The latest Roy Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s two-party lead at 57-43, down from 58-42 a fortnight ago. On the primary vote, Labor is down 0.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent, the Coalition is up 2 per cent to 38 per cent and the Greens are down 1 per cent to 7 per cent.
In other news, it’s all happening in Victoria:
• Peter Costello’s surprise announcement that he will not contest the next election has raised the flag on another epic Victorian Liberal preselection stoush in his Melbourne seat of Higgins, which housed successive Liberal prime ministers in Harold Holt and John Gorton. Furthermore, Costello has raised the possibility of an early departure and a by-election, “if it’s in the party’s interest”. Immediately prior to Costello’s announcement, Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam signalled his intention to run if Costello stood aside, after earlier testing the waters in Kooyong (see below). However, Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Costello has resolved to oppose Roskam due to equivocal comments he made to David Penberthy of The Punch about Costello’s future value in politics. Van Onselen further reports widespread displeasure at this and other remarks seen to be in breach of Liberal rules that preselection aspirations are not to be discussed with the media. Costello reportedly wishes for the seat to go to a former staffer, Kelly O’Dwyer. It had earlier been reported that O’Dwyer might depose incumbent Ted Baillieu loyalist Andrew McIntosh in the state seat of Kew. The other big name in the Higgins mix is Mal Brough, who has moved to Melbourne and is said to be hopeful of a return to politics that doesn’t involve further dirtying his hands in the morass of the Queensland Liberal National Party. However, Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports party sources say he has “no chance”. Also mentioned are former state party director Julian Sheezel, who was said to be backed by Costello but opposed by Michael Kroger when talk of Costello’s departure was in the air after the election, Jason Aldworth, a former banking colleague of Michael Kroger and more recently a consultant for Crosby Textor; and, intriguingly, Tom Elliott, hedge fund manager and son of John, who memorably sought to depose Roger Shipton as member for this very seat in pursuit of his prime ministerial ambitions.
• Merchant banker Josh Frydenberg has won the hotly contested preselection to succeed Petro Georgiou as the Liberal candidate for Kooyong. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Frydenberg won the second round ballot over industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto by 283 votes to 239 after all other contenders were excluded in the first round. The result is a defeat for Ted Baillieu, whose power base had pursued various stratagems designed to thwart Frydenberg, the preferred candidate of the rival Kroger faction.
• The ALP national executive’s role in Victorian state preselections has been further expanded following John Brumby’s decision to refer to the body all state upper house preselections for next year’s election. Labor insiders quoted by David Rood of The Age relate that the decision will “all but end” the career of Theo Theophanous, who faces a vigorously contested rape charge and was recently among those named adversely in the state Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank City Council. This week the national executive acted as expected in relation to a number of lower house preselections referred to it in the wake of the latter imbroglio, selecting former Trades Hall Council deputy secretary (and wife of New South Wales Senator Steve Hutchins) Natalie Sykes-Hutchins to replace George Seitz in Keilor and confirming incumbents Telmo Languiller, Rob Hulls, Marsha Thomson and Marlene Kairouz in Derrimut, Niddrie, Footscray and Kororoit. It has also been confirmed that Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden will seek to move to the lower house by nominating for preselection in Essendon, to be vacated by the retiring Judy Maddigan. In his absence, the national executive has chosen incumbents Martin Pakula, Khalil Eideh and Bob Smith to head the ticket in Western Metropolitan (Smith currently represents South-Eastern Metropolitan).
• Helen Shardey, Victorian Shadow Health Minister and member for Caulfield, has indicated she will stand down at the next election. It had been reported she faced a preselection challenge from David Southwick, previously unsuccessful in the federal seat of Melbourne Ports in 2004 and for the state upper house Southern Metropolitan in 2006.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that former Liberal MP Phil Barresi, whom he describes as a “factionally unenthusiastic Krogerite”, has been given the green light to attempt to recover the seat of Deakin which he held from 1996 until his defeat in 2007. Barresi reportedly won on the first round over eccentric perennial Ken Aldred, who was dumped in favour of Barresi in 1996 after peddling weird conspiracy theories, and one Deanne Rhyll. Perhaps Barresi is encouraged by the precedent of 1984, when the Liberals unexpectedly recovered the seat (with some help from a redistribution) after losing it when the Hawke government was elected in 1983.
Elsewhere:
• Glenn Milne in The Australian reports on the Labor succession in the federal seat of Macquarie, which will be vacated at the next election by Bob Debus. As Milne tells it, Debus or his supporters put it about that his recent decision to withdraw from the ministry and bow out at the next election, which helped the Prime Minister no end as he sought to construct a new cabinet in the wake of Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation, was conditional upon Debus being given the right to anoint his own successor. This was hotly disputed by Right powerbrokers who are bitterly opposed to Debus’s objective of freezing out industrial barrister Adam Searle, a Left faction colleague but personal rival.
• Two new goodies from Antony Green. An extensive paper for the New South Wales Parliamentary Library provides all manner of detail on the state’s Legislative Council election in 2007, while an accompanying blog post scrutinises the performance of the optional preferential above-the-line voting system introduced after the 1999 election produced a tablecloth-sized ballot paper and elected candidates from groupings that would be flattered by the “micro-party” designation. He further discusses the potential for such a system to resolve the issues which saw Steve Fielding elected to the Senate in 2004. For the more casual election enthusiast, a new 2010federal election calculator allows you set the two-party result to taste to find out the seat outcome in the event of a uniform swing. It turns out a 50-50 result would give the Coalition exactly half the seats and presumably allow it to govern with support of the three independents. Labor loses its majority at 50.8 per cent.
• Queensland independent MP Peter Wellington has introduced a private member’s bill providing for fixed three-year terms, with an escape clause if a new government cannot be formed in the wake of no-confidence motion and a provision allowing for a five-week postponement if there is a clash with a federal election or a “widespread natural disaster”. The major parties both support fixed four-year terms, which unlike Wellington’s proposal would require a referendum. Negotiations for such a referendum broke down last year when then Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg insisted on further unrelated reforms, but his successor John-Paul Langbroek has foreshadowed a more “flexible” approach in future discussions with the government.
• Christian Kerr of The Australian evaluates the Australian political blogosphere.
UPDATE: Thanks to Rebecca in comments for bringing my attention to the fact that Allison Ritchie, Labor member for the Tasmanian Legislative Council district of Pembroke, yesterday announced she would quit parliament after enduring a storm of controversy over her appointment of family members on her staff. This will presumably result in a by-election shortly in Pembroke, where Ritchie defeated an independent incumbent in 2001 and won re-election in 2007. The Electoral Act allows the government enormous latitude on the timing of such a by-election, so I’ll hold off on giving it its own post until its intentions become clearer. Ritchie claims to have been the victim of a plot from within her own party, which presumably explains why she has decided to go now rather than wait for the more convenient juncture of early next year, when a by-election could be held with the state election in March or the annual periodical upper house elections in May.
2,582 Comments
You missed the resignation of Tasmanian MLC Allison Ritchie over nepotism allegations, William.
Labour offers Costello to head the future fund
http://www.smh.com.au/national/labor-offers-costello-job-20090620-cs0k.html
Labor offers Costello job
Jessica Wright
June 21, 2009
FORMER treasurer Peter Costello will be offered a Federal Government job – the guardianship of the nation’s $60billion future fund he set up during his 11 years as treasurer.
Fitting in some ways, he finally gets to control something he created for once, if he accepts it.
This is the line Rudd needs to keep pushing hard.
Yeah, I heard that bit about the fax number being obscured too. There was a couple of minutes argey-bargey about it.
But without having seen the actual email (are these available?) I can’t interpret Abetz’s comments about it presence on the page in context. One however would think that if it was printed on the page for all to see it would not be a blind “cc”.
As to Thomas send stuff to Swan’s fax (and that’s how it got into the reply field) I don’t see anything sinister in that.
Perhaps what was happening was that Thomas was sending his own emails to Swan as a “cc”. In his emails would be all the previous emails on the subject, including the ones from Grech, and Thomas was advising Grech formally of this fact.
However, this does not fit in with Grech doing the “Reply All”.
In a much earlier incarnation I was exposed to M. P. and Ministerial representations. And it appears to me that something here does not ring true.
An important part of such an exercise is to firstly solve the “problem” and secondly advise the MP/Minister of the result of their representation and prepare correspondence to be sent to the person making the representation via their representative.
In every case it was vital that a detailed record was maintained of all correspondence with ANYONE” involved especially an MP or Minister. This is not only true for the preparation of the “final report” but also to enable the Officer to prepare any “progress reports” if necessary.
In this case the Treasury Official involved has either been very sloppy in his record keeping or there was no document. This is especially true if the representation was coming from the PM or the actioning Officer’s own Minister- in this case both apply.
If there was a document and the Treasury Official did not file it then there is a great deal of doubt about everything he says or does for it indicates a lack of attention to detail and to the correct record keeping procedures that take up most of the time of any Public Servants. If I was this Officers manger I would be very concerned about his inability to carry out the most basic tasks expected by someone in his position.
It would also be expected of this type of Officer that he/she would clearly understand the importance of such a document and if only to cover ones own ars they would keep a copy secure for any future events that may arise.
However, to contemplate that an email from a Minister’s Office would be not be filed is incomprehensible. Such a document would be “folio 1” of the actioning file.
What the!
I thought they were the same person. Doh!
Turnbull already suffers in the electoral trustworthiness stake. I assume that Rudd and co will be pushing the above line very hard from now on.
Milne wears his tawdry personal agenda on his vomit stained sleeve. He should take note of, say, M. Roland Barthes before he writes any of his venemous tripe to help him realise the pitfalls of partisanship:
Okay, colour me totally confused now.
Anyone with a link to anything that confirms that the Queensland LA requires a referendum to alter the State Constitution.
Milne will have talked to Lewis. If Milne is not standing by Lewis’s story (as it were) then LEwis has admitted to Milne he can’t prove the email is genuine. So Milne is going for the consolation prize: Swan’s scalp.
Despite the discrepancies between Swan’s account of how he got cc’d in on the emails (by Grech hitting the “Reply All” button) and the account in the emails themselves (that Thomas was doing the forwarding) I still don’t see how Swan is not in the clear.
The meeting with Ford Credit was ostensibly about OzCar, not about Grant. Grant only came into it after the meeting was aranged (acording to Grech’s evidence). Grant was a second order issue. Swan was trying to get Ford Credit on-board OzCar. Naturally he would be very interested in the outcome, ASAP.
If Grech chose to take up more space in his report on the subject of Grant than of whether Ford would sign up for OzCar, then that was Grech’s assessment of the situation, not Swan’s (at least as far as the evidence goes).
Cruel, but fair.
I reckon it’s about time that all such utterances should be peceeded with the disclaimer: An unelected spokesperson who may, or may not, be influenced by commercial considerations, says:
Talk about what favours can be got from the lend of an old ute? What favours can be got from those who take the silver?
All too complicated, they would lose people in the first sentence. Really you would have to have a clear written instruction from Swan that said something inappropriate. No such thing exists. Something about what other people did doesn’t really work.
Ratsars
And if you do that for long enough you can emulate Hermes, the Jamaican bureaucrat in ‘Futurama” (in one of my favourite episides) and announce:
Hmm, peceeded should either be read as some sort of medical procedure, or if that affronts one’s sensibilities, then preceeded should be substituted.
Your choice.
