Prostitution claims creep up on Gillard
Piers Akerman – Thursday, August 18, 11 (06:50 pm)
DETAILED circumstantial evidence now suggests Craig Thomson may have misused union funds when he was national secretary of the Health Services Union.
They’ll change the law to save themselves hahahahaha
Thu 18 Aug 11 (07:03pm)
Thu 18 Aug 11 (07:25pm)
Or declare martial law and Australia a republic.
Thu 18 Aug 11 (08:07pm)
Please don’t be too hard on Cuddly Craig as he is only endevouring to support the Ladies of the night and “Go Forward” with his new Stimulus to assist Wayne and bring the budget in on surplus, after all, they need all the help they can get. 
Thu 18 Aug 11 (09:13pm)
They are gone and playing for time. There are significant smears they can still spread. I heard one today about Mr Abbott being slow in assuring the public he would not act like Gillard, which is technically corrupt. I wasn’t certain how to label Gillard’s actions, and I looked over my notes and see that Tembe had already provided the correct description of Gillard’s performance.
All the ALP can do now is rush through legislation and make the changes that will be a lasting legacy for them. They will try to do as much as they can to make it look like the Conservatives are mean and anti poor. Which brings us back to Mr Abbott. The threat is that someone on the conservative side may have visited brothels, or some such. It doesn’t have to be true. It is only a threat, so that if Mr Abbott makes a statement, he might be embarrassed.
Gillard failed my test before the 2007 election She was never competent. She has never made an effective policy. Her legacy is medicare Gold and many bungled operations, including Fair Work. History will show that under her watch the poor got poorer, the rich got richer and many unjust situations arose. She isn’t compassionate. She isn’t fair. She isn’t gracious. She isn’t kind.
I posted the following question to the age on “Our Say.” It is too late to support it, but you might like to know the answer to it too.
“Good women are involved with politics, like Thatcher, Palin, Bronwin Bishop or Julie Bishop. Deeply troubled women like Carmen Lawrence and Kristina Keneally, Bligh and Gillard are also involved in politics. What changes need to happen to allow a good woman to be in politics without emasculating them like Gillard? Palin shows a mum of 5 can be a real presence, graceful and sharp. Thatcher shows a woman can be a great leader. A red headed daughter of a welsh coal miner can lead a nation to greatness. Or she can crumble and stagger from false compromise to corrupt hucksterism, selling out compassion and exploiting children and old folk, eschewing marriage or children while conducting affairs with married men.”
Fri 19 Aug 11 (11:35am)
DD Ball, I often hear that Gillards Father was a Welsh coal miner,As the son of a Welsh coal miner may i attempt to put the record straight?.
John Gillard worked for the National coal board as a clerk, a short period working for the police,a railway booking clerk and on arrival in Australia, a psychriatric nurse.An honest working man who in the Welsh tradition gave all he had to educate his children,but calling him a coalminer is a bit like saying that someone served in a war zone when they didn’t.
By the way, I never heard of him calling himself a coal miner.
Fri 19 Aug 11 (01:27pm)
Oldtimer, the claim of coalminership was not my creation. I am paraphrasing a Bolt article quoting a London based Australian journalist/writer. She had written that Australia had become a place where a red haired Welsh coalminer’s daughter could rise to be PM, and so she would return to Australia. In reply Bolt posted a picture of Time Magazine’s cover showing Margaret Thatcher as then Time’s Person of the year.
I am curious, do you have anything substantive to quibble over?
Fri 19 Aug 11 (01:56pm)
Oldtimer, I apologize if my reply seems tart. You have a right to stand up for your heritage. It is a proud thing to have been a Welsh coal miner. I did not grow up in such times,or in such deprivation. I have read accounts through the works of writers like Delderfield or Dickens. I don’t think Gillard or her dad ever made the claim, only useful idiots on their behalf.
Fri 19 Aug 11 (03:43pm)
DD no apology necessary,I enjoy your posts and by and large agree with them,I was making the point via this thread as i have heard or read this reference to Mr Gillard in many places,I don’t wish to denigrate the gentleman but just wanted to put the record straight.
Welfare creates a poverty of values
Piers Akerman – Sunday, August 14, 11 (09:11 am)
Quicker than a brick through a window, the navel-gazers were blaming everything and everyone for the British riots except those smashing the glass and looting.
I feel responsibility for the riots needs to be taken by UK Labor. The kids after they are turned in say as much. The empty gestures and broken promises of UK Labor have created a mixture of dissatisfaction and entitlement responsible people are appalled by.
There are many similarities between those riots and ALP inspired Cronulla, Macquarie Fields, Redfern and Democrat inspired LA.
Also there is a hatred for police which is part and parcel of the underclass. A belief among lefties that police need to be tethered.
