Heiner Affair would be to require the Qld authorities address the Heiner problem. This may not be necessary, if there is a change in government.

The problem is that the CMC, Qld. Police, Crown Law, DPP’s Office etc. can’t come to the issue without real and apprehended bias. They are what we call protagonists, in this issue.

The only way out would be, to appoint a Special Prosecutor, as what happened with the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

If the LNP happen to have the majority of the seats in the Qld. Parliament after 21st March, then I would expect they would form a minority government with the help of some Independents. It is likely that Qld. will have at least four Independents in Parliament. They would be Chris Foley (70% last election), Liz Cunningham, Dolly Pratt and Peter Wellington.

Even Wellington has in the past supported an inquiry into The Heiner Affair. He is, however, likely to side with the ALP on other issues.

If the likely outcome of the Qld. 2009 State Election is in tune with the two recent polls, then we will have a Commission of Inquiry (Royal Commission).

I imagine one of the first tasks of such an inquiry would be to look at which current politicians have been involved in the Heiner Affair cover-up.

This would potentially involve one long sitting member, who was part of the March, 1990 Goss Cabinet and members of the 2008 PCMC. You see those ALP members of the PCMC could have to provide some very difficult explanations as to why they did not see any SUSPECTED criminal matters arising from the Rofe audit.

Suspicion is enough. When you accept a position on the PCMC you are bound by the CMC Act NOT party political loyalties.

I would expect that those ALP members could be facing criminal charges. Not all are expected to return to parliament. I expect that there would be some ALP losses on the 21st March, 2009.

You could not expect a minority government not to take political advantage of the situation. I expect that the process of the course of justice to be fast-tracked. After all it has taken about nineteen years to get to this stage.

If you examine the “J” curve from the September, 2006 election you can soon work out who should be left.

Then there is Kevin Rudd and Quentin Bryce. They both will soon be taken out by the Commission of Inquiry.

It has been past procedure that when a politician is charged with a serious criminal matter (criminal offence) that he or she stand aside from his parliamentary duties and not sit in the House.

As you can see the ALP Mafia has a lot riding on this 2009 Qld. State Election.
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LABOR CALLING
Tim Blair
As polls turn against Labor in Queensland, the government gets sneaky:
A self-proclaimed long-time Labor voter and fishing charter operator, Mr Theodorou had agreed to the LNP signs [at his service station] after he decided to switch political allegiance in protest at the State Government’s creation of Moreton Bay green zones.

But after the signs went up, he received an anonymous phone call from a woman who claimed to be a customer.

Mr Theodorou said the woman asked why no ALP signs were present and then threatened to ask ALP supporters to boycott the service station if the party’s signs weren’t allowed.
The woman was soon revealed to be campaign manager for the Deputy Premier, Paul Lucas. Meanwhile, the Bahnisch-o-meter reveals a gradual shift in victory expectations:
• The Queensland election so far is playing out according to script – Labor’s, that is … So far, I’m finding it a bit difficult to map out what a viable political strategy from the LNP might be.

• A plausible argument could be made that [Lawrence Springborg] sunk his ship today.

• I now think there’s a real possibility we’ll be looking at an LNP victory.

• I’m increasingly convinced that if things carry on as they are at the moment, Labor is gone in Queensland as a majority government.
cf Bolt article
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Cull the foreigners
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government thinks a few fewer foreigners is worth the investment:

FOREIGN aid will be able to be spent on abortion services and counselling after the Rudd Government today lifted a ban established 13 years ago by the Howard government.
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Burning cash with solar power
Andrew Bolt
More cash down the green drain:

But the Government will promote renewable energy by spending $100 million to establish a new regional solar power station, subject to the Federal Government matching its commitment. Premier John Brumby will announce both initiatives today, focusing on the plan for a 330-gigawatt solar plant with the capacity to power the equivalent of 50,000 homes...Mr Brumby confirmed that the Government would proceed with a subsidy for electricity generated by domestic photovoltaic solar panels, known as a net-feed-in tariff. Under the system, households will be paid a premium of 60 cents per kilowatt hour for surplus power fed back into the electricity grid.

There are nearly 2 million households in Victoria. That means governments are spending $200 million on a very expensive form of power that will need coal-fired or gas-fired backup for nights and dark days, all to service 0.5 per cent of Victoria’s households, and none of its industry.
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Not that Christian
Andrew Bolt
I tried to warn the Christian lobby that Kevin Rudd was a chameleon. It’s a bit late now to be outraged that the Prime Minister has overturned a ban on funding abortion services overseas, while claiming to actually support it:

The Australian Christian Lobby, which gave him a platform to reach 100,000 Christians by TV before the last election, threatened to campaign against him at the next election. Labor powerbroker Joe de Bruyn - who heads the powerful shop assistants union - also blasted Mr Rudd, accusing him of a “cop out” for not using his leadership to block the policy shift.
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Bracks’ money is no good
Andrew Bolt
The political links aren’t the biggest worry with this $3.1 billion partnership between government and business:

HE COMMITTED Victoria to building a desalination plant. Now former premier Steve Bracks has emerged as a crucial player in the multibillion-dollar project becoming a reality.

