Australian Politics General...

[wayneL]

An inquiry into the states would/should lead to criminal charges.

 

[farmerge]

A cynic would suggest that by leaving the states out of the enquiry, it gives it a free rein to concentrate purely on the failings of the Morrison government which was in power during the pandemic.
Its all about the politics, nothing to do with finding out about what went wrong and how it could be improved.
The ba$tard$ just can't help themselves.
mick

Ah well Mick, that's politics for you.

 

[mullokintyre]

An inquiry into the states would/should lead to criminal charges.

The Victorian enquiry into the hotel quarantine did no result in any criminal charges, I suspect this one will not either.
Mick

 

[wayneL]

The Victorian enquiry into the hotel quarantine did no result in any criminal charges, I suspect this one will not either.
Mick

Yeah, extremely wishful thinking on my part.

Meanwhile we plebeians are being set up again by the looks of it.

 

[mullokintyre]

Now that Andrews is one, there is Seven gone, two to go.
From Evil Murdoch Press

The departure of Daniel Andrews leaves only two – Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk and the ACT’s Andrew Barr – of the nine state, territory and federal premiers who ‘led’ us through the Covid years.

Throw in the sainted Jacinda across the ditch, that makes eight gone of the ten from what used to be called Australasia.

Only two were directly sacked by voters – Scott Morrison, of course, and SA’s Stephen Marshall.

A third – Gladys Berejiklian – was ‘sacked’’ so to speak, by NSW’s anti-corruption commission; but her successor Dominic Perrottet got the boot anyway from voters that would all-but certainly have also been directed at her proverbial butt.

Furthermore, both the departed Jacinda and the clinging-on Palaszczuk would have/will likely be similarly ousted by voters.

If Jacinda had and Annastacia does stay to their respective elections.

With Ahern, NZ’s election to be held in quite exquisite coincidence on October 14. With Palaszczuk, October next year, if she stays – or survives – as long.

My bet is she will take the ‘hint’ from Andrews.

By the bye, we should know the NZ result just around as the referendum polls close on this side of the ditch.

Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

The federal government has been bagged by the greens, the teals and everyone outside of feferal politics for their continual exemptions for Politcal parties from the privacy Act.
It is worth noting that the coalition parties did not jpin in the condemnation, they like the Labour Party, value their privacy.
FromEvil Murdoch EmpirePrivacy experts, teal independents and the Greens have lashed Labor’s decision to retain an exemption for political parties in the Privacy Act, accusing the government of “creating one rule for themselves and another rule for everyone else”.The criticism comes as peak business groups noted that while the government’s “measured approach” to privacy reforms, announced this week, was welcome, the changes risked chilling innovation and adding additional costs to small businesses.

Labor agreed outright to 38 of the 116 proposals in the 313-page review of Australia’s Privacy Act, which started in 2020 under the previous government, but only “noted” the recommendation for the exemption on political parties to be removed from the legislation.

​

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics
Curtin independent Kate Chaney said Australians “deserved better” from the government in its response to the privacy review.“Australians are sick of seeing political parties creating one rule for themselves and another rule for everyone else. If small businesses have to comply with the Privacy Act, political parties should too,” she said.
“People are shocked to find out that political parties send voters deceptive postal vote applications to harvest their personal information. If this government wants to rebuild trust in our political processes, it must stop data harvesting by political parties.”

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says the comprehensive review that has been completed has found the Privacy Act is… no longer “fit for purpose”. “And does not adequately protect Australians privacy in the digital age,” Mr Dreyfus said. “The departments report makes 116 recommendations for change. “The government wants to know what Australians More

