Category: Politics

In the 1980s, Grassby claimed to have been given evidence that, in fact, Donald Mackay’s family were implicated in his death. The National Crime Authority investigated and stumbled upon Grassby’s alleged links to a notorious drug dealer and murderer, the late Robert Trimbole.

Grassby was nicknamed the “Ostrich” because of his naivety, in dress and character – he wore loud ties, dyed his hair black and flaunted a floridly grown moustache. As an example, Grassby’s wife once said he had found it difficult to believe homosexuals existed. “He could not understand how it could happen physically, so he thought it was somebody making up stories,” she said.

Catholic Welfare Australia chief executive Frank Quinlan yesterday told a federal parliamentary inquiry into balancing work and family life that his agency was receiving increasing reports of household violence provoked by disputes over welfare payments.

The Federal Government had failed to act to protect others after two Australian children were sexually abused in Bali, a relative of one of the victims said today. The woman, who was not named, told ABC television that Australian authorities had offered an “incredibly inadequate” response to her sister and nephew, who was orally raped at a Bali resort two years ago.

KIM LANDERS: Senator Ellison even wanted the hotels which didn’t comply to Australian standards of childcare be publicly named on our travel advisories. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, well that would just be simply impossible. I mean, I don’t know if you know how many childcare centres there are in the world, but I don’t, but you can imagine it would be a simply enormous number. It’s simply impossible for Australian officials to check out every childcare centre in the world and draw up a massive list of the standards that they meet or don’t meet, if you reflect on it, that’s just common sense.

So what we’ve done instead is have a general proposition made available to parents travelling with children that you know, they’ve got to be careful about childcare centres and make sure they check them out properly. I mean, I think, you know, that’s just a common sense way of handling it.

Contrary to what some people think, Labour does not have a three-mines policy. The policy of the Labour Party is that whatever mines are in operation at a time at which a Labour government is elected will remain in operation. At the moment there are three mines.

Labor is failing to gain any traction with voters. The ALP’s primary vote has softened to just 36 per cent, lower than it recorded at the October 9 election. But the Coalition’s primary vote is at a commanding 47per cent, delivering a two-party-preferred vote of 54 per cent, according to the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian.

But the rights and wrongs of Mr Abbott, as a young man, giving up a child he believed was his own for adoption now takes on a different texture in the reality that the child was never his. His personal tragedy becomes even more charged.

Mr Beazley, who phoned Mr Hayes from the wedding of his daughter Hannah in Perth to offer his congratulations, had urged people to vote Labor to send a protest message to Mr Howard about the recent interest rate rise.

… it showed voters “were pleased to get rid of Mark Latham”.

JOURNALIST: Were the Australian people duped by the Howard Government in the last election? BEAZLEY: Every person who watches these programs and everyone person who reads your newspaper know that the Howard Government promised the Australian people that if they were re-elected, interest rates wouldn’t rise. They’ve broken that promise. JOURNALIST: They didn’t promise that though, they promised that they would be lower under a Coalition than a Labor Government. BEAZLEY: Don’t you fall for the weasel words you’re a smarter person than that. You know exactly what they were doing in the course of the last election campaign, they were saying, subliminally and overtly to the Australian public, vote for us and we’ll keep your interest rates down, well, they haven’t.

The four-day conference on the Gold Coast brings together nearly 200 AWU delegates representing 135,000 workers nationally. Guest speakers will include Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet, Federal Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan, Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Stephen Smith and former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Sixteen representatives of international union organisations, including from China, the USA, Britain, Canada and Denmark are attending the AWU conference.

Mr Shorten said the conference would debate the AWU’s resistance to the Howard Government’s planned legislation to cut Award conditions, scale back unfair dismissal laws, weaken the Industrial Relations Commission and hinder union attempts to organise in workplaces.

Whenever the fraught issue of the DSP comes before cabinet, I think of Ivan and how he will manage if new rules are introduced tightening the eligibility criteria for a benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote.

…benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote