By refusing to address serious allegations about her conduct at Slater & Gordon, Julia Gillard has dragged the Office of the Prime Minister through the gutter and inflicted grave damage on its reputation. The Prime Minister must be above all suspicion and she now has a clear and urgent duty to resign. The ethical questions arising from the scandal at Slater & Gordon are so great that she has a clear moral duty to fully disclose her conduct over that time and to back such disclosure with documentary evidence. Her continued refusal to make such a disclosure will only further harm the Government.
It’s actually the best thing she could possibly do in her position for herself.
Deny and ignore.
Those who have sued a bad debtor know this.
.
19 Aug 12 at 4:19 pm
Just let her keep on trying to ignore it. Right up to the next election. You know it makes sense!
entropy
19 Aug 12 at 4:25 pm
Quadrant online has the transcript up.
areff
19 Aug 12 at 4:33 pm
Samuel,
That position seems to be fairly well understood and agreed upon by most of the people who are aware of the issue,(aside from SfB and a few other morons) however not enough people in the wider community know anything about the fraud, graft and corruption that envelopes gillard and the AWU.
Until the story gets wide media coverage she will continue to brush aside these allegations.
Perhaps it is oakshott, windsor and wilkie who need to be asked if they want the government they are a part of to be tainted by her impropriety? Then again this sort of behaviour might be the new paradigm or the beauty in the ugliness that fuck knuckle oakshott was referring to?
Old Fridgie
19 Aug 12 at 4:34 pm
“People have got to know whether or not their president’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 4:35 pm
I stopped paying attention to politics for a while, and that’s the first interview of the PM I think I’ve seen since the tiff with Rudd at the beginning of the year.
But can I say Wow! She was vicious! She obviously has no desire at all to have good relations with the Murdoch press. Why did she even bother going to that interview? The sort of performance she gave is only going to harden people in their pre-existing views on her; I very much doubt a single soul is going to have watched that interview and having thought she was a bit of a dodgy PM, come out thinking she’s actually “done nothing wrong”.
This from the person who apparently has “negotiating skills”. Maybe she’s got them, but my chooks are better at politics than she is—even the (parts of) cow I’m going to have for dinner probably enjoyed better relations with the abbatoir-workers.
Alexander
19 Aug 12 at 4:44 pm
Personally I blame Tony Abbott for this state of affairs and his relentless negativity.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 4:48 pm
Just like Garrett has not apologised for the Pink Batts debacle, like Gillard has not apologised for the deaths at sea under her policy, she will not even consider doing the proper thing here. PM Gillard has no morals. The Left have no morals and the sooner she goes the better. Hate to be the next one in line.
Black Ball
19 Aug 12 at 4:57 pm
Very similar approach to her interview with Andrew Fowler on 4 Corners re the assassination.
Ivan Denisovich
19 Aug 12 at 5:00 pm
Peter van Onselen shows all the foresight of an asylum seeker at a Javanese port at 2am and hops on board the SS Gillard. It’s a bit low in the water but I’m sure it is seaworthy.
H B Bear
19 Aug 12 at 5:00 pm
Quite So, Samuel J. Quite So.
Just Me
19 Aug 12 at 5:02 pm
Pickering:
Still nothing new
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 5:02 pm
ShitferBrains will no doubt be along shortly to say that carelessness should not disqualify someone from public office.
I think one angle the opposition needs to take is to question Bill Shorten in Parliament next week about the refusal of the AWU to attempt to recover members funds. He would know all about this given he was a former AWU national secretary. The control the AWU has over the Parliamentary ALP is a real worry and the opposition needs to highlight this. Oh, and they need to take this opportunity to announce, before the next election, a wide ranging inquiry into union governance…
Skuter
19 Aug 12 at 5:05 pm
This is why we need new media laws. If you can’t sue people who are telling the truth, what do you do? A trip to a Finkelstein re-education camp. I love her double indemnity explanation: “I have already explained these issues, there is no need to go over them again”. Young and naive!
Holden
19 Aug 12 at 5:08 pm
Herman Cain also.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 5:11 pm
wow… and she directly accuses Paul Kelly of being put up to asking the question.. apparently she had ´advice before the show´ that says so.
Disgusting.
duncan
19 Aug 12 at 5:11 pm
Gillard didn’t open a file for Wilson in regard to the AWU account; that is prima facie professional misconduct.
Why hasn’t the Law Institute of Victoria looked at Slater and Gordon; this is impacting on the general reputation of legal practice.
cohenite
19 Aug 12 at 5:12 pm
inquiry=royal commission
Skuter
19 Aug 12 at 5:12 pm
Gillard lied about the ‘advice’ she received.
A media adviser probably told her that News Ltd’s Kelly would almost certainly raise his newspaper’s weekend exclusive (well, duh) and she twisted this into a charge of conspiracy.
She is an embarrassment to the office and the nation.
Peter van Onselen, for his part, is a sycophantic disgrace.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 5:16 pm
[...] Julia Gillard – position untenable, credibility zero [...]
squirming can of worms … | pindanpost
19 Aug 12 at 5:19 pm
New Paradigm cooperation from Tony Abbott:
PM to face more questions about her past.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 5:26 pm
At least she’s getting value for money. She’s spending $150 million per year on media according to the Oz.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 5:28 pm
Part VI
IS OUR PRIME MINISTER A CROOK?
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 5:28 pm
well I’ve put a few comments on the open thread but another thing which is curious is why did not AWU report the matter to the Law Institute of Victoria
just curious and possibly the answer is that Gillard left S & G quickly
val majkus
19 Aug 12 at 5:29 pm
Val, I actually think the Law Institute now needs to make a statement explaining itself. Who knows – this could end up involving a Who’s Who of the Labor Lawyers Club – potentially interesting given the prominence of certain participants in the ALP’s war against free speech. Only a Royal Commission has the scope and power to unravel this veritable crack-addled octopus of Labor corruption.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 5:40 pm
C L I don’t think the Law Institute can take action without a complaint
the complaint is generally made by another lawyer to the Institute or the client
Assuming the client is implied to be AWU (and I don’t see how it cannot be because the AWU’s name is used in the Association’s name) then the complaint could have been made by S & G or AWU
But a complaint seems (for whatever reason) to be missing in this case
val majkus
19 Aug 12 at 5:46 pm
Why doesn’t she ask S&G to release the tape of her final interview? That should clear it all up.
Woolfe
19 Aug 12 at 6:02 pm
Pickering points to the next instalment, presumably to come in the next few days:
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 6:03 pm
I just watched the Kelly interview.
The way she avoided giving a straight yes/no answer to Kelly’s question was very telling.
So was her obvious attempt to bluster and run down the clock. Kelly – who’s been around – just looked and smiled, knowing exactly what she was doing.
Then she lied about a conspiracy involving Kelly and unnamed string-pullers.
It’s a shame Kelly didn’t hammer home the issue more aggressively. Just repeat the question and demand a yes/no. When she refuses, ask it again.
But look, as Bolt pointed out exceedingly well this morning, the bigger scandal is how and why a woman whose policies caused the deaths of 700 people – and who last week used the cover of a committee to admit John Howard was right – hasn’t resigned.
Those people are dead because she didn’t want Abbott to have a victory. What’s more, she extended and theatricalised her back-down by weeks so that it wouldn’t look like a back-down. We now know that in the interim, 70 more people died.
Ask yourself: do you seriously believe she would have any problem telling whoppers about Slater & Gordon?
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 6:12 pm
Just saw the evil witch on 7 News in the Kelly interview.
The remote defaulted to mute when her image flashed up however one does not need sound to interpret body language – it’s a singularly vicious thing, this naive young Welsh migrant, all narrowed eyes, pursed lips and threatening head nodding at Kelly.
They’ll nuke Mr Ros Kelly’s Pardy membership for this.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
19 Aug 12 at 6:17 pm
Considerable sums of union members’ money gone missing, and hasn’t been repaid.
Allegations of considerable and significant and widespread and systemic corruption in the union movement.
‘Happened 17 years ago’, says our Prime Minister. ‘Let’s move on’.
Yeah. Right.
Dandy Warhol
19 Aug 12 at 6:20 pm
How and when Gillard left S&G.
Pick a story, any story.
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 6:22 pm
Oh boy! This is it…the beginning of the end.
When Gillard says ” I have done nothing wrong” why do I immediately hear echoes of Bill Clinton…”I did not have sax with that woman”
Phil E Steyn
19 Aug 12 at 6:30 pm
The Age has now picked this up, making it officially mainstream.
And judging by this, we can soon expect the opposition to start asking some tough questions in parliament.
2dogs
19 Aug 12 at 6:33 pm
Julia Gillard obviously got the wrong idea when she overheard someone talking about rooting out the corrupt elements in the union movement…bwahahahahaha…
Skuter
19 Aug 12 at 6:34 pm
This is what caused her to go all finkelstein on us. I wonder if they dare try and make it into law. Let them fucking try it now low rent totalitarian dishonest bastards. Lets see Andrew leigh push for press regulation.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 6:38 pm
“There are serious questions that need to be answered,” Mr Pyne said.
Isn’t that exactly what Jules said about Rupert? Hahaha, he’s a cracker that Pyne.
Jumpnmcar
19 Aug 12 at 6:43 pm
This is just terrible for her, now that it has gained coverage in the msm. I mean, what’s Obama going to think?!
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 6:43 pm
You know why Gillard didn’t answer Kelly’s question today?
Because she doesn’t know what else they’ve got, that’s why.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 6:44 pm
I wish that Bolt and co would ease up here just a bit. We don’t Gillard to go, just to be tainted enough to lead Labor to a complete drubbing at the next election.
Rococo Liberal
19 Aug 12 at 6:44 pm
Good point, RL.
See also Joe Biden.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 6:45 pm
Spot on.
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 6:45 pm
Exactly, CL. Perhaps there’s a tape somewhere that could make an appearance…
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 6:46 pm
The Fairfax story provides a bit more detail on what Michael Smith told Alan Jones.
Cold-Hands
19 Aug 12 at 6:48 pm
if as a lawyer you asssisted (with knowledge or not) in the formation of an Association which engaged in the sort of activities the WA association did and to the detriment of a client (AWU) would you not feel that you did something wrong
val majkus
19 Aug 12 at 6:51 pm
It’s different.
This has the possibility of further humiliating this woeful government.
Gillard on the backbench and Kevvie in da Lodge is the only way they can swing it.
Surely that possibility or reality will see some MP exit stage left or Rudd himself call an early election?
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 6:53 pm
No, Ms. Gillard. You haven’t.
Yes, Ms. Gillard, you do need to go over them again. Truthfully.
Or resign, Ms. Gillard. Resign. Resign from our Prime Ministership. Detail the truth, or resign.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
19 Aug 12 at 6:54 pm
There is also the terrifying possibility of Swan as PM.
It is more terrifying for the ALP’s electoral fortunes than our well being or image, as bad as that may be.
.
19 Aug 12 at 6:55 pm
Swannie is one of of Ludwig’s footsoldiers and he’s up to his neck in this.
It’s not just a Gillard scandal it’s an AWU scandal.
Shorten and Paul Howes are potentially ruined
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 7:00 pm
It’s rather interesting Gillard didn’t pick up the phone and threaten Chris Mitchell (as she did with the former The Australian CEO), when Hedley Thomas first released his columns a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps she just doesn’t have Chris on speed dial.
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 7:01 pm
Was just mentioned on ABC News.
We’re not likely to get investigative journalism from them on this, but at least they are now covering it to some extent.
Dandy Warhol
19 Aug 12 at 7:05 pm
What was their angle, Dandy? “Gillard smeared”?
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 7:07 pm
All Abbott’s fault?
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 7:08 pm
all you need is two pissed off Labor MP’s. Robert McClelland is one.. There has to be another to pull the plug.
In fact they don’t have to pull the plug on the government as all they have to do is threaten to vote against the government or she goes.
This could happen. McClelland despises her and there has to be another one.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 7:09 pm
Where’s Rabz’s insider on this?
JC
19 Aug 12 at 7:10 pm
Rabz
Call the insider and find out what’s cooking inside the Berlin Bunker as there has to be party chit chat.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 7:12 pm
They played a straight bat, Gab. I suspect they felt obliged to mention it, and showed some footage of the interview, but really they don’t want to go near it.
Not like it’s something from John Howard’s past, or Tony Abbott’s – I can easily imagine them jumping all over that.
Dandy Warhol
19 Aug 12 at 7:13 pm
true. They’d have songs and skits about it by now.
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 7:17 pm
Cold Hands,
That’s the key bit. You don’t bring a heavy-hitter like Faris into this unless the Law Institute have given the green light on his involvement in the investigation. Faris had a previous investigation into corruption into the Victorian Bar stifled when he found too much dirt. This time, I doubt he would get involved unless he has assurances that the resulting report will see the light of day.
Recall that Faris was the original chairman of the NCA and learned the ropes of criminal law under none other than Frank Galbally.
sfb kindly pointed out earlier on the OT, that Norwicki is quote “an ambulance chaser”. Thought it was a huge joke. Actually it was just another sfb misdirect – away from Faris.
Keith
19 Aug 12 at 7:18 pm
Gab, Re your question last night. They know they’ll be thrashed, so they’ll leave the leadership in “safe hands” (someone who knows it’s the end) to minimise losses. I’ll tip Simon Crean.
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 7:18 pm
Penny Wong?
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 7:23 pm
“I’ve done nothing wrong”
What the heck has she done right?
Keith
19 Aug 12 at 7:29 pm
Tom
I’m not a fan of any of them but if anyone has earn t the leadership of the ALP it’s Albanese, as leader of the house he’s crawled though a valley of shit when everyone else watches.
How many calls for suspension of standing orders has he faced head on and alone?
I know he’s wrong about most things, but strutharama, he’s tough.
Jumpnmcar
19 Aug 12 at 7:41 pm
Faris was engaged by Nowicki who supposedly will pass on Faris’s report to the Victorian Law Institute. However, unlike NSW, in Victoria complaints about solicitors must come from clients.
Does anyone know whether the VLI can be proactive in non-client matters to do with alleged offences by solicitors.
For that matter, is Gillard still a registered solicitor or has she let her memebership lapse; if so what standing does the VLI have to investigate her?
cohenite
19 Aug 12 at 7:43 pm
LOL
m0nty
19 Aug 12 at 8:00 pm
Gillard should be worried. One of the best investigative journalists in the country is onto a story that has been followed up by questions from the most senior political journalist in the country. Thomas will get to the bottom of this and Kelly has staked his considerable reputation on the bet that there is someone in it.
Sleetmute
19 Aug 12 at 8:03 pm
I agree Monst. She shouldn’t resign but stay on and as they say in the Liars Party- “fight” it out. She needs to “fight”.
That way she’ll extend The Liars Party mortgage to 30 years instead of 20.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 8:04 pm
Jump, you’re right. Even though Albo is a cry baby when it suits him and has a 1950s attitude to class warfare, he’s one of the few real Labor people left in the ALP. He’ll be needed for the future. In the meantime, I believe they will be very tempted to go with Crean for the next year because he’s known by the public and trusted (compared with Gillard). His task would be to save 30 seats in the Reps, i.e. hold the swing to 10-12%, instead of a Queensland wipeout (15%), which would leave a rump of just 11 seats, including Albo, who would become interim leader after the election for 2013-16, when Crean would retire (assuming he retains Hotham, which he holds by 14%). Would Albo save seats? I don’t think so, especially since his first instinct would be to turn up the class warfare rhetoric, which would increase the backlash, IMO.
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 8:07 pm
I, for one, hope that this whole issue blows over in such a way that people forget about it.
Not that I don’t think she has a serious case to answer, I do, but because if she loses the prime ministership then her legacy will be similar to Gough’s – remember the execution and forget the incompetence.
The next election needs to be about sound, moral government versus what the left has served up in the form of Rudd-Gillard and the S&G issue risks misdirecting the public’s focus.