Sun 14 Aug 11 (09:22am)
Mon 15 Aug 11 (11:38am)
That’s true DD, but the dysfunctional state of many parts of British society is due also to an all-pervasive soft-left ideology of which Labour is only the most visible element. There is far less robust debate about issues in Britain than here because the Left has a much stronger hold on the media there.
Take global warming for example. We’ve had several Brit warmist identities come here and express surprise at how we’re even debating the issue. True, we have courageous journalists with integrity like Piers, Janet A, Bolt, Jones and Blair, and others, but there are good people there too.
The big difference there is the sheer size and influence of the BBC, which is overwhelmingly left wing. They have several TV channels, many radio stations and a plethora of websites constantly spouting left-wing dogma, and forever identifying and marginalising conservative voices. They’ve got the game down to such a fine art that most people would not consider them an intrusive influence, but they are.
Everyone was brought up with the BBC knocking on their doors demanding hundreds of pounds of ‘TV Licence’ to fund BBC propaganda, so they don’t see it as outrageous. A good deal of BBC is innocuous fluff, but they’re very good at nudging the political centre further left in small increments with their news and current affairs divisions.
Now that Britons search in bewilderment for reasons to understand why their society has become so dysfunctional and violent, the real reason is literally staring them in the face, right out of their TV screens. The overwhelming, monolithic leftist power of the BBC, which controls more than half the media, and sets the parameters within which governments may produce an agenda.
If the Brits want to get serious about wrenching their society back away from the soft-left dysfunction that has gradually ruined their education, their police, their families and almost every other institution, they have to disable the one big institution that has promoted the general disintegration, yet flourished itself: the BBC. The BBC strongly promotes every destructive policy setting that has led to the disaster, from child-centred, non-disciplinary teaching in schools where the child’s desires are paramount and learning is virtually optional, to non-confrontational policing where offenders are reasoned with rather than arrested. From the glorification of single motherhood to the aggressive promotion of welfare dependency as a legitimate lifestyle choice, the BBC is the strident voice of modern Leftism, defending all the factors that have led to the breakdown of civil society.
Not even Thatcher could successfully tackle the BBC, but things have got a lot worse since then and it’s time to act. Until they break up and sell that massive monster of Leftism, it will be impossible to turn Britain back into a country where individual responsibility and civil society are once more the norm.
Mon 15 Aug 11 (04:43pm)
John A, we agree. The BBC is a very big dog. They produce more than the ABC too, and this influences the world. I don’t want that to excuse the ABC from their failure of duty. Q&A;, Current affairs, news and Media Watch are appallingly one sided. Occasionally they show two sides when they explore the ALP Green divide.
Mon 15 Aug 11 (06:16pm)
Absolutely, DD. Can you imagine what state our own country would be in if ‘our’ ABC were three times as big and three times as influential? It would be a catastrophe. It’s bad enough as it is, but the BBC is that much bigger than the ABC and Britain is therefore in a correspondingly more dysfunctional state. The ABC is a joke here, a motley crew of pompous prigs like Tony Jones and pantomime clowns like Wil Anderson. No one here with an intellect would subject themselves to the stupidity, but over there the BBC dominates and can hardly be avoided. No wonder blighty has gone pear-shaped!
Mon 15 Aug 11 (11:12pm)
To John A -
Some very good and well expressed thoughts re the huge Leftist propaganda machine, the B.B.C..
How can the B.B.C. understand what is going wrong in British society when the B.B.C. is steeped in the very culture that is the root cause?
Our own Leftist propaganda machine, the A.B.C., has done untold harm to our country.
May the A.B.C. never become as influencial as the B.B.C..
JJ.
Tue 16 Aug 11 (12:45am)
JohnA:
Your comment and Piers’ blog really resonated as we watched Q&A;tonight,
Labor’s ABC works to corrupt democracy in the same way as the BBC, and it was all up there tonight.
Whatever the subject raised, slagging off at Tony Abbott was the only game in town.
It’s an absolute miracle that he’s doing as well in the polls as he is---hopefully testimony to enough Australians not being as stupid as LaborGreens think they are---for now, anyway.
On the coal seam gas issue, all of the flak was for Abbott, for trying to highlight the plight of the farmers, and the need to protect Australia’s food security, but it seems no one knows [ can it be possible??] that Tony Burke, as the Minister with the responsibility, and up there tonight joining in the attack on Abbott, ignored the advice commissioned and received by his office, that----
[ ‘said it could take more than a millennia for the Great Artesian Basin to recover from the damage caused by the extraction of water associated with the coal seam gas.
Advice from the Water Group within Mr Burke’s department said the companies had been “extremely conservative” in their estimates of how much water they would take from the Great Artesian Basin. The Minister’s Department said it could be “at least 1000 years” before water levels recovered.’]
He gave the go-ahead in spite of the advice.