Flaneur -personally I’ll take ‘preceded’. Anything before a manual prostate test.
Thomas Paine
True. Too many links and assumptions necessary to hang Swan, same as last night. Too much time spent on Rudd. The email fake will also help Swan. While the Libs are busy climbing off the floor after the Rudd rug was pulled out from under, Swan has returned with a Howitzer.
I certainly did – apologies if I missed earlier discussion of this (which I see happened eight hours ago), which is news to me. This has sent me to the relevant section of the Tasmanian Electoral Act to see if a by-election is imminent in Pembroke, to which it seems the answer is, not necessarily. The rules run as follows:
- If the seat become vacant between January 1 and the date the writs are issued for the annual periodical elections in May, a by-election is held on that day (or not held at all if the seat itself is one of those due for election);
- Otherwise, the Governor must issue writs for a by-election within 40 days (allowing for a maximum 21 day nomination period and subsequent 30 day election period) UNLESS s/he extends the 40-day period by proclamation.
It seems to me that the government could theoretically use the last named clause to leave the seat vacant until the next periodic election in Pembroke is due in 2013, although I could well be missing something. Though no doubt that would not be a good move politically, not least because the seat is currently held by Labor.
Yeah, you’d have to think that’d be rather unlikely.
When was the last time there was a by-election for a Tas Legislative Council seat? I can’t think of an example in the last few years.
More plausibly, they could choose to save some money by holding it in conjunction with next year’s lower house election. However, that still leaves Pembroke without a member for an uncomfortably long time.
The Constitution Act Amendment Act 1934 requires that a referendum must be held to re-establish the Legislative Council (Section 3) or extend the term of the Legislative Assembly (Section 4). The remainder of the constitution can be amended normally.
William @ 20
What’s ‘normally’ in Qld’s case? Just a majority vote of the parliament?
Glen Milne
This is a lie. Grech said that he was left with the impression. He did not tell the enquiry that he was instructed to treat Grant as a special case. Did Milne even watch the senate enquiry, I’m beginning to doubt it.
I try to never read anything from News Ltd now days. And really you don’t need to.
Just think of an issue and you will pretty much know how the newspapers will deal with it and how each journo will deal with it.
You would have gotten ten times more out of reading this blog than reading News Ltd papers today.
Considering the particular organisation he works for, is anyone actually surprised?
William, have you worked out the problem with Saturday being caught in the spaminator ?
More plausibly, they could choose to save some money by holding it in conjunction with next year’s lower house election. However, that still leaves Pembroke without a member for an uncomfortably long time.
I doubt that Labor would think that wise. Leaving a seat without a member for eleven months after a member resigns, only two years into her term, amidst minor scandal – that’d be just asking for a high-profile independent to take an interest.
JV, I assume so. There may be some slightly more onerous requirement for some measures such as in WA, where Labor needed 18 votes in the 34-member Legislative Council to introduce one-vote one-value because an absolute majority was required, and the President had a casting vote he didn’t get to use because 17-16 in favour wasn’t technically a tie. I suspect not though.
This particular issue just demonstrates how much a lot of the print MSM is failing Australia (if it is even interested) and how well blogs can stack up against them on breaking issues, where both have access to the same data.
We went from thinking Rudd was in big trouble to quickly analysing the data that put grave doubts on the email evidence to quickly realising the email was probably faked and to having that confirmed and so forth. The right wing MSM wasn’t interested in that, it preferred to stick with the innuendo of the first position as long as it could. Or so it appears from people’s comments on how they were presenting it.
Thanks William.
Though, I suspect, this legislation could be over-ridden with “normal” legislation. Just like the Queensland Flag legislation, which was written into the Constitution via standard legislation.
Rebecca, the last LC by-election was in 1999, funnily enough in Pembroke. It was held on the same day as that year’s other periodical elections. There was a by-election at another time in Newdegate (now abolished) in 1997 when the member retired due to ill health.
Frank: yes, it was my fault for once, and as you can see it’s fixed.
In fact it is the necessity of many a News Ltd paper to find the Liberal party partisan line on all issues that puts them at a disadvantage to blogs. It is a straight jacket which means they are unable to fully work the data in analysis as it wont produce the conculsions or impressions they want. Blogs can and do deal with all the data, even if partisan the data still gets revealed and given a work over.
And if one pushes an unfavored position the other has to defend it.
Flaneur, the Constitution Act Amendment Act extends the requirement for alteration by referendum to itself. The sorts of questions you might be asking about this were raised in relation to WA Labor’s aforementioned attempt to implement one-vote one-value. They argued to the Supreme Court, and I believe also the High Court, that it wasn’t valid for a parliament to restrict the legislative power of a future parliament in this way. They also tried to pull a swiftie whereby they repealed the act and recreated all its provisions in a different act, arguing that the special amendment requirement didn’t say anything about repeal as distinct from amendment. They had no luck on either count.
If a simple vote of the Qld parliament can amend the constitution generally, then it would be easy for it to vote to repeal section 13 of its constitution (only one member per district), and replace it with a Hare-Clark PR system. Certainly easier than creating an upper house via referendum.
jaundiced view @ 13
Whatever decisions Public Servants make there are consequences of some form or other including legal and/or monetary consequence.
If a Public Servant (or anyone) cannot support their decisions they cannot do their job. This of cause means that no effective decision is or can be made nor can any decision be effectively reviewed without the supporting records.
This is true if you are the Permanent Head or the lowest grade clerk.
If you don’t keep records it can cost people their life savings, their homes, their rights in any area you care to name. Just think how you would feel if you asked for your Tax Return to be amended and all you got back was a letter saying “NO”, or on an FOI request and you just got a reply of NO. If a request to record the sale/purchase of you house resulted in a sheet of paper with NO on it.
Now these decisions may be correct but how does one know without the paper work behind them.
I am afraid that this requirement to maintain and keep the records not only applies to the Public Service but also to business and to individuals.
If one doesn’t it is at ones own peril. If you think that this is incorrect just remember the recent ruckus over SAS pay. The problem here was ineffective record keeping.
Another example of ineffective record keeping was the “whit board affair” when a Minister in the Keating Government did not keep records of the decision making process in respect of Government expenditure.
I remember a cartoon that was going around some years ago of a child sitting on a toilet/potty and the caption was ”the job is not completed until the paper work is done”.
Very appropriate I think in the current circumstances.
.
Well I’m gob smacked. Surely, us Queenslanders have a bit more nous than those western dwellers.
Okay, perhaps not.
While not wanting to reflect on the findings of the WA Supreme Court, nor the High Court, my understanding was that a principle of the Westminster system was that no parliament could restrict the prerogatives of future parliaments.
Given that precedent (term limits), couldn’t the current parliament alter the constitution to prevent anyone who, lets’s say, owns, or knowns someone who owns, white shoes to stand for election?
Of course, my obvious mistake is relating the Queensland parliament to the Westminster system. But surely, a parliament doesn’t need to resort to pulling a swiftie to undo what a previous parliament decreed?
I get the feeling there could be another Treasury person involved. A person who recently fed Grech a look at the manufactured email, and then took it away and destroyed it but giving the right people a copy of the text. Grech is now aware of the text so he can’t lie about it, but is confused about what is going on. The media know he now ‘knows’ so then contact him and so on.
anyway taking my tin hat to bed.
Thomas Paine
Not beyond possibility at all. Anyway, it will out, and fairly soon I’d say.
I’m off – night all.
Everyone please spare a thought for Iranian protesters who are being bashed and killed as I write this post.
Warning VERY GRAPHIC footage of a girl being murdered in the streets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1aPejT0izs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fandrewsullivan.theatlantic.com%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrdRwOlmIxI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fandrewsullivan.theatlantic.com%2F&feature=player_embedded
If there was every any doubt, the actions of the Iranian regime prove once and for all that it is run by a pack of zealots and nutcases that want nothing more than to bring death and misery onto their populace.
Fortunately the Australian embassy is currently operating as a safe haven for injured protesters, because the hospitals are full of militia.
William, seems you missed yesterday’s QLD galaxy?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25663339-421,00.html
What i’d like to know from Mr Bowe regarding this thread is why MHS in SA and the 17 of 22 Liberal MPs who want to oust him does not rate a mention.
Glen
You keep trotting out the nuclear solution…
While I have some serious concerns about the nuclear option, I am not against it in principle. What I am very concerned about is that people somehow have the strange idea that nuclear can be used as a last resort to save us from CO2. It can’t. It won’t.
I don’t think anything in the article (below) is actually news – except for the bit about the french concrete base cracks and welding cockups. The article does provide some succinct figures on nuclear construction now and until 2030. I suggest you might want to read it before you next throw out a line on nuclear power and CO2.
It is pretty clear that while nuclear power generators might contribute a percentage to the overall CO2 solution, they will not be anything like ‘the’ solution.
In fact, at the rate they are going, it might be some time before the existing ageing fleet of reactors are replaced, let lone significant additional overall capacity generated.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/nuclear-renaissance-hits-trouble-20090620-crxn.html?page=2
Does anyone stil remember this guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Baldwin_(Australian_politician)
You, I think, are missing the ‘manner and form’ provisions that apply to state laws relating to the constitution, powers and procedure of state parliaments. These allow certain laws to be ‘doubly entrenched’, requiring future state parliaments to follow certain procedures in order to amend/repeal the laws.
So for instance, a state parliament can require certain laws to only be amended by special majorities, or after a referendum on the issue, as long as the amendment effected the ‘constitution, powers and procedure’ of the parliament.
This stems from a section in the Australia Act (previously the Colonial Laws (Validity) Act)) which provides that laws effecting the constitution, powers or procedure of a state parliament will be of no effect if they don’t follow the required ‘manner and form’.
Mirabella facing calls to quit over staffer scandal
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/19/2603178.htm
Sack her! She’s a blight on the Australian Parliament!
Parliaments can restrict future parliaments from enacting laws that effect the constitution, powers of procedure of the parliament by requiring that a certain process is followed in order for the law to have effect.
So, for instance, a state parliament could pass a law saying that for a voting system change to be made it will require a referendum of the people; or require a 60% majority in both houses of parliament. Then, if a future parliament wanted to enact PR (which would undoubtedly relate to the ‘constitution’ of the parliament) it would be required to follow the set out ‘manner and form’, that is they’d need to hold a referendum on the law or pass it with a 60% majority in both houses of parliament; otherwise the law would have no effect.
Yes, unless there is a law somewhere that sets out that a specific procedure must be followed in order to make laws in relation to who can stand for parliament.
States have plenary legislative powers to make laws for the ‘peace, order and good governance’ of the state and aren’t as restricted as the Commonwealth.
So Cosssssie is getting a job. I did tell you so:
Possible reward jobs for Cossssie being a good boy:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/15/newspoll-53-47-2/all-comments/#comment-289016
Finns
Holds lighter (waterproof of course) in the air. I bow to your skill oh finned one.
bob1234 @ 42
Yes, I remember Peter Baldwin. Why do you ask?
WE really need a blog / website to just list limited news’ daily lies in brief concise detail, then publicise the website
Got serious reservations about this, particularly with what is going on with the fake email currently. Who knows what costello could spin with “inside” information in order damage the government.
Whats next, appointment of howard to some junket role?
Seriously doubt if the libs will EVER go down such a road.
Why is Swan yelling. Relax.
Swan’s not saying anything about Grech hitting reply all, he’s now saying it was because he was being updated and he was at home. If he was in the office, he might have been updated differently.
