Re reading
The Fatal Shore when this caught my eye.
Governor Darling is having an argument with the media in 1826. He is losing to Wentworth and Hall who are pressing for trial by open jury and representative assembly so he;
…makes a clumsy lunge against the opposition press. He tried to muzzle the Australian and Monitor by imposing newspaper licences, which would be withdrawn if they printed a ‘blasphemous or seditious libel” John Macarthur also urged him to kill their circulation with a stamp duty of 4 pence per copy.
186 years later they’re still trying it on.
The ALP are getting desperate as they try and deflect peoples attention away from the AWU saga. Julie Bishop gets a mention as one of the Lawyers working for CSR in the asbestos claims and the
ALP accuse her of trying to delay the cases.
Ms Bishop says she was simply doing her job as a lawyer – taking legal advice and acting on it.
…..she was advised on the cases by two of the nation’s most senior barristers, Robert French QC, now the Chief Justice of the High Court, and David Malcolm QC, who is a former chief justice of the West Australian Supreme Court.
The ALP’s raising questions on Julie Bishop finally give the ABC and
in to discuss the performance of ex-lawyer politicians. For some reason they couldn’t bring themselves to discuss the matter until a conservative politician was called into question.
Problem is, there is no evidence or even a believable suggestion of malpractice on Bishop’s part. Not quiet the case with Gillard.
Abbott is quiet happy for the ALP to question Julie Bishop’s actions as a lawyer and even encourages it. While the ALP raise Bishop in their defence of Gillard’s behaviour at Slater & Gordon then why wouldn’t he. It gives the Coalition open season on pursuing Gillard for some answers to a litany of allegations that seriously reflect on her ethics and values.
The problem for the ALP will not go away until Gillard fronts up and actually answers questions.
Doug Cameron wants everyone to stop being personal – good advice Doug but you need to get that message through to your boss. The baseless ‘Misogyny’ speech gives the Coalition open licence to attack Gillard on her questionable legal career when she was shacked up with AWU thief Bruce Wilson .
And talking about that, it would appear that files are
disappearing all over the country . Whatever the truth of the matter, it smacks of clean-up gangs going from state to state searching for incriminating evidence and ‘losing’ it.
The debate continues…..
FBI finds
30,000 pages of correspondence between General Allen and Ms Kelley.
30,000 pages! When did he ever get time to play General?
THE widening
CIA sex scandal has engulfed the Australian and US defence talks in Perth, after visiting Defence Secretary Leon Panetta ordered an investigation of the US commander in Afghanistan John Allen for allegedly “inappropriate” emails with a woman.
30,000 pages of “inappropriate communications”
and he was commanding the troops in Afghanistan as well.
I’m impressed.
Much like my wife and I discussing what we would do if we won Lotto, Gillard announces her latest distraction from the mediocrity of her government – The Asian Century.
The white paper, unveiled in Sydney by the Prime Minister yesterday, sets a series of ambitious goals, including elevating the nation’s schools system into the world’s top five, having 10 universities in the world’s top 100 by 2025, and giving every school student the chance for continuous study of an Asian language.
Well yes, no one would argue that these aren’t worthwhile pusuits. The trouble is, the ALP are full of lofty aspirations but very short in the funding department.
Emmerson underlines this saying;
… the states would have to supply the teachers needed to embark on the Asian languages blitz. Those that refused would be denied education funding.
Like Rudd’s 2009 Defence White Paper this plan will be buried in the “when we win Lotto’ filing cabinet along with a lot of ALP plans
It won’t be funded, it can’t be funded and within two weeks ABC24 will be lining up to tell us about the next ‘New Gillard Initiative’ and the rest of us will have moved on.
Productivity is listed as one of the key planks but productivity is doomed while the the Fair Work Act favours the unionists and not the entrepeneur. Every kid learning an Asian language from grades 1 thru 12 is another, but once again the Government says; Here’s a good idea we just thought of but we can’t finance it so the states are going to have to find the money.
Gillard forgets that the Eastern seaboard states are flat out trying to pay off previous ALP government’s huge debts and have no spare cash to fund her ‘If I won Lotto” shopping list.