It seems all these great Left wing ‘environmentalists’ are so desperately worried about putting the dreaded ‘pollutant’ CO2 into the air, that they’re willing to look the other way while Australia’s vital aquifers and the Great Artesian Basin are put at risk of pollution and depletion for up to 3000 years [ some hydrologists say] .
To ‘save’ us from CO2, they’re planning to foul our precious water supply with it, burying millions of tonnes of it next to aquifers ----- and to provide supposedly cleaner energy in the form of coal seam gas, they’re willing to not only destroy the properties of farming families, but to expose Australian citizens to the toxic chemicals of the fracking process, and risk the destruction [ for all intents and purposes] of the precious aquifers of the driest continent on earth.
All of this happens while the ‘settled science’ gets shakier by the day.
And of course , while Brown preaches to Tony Abbott, and the Greens are sucking the farmers in with their cynical and opportunistic support for them on CSG, no journalist of the MSM is the least bit interested in asking the Greens in Australia’s interests, how, since they’re not just against CSG, and CCS, but are demanding an end to the use of coal in any way, both as base load power provider, and as an export------ exactly what, how and when is any renewable going to take over the powering of Australian industry---and which renewable is going to provide the export income we get from coal, aluminium and all the carbon-intensive industries.
It’s treasonous that those journalists supporting this anti-Australia policy, deliberately avoid asking these questions they know GreenLabor can’t rationally answer.
None of these Leftists are environmentalists---not GreenLabor, WWF, Greenpeace, Climate Institute etc etc ---they’re environmental vandals.
This travesty and betrayal of Australia is only possible because the Left owns the ABC as surely as the UK Left owns the BBC.
Tue 16 Aug 11 (05:43pm)
Truth, the best part of the partisan ABC is that their bias also galvanises conservatives. The Howard battlers were held together by the knowledge that the stuff spoken was bad lies by the ABC. But over time, those bad lies become the ‘truth.’ That is what happened with Howard, Nixon, Thatcher, Bush ... the bad lies serve a good purpose for a time, but cannot be opposed in the end.
Tue 16 Aug 11 (11:29pm)
Truth,
When Mr Howard seemed invincible the media conducted a campaign based on the false rumour that AWB was bribing Saddam Hussein.
The damage to the Australian wheat farmers is on going in that the selling of Australia’s wheat crop has fallen into the hands of a group of Americans whose loyalty is not likely to be in the best interests of Australia.
I suggest you add the initials AWB to your list.
Wed 17 Aug 11 (12:45pm)
It’s true DD that the ABC’s lies and distortions have a galvanising effect on the conservative base. Also, the inmates at the ABC Sheltered Workshop occupy a kind of left wing echo-chamber, where no non-leftist idea can ever be heard above the constant affirmation and reiteration of green and soft-left platitudes, and that tends to put off average, mainstream Aussies who are in the ‘uncommitted’ range. The routine, gratuitous insults and put-downs of conservatives that seem so natural and funny to those inside that ABC echo-chamber can be a real turn-off to the middle-of-the-road voter. It may well have helped Howard win all those elections.
But while the ABC’s influence is currently limited, it has big plans. It now has no less than four TV stations, and wastes over a BILLION taxpayer’s dollars per annum. It’s mostly funded by the very Australians it takes such delight in lampooning and marginalising - average Australian families who don’t live in the inner cities and pay most of the tax. They’re usually the one demographic not represented on its unwatchable current affairs panel shows.
The ABC wants to become as powerful in Australia as the BBC is in the UK, but if we want to continue to live in a reasonably functional society, we had better do whatever we can to prevent that. When the Libs win big next election, they should do everything necessary to put a lid on the ABC’s expansionist ambitions. It might already be too late. They may have reached critical mass, where their influence on the governing class may already have grown to the extent where it can no longer be contained. If that’s the case, god help us.
Just look at what’s happened to Britain, where the BBC reigns supreme. Even after more than a decade of obviously dysfunctional Labour government, the Conservatives were unable to win an election in their own right. In charge of more than half the media, the BBC controls the agenda. They’ve even forced the Conservative party to become a kind of Labour-lite, incapable of taking the tough steps necessary to re-establish a resilient civil order. The Conservatives’ main concern even in the wake of the riots is to avoid doing anything that might give the BBC the excuse to continue their label of them as ‘the nasty party’.
The BBC has successfully demolished most British social institutions which once underwrote a functioning, healthy society, such as the traditional family and the church, so that now there’s really only one socially influential institution left: none other than the BBC itself. So successful and insidious is the BBC’s influence, most Britons would not even identify it as a major cause of their country’s appalling state. They’ve soaked the nation in left-wing ideology so deep and so long that it has become intuitive and reflexive for most Britons to cast blame according to the BBC’s own leftist agenda – against capitalism, against the ‘racist British character’, against the ‘mean-spirited’ conservative platform, anywhere but where it belongs.
