Hello USofA, China, Indonesia, and Chile and welcome to the blog...and if my Anglican Sunday schoolboy upbringing serves me, to Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Good Friday...apparently derived from the Latin mandatum or 'commandment'...(isn't the Liberal Party always banging on about having a mandatum?-Ed)...indeed they are Ed, well a 'mandate' at least...and welcome to Easter which is of course yet another Pagan Festival assimilated by the early Christian Church.
Over the last couple of posts I've covered some of the Liberal Party shenanigans re the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption and Australian Water Holdings, and yesterday those shenanigans claimed the NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell...(who's nickname used to be Furry O'Barrell, honest-Ed)...quite ironic given the AWH Hearing started with corruption in the NSW Labor Party, and more than one commentator has suggested that Mr O'Farrell was 'set-up' by his own side or at least elements within.
Ironic also that the NSW ICAC was established in 1989 by former Liberal Premier Nick Greiner who himself fell foul of it back in 1992...I agree with the sense of frustration that proven corruption such as Eddie Obeid's goes apparently unpunished whilst Mr O'Farrell goes down, but also with the observation that Mr O'Farrell's alleged forgetfulness is actually indicative of how unremarkable it is for this sort of 'exchange of gifts' to take place...(thank goodness you declared that booze you were given at Christmas-Ed)...hey yeah, so I did...
The general tenet of these posts is that when it comes to the collusion, corruption, and self-interest of politics there are no genuine party divides...and the Tony Abbott Liberal government have been crowing about their own infallibility and highlighting, constantly referencing the dishonesty of Labor, but 6 months in and there's Fiona Nash interfering in Health Dept business, Arthur Sinodinos's career going pear-shaped, Barry O'Farrell's spectacular disintegration, and Mr Abbott's own deceits re not touching the ABC or Pensions...(and Alexander Downer disappearing off to London-Ed)...indeed...
(And of course you're going to link that directly to the cross-party bipartisanship re the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up-Ed)...and with St Martins, not just at a state level, it's a Federal cover-up involving Federal politicians...like AWH, the St Martins Issue has tentacles that reach out to contaminate all involved...and in Victoria there's plenty of people calling for their version of ICAC to get some actual powers...and that that isn't likely to happen because of the NSW experience, so Victorian politicians are hardly likely to empower an authority that might turn around and bite them.
What is there to say about the South Australian ICAC?...it is a Victorian clone, largely ornamental and wholly compromised...I re-offer as evidence the shenanigans from the ICAC re the Old Hospital Demolition, the $350,000 that former City Council CEO Greg Muller 'misappropriated' from the Main Corner Project, and/or the rank corruption of the entire Main Corner fiasco, culminating in a brand new commercial facility initially given gratis to Councillor Des Muttons' son....rank corruption, nepotism, insider trading...all right there large as life plain as day...and the ICAC says?...
(Nick Fletcher is a complainer and an allegor and everything he says is wrong, wrong, wrong-Ed)...ahh there you go putting their words in my blog, but exactly, I'm the problem, yet again, surprise surprise...'only problem to see here is that fat hippy'...and I know this local stuff is hardly corruption on the Eddie Obeid 'slip me a quick $100mill will ya' scale, but it's still gross malfeasance from public officials and should be dealt with in that context...
I'm not aware of any allegations re AWH, "corrupt" former Labor NSW Minister Eddie Obeid, etc, outside of the collusion, dodgy contracts, lobbying, and so on...none of it's particularly great, but which would you prefer?...politicians engaged in greed, graft, and grubbiness driven by a desire for personal financial gain, or what we have in South Australia which is a political system completely mired in pro-paedophile corruption.
And this stuff doesn't just happen in SA or the South East, but a charming detail from a local case that, well, I'll let you read it for yourselves (from The Border Watch Tuesday 15th April 2014);
"Bail refused over sexual exploitation -Police did not arrest a mother for more than two
years after seizing sexually explicit photos that allegedly depict her engaging in bestiality
and a "threesome type situation" with her four-year-old child.
Police seized the incriminating material in February 2012, but the mother and her partner
were not arrested until last Monday."