Jack Lacton
19 Aug 12 at 8:08 pm
I don’t know anything about Victorian practitioners
Victoria has a Law Institute and a Legal Services Commissioner
The Legal Services Commissisoner complaint form indicates the complainant must be complaining about his/her lawyer or else be authorised by another person to make a complaint about their lawyer
and for legal services which resulted in a financial loss to the complainant you have only 6 years to make a complaint
Don’t know why AWU didn’t lodge a complaint once it found out what had happened
val majkus
19 Aug 12 at 8:16 pm
Terrifying Spot? Hilarious, I say!
I’m buoyed by the possibility – in ’07 Labor commenced a re-run of the Three Stooges and I for one, personally, want to see each of Curly, Larry and Mo before it’s over.
Indeed, I invoke my Jemima Khan endorsed fundamental human right to be governed by all three of the very best Labor has to offer before they slink back into bed together for their next ten years of irrelevancy.
I’ll forego my fervent desire to see Comrade Albasleazy have a go at the head of the table for a bit. Now THAT would bring forth any underlying self harm in me!
Mick Gold Coast QLD
19 Aug 12 at 8:19 pm
I really don’t think there’s any fear that her removal will be viewed negatively now or for posterity
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 8:20 pm
Tom
Yeah, strategy trumps all.
But I think Crean has been lazy, almost invisible, probably intentionally so.
Jumpnmcar
19 Aug 12 at 8:21 pm
That’d be “Dot”, not “Spot”.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
19 Aug 12 at 8:22 pm
Anyone else heard or seen this.
“cast a deathly glare at the cameraman and whomever was standing close as she marched out of the interview, AND was shown on the 7 News at 6pm!”
Comment from Pickeerings Facebook.
The Yabby must have been absolutely red faced ropable.
Rudiau
19 Aug 12 at 8:23 pm
No, because this is an important issue in its own right. If the allegations are true, this isn’t a distraction, it’s the main game.
dd
19 Aug 12 at 8:28 pm
I want her to be [OTT. Sinc].
Infidel Tiger
19 Aug 12 at 8:29 pm
Of course he is. He can’t be seen to be at the vanguard of this thing, because he needs to not be part of the story.
dd
19 Aug 12 at 8:32 pm
Oh please. Albanese is an embodiment of all that’s wrong with the modern ALP. One year working in a bank, fast-tracked to a Labor seat via the conventional stop-over as a union clerk, married to another Labor zombie, one of the chief architects of the war on free speech – an all-round ALP dickhead.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 8:35 pm
Labor has adopted the strategy I predicted last week: focus on Pickering as an angry right wing loose cannon whose rantings need not be dignified with a response. This will work with a lot of people. A group I was with today were outdoing each other to paint Pickering as a tool, harking back, inter alia, to his antics in the seventies that are still remembered in Canberra.
Des Deskperson
19 Aug 12 at 8:35 pm
There was something about Kelly’s demeanor today that struck me as laywerly and cooly fisherman-like. It was almost as though he was trying to catch her out in an on-the-record lie because there’s more to come. We’ll see, I suppose.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 8:38 pm
val; the time period may also be a factor, as you say; I don’t really see any role for the VLI in any ongoing investigation/prosecution of Gillard.
If Faris finds evidence of possible criminal offences the time period will not be relevant and the destination of any such finding would be the police not the VLI.
cohenite
19 Aug 12 at 8:38 pm
I agree cohenite
Are you keeping up with Heiner?
val majkus
19 Aug 12 at 8:42 pm
It’s quite simple. All she had to do was say, “The claims made in the Saturday edition of the Australian are wrong.”
That’s it. Kelly asked her a couple of times a simple yes/no question, “is it correct that in 1995 you had to resign as a partner…”. It was a yes/no question. Is it correct. Yes or no.
Why wouldn’t she answer? This is standard operating procedure, surely. A journalist raises a false allegation, asks the politician if it’s true, and the politician says, ‘no it’s not.’
dd
19 Aug 12 at 8:45 pm
Infidel Tiger – that’s over the top.
dd
19 Aug 12 at 8:46 pm
I don’t know, I agree with Steve from Brisbane. There is nothing to this story. It all happened so long ago, she has dealt with it before, no need to add anything to it, and anyone who doesn’t accept that is not being fair. There are so many other important things that the media should be focusing on, important things that Julia is focused on, and important legislation she is getting on with and getting through the parliament.
Honestly, can we find something more interesting to talk about?
James in Melbourne
19 Aug 12 at 8:48 pm
“Infidel Tiger – that’s over the top.”
nah, Infidel has unusual humour, I always find his comments funny, he has a special unique twist you won’t get anywhere else that i’ve seen. let’s not be too boring.
candy
19 Aug 12 at 8:54 pm
or Martin F – or even Faulkner to the election – I believe he could do it for a couple of months as a senator.
I believe these people have been quiet because they think the current leadership is crap and they want to distance themselves from it, the filth and the explosion to happen when it all turns to, well more shit than it already has.
These guys have gravitas and some credibility, the relief of not having to listen to Julia and or lies will immediately give a poll bounce, with that will come confidence and, if they were smart enough to announce the shelving of the carbon tax until the world adopts one, united, then, together with the offshore processing, they are back in the ball game.
Helen Armstrong
19 Aug 12 at 9:00 pm
Okay, just for daddy Dave I’ll rewrite the script…
After 20 years behind bars of a maximum security women’s prison Gillard digs her way to freedom on a dark and stormy night and retires to the cool breezes of a Mexican beach after first implicating the crooked warden in an embezzlement scam…
It needs work but I’m sure this sort of movie would have legs and could possibly be played on TV every fucking weekend for the rest of our lives.
Infidel Tiger
19 Aug 12 at 9:02 pm
Fungus, your arse is calling. It wants your head back.
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 9:03 pm
Labor PRO CHATBOT 2012 V3.122 reporting for service.
twostix
19 Aug 12 at 9:04 pm
Yes, caning Pickering is like saying well that guy must be the murderer because he has been implicated in murder before.
Thank the lord for Pickering’s persistence, otherwise this would still be buried.
Helen Armstrong
19 Aug 12 at 9:04 pm
Splatacrobat
19 Aug 12 at 9:04 pm
You won’t have time to be workshopping movie scripts, IT. You’ll be required in the Department of Human Services running the new Fisk Doctrine Implementation Unit (FDIU).
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 9:06 pm
The Australian people are aching for a return to the days of “boring as batshit” government.
twostix
19 Aug 12 at 9:08 pm
the shit hole cave and, swimming bravely around in it up to her neck, thinks she is dreaming and is back as PM in the tenties. Eventually she discovers she can float on it and thinks she just has to wait long enough to rise high enough to reach the seat just up there above her when Fat Bastard arrives after a night on the curry.
Helen Armstrong
19 Aug 12 at 9:09 pm
I’ve been thinking that Ms Gillard is more worried about her affairs with two married men who had young children, where those marriages ended in part due to her, than the other stuff which is easily denied and shut down.
to date no journalist has raised the issue. if it were Mr Abbott of course they would and fair enough, our leaders should be people of good morals and values.
candy
19 Aug 12 at 9:11 pm
I don’t think there is any similarity. It is not a sex scandal etc. It is a serious matter, perhaps with criminal overtones, certainly impropriety. Witlam’s legacy is about the very mechanism of removal. I do not think anyone is suggesting this mechanism now.
Boris
19 Aug 12 at 9:15 pm
JC,
Will try to obtain an update tomorrow.
Rabz
19 Aug 12 at 9:15 pm
“Are you keeping up with Heiner?”
The QLD cesspool? No, we are spoilt for choices with political cesspools right now, so I have stayed closer to home in NSW.
But, the import of the Heiner affair is that it should impact on Rudd, but hasn’t; so what are the odds about Gillard, who is revealing herself as an implacably unrepentant pollie?
cohenite
19 Aug 12 at 9:16 pm
Gillard denies
Splatacrobat
19 Aug 12 at 9:17 pm
Why should the VLI bother with this?
Firstly, the statute of limitations will be well past. Secondly, the punishment would be to be struck off for professional misconduct. I doubt whether Gilard has a practising certificate anymore, so striking her off would be a pointless exercise.
However, this is a qurestion of honesty. It is a good scandal, because Gillard will be Laborish enough to want to stay on as PM even though thois old scandal demonstrates she is not worthy to run a cake stand. This will lead to even more bleeding of votes from the ALP.
The only problem is that she nad her cronies will in their death throes wreak even more carnage on ourr economy.
The best outcome would be that she stays until the next election, but the the ALP is so taklen up justifying her continuing as PM that they pass no new legislation or dubious reforms before the voters wreak their vengeance.
Rococo Liberal
19 Aug 12 at 9:21 pm
[Follow on from the OTT IT comment. Sinc]
Tiny Dancer
19 Aug 12 at 9:25 pm
what a meaningless generalisation. Make sure you’re not near sharp objects, febrile.
duncan
19 Aug 12 at 9:27 pm
The Gillard Prime Ministership, a pictorial essay.
Eddystone
19 Aug 12 at 9:49 pm
Small things amusing small minds continued all during today, I see.
Gillard performed well in the interview and took the right approach.
Unless evidence comes out that she had knowledge of her boyfriend’s wrongs, time to move on boys and girls.
steve from brisbane
19 Aug 12 at 9:55 pm
Any chance the evil one might top herself? “I thought I could do this job but I failed repeatedly and I’ve seriously damaged the country and the Laybah Pardy….”
Chris M
19 Aug 12 at 9:55 pm
Sheesh, Twostix, did I really have to flag on that one? Sorry, I thought it was funny. Made me laugh, at least, as I typed it.
James in Melbourne
19 Aug 12 at 9:57 pm
I mean ‘did I really have to flag sarc-on sarc-off on that one?’
James in Melbourne
19 Aug 12 at 9:57 pm
what are you trying to say? I’m not sure I want to know.
dd
19 Aug 12 at 9:58 pm
Fuck off, you worthless piece of shit.
Tom
19 Aug 12 at 9:59 pm
No no. Gillard set up the slush fund for her boyfriend, unbeknownst to her partners, and was fired. That’s the allegation which she will never deny in parliament, or even in an interview.
Fisky
19 Aug 12 at 10:05 pm
You’re right of course Steve. She obviously had no idea of the wrongdoings. How could she possibly know? I mean she was only a young and naive partner at a law firm. I guess that’s why she never opened a file, either, just too young and stupid to know how to do her job. And importantly she said she did nothing wrong. So, yep that’s good enough for me, let’s all move on!
big dumb fu
19 Aug 12 at 10:06 pm
No.
It should be. She has behaved very badly in that regard too.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
19 Aug 12 at 10:12 pm
Wayne Swan might be a contender.
Econocrat
19 Aug 12 at 10:24 pm
if mr abbott had affairs with married women he’d be hung drawn and quartered and rightly so
ms gillard has broke up 2 marriages involving young children – hunky dory for a PM
someone tell me why
candy
19 Aug 12 at 10:31 pm
Hi Alan…
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 10:37 pm
Cos Abbott is s real Catholic and Gillard is a real leftist.
JamesK
19 Aug 12 at 10:37 pm
I heard it involved infanticide also. The whole thing is just awful, sickening.
Chris M
19 Aug 12 at 10:39 pm
No one has any high expectations for the labor side. It’s like the stupid kid in school. If s/he gets a D- well that equivalent to a high distinction for everyone else.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 10:39 pm
What are you talking about, what infanticide?
JC
19 Aug 12 at 10:41 pm
Wow. Interesting.
Labor MPs smell roadkill:
Slush fund claims raise fresh leadership tension.
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 10:58 pm
Stevie Liar. Do the washing up then make your man a cup of tea
Tiny Dancer
19 Aug 12 at 10:59 pm
I heard she aborted the Wilson – Gillard baby.
But I’m not sure if this was just a rumour (I hope that’s all it is).
Chris M
19 Aug 12 at 11:00 pm
Also at that link…
Slater & Gordon whistleblower Nick Styant-Browne says Gillard is lying and calls bullshit on her boilerplate “already dealt with it” crapola:
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 11:01 pm
Why would S&G need permission from Gillard? Does she own them?
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 11:07 pm
No. Stop it with that stuff, Chris.
[Agreed. Gillard's private choices are of no interest here. Sinc]
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 11:09 pm
I’m afraid they’re going to alter the transcript. It’s in all their interests to do so. It could then become a he said she said affair and people will begin to lose interest.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:13 pm
Oh dear, what a tangled web we weave, when first we set out to deceive. The stories are changing, the backbench is getting restless, powerful QC are closing in, the law firm is under attack, people want immunity somt hey can dump on the PM and yet she resolutely fails to address anything.
No, Steve is right. There is nothing to see here!
I would say she will be cactus in a few weeks, possibly sooner.
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:13 pm
S&G admitted the Gillard please explain interview was taped.
Where’s the tape?
C.L.
19 Aug 12 at 11:15 pm
Paul Kelly should have said yes he does have an allegation to put to her and then asked if she had been investigated by S&G for any impropriety?
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:16 pm
Unless the ex-S&G senior partner (now residing in the US) has the tape or a copy, I’d say it’s gone by now.
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 11:18 pm
Sleeping with the fishes, hey, Gab?
dover_beach
19 Aug 12 at 11:19 pm
The reason she has to not provide any answer is that once she gets caught in a position where she has to answer any question, then she will have to start talkig more. Any answer will beg further questions and raise new inconsistencies. At some stage she will talk, and then it will be all over. The trick is to get her to answer the first question.
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:19 pm
Dem dere tracks needs to be covered, Dover. Labor Union Panic Tactic 101.
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 11:20 pm
Forget the tape. That disappeared years ago. The transcript is what they keep talking about. The only thing they need to be worried about is if one of the old partners kept a copy which would not be identical to a doctored one.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:23 pm
John
Not of the transcript of the meeting is doctored or goes missing. It’s in her interest to beep fucking around not giving any answers until she knows that side of things isn’t a risk to her.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:25 pm
The tape was transcribed. By who? Can he or she remember what was in the transcription. More and more people are getting involved. More will talk. Gillard will be gone soon. There seems little possibility that she wasn’t involved. The other object of scorn in this lot must be McLelland. Remember, he was the first law officer of the Commonwealth, all the time knowing that his Prime Minister was a crook. And what was it that brought on this bout of conscience for Mr McLelland? Oh, that’s right he was furious about how Gillard damaged his career. Fuck the country – so long as I’m in the ministry. What a scumbag.
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:26 pm
The key to this isn’t, I think, to make Gillard ‘sing’ but to make the position of S&G untenable and thus force them to publicly expose and distance themselves from Gillard by releasing the transcript or whatever else they may have; the recent disclosure is instructive. The pressure building on them must be enormous and if this drags on for a few more weeks would be irresistible, in my opinion.
dover_beach
19 Aug 12 at 11:28 pm
a tape would have been written over and reused over and over until it died
but do law firms/companies transribe all termination interviews, i’ve never heard of such a thing
candy
19 Aug 12 at 11:28 pm
John
It’s not in his interest to talk either for that very reason.
The Slapper wouldn’t have fired him unless she knew she had cover.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:28 pm
Mclelland is pivotal. He must be questioned in the house. By Bishop..
Pickles
19 Aug 12 at 11:29 pm
Julia Gillard in an evasive interview with Paul Kelly:
No Ms. Gillard, they have not.
You have merely proclaimed that you have done nothing wrong.
Many people who have done something wrong will proclaim that they have done nothing wrong. So that is absolutely no answer at all. That puts NOTHING on the public record.
Please answer some QUESTIONS about your past behaviour. There are plenty of questions that need to be answered and put on the public record.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
19 Aug 12 at 11:29 pm
DB
Why would it be in the interest of S&G to show they covered something up like this even from 17 years ago. It would make them look like dishonest arseholes and cause a huge downgrade in franchise value.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:30 pm
He should have just said “I don’t make allegations I ask questions, will you answer my questions?”.