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel said the government’s readiness to make privacy laws fit for purpose for the 21st century was encouraging, but she was disappointed Labor had largely exempted politicians, political parties and media organisations.
“There should not be one rule for regular citizens and corporations and special privileges applied to politicians, in particular,” she said. “The government should not be caving into special interests, no matter how scared it is of their power and influence, when they have done nothing to deserve such special treatment.”
Labor agreed or agreed in principle to all recommendations in the review that related to children’s online privacy, which was welcomed by independents including Sophie Scamps and David Pocock, along with Greens senator David Shoebridge.
But Senator Shoebridge said there were “a number of significant blind spots in the government’s approach to privacy”, including the refusal to allow adults to opt out of targeted advertising and keeping exemptions for politicians in place. “The lack of action on political parties’ privacy obligations was a missed chance for reform,” he said. “There are distinct and different needs for privacy settings for political parties but this doesn’t mean there should be a broad exclusion from privacy rules.”
While consumer advocacy organisation Choice said all businesses needed to be captured by the privacy regulation no matter their size, the Australian Industry Group warned the intention to remove exemptions for small businesses with turnovers of less than $3m could have unintended consequences.
“Ai Group supports the need to provide the public with confidence that their privacy and their data is being handled safely and responsibly. However, over-regulation has the potential to chill innovation and add costs to business,” chief executive Innes Willox said.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the political exemption had been introduced “to encourage freedom of political communication and enhance the operation of electoral and political processes in Australia”.
He said the government had been consulting with small business and made clear “any change will only come after further extensive discussions with the sector, a full impact analysis, the development of an appropriate support package and a transition period to ensure small businesses have reasonable time to prepare”.
The Australian understands compensation for businesses impacted by the change is being considered by government, but Mr Willox said support could not be regarded as a “set-and-forget” proposition and businesses would need help adapting to any changes over the long term.
UNSW professor of law and founding co-director of the Australasian Legal Information Institute, Graham Greenleaf, said the government’s response to the review was “exceptionally disappointing”.

Its standard practice for the ba$tard$ to force the productive people of OZ to try to work with their never ending regulations, but exempt themselves.
Mick

 

[basilio]

Legacy of the Morrison Government. Prawns left in the curtains.

‘Green coal’ company owned by LNP figures received $5.5m grant a week before Morrison government entered caretaker mode​

Exclusive: Green Day Energy has had its bank account frozen after going into administration amid a legal dispute between its owners

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Ben Smee

@BenSmee
Fri 13 Oct 2023 01.00 AEDTLast modified on Fri 13 Oct 2023 09.47 AEDT

A fledgling “green coal” company owned by two Queensland Liberal National party figures has had its bank account frozen and become mired in legal action, 18 months after being awarded a $5.5m commonwealth grant in the dying days of the Morrison government.

Guardian Australia can reveal the federal government is “considering its position” in relation to the grant to Green Day Energy, after the company was placed in voluntary administration by director David Hutchinson, the former LNP president. Hutchinson is being sued by Green Day’s largest shareholder, Brad Carswell, a former party official and candidate.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ction-amid-deeply-troubling-rise-in-emissions
The company was registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission three days before Christmas in 2021 – the same day that the federal government released the grant guidelines for its “securing raw minerals program”.

In April, a week before the Morrison government went into caretaker mode, Green Day Energy was awarded $5.5m from that program – the equal largest individual grant to any company – to build a biomass plant in the north-west Queensland town of Richmond.

The project would involve converting prickly acacia, an invasive outback weed, into woodchip pellets with properties similar to coal. It had backing from the local council and Central Queensland University.

The grant was approved by the then minister for regionalisation, Bridget McKenzie, after being assessed by the government business grants hub and reviewed by a committee.

McKenzie made several election announcements in the following weeks about regional businesses awarded money from the $29m securing raw minerals program. The grant to Green Day Energy, however, does not appear to have been announced publicly until after the election.

‘Green coal’ company owned by LNP figures received $5.5m grant a week before Morrison government entered caretaker mode

Exclusive: Green Day Energy has had its bank account frozen after going into administration amid a legal dispute between its owners

www.theguardian.com

 

[mullokintyre]

And true to from, another mate gets a nice government paid gig at the expense of someone else far better qualified.
And he is the wrong gender to boot.
From Evil Murdoch Press

The Albanese government handed a plum trade investment job in the US to a little-known former Labor senator from Queensland – just months after a high-ranking female Austrade executive was named “preferred candidate” based on a competitive recruitment process.
Trade Minister Don Farrell in July appointed his friend Chris Ketter, who served one term as a Labor backbench senator, to be Australia’s next senior trade and investment commissioner and consul-general in San Francisco.