That’s why Britain has little hope of once more becoming a successful civil society, and it’s why we must at all costs prevent ‘our’ ABC from ever becoming as powerful and influential as their BBC.
Wed 17 Aug 11 (05:09pm)
Truth and JJ, you’re absolutely right. We should as much as possible let our MPs know what we think about the growth of the ABC. It’s a battle for the soul of our country.
Thu 18 Aug 11 (12:10am)
To John A -
Thank you for sharing your thoughts - you make many very good points.
It is expected that the A.B.C. would want to smother Australia with Left-speak.
It is critically important that we don’t allow this.
Leftism is mental cancer.
You say -
“They’ve soaked the nation (England) in left-wing ideology so deep and so long that it has become intuitive and reflexive for most Britons to cast blame according to the BBC’s own leftist agenda – against capitalism, against the ‘racist British character’, against the ‘mean-spirited’ conservative platform, anywhere but where it belongs.”
A good comment bar the word “intuitive” - intuition is innate and “unsoakinable”.
This is the key - to encourage people to search into their inner selves, beyond conditioning.
The deeper you travel within the further you are from external influences, some of which will be toxic such as Leftism.
To tie to your soul, through which God comes to us, is the shield against worldly influence.
Your soul is the end point of the road within - it is the deepest part of you.
On Page 4, towards the bottom, I have posted a commentary by Melanie Phillips.
I urge you to read this - it is extremely good. Here is Melanie Phillips’ blog site should you wish to read more of her work.
All the very best,
John Jay.
Stroke of a pen cuts sperm donor’s life with his child
Miranda Devine – Friday, August 19, 11 (09:28 am)
She has his hazel eyes. She has his nose. She has his sensitive personality. She has his sense of style. She has half his DNA. She calls him Daddy.
Yet the NSW Supreme Court this week expunged sperm donor John Williams (not his real name) from his 10-year-old daughter’s birth certificate.
The girl now officially has two mothers - the biological mother and her estranged lesbian partner. But by law she has no father, thanks to the introduction in 2008 of retrospective NSW legislation giving lesbian couples equal parent status.
He answered an advert and he donated. He gave. It is foreseeable that a couple might sunder. If he wanted children .. but then this whole situation seems more political, using a child to prosecute an agenda. Who is using that child is not what I know. Diet, lifestyle, gender, are sophisticated ideas which any child can adapt or work around. Children are resilient. Yet as we see each year, many of those resilient children die from neglect. And everybody loved them.
I don't think it is the law that needs to be changed. It is peoples hearts which are hard
Jack-boot Left gives dads a kicking
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, August 17, 11 (06:50 pm)
THE reaction to my column last week pointing out the perils of a fatherless society is a case study in how intimidation, vilification, distortion and outright lies are being used in an attempt to silence unfashionable opinions.
What you write is reasonable and proportionate. The response hysterical, abysmal and low. One example you didn’t mention was the Media Watch gleefully passing on the alleged criticism without correcting the mistakes. It was an illustration, ironically, in how a mixture of telephones and social networks conspired with horrible people to cause the London riots.
Wed 17 Aug 11 (07:06pm)
Thu 18 Aug 11 (08:49am)
Well it’s interesting that you referr to Media Watch, that basically rubbished all the vitriolic hyperbol of the tabloid media, making armchair assertions and assumtions of UK society on why the riots happened. Of course conservatives DID NOT make any mention of the of the austrity measures introduced by the conservative government that targets the lower socio-economic class.
Any time there is an economic down turn, where does government make cuts DD...?? It’s to services to the less well off is it not...??
(conservatives love small gov.)
When did you ever here of the economic pain being shared by the WELL OFF. Have you ever seen the well off demonstrate against asuterity measures...??
The recent US debarcle is a prime example… Conservatives, particularly the Tea Party, would not have a bar of shelving TAX CUTS to the rich, as promised, while insisting that health care for 30.million people be dumped.
Of course they would, as if the down turn, anywhere in the world, was caused by the powerless poor. What… didn’t they spend there basic wage faster enough to stimulate growth, the buggers.
Miranda deserves everything she gets on her article for cynically linking Wongs low key annuncement, of an up coming addition to her family in an attempt to avoid a media frenzy. To the RIOTS in the UK, while stating she wishes her all the best… Very funny indeed. The insinuation being that you lot produce humans that end up damaged and cause damage to the community…
As if only the less well off end up divorcing or seperating… The well off are never fatherless are they.
Thu 18 Aug 11 (10:29am)
Fair and Balanced: This is not the place for intelligent and appropriate arguments.
Miranda as all the power and say, we are the great unwashed, the ‘chattering’ classes.’
We SHOULD NOT CRITIQUE RIGHT WINGED JOURNOS! Look out…!