Which would have killed her stupid pre-scripted “attack” stone cold dead.
twostix
19 Aug 12 at 11:31 pm
She did look very tense indeed.
BTW If the equivalent story about Abbot was about, then the Press Gallery and the MSM would be ripping into it.
Grattan, Bongiorno and the Canberra labor luvies have had their day. They don’t know it yet..
Lazlo
19 Aug 12 at 11:32 pm
From Bolt’s blog
Now if this guy is making these statements without knowing whats in the transcript of the meeting then he’s dead meat if another story comes out that hits the Slapper really hard.
He’s got his bases covered.
He wouldn’t stick his chin out like that.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:35 pm
JC,
Agreed. She can’t answer anything until she has everything locked down. I wonder who is doing the locking down for her. She couldn’t be involved in it, so there must be someone tying up the loose ends for her.
The problem for her is that more and more people are aware of it and Wilson is still flipping burgers in the Hunter Valley. I would say that at some stage he will look to cut a deal and talk. Blewitt is the other loose cannon. Will he talk anyway to create a storm and then demand immunity to cooperate with the Police? Those two are a problem, as is the ex S&G Partner in Seattle – too far away.
Any guesses on who the fixer might be? My guess is a trusted AWU compadre of Bill Shorten. Someone little known but close to Shorten. That way he can sort out the issue without involving the PM. If she goes down, then it is likely he will as well. But he has never made it to PM, so he has more to lose, lots left to gain and is therefore more likely to take some risks.
How closely does Rabz’s insider know Bill?
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:35 pm
JC, I see your point but that’s already happening. The previous cover-up was somewhat ameliorated by her sacking, but they, at some stage, have to cut their losses and throw Gillard to the wolves rather than continuing to publicly shield her.
dover_beach
19 Aug 12 at 11:36 pm
He’s got his bases covered.
He wouldn’t stick his chin out like that.
You may be right, JC.
dover_beach
19 Aug 12 at 11:39 pm
Anything coming out of SnG will be utterly self serving. More interested in what Faris comes up with an what Wilson eventually comes out with.
Pickles
19 Aug 12 at 11:39 pm
DB
I would be staggered if the current CEO didn’t ask for the transcript of the tape before he made the comment.
They’ve had 17 years to figure out how to handle all this and doctor all that’s necessary.
Then who are people going to believe.. Pickering or the PM.
This shit isn’t going anywhere unless we end up with the real transcript.. and there is a risk one of the old partners kept a copy and we find out if any of the money ended up in her account.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:42 pm
I would say Faris is a real problem for any loose ends. Has he spoken to Wilson or Blewitt?
It will be hard to keep some people quiet in a loyalty – honesty contest between Gillard’s fixer and Faris.
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:45 pm
wouldn’t doctoring transcripts and associated documents about resignation and leave of abscence etc be quite illegal?
candy
19 Aug 12 at 11:48 pm
Suppose you were one of the equity partners at S&G when this first emerged, Gillard interviewed and you decided that you or the firm was at some risk. obviously you had already lost the biggest Union client to Maurice Blackburn. What would you do?
If I had nothing to do with this I would keep a copy of the transcript, especially after she became Brumby’s chief of staff. Once she entered politics in her own right I would make a copy and bury one in the backyard in a box.
John Comnenus
19 Aug 12 at 11:51 pm
Faris is a c*nt of a thing. They could probably deal with Pickering, the Parrot, Smith, Blewitt & Wilson but Faris is a pig dog.
Pickles
19 Aug 12 at 11:52 pm
That’s what keeps the lardarse awake at night as that would be the first thing I would do if I were an equity partner from that time. The trouble for S&G is if they have doctored the old transcript and it reappears because one or more of the old partners kept a copy. If they show up on paper that can be traced back to that time, the game is up for all of them. That means the unions, the Slapper, Shortened, Howes and S&G is fucked.
Throw the dice fellas. I picks seven.
JC
19 Aug 12 at 11:57 pm
Good suggestion. Worth lobbing a couple his way to see if he bites given he has the shits with her.
Ivan Denisovich
19 Aug 12 at 11:57 pm
The sycophant in the Paul Kelly interview, the one at the end of the clip brown-nosing Gillard, was that Peter Van Onselen?
Gab
19 Aug 12 at 11:58 pm
You know I’m not sure Peter Al Jolsen was brown nosing her. He may have just tried to butter her up, stroke her fat ego in order to get the question in as an honest broker sort.
He did after all ask the question.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 12:02 am
Yesm he did,but only after a good long preamble about how he believed her. It was sickening.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:04 am
Well yea okay, he did brown nose her, but he may used that as a decoy to get the question in.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 12:07 am
JC,
The real copy might be a good bargaining chip for and ex partner seeking immunity from prosecution. Let’s see if the Slapper ages over the next week or so? Keep an eye out for the black rings around the eyes.
You can’t fault her balls. She is as tough as nails. Pity its the only talent she has. The way she will keep clutching the Prime ministry will make Howard look half hearted.
Ivan,
I am pretty sure you can’t actually direct a question in QT to a backbencher. Grub McLelland can be pretty sure that he won’t be coming back to the front bench anytime soon. Has McLelland seen anything in discovery?
You would have to think Bill Ludwig is all over this, working the shredder and hiding the dead bodies so to speak.
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 12:09 am
He’s no longer a minister.
They can’t ask him.
They can request that he makes a statement to the house but he doesn’t have to reply.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:11 am
He’s already made a statement to the house about it hasn’t he?
Pickles
20 Aug 12 at 12:14 am
Yeah, I believe that’s correct, now that I think about it.
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 12:14 am
Remember when David Marr wrote that in-depth investigative piece on Howard’s father and grandfather?
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:19 am
I suspect a deal was struck whereby she fuck off quietly and they wouldn’t report her to the Law Society.
That would have been in S&G’s interest at the time as I suspect The Law society would have a lot to say about the culture in the firm itself.
The official documents would support that JC.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:21 am
Sorry
I meant to say the official investigative S&G documents would support a finding of poor judgment but not illegal.
Their investigation is in the interests of S&G not truth.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:24 am
A subtly brutal Hedley Thomas again, warns Slater & Gordon to be careful:
Slater & Gordon, Julia Gillard need each other more than ever.
He also dismisses Slater & Gordon’s statement yesterday as froth and bubble PR and points out that the firm sees Gillard Labor as an ongoing meal ticket:
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:25 am
James, I suspect any fuck off quietly settlement vis a vis Gillard was probably done quietly because there was little they wanted out on the street. If so, it would create headaches if it were released now.
The big boys at S&G must be scratching their heads and cursing their luck over a single malt whiskey as they stare out of the board room window into the city night. Only one question would be in their mind. How the fuck did SHE become prime minister?
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 12:27 am
Bolt:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/has_gillard_permitted_slater_gordon_to_release_the_interview/
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 12:27 am
That’s why I don’t think the tape or the transcript will be of much use. Utterly self serving for all concerned. They’ll live or die on the documents relating to the set up of the slush funds and the property transactions.
Pickles
20 Aug 12 at 12:28 am
Ivan, they have offered to set out details of her employment history. Nothing more and nothing less. They won’t be volunteering tapes anytime soon. I am sure they were lost in the office expansion and relocation of 2007 or some such.
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 12:33 am
The Australian editorialises on Slatergate.
Go on, Jules – try and run your press banning Finkelstein ‘reforms’ now.
Go on – see what happens.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:37 am
Oh shit, they don’t know if he’s springing a trap on them as he may have more.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 12:39 am
if the tape and/or transcript exist today, they will be harder to obtain than obama’s university transcripts.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:39 am
Agreed except I think the questions the asked will point to precisely what the senior partners were concerned about.
Moreover if the contractor was a mate of Wilson’s, a hand-written receipt not for tax purposes would have been an easy request to satisfy
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:40 am
Good editorial from The Oz.
Very good and professional indeed.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:43 am
Killer paragraph, from CL’s link:
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:43 am
I liked the fact that they swatted Leathereface as well.
Bonus points to The OZ
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:44 am
Thomas is saying that S&G won’t do anything to undermine the rivers of gold from the ALP.
Not for a Royal Commission. They present it or go to jail.
It’s perfectly obvious to anyone with multiple brain cells that we need a Royal Commission into union finances, blackmail and corruption. Key areas of interest are the Wilson and Thompson scandals.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:44 am
Thinking further along, I think Thomas has a copy. He’s too cocksure of himself in the linked piece he wrote and may be waiting to see how they move before he goes with it.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 12:46 am
That’s what he’s saying is going through their mind. But as you suggested, he also making a brutal threat to be really fucking careful.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 12:48 am
I dare not hope that at all.
One thing’s for sure, there’s no way Thomas and the Australian would print these stories if they did not have solid gold supporting evidence. Think of all Murdoch and co have been through in the last couple of years…they’re not about to take on a PM – backed by and shielded by powerful unions, no less – unless they have an air tight case.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:54 am
If I were Julia I would assume that releasing the Styant-Browne comments was designed to provoke a denial that he could dispute. Hence, say nothing. Now what would she make of Styant-Browne saying that she has denied nothing? Is he daring her to deny because he has more information? You would have to assume so if you were Gillard.
But the nagging thought would be in Gillard’s now fevered brain – he knew everything, how much will he reveal? And has he got documents? Then of course you would be torturing yourself wondering if he is only the first of many people happy to speak out? How long can she continue to bluff playing liars dice? The betrayal would be killing her to boot! Oh the irony!
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 12:59 am
I had thought Styant-Broewne was a proxy for his old senior partners at S&G.
Or maybe since it went public, the senior partners don’t really care.
It’s publicly listed soit’s not like normal big partner law firms
Who knows?
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 1:04 am
Ahahahahahahahaha.
Phil Coorey:
Gillard cleared of wrongdoing by former employer.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:07 am
Amazing.
Considering what happened a year ago when they ran the (in comparison) light as a feather Milne article, absolutely amazing.
Gillard is finished – she’s officially impotent.
Here let’s have a flashback:
Oh Gillard, what were you thinking?
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 1:09 am
I accept that would currently be their preference but I think it’s more fluid than that with several factors for S&G to weigh up and others that might come into play.
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 1:10 am
Love media JournoListers button down a PR line:
Michelle Grattan:
Internal inquiry cleared PM, law firm reveals.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:11 am
Okay, so the love Media has recieved this week’s instructions and talking points from the Labor Union government…News at 11.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 1:13 am
Gillard endorses scrutiny………..of others:
http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2012/06/17/australian-prime-minister-julia-gillard-sets-up-watergate-style-dirt-unit-for-opposition-politicians/
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 2:34 am
Good questions – crap answer
jules
20 Aug 12 at 5:16 am
Grattan and Coorey claim that Gillard was cleared of any wrong doing by S&G. Grattan and Coorey also claimed that Nauru could never work, that the Pacific solution was a failure, that there were no pull factors. Yep, they have a great track record on being right.
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 5:51 am
I would imagine that the old equity partners had to make certain declarations that S&G had no prior issues that might be an ongoing liability for the company when they listed and went for their IPO. Does this issue expose those older partners who obviously declared to the ASX or ASIC that all was above board? Were some partners levered out prior to listing to create more wealth for those left behind? Some possibilities for splits in S&G solidarity.
John Comnenus
20 Aug 12 at 5:58 am
Sounds to me like John McTernan (the great white spinmeister from Blair’s office in the UK) and/or his staff have made a fool of the prime minister again because he/they are out of their depth. An elementary fuckup.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 7:42 am
S&G’s review did not clear Gillard. According to them, they did not find anything to contradict her story. That is, they did not find that one of their partners was involved in a crime which they subsequently failed to report to the proper authoities. As if they would ever admit that. They are also covering the six month gap in Gillard’s CV by saying she was on a leave of absence instead of forced to resign. They are working together to cover each other’s arses.
Steve
20 Aug 12 at 8:02 am
PvO comes out of the past few days looking like the intellectual pygmy he really is.
The old guard who have survived in politics would not allow themselves to be on the record as such momental brown-nosing lick-spittles like the boy blunder.
Token
20 Aug 12 at 8:10 am
This was my take. I thought he was playing ‘good cop’. I also thought it might be a step in disowning his previous position.
essentially: “Jules I’m your biggest supporter but why don’t you just answer the question?”
dd
20 Aug 12 at 8:16 am
The next battle between Gillard & the truth will be to deny the S&G review.
The directors at S&G now have a dilemma, continue playing the dirty game they have for years and risk serious sanctions to their PUBLICLY LISTED company under ASX/ASIC rules (which unions don’t face), or reveal the details and be punished by their union clients.
Maurice Blackburn and the other lawyers that are just union fronts will be bringing this up as they work to poach the S&G clients.
Token
20 Aug 12 at 8:17 am
We are watching Icurus’s wings of wax melt as we walk.
Why was PvO so aggressive at the audiance member that asked him about it on Friday?
The man is under pressure and in on the retreat on his stance on immigration (check on linked in his wife’s business interests why he can’t retreat on that matter).
Token
20 Aug 12 at 8:22 am
What’s the odds that Craig Thomson knows about this? May explain much…
Driftforge
20 Aug 12 at 8:32 am
Years ago PVO should have abandoned all pretense at journalism, and got a job as a spin doctor with the government. The guy predicted that the Liar’s party would be returned with a massively increased majority at the last election. His serial lack of judgement rivals Gillard’s.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 8:37 am
Top-rating Mitchell opens his show at 8.30 by demanding answers to questions that “go to the heart of the prime minister’s integrity”.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 8:44 am
In a long blog piece for his radio station website, Neil Mitchell, quoting ALP sources, reckons Gillard is gone.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 9:14 am
The integrity issue that will matter most with the public is that JG was having an affair with a married man. The alp has form on this, hawkie ditching hazel for a woman with more synthetic parts than a non stick fry pan, PJK dumping Anita over dinner while friends were over, Gareth Evans hitting up Kernot.
It’s a rich history
Dan
20 Aug 12 at 9:16 am
Gillard was briefed that surprise, surprise a TV interview would contain questions. She went all “hostile witness”, and now another high profile radio presenter is calling for answers to not unreasonable questions. Ooops, and now Gillard’s minders say it was all a miscommunication. Gillard demanded an allegation be made, while alleging Kelly was part of a conspiracy. Standard lefty reflex. Accuse others of the very practices they employ. All by herself Gillard transformed labor-friendly, left leaning Kelly into an opponent. Did she think she was debating Abbott – she sees Abbott everywhere.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 9:26 am
I’ve worked in a few large law firms, and I never heard of partners taping interviews with other partners. It goes against the whol;e spirit of partnership.
But Slater and Gordon was always a 3rd rate ambulance chasing firm anyway.
Rococo Liberal
20 Aug 12 at 9:29 am
I imagine Maurice Blackburn have a team of senior people working the phones all this week doing their best to poach clients.
It would be a devastatingly easy sell – ‘your current representation is embroiled in a very public scandal representing one of it’s former partners’. We can represent your interests without having to divert our attention to answering media enquiries. Are you sure your current firm will be around in 12 months time?’
Again I ask: why do any punters try and defend her? She has not a single redeeming feature as a politician or a person. A policy-free zone, a person of doubtful moral judgement, a confirmed serial liar. I wouldn’t want her running a P&C, let alone being head of the government.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 9:32 am
More like an incestuous can of worms, including all the journalists they co-habit with.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 9:33 am
You know, I think the best way for media to approach this is not the head-on accusations for her, but the tangenital questions:
‘When with the AWU, Ian Cambridge was calling for a Royal Commission to investigate the fraud. With this particular story in the news again, would you support the establishment of a commission into the AWU fraud?’
The fact there was a fraud is not in question.
Be interesting to see what she says.