Swannie is doing great. Very powerful performance
Oakes has given up on attacking Swan – now moving onto Rudd
Swan kicking goals ALL over the paddock !
Yeah, this is possibly the softest interview I’ve ever seen.
I wouldn’t assume they would. Journos don’t share sources.
All but confirms Costello will get a government job of some kind.
All points raised by Oakes hit out of the ground by Swan.
Turnbull is in big trouble and hiding out trying to concoct something to save his neck.
So now the libs seek to smear a senior member of the press gallery. Some say the doyen of the the canberre press gallery.
The libs are the ones with form a la MHR, the Lindsay pamplets. Believe there was also an attempt with pamplets in 2004 election ??
If you thought the Iraq War couldn’t get more reprehensible:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/20/iraq-war-inquiry-brown-blair
I don’t know why Swan doesn’t just confront the issue: politicians do favours and make representations on behalf of constituents all the time. By trying to make out he’s being scrupulously fair and even handed to everyone, doling out precisely equal measures of help that could be examined by the Auditer General (or angels on the head of a pin) he’s legitimizing Turnbull’s sttack and prolonging the agony.
The alternative is for no minister to help anyone. This patently absurd and would be rejected as much by the Coalition MPs as by Labor.
Turnbull accused Rudd and Swan have misled the Parliament.
I accuse Turnbull has misled the Australian people.
Gee Oz, you are obsessed with finding something to confirm your fantasy that Swan should resign.
Rudd has come out this morning and said he has done nothing wrong and won’t be resigning. Further he stands by all he has said in the Parliament regarding this matter. By the look on his face he is relishing the opportunity to clear his name and put Turnbull in a box.
Are you on crack? I’m probably further away from supporting the Liberals than you are.
Suggesting that the interview was soft is not “smearing” anyone, get over it.
Oz’s approach from the get go has been that of a lynch mob – hey someone get a rope !
Well the worm has turned – turnbull has made big claims and cannot substantiate said claims.
And he still has to face public exposure and examination of his own past……
Also, Psephos kept talking about Abetz reading out the alleged email in the inquiry. I don’t think he did this. The only email he read out was from Thomas, highlighting the fact that these emails were being sent to Swan’s fax.
Dave and Greensborough Growler, stop being precious.
Commenting on an interview is not a “smear” nor is calling for a “lynch mob”. No need to be so sensitive.
*nor is it.
I asked before, is there a Nessie in Lake Burley Griffin?
BB
That’s completely true. The ONLY reason there is a suggestion of something improper here is that Rudd received that ute from Grant. If a MP helps out a constituent they’re doing their job. But if the MP receives a “bribe” for the help it become a problem.
The ute was ages ago and well before this happened.
Fair go – Oz ain’t a Liberal. Let’s not say things you can’t take back!
What the Opposition and some of the media are trying to do is go beyond that and create this impression of Grant having “Labor mates” and Rudd and Swan helping out their “mate”. The evidence for this is pretty equivocal and is limited to Grant lending Rudd a ute, being friends with him, being his neighbour, meeting Swan a few times and selling Swan a car.
I think Rudd should take the opportunity to appoint Lindsay Tanner to Treasurer. Not so much against Swan, but Tanner has proven himself to be an excellent cabinet minister.
George Megalogenis thinks Rudd has set the bar so low in the terms of reference for the A-G inquiry that he’s bound to be cleared.
Laurie Oakes asked Swan why the terms of reference don’t cover him. If Swan thinks he’s in the clear he should just let the A-G expand the inquiry into his office and that way we get the definitive truth either way.
Poor Megalogenis is now being forced to defend The Australian’s attack on Rudd’s school stimulus. You can tell he hates it.
I think Rudd should leave Swan right where he is. He has proven himself to be an excellent cabinet minister.
SNIP: See article four of comment moderation guidelines.
Has anybody noticed that there is not ONE Oppo. polly on the airwave this morning.
This is telling.
Oz,
Precious is you cobber!
You’re the one desperately maintaining the tin foil conspiracy theories.
They probably think they’ve let the cat out of the bag and will let Labor hurt themselves rather than the Liberals trying to hurt them. How many times has Liberal attacks on Rudd failed in the past?
Not seeing anything. So is Swan pressing the attack on the Liberal Party?
Brian Toohey just ripped Costello.
“Didn’t implement a single economic reform and left the budget in structural deficit. A bad legacy for 11 years as treasurer”.
All true, except for the GST.
81
More likely is they don’t want to be questioned about the fake email. They can’t come on tele and attack Swan and expect to get away with ‘no comment’ when asked about the PM.
Repeat what I said on Friday. This thing is going nowhere.
dyno,
An AG investigation, an AFP investigation and demands for Turnbull’s resignation.This thing is going somewhere. It’s just not where the Libs want it to.
Moral for the Libs:
If you use a dodgy old ute as a prop, best to check the steering is working properly.
By the newspapers and tv media this morning, the blogsphere is way ahead of the MSM reporting and debate on this subject.
None of these articles in news ltd tell the public why it’s wrong for swan to forward constituents to the appropriate departments.
None of these articles have answered why it’s swan fault that Grech is an over enthusiastic public servant whom wants to please his boss. His impressions don’t and shouldn’t count, it’s the facts that should be published and the facts are that Swan or Thomas didn’t put pressure or ask Grant to be granted special treatment.
None of these articles say that Grant didn’t ask to PM for favours.
None of these articles really delve into Turnbull’s and Lewis’s involvement in this and where is this so called email that Turnbull has been using to intimidate and abuse.
I can’t believe that this story came out of an email not seen by the reporter but read to over the phone. No hard copy has been produced. Why, because the Libs are in this up to their scrawny necks, helped by Lewis, and todays bag of journo’s and News Ltd.
It’s remarkable that in todays media, that they don’t see anything wrong in their part of the reporting of this story. How is the public supposed to gain any idea of the story without having watching the senate enquiry, by reading today’s papers you would think that some of the journo’s didn’t even watch the enquiry. Where is the publics instant avenue for complaint. Delayed comments or comments that don’t even get published. Dismissed as rubbish by the reporters of the story, what avenue does the public have to complain instantly.
The word is that was Howard’s baby – yes Costello had to sell it though.
Cassidy on “Insiders” attempted to do a hatchet job on Rudd and Swann in his introductory segment. Appeared to be Cassidy’s petty payback for Rudd standing him up during the last week of the ‘07 election.
What makes Cassidy ratbaggery so egregious was that he had the chance to strongly pursue the same accusations with Julia Gillard in their interview as he had been making to the panel. But knowing Julia would carve him up like a Christmas goose (as in past interviews) Cassidy made only a minimal, very careful questioning before quickly moving on to ask her a couple Dorothy Dixers about Costello and her visit with Veep Biden etc. Gillard was totally relaxed and comfortable when defending Rudd and demanding that Turnbull in Parliament tomorrow produce the evidence (Gretch email?) that for days he’s been using to smear Rudd or resign.
Only blessing was that none of the loony journos like Piers or Lewis today. Guess they’re busy searching for Grech’s email. Instead, it was the best day to have the estimable, George Meganopolous on the panel.
Thanks ltep. William (and the WA Supreme Court) has already convinced me to modify my belief system to match reality. And now I know what to call that which had not existed (in my head) before.
Dogma @ 88,
Very good analysis of the News Ltd media coverage.`
Basically, in effect, News Ltd is doing the Liberals dirty work for them and also trying to not only limit any damage to the Libs in this whole saga, but trying to at least get a hit or two on the Government at the same time.
Because the whole MSM (including the electronic media) continually feed of each other in a totally incestuous way, they are able to set the public agenda in the way that they consider of most benefit to the Opposition.
I hope that the whole smelly, corrupt stack of cards falls in a self inflicted heap and something more appropriate to a democratic Australian media can rise from the ashes.
It has long passed its used-by date and is now a national embarrassment and scandal!
My quick summation:
Rudd – clear
Swan – less clear, but no chance of going – nor should he still no evidence or even any real suggestion of abuse of power.
Turnbull – badly outplayed – he aimed too high and now looks sloppy; based everything on an email that looks like a fake (not a good look for a hot shot lawyer to lay charges based on forged evidence – even if he didn’t do the forging, it rather destroys the credibility of the case).
I notice from his statemernt on the website he has changed the language a bit:
Yesterday –
in the statement:
No mention of who composed it – no mention of “the Liberal Party” – now just the opposition.
His reference to the Charlton file not is very slippery – Turnbull talked of “documentary evidence”. Is it now Turnbull is saying he referred to the existence of such evidence without actually having seen it?? Why would a lawyer do that? Very odd…
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=3317
Of course much of the murdoch media suck-hole journalists have no interest in telling the full truth if it doesn’t help the Liberal Party. They will linger on the best half truth they can find, out of context, that implies the worse possible case for the (Labor) govt.
If you live anywhere in the world you come to expect that from many a murdoch media hack. These people are the trash of Australian society.
William, Tasmania holds its local government elections in October. The elections are conducted by post, with ballot paper material posted out and returned over a period of several weeks. LC by-elections are conducted on an election day but also involves sending material to voters informing them that an election is being held. This is done to encourage turnout. My guess is that it would be easiest to conduct the by-election while extra staff are employed for the local government elections, or just before or after if the overlap is a problem.
My understanding is that LC elections are never held on the same day as Assembly elections, though I’m not sure if this is legislated. Pembroke at least has the advantage of being entirely contained within Franklin, but would still adminstratively difficult to conduct as polling officials have to check whether a Franklin voter is also entitled to vote in Pembroke. There is also the problem that Legislative Council elections have strict expenditure limits, which would be impossible to control for party candidates if the Council election was conducted in conjunction with an Assembly election.
I posted this yesterday, but it’s always worth remembering, from Shaun Carney, last weekend,
“……Rudd is not highly popular among his colleagues, in the same way that he is not particularly liked by most members of the political media.”
That’s fine, there’s no rule to say any reporter has to like any PM. But when it impacts on their objectivity, it then becomes a problem.
Look at how many, not all, but many of the media were very happy to quickly believe that Rudd was corrupt. When you start from a position of not liking someone it is very easy to believe almost anything negative about them. That explains a lot of the hysteria – it was hysteria that they finally got their man.
What do you reckon the odds are of getting a Federal version of ICAC out of this shambles?
Very bad of me to admit this, but I wouldn’t be too upset if Swan had to resign, because I think Tanner would make a better Treasurer.
However, if the email doesn’t turn up, Turnball should go!
Well put. Now that “WAS” a soft interview especially in comparision with the Oakes interview earlier, which I might add, was an occasion where Oakes was smart enough to realise that he had to tread fairly carefully with any assertions made in his questions after what recently happened in SA.
He probably wants somewhere to live after retirement whereas, if this goes really pear shaped for Turnbull, many besmirched Labor Members might just decide that they have had enough of News Ltd hacks and their partisan lies and inuendo and take the gloves off and start dumping writs left right and centre.
I’ve been expecting Pies to get an in-tray full for a while now and I think people have just been waiting to get enough on him to bury him and his employer good and proper!
Scorpio,
I was one of the first that said that Rudd’s behaviour has been wrong in the past and governments should be scrutinized, but this behaviour by 70% of today’s media is becoming a group thinkathon. God helps us if one decides to actually do some independant thinking or investigative reporting. It sends a shiver down todays medias spines. Their is a reason why journo’s are consider the be on the low rung of today’s vocations in public opinion and these News articles prove that.
