Vale Lionel Rose
Miranda Devine – Monday, May 09, 11 (09:03 am)
Vale Lionel Rose, a gentleman inside and outside the boxing ring.
My father, Frank Devine, was Rose’s corner man in his legendary 1968 Tokyo fight, when the great Aboriginal boxer beat Fighting Harada to win the world bantamweight title. Then a foreign correspondent for the Herald and Weekly Times, my father met Rose at the airport, invited him home and mopped his brow between bouts. In the locker room after the fight, as Rose was being cleaned up, he got the first exclusive interview.
They kept in touch and I remember Rose visiting our house in New York many years later.
Jubilant boxer Lionel Rose with trainer Jack Rennie and handlers Frank Devine (L) and Kevin Hayes (R) after Rose’s defeat of champion fighting Harada in bantamweight title fight in Tokyo 28/02/1968.
JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Tim Blair – Monday, May 09, 11 (05:50 am)
The Walkley awards for journalism are usually only open to Australian citizens or residents, but I’d urge the Walkley Foundation to make an exception the next time they hand out their coveted statues or medals or whatever the hell they are.
A certain American citizen deserves local recognition. He’s only a journalism graduate, mind, not a fully-empowered actual journalist such as you’ll see all dressed up and fancy on Walkley night, yet his application of advanced research skills demonstrates his deep commitment to the journalistic craft.
Moreover, he has accomplished more for the world than even the most honoured Walkley recipient.
THE ANSWER IS NO
Tim Blair – Monday, May 09, 11 (05:07 am)
A question that could only occur to the New York Times:
Will Prize-Winning Novels Shift Attitudes on Global Warming?
Besides offering further proof that NYT editors live in a universe different to ours, that headline significantly assumes present views about warming to be dismissive. We’ve come a long way since the debate was settled in 2006.
422 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S UNSPOKEN TAX
Tim Blair – Monday, May 09, 11 (04:49 am)
It’s the secret tax of mystery:
Wayne Swan again confirmed yesterday that the budget would not contain figures on Labor’s proposed carbon tax.
But when those figures are eventually revealed, in a future budget update, oh boy! Wayne will turn everything around:
Wayne Swan has admitted there is little the Gillard government can do in the short-term to counter its growing unpopularity over its proposed carbon tax.
But the Treasurer has predicted Labor will ultimately win support for its plans, savaging Tony Abbott as a man without solutions.
At the moment he’s a man without problems – unlike Julia Gillard, whom a senior government source says is battling everything, including caucus:
“I think she’s worried: ‘How do I settle caucus down?’ Because caucus is getting very, very worried, given the polls. We’re fighting on too many fronts – refugees, carbon tax, etcetera – and she thinks refugees is a bigger issue for her in caucus than carbon tax.”
It might be a bigger issue in caucus, but people can count, and they know that no matter how insanely expensive are Labor’s refugee policies, the carbon tax is infinitely more punishing. It’s gotten so that carbon tax supporter Michelle Grattan is even musing about the possible electoral benefits of abandoning it:
It’s still interesting to dwell on the hypothetical. What if it all were to fall into an irreconcilable heap? Would the government be better or worse off? Gillard’s credibility would be shot – she’d have spectacularly failed to deliver. On the other hand, she would be rid of an albatross, and Abbott of a very good issue.
A similar scenario was outlined here a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the list of carbon tax doubters – Hafda’s Butchery, Labor senator Doug Cameron’s working people, Rio Tinto, Alcoa, dairy farmers, barley growers, insurance companies, local councils, state governments, CFOs, food and grocery producers, miners, union members, Gerry Harvey, G&S Engineering, Sam Gadaleta, BHP, Queensland Labor members, the Noosa Chamber of Commerce, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Northern Territory parliament and Santos – grows yet longer. Welcome the Australian Taxi Industry Association and Alumina Limited.