I really wonder if this is the week when it goes down, or will the PR units be able to activate a sock puppet army and get something else onto the agenda?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 9:52 am
Gillard knew Wilson was extorting money from construction firms but thought the money was going to be used by the AWU for political purposes, hence all the free legal work on the down-low. She knew she was doing something crooked, she just didn’t know how crooked.
Putting all the blame on Wilson, and denying any wrong doing doesn’t wash.
Steve
20 Aug 12 at 9:53 am
So they accept Gillard did nothing wrong whatsoever. Yet they still claim to have “questions” that “linger”. But none of them relate to any wrongdoing by Gillard. So they are meaningless.
It is the muckrakers’ position that is untenable. I can’t even call them accusers, because they are too cowardly to make outright accusations. They don’t even have a position, really, just a list of smears.
I have questions for PvO and Kelly. Why did they “have to” ask the questions? What compelled them? They know Gillard did nothing wrong. All of the relevant facts were reported well before previous elections and yet the people have voted her in, many times. It can’t be journalistic professionalism, because as journalists they know that there is no real story here, just fevered speculation from a bankrupt former Liberal politician. From where comes the impetus to further rake the muck?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 9:58 am
Guilt by association is a preferred tactic of the left, eg Albo and Roxon on Brough. The hypocrisy is endless…
Lazlo
20 Aug 12 at 10:01 am
You’ve really got the Elton John goggles on this morning, Mont. I’d have thought you’d have a sharper appreciation of the forces at work here. The fact you never covered politics is sticking out like dog’s balls.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 10:04 am
LOL Tom, and I suppose you’re a twenty year veteran of the Canberra press corps?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:05 am
Because people who consume the media want to know the answers, and the media that ask the questions that the public want answered gets the viewers.
Do we really have to explain such things, or did you think the entire media apparatus is there to try and support the government?
The majority of the public is dissatisfied with the PM, and the majority would vote for the alternative, if they were given an option.
There is a lot of new information that has been released since even August last year, when the government used it’s power to silence the media.
The information from the prior S&G partner alone – that she was interviewed and asked to resign – is new information that directly contradicts information supplied before prior elections.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 10:06 am
Because of the above fold front page story in the Weekend Australian detailing the account of the former senior (equity) partner of S&G which told us that Gillard hadn’t opened a file on the setting up of the slushfund supposed AWU entity and that she couldn’t be sure some of that money went to her renos and that she was in essence asked to resign.
Just keep coming back m0nty.
Your stupidity can’t be corrected but your ignorance can.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 10:16 am
The list of smears include possible serious indictable offences backed up with multiple examples of documentary evidence corroborated by multiple independent eyewitnesses.
This is why it is serious monty.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:16 am
Don’t mistake the yahoos in here as being representative of the public, brc. The public couldn’t give a hoot about S&G. They’d rather hear about policy that affects them.
None of it includes any allegations about improper conduct by Gillard. It’s all innuendo and circumstance. Muck raking, in other words. If there is a specific allegation to be made, make it. Otherwise, there’s no point to listening to the desperate flailings of a superannuated Liberal politician who has run out of legitimate reasons we should listen to him.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:21 am
The “have to” probably came out of Kelly’s mouth in an apologetic tone.
Another “have to” question for you Monty:
Why did news organisations last year “have to” sack journalists who attempted to report on this topic?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 10:22 am
She produced receipts for all of the reno work afterwards. There is also no allegation she had anything to do with Wilson’s activities after setting up the account. There was no impropriety on her part.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:23 am
The journalists were acting in an unprofessional manner, leaving their organisations open to law suits. Journalism is not carte blanche to print what you like. News organisations have the right not to print your free speech.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:25 am
Which offences could Gillard be indicted on, Dot?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:26 am
Setting up the account/s, was/were the act/s in question monty.
This wouldn’t be an issue if unions shaking down construction firms was acceptable, because the opportunity never would have happened.
Since you know she’s innocent, can you tell us what happened at Slater and Gordon?
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:27 am
Fraud, monty.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:27 am
Setting up a bank account that is later used for illegal activities is now a crime, is it? Well gee whillikers, no wonder our banking system is shot to hell, with all those criminal charges hanging over… wait a minute, you’re talking out of your arse again, aren’t you Dot?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:29 am
How do you know that ?
And why, when these same organisations are publicly elevating the same matters, don’t we see any law suits now ?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 10:29 am
S&G cleared Gillard of any such activities, Dot. Try again.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:30 am
Note everybody that save for one uncommitted post, monty has been utterly silent on this matter until this morning.
Now that the ALP talking points have firmed up in the in the Age, et al and he comes in “swinging”.
Not a single original idea in his head. He’s little more than a bot mouthing todays ALP talking points.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 10:30 am
And yet Labor went to the trouble of establishing a dirt unit run from Gillard’s office.
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 10:31 am
Gillard is a little busy running the country, Keith. Milne can still be sued after she leaves high office.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:32 am
LOL do you really think that repeating Michelle Grattan’s wishful thinking is going to cut it here?
You clown m0nt, try harder.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 10:33 am
http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:23913H/$FILE/CrimCdActCompilationAct1913-16-i0-01.html?OpenElement
If s 409 applies, because of the value of money, it cannot be applied summarily.
If she was only young and stupid, see s 424 (d).
The summary conviction is two years and a $24 000 fine.
A lawyer saying they didn’t understand what fraud was when they were a senior partner is beyond reasonable doubt as false.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:33 am
The WA fraud squad have never cleared her of wrongdoing.
Yes, it is, particularly when it is set up for an unauthorised entity. In particular, it is fraud, otherwise obtaining financial gain (or loss to others) by deception (in common law states).
I am speaking the truth monty.
The truth hurts.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:36 am
Hahah m0nty, the greatest Labor shill on the Internet, telling us what the public want to hear about.
The public is only just learning about it m0nt, thanks to the ALP fluffers in the Press Gallery who think Tony Abbots comments from 1970 were relevant to the election but not the fact that Gillard was up to her ears in setting up a racket for her long term boyfriend immediately before she entered politics.
You’re failing.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 10:37 am
She couldn’t definitively say she didn’t receive any benefit.
She didn’t open a file on the matter, and didn’t bill S&G for the work, even though that was the supposed client.
There are only two explanations for this:
1) she is a monumentally incompetent lawyer who would break her employers procedures, and the law, for any conman who sweet-talked her.
2) she was involved.
One question that many would like answered is this : when she found out about the fraud, what did she do?
Again I ask : why does anyone want to rush in an protect this desperately useless politician and very unpleasant person? Here we have a serial liar, a woman who has broken up several marriages and who was involved in conning not only her clients, but union members. And yet internet commenters rush in to barrack for her, despite knowing that there is yet more evidence to come out. She has no redeeming qualities as a person or a politician.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 10:37 am
LOL, Dot you’re hilarious. I meant try again with a different accusation, not the same one. Only crazies like Pickering are actually accusing her of fraud.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:39 am
Expect to see that “argument” used to launch the legislation to create the ALP’s government media censor this week.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 10:40 am
That takes the biscuit for lame excuses. She has an army of people, but in the PMO, the government, the ALP and countless others, who could put together something and file it by tomorrow.
She certainly didn’t bother pausing to run the government to phone up the Australian and get Milnes story pulled and him dismissed, that’s for sure. But the Gillard boosters are pretty quiet about that little episode. Pretty extreme reaction for just a bit of social-meida muckraking, I think.
As for S&G clearing Gillard, they don’t disagree with what was said. Except a strange new fiction of her being on gardening leave until she started work for Brumby now exists – a pretty important fact that contradicts everything else said and printed up until this point.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 10:41 am
They have never cleared you of wrongdoing either, Dot. Oh no, you’re a criminal!
And how would you prove intent to defraud through the routine action of setting up a bank account? Your case is so thin, Dot. It would get laughed out of a courtroom.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:42 am
So can Gillard.
What about The Australian? They now publish on page one, what they previously retracted with apology. And now no sackings?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 10:43 am
Stop being foolish.
She produced a hand-written receipt presumably by the owner of Town Mode and the construction company and mates with her beau thieving unionist thug.
She herself admitted to the in-camera investigative interview by her senior partners that she couldn’t be certain that those monies didn’t pay for some of the renos on her house.
Surely you aren’t really this stupid m0nty?
Tell you what: tell us if Gillard “voluntarily” resigned or was her resignation from S&G demanded?
Go!
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 10:45 am
brc, that is not sufficient evidence to convict anyone in a court of law. The onus of proof is not on the defendant.
In any case she did produce the receipts afterwards, which would have exonerated her.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:46 am
No.
She has committed fraud and if she takes offence she can sue me.
I’ve never been investigated for a crime either.
Because it was made in the name of a false entity, unauthorised by the entity it was meant to represent, and Gillard signed it into existence.
Which means s 424 applies even if she was just dumb.
The monies furthermore were used in a manner to benefit the true account owners and not the members it was meant to represent – so at common law she caused a loss to AWU members as well.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:47 am
You’re just making it up, JamesK.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:48 am
Ahahahahahaha.
In other news, Ecuador has cleared Julian Assange.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 10:49 am
Gillard is going to gaol, monty.
Suck it up. There will be no NBN.
.
20 Aug 12 at 10:51 am
Alright, I shall amend my statement.
Only crazies like Pickering and Dot are actually accusing her of fraud.
But you’ve never been cleared either! You’re a hardened crim by that logic, Dot!
Even if she was just dumb, by definition she did not have intent to defraud, thus 424 does not apply.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 10:51 am
Not only the dodgiest politician since Russ Hinze, the biggest hypocrite ever.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 10:52 am
She doesn’t need to be convicted in a court of law m0nt you clown. She’s the PM, generally speaking “the public” don’t wont a PM running the country who is either so utterly and monumentally stupid as to have fallen for such an obvious scam, or worse, knew about it but covered it up.
Do you think we’re going to forget that you are the people who loudly declared that Abbott was unfit for office because of a joke he told in university?
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 10:54 am
Who cares, or said anything, about courts? You certainly don’t need to be convicted of anything to lose your job. The list of senior government ministers who have lost jobs over things like this has very few court appearances in it.
She produced the receipts before the S&G interview. She is supposed to have declared that she couldn’t definitively say she didn’t benefit, even though she had receipts.\
She didn’t set up the bank account. She created an association which was then used to setup a bank account. The association was for her client, but she decided not to open a file on the action, and not to bill the client for the action.
I’d love to know the explanation for this. Try going into a lawyer and opening up an association in the name of the company you work for, in the office of the company’s lawyer, with a partner of that firm. See how far you get.
Why didn’t she open a file on the association? Why wasn’t S&G billed for the action of opening an assocation?
We’re back to the binary choice:
1) she was monumentally incompetent
2) she was in on it
I’m prepared to buy the excuse that she didn’t know, initially, that the cash was for Wilsons personal benefit. But she still acted irregularly and broke rules to create this thing. So she knew she was doing something that she didn’t want anyone else to know about.
But after cash from the association was used to buy a house, and then cash from Wilson was used to renovate her own house – surely this was the time to start asking questions and/or ending the relationship and reporting it to the authorities?
She could have come out of this squeaky clean if, at the time, she reported it to the police, assisted in recovering the money and apologised to those involved.
But no. She started a cover up, and started lying. 17 years later, she’s still at it.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:00 am
I am correct and you have no evidence that Pickering or I actually are crazy.
No dickhead, you are changing your story.
No monty, that is why subsection (d) of s 424 applies.
s 23 (1) would apply if sub section (d) did not exist. By an act of omission, intent exists.
s 23 (2) makes motive or a lack thereof immaterial.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:01 am
Why did she resign immediately afterwards? No reasonable person would do that, even if they were totally offended by the “shabby treatment”. She walked the plank Monty.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 11:02 am
The most hilarious part about this whole sorry mess is that Pickering has stood accused of exactly the same thing he is accusing Gillard of.
Hahahahahahahahaha! So Pickering says that although he set up an entity that later committed fraud, it’s nothing to do with him! What a complete goose!
He has had eleven children to five different women. He must be a real charmer. I’m not sure he wants the media attention that he would get if his life was looked into, because he looks like an utter ratbag.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:02 am
She set up a false entity.
She still, at a minimum, caused financial loss to others by deception, because of an omission.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:03 am
…but Pickering is not the PM of Australia, monty. He’s not the one making policies, he’s not the one spending this country’s money like a kid in a candy store.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 11:04 am
Did Pickering set up a false entity to obtain financial advantage by deception?
No monty.
You are wrong.
They have done quite different things.
Pickering isn’t guilty of fraud.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:05 am
So the owner of Town mode isn’t also the owner of the construction firm that did the renos to the Kerr St premises m0nty?
Just ‘yes’ or ‘no’, please.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 11:08 am
Pickering is not the PM, and is not the story here. While the allegations about him may be true, it in no way alters the facts at hand. At this point, I’m not going to stand up for Pickering because I don’t know what evidence exists against him.
Those defending Gillard to the death might want to ask themselves why they are doing the opposite.
Pickering has pushed this story by publishing an embellished mini-series which has been entertaining to read. But it’s not his story, and he didn’t print this on page 1 of the Weekend Australian.
This story is not about Pickering. It’s about a PM who either knowingly set up an association for purposes contrary to their client, or was extremely incompetent at her job.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:09 am
Has the WA fraud squad cleared you of being crazy, Dot? No? Then you must be!
No Dot, you are misreading the statute. The subsection text does not override the section text. The subsection can be read as: “Any person who with intent to defraud – by act or omission falsifies, destroys, alters or damages any record is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years.” This constitutes an express declaration that intent is an element in the offence.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:11 am
It’s the old leftist equivalence tactic:
“But that junkie down at the corner only got community service for their crime so why should the PM be held to a higher standard?!”.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 11:12 am
At a bare, bare minimum, Gillard is guilty of this:
Chapter XLII — Frauds by trustees and officers of companies and corporations: False accounting
http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:23913H/$FILE/CrimCdActCompilationAct1913-16-i0-01.html?OpenElement
418. False statement relating to companies
Any person who signs any memorandum of association, or any statement, abstract, or document, required by any Act or law relating to companies, containing any particulars false to the knowledge of such person, is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for one year and a fine of $12 000.
Before monty brainlessly jumps up that unions aren’t corporations, officials hold a presumptive position as a trustee in a constructive trust over their member’s funds.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:13 am
If Ms Gillard was incompetent with her work with one client, stands to reason she would probably be incompetent with others too, but she worked there for eight years or so.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 11:15 am
monty is swimming towards a badly listing HMAS Gillard. I’m yet to hear a report that confirms whether he is attempting a rescue, or whether he wants to ‘go down’ with the dear leader.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 11:16 am
And which section does that fall under, Dot?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:16 am
I have no doubt this is exactly what the ALP and their fellow travellers are planning. It is their consistent M.O.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 11:16 am
According to that report he (allegedly) actively signed up people to an entity he created which then collapsed, defrauding hundreds of people of millions of dollars. He used a false name as well! Pickering is far more likely to be a crook than Gillard is.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:19 am
And how do you intend to prove that she had knowledge that any particulars were false, Dot?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:20 am
@candy – it would seem to me that set up the association knowing it was for irregular purposes, but thought it was just for ‘white lies’ (ie, slush fund for elections). When she found out later it was for scamming money out of companies and straight-out fraud, she never reported it or attempted to recover or pay back the money.
Instead of fronting up and admitting wrongdoing and clearing it up, she walked the plank at S&G and tried to stuff it under the carpet and bluff and threaten her way through it. Which is no longer working.
It would have been much simpler in 1995 to come clean, state what she thought the association was for, admit guilt to that. It would be all over and nothing further to report.
It’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:21 am
monty is working very hard this morning. I hope he gets promoted for his efforts.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 11:22 am
So you’re saying that you would trust the word of a man you accept may be guilty of fraud. brc, that is crazy talk.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:23 am
LOL
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 11:24 am
That isn’t a legal rule, monty.
Sub section (d) applies.
She didn’t care if it was fraudulent or not. She had legal knowledge under s 22 which meant she should have checked.
