(Miscellaneous debris)

[Gozu]

The person I was replying to had been much more absolute in declaring the cases to be the same and directly comparably.
I was pointing out only the element of doubt about that.

That's right, the Liberal politician has been charged by police the Labor one hasn't.

[Gozu]

This article from The Power Index might be of interest to some here:

"Laboring to defeat":

The Labor Party is suffering at the hands of unelected factional bosses and union leaders. Paul Barry explains how the party ended up in such a mess, and what must now change.

In NSW and Victoria, the Labor Party has crashed out of power. It also looks likely to lose in Queensland and South Australia. On current polling, it will be annihilated at the next federal election.

So it's no surprise that many in the party are taking a hard look at what's gone wrong.

They see membership falling fast, the rank and file angry and disillusioned and loyalists declaring that Labor no longer stands for anything. To cap it all, unelected factional bosses and union leaders are relentless in their determination to pull the strings.

http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/politic ... -to-defeat

[Psyber]

The person I was replying to had been much more absolute in declaring the cases to be the same and directly comparably.
I was pointing out only the element of doubt about that.

That's right, the Liberal politician has been charged by police the Labor one hasn't.

There is a time factor involved there.
And, of course, even if both are charged by police doesn't mean there will be a guilty verdict for either of them.
Courts do take circumstances into account.

[Psyber]

This article from The Power Index might be of interest to some here:

"Laboring to defeat":
The Labor Party is suffering at the hands of unelected factional bosses and union leaders. Paul Barry explains how the party ended up in such a mess, and what must now change.
In NSW and Victoria, the Labor Party has crashed out of power. It also looks likely to lose in Queensland and South Australia. On current polling, it will be annihilated at the next federal election.
So it's no surprise that many in the party are taking a hard look at what's gone wrong.
They see membership falling fast, the rank and file angry and disillusioned and loyalists declaring that Labor no longer stands for anything. To cap it all, unelected factional bosses and union leaders are relentless in their determination to pull the strings.
http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/politic ... -to-defeat

This bit makes sense - it is what already happens in the Liberal party, and why I joined the Libs not Labor.

So what's the answer?

The reformists in the Labor Party, like the Left's John Faulkner and the Right's Sam Dastyari, want to take power away from the unions and give it back to the rank and file.
That means allowing them to choose their candidates, elect delegates to party conferences and have a say in policy making.
Bob Carr says the party needs to give people reasons to join.

The activists say the party needs to stand for something again, instead of being driven by populism and focus groups.
But even the optimists don't expect successful reform to happen soon.
"Factional leaders don't want change," says one Labor insider. "The Labor Party will have to go through a long period of electoral oblivion before it makes itself relevant again."

[Q.]

As we squabble about carbon taxes and prostitutes, a dictatorial cyber-related Bill passes unnoticed through Parliament:

The internet: when the frontier closes

[Gozu]

"The Most Appalling Thing Anyone Has Said About Iraq":

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer had plenty to say when John Martinkus got taken hostage in Baghdad. Here's the Australian journalist's account of what happened to him in 2004

http://newmatilda.com/2011/08/26/most-a ... -said-iraq

[Gozu]

EMBATTLED Liberal Senator Sean Edwards is facing claims that two staff from his business have been working from his taxpayer-funded office.

A Liberal source claims Senator Edwards closed a business office on Flinders St, Adelaide, and transferred two private staff, including his daughter, into the Commonwealth Parliament Offices on King William St when he entered the Senate.

Senator Edwards was flying to Perth last night and could not be contacted.

The claim comes after a series of embarrassing revelations for Senator Edwards, a former Liberal Party state president, who has only been in Parliament since July.

He is already facing a Federal Government investigation into his use of three taxpayer-funded Comcars last week after he gave his maiden speech in the Senate.

Senator Edwards claimed there were no cabs available at the time, and the cars were used to transport his family.

And this week he admitted that one of his staffers assumed an alias and wrote to independent Senator Nick Xenophon to seek his views on the live animal export trade. That information was to assist staff in formulating a constituent letter from Senator Edwards on the controversial issue.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/nati ... 6125934609

[Bat Pad]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/optus-signs-up-to-national-broadband-network-gag-order/story-fn59niix-1226130972922

[Gozu]

The Australian newspaper's very right-wing editor Chris Mitchell was profiled in The Monthly last month and aside from the size of his ego it also delves into his close friendship and subsequent falling out with former PM Kevin Rudd:

http://www.themonthly.com.au/power-rupe ... hbour-3589

[Q.]