One political reporter writes a story without any hard copy evidence off the word of the opposition leader and takes a very stressed and uncomfortable public servant, whose admits his memory is faulty and 1 + 3 = 1000000
How does the Australian public get a media watchdog like the american version of the media matters. Americans also have the likes of Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report to make fun of the absurdities that are printed and talked about in the media.
I’m fed up!!
Dave at 50 had a good idea re exposing MSN’s lies on a site. Perhaps Pure Poison can make a space somewhere and then it can be circulated around the web.
Antony – what is period of LCs in Tasmania – do they run the same as the Parliament and do they have fixed term dates in Tassie.
GG,
If it is shown by one of the investigations that the Liberals faked the e-mail, then I agree with you, it’s going somewhere bad for the Liberals.
If not, then any calls for Turnbull’s resignation are just blatant politicking and will be treated as such by all but the Labor faithful.
We will see what the investigations bring!
“Turnbull Malfunctions over Ute-gate”
Headline on the Daily Liberal, Monday 22nd June.
So says Pollbludger.
It’s my recollection (but it may be totally faulty!) that towards the end of the session Abetz tried to ask Grech two questions: did the email he thought he may have seen correspond to a form of words suggested by Abetz (ie, the text of the purported email which has now been published), and was it from Andrew Charlton. Since the transcript isn’t available yet, I can’t be more certain than that.
Scorpio -99 I hope you are right and a few of them do sue.
I notice the OO (or DL) was careful to print John Grant’s comments carefully. I think he would have taken them for a ride if they hadn’t.
Of course the headlines are only to get people to buy the papers. Wonder how many fall for it because usually the end paragraphs refute what the first paragraphs say.
ABC seems to be going harder on Rudd and Swan than any other Tv station tho.
Pephos – can you put an answer as to why Grech did not reply to the so-called Charlton email.
Isn’t it the done thing to at least acknowledge the receipt of it and say you’ll look into it.
Or is this not the way they do it in the PS
We all know Cassidy hates Rudd, how dare he appear on SUNRISE instead of Barry’s show!
He definitely mentioned Charlton. Not sure if he read out the text though.
Either way, it’s clear that contrary to Turnbull’s suggestions, the Liberals believed that such an email existed, thought it was real and knew its contents and who it was by.
BH, the Tasmanian LC has fixed six year terms, with 2 or 3 seats filled every year. The 15 council seats are single member electorates. By-elections are for the balance of a term. Pembroke is next facing election in 2013, so any by-election will be for the four year balance of the term.
Aristotle, I think it is easily explained in that many of them have been institutionalised somewhat by such a lengthy time being wedded to a long term Howard Government and their level of dependence on Howard himself who controlled the media feed to such an extent that they became just part of a long running system.
Rudd upset the long standing relationship which they had become so comfortable in for so long. The daily feed of media releases and the personal relationships individual reporters/commentators had built up with individual Liberal Members (especially Howard) had been rent asunder.
They haven’t been able to adjust to the new reality and the fact that they now have to either reinvent themselves in an “investigative” manner or else develop new relationships and adjust to the reality. That there are different people in charge with the power that that brings and the old team no longer have the ability to provide that comfortable, certain existence that went before.
Well put Oz. And I woud suggest they had the “email” or had heard of it back on 4 June.
Antony – 6years is a long time. Glad they don’t do it here. Our LC always has a couple of stirrers seeking revenge so it’s nice to kick them out sooner than 6 years.
Do they have divide along party lines or are they mostly independent members.
And hasn’t Joe Hockey been quiet. Man in waiting perhaps?
NSW and SA have eight year terms, the Senate and Tasmania six year terms. Only WA and Victoria have abandoned staggered terms and have members elected for the same term as the lower house, four years.
There is some background of the Tasmanian Legislative Council here http://www.abc.net.au/elections/tas/2009/legislativecouncil/background.htm
The other thing that irks me about all this is that the likely faked email that Turnbull has been apaprently touting around for a while is regarded by Cassidy as neither here nor there.
Turnbull is on a wrecking mission, using forged of fake emails to make a point that does not stand up otherwise, and now this is irrelevant and a smoke-screen by the government?
BH, I am not and never have been a public servant, so I don’t know the PS rule about that. I certainly reply to all emails I get at work, even if only to say “thanks” or “OK”.
But it does seem odd that if Charlton sent Grech an email asking him to follow up something *because the PM wants it followed up*, as the purported email says, that Grech never replied. If I was a public servant and I was asked to do something at the PM’s behest, I would reply at once with an assurance that I was doing it.
Oz, I have a clear recollection that there were two Abetz questions, one concerning the content of the alleged email and the second concerning its authorship. It was quite clear from the start of the Abetz interrogation that he was aware of the alleged email, its wording and its alleged authorship. That was the whole point of his interrogation of Grech. The Labor Senators obviously also thought Abetz had a real email, which is why they successfully prevented Grech anwering these two questions. (In retrospect this was a tactical error, but they weren’t to know that the email was a fake.)
Meanwhile, the Liberal groper article received exactly 1-2hrs of coverage online. Today it wasn’t even mentioned in any political reporting or in the first hr of insiders. Turnbull and Abezt set out to smother the story with ozcar, parliament is going to be a show stopper on Monday.
Oz I post infrequently, and do go to and read Liberal leaning sites to get a prespective on both sides of debate, but yesterdays debate on PB was exceptional and way ahead of any of the MSM reporting.
dyno re 102,
Labor has called for Turnbull to produce the email or resign. This is totally appropriate given Turnbull has backgrounded journalists and made a number of claims and demands based upon its existence and its contents.
A sure sign that the whole guts of the matter has gone pear shaped is the Libs now wailing about Labor playing politics.
Definitely. My comment was just a sly reference to the fact that PB itself is often accused of “groupthink”.
Good point, BH. But don’t leave it at Hockey. Where the hell are the other Libs? Labor’s had Rudd, Swan, Tanner and Gillard all hitting back hard. All the Liberals seem to have evaporated.
Yes, and Megalogenis too, was saying that souling the AFP onto the case was some kind of political victimization. Hey, George, if a crime has been committed, why not get the AFP involved?
At the same time Megalogenis was claiming that politicians should not be above the law and that there should be some kind of ombudsman or whatever overseeing political donations he was saying that… politicians should be above the law when it comes to police investigations.
Excuse me Dogma, but reporting reports something. Most of what was in the media yesterday was speculation and interpretation, as was everything on PollBludger. Nothing on this site had any extra information beyond what was reported, though perhaps there was different interpretation and observation.
As I always tell excited young politico types, wait before going off on a limb. A certain Steve Lewis, who is a MSM reporter, knows more about this than anyone commenting on this site. I presume he will have another bit of information in tomorrow’s paper, which makes it a bit hard to say this site is ahead of the MSM.
Oz,
Don’t worry, the Libs have Milne.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25667020-601,00.html
Damn you GG. I just spilt coffee everywhere!
Who would have thunk it!
Quote from Dr W Edeards Deming – ” There’s no such thing as a fact if it’s only what someone has reported.”
Antony Green above:
And if he does not?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25667052-5005961,00.html
I love the way that pieces such as this never have any authorship attributed to them. Because they aren’t necessarily supportive of the Lib position, then the author is sheltered from a blast from Liberal Headquarters for not following the script!
The Libs may or may not be paying politics but I don’t think Labor are, they seem to be deadly serious.
Who is for letting Christian Kerr know that PB had it sorted out early Friday night.
Still – if they’d done that too there would be no headlines for the rest of the weekend papers and telly, would there.
Is Julia G going to be back for QT this week or will she still be away.
Oz – I just find it very curious that Hockey has remained quiet. Did this fax emanate from someone he knew seeing that he mentioned Grech first.
He is always in front of the camera, spouting his gigantic inferior knowledge.
We need an explanation Joe.
Today on Insiders Paul Kelly, who is so senior and so rich that Rupert permits him to depart from the News Ltd. anti-Labor propaganda line, was telegraphing that Murdoch media will be hounding Swan as long as it takes.
I concur with others (e.g. Evan @ 98) that replacing Swan with Tanner or Gillard (who wanted the Treasury portfolio before anyway) would enhance Labor’s electoral prospects. Had Julia Bishop not been such a dill, this would have been obvious long before now.
BB, who knows, but I’d be pretty certain than Steve Lewis has more ability to speculate on where his information from than anybody here.
Actually, I would dispute that in this case.
The discussion on PB about Grech and Swan started before the MSM published anything to do with the inquiry, because some of us were watching it live.
The information that Grech was a former employee of PM&C was raised here and has thus far not been mentioned in the MSM.
The suggestions that Turnbull was shopping around this story to journo’s was discussed here before either Rudd, Swan or anyone in the media raised it.
Most of PB came to the conclusion that the email was a fake prior to News Ltd’s furious back-pedalling and use of terms like “alleged email”.
There was much info discussed here that was only later reported, or in some cases it still hasn’t been reported, in the MSM.
Something to smile at this Sunday morn. Video is very good.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2492640/Obama-shown-hilarious-vid.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
Scorpio, pieces like that generally just wires from a service like AAP.
It’s easy to tell because the same article is published across all the news sites.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-gives-turnbull-24-hours-to-produce-email-evidence-20090621-cs89.html
It does is “Article from: AAP” at the top right.
Maybe, maybe not. But at the end of the day, Swan’s job is even more secure after the latest attacks.
AG, my question remains: what if he does not? Does this mean that others cannot speculate? Are we just supposed to accept his story at face value?
Antony, sounds as if you know something here that I don’t, but Lewis’ actions seem pretty amatuerish so far. As I see it, he was leaked something, called Grech 3 times and did not get the answer he was after, called a fourth time and did. Haltingly. There’s obviously more to play out somewhere, but Lewis seems like no Hersch to me.
Anthony
Exactly my point if they are going to write an article about an email that the reporter said that it was “read” to him over the phone and he didn’t even publish the hard copy, then yes it was speculation. In that case all reporters could speculate and publish unsubstaniated facts and that would be alright with reporters, but it’s not right.
PB were one of the first to write about the fake email by analysing and debating the evidence given at the senate enquiry and comparing it to what was written and televised in the media.
Anthony I see I’ve might have upset you and that to me is genuinely regrettable, but media must be able to take the criticism constructively and if Lewis has somehow now can produce this email on hardcopy, I would be very interested to see where it originated from, but he doesn’t and hasn’t yet, all we’ve had from him is something that was read to him.
Oz,
Agree with you (for once).
What hasn’t been discussed in the media is their shifting focus and why that has happened. The role of the media is a central part of this story and there does not seem to be much analysis of that apart from PB.
Also, the alleged discrepancy between what Turnbull told Charlton on Wednesday night and his claims that the Libs don’t have the email.
Oz, I’m always astonished at the certainty with which people state views on blog sites.
Antony – if Lewis had something else why was he backpedalling so fast yesterday.
AG, you are posting on a blog site.
I have read back over Friday afternoon’s PB discussion, which is the nearest we currently have to the transcript. There is no direct reference to Abetz reading out the alleged email, so it may be that my recollection of that is faulty – I was a bit overwrought at the time, foolishly believing that there was actually an email.
However, at 4.09pm Jaundiced View said: “Apparently a copy of the email from Rudd’s office for Treasury assistance exists, and Abetz has it.” So I was not alone in forming the view that Abetz had the text of the alleged email in front of him when he was questioning Grech.