Re read s 22 and s 23 of the Code, you dolt.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:26 am
This is not in itself a crime.
If it is found that Pickering has broken the law, he should be penalised for this.
However, the public holds the office of PM to a higher standard than cartoonists.
This story is not about Pickering.
It wouldn’t matter if a convicted murderer found out about the truth of the AWU fraud. Truth is truth, no matter which mouth it comes from.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:27 am
Yes, if it is backed up with credible evidence and witnesses. Yes I would.
Unlike some, I don’t find truth to be a relative concept. I’ve always found that A=A.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:29 am
There was no memorandum of association and the association didn’t exist.
Her boyfriend was a key official of both the real union and false entity, who gave her firm work, which she did not properly account for.
A senior partner at a law firm will know this is wrong.
No dickhead.
They made a bad investment.
He is a deadbeat, she is a crook.
Get over it. There will be no NBN.
Gillard is going to gaol and we will have a right wing Papist as our ruler.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:29 am
Those who insist the PM’s word should be taken and the questions stopped should consider that for a senior lawyer to set up a new AWU body that was allegedly outside the organisation’s charter, without written authority ,to not open a work file on the matter, to attend an auction of a house after arranging a mortgage for purchase, subsequently live part time in that house with the person for whom she acted legally in the whole matter, attend an interstate rally where she spoke in favour of the proposition put by said person, who was also her paramour, apart from the house reno bills etc, is to raise the strong possibility that the motivation could have been to advance the paramour’s plans!!
In fact it all stretches one’s credulity to come to any other conclusion because if the PM knew that much how could she be so “naive” as to not smell a little mouse if not a big rat?
Jazza
20 Aug 12 at 11:31 am
will have nothing to worry about when the Finkelstein review is made legislation.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 11:34 am
BTW the owner of Town Mode is also guilty of falsified accounting records, dealing with the proceeds of crime and perverting the course of justice, under Vic law.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:34 am
Brc wrote:
This is a false dichotomy, we already know that she is a monumentally incompetent prime minister and a political con artist of the highest order. She is a woman, so she can multitask, incompetent and dishonest at the same time is not a stretch for her.
She said that she has done nothing wrong, and from the Thomson affair it’s pretty clear that there is nothing wrong with defrauding a union.
The far more important question is : “has she ever done anything right?”
Rob
20 Aug 12 at 11:35 am
Why don’t unionists care that they have been ripped off?
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:36 am
Sub section (d) only applies if intent to defraud can be proven, Dot. s 22 and s 23 both uphold that. You are trying to twist the statute.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:38 am
It will be one of the biggest futile heroic gestures in recorded history. Monty’s feats in the defence of corruption, nepotism and coercion will be recognised down the centuries. The Monty lecture series will ensure due reverence is paid to his exploits, while each town will host a Monty library which will take on shrine-like qualities. Legal practioners will apply the Pickering defence in all matters, ensuring rapid dismissal of all cases and greatly improving productivity of the legal system.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 11:40 am
You are assuming it is truth because it fits your prejudices. Are you also assuming that Pickering’s allegations of pregnancy and abortion are correct, or do you choose to ignore those? By what criteria do you judge the statements of a man you feely admit maybe be guilty of fraud?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:41 am
Pigs waiting in line for their turn at the trough seldom complain to the farmer about unfair behaviour, lest the trough be removed.
If you’ve ever read a union propaganda magazine, you’ll understand why much of the membership thinks ‘the bosses’ are the ones exploiting them.
I think a very interesting media piece would be a Forbes-style investigation into the top 20 richest union bosses. I think the numbers would be quite revealing, if you could ever get through the maze of trusts and beneficiaries.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:41 am
In other words Dot, you can’t prove intent to defraud. You’re just trying to smear by saying, “But but but… they were having SEX!”
Bad investment, LOL. Which (allegedly) Pickering sold himself in person, using a false name. If those allegations are true, he’s not just a deadbeat, he’s guilty of fraud. And thus his word can not be trusted on any other serious matter.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:44 am
Some do care, like Bob Kernohan, Tim Daly, Ralph Blewitt, Steve Harrison, Ian Cambridge, Bob Smith…
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 11:44 am
When you can’t defend the indefensible, smear the accuser.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 11:45 am
No they don’t.
s 22 and s 23 mean that her omission can count as intent under ss (d) of s 424 because of her specialist legal knowledge and her admission to the LIV as a solicitor.
She knew it may have been fraudulent, but didn’t care. it doesn’t matter if she didn’t intend to rip off the union like Wilson.
What s 22 and 23 mean in their entirety
Ignorance is no excuse. She was in a position to be well informed and act as a duty not to act negligently. Her omission to properly check or question the false entity counts as intent as she was in a better position than an ignorant person of the law.
She may not have had an express intent as did Wilson, but solicitors are not allowed to facilitate the breaking of the law even by acts of omission or carelessness.
That is understood in the common law as the right to act as a legal professional is somewhat like a court ordered commission.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:48 am
When someone accuses someone else of fraud after being accused themselves of fraud with a hell of a lot more evidence of direct involvement in that fraud, then it is a legitimate point.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 11:50 am
monty thinks “ignorance is no excuse” (written into a codifed crimes act) means that people with a court appointed position as an officer of the law can act carelessly to register false entities without “intent” or that solicitors are allowed to facilitate fraudulent transactions?
Simply bizarre.
She is also guilty under s 409 and 418 of the WA Criminal Code.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:51 am
It will be one of the biggest futile heroic gestures in recorded history.
Keith, I’m just off the phone with a commercial fisherman on the scene. He tells me that monty has tied a rope around his waste and is attempting to bring the badly listing HMAS Gillard to shore. In his words: Crazy brave.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 11:51 am
You’re seriously arguing that is NOT the case?
Like I suspected, anyone who is a confirmed leftists is a firm believer that A can sometimes equal B. Sorry, A=A.
No, there is no evidence of this being true. It is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, even if it were true.
Corroborating evidence and the fact that respected journalists like Hedley Thomas are the ones pushing the investigation.
There are plenty of people who are in gaol because a snitch put them there. Snitches who themselves are guilty of quite terrible crimes. The truth is not subjective based on the morality or past crimes of the person reporting it. Pickering is not the story, no matter how much you and the ALP PR team wish it to be so.
These facts are not in contention:
- Gillard created an association for Wilson
- Gillard broke firm rules and established practice by not creating a file
- Gillard didn’t bill the client for the work, even though it was supposed to be for them.
- Wilson used this association to illegally obtain money for his personal use
- Gillard assisted in the laundering of this money by arranging the conveyancing for the purchase of a house
- Gillard cannot say she received no benefit from the funds via renovation on her own house
- Gillard was asked to leave S&G shortly after this was revealed
Her defense on this is that she was incompetent. She never made any effort to redress the fraud that was perpetrated with her assistance. She tried to bully the media into keeping it quiet.
None of this has anything to do with Larry Pickering.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:52 am
Frantically waving but not drowning?
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 11:53 am
OK, you’ve run your Pickering line. It’s wrong, for reasons already stated, but we’ll let you finish up on that.
Now explain Michael Smith, Glen Milne and Hedley Thomas.
Are they all crooks as well? Fraudsters? Hucksters? Care to try a smear on them?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 11:55 am
The only valid defence is that Gillard made several mistakes of fact under s 24 of the WA criminal code.
The chain of mistakes is long and tortured.
No articles of association
False entity
No work file
Incorrect trust accounting
Conveyancing on home she lived in bought with ill gotten funds at a cut price
All you need to do to bust this is show that she was eventually a senior equity partner.
She only made egregious mistakes on the Wilson account?
No jury or judge in the land would believe that.
Guilty.
.
20 Aug 12 at 11:59 am
“it would seem to me that set up the association knowing it was for irregular purposes, but thought it was just for ‘white lies’ (ie, slush fund for elections). ” etc
Thanks for that brc, i see. I was getting puzzled as to why she left her imcompetence till the last few months of her job, people usually get better at their jobs as they go along.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 12:04 pm
No m0nty.
it’s you who assumes a handwritten
notereceipt possibly from the questionable Town Mode/reno man proves she isn’t guilty of fraud.This matter needs investigation is the point every one here is making and Gillard needs to answer questions not allegations.
The answers and non-answers may provide ammunition for allegations later.
That’s why Gillard doesn’t want to answer
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:05 pm
The text of s 22 and s 23 reiterate that intent to cause an offence is essential for those offences where intent is mentioned. You’re referring to common law. If you have evidence of specific cases where this common law was made, then by all means link it up.
By the by, if this was indeed fraud by your definition, wouldn’t S&G have known that it was fraud and thus not exonerated her? Or do you have another conspiracy theory about that?
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:06 pm
I believe the house was bought at auction on the open market.
Unless you meant the ‘funds at a cut price’ relates to the S&G issued mortgage.
You’d think that when the cheque to buy the house came in the form of the association, she would have twigged and reported him there and then. That’s what an honest person would have done, even if it was difficult.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:06 pm
You’re on fire today dot.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 12:06 pm
Ha ha. Picture that!
Clever wording, d-b
Septimus
20 Aug 12 at 12:09 pm
S&G have not exonerated her.
I see that because the ‘Pickering is a fraud’ line has failed, you’re reverting back to the ‘S&G have exonerated her’ line.
S&G asked her to leave and taped an exit interview to cover their rear ends. A senior partner from the time has come out and provided a statement that in no way clears her of wrongdoing. It, in fact, places it on record that she was asked to leave.
That the current management of S&G have now changed her employment history to that of ‘gardening leave while she tried to win political office’ is a new and interesting twist, but it completely contradicts 17 years of previous statements by all involved.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:09 pm
I posted the above entry yesterday, at 8:48 pm. Clearly I was joking: in fact, I was trying to simulate the earnest, simple, bottom-lip-wobbling of Steve from Brisbane, as his heroine is traduced. My apologies for not flagging it as sarcasm.
James in Melbourne
20 Aug 12 at 12:10 pm
I wonder how many other lawyers employed by S&G have made similar “mistakes” as the “young and naive” Gillard? And have they covered for them too?
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:12 pm
She had intent because she was more informed than someone else. Re-read s 23 AND s 22. She allowed fraud to occur, whereas she had a duty to prevent it from occurring, at a minimum, she had a duty to refuse to do the work – the only valid defences are mistake and duress (she never said anything about duress). For the common law, see the general provisions of the various state based legal profession acts.
All you are doing is denying she had any intent, which is irrelevant unless she was either coerced or incredulously (as a senior equity partner) made a chain of mistakes which she never realised.
I have no conspiracy theories monty.
Gillard is guilty of fraud, even if she didn’t set out to rip people off. Solicitors are not allowed to facilitate criminal transactions, senior equity partners cannot plead ignorance, therefore she had INTENT.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:14 pm
I knew it was sarcasm from your earlier posts. Others arriving without that knowledge probably didn’t realise.
You may not have facilitated the arrival of your target, but, nonetheless, every thread on this topic produces someone intent on proving black is white.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:15 pm
It was obvious sarcasm coming from you James.
It’s impossible otherwise to parody the liar-sfbs and m0ntys of the world.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:15 pm
Adding to the list, explain Kernohan, Cambridge, Nowicki, Faris, Mitchell, Styant-Browne,……
Monty do any of these people belong in the same category that you place Pickering? And if so, do you accept the risks of being served for defamation?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 12:16 pm
snap
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:16 pm
Dot, she was a relatively newish salaried partner (5 year partner).
She was not a senior partner.
She was not an equity partner.
Apart from that all good.
pete m
20 Aug 12 at 12:17 pm
They do a pretty good job of sending themselves up.
I table this for evidence:
In relation to why Gillard hasn’t sued Milne. She’s too busy.
I mean, come one, put your back into it. Don’t insult the collective thread intelligence like that. Take 5 minutes and think of a better one if you have to.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:18 pm
A list of Hedley Thomas’ questions, and the PM’s answers. via Bolt.
It’s a pdf, so is now permanent on the internet, even if the Oz decides to take it down.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 12:20 pm
Correct BRC.
This shows two acts of dishonesty after her claims of bona fide mistake in setting up the false association.
This thus proves her intent regardless of her position as a solicitor under ss 22, 23 and 424 of the WA criminal code, and she is also thus guilty under ss c) and e).
Therefore I also believe she is guilty under s 409 and 418 of the WA criminal code, as well as using the proceeds of crime in Victoria, as Wilson and the Town Mode renovator (receiving) are as well.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:21 pm
“I wonder how many other lawyers employed by S&G have made similar “mistakes” as the “young and naive” Gillard? And have they covered for them too?”
Only females ones, i would think. young and naive 35 year old blokes doesn’t quite fit.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 12:23 pm
Even if Gillard honestly thought the union was buying her a home, she is guilty of tax evasion.
This after she promised not to slug the working poor with a great big new tax.
What a bitch.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:25 pm
I think she did very well. It is probably a non-issue, it is probably all within what lawyers routinely used to do for clients and it is under privilege. Why did the press pay so littrle attention to the Slater statement about this. The Nick from Seattle (the former S&G partner now working from Seattle) works as a consultant for a well known US class action firm but often on cases involving Australian defendants. Maybe he is correct (who has seen his full statement?) maybe he is bending the truth. Anyway, this helps (1) the author of the forthcoming book (2) those in the Coalition who believe that character assassination is a valid political tool. What this will produce of course is spotlights on the various life stories of the many Coalition candidates who will be preselected for formerly safe Labour seats. And given that one of the main reasons why people would like to run for office on the conservative side is “development”, you may expect a fair amount of sleaze to be ready for harveting, once the moment is there. This is a bit like the Slipper and Thomson scandals: once you look at the evidence or even the allegations you say: is that what all this fuss is about? In Gillard’s case: would her behaviour have been abnormal in a law firm in the days before risk management? Probably not..
Kangxi
20 Aug 12 at 12:28 pm
Why did the AWU fire S&G and move to Maurice & Blackburn for representation?
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:29 pm
She was not a senior equity partner. She did not facilitate a criminal transaction. You are lying as usual, Dot.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:30 pm
@keith that PDF shows what a joke the PMs responses are.
If there is nothing to hide, why not answer the questions? These are new questions relating to new revelations.
Those lame responses are just not going to cut it. Whoever thought they would deserves to be fired.
I know it’s the ‘deny deny deny’ strategy, but that’s just not going to work.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:30 pm
Come on monty, why not answer this question?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:31 pm
Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne said there were very serious questions about the prime minister’s integrity and she should make a personal explanation to parliament.
Yes indeed, but don’t hold your breath waiting. How long to was it before Thomson gave his “explanation”?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 12:32 pm
An interesting web site about Larry Pickering. In the words of Mark Day:
And this is the man whose word you’re trusting.
This is the Pickering scandal, which fits in nicely with the Ashby/Brough scandal and the Jackson scandal. I see a pattern forming here. The Libs keep on backing dogs in a vain attempt to force an election, but find out too late that their dog won’t hunt.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:36 pm
Yes, no, no.
You didn’t know that either before I did, you pathetic fool.
“She didn’t facilitate a criminal transaction, she just allowed one to happen”
You lying dolt.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:37 pm
For something that was “dealt with” since 1995, it sure seems to rear it’s ugly head a lot. Like in 1995, 2001, 2002 Vic parliament, newspaper reports of it in 1995, 1996, 1998, 2007, 2011, 2012, Federal parliament this year…
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:38 pm
True, absolutely true.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:38 pm
The final question posed of the PM by Hedley Thomas as of Friday is of particular interest:
“What does the Prime Minister say to the assertion that she was forced to leave the firm because the firm’s partners were very concerned by her conduct, which they regarded, among other things, as unprofessional and unethical; and conduct which had put the firm and its partners in an invidious position?”
I suspect that there may well be a transcript, or other first-hand evidence. This question goes beyond what has been revealed so far.