Thu 18 Aug 11 (02:26pm)
I thought FAB and TTC were one and the same. Their abuse is. The outrageous allegation hat conservatives cut services in time of need is wrong. Conservatives cut the fat from bad policy. Bet they can’t provide an example to justify that assertion. Maybe they will point to the bad policy and call it good.
How about answering my question of Media Watch posted below .. what if their outrageous hyperbole turned violent?
Thu 18 Aug 11 (03:10pm)
This is not the place for intelligent and appropriate arguments
How very true Tony, your ranting assertions and gross generalisations highlight this point superbly. Thanks. 
You prove the point that a little education introducted to a feeble and gullible mind is sometimes dangerous. No ones forcing you to participate in this forum, if you don’t like it, piss off.
Now, tell us about your thesis’ and ongoing social work again why don’t you. Goat! 
Thu 18 Aug 11 (03:33pm)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha
Thank you “Fair and Balanced!
Best laugh I have had all week.
“When did you ever hear of the economic pain being shared by the WELL OFF.”
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Here’s just two examples where ALL the economic pain is being borne SOLELY by the “well off”, with nothing coming from the less well off: -
1. Qld Flood Levy - only being paid, via increased medicare levy, by thse on the higher tax levels;
2. Carbon Tax - the less well off are all being “over compensated” according to the ALP, while the passing on of the tax from businesses to customers will therefore be solely borne by those NOT receiving compensation....those same people solely paying the Flood Levy.
I didn’t even need to go back over past years of ALP bribes to the less well off - like $900 handouts to avoid GFC 1, etc. All those were funded by increased govt debt....all of which will be paid for by those taxpayers that don’t rely on govt handouts.
Sounds fair to you, I suppose?
Thu 18 Aug 11 (03:52pm)
You’re right Tony ,there is no fair and balanced or Inteligents with you two !!! 
Here’s a letter to the editor of tothesource:
Arguing against allowing women to be paid to be surrogate mothers, Jennifer Lahl asserts that “commercial surrogacy, whether done legally [or illegally] is still selling babies” (“Babies for Sale, Buyer Beware“).
Not so.
Surrogate mothers are paid to assist infertile couples to have children. Each surrogate mother is compensated for choosing to give her time; for choosing to bear medical risks; and (if she still chooses after giving birth) for parting with her parental rights in the same way that each and every mother who gives her child up for adoption parts with her parental rights.
On the other side of each of these voluntary exchanges is a couple desiring a child so fervently that they willingly pay a large sum of money to a woman who helps them navigate around the curse of infertility. Most of these couples have already paid huge sums of money to infertility clinics in unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant – yet, rightly, no one calls the voluntary exchanges that couples have with infertility clinics “baby selling.”
To label voluntary, mutually advantageous contracts between surrogate mothers and infertile couples “baby selling” is a grotesque mischaracterization, one that masks reality behind a blanket of hysteria.
Children brought into the world through surrogacy contracts are no more “sold” than are children brought into the world through infertility treatments. Why should couples for whom infertility treatments fail be denied the joys of parenthood if they and willing surrogate mothers voluntarily agree to terms that bring new human beings to life?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Many years ago I held forth, in the Cato Journal, on the larger issue involved here.
It is the rare politician who doesn’t disgust me. Michele Bachmann is not among those rare few.
The only wall I want to build is one that protects from the swarming hordes of politicians and government functionaries people who simply wish to be left alone to mind their own business.
UPDATE: In light of the debate going on here, Cafe patron Matt Gleason asks me to re-post this video from 2003.
… is one of Frederic Bastiat’s incisive critiques of the nanny-state. It’s found on page 435 of Frederic Bastiat, The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics (Liberty Fund, 2011); it is from an essay that originally appeared in 1848, entitled “Laissez-faire”:
This is simply absurd. Do you seriously have such faith in human wisdom that you want universal sufferage and government of all by all and then you proclaim these very men whom you consider fit to govern others unfit to govern themselves?
OFFSHORE OIL WAR
Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 11 (10:45 am)
Good guys versus the government in a battle for billions:
Exxon Mobil Corp. is fighting with the U.S. government to keep control of one of its biggest oil discoveries ever, in a showdown where billions of dollars hang in the balance for both sides.
The massive Gulf of Mexico discovery contains an estimated one billion barrels of recoverable oil, the company says. The Interior Department, which regulates offshore drilling, says Exxon’s leases have expired and the company hasn’t met the requirements for an extension. Exxon has sued to retain the leases …
The stakes are high: Under federal law, the leases—and all the oil underneath—could revert to the government if Exxon doesn’t win in court.
Ominously for Exxon, the area is known as Julia field.
DENIAAAAAAL IS RAAAAACIST
Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 11 (04:48 am)
White male Graham Readfearn exposes a white male conspiracy:
When it comes to climate change, most people have heard of the greenhouse effect, but what about the “conservative white male” effect?