Antony
Are you suggesting Lewis will dribble the story out to maximize the news cycle, instead of one article that sets it out the way he sees it ( when it is all said and done, that is the best a reporter can do).
Which is the worst accusation? yours, or the assumption he was misled. The fascinating question is, who did the misleading, and just how silly will the MSM look?
Overall the whole thing is so trivial Turnbull is no more likely to resign than Rudd was, it’s just rubbish to fill column inches, broadcast hours and a topic for people to argue over on a blog. The latter group can generally claim they aren’t trying to report significant stuff and have an excuse to deal with trivia.
Oz, but they should have an acknowledgement, either authorship, source of origin or preferably, both!
I read countless dozens of pieces yesterday from a wide variety of sources and was astounded at the level of commonality of much of the content of them and as they were released on the web, it was easy to observe the theme changing to suit other developments such as the live media statements.
It was easy to see the focus change quickly away from Rudd and towards a concerted but weak attack on Swan and trying to minimise damage to Turnbull although the date & time stamps on the WA pieces left me perplexed. Does WA operate a day behind the rest of Australia?
BB – no, I’m not saying you can’t speculate, but your speculation can’t be better informed than his. Let’s say I have my own experiences on this site of people imputing views on me and my own motivations that I know to be wrong, so I have a healthier level of scepticism that blog sites are always better informed than the dreaded MSM.
Antony, the attacks on your integrity by the crackpot van der Craats were very unpleasant, but you know he is not representative of PB users.
I never thought Abetz had the actual email. I think the Libs have only ever had the text as read out to Steve Lewis, which does not constitute “documentary evidence”.
Antony
It’s not really very surprising. We don’t have to back it up and our jobs aren’t on the line if we get it wrong.
Pancho, I don’t ‘know’ anything more on this subject. Fredn, I don’t ‘know’ what Lewis will do, I don’t ‘know’ who gave him information. But Lewis will be better placed to speculate on what happened than anybody on here, unless there is someone on here who does ‘know’ rather than can speculate on what happened.
Now I’m going for a swim and then for a friend’s birthday drinks, which is far more interesting reading than endless speculation.
Diogenes, it was your view at 4.13pm on Friday that “We’ve got a new PM”. Is that still your view?
Surely the Liberals had the ‘email’. They cannot have been stupid enough to mobilise like they did on a whisper from News Ltd that there may be something incriminating somewhere.
This is what makes me think the Libs (and Lewis/the story) is in big trouble. They have seen something, yet they backpedalled yesterday. If this was all a trap, Mal would’ve just kept his mouth shut and let Labor hang themselves.
Psephos, he’s the least of my worries.
I don’t think anyone here has said ‘always’. On this occassion PB was ahead of the MSN IMO.
Antony – wasn’t having a dig, just thinking aloud. Love your work!
Re the tired old saga of ABC bias, this is their current lead story:
Rudd to Turnbull: Prove it or resign
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan have given Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull 24 hours to produce an email at the centre of political misconduct allegations.
The Federal Opposition is demanding Mr Swan step down, saying he has used his position to seek special treatment for Queensland car dealer John Grant, a friend of Mr Rudd.
The Opposition says an email shows Mr Rudd also misled Parliament over the issue.
But the Government says the email is a fake and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have been called in to investigate.
Mr Rudd says the email must be produced to Parliament tomorrow so its authenticity can be verified.
“If when Parliament resumes in 24 hours Mr Turnbull fails to produce this email, this email upon which his entire case against the Government is based, for authentication, he has no alternative but to stand in the Parliament, apologise and to resign,” Mr Rudd said.
Mr Swan also says the pressure is now on Mr Turnbull to provide any evidence.
“He’s got some very serious questions to answer about his role in this email, or this fake email,” Mr Swan told Channel Nine.
“What knowledge does he have of it? Where did he see it? Who did he get it from? And if he can’t produce that then he should resign.”
Seems very fair to me. And not good for Turnbull.
I looked my video recording again, tragic i know, of that crucial half an hour, these are Abertz’s questions and statements:
1. Abertz was the first to use the term “email” from the PMO office, previous to that it was abot “correspondece”
2. He said: “A person has, a journalist, has suggested to me, there maybe, there may have been a communication from the PMO, and allow me along these lines, and i want to know if they are familiar to Mr. Grech. He then read out that famous “email”. He then said it has been suggested to him, as well as in the media that such a document exists.
3. He said asked again: “Mr. Grech, do the words sound familiar to you and were they part of a document emananted from the PMO?”
4. He then said if Mr. Grech has sighted such a document that I have just read out.
5. He then asked: “Representation was made to you Kay Hull, Bruce Bilson, and what about by Charlton, Mr. Andrew Charlton”.
I got the video.
Psephos
I believe I was the first to call it!!!! Incorrectly as it turned out.
My comment was based on two premises;
1. That if the email was a genuine one, it meant that Charlton had approached Grech on Rudd’s behalf.
2. Rudd’s quote in Parliament “Neither I nor anyone in my office….”
It turns out that the email was fake, and that Rudd was misquoted. So I was wRONg.
In my defence, if you look at the transcripts, I believe I was the first to analyse the text of the email and say it was fake, and that I was one of the first to say Turnbull would end resigning.
I’ll probably be wrong on that too.
Finnigans – I found it very interesting that no opposition players were visible this morning in the media—-
But I didn’t think it was a case of the opposition running for cover, it was more akin to the goverment rushing all players into the defensive 50.
Why on earth would Turnbull resign if the email is fake?
emananted = emanated
More or less astonished that when those who supposedly sign up to a journalistic code of ethics publish complete bollocks, regularly?
I have the feeling that you’re not as convinced as many others here as to whether the email or not is a fake. As to the question of who Lewis’ source is, you’re right, Lewis knows that better than anyone here.
So we’ll have to wait and see what the truth is!
But there are a number of other pieces of information, directly related to ute/emailgate, that have emerged via discussion and research.
Naturally there’s speculation as well, but it’s certainly nothing above the speculation in the MSM.
Psephos,
You should have heard the radio versions this morning. Still calling ‘Government in Crisis’. But may be ABC journalists don’t get up early enough in the mornings.
I think it is lucky for the Government that this story broke on a Friday and will have turned completely by tomorrow. The shock jocks would have had a field day if they’d been on air yesterday.
Finnigans, any chance of uploading the video?
Martin Hamilton-Smith as new Special Advisor to Tunbull?
I wouldn’t put it past News Ltd. to have another bit of info tucked away for the Monday media cycle.
Because he will have sent the wrecking ball through the processes of government one too many times.
Psephos
Abetz definitely had the text of the ‘email’ at Friday’s committee. It wasn’t possible to detect whether it had the actual header etc of a normal email, but Abetz obviously ‘knew’ it was from Charlton to Grech.
#162, i will see what i can do.
So. Who’s up for Wentworth? I assume that Labor will also have a harder look for their candidate.
The Finnigans
Ah, I see you have already confirmed that recollection. You have the committee video? You are hereby promoted to level 36 in the Central Bureaucracy, only 34 levels from the top, and above Hermes.
Erica has a “copy” of the email and read it out. there is no doubt.
jv, i’m from the groucho marx school of diplomacy
This is great. We’ve busted Malcolm.
Antony, you might be surprised at how often some of those certainties of viewpoint are overturned by other posters.
Although I will concede that some readily accept their error and others stick dogmatically to their preferred partisan position!
BB #164
I was actually asking why he should resign, not why is his position in the opposition strengthened by this affair
If I put my question differently, is there any formal mechanism that would force Turnbull to step down from his position? Surely its a matter for the party
Where is the party?
If it’s a fake, Turnbull’s credibility will be non-existent and no one will be able to take anything he says seriously. He can either pre-empt a party coup and resign or drag it out a la MHS in South Australian.
Antony,
Classic example of what I said in my previous post.
Yeah, Oz, conceded. Would still like to se authorship though.
My thanks to Finns for confirming that my recollection is correct. So Abetz had the text of the alleged email on Friday! Yet Turnbull denied yesterday that he had the email. Are we to believe that Abetz had the alleged email but Turnbull did not?? I don’t think so.
Can we refer to the person who read out the text of the email to Steve Lewis as “Deepthroat II” ?
And then the MSM can copy us later…
Yes there is. An election. See: Howard 2007.
Adam
Turnbull is probably drawing a distinction between having the email and having the text of the email.
It’s very unlikely, especially when you correlate it with the fact that Turnbull and Hockey were ranting about it in QT well before last week. And Hockey even mentioned Grech by name.
Someone (Howard?) should explain to MT what “plausible” means in “plausible deniability”.
So either Turnbull had the email and lied about it yesterday.
Or he had an email read out to him by persons unknown and used that as a basis to accuse the Prime Minister of corruption and misleading parliament.
Which is worse?
Oz.
Both of them!
Ok, so no mechanism to unseat Malcom other than democracy at work at the next election.
is is the same for Rudd/Swan? If there is an email (or other evidence) that contradicts their answer to questions in Parliament, what is the process then??
or do we just wait until the next election
1. I agree with jaundiced view @ 165. Abetz (appeared to) read out the “A” to “Godwin” communication exactly as it has since appeared on Twitter & in the media
2. Re Grech, the supposed email & normal PS behaviour. Gough was a new PM when, promoted to a PS management job, I had my first briefing the Iron Rule of the PS “Keep your back covered”, by “Laying a paper trail” and not much older when I was told that smart PSs (Fordafax/xerox) copied everything copiously, and kept either the original or a Xeroxed copies in a safe place, discovering “That’s what bank boxes are for”. If I’d been Grech, I’d have copied to disc, flash drive, personal external HD & photocopied it – and stuck copies in said box.
That he didn’t beggars belief!
3.Re Cossie’s “Job” as head of the FF – big news at Fairfax & NewsLtd – was mere rumour, as Swan & Gillard both made clear, tho she mentioned he could apply for any job.
jv@168 – level 36 of the bureacracy is actually 36 from the top and 1 below Hermes.
I said at the start this business that it would be the ruination of either Rudd or Turnbull. I still hold that view. Rudd has gone way out on a limb that this email is a fake. If it is found, he is screwed. If the email is shown to be a fake, Turnbull is screwed, because he has nothing else on Rudd at all. The case of Swan is a bit more murky, but there is nothing that Swan can’t bluff his way through. When the AG/AFP reports are in, we will know whether the email exists or not. Depending on that, either Rudd or Turnbull will be politically dead meat, whether they actually resign or not (and I think Rudd would have to). My money is on Turnbull being the one who is screwed, but that’s just my opinion.
Unless, something else is uncovered, no-one will either step down or be sacked.
The issue is purely political and will play out purely politically, that is, whose voter perceptions will be enhanced – Turnbull’s or Rudd’s? (Swan is basically irrelevant, he’s a small potato).
It’s pretty clear Turnbull is the big loser, he will be seen as a reckless opportunist, and the impact on Rudd’s perceptions will be neutral or slightly positive – maybe even greatly positive (eg Burke) if he is seen to have been set-up.
Political insiders just don’t get it, people do not like this stuff, unless there is some real corruption at play.