Let’s hope so. The Labor apologists will really have to accelerate their spin, and perhaps even claim overtime for infesting various forums.
Kaboom
20 Aug 12 at 12:39 pm
Not guilty of fraud as is Gillard, who is also at a minimum guilty of tax evasion if she is as dumb as she makes out she is.
She then promised not to impose a tax and then imposed it.
What a useless, lying bitch.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:40 pm
Ooh! A new ALP sock puppet pops up! Monty must have sounded the Klaxon for help!
For your information, person-without-a-paragraph break, ‘this Nick from Seattle’ has already stated creating the association without a file was contraray to firm rules. So that little diversion is no good. The whole ‘what’s a litlte fraud between friends, everyone is doing it’ isn’t much of an argument, I’m afraid.
Thomson was found by the FWA investigation to have spent union money on cash, prostitutes and other items.
You mightn’t think there is a fuss in illegally spending members money on personal items like hookers, but I certainly would have a problem with that if it were my money.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:40 pm
It takes a crook to spot another crook.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:40 pm
http://larrypickering.blogspot.com.au/
Is this owned by the ALP or the Unions?
That shithead Williamson gets caught red handed and they have the temerity to come up with this crap!
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:41 pm
montys back to the ‘attack Pickering’ line.
Answer this question if you intend to persist with the Pickering-is-a-fraud argument.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:42 pm
That or a woman who has caused 700 deaths.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:43 pm
That she wasn’t an equity partner is immaterial to whether she acted unethically or fraudulently.
You understand at least that M0nty. Right?
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 12:43 pm
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:43 pm
Looks to me like it was started by one of the victims of the companies he set up. Many, many companies. Many, many victims of fraud.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:44 pm
I come with clean hands monty.
Gillard is guilty of fraud and tax evasion.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:44 pm
Glad I can make you laugh, monts.
You’ve been hard at it today. Time to give your hand a rest.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:45 pm
Not fraud, you ought to be careful of what you say or you’ll be sued.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:45 pm
LOL, you just directly accused Gillard of fraud. All I said was that some people became victims of companies that he set up. He might not have even been involved with them at the time that the alleged fraud occurred.
The irony is delicious.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:48 pm
Hey, why hasn’t Gillard sued Pickering?
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:48 pm
Sorry – you have your causation all ass-backwards
Its the Labor way …
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 12:49 pm
She’s too busy, CL, according to monty
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 12:49 pm
Yes I have, because I won’t be sued.
She is guilty of fraud and tax evasion.
No, you’re lying.
Come clean. You have red hair. Are you related to Gillard?
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:49 pm
Because he’s a bankrupt. He rents a palatial villa and drives a late-model Jag, according to that Telly report, but apparently he’s too poor to play child support.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:51 pm
Hey, why hasn’t Gillard sued Hedley Thomas and News Ltd?
Odd.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:52 pm
Come on, we’re waiting… waiting… If this is all a beatup because Pickering is a crook, then what about the others. Are they crooks as well?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:52 pm
Suck it up Princess, he’s untouchable and so Gillard is going down, thus there will be no NBN under the Government our right wing Papist leader runs.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:52 pm
Ah, the sfb line. Not worth legal action because he has no money.
I thought the idea of taking someone to court for defamation was to prove they were lying? Now I see you only sue for defamation if the person is rich.
Is Gillard going to sue Michael Smith as well? He’s not bankrupt, and he’s called her some pretty strong names on radio.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 12:54 pm
Hiding like a coward behind the wild allegations of a bankrupt who has hundreds of retirees angry at him for blowing their life savings. The modern face of conservatism.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 12:55 pm
It begins:
Breaking in The Australian, extremist ALP arsehole calls for government critics to be blacklisted, silenced and jailed:
Fine journalists for misleading reporting, says Labor MP Steve Gibbons.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 12:56 pm
I come with clean hands.
Pickering has merely called the hue and cry,
I am not hiding behind Pickering.
Gillard has the resources to find me and sue me.
She is guilty of tax evasion and fraud, and possibly theft as a servant under Slater and Gordon.
The reason why she won’t sue is because she would have to volunteer evidence. That’s my protection, the fact that her explanation would only serve to destroy her and prove my assertions of fact.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:58 pm
Yes, we have been waiting. So disappointed. It’s like sfb’s totally ignoring my questions the other day. Now Monty’s doing it.
So hurtful.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 12:58 pm
The Hon Bernard Michael MURPHY federal court judge may think otherwise…
Old Fridgie
20 Aug 12 at 12:59 pm
“Hey, why hasn’t Gillard sued Pickering?”
Perhaps it would just put too much attention on matters, including her intimate relationship with a married client. She can’t deny that part.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 12:59 pm
A lot of smearing Pickering (who does appear to be a less-than-savoury character) going on but not a lot of serious defence of Gillard’s conduct.
Even if Pickering is a sleazebag con-artist, it doesn’t make the evidence that he has raised disappear. The story has moved beyond him now. There are legitimate questions that need answering and they deserve a better answer than “young and naive”.
That said, I suspect she will walk away unharmed. The ALP/union movement are past masters of burying bodies (figuratively and literally). Also, the Libs are good at pushing home points of policy (carbon tax, refugee boats) and terrible at scoring points on ethical matters …
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 12:59 pm
I have nothing to fear C.L.
I come with clean hands and speak the truth.
.
20 Aug 12 at 12:59 pm
I see Monst has borrowed Stepford’s military issue knee pads.
Hey Monst, no problem using them as their toughened steel.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:00 pm
Enough about Pickering. What about the others?
Are they all crooks as well? Did Hedley Thomas print ‘wild allegations’ in the Weekend Australian? Should we have reason to doubt respected journalists?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:00 pm
A sterling effort this morning, monty.
Take a gold star from the petty cash tin and wear it home with pride.
Winston Smith
20 Aug 12 at 1:01 pm
Gillard pongs like a dead rhinoceros in sun-baked mud hole.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:01 pm
This goes to the heart of the matter. The zombies were saying on Twitter yesterday that people better watch out (per Kelly) or she’ll sue. My observation was, what MORE would she need to trigger litigation on this?
The biggest fear in legal action is clearly disclosure. S&G would then have to release all their records, and I think that’s secretly what they want to kill the mud that they are copping in this. That’s why they unleashed the former partner.
Abu Chowdah
20 Aug 12 at 1:02 pm
This should put a chill down the spine of anyone claiming to support freedom of speech – but it won’t.
The very idea that one should require a licence to publish anything is a strike at the venerable tradition of free speech in the Anglophone world.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 1:02 pm
and should he ever be taken to court he can always use the “young and naive” defense. Seems to have worked for Gillard.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 1:02 pm
I’ve been busty this morning. Is she in the lock up yet or sticking sand bags in front of the PM’s doorway?
Fellas, you’re kidding yourselves if you think the Slapper goes quietly. She already sandbagged the Berlin bunker and she ain’t moven.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:04 pm
Winston, please don’t stoke the ALP enthusiasm for helping themselves to the petty cash tin!
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:04 pm
That’s right, Matt.
Labor has now fully embraced the media policy of the Third Reich.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:04 pm
Rhino or in her case hippo?
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:06 pm
There is no “right to broadcast”
The right to broadcast is a fundamental human right.
Free speech is sacred.
Gillard’s crimes of fraud and tax evasion do not countermand this.
.
20 Aug 12 at 1:06 pm
Rabz
Any word yet from Bunker Ave.?
Hurry up.
Those fuckers must be almost comatose from shell shock after all the incoming over the past 2 years.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:09 pm
She is a cockatrice and a white boned devil.
.
20 Aug 12 at 1:09 pm
Smith and Milne made allegations that were incorrect and wouldn’t have passed the legal department at any big news outlet. I read that list of Thomas’ questions. They all start with “What does the PM say to the assertion that…”, which is weasel words. They are all about circumstantial evidence. The other list of names all have gripes and old scores to settle with various parties.
No one is lilywhite in this, including Gillard. Nevertheless, the situation has been raked over by the media more than half a dozen times, as Gab points out, and still no evidence of a criminal offence has been uncovered. Gillard has won many elections since then, and the only reason it is being brought up yet again is the desperation of the Liberal Party to force an election while the polls are in their favour. This desperation has fuelled them for two years now, and it’s getting progressively worse. Who knows what depths they will sink to over the fifteen months.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:09 pm
Let them dare. Let them. Let them fucking try that one on.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:10 pm
And you know this Monst, because you did Law at Melbourne having passed with distinction? Ummm Hang on, no you didn’t.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:11 pm
You know, this line that Fairfax ran with today – ‘S&G absolves PM of sins’.
It’s the same line that the Pacific Institute ran when re-instating Peter Gleick after he committed fraud to get the Heartland Institute documents.
He admitted fraud and made up some BS excuse meant to garner sympathy.
After a few weeks as ‘stood down’ director of the Pacific Institute, they re-instated him after an internal investigation found out that ‘he didn’t lie in his statement’.
So he admitted fraud, but because he didn’t lie about that, he was OK to be re-instated.
It certainly is a triumph of spinners to push something so brazen, but I suspect this is the line we’re being fed again.
Former S&G partner reveals that in her exit interview, she admits several things, including not opening a file for the work, and not being able to conclusively prove she paid for all the work.
Current S&G management comes out and says ‘yes, that is all true’.
PM supporters come out and say ‘S&G have cleared PM’.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:11 pm
No evidence to date, but tongues are still wagging and people are now coming forward…
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 1:12 pm
And not just inj the media, monts, in various parliaments.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 1:14 pm
So you agree that they aren’t crooks and con-men, though? So, by your own logic, you can’t believe anything a con-man says, you must be able to believe people who aren’t con-men?
Or could it be that past crimes and transgressions of a person have no bearing on what they say is true, when what they say is corroborated by others and has evidence to back it up?
You don’t have to commit a crime to be unfit for office, as many have found out. ‘I didn’t commit a crime’ is no excuse for not answering questions put to you.
You do realise it was McLelland who brought it back up again, don’t you?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:16 pm
No, as I come with clean hands, I simply do not want a crook as PM.
.
20 Aug 12 at 1:17 pm
Fairfax ditched Smith and News ditched Milne for bypassing their legal depts on it. If Fairfax and News thought it was too hot, no one else would have run it.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:18 pm
And abbott of course. Like you and other leftwingers I blamed him from the beginning when this came out.
Abott got into a time machine changed things around back in time and made it all look like the Lying Slapper is guilty of of fraud.
Da IPA paid for the time machine with funding from Big Tobacco and Big Coal, which they won’t publish.
We need to see the transcript of the meeting when she was received the size 10 hobnial up the butt from S&G. We also need the receipts and bank accounts.
Yep, Hedley Thomas is a Liberal Party/IPA operative.
I bet they won’t sink lower than the number of kilos you lose. Lets play a meters for kilos game monst.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:19 pm
Well they’re all running it now, Monst.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:20 pm
That’s possibly true with the latter but very very clearly a lie wrt to the former
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 1:21 pm
You really are dense as well as ignorant m0nty.
Pitifully so.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 1:22 pm
And yet both have articles running on it today, with more information – not less – than the Milne article.
Funny how those mentioning The Australian not running it conveniently leave out the part where the PM threatens – then delivers – a review of the press with all sorts of censorship measures. And still today more Labor lackeys are calling for the dismantling of free speech.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:24 pm
Rabz
Dude , hurry up with the dirt from Bunker Ave. Stop working and report back. This assignment far more important.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:25 pm
Dare them. I fucking dare them.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:25 pm
Still better value than sfb. Hasn’t devolved into a ‘leave julia alone’ rant, though he did try the ‘gillard won’t sue pickering because he is bankrupt’ line, after the ‘she’s too busy’ one looked awkward in retrospect.
Apart from that, Gold star for effort as Winston says.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:26 pm
That is not logical brc, nice attempt at verballing though.
The Australian people elected her as PM despite knowing all the relevant details of this issue – recent reports do not change things. They judged her to be fit for office. That is what this is about, ultimately: the Liberal Party, and its adherents here on the Cat, still do not acknowledge that Labor won the last election. You lot have been kicking and screaming like little children for two years now. You have been casting about for two years for toys to throw about the cot to support your campaign of crying and whining.
And you’re dead scared that the polls will turn and Gillard might win another term, thus invalidating all of your tears. So you trash any and all thoughts of conservatism in your radical attempts to subvert our parliamentary system of democracy. Disgraceful.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:27 pm
Acknowleding your answer Monty. I’ll get back to you later.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 1:29 pm
Howard was a former solicitor. Imagine if he had something like this lurking in his closet. Just imagine how the carry-on would have been. We would have had a group-signed letter from every soft-brained imbecile in the country urging him to answer the questions.
Remember the crap Bligh tried to tag on Newman before the election? None of that was even remotely as bad as this. It wasn’t even him in most cases.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:29 pm
doh, Acknowledging
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 1:29 pm
Three lies monty.
What is in it for you?
They won’t.
I’m afraid the ALP won’t die.
.
20 Aug 12 at 1:31 pm
JC, see the post “Toxic staffers, toxic political and intellectual culture”…
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 1:32 pm
Err, no they didn’t. Windsor and Oakeshott selected her.
Because they didn’t. The outcome was a hung parliament.
No wonder you’re prepared to argue that black is white, when you can’t even honestly acknowledge the outcome of the last election.
I think you’d struggle to find anyone even in the ALP that thinks this will be the case.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:32 pm
You’re joking, right? Point to one media reference to this issue between 2007 (Rudd’s election) and 2011, prior to the Glenn Milne article in mid-2011.
Just one.
dd
20 Aug 12 at 1:33 pm
You lot are so ideologically aligned with homo economicus that you can’t imagine anyone doing anything for reasons other than personal interest, can you.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:34 pm
Ahahahahaha.
The old lefty appeal to ‘genuine conservatism.’
None of the old stuff is working anymore, Mont.
Get some new stuff.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:34 pm
Gillard has never been elected prime minister.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 1:35 pm
As Gab lists, dd, there were enough old newspaper reports of it for people who cared enough to have made a judgement. We did have Google back then, you know. It was not talked about, but it was not hidden either, because it was a non-story. And it’s still a non-story.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:38 pm
Not true, minty.
I come with clean hands and I don’t want to have a PM who is a crook. This is for the children you will never have.
Now come clean, what is in it for you?
You envious little prick, you want graduates to pay 50% tax when they start working because you think it is in your best interests. Homo economius is a lie, and then you smear with it, despite being cravenly self interested.
You are defending a criminal like Gillard because you think the ALP in power means the NBN gets built and so you can jack off in peace without worrying about bandwidth issues.
You fucking idiot.
.
20 Aug 12 at 1:38 pm
The general public don’t elect a PM, CL. The parliament does. That’s our system, if you hadn’t forgotten.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:39 pm
Just like thommo, eh?
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 1:40 pm
Thanks Rabz…
Sorry for sounding a little anxious. So this shit is coming from deep inside Bunker Ave. LOl.
They hate each more than they hate the libs at the moment.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:40 pm
monty answers with:
Err, there’s nothing between 2007 and 2011 in that list.
Somehow, we, as the voters, should be scanning (and memorising) everything in the paper for obscure industrial lawyers, union rorts and victorian parliament in case one day someone mentioned in those news reports knifes a PM in the back and installs themselves as PM?
Wow. Talk about tough homework.
I think it would be easier to just have the media write about whatever it thinks is important, and let the public just judge that on the strength of the story.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:41 pm
That’s a joke, Dot. You’re openly libelling Gillard by accusing her of multiple crimes due to your ideological allegiance. You’re digging your hands into the muck and throwing it.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 1:42 pm
Eggascatly. It’s all about him. Monster Economius. The oaf wants the NBN built so it will help him and fuck everyone else.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:42 pm
Geez, we’re in full retard mode now:
later…
Go get some sugary drinks. I think the blood sugar is getting low.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:43 pm
JC – this has always been so. Attacking the Liberals only comes in rare moments of truce between ALP factions. Most of the fighting occurs behind closed doors, but occasionally the mess spills into public.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:45 pm
Yeah, Pot, meet Kettle!