The closest thing to an explanation from SAPol for this 2 year delay is that they apparently didn't realise that there was a victim until their experts viewed the material, which then goes to detectives, who then arrested the couple...I'm a little lost with this one because it seems like SAPol just doesn't care, but maybe their processes are so ramshackle, haphazard and disorganised that it does take 2 years to do basic work...either way it's miles from acceptable.
How is it that a couple is 'not arrested' for Child Pornography offences nor have any action taken about the children in their care?...how can the official line be that police weren't aware there was a victim?...
"Had SAPol known there was (an alleged) victim...it might have been sped up." (SAPol-TBW)
I have met police who seem genuine and half reasonable, and on any given day I'm sure it can be a prick of a job, but this is just beyond belief, beyond the pale...I got nuthin'...
Now in the Sow East of Sow Straya we are about to lose another 50-100 full-time positions, this time from Forestry SA...and I could just spit when I hear that sanctimonious junket junkie Labor Forestry Minister Leon Bignell distancing himself from the multiple promises of job security re Forestry SA, as made by Premier Jay Weatherill and 'last weeks' Forestry Minister Jack 'The Rat' Snelling...'I've only been the Minister for 2 weeks and I didn't make those promises'...forget that.
You are the Labor Minister in the Labor government that sold the SE Forestry Estate, it's your problem champ, not ours...not our problem how long you've been there, your excuses are irrelevant...I remind availees that Mr Bignell was directly involved in the 'Fake Family First' T-shirts and How-to-vote cards fraud of the 2010 state election, an endeavour he was joined in by his wife who herself makes a fortune sub-contracting to WorkCover...(yay-Ed)...
Better News: there are some great stories that do come out of Adelaide and maybe I don't give enough time to them, but here's one...Adelaide University's Dr Brendan Coventry and his crew have developed a vaccine to treat Melanoma, arguably Australia's most common cancer...one patient had been operated on 24 times to remove returning tumours, but after repeated vaccine treatments, was still alive 14 years after a prognosis of 12 months to live...this vaccine given fortnightly, then monthly, then every 6 months has been proven to remove all tunours in approx 17% of patients...
This sort of story always puts me in the gratitudinal disposition, being as I am a person who survived Lymphoma largely due to the many clinicians, scientists, lab workers, etc, whom worked to develop the Chemo regime (CHOP) that saved my life and build the various 'scanners' I was shoved through, etc, all people I'll ne'er likely meet...and grateful to all the staff who operated and/or applied those technologies, people I met maybe once or twice but played a critical role in my survival...thankyou...
Let's Be Manure: is the SA Labor state government's typically dismissive and derogatory take on issues re the economy, industrial relations, and pretty much anything else they disagree with...(actually it's 'mature', they keep saying 'let's have a mature discussion'-Ed)...ah right, that makes slightly more sense...Premier Weatherill had a go at Victorian Premier Dennis Napthine re the Holden closure, Attorney General John Rau re the (now avoided) Bus strike set for next week, Tom Koutsontonis re Fracking and/or Nuclear Energy, and Leon Bignell re the Forestry debate.
It's an absolute crock, an absolutely derogatory dismissal of opposing or dissenting opinion designed to belittle the other party...if you don't agree with me then you're 'immature'...'manure' is however an appropriate descriptor for the state of the state's economy...(and we're all in it together-Ed)...thankyou Ed for wittily referencing the famous Mike Rann era Labor TV ad 'We're all in this together'...unless of course you live in Regional SA then "You're on your bloody own"...
Kudos to Liberal Member Troy Bell for his highly diplomatic approach on the ABC Local Radio this morning when he used the 'mature' line to praise Leon Bignell and the conduct of their various exchanges thus far re the Forestry SA job losses...I'd call him a lying bastard amongst lying bastards (Bignell not Bell)...I don't think that Mr Bell realised the context of that simple word 'mature', used so often by Labor to denigrate others, when he used it to praise them up...(an unintended classic-Ed)...well quite.
Excuse me but I've got a blinder so's I'm gonna finish up here;
Tomorrow: Council Meeting and Rail Lands Pondage
Dig a hole, fill it in, dig another hole, move that crap round in circles, bury it again, move the Rail Easement, dig another hole, it's only bloody money...and still not one word about the Old Rail Station itself.
I am Nick Fletcher and I put my name to everything I do, everything I say...and here t'is...cheers and laters.
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