Psephos
Turnbull will have to change his story. No other alternative. He will say that they were read the text of the email ‘over the phone’ like Lewis, or something like that, but that he has never had a screen print out of the ‘email’ itself. This still leaves him having to explain where the text came from. Poor bastard. That is, in the sense of the public service ‘you poor bastard’ flow chart:
http://home.paonline.com/rmeyer32/TROUBLE.pdf
Finnigans – Has Ratsars been training you, by any chance?
But if that opinion is shared be enough (<5?) swinging voters in the Liberal party room then it magically becomes a fact!
What are the bookies paying?
I agree with Psephos at 186, but I think Rudd should take the opportunity to clear up the murkiness around Swan as well.
The AG and AFP investigation should look at what Swan or his office did. If, as Swan states, nothing inappropriate occurred then good for him. If the AG or AFP find that Swan’s office did give Grant special and/or he mislead parliament, then I don’t think even the people here would try and contradict them.
Whatever the end result, it would be a win for transparency and accountability. Which, to me, is more important than the risk of Swan losing his career.
Yeah, but it’s not really public outrage that brings down politicians in Australia. They either do it themselves or their parties do it. Sometimes it’s completely disconnected from public opinion.
If Turnbull goes, it would have to be Hockey wouldn’t it? There’s no one else…
The “text” of an email means nothing without the context provided by the additional information on the sender and recipient. Otherwise all you have is some words which may or may not have been sent by someone unknown to some unknown recipient.
I could easily type up some words which sound like the text of an email from some politician to some public servant and send it anonymously to Turnbull. Will that have any credibility in Turnbull’s mind that it is a copy of an authentic communication? Could it be Turnbull has allowed his ambition to override his common sense and think that he had something which he hoped was authentic and therefore run with it without supporting evidence for its authenticity? If so, his credibility and judgement will be severely damaged in the eyes of his colleagues, which could be fatal for his career.
Oz.
Hockey has no statesman-like quality as an alternative PM.
I just read Paul from Berwick (3391 last blog). Is idea that someone (may be from Lib Right) is out to get Turnbull is interesting.
But they would have to have been sure that Rudd really had no involvement in seeking money for John Grant.
Farfetched but interesting.
And still no Joe Hockey comment. That is so strange.
In our consideration of the fake email have we considered that it may not be fake with regard to content?
First, it would be unusual in a fake email to sign it ‘A’ rather than the person’s full first name one was trying to forge.
Second the contents of the fake email do not contain evidence of impropriety or corrupt behaviour by Rudd or the PM’s office, which presumably one would be trying to do if one invented the email with the purpose of setting up Rudd.
The email is only a problem in the context of Rudd’s absolute denial that he was advised that neither he nor his office made representation on behalf of Grant. If you were trying to set someone up with a forgery you would be more blatant with the language by the use of words such as ‘ The PM wants Mr Grant’s problem fixed’, or ‘The PM wants special consideration to be given to Mr Grant’s problem’. .
Given that this email doesn’t quite look like a forged email designed to bring down the PM, the other possibility is that it is genuine, and the obvious suspect for the author is the other Andrew. Ie Andrew Thomas the Departmental Liaison Officer (DLO) in the Treasurer’s office who knows Godwin personally. This would mean the fakery of the email is not the content, but the attribution of authorship to Andrew Charlton in the PM’s office. If the email was from Andrew Thomas it would explain why Godwin Grech thought there had been a communication from the PM’s office on this matter. He had received an email saying that the PM wanted action on this matter but he was confused in thinking the communication had come by email from the PM’s office to him. Instead the advice the PM wanted action had appeared in the email from A. (Andrew Thomas).
If my hypothesis is correct, and Andrew Thomas is the author of the words in the fake email, then we still need to know whether he actually received advice from the PM’s office to do something about Grant, or whether he was just guessing that the PM’s office would want something done because Grant was a friend of the PM and in his electorate. And then we have to discover who leaked the email and why.
Meant ‘his idea’
Another first for PB.
The email Abetz was reading from IS NOT the fake Lewis email. The text is different.
This is the Lewis email;
And this is a transcript of the Senate hearing; (I’m including Barnaby’s comment because it’s quite funny)
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2009/s2603951.htm
You will note that the text Abetz reads out IS NOT the Lewis text. It might be the Andrew Thomas email though, which I haven’t seen.
That’s been the story of his whole career. His ambition has overridden everything else.
(Probably born of his desperate desire to prove himself worthy of his father. There are three types of men – those who want to kill their fathers, those who want to escape from their fathers, and those who want to be their fathers. Turnbull is the latter.)
Sorry, I’m posting a lot, but further developments.
From Bernard Keane:
And 5 things that make sense, also from Keane:
1. why would Godwin Grech wreck his career saying he had been contacted by the PMO if he hadn’t – but where is the email if he did?
2. why would Rudd destroy an email, call in the Feds and hope they found nothing rather than admitting fault and sacking the adviser
3. Why would Charlton bother to contact Grech if Swan’s office had already passed on Ripoll’s request
4. Why would Grant deny he’d contacted the PMO? It can be checked very easily if he did.
5. And why was Treasury so eager to gag Grech yesterday on whether it was Andrew Charlton who contacted him when he’d already said the PMO had.
Point 1 can be explained by the “impersonating a public official” scenario. If you accept that, points 2 and 3 make sense.
But if you take the email to be real than question 2 remains pertinent. Unless Rudd knows that the email, or other evidence, is so damaging that he would have to resign and couldn’t get away with just sacking his staffer. So he took the risk of trying to cover it up and calling in the AG to help mask it. Not sure how plausible this is.
No clue on 3, 4 and 5.
This is the best i can do, the audio of the crucial 10mins:
http://users.tpg.com.au/tjhpnq98//grech.mp3
The new focus, Turnbull and the fake email. He is screwed on either scenario. Might be cheaper for him in a defamation case if he actually had a copy of the fake and was working off that.
Diogenes, at that point in time Abetz was reading from Thomas’ email, I’m quite sure. Insiders showed it this morning.
Pancho
Well spotted. I think Hermes was at several levels at various times in the episode, but I thought started at level 35, 35 levels from the top. But don’t trust me, because like Hermes said:
Ratsars can clear it up.
No, no Diogenes, Oz is right – I’m sure that bit of the transcript is one of the Swan messages, not the Rudd ‘Charlton’ one. We’ll have to listen to Finns mp3 I’m afraid.
If Keane’s tip is right and it was either Charlton or Grech that leaked, there’s a couple more angles.
I find it difficult to believe that Charlton would leak it. He’s a Rhode scholar with political ambitions and is a member of the Labor right.
That leaves Grech. Which means that either Grech made the whole thing up or he’s telling the truth and it’s a cover up by Rudd.
Thanks Finns, good quality. Listening now.
The Greens try and get themselves in on the debate (lol). Channelling some from PB, they call for the creation of an ICAC like body.
http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/greens-call-government-develop-corruption-commission
Abetz: “A person… a journalist, in fact, has suggested to me…”
Doug Cameron interjecting in his brogue: “Yeah, what’s their track record?”
Oz,
The first thing such a body should investigate is Brown’s donation scam, wouldn’t you agree?
Why not? The purpose should not just be to find corruption but also clear the air over allegations of corruption.
I think it would be a waste of time and money, considering the word of Piers Akerman is not generally enough to grant conviction, but if it increases transparency, go for it.
In other news: Abetz was definitely reading from the email.
Finns
Abetz reads the exact text of the Lewis email.
I’m listening to Finn’s recording. Abetz DOES read out the “Lewis email” verbatim.
Abetz got the text from Lewis. That’s settled:
‘A journalist has suggested to me that there may have been a communication from the PM’s office’ He then reads out the Lewis text as reported later.
Further from inquiry,
When Abetz was asking whether Grech had received correspondence from Kay Hull and Billson, Martine and the Labor senators were happy to let him answer but as soon as he said “Andrew Charlton”, Martine interjected and refused to let him answer.
This also confirms Abetz had more than the “text” and at least the sender and recipient as well.
What business does a journalist have feeding material to a Liberal Senator to use in a hearing to damage the government?
This no cover up, Rudd was quick out of the box with AG and AFP , supremely confident that he knew there was nothing to it and all the other players are a little more quiet.
Has anyone said that Grech probably got it wrong that this contact from the PMO was about Grant, and not about the constituent from Maxine McKew’s electorate that asked about his caryard financing situation?
Rudd has said in parliament – I think, that his office contacted or directed this constituent to treasury dept. Can anyone else confirm this?
Rather puts Lewis on the spot doesn’t it? Antony thinks Lewis will spill more tomorrow. I think he’ll have to lay it all out. I doubt the journalists code for protection of sources will be acceptable to the AFP or a court in these circumstances.
Martine is leaving himself a lot of wriggle room:
“There were no phone calls from the Prime Minister’s office and we’ve been able to *locate* no correspondence in relation too…”
As I mentioned above, word is that Lewis’ source is either Charlton or Grech.
I think that Grech is an example of Howard’s damage to the public service culture.
A high level public servant appears to be more interested in ingratiating himself with his Ministerial masters and their political crony advisers than ethical behaviour. Did he really take it upon himself to push the case of an individual car dealer (who he thought was the PM’s mate) whilst discussing a very large deal with Ford Credit? Fixing problems for pollies’ mates outside of legal requirements and due process was not the role of public servants.
And where are the basic skills of record keeping that Grech can’t track down whether he received an email or not on which he supposedly took some action?
You’ve got to hand it to Abetz. The tactics of the Labor senators and Martine were very, very poor.
What’s the likely strategy in QT?
If Labor want to pass a censure motion and call on Turnbull to resign then it would only take place after Turnbull has had the time and space to make a statement. How does the Government provide him that opportunity?
What motive would Charlton have for faking an email from himself to Grech, then giving it to the anti-Labor press? It could only be an elaborate exercise to entrap Turnbull. If so it’s worked brilliantly and he will get the Labor Hacks’ Gold Medal with Swords and Oak Leaves. But I doubt that anyone could be that machiavellian. I can’t imagine what motive Grech could have had.
JV, FYI
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/04/dolphin.jpg
MHS?
The other thing the recording does is give Turnbull a little space – he can say ‘We were told of the text of an email by a journalist and we said it was from a journalist in the committee. We believed the journalist. Yes, we are now covered in ordure, but we thought we had confirmation that the email had been received by Treasury (Grech).
But Turnbull’s stuck with his call for the PM to resign on the basis of pure hearsay – opposition leaders look pretty paltry when they do that. He will have to apologise. But he probably won’t see the need to resign. Will it damage him enough in the party – who knows?
The Labor Senators were obviously under the impression that the email was genuine, and saw it as their duty to stop Grech blabbing about it. I assume that Martine thought his duty was to protect the wretched Grech, who seemed to be on the edge of tears (and who, as I have previously noted, has some kind of chronic illness). In retrospect it can be seen that the Labor Senators would have done better to shut up and let Grech sink further into the mire.
The scam is very easy to run. Put a fake email on Grechs desk he does his job, remove email later, quite simple. And the email has been specifically designed to be used by parliament to catch a ‘misleading’. And has already been shown the wording and sign off makes it fake.
Psephos
There’s no way Grech faked the email based on that audio. I still can’t work out if he gave it to Lewis, which seems unlikely, or if he just confirmed to Lewis that the text sounded about right.
Excellent work Finnigans, keeping that recording. Saved us from maybe 400 posts speculating up the wrong tree.
(But what is that strapped to your head?)
I still want to know what business Lewis had giving the email, genuine or fake, to the Libs, rather than publishing it. He has made himself a player here, not a reporter. Perhaps he could be called to the bar of the House and made to testify, as Frank Browne was in 1956.