Cracking piece by BK:

More hyping of the threat of ‘cyber’

A recurring feature of the war on terror, and the irony of its exorbitant cost, is that much of it has had the effect of actually doing what Irvine fears — radicalising people to take up arms against us. The more paranoid would declare that this is the entire point of the war on terror, to create a self-perpetuating environment in which governments must exercise intrusive and restrictive powers over their populations and channel funding to the beneficiaries of the war, the security and military sector, to address a threat that wouldn’t exist in its current form outside that environment.

Curiously, a similar situation threatens to occur with the war on the internet. The more governments raise a hue and cry about “cyber”, direct money to combating it, and use it to justify the remorseless expansion of the powers of agencies such as ASIO, the more online activists will respond in kind, goaded into protest by the actions of governments and companies, angry about further restrictions on liberties, undertaking DDOS attacks and cracking efforts, conscious that poor security within the government sector means even script kiddies can gain a trove of confidential material if they’re lucky.

This of course will in turn be used by governments to further justify themselves and the dollars they hand to the cyber security industry.

But of course, only the paranoid would think like that.

[straight talker]

i think the labor party should also let there members cross the floor when some of the voting on things goes on, like the libs and the nationals have done before and they also do in america. Thats why obama is struggling to get a lot of his ideas thru the system. The elected members should go and vote the way the people of there electorate want them too, but it doesnt happen here as the two duffs oakshott and windsor have shown us. there electorate wanted them to back the libs. What gives them the rite to tell the people whats best for australia? TREASURY?? Have the treasury been correct on anything.?

[Gozu]

"Mirabella in hot seat over QC lover's dying days":

A family is caught in an acrimonious dispute over the relationship between their father and a Liberal politician, writes Michael Bachelard.

As the Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella stood at the funeral of her old friend Colin Howard, QC, at Melbourne Cemetery on September 11, she gave a brief speech about his legal career.

A general counsel to the federal Attorney-General, dean of law at Melbourne University, monarchist, author of legal textbooks: it was a long and distinguished professional life.

What Mirabella did not mention, it is now alleged, and what she had never admitted even to her family, was that Howard, 40 years her senior, was also her live-in lover for five years in the late 1990s. Nor that she had received gifts from him valued at well over $100,000 to help her election to Federal Parliament in 2001. Nor, allegedly, another substantial sum to buy her Wangaratta farmhouse in 2007.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/mirabell ... 1knct.html

[Bat Pad]

"Mirabella in hot seat over QC lover's dying days":

A family is caught in an acrimonious dispute over the relationship between their father and a Liberal politician, writes Michael Bachelard.

As the Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella stood at the funeral of her old friend Colin Howard, QC, at Melbourne Cemetery on September 11, she gave a brief speech about his legal career.

A general counsel to the federal Attorney-General, dean of law at Melbourne University, monarchist, author of legal textbooks: it was a long and distinguished professional life.

What Mirabella did not mention, it is now alleged, and what she had never admitted even to her family, was that Howard, 40 years her senior, was also her live-in lover for five years in the late 1990s. Nor that she had received gifts from him valued at well over $100,000 to help her election to Federal Parliament in 2001. Nor, allegedly, another substantial sum to buy her Wangaratta farmhouse in 2007.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/mirabell ... 1knct.html

I assume this article is going to be pulled very soon, and you would agree with it happening, considering what happened with Gillard a couple of weeks back?

[straight talker]

well well well gozo what double standards you have!!? WOW if Andrew Bolt was writing something like this about JULIAR and one of her past conman boyfriends you and the pathetic labor government would want to hang him and take all sorts of action against him and the newspapers.

[mick]

well well well gozo what double standards you have!!? WOW if Andrew Bolt was writing something like this about JULIAR and one of her past conman boyfriends you and the pathetic labor government would want to hang him and take all sorts of action against him and the newspapers.

Get over it mate, the left has always had a mortgage on hypocrisy Just sit back watch the train wreck in around 6 months this mob will be out because one of the wingnuts will spit the dummy over his pokie legislation if it doesn't go through parliament. Yep just sit back and watch and have laugh.

[straight talker]

oh yes it will be funny as. Just like JULIAR now blaming abbott for the boats arriving here!

[Gozu]

You right-wingers are hilarious, what about all these Thomson allegations?

[straight talker]

yep and you forgot his other dodgy union mate!

[mighty_tiger_79]

happy birthday Julia

[Sojourner]

Poor Gillard, now the Political left are critisising her getting a designer puppy for her birthday and not for having adopted a dog from a local shelter.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6135931188