A US-based study has found that white men with politically conservative views are far more likely than the rest of the population to doubt the science of human-caused climate change.
And the “conservative white male effect” has been linked to Australia, with one prominent researcher citing the existence of a successful, politically engaged and outspoken coterie operating in high-profile positions that attract wide media coverage.
Hmmm … “a successful, politically engaged and outspoken coterie operating in high-profile positions that attract wide media coverage.” Readfearn is accurately describing many of his fellow warmoids, who tend overwhelmingly towards whiteyness.
YOUNG BLONDES, CONFIDENTIAL MODELS, BAD GIRLS
Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 11 (04:15 am)
Matters are becoming increasingly tense for Craig Thomson. The SMH reports:
Calls were made to escort services from hotel rooms hired by the Labor MP Craig Thomson while he was the secretary of the Health Services Union.
Charges for the calls were paid by Mr Thomson’s union credit card …
On April 5, 2006 a call was made from Mr Thomson’s hotel room at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne to Young Blondes escort agency and later to Confidential Models escort agency.
On June 7, 2006 a call was made from his room at Pacific International Suites in Melbourne to an escort agency called Bad Girls.
According to Thomson’s previous statements, blame lies with another fellow whom he declines to identify. Silence seems to be contagious:
The ALP bailout of Craig Thomson could be more than $150,000 – and federal minister Mark Arbib is understood to have brokered the deal between Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s office and NSW Labor.
Ms Gillard refused yesterday to reveal how much Labor had paid to stop Craig Thomson becoming bankrupt in the face of large legal bills …
Ms Gillard refused to answer a question in parliament as to when she first spoke to Mr Thomson about his debts, saying: “It is not my intention to comment on private discussions I have with the member for Dobell.”
Thomson is the new Belinda Neal. The Age‘s Michelle Grattan:
Thomson should not be re-endorsed.
Why leave his departure until then?
(No comments. Legally fraught.)
JUSTIFIABLY ANGRY BOYS
Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 11 (03:30 am)
Finally, an explanation for London’s violence:
The DVD release of Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys in Europe has been postponed – after the London warehouse storing the discs was burned down in the recent riots.
If Ben Elton’s last Australian series ever turns up in the UK, they’ll incinerate every square inch of the place from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. And with good reason.
SETH EFRICA WHITENED
Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 11 (02:40 am)
Dan F. emails:
Not only your neck of the southern woods has been having a rough time with “global warming” this winter. South Africa got blitzed a couple weeks ago (heavy snow in the Drakensberg, and even accumulating snow all the way down into the suburbs of Johannesburg).
I was down in Pretoria for a few days, and after some nice late winter weather, on Sunday night and Monday everything changed – got snowed-upon Monday afternoon while heading from Pretoria back to the airport in Joburg.
You gotta love that photo; it needs a caption of “This is Africa?!”
Or simply: Snoburg.
Labor chains itself to Thomson’s carcase
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (01:54 pm)
CALLS were made to escort services from hotel rooms hired by the Labor MP Craig Thomson while he was the secretary of the Health Services Union. Charges for the calls were paid by Mr Thomson’s union credit card.
Mr Thomson already faces allegations, revealed by the Herald, that his card was used to pay for escort services in Sydney, and to make more than $100,000 in cash withdrawals.
Mr Thomson has denied the allegation of irregular spending - still the subject of an investigation by Fair Work Australia.
But the real political scandal, as so often, is in the cover up:
During a budget estimates hearing in February, the Liberal senator Michael Ronaldson questioned Terry Nassios, the Fair Work Australia officer charged with investigating the allegations. He asked Mr Nassios who had been interviewed, and if Mr Thomson had been interviewed.
At an earlier hearing, Mr Nassios said answers to those questions could damage his investigation, but this time he said he believed the answers could be safely made public.
But as he prepared to answer, he was interrupted by the Labor Senate leader, Chris Evans, who said: ‘’I would like to get some advice before the officer made available details as to who has been interviewed.’’
The line of questioning was ended and Senator Ronaldson has since learnt that Fair Work Australia took advice from Peter Hanks, QC, who charged $7092 to advise that revealing who had been interviewed would not be in the public interest.
UPDATE
Again, the real scandal is the coverup:
The ALP bailout of Craig Thomson could be more than $150,000 – and federal minister Mark Arbib is understood to have brokered the deal between Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s office and NSW Labor.
Ms Gillard refused yesterday to reveal how much Labor had paid to stop Craig Thomson becoming bankrupt in the face of large legal bills …
Ms Gillard refused to answer a question in parliament as to when she first spoke to Mr Thomson about his debts…
Labor’s head office in NSW refused to comment…
A spokeswoman for Mr Arbib, the Sports Minister and former NSW Labor general secretary, refused to answer specific questions…
Mr Thomson declined to return calls.