Psephos – Tony Abbott included ‘machiavellian’ in his description of Rudd on Lateline so he may want to blame Rudd & Charlton for organising the whole email thing.
May be Grech has been the Deep Throat in Treasury to Turnbull since Nov 07. Someone said he had not been well in past couple of years – if he had turned up in my former office with that demeanour, both body and language, we would have been scared stiff to put him in the witness box.
I think something is being hidden and it is not only his bit about the email from PMO.
Any one else frm a law office game enough to put him in a witness box?
Note that in the recording Grech talks about a meeting he had with four or five “professionals” and he lamented the fact that what he had talked about ended up in the tabloids.
Is it possible that he talked about it to someone else in the department and then they leaked it? This makes more sense than Grech leaking it himself, then denying he leaked it to the person he leaked it to three times.
Is anyone going to respond to my hypothesis that the words in the ‘Lewis’ email may have been written by Andrew Thomas?
Lewis up for a colonoscopy from the AFP?
Lewis must have checked it out with his editors. The idea of News Ltd holding back a story in collusion with the Liberals to try and inflict maximum damage will just further show that they are in bed together.
TP
Perhaps the “email” Grech had seen was just printed out on a sheet of paper and given to him so there was no trace of it in the email system. There never was an email at all, just a printout of an email which was never sent.
Call me a Liberal hack but I’m becoming less convinced that the email is a fake.
Sitting on the fence.
I don’t believe Grech was lying either from what I saw on Friday. He was too uncertain to have been able to give Lewis such specific word-for-word detail – right down to the signoff ‘A’. How could anyone remember such detail anyway? You’d need a hard copy in front of you to read out verbatim. There was no paraphrasing.
And I agree with Psephos that it is inconceivable that Charlton told Lewis. So who was it? Over to you Mr Lewis.
And a cover up by PM&C, Treasury. Which means the entire govt will be gone.
Wouldn’t surprise me – but I think all amails between Thomas and Grech have been tabled.
Is Lewis a member of the Liberals?
And what, Charlton just forgot about it and told Rudd, don’t worry the AFP won’t find a thing?
If the email actually is real and is by Charlton, then he is the biggest fool in the history of Australian politics.
I don’t buy that.
As i indicated before, it is very easy to fake an email. My take is a fake email was sent or forwarded to “somebody” masquerading as it was from AC and PMO. So the email was not sent from any of the Govt systems.
Now who is this “somebody”?
Grech – if so, I cannot believe he did not keep a copy.
Lewis – the most likely scenario is that it was forwarded to him
Nessie of Lake Burley Griffin – could be.
JV, that was the Bull Buster strapped on my head.
If it’s genuine, then why can no trace of it be found, at either end? And why is Rudd so absolutely convinced there was no email? He’s hung his whole career on that contention. You’d have to posit that Charlton has lied to Rudd, repeatedly and under fairly intense questioning I would imagine.
What about the email story was leaked to the Libs who then used Lewis as the next leak in the chain? Lewis rang Grech to confirm the contents of what had been leaked to him?
JohnCanb – still doesn’t explain why, if it was from Thomas and not Charlton, that Grech did not send a return email in acknowledgment to Thomas.
Isn’t it usual to send an acknowledgment saying wtte ‘thanks I’ll look at it’.
We used to do that by telephone now they just send a return email pretty quickly.
Didn’t Treasury say they had no emails, in backup or deletion, using those words. I’m not sure whether they did or not – may be someone else can remember.
Did anyone notice on Insiders the particualr emphasis given to the photo of Turnbull and wossname at the mid-winter Knees-up?
Someone stated the picture was taken with the Prime Minister’s blackberry!!!
The panel also mused that the statement was so accurate, it might have been transcribed from a recording!!
Anyone know who took the photo and why they had the PM’s blackberry?
It makes sense that Grech is not the rat, he thought he had an email, it was a print out dumped on his desk by the real rat that we know is somewhere there, as speculated at ozforums.
Its possible the Lewis email from ‘A’ to ‘Godwin’ was sent using personal email addresses which is why its not showing up on government servers.
Rudd, Gillard and Swan have all called for Turnbull to resign if he can’t produce the email. The stakes are getting higher and higher. It’s either the biggest bluff and cover-up in Australian political history or Turnbull is completely rooted.
Sqiggle,
That was covered in the press already. Put your tinfoil hat down.
In response to 246, public servants get so many emails now that the practice of acknowledging receipt has gone by the board. And people who want to know whether you have read an email have that feature turned on in Outlook.
What sort of a someone? How would they know?
How could they know how accurate it was? Only Charlton and Turnbull know what was said, and Turnbull has said the dialogue as published, which is Charlton’s reconstruction, is not accurate.
The more I see Turnbull and the Libs run away from the email, the more convinced I am the it is fake.
The more I see Turnbull shift from callingon Rudd to resign to calling on Swan to, the more convinced I am that it is fake.
The more I read that the email was only “read out” to news ltd, the more convinced I am that it is fake.
The more I see Rudd calling on the AFP to find the email the more convinced I am that it is fake.
Maybe it is real, but if it is, then this truly is the dumbest play ever by Rudd, and he will be gone.
Maybe he knows it’s real and is hoping that by blowing all this smoke about it being real that when it is found people will think maybe it’s fake. But I doubt it.
The Sunday papers are the biggest selling papers of the week. I would have thought if there was proof of the actually email it would have surfaced today.
Antony suggests it may come tomorrow. I guess we’ll see. But I can’t see why any paper would sit on this. It is huge, surely you’d be runing with it as big and large as you can?
Still no Opp. Polly on the Emailgateway.
johncanb
In evidence on Friday the treasure head said that there is no evidence of any email or communication from the PMO on the treasury email system, so it still would have turned up on the governments servers.
Julia Gillard looked serenely confident this morning.
Kevin Rudd always looks a bit uncomfortable when he is trying to fudge something. I don’t think he is a natural liar and he is not a lawyer so can’t distort the truth easily.
(e.g. Hockey, Turnbull et al)
Rudd looked pretty confident when he gave a Press Conference late yesterday – I watched the whole thing on Sky. There was no uncomfortable body language as in ‘I am covering up something’. He was pretty straightforward.
I’m with Thomas P – some inside rat has put it on Grech’s desk and then nicked it – got rid of it. Was it a Labor rat or a Liberal sympathiser who is hurting from the change in Govt.
I am happy either way.
If email is real, Rudd goes, Gillard becomes the first female PM
If email is fake, Turnbull goes.
I understand it was Rudd. When he saw his staffer and Turnbull together he took the pic so he could rib his man i.e. have a bit of fun later on.
It is common practice to respond to emails when someone is asking you a favour within the public service.
I suspect the illuminati has a hand in it all.
Johncanb – I accept they may not send acknowledgement (can’t ask my PS kids – they say nothing, the little sods).
However, isn’t an email from PMO important enough to print off and put on the top of the file. I would have thought so. Even I print off Kev’s emails – tragic that I am.
If it was an elaborate scam to catch a treasury leak, you have to take your hat off to the guy or girl who organized it. This has changed from another round of nonsense to fascinating.
But then why the focus on Grech?
Doubt it was to catch Turnbull, not only would it be machiavellian to the extreme, the risk would be large, there are many ways such a thing could blow up, does Labor need to take those sort of risks to damage Turnbull? I doubt it.
If a PS gets an email from PMO they would respond by return email same day if only to say “Understood – I’m working on it.”
I resent that this controversy surrounds the government, moreso if Rudd is innocent.
There will always be more emails under Labor.
I had a look at OzForums blog, which I didn’t know existed. They’ve quoted me as the first to say the email was fake. Just as well they didn’t quote me on the five or so things I’ve stuffed up on this one, including having a new female PM.
I’m really going to have to try and get things right more often.
Rule number one is always maintain a paper trail in the ps, always respond. Even juniors know that. It is the most common habit in the ps as the perfect ar@se cover. If they have found nothing on servers you can be guaranteed there was nothing.
Hey Dio – you’re a Dr. You get things right all the time – I hope!!
My point in 195 and later was that the Lewis email may not have been from the PMO to Grech at Treasury, in which case it may have been acknowledged, but that it may have been from Andrew Thomas at his home email to Grech at his home email.
Diogs,
Now, that would disturb the balance of the force.
I think Grech is a very stressed and hard working public servant, who just got it wrong and has no factual evidence to back him up, because there is no email. The whole thing was faked. He tried to impress his boss, but probably timed the Grant/Ford credit meeting wrong.
If lewis had the hardcopy of the email he would have published it, if Turnbull had the hardcopy of the email they would have tabled it in parliament and published it in the newspapers. If Rudd or Dr Charlton did email Grech they wouldn’t have called the A-G and the police to investigate. The email is a fake.
Turnbull backpeddled like mad yesterday and no Lib or Nats are out in today’s media commenting. Just think about that last comment. NO COALITION ARE IN TODAY’S MEDIA. If they had hard evidence they would be trying to get on every show and have it published in every newspaper. They are no where. The email is a fake.
There will always be more favours to mates under Labor.
We have proved that Diog is always wRONg, even when he was right. That is as solid as Newton Law No: 4
BH
I get things wrong all the time as a doctor but I’m happy to recognise this I can always be wrong. At least that way you can correct the error. Eventually.
Ah, Glen’s back, sans evidence as usual.
Johncanb – wouldn’t they have checked those personal computers by now.
Surely Rudd would not go out to declare the email fake without making sure personal computers were checked as well. They would not take that chance.
No public servant in his right mind would do such a thing on a matter of such senstitivity. (Bear in mind Thomas is a public servant, not a political staffer like Charlton.)
From home to home? To a stranger then sign it off A? No way in the world and if so would have most certainly have caused an email from Work compture.
Glen there is a simple answer to that assertion, and it is spelled A W B.
jaundiced view @ 168
“ You are hereby promoted to level 36 in the Central Bureaucracy, only 34 levels from the top, and above Hermes.”
You must hold this very dear to your heart as this is the second time withing 24 hours that you have referred to it.
So who thinks the whole thing is completely fake and who thinks that some sort of email was sent, but it was a hoax?
Diogenes – It’s better to grapple heroically with the uncertainties of the future and thereby err, than to wallow lazily in the security of the past.
(you can quote me on that)
TP – . Retirement can mean you get ‘behind the times’ What on earth is work compture?
Guaranteed no real email exists, just the scam one, which has since vanished.
Diogenes, from your comment as quoted on OzForums:
If Grech and Charlton had never communicated before than wouldn’t Grech have thought there was something strange about him using his first name and signing off with A.?
If Grech didn’t think that there was anything unusual about that then it means that it’s not necessarily a fake based on just that evidence.
The trouble with the Lewis email, as I argued in 195, is it doesn’t look like a typical Young Lib forgery. Its way too bland for that. So we have to think of some other reason for its creation, and I think the idea that the email was written by Andrew Thomas fits the bill. And then somehow or other the confusion arose that Andrew Charlton was the author.
Mandrila?
Adam my response to that is you have no proof whereas with Swan we have all the proof we need to force him to resign
If Rudd thought he was a goner, why wouldn’t he try and bluff it out? Nothing to lose.
I am well and truly a state ps employee, public servant.
JV,
As a doctor, Diogenes gets to bury his mistakes.