HE CAN’T HEAR YOU
Tim Blair – Monday, May 09, 11 (03:58 am)
With Osama bin Laden now wonderfully dead, it’s time once again to enjoy Peter FitzSimon’s apology to Islamic terrorists, published just two weeks after the September 11 attacks:
Hello. We are sorry. We are desperately sorry that the world has now moved to the point where it is on the edge of an abyss from which there can be no return. We accept that such hate as drove the planes into the World Trade Centre towers can only have come from incredible suffering, and we are desperately sorry for that suffering, even if we are yet to come to grips with its specific cause.
The original column is difficult to locate in the Sydney Morning Herald‘s archives, but may be found here.
LIONEL ROSE
Tim Blair – Monday, May 09, 11 (02:23 am)
Boxing hero Lionel Rose has died at 62:
The bantamweight champion had 53 fights for 42 wins and was one of Australia’s sporting greats.
No Australian boxer ever achieved the sort of popularity and affection that greeted Lionel Rose’s world bantamweight title win in 1968 …
There was such a huge crowd to meet him at the airport in Melbourne after he arrived back from winning the world title in Tokyo that Rose thought the Beatles must have been on his plane.More than 100,000 people turned up to clog the streets for a public reception at Melbourne Town Hall and Rose was later named Australian of the Year.
Rose was also a fine singer.
CITY COPLESS
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 08, 11 (04:56 pm)
“As a resident of Melbourne’s CBD,” emails Andrew R., “I can tell you that Professor Bunyip is right. You never see police in the CBD. Oh! I tell a lie, I saw three on Friday, all together, walking among the fruit and veggie stalls in Queen Victoria market. The first I had seen for about a year.”
UPDATE. Also in Melbourne, the Gatwick Private Hotel seems a nice place to stay.
Happy new Egypt
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (07:11 am)
This new “democratic” Egypt sure sounds promising:
Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Egyptian capital have left eight dead and more than 100 injured, and a church was set on fire.
Officials said the two groups clashed in the north-western district of Imbaba after Muslims attacked the St Mena Coptic church to free a Christian woman they alleged was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam.
Sack the host, not the dancer
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (07:04 am)
Luring people onto a show just to humiliate them - and in such a mean, personal way - crosses a line:
‘DANCING With The Stars’ turned nasty last night, with Geoffrey Edelsten going toe-to-toe with the show’s judges after they savaged his wife Brynne…
New judge Josh Horner made his bid for Todd McKenney’s nasty judge tag dubbing Brynne “a bedazzled potato sack"…
But it was a back-stage swipe by co-host Sonia Kruger which sent social media into meltdown, telling the disheartened dancer: ”I think it’s nice you get on so well with your dad‘’ - a dig at the age difference with her 67-year-old husband.
That is foul. Is Kruger so hungry for ratings that she’ll say to woman on TV what she’d shrivel in shame to say in the street?
Two months later, the UN’s will just stains Libya’s sands red
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (06:54 am)
So, nearly two months later, how goes the UN-backed military intervention that Kevin Rudd wanted?
MUAMMAR Gaddafi’s troops unleashed a salvo of Grad rockets on towns in Libya’s western mountains and destroyed key fuel supplies in a move that could aggravate a desperate humanitarian crisis.
The attacks came as a boat carrying about 500 refugees from Libya ran aground as it neared an Italian port yesterday, forcing many of those on board, including women and children, to jump into the sea.
Another UN triumph.
Not good news just one day after the boat people deal
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (06:34 am)
I’m not sure that this news, just one day after the Gillard Government announced a deal to bring in 4000 extra refugees from Malaysia, will reassure many voters:
WAYNE Swan will flood regional areas with 16,000 skilled migrants next year to maximise the payoff from the resources boom in a budget that has been smashed by a $16 billion collapse in revenue…
One measure to be announced tomorrow will be a 60 per cent increase in skilled migrant intakes under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, whereby employers can sponsor a skilled migrant on the condition they live and work in the area for at least two years.... The RSMS intake will be increased by 6000…
There may well be an economic benefit in bringing in more skilled migrants. But I think the Gillard Government is missing a great and growing unease about the cultural benefit of higher immigration in any form when we seem to more fractured than is healthy.
And if Malaysia then puts on the squeeze as well
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (06:05 am)
That’s just the start of it:
But for every person arriving by boat who is rejected and sent the other way, they will have to cough up $90,000.