The Australian can reveal that Kirstyn Thomson, head of the Americas investment desk at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, known as Austrade, was the “preferred candidate” for the job.

However, Senator Farrell’s office dumped the recruitment process after it was completed and picked Mr Ketter in place of Ms Thomson.

Mr Ketter, a Labor staffer since losing his Senate seat in 2019, has no experience in trade investment and did not apply for the job.

Before his Senate stint, he was a union official for 32 years with the Queensland branch of Senator Farrell’s old “Shoppies” union, and a close Farrell ally and friend

Jobs for the boys all right.
mick

 

[sptrawler]

No only one side of politics do that, the other side is a pure as driven snow. Lol

 

[mullokintyre]

At the risk of being accused of posting trivial data points, I am going to do so anyway.
I was reading some guff from the Greens about how they were going to change the world, and was struck not by the quality of their argument, but by the number of greens folk with hyphenated names.
In my youth, though it be but a distant memory, hyphenated names were associated with toffy English upper class folk with plenty of money.
The sort of names that you found in the English boys grammar schools featured in books like Billy Bunter, and Boys own Annual.
Prior to the most recent federal election, only 22 hyphenated names had existed in either federal chamber since federation.
After the last federal election, 4 out of the 11 greens senators have hyphenated names, and a further 5 from other parties in the chambers. Jacinta Nampijimpa Price joined the five greens to make a total of six hyphenated senators.
But the really big movers were in the lower house which picked up four hyphenated members, breaking a near half-century drought — Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Max Chandler-Mather and Louise Miller-Frost.
So now we have by far the most numbers of hyphenated representatives in history, and by a wide margin.
Is it representative of the percentage of hyphenates in general public, or are they over represented?
i have often wondered what happens to the offspring should two people with hyphenated surnames procreate.
How do they then decide on the surname? Use all four names with three hyphens? Only the last two?
Must be a constant problem for hyphenators.
Mick
(Note stats courtesy of the old Melbourne University rag Honi Soit )

 

[Sean K]

OMFG! Linda Burney being touted as next GG. WTF!

 

[Sean K]

I couldn't find a thread for this on-going debacle, so this is here.

I was leaning towards innocent against Higgins for a long time, but this makes it even more complicated. Bloody hell, what a nightmare.

Prosecutors in the ACT last year dropped charges against Mr Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, saying a retrial of the case would pose an unacceptable risk to her health. The trial had earlier been aborted after a juror was found to have brought outside material into the jury room.

Mr Lehrmann was charged in January with two counts of rape by detectives from the Criminal Investigations Branch over the alleged offence in Toowoomba in 2021, but he has not yet been committed for trial.

On Thursday, Justice Peter Applegarth lifted an interim suppression order on Mr Lehrmann’s identity.

Earlier this month, Toowoomba magistrate Clare Kelly lifted a suppression order but delayed her decision to allow Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers to apply to the Supreme Court to keep it in place.

The media has been barred from naming Mr Lehrmann during a number of court appearances this year, because previous laws protected the identity of people charged with serious sexual offences until they were committed to trial.

At the hearing on Thursday, Mr Lehrmann’s barrister, Andrew Hoare, argued that his client had experienced suicidal ideation during the past two years and was at risk of “catastrophic” self-harm, including suicide, if the non-publication order was lifted.

 

[Knobby22]

I couldn't find a thread for this on-going debacle, so this is here.

I was leaning towards innocent against Higgins for a long time, but this makes it even more complicated. Bloody hell, what a nightmare.

View attachment 164684

Prosecutors in the ACT last year dropped charges against Mr Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, saying a retrial of the case would pose an unacceptable risk to her health. The trial had earlier been aborted after a juror was found to have brought outside material into the jury room.

Mr Lehrmann was charged in January with two counts of rape by detectives from the Criminal Investigations Branch over the alleged offence in Toowoomba in 2021, but he has not yet been committed for trial.