The ABC is all over this angle:
Abbott dodges question, amid claims over Labor MP
Er, Abbott?
UPDATE
Meanwhile, pressure mounts:
Embattled federal Labor MP Craig Thomson is being investigated over whether he misled industrial umpire Fair Work Australia.
Fair Work Australia has previously found insufficient evidence to prosecute Mr Thomson, the member for the NSW seat of Dobell.Seven News reported on Thursday the industrial body was now investigating whether Mr Thomson misled the initial probe into allegations his former union credit card was used to pay for prostitutes.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard is understood to have been informed of the fresh inquiry, but continues to stand by the MP.
(No comments for legal reasons. Thanks to readers Margie and Dave.)
Bolt Report on Sunday - Tony Abbott
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:54 pm)
On The Bolt Report on Sunday, my interview guest is Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
Political spin masters Bruce Hawker and Mark Textor will tell us how they would try to spin Craig Thomson. Or flick him.
On Channel 10 at 10am and 4.30pm.
Forget farmers, nurses, police and train drivers
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:00 pm)
The Queensland Government’s Office of Early Childhood Education and Care is already training our tots for the future - when no one actually makes stuff, and all is green, green, green.
Watch the video here.
(Thanks to reader Stuart.)
Stop global warming or the aliens will kill us
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (11:37 am)
We’ve gone mad, you know. From the Guardian:
It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim…
Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity “prepare for actual contact”.
In their report, Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, the researchers… warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have pushed species to extinction on Earth. In the most extreme scenario, aliens might choose to destroy humanity to protect other civilisations.
“A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.
“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.
Do you sense an edge of hysteria to demands that we cut the emissions that help make us rich? How do these NASA researchers know aliens wouldn’t prefer a planet with more carbon dioxide?
(Thanks to reader Darren.)
Trucks roaring to Canberra
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (09:25 am)
CANBERRA will be squeezed to capacity next week when thousands of trucks and other vehicles converge on the nation’s capital in the Convoy of No Confidence.
About 300 semi-trailers, caravans and cars from across Australia are expected to arrive in Goulburn on Sunday, before heading into Canberra the next day.
A Convoy of more than 100 vehicles - including road trains, campervans and utes - rolled into Katherine last night to show their support for the Convoy of no Confidence, a convoy heading to Canberra to raise a voice against recent government decisions.
Rashida Khan, who led a trail of vehicles from Darwin to Katherine yesterday, said she was on her way to Canberra to speak up for “some of the toughest people” she knows, who “have been pushed to the edge by the decision to ban live export”.
“And I don’t know how much further you can push these people,” Ms Khan said.
Not all will make the expensive trip all the way to Canberra, but enough feel so strongly about the protest that they’re paying thousands:
A CONVOY of protesters angry at the federal government’s proposed carbon and mining taxes and the live cattle export ban has left Perth headed for Canberra.
About 50 people in 25 trucks, vans and cars joined in the “Convoy of No Confidence’’ that left Belmont racecourse early this morning.
Around a third of the protesters plan to go all the way to Canberra where 11 protest convoys from around Australia will converge for an anti-government rally on August 22.
Janet Thompson, organiser of the Perth convoy, said people were fed up with over regulation and the carbon tax was set to be a ``huge bureaucratic nightmare.’’…
Perth truckie Gordon Crawford said the trip to Canberra and back would cost them up to $4500 in fuel and lost work time but he felt his protest was important.
``If enough people do it they have got to take notice,’’ he said.
UPDATE
(Thanks to reader Lisa.)
Dreyfus accused
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (07:02 am)
Clip and keep for the next time Labor does that “Tony Abbott is mean to women” routine:
JULIA Gillard has declined to rebuke her Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Mark Dreyfus, after he admitted using “unparliamentary” language to sledge Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella.
The opposition claims Mr Dreyfus called Ms Mirabella a “bitch” in parliament yesterday.Mr Dreyfus denies the claim, although he admits he was out of line.
“I did not use the language being attributed to me by the opposition, however I readily acknowledge that the language I did use was unparliamentary,” he said today.
“I regret that this exchange took place and this is why I acted to withdraw my remark at the time of the debate.”
Liberal women remain outraged, accusing Labor of ignoring offensive conduct by its own MPs while condemning similar breaches by Coalition MPs with “righteous indignation”.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
Imported strife
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (06:37 am)
NSW police already have a Middle East organised crime unit. Now Victoria’s police is battling the sameconsequence of a mismanaged immigration program:
Investigators from the Santiago crime taskforce, which has been investigating a series of shootings involving Lebanese crime families, have been called in to assist homicide detectives…
Senior police have been worried about a series of shootings in the north-western suburbs involving criminals of Lebanese descent, including a spate of drive-by attacks. Police have identified five such cells.
(No comments.)