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 1:45 pm
Jeez, poor old mOnty has caught a case of SfB’s frantics.
Very umnanly I must say.
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 1:46 pm
Hey Rabz
Did the mole say what the life span looks like at the moment.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:46 pm
Also – is it panic stations, or all going smoothly according to plan?
brc
20 Aug 12 at 1:47 pm
Twenty minutes after CL posts the statement by an ALP MP that the ALP wants to return to the darkest days of when we were a military dictatorship governed by a murderous tyrant who required that newspapers be licensed and threw critical journalists in prison Monty writes (in his continued hyperventiliating defence of the ALP):
You are a pure fascist Monty. An anything-it-takes zealot. I’ve been saying for years that you’re a totalitarian ALP shill. That you’re willfully silent on the real trashing of this nations democracy by the people you hysterically shill for here day in day out, while calling people who simply want the most powerful people in the land to answer some questions is damning.
People here are far too lenient on you.
You are disgusting.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 1:49 pm
Stories that reveal the level of institutionalised corruption in the ALP are of no interest to people who aspire to be part of the Australian Brahma class.
Token
20 Aug 12 at 1:49 pm
IT, when threads are running with hundreds of comments against Gillard, whether or not anyone is here defending her, I think you have a mistaken appreciation of who is being “frantic”.
Monty hasn’t done too bad today, btw. One major mistake though – assuming it is worthwhile engaging with a bush lawyer like dot.
steve from brisbane
20 Aug 12 at 1:49 pm
The thing is that the old pensioner, Paul Kellly wouldn’t have moved to that line of questioning unless there was dirt from inside the Liars Party ranks.
The thing we could have missed is that this thing may have moved from Pickering’s musings and scoops and become a fully owned operation from inside the bunker as they leak it. … or Rudd’s faction does. We know how much Rudd loves the unions.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:51 pm
“Gone, Baby, Gone!”
That is, about six weeks max, or shorter depending on how bad tomorrow’s poll results are.
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 1:52 pm
I’ve always thought we’ve been far too lenient on him and other shills.
No more Mr. nice guys, I say.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 1:53 pm
Bring on the Godamn Fisk Doctrine I’ve had a gutful of this
Tal
20 Aug 12 at 1:54 pm
Paul Kelly has carried more water for the ALP than the Warragamba Dam and even he thinks it’s a story worth investigating.
Good old mOnty and Steve are always willing to die in a ditch on their knees for the left.
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 1:56 pm
M0nty’s defence makes clear that if the info in the FOI requests to the Vic police are not strong enough Gillard will survive.
Fact is, I would love that gaffe-machine to stay in charge of Labor through to the next election, so I hope the Trade Union Party & their clients in the Stenographers Guild stays the course.
After all, the more the public hear about the Thomo & Wilson corruption scandals, the uglier the mood gets, and ultimately the bigger smashing they will get at the next poll.
So go M0nty, I do hope you and ALP keep up the defense.
That 20% primary vote for the ALP is possible if you guys keep working hard at it!
Token
20 Aug 12 at 1:59 pm
Actually, a lot of what this about today is media figures retaliating for a politician forcefully asking them to justify why it a question is relevant.
Kelly is a windbag from way back and a bore. Insiders was much improved by the ending of his waffle-fests.
steve from brisbane
20 Aug 12 at 2:01 pm
It amuses me when I see Lefty’s take on Pickering based upon his reputation. As if taking him down will end the story…
Token
20 Aug 12 at 2:01 pm
Might just wait and see what this bloke comes up with
Pickles
20 Aug 12 at 2:02 pm
First sentence correct . Second incorrect.
Still.
Progress.
Well done liar.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 2:04 pm
I think monty has taken a break to get the blood sugar levels back up again. Imagine the embarrassment of contradicting yourself several times over in the one thread. It shows a lack of concentration or a gap in the talking points sheet that requires some ad-lib.
I still don’t believe this will finish her off. I mean, Thomson is a cut-and-dried case and he’s still there, mooching off the taxpayer. I think it all falls down for lack of a successor except for Rudd, and the AWU boys would rather death than the re-instalment of Rudd, who could then do a stalin-style purge of his enemies in the ALP.
I think they’re all going to stay on the ship and go down together for lack of better options.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 2:06 pm
Good point.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 2:06 pm
Yea, it’s like solidarity forever in the Journalist Movement.
STFU you gasbagging kneepadder.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 2:06 pm
First sentence incorrect . Second paragraph correct.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 2:07 pm
Memory Lane…
Kerry Packer destroys a parliamentary committee on regulating the media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVIOmU3l0Zo
God, we miss him.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:08 pm
Jeez why are the page loadings painfully slow today?
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 2:08 pm
I think the only thing that could improve Insiders is replacement by Bob the Builder re-runs, overdubbed with Gypsy dancing music.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 2:09 pm
Monty has caught Stevitis.
It’s an illness that causes the sufferer to believe they can actually alter uncomfortable reality by posting more and more comments.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:11 pm
That’s actually called catallaxitis.
m0nty
20 Aug 12 at 2:12 pm
Monty:
LOL.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:13 pm
They’ve officially nailed their colours to the mast. They want a corrupt leftist Latin American style soft tyranny here.
They hate, absolutely hate the still relatively robust, knock about democracy that Australia is with its “bogans” and “red necked radio hosts” and “right wing” news media and evil think tanks all actually having a say in the democratic conversation at more than the superficial level that they think the aforementioned groups should have.
Consider this: Under the finklestein regime, last year Milne would have been forced under threat of prison to apologise to Gillard for writing what we now know (thanks to the lack of a Finklestien regime) to have been not only true, but just the tip of the iceberg.
The Fairfax journalist who initally broke the Craig Thompson disgrace would have been forced to publicly apologise to Craig Thompson, or go to prison, and that would have been the end of that story, the public none the wiser to the sick corruption. A journalist humiliated on behalf of the state to protect what we now know to be a corrupt embezzler.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 2:14 pm
This coming from the man who attempts to win arguments by cutting and pasting the exact same comment 2 or 3 times in the same thread.
This blog does do “self aware” all that well, does it?
steve from brisbane
20 Aug 12 at 2:15 pm
Rabz’s info corroborated:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/labor-behind-gillard-smear-abbott/story-fndo2j43-1226454111655?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailytelegraphnationalnewsndm+%28Daily+Telegraph+|+National+News%29
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 2:16 pm
Monty:
The Australian people elected her as PM …
The general public don’t elect a PM, CL.
LOL.
Indeed.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 2:16 pm
doesn’t do “self aware” ….
steve from brisbane
20 Aug 12 at 2:16 pm
monty thinks the polls may reverse.
What a poor deluded sucker.
He is like the Iraqi Information Minister.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/alp-primary-vote-sinks-to-26-per-cent-20120603-1zq83.html
.
20 Aug 12 at 2:20 pm
“Every time you pass a law you take someone’s privileges away from them.”
Damn straight KP. There ought be a law against passing laws.
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 2:20 pm
TwoStix, there is no more telling indictment of the Finkelstein proposals than the last two sentences of your excellent post just above.
These people must never prevail. We shall fight them on the beaches … of Australia.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
20 Aug 12 at 2:21 pm
It is pleasing those two are so hysterically defending it.
M0nty the Labor shill whose psyche and mental state is intrinsically tied to the ALP’s polling.
And Steve who is so wrong, that he is consistently right – but in reverse.
If Steve starts admitting there’s something to the story then it’s time to abandon it.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 2:23 pm
twostix you are a hysterical twit, which means you fit in here quite well.
steve from brisbane
20 Aug 12 at 2:25 pm
monty
I come with clean hands.
Now what is in it for you, defending the ALP as they slide to 20% primary polling?
.
20 Aug 12 at 2:27 pm
So says the man who can’t stop talking about penises and semen.
.
20 Aug 12 at 2:28 pm
That ditch is one horrible scene. The eye-watering pong of Gillard’s dead rhinoceros and Monty and Steve – covered in mud and maggots – desperately trying CPR.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:30 pm
Not really. That’s a report of what Tony Abbott said.
I agree with him but it doesn’t amount to corroboration.
The video on that page is off the leftist arrogant morning far-leftist presenter on 10.
What a tosser.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 2:31 pm
The Gillard prime ministership (Steve and Monty off camera):
http://www.mullone.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ppp-DEAd-RHINO.jpg
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:32 pm
Good news M0nty & Steve, there is more work for you in the pipeline.
Looks like the terms of reference of the future Royal Commission into institutionalised corruption in the Union Movement just got wider
Token
20 Aug 12 at 2:35 pm
Not what you said at 1.27pm today Minty:
Septimus
20 Aug 12 at 2:38 pm
Well well well – lookie here.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 2:39 pm
They’re not off camera; they’re submerged bottom-feeding under the beast
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 2:39 pm
Oh Stevie, will you condemn Andrew Leigh and his desire to re-implement the NSW penal colony’s oppressive 1830 era media laws?
You did promise you would when they started talking about it in parliament.
Actually I suppose if you did condemn it, then that would put you on the right side of the issue, so you won’t – in line with your perfect record of wrongness.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 2:40 pm
Looks like the terms of reference of the future Royal Commission into institutionalised corruption in the Union Movement just got wider
Well well well – lookie here.
Good times, good times.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 2:42 pm
And Fifield. It only has to make more certain to meet the definition.
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 2:48 pm
Yep. I’ve been saying it for a while now that the Australian left seems to be getting more and more like their south American cousins.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 2:55 pm
Perhaps Monty and SfB could attempt to answers these questions posed by Hedley Thomas…
Or they could continue the ad hom attacks and insist that there is nothing to see here.
Old Fridgie
20 Aug 12 at 3:03 pm
Anna Burke just threw Abbott out of the House of Reps. The regime is getting very testy.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 3:07 pm
Simon Crean is looking very prime ministerial … in a caretaker sort of way.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 3:09 pm
And Pyne.
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 3:09 pm
She’s a despicable harridan. She encapsulates everything wrong with the Australian female left.
Ever heard her talk? You wince every time she opens her fat gob.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 3:09 pm
Quite excellent timing by Steve Gibbons too. I mean him pushing for a bill, or a debate on a bill, about punishing journalists for what they report in the very week the MSM grabs and runs with reportage of ex AWU union officials and Labor figures pointing the finger at Gillard’s alleged complicity in fraud and extortion.
Strategy not Labor’s strong suit. Never was.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 3:10 pm
Gillard strikes me as a hard 70s style feminist – you go girl and get what you want – you’re entitled to it; defend any woman on any issue – from killing her sleeping husband with an axe to seeking promotion well above your ‘merit’ (and so forth for half a page). One aspect of the ‘respect all women’ meme was that one woman should not take up with the spouse or partner of another, in particular if children were implicated. One wonders then what feminists make of Gilard’s having taken up with the married father of two Wilson. If they care at all they probably won’t say boo, from fear or because Gillard’s survival trumps al other considerations. Bur many probably don’t care at all – all that feminist bleating was merely a means to rent-seek the better.
rafiki
20 Aug 12 at 3:12 pm
lol ABC24 discussing why Abbott got thrown out of QT
“we’re not really sure why”.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 3:15 pm
Yeah, but don’t defend Janet Albrechtsen if she gets called a “skanky ho” (and gay-baiting is totally fine too).
“Feminism” is just Leftism in a size-16 dress.
Fisky
20 Aug 12 at 3:19 pm
I see the Coalition is up to 57 again on Essential today, up 1 on last week.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 3:19 pm
Yep. Very corrupt, very angry, and nothing left in the tank except hatred and envy.
Fisky
20 Aug 12 at 3:22 pm
The only wymminses who ever benefited from feminayzeeism have three things in common – white, middle class and “university educated”.
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 3:22 pm
Read on Katherine Murphy’s SMH Parliament watch SMH he was thrown out for using the ‘L’ word
No not that word ‘meaning something to do with arses’ but Liar
Oh well … there are some words Ms Burke is not accustomed to
val majkus
20 Aug 12 at 3:26 pm
Whoever said Hedley Thomas possesses a copy of the SnG transcript is onto something, going by his questions to the PM:
Worst case scenario is she broke the law. Best case is that she was sacked for unethical behaviour.
Fisky
20 Aug 12 at 3:27 pm
Yep, Fisky I was one person who suggested it. He’s going after her with a loaded 12 gauge and it’s pointed at her.
He’s not bluffing. He’s basically waiting to see what she says.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 3:32 pm
Lat evening CL suggested that he’s crueling both her and S&G not to even think about telling lies.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 3:34 pm
A similar strategy was used in the UK with the parliamentary expenses rorting caper.
Each day the journo involved would “out” a rorter. That afternoon he would ring the next one and tell they were tomorrow’s star. After about a week he ran out of actual evidence, but then called those he suspected of rorting and told them they were up tomorrow. Flushed a lot of them out.
Pickles
20 Aug 12 at 3:39 pm
Won’t someone think of Steadman,that poor bastard is going to cop the brunt of this latest stuff up
Tal
20 Aug 12 at 3:41 pm
Steadman will be hiding out in his shed – if he knows what’s good for him.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 3:43 pm
Not the first time it would have happened:
Gillard: the new Holmes a Crook.
benson
20 Aug 12 at 3:43 pm
As Candy mentioned, the Labor/union pollster Essential Research can’t find any good news for Gillard 57-43 to the Coalition 2PP, with ALP primary stuck on 32%. Expect the same results in tomorrow’s Newspoll. Hard to find clear air when it stinks of sewage.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 3:46 pm
Yeah, I think that might be why Hedley Thomas is so cocksure – he’s got a copy of the transcript and/or the recording. Can you imagine if the Oz put up an MP3 copy of it? It’d be all over for the PM.
benson
20 Aug 12 at 3:51 pm
Sky News have posted a poll
Should the PM respond to reports about her resignation at Slater & Gordon 17 years ago?
Let’s encourage them to stick with the story
jules
20 Aug 12 at 4:01 pm
I take this as a good sign. The ALP are imploding.
We are going to need Nauru to house them all one the trials begin.
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 4:06 pm
Monty,
I haven’t read other’s responses to your answer, but here are a few points :
Your statement is wrong. Smith’s program was legalled (as he calls it), and approved by his stations’s management. In regards to Milne, how do you know that Milne’s article bypassed the legal department at The Australian, and then got published? If what you are alleging happened (a systemic fault), then Milne should have been the last person to (in a line of about three others in the management structure) to have been sacked.
No, not weasel words at all. In fact, it’s pretty standard phraseology by competent journalists to establish that any answers received are from the person to whom the questions are addressed. This avoids situations where Gillard (for example) could ‘market test’ her answers, and if a poor response occurs, she could blame a minion in her office.
The same could be said for the Heiner affair, yet it is now undergoing a commission of inquiry. S&Ggate hasn’t been the subject of any official inquiries.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 4:06 pm
What would be really interesting about the recording is whether or not she has worked on her accent over the last 17 or so years.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 4:08 pm
Labor people are behind Gillard smear: Abbott.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 4:09 pm
The dog better make itself scarce too.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 4:11 pm
Michael Smith being interviewed on 2GB right now.
Ivan Denisovich
20 Aug 12 at 4:13 pm
In the case of the Liar’s party females, let’s not forget that they were also promoted to fill the Liar’s Party self-imposed quota of females in Parliament.
It’s worked a treat hasn’t it?
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 4:15 pm
@fisky, but monty says the questioning style just means he’s muckraking.
To me it looks like he knows the answer, but doesn’t want to be accused of disguising a question as a statement. The S&G partner made the assertions, he’s asking what the answer is.
Bottom line to PM : Please confirm that this is all true. I dare you to lie.
@benson : your example shows how defamation laws alone makes sure people take a lot of care with publishing accusations. It would be that much worse with Finkelstein hanging around.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 4:16 pm
Thank you for voting in today’s Sky News poll.