On Thursday, Justice Peter Applegarth lifted an interim suppression order on Mr Lehrmann’s identity.

Earlier this month, Toowoomba magistrate Clare Kelly lifted a suppression order but delayed her decision to allow Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers to apply to the Supreme Court to keep it in place.

The media has been barred from naming Mr Lehrmann during a number of court appearances this year, because previous laws protected the identity of people charged with serious sexual offences until they were committed to trial.

At the hearing on Thursday, Mr Lehrmann’s barrister, Andrew Hoare, argued that his client had experienced suicidal ideation during the past two years and was at risk of “catastrophic” self-harm, including suicide, if the non-publication order was lifted.

The girl story is rarely believed in the media. Being a Liberal girl didn't make much difference.
The Police leaked her file, her career was destroyed but it was Lehrmann that got the big paid media interview.

 

[Sean K]

The girl story is rarely believed in the media. Being a Liberal girl didn't make much difference.
The Police leaked her file, her career was destroyed but it was Lehrmann that got the big paid media interview.

My impression was that she was sucked into a money deal by the Pirate and Wilko and by-passed natural justice for the prospect of a lot of cash, destroying any chance of Lehrmann getting a fair hearing.

Quite possibly one of the messiest rape trials in Australian history. Everyone lost, including the judicial system.

This new thing about Lehrmann complicates it even further.

 

[Knobby22]

My impression was that she was sucked into a money deal by the Pirate and Wilko and by-passed natural justice for the prospect of a lot of cash, destroying any chance of Lehrmann getting a fair hearing.

Quite possibly one of the messiest rape trials in Australian history. Everyone lost, including the judicial system.

This new thing about Lehrmann complicates it even further.

She went to court and someone got to the witness causing the trial to be cancelled. I have a different theory. It's a bit nastier.

 

[Knobby22]

She went to court and someone got to the witness causing the trial to be cancelled. I have a different theory. It's a bit nastier.

Sorry, juror, not witness.

 

[mullokintyre]

Sorry, juror, not witness.

Geez Knobby, fair suck of the sauce bottle.
Take it to the conspiracy theory thread, unless you have something remotely like proof that someone got to bthe juror.
Mick

 

[SirRumpole]

Geez Knobby, fair suck of the sauce bottle.
Take it to the conspiracy theory thread, unless you have something remotely like proof that someone got to bthe juror.
Mick

Regardless of being got at or not, there should be steep penalties for the type of behaviour the juror engaged in, after being told multiple times by the judge not to do it.

So suspicions could well be aroused by their behaviour, either they were stupid, were got at, or took a prejudiced position in some way in order to disrupt the trial.

 

[Knobby22]

Geez Knobby, fair suck of the sauce bottle.
Take it to the conspiracy theory thread, unless you have something remotely like proof that someone got to bthe juror.
Mick

The trial was discontinued because of juror misconduct, and a retrial ruled out because of the potential effect on the mental health of Higgins and Lehrmann. Now an inquiry into the trial is examining what went on behind the scenes of the trial, and the conduct of police and prosecutors.

Also: Shane Drumgold, the ACT director of public prosecutions, had claimed Morrison government ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash had applied pressure on federal police. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Of course he backtracked at a later date on this: When asked by Sofronoff whether he now accepted that he was mistaken about possible political interference in the case, Drumgold responded: “I do accept that.”

 

[mullokintyre]

The trial was discontinued because of juror misconduct, and a retrial ruled out because of the potential effect on the mental health of Higgins and Lehrmann. Now an inquiry into the trial is examining what went on behind the scenes of the trial, and the conduct of police and prosecutors.

Also: Shane Drumgold, the ACT director of public prosecutions, had claimed Morrison government ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash had applied pressure on federal police. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Of course he backtracked at a later date on this: When asked by Sofronoff whether he now accepted that he was mistaken about possible political interference in the case, Drumgold responded: “I do accept that.”

i still see nothing you have posted suggests any evidence of someone having got to the Juror in question, which is what I got out of your original post.
Mick