I was once a linguist myself in the days when we were having a little war with Indonesia and I’ve often bemoaned the fact that Asian languages don’t get the priority I think they deserve. My contacts in education tell me that the kids choose not to take them because of the weighting given languages for Uni entrance makes a language a second rate ambition
Meanwhile Gillard closes down an
Asian language initiative
THE federal government will let a $62 million Asian language program expire in December despite saying it wants four priority languages to be taught from primary school to high school.
Gillard is off to India to try and recover from ALP Stuff-up #435 when in the earlier days of government they reneged on uranium sales to India that had been initiated and signed off by the Howard government.
At the time (Jan 2008) I wrote;
I can imagine a host of other countries waiting for us to let them down…to reneg on signed deals for ideology alone. They’ll be looking up all their agreements with us – vetting them to ensure they meet the ideological standards of the ALP loonies and looking to count their losses and resolving to never deal with us again.
Now she’s back to fix the original stuff-up. The Left and the Greens
are screaming and next month’s ALP conference promises to be interesting.
Abbott goes to Indonesia with some ministers and has a one-on-one with SBY. A bit embarrassing for the ALP as it would indicate the Indons see Abbott as the next PM and that they need to talk to him. Emmerson and the rest of the ALP, including the ABC, are all over the fact that Abbott didn’t mention turning the boats back but I guess they have to find something wrong with the visit as it may turn peoples attention away from the debacle that is their own open-slather border policy.
Thompson, the whore monger, is being defended by the ALP as was Slipper the sexist. Craig Emerson said the Coalition had already acted as “judge and jury” on the allegations against the former Labor MP. I guess he means just like Roxon acted as judge and jury in the Ashby vs Slipper case. So long as the case put together by FWA is current during the lead up to the election and it appears it will be, then the ALP will be suffering all kinds of nightmares. A bonus would be the police charging him – surely that’s on the cards.
A good day for an old conservative – and then there is this;
Of more importance to me is this notice I found at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ while searching for details on my family in West Australia.
Trove is a great source for info as it has digitized most Australian newspapers from the 19th century through to now.
Quiet a shock really
The paper was dated 1946. It’s amazing that I would get this far considering my life style and career choices.
The family Labs ready for an outing that turned sour for them when it turned into a dog wash. It turned sour for me as well when I’m left holding the baby who very quickly decides I’m not Mum.
She is not happy. Saturday morning is supposed to be devoted to reading
The Weekend Australian. This Saturday morning was devoted to dragging up repressed memories from my young father days on how to quieten a whinging child – all I could remember was give it back to the mother!
The cycle of life goes on – I have two little girls hanging around my feet again and like the first time round, I’m loving it.
I’ll read the paper later.
Remember this week is
Legacy week made all the more relevant by recent losses in Afghanistan.
You will see soldiers at shopping centres with Legacy Badges for sale. Go to them, buy a badge and commiserate with them over the recent loss of mates.
Don’t forget!
Heading down to Melbourne tomorrow to attend a Regimental reunion followed by a run through the Great Ocean Road, Bendigo, Bathurst, Griffith and back home.
See you in two weeks
An interesting link. Enter your Post Code for a snapshot.
The Australian Headline: Ashby conspiracy claims backfire
The Age Headline: Ashby facing prospect of criminal charges, court hears.
The Australian quotes Justice Rares;
….Justice Steven Rares in the Federal Court this morning said that the allegations of a criminal conspiracy from Mr Slipper and senior ministers meant that Mr Ashby could no longer be forced to make a submission against the allegations in the civil case because he may incriminate himself.
“You have raised the stakes, now in raising the stakes you cannot just pull back a bit . . . You don’t know how somebody might use that information in a criminal investigation,” Justice Rares told Mr Slipper’s lawyer David Chin.
“He does not have to give his name if he is involved in and suspected of a crime . . . If we do not uphold those rights in our society we live in a police state.”
The Age does quote Justice Rare but only just. Buried deep within the article that concentrates on quoting ALP senior minister’s seemingly interfering with due process (Albanese and Roxon) they finally mention the relevant point;
Justice Steven Rares said Mr Ashby could not be forced to incriminate himself.
Gina attacking, shares spiralling down and next year a likely conservative government…you have to feel sorry for
The Age
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