Oz
most likely completey fake – no email. All verbal – ie. ‘read out’ over the phone. The IT whizzes couldn’t find any incoming or outgoing email on the govt systems.
The email appears specifically designed to be used the way it has in parliamet, a very simple scam to set up.
Glen, I will remind you of that comment after the coming week’s sittings.
If the email is real the whole govt is gone.
There’s no way you can have a PM resign in such circumstances and not hold an election – especially if it seems the PM&C and Treasury would have to be in on the cover up.
Johncanb,
You hypothesis is plausible. It would explain the familarity of the sign-off “A” (I do this all the time in business emails when I know the other person well, or he or she is a colleague). It would also get around Martine’s denial that the email came from PMO.
There was never any search for the text of the email, only its source.
It would probably also exonerate Rudd, as whatever Charlton said about Rudd’s relationship with Grant was not coming from either Rudd or PMO, but from Charlton and Treasury.
I’m not sure they would have checked the home computers yet. That would be something that could only be done under AFP authority. Its not possible for an employer to demand that you pass over your home computer records.
Public servants communicating by home email is a common way of passing on sensitive information. Granted that as Thomas is a DLO its less likely he’d go that route. But sometimes homeemail is used for convenience because the remote access from home isn’t working properly.
Rudd came out so quickly he obviously knew this fake, in fact it appeas he was certain of it.
Grog, your earlier post detailing the reasons you think it’s a fake is pretty compelling.
Maybe I’m just reading way too much into certain things that actually have no meaning. Like Martine interrupting as soon as Charlton’s name was mentioned. There’s too many loose ends in this for it to be as simple as “Someone faked an email”, although that may be true.
How do you know BB?
Anyhoo this is all doing my head in.
Here’s my prediciton: At the end of the week no one resigns.
Rudd because the email doesn’t exists.
Swan because I think there’s not enough for him to have to go.
Turnbull because there’s no way he would ever admit being wrong on anything.
Grog,
Turnbull may have resignation thrust upon him.
Where’s Hockey!
I’ve just spent the last 7 hours on the New England highway – to ask a Yes/No question, are we any closer today to finding out what went on with the notorious email or has it all been piss and wind on the Sunday morning programs?
Ockahm’s Razor. The simplest explanation is most likely correct.
a) The Prime Minister, his office and Treasury are jointly involved in the biggest cover-up in Australian political history.
b) The email is a hoax
Yes and no, Poss.
and the Prime Minister was so cocky he brought in the Auditor General and the AFP while doing the biggest cover up in Australian political history.
sloppy Joe on Sky now
Oh crap Grog – which program should I watch?
My bet is that Rudd and co saw this scam coming and quickly knew there was nothing.
If it was from Andrew Thomas wouldn’t he have been wise to admit to that from the start.
If he is a PS surely he would have told his bosses – even if it had been sent from his personal computer he was still a PS and in work mode when he sent it.
If Thomas was present at the discussion in Treasury on Friday a.m., I presume, and Grech said he was going to be open about it all, wouldn’t Thomas have admitted that the Lewis’ story was about an email sent by him.
What reason would he have had for keeping quiet. The story was in the paper on Friday morning – before the enquiry hearing.
Possum, they were all kinda pointless, but Insiders had a decent rundown.
If you just stand back for a moment, I think that it’s pretty astounding that an opposition leader had gone as far as calling for the resignation of a PM and Treasurer based on allegedly seeing (rather than possessing) any evidence.
I think that’s pretty ballsy because if the initial call doesn’t take traction and the accused demand to see the evidence (as has now happened), you’re in some trouble. But surely Turnball and his office could have anticipated such a circumstance occurring?
My apologies in advance if this has been disused to death already. Just seems like a lot of (presumably) intelligent people (Government, Opposition, Bureaucracy) possibly doing some seemingly dumb stuff.
Truth stranger than fiction?
Canb – It certainly does not. If it had been a Young Lib job it would be something like this:
“I say Grechers – Do us a jolly favour would you old stick? Thing is, the PM wants to surprise his little motor car man with a spot of cash. What say you send over a few bundles? And Mum’s the word, eh, there’s a good chap. See you at the ball for a glass of champers, what? – Andy-man”
Does MT have the full support of the party room?
Vera, keep us updated.
If you’re going for the biggest cover up, go all the way!
Two sources now saying that Lewis will bring something down tomorrow.
Aw Vera – haven’t seen the match and can’t bear to watch it on Fox (on now). Our prayers are b… useless.
What is Hockey saying.
Where have you been all these years?
Cuppa.
Not a bad point.
The intricate stories that have to be construct to explain all these alleged occurrences of Rudd’s ‘corruption’ (call it what you like) is getting a little silly.
The Swine Flu of Australian politics?
What sources are they, Oz.
No, it’s stupid and reckless, because that’s the way Turnbull is.
BH at 311. I agree if Thomas was the author of the email, he would have been wise to admit it. But people do all sorts of things that are not in their long-term interest as they are scared or overly hopeful they will get away with it.
In related political news, a German SDP member of parliament has quit his party and joined the Pirate Party.
Good news for the major parties. The Greens have pre selected Lee Rhiannon at the top of their Senate ticket in NSW.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25667094-662,00.html
Dunno Poss – is there an Elvis movie on this arvo? They’re always good!
One of them is second hand, via Bernard Keane which I posted above.
The other’s a secret.
Antony’s dropped a couple of hints as well.
Who are the two sources? If you mean A Green as one then read again his comment. He said:
That’s AGs opinion not a statement.
BH, we need more than centre’s prayers
Just caught the last bit of Joe at about 2.04 he was banging on about seeing something in the light of day and repeating the Lib line about Swanny getting emails then sky went on to the next news story. ABC will no doubt have a word by word report up shortly
Really the email itself is nothing, misleading parliament is. If the email was real the words in parliament would have not been what they were, Rudd isn’t stupid. The email is fake, who and why are the interesting question.
Who?
Psephos,
I’s starting to look more and more like you might be right. As I say, it’s astounding (to me anyway).
I can only ask ‘why’? But then I gues decisions can be made in haste and maybe Turnball had hoped hat he published ‘evidence’ would do the trick. Besides, nobody would have been asking Turnball why he didn’t actually have the evidence if Rudd and Swan resigned…
Oh dear; I’m falling into the trap of suggesting hypotheses #548 on this blog of ‘what I think really happened’. Apologies.
The truth (if and when is comes out in full) will make for good reading.
That it will – the rest (including all on this blog) is just supposin’. We’re all looking for the most logical answer, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot going round.
Oz,
You are not a journalist. You are bound by the PB code of ethics.
“Spill yer guts you big tease”.
Oh good on yer.
The two quotes from my post 3534 on the previous thread are about as clear an indication as any that it is fake. Read carefully and knitted together, they make a compelling case for it to be fake. The first is from Van Onselen’s article.
How a PS of over 20 years experience and habit can suddenly change, for one single e-mail, from logging, responding/acknowledging and actioning an e-mail from the senior Government office, is quite impossible to conceive!
http://www.theage.com.au/national/nervous-man-who-came-in-from-cold-20090619-cr9g.html
If Oz has his own sources, then isn’t that a PBer breaking news?
Patricia on LP today said exactly what I thought watching Insiders (turned out to be a waste of time)
BH,
George is on duty when the Empire has come under attack. If the email is a fake his employer will look rather second rate. His job, as a loyal soldier to the Murdoch Empire is to point somewhere else when sticky questions get asked.
Nah, I wouldn’t talk it up too much since;
a) I’m not 100% on what’s actually going to be said
b) Could be more smoke and mirrors.
But pay attention tomorrow. I’ll either be laughed out of the room (not the first time) or praised as a saint.
Pity – GG but I understand.
I wonder if Joe Hockey looked at PB this a.m. and found we were all searching for his mob.
There’s always next week Vera. Thank goodness. Hope springs eternal.
Megalogenis wrote a reasonable article on the Schools Stimulus, saying in effect the government doesn’t need to make it part of the Education Revolution to still be able to say it’s been a success, to wit, in saving the construction industry (which Megalogenis claims it has).
(”Let reality do the talking“, http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php/theaustralian/comments/let_reality_do_the_talking/ )
He’d clearly been asked to go over the top in the second wave and to do his bit for the paper by writing his angle on the bootstrapping campaign they’d been running for two weeks or so. That he chose to provide a fair comment (which it was, even if you don’t agree with it) is to Megalogenis’ credit.
But Cassidy asking him to diss on his own paper – by agreeing that the bootstrapper of as a complete fizzer – was too much and he would not do that on air. He stuck to the company line, or at least refused to criticise it. I think that’s fair enough. There are limits to what he can say in criticism of his own publication.
Even if you don’t like everything he says, Megalogenis has been pretty fair, given who he works for.
This is where it gets interesting in that it is apparent that in the exchanges between Grech and Lewis prior to appearing at the Hearing and the day before, that Grech was trying to backpedal and told Lewis that there was no document and no record.
He also had a somewhat sleepless night knowing that Lewis was going to publish a story on the matter, regardless. Hence, Grech’s demenour and evasiveness when confronted with it by Albetz!
Breaking news that there may be breaking news tomorrow in the newspaper?
So the smoke screen begins by the Liberals. Running far away from the emails because they know the police won;t find any email from PMO to Grech.
In my memory serves me, I think that Hockey didn’t mention the alleged and fake email from Charlton to Grech. Their running away from the biggest part of the allegation and smear tactics. All they’re left with is saying that Swann gave special treatment to Grant, when Grant didn’t or couldn’t even benefit because Ozcar is only for finance companies who service caryards.
Since Friday they’ve changed their story from Rudd having to resign, to Rudd and Swann having to resign to today Swann having to resign. On the evidence of an over enthusastic public servant who I’m parphasing, ‘when the treasure asks you to do something you do it’. Again I ask how is this Swann’s giving instructions to Grech to give special treatment to Grant? Grech took it on himself after talking with Grant to ask Ford.
?? Why? Have you done something saintly?
Oz stole my thunder – I was about to say that there may be breaking news in the newspaper tomorrow.
I think the email is real in the sense that an email was sent to Gretch’s email account with the text described.
The alternative is that either Lewis or Gretch made the whole thing up.
The reason the email cannot be found in the Gov. email system is that is isn’t there. Therefore it must be elsewhere. The most likely explanation is a private email account. If the PS internet is not locked down then access to private web email at work would be trivial. If this is true then this is a bigger deal than the current crisis. This email account may have a history going back before Nov 2007, potentially with links to other “private/public” accounts.
The email got into the hands of the LibrelNewsLimited party either because Gretch is the leak, or someone on the CC, BCC list is. Gretch could also be an innocent leak: if he had an auto-forward rule setup on the account that became inappropriate after a change of government (which he forgot about). His account may also have been compromised, allowing an ex-peer or boss to sniff around.
If this is true then Gretch is in a pretty bad position. Because he can’t produce the email without his whole world (and a good part of the Libs) blowing up.
The ultimate author could still be Andrew C (confident that the out-of-band communication could not be found) or a phisher attempting to take down Rudd, Gretch or Turnbull.
From what I can recollect (I used to be so sure…….now not so sure…you know it may be wrong…..but it is my recollection…..sort of….)
When Rudd was first asked this question about Grant Motors by Turnbull in Parliament, he was pretty relaxed and said something like, “no I haven’t been involved etc”, it was only later after his office had done some checking, I assume, that he went beserk and got stuck into