As private bidders scramble to secure financial backing for the project, a superannuation fund chaired by Mr Bracks is being hotly pursued. Cbus, the fund for construction and building workers, is worth tens of billions of dollars and has been strongly courted by the BassWater consortium, which includes Veolia Water, John Holland and ABN Amro.

With the desalination bidders facing a funding shortfall of up to $2 billion, Cbus has come under pressure to invest in the plant as a way of supporting jobs for its members.

Here’s the real worry: if the privately-operated desal plant gets into financial strife, would a Labor Government keep at arms length, or would it come under intense pressure to help out a super fund headed by a mate, handling funds of unionists, and with a board that includes many directors from our most militant unions?
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How not to not talk about Costello
Andrew Bolt
The Australian counts the number of times a promise is broken:

Kerry-Anne Walsh has trouble keeping a non-core promise she made in The Sun-Herald on August 3 last year

I PROMISE: Peter Costello’s name will not grace this column after today until he decides whether or not he’s leaving parliament.
Examples are then given, like this:

A case of too much festive tipple on December 14?

THERE is also the occasional outbreak of hilarious talk that former treasurer Peter Costello, part-time backbencher, little-read author and moonlighter for international clients such as the World Bank, may decide to waltz back into the leadership. This talk is clearly a case of too much festive tippling. Most MPs believe Costello is about as likely a possibility to return to the leadership as John Howard.
And a count is made:

Number of times Walsh has lapsed since taking oath of Costello abstinence? Sixteen.
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Follow that Kiwi
Andrew Bolt
Professor Tony Makin warns against Ruddernomics, which already isn’t working as it should:

Federal fiscal packages unveiled since October last year have aimed to boost consumption in the short term, in keeping with Treasury advice at the outset that the best fiscal response to the global financial crisis was to “go early, go hard, go households”. However, an arguably sounder fiscal response would have been the exact opposite: go later, go easy, go firms…

(T)oo much faith has been put in using fiscal policy to boost consumption on the demand side of the economy in the short run via tens of billions of dollars’ worth of bonus payments. A different mix of measures should have recognised that the financial crisis first struck the aggregate supply side of the economy, not the demand side… Inflation also had been wrongly diagnosed as an aggregate demand problem rather than a supply side, or cost-push, problem thanks to high oil and other international commodity prices…

(F)ederal policymakers should look to New Zealand, which so far has avoided measures aimed directly at inflating consumption spending. Instead, the NZ Government has emphasised supply-side measures that will flatten marginal taxes levied on individuals, improve infrastructure and quickly lower the regulatory burden on business.

They are also measures that do not plunge the country as deeply into debt as Rudd is plunging us.
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Dark side of justice
Andrew Bolt
ANOTHER child rapist walks free. And the question is now urgent: how dangerously racist are our courts?

Two years ago a 24-year-old man broke into a house near Yamba and went to a room where a four-year-old girl was sleeping.

He stepped out of his underpants and stripped the girl, who told him to go away. The man instead digitally penetrated her and masturbated.

For how long would you jail this man, who had a long criminal record (albeit not for rape) and was on a bond?

Now let me tell you the jail time the NSW District Court imposed. Not a day.

To be precise, Judge Chris Geraghty gave the rapist a two-year suspended sentence, so he could walk free.

You may already suspect, as I did, why such a shocking crime got such a light sentence.
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Pacific hatred won’t save workers
Andrew Bolt
WHAT are the mad unions and hate-the-rich politicians trying to do? Get Pacific Brands’ last 5000 Australian workers sacked too?

It’s hard to think of a more foolishly vicious campaign than that launched against clothing maker Pacific Brands since it announced it would have to sack 1850 of its workers to survive.

No one who has studied the company could doubt it needed drastic surgery. Deep in debt and struggling to compete against cheap imports, its market valuation has crashed from $2 billion two years ago to $90 million now.

For too long it propped up some of its operations here, while competitors fled to low-cost places such as China. So it was sack some or lose all.

How long had the company delayed the inevitable? Guess from this: its redundancies will cost the radical Textile Clothing and Footwear Union around 20 per cent of its membership.
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Galloway stoned
Andrew Bolt
Oily George Galloway is too pro-Hamas even for Egyptians:

A convoy led by the maverick MP George Galloway carrying supplies for Gaza has been attacked in Egypt, apparently injuring several people travelling in his party. The convoy, carrying aid worth £1 million, was pelted with stones and vandalised with anti-Hamas slogans after it stopped overnight in El-Arish, a small town around 28 miles from the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
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Ban the critic, not the threat
Andrew Bolt
Israel Matzav marvels:

Just weeks after Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders was banned from Britain, ... British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is apparently going to allow Ibrahim Moussawi , a spokesman for the Hezbullah terror group, into England to deliver a lecture later this month.

From his last back-the-Hezbollah tour of Britain:

Meanwhile, another man allowed (unlike Wilders) to stay in Britain gives an instructive lecture on jihad and the possibilities of a Muslim putsch in Britain:

That’s Anjem Choudary, supporter of the Mumbai massacre and chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers (not to be confused with the more mainstream Association of Muslim Lawyers).