Escape hatch wanted
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (06:28 am)
Business is wisely refusing to believe the Gillard Government’s claims that the rest of the world is leaving us behind in “pricing carbon”:
BIG business is demanding the Gillard government include economic ‘’safety valves’’ so carbon tax legislation can be ‘’scaled down’’ if its core assumptions of indefinite economic growth and steady progress in international climate negotiations turn out to be wrong.
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott told the Herald the carbon tax bills had been ‘’drafted so all the environmental elements can’t be stopped but the business protections can be eroded.’’
‘’We think it is just commonsense, in this environment of economic volatility and no binding action by other countries, that the government should be able to review and adjust what it is doing in response to what happens,’’ she said.
Julian Leeser says Labor MPs should save themselves:
For the tax to fail in Parliament, Labor backbenchers (I have given up on the independents) have to cross the floor and vote against it. This is a very unlikely scenario given Labor Party discipline and the way so-called “rats” are ostracised by the Labor machine. But there must be a number of Labor members in marginal mining and manufacturing seats who know that they will lose their seats unless they stop the carbon tax.
When Labor pursued its disastrous Tasmanian forestry policy under Mark Latham at the 2004 election, Dick Adams was due to lose the Tasmanian seat of Lyons. He repudiated the Latham/Brown policy (which was the last time Labor let the Greens make policy for them). Adams survived because he chose his constituency over his party and remains a federal MP to this day....
People do have power - to badger their local member or their local media and to organise their friends and communities to let marginal backbenchers know there is a cost to voting for this tax in terms they understand.
Gillard Government tempted to ditch Israel
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (06:14 am)
Why should this choice between principle and a worthless trinket be “excruciating”?:
THE Gillard government is facing an excruciating choice between boycotting a UN conference on racism that is expected to vilify Israel, and attending in order to cement support for its Security Council membership campaign.
Meanwhile, the Greens confirm they are indeed the new haven of the fashionable anti-Semite:
This comes after the Greens refused to back a motion in the Senate condemning a recent boycott of Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate stores by pro-Palestinian protesters.
More dangerous than the racism it pretends to fight
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:14 am)
Ted Lapkin explains the liberal case for scrapping the Racial Hatred Act:
Liberty is menaced far more by a coercive regime of state-enforced political censorship than by the mad ravings of a neo-Nazi nutter.
More reporting like this, please
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:02 am)
From Geoff Chambers of the Daily Telegraph:
THE riot squad has converged on the Sofitel Wentworth hotel in the CBD after protesters from a rogue greens group stormed a mining conference.
Two men from the Rising Tide group abseiled down the hotel foyer facade, unfurling a banner protesting against coal seam gas mining.
The banner read: “Enough is enough! Stop Coal and Gas Expansion”.
More than 20 police were positioned outside the hotel after up to 30 protesters earlier ran on to the conference stage to voice their opinions in front of mining executives and senior government officials about 10.30am.
Lock The Gate spokesman Drew Hutton said they did not want coal or gas mining in farmers’ backyards. He would not say what the group’s energy alternative would be.
On the danger of tackling victimhood
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:02 am)
Reader Dr Mark Sinclair, senior lecturer in teacher education at the University of Technology, Sydney, writes:
By the way, I’ve been following with some interest your public discussions of matters Indigenous.
It happens that I ran a one-teacher school in a remote Aboriginal community in the NT in 1992-93. My Honours thesis was about this experience and was titled “From B Effect to C Effect: The rhetoric and practice of Aboriginal self-determination”. The thesis argues that, in the field of education, in matters of self-determination, Aborigines are not entirely victims. In simple terms the basic proposition here is that some (not all) of the misery that characterises Aboriginal lived experience is of their own making.
Being a whitefella and writing about matters black in this way nearly got me kicked out of Griffith University in 1995…Nonetheless, I was eventually awarded a Hons 1 and went on to do my doctorate on Social Justice…I expanded the victim concept to encompass the social justice market in its entirety. The doctorate was titled ”Social justice in education: A market in the production and reproduction of victim circumstances”. The thesis was not well-received at the time (1999/2000), I suspect because its major finding was that the primary beneficiaries of social justice initiatives are advocates of social justice and that the ostensible target populations for whom social justice initiatives purportedly exist derive little or no benefit from them.
While the report about the terrible state of affairs of indigenous affairs this century which led to John Howard’s intervention in a sense vindicated what I’d argued more than a decade earlier, it still troubles me deeply that things are not improving and if anything are getting worse. In part, the issues you are airing publicly highlight a contributing factor…i.e. they are illustrative of what I call the victim market and its beneficiaries. I urge you to not let this matter drop from public discussion.
Klaus lecture
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 19, 11 (12:01 am)
President Vaclav Klaus - The Mass Delusion of Climate Change from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.
From President Vaclav Klaus’s excellent address to the IPA function in Melbourne last month, with some introductions from other speakers.
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