The $292 million so-called “Malaysian solution” will be part of an immigration blowout in tomorrow’s Federal Budget, which the Opposition claims could top $800 million.
Then there’s the Centrelink payments…
And if Malaysia’s smart, it will now realise it has the Gillard Government over a barrel. This deal hasn’t actually been signed yet, and the details are still to be worked out. The Gillard Government will do anything rather than have this fail.
UPDATE
It does seem strange that the Government rushed out the announcement of its “deal” with Malaysia on a Saturday, before it was signed or even agreed to by Cabinet:
THE first asylum-seekers to be processed under the controversial swap between Malaysia and Australia could be in Kuala Lumpur within weeks, as it emerged Labor’s full cabinet was unaware of the deal until just hours before it was announced… The Australian has been told the first official briefing cabinet ministers received on the Malaysia plan was at a special cabinet meeting held on Saturday, convened the same day the deal was officially announced.
It’s almost like the Prime Minister didn’t trust Cabinet to keep secret this deal until it was nailed down. Now which particular Cabinet member with extensive foreign affairs contacts might have got himself involved ... or put out some pre-announcement spin?
And who is the “senior government source” now telling the Australian of the panic:
“I think she’s worried: ‘How do I settle caucus down?’ Because caucus is getting very, very worried, given the polls. We’re fighting on too many fronts—refugees, carbon tax, etcetera—and she thinks refugees is a bigger issue for her in caucus than carbon tax.”
UPDATE
Greg Sheridan points out a silver lining - that at least Gillard previous dumb idea is dead:
The one good thing about this deal is the final death and burial of Julia Gillard’s phantasmagorical East Timor processing centre. This was surely the most barren and counter-productive cul de sac down which Australian diplomacy has been forced to travel for many a long year.
How tragic that we now measure Gillard’s success by the stupid ideas she abandons.
UPDATE
ABC news yesterday:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the deal yesterday for Malaysia to take 800 asylum-seekers in return for Australia accepting 4000 refugees from Malaysia.Gillard on Radio 6PR, July 8, 2010:
I would rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.
From the UNHCR website:
Malaysia is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol. By law, refugees are vulnerable to arrest for immigration offences and may be subject to detention, prosecution, whipping and deportation.
Mark Latham on The Bolt Report on Channel 10 yesterday:
For 10 years Labor policy was baloney. The government is ‘fessing up to that now. There’s one more domino to fall and that’s the reintroduction of temporary protection visas. They’re thrashing around reintroducing Manus Island and so forth. [But] Public opinion in the outer suburbs is about reducing the number of refugees into Australia.
Not quite Blofeld
Andrew Bolt – Monday, May 09, 11 (12:07 am)
Rose dead
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 08, 11 (07:36 pm)
A good man, a hero to millions and someone who did more for genuine “reconciliation” than anyone we’ve since paid for that work:
UPDATE
Reader Janama:
I was the engineer that recorded the sound for the single. Lionel was great bloke to work with - I’m sure his family and friends will miss him, as we all do.
The Bolt Report - your take
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 08, 11 (11:44 am)
Lots of you have commented already on the tips forum - and thank you.
But if you haven’t, join us here. How was our first show? And tips for improvement? Any suggestions for next week?
True, I was nervous for the first minute but the panel debate was simply good fun.
But did it work for viewers....?
UPDATE
Damn. Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes spots a crib:
jonaholmesMW Jonathan Holmes
Please don’t say that. Please. RT @Mabel_XYX: I love #boltreport ‘s cheeky sarcasm actually - reminds me of @jonaholmesMW
UPDATE 2
I hope to have more the show up here later. For now, the clip above is the last bit - our interview with Riz Wakil, and our Spin of the Week, Under the Radar and Free Speech Award.
UPDATE 3
Thanks to everyone below for the advice and the kind words, and especially to my aunt. I’ve learned a bit from all your comments, as I hope you’ll see next week. But the set will stay red, and I won’t ge more than half an hour. For those in country areas upset about not getting the show at 10am, that’s something you’ll have to take up with Southern Cross Media, I’m afraid.
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