Should the PM respond to reports about her resignation at Slater & Gordon 17 years ago?
Yes 89%
No 11%
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 4:16 pm
Well there ya go, Mike Smith has made some allegations about Gillard’s professional behaviour. Surely Gillard will now go after Smith.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 4:18 pm
Bugger me – even the love media think Gillard should just answer the questions. Although Cooroy is a bit of a Rudd man, I think.
The last para is bang on too.
Yep – this is a non-issue that only a delusional cartoonist thinks is newsworthy.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 4:20 pm
@gab : no, she’s too busy as we have been told. Not until after she retires. Then she’ll have the free time to sue Smith.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 4:23 pm
IT (4:06pm) – that’s a blast from the past Leaping Leo McLeay, parliament’s worst cyclist. Labor does appear to have a bit of history putting up talent-less individuals of questionable integrity into the Speakers office.
H B Bear
20 Aug 12 at 4:31 pm
Gillard could rescue a basket of puppies from a burning building and I would still be looking for one of her staffers with a box of matches.
H B Bear
20 Aug 12 at 4:34 pm
“They all start with “What does the PM say to the assertion that…”, which is weasel words.”
No Monty they are questions – you know the things that Gillard doesn’t answer? In fact this was the perfect opportunity to address all of his questions and neutralise the issue – but Gillard ran
“and still no evidence of a criminal offence has been uncovered.”
??? Union money being illegally appropriated by Wilson isn’t criminal?
“the desperation of the Liberal Party to force an election while the polls are in their favour”
Hmmm this must be some strange new usage of the word “desperate” that I wasn’t previously aware of Monty – any time in the next decade will do the coalition given the current polling.
I think you are confusing parties – the ALP are the desperate ones on death row right now
“Who knows what depths they will sink to over the fifteen months.”
Indeed – given the utter incompetence Gillard has shown who knows what depths she will plunge
ugh
20 Aug 12 at 4:39 pm
“The Australian people elected her as PM”
Minor point Monty but Gillard has never been elected as PM.
Gillard was *appointed* as PM by the GG as the ALP didn’t technically win the election in 2010.
Obviously she is leader of the coalition of Greens ALP and Independants, but Julia has never led her party to an election win.
ugh
20 Aug 12 at 4:50 pm
Hawker, Kroger discussing Gillard-Wilson now on Sky.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 4:52 pm
Team Fairfax jumps to Gillard’s defence:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/larry-pickering–the-conman-stalking-gillard-20120820-24hxi.html
Infidel Tiger
20 Aug 12 at 5:04 pm
Pickering may (or may not) be a shyster but you can deplore Pickering and still consider that Gillard has some serious questions to answer.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 5:08 pm
I’ve seen more emotion displayed by an android.
She must be an alien theres no emission at all.
boxer
20 Aug 12 at 5:11 pm
Fauxfacts is commonly known as a media company, but it’s also an employer of inveterate liars, a near bankrupt peddler of marxism with a seedy history of fleecing its stockholders of millions of dollars by deliberately driving its share price into the ground.
Yikes!
Rabz
20 Aug 12 at 5:12 pm
@matt – I’ve read that anti-pickering rant. It lowered my opinion of that blog and it’s author, because I could pick out several glaring errors just on a skim.
Not saying that Pickering is innocent of what people are accusing him of, but that page is over the top.
The mainstream media and audience aren’t interested in Pickering, except as a defense.
I said a long time ago Pickerings role was to push it and see what response he got – wade in to test the waters. It’s worked. He didn’t get sued or shut down (legitimately) and so now the others feel bold enough to go in as well. Now with it all over the news Pickering isn’t relevant anymore, except as a whipping boy for people who desperately want a messenger to flog.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 5:13 pm
I just listened to the 2GB podcast of Michael Smith’s interview. Gillard wanted allegations, Smith just served several over the net. The balls are in your court Jools.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 5:20 pm
7 News at 6pm will report that Gillard may be gone “in a couple of weeks”, according to the promo I’ve just heard.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 5:21 pm
They probably meant to say “leave of absence” Tom. ha ha!
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 5:24 pm
Wow, I prefer the cricket analogy, in that Smith interview opens with a couple of bouncers at Gillards chin.
The statement about how the Corporate Affairs Commissioner rejected the application to set up the entity, then Wilson went to Gillard gets to the nub of the issue…
Token
20 Aug 12 at 5:24 pm
IT,
Pascoe is a serial idiot and I stopped reading him on any topic years ago. He’s as deranged as Gittins, but spivier. He actually thinks that his statements about Pickering are true because a blogger said so. So Pascoe legitimates blogs one day after the PM tried her best to denigrate them.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 5:26 pm
Sounds like Gillard’s starring role in Weekend at Bernies might be coming to an end.
Who will Piggy Howes and Big Bill go for next?
H B Bear
20 Aug 12 at 5:27 pm
Right.
I’m watching Seven News tonight.
Sinkers, do a promo.
It’s for the good of the country you love so much you emigrate here.
.
20 Aug 12 at 5:37 pm
They are the ones who have buried this scandal since 1995.
And Daddy Joe is the Fat Controller
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 5:38 pm
Larry Pickering latest cartoon is up.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 5:41 pm
I find that amusing JamesK,
I have been looking after my young nephew, and I can tell you after several tortured days of Thomas the Tank Engine, the fat controller is the idiot Irish/Polish stereotype of dumb jokes.
Mc Clelland as Mike the Knight?
Kim Il Carr might be a good fit for the fat controller, but he couldn’t actually create anything before he could fuck it up.
.
20 Aug 12 at 5:44 pm
@brc. My linking wasn’t meant as endorsement of the post – merely pointing out that many people who think Pickering is a con-man still think the Wilson affair is a matter of serious public concern.
It is not a viable course of action for Gillard’s defenders to simply point at Pickering’s past history and hope the allegations go away …
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 5:45 pm
I wonder if that was the whole point of Pickering. The Australian was smarting after what happened to them last year, so somebody had to be the first out of the trenches, and having a bankrupt loon charge out throwing defamation grenades made it easier for the others. Mike Smith then went back into the fray with a more balanced story that is probably closest to the truth, and The Australian followed with the most minimalist story worth printing. Pickering did everyone a favour, whether asked or not.
Fisky
20 Aug 12 at 5:46 pm
@fisky – I’m sure that was Pickerings game plan – I opined on this ages ago. The only question was whether he did it off his own bat, or whether the strategy came about as a group discussion.
At the time I thought it was something he did in collusion with other people from the Australian. Now I tend to think it’s just his own pet project. The guy has got plenty of time and money (even though technically bankrupt) so I think he just decided to come out firing and see what would happen. He’s not the only person to be disgusted by attempts to muzzle the media, but he’s one of the only ones to actually do something about it. The likes of Bolt and Milne were gelded by the threats against News.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 5:53 pm
You obviously ain’t see the infamous Thomas the Tank stutter parody on the Fat cont…. the fat cont…cont…cont…. .cont-t-t-roller.
Ludwig is the puppeteer of Howse, Shorten,
Woine and the PM.
He’s the one who has decided not to chase Julia’s ex for some of his union members’ stolen monies.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 5:54 pm
Big Bill’s ‘take’ on corporate governance:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/union-paid-legal-bills-of-senior-labor-mp-bill-ludwig/story-e6freuy9-1226130957539
Now I wonder how Bruce Wilson could have possibly got the idea in his head that union finances and personal play money were a blurred line ?
Myrrdin Seren
20 Aug 12 at 6:02 pm
To use a sporting analogy, Pickering has carried the ball forward and the love media only saw fit to attack the messenger. Now the ball’s in the forward line and Smith’s making a run.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 6:04 pm
Once you start to think of yourself as the personification of the union, it becomes a lot easier to consider yourself entitled to members funds. (not saying this is what has happened here)
Hence a whistleblower (or even a critic) is not to be tolerated. This creates an environment where corruption can fester.
Matt
20 Aug 12 at 6:15 pm
It’s a bit rich for Fairfax to say we shouldn’t listen to Pickering because he has a dodgy past and has allegedly fleeced money out of people and screwed around a bit…..when the nub of the matter is Gillard’s dodgy past and the matter of her assisting in the fleecing of money out of people (whilst doing a bit of screwing around).
Which dodgy fleecer is more believable? The cartoonist or the ranga?
If the reaction at work is anything to go by, Pickering is ahead by a few furlongs at present.
boy on a bike
20 Aug 12 at 6:16 pm
The latest Pickering cartoon “If they were whales this would be serious” – is devastating.
Because it’s the truth.
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 6:20 pm
For what?
Is that Smith interview online, Gab?
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 6:25 pm
Here.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 6:34 pm
try again
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 6:35 pm
Now I wonder how Bruce Wilson could have possibly got the idea in his head that union finances and personal play money were a blurred line ?
Yes, this is probably stand operating procedure. Roll-on a Royal Commission.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 6:44 pm
Not sure exactly why he was thrown out, CL, but here’s an article on it by Ben Packham
Also,
Now I’m pretty certain they’ve all been thrown out of better places and by better people.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 6:50 pm
brc @ 2.06 today
Rudd wouldn’t have to do the purge. He could run to the polls and let the electorate do his dirty work for him, thereby maintaining his milky bar image.
Keith
20 Aug 12 at 6:54 pm
Wow. Smith willingly opens himself to a legal suit with Fordham.
So when’s Gillard suing?
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 6:58 pm
Just listened to the 2GB interview. This is going to be an interesting week.
dover_beach
20 Aug 12 at 7:02 pm
Never, I reckon that Smith is all over the detail. He is so confident of the essential facts that he knows he can make the accusations without fear of reprisal.
This is only going to get bigger now, it’s still only a snowball but it will grow into an avalanche very quickly.
Old Fridgie
20 Aug 12 at 7:06 pm
talk about wandering around in circles before falling over flat on his face:
Also, Paul Zanetti interview on why & how Pickering started blogging about Gillard’s past.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 7:07 pm
FMD.
House privileges committee chairman, Labor MP Yvette D’Ath, wants to charge and jail journalists who publish ANY LEAKS from a parliamentary committee.
This is in response to well-known hate media figure MICHELLE GRATTAN publishing details of the privileges committee’s ‘investigation’ into Craig Thompson’s lie-ridden statement to Parliament.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 7:15 pm
As yes, this must be the “open and transparent” government Gillard was promising back in 2010.
Where’s that sunshine gone….
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 7:21 pm
One wag is calling LP’s blog “pickyleaks”.
Viva
20 Aug 12 at 7:24 pm
SMH, September 7, 2010:
Let the sun shine in: Gillard.
All lies.
C.L.
20 Aug 12 at 7:27 pm
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 7:31 pm
He’s one of the worst politicians I’ve ever seen. He has the personality of a crab and the touch of someone whose hands died of frostbite.
JC
20 Aug 12 at 7:31 pm
If the love media were operating under the delusion that they could ride the coming ALP Finklestein crocodile’s back while laughing at News Ltd being devoured then please let this be the minute that they wake up to themselves.
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 7:38 pm
Leave Julia Alone
One for those on the metal kneepads.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 7:56 pm
“Abbott got thrown out of Parliament? Wow”
yeh, i agree. He’s way too handsome to be thrown out of anywhere. Speaker Anna must be nuts!
candy
20 Aug 12 at 8:13 pm
Even when he gets thrown out, he still looks good.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 8:16 pm
Who the fuck is the brooding homley teenage schoolgirl sitting in that massive chair?
twostix
20 Aug 12 at 8:19 pm
“Even when he gets thrown out, he still looks good.”
yep, style all the while.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 8:25 pm
What is the purpose of your visit, Fungus?
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 8:25 pm
Ch 7 coverage was a bit of a disappointment – seems Mark Riley was on the phone before hand ‘what can we say?’
Most of it covered Graham Richardson smirking his way through his predictions. As if he isn’t in it up to his ears, the sly old goat.
Ch7 started well, but they had to end with Tony Abbott being thrown out.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 8:27 pm
“why does Abbott often repeat the same underwhelming sentence he has just uttered twice.”
it’s to help febros of the world understand better. he’s being kind and respectful.
candy
20 Aug 12 at 8:31 pm
and that’s a game, set & match to Candy.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 8:32 pm
frebbie pole-axed by Candy.
Sweet
JamesK
20 Aug 12 at 8:35 pm
Don’t worry, Fungus. Your title as bore of the century is in no danger of being challenged, even though you’ve been here for only five minutes.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 8:35 pm
That puts him in his place on the totem pole.
blogstrop
20 Aug 12 at 8:36 pm
This thread isn’t about Abbott – it’s about Gillard. Feel free to opine on that.
brc
20 Aug 12 at 8:38 pm
Seriously, let’s face it, only a brown-nosing suck hole never got thrown out of class.
Abbott’s speaking to all those voters who enjoyed stirring up bad and incompetent teachers and got thrown out of class.
Bad to the bone…
Token
20 Aug 12 at 8:53 pm
I think the men and women of Australia would prefer to speak for themselves, rather than being spoken for by the irresponsible arseholes of the Australian left, who were allowed to hijack the Australian treasury through a circumstance that people didn’t want or vote for.
Tom
20 Aug 12 at 8:55 pm
Pickering rebuts Pascoe in his latest post.
No love lost there…
Cold-Hands
20 Aug 12 at 8:59 pm
febro. Why do you bother?
Dandy Warhol
20 Aug 12 at 9:03 pm
Febro once again given an opportunity to beclown himself in front of a large audience. More than he deserves. Sinc, why hast thou forsaken us?
blogstrop
20 Aug 12 at 9:03 pm
febro. Why do you bother?
because he gets replies.
Gab
20 Aug 12 at 9:04 pm
don’t miss Michael Smith’s latest interview
with David Flint
I put the link on today’s open forum (top of page)
very clear and concise interview
val majkus
20 Aug 12 at 9:11 pm
In my various periods of traversing through the thickets of Australian feminism I never came across this so-called meme. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Any woman who had a partner ‘for life’, or who was even (gasp!) married, obviously needed re-educating into a more ‘liberated’ way of seeing the world.
There were plenty of Julia’s around only too willing to assist that woman’s husband to see the error of commitment to the old-fashioned ways of his wife and their children. All for wifey’s own good, natch.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
20 Aug 12 at 11:18 pm
sorry – plural Julias. Apostrophe fairy at work.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
20 Aug 12 at 11:20 pm
Lizzie: Back in the day I was on close personal terms with a woman who was in the forefront of the affirmative action push. At a later point – after we had amicably gone on to other special friends, she confided that she was a bit embarrassed having taken up with a married man (for the reason I gave). Not only that, she watched him play amateur rugby.
rafiki
21 Aug 12 at 8:13 am
Will Jules take up Wilkie’s suggestion of a parliamentary statement?
Will it involve a teary-eyed tale of a lonely girl blinded by luurv?
Will SfB then spend a day wandering around the house, wearing his Julia Gillard Signature Series flannelette pyjamas, gorging on Tim Tams and listening to Alanis Morissette?
lotocoti
21 Aug 12 at 8:56 am
Perhaps this blog should be renamed the Wishful Thinking Files.
SteveC
23 Aug 12 at 4:05 pm
No Steve SteveC, That’s you every time you grope Kimberly, the plastic sex doll you bought off the web.
She’s calling now, so fuck off.
JC
23 Aug 12 at 4:14 pm
I think she was referring to you and your nutjob mates, JC.
SteveC
23 Aug 12 at 7:23 pm
You’re deplorable with the zingers SteveC.
Like the other leftwing creatures here, you really don’t give a fucking fuck about the high level of corruption in the union movement and now appears endemic the Liar’s Party. Furthermore you all support the press being finkelsteined.
You really are disgusting foul creatures SteveC. I don’t understand how your plastic sex doll, Kimberly tolerates you.
JC
23 Aug 12 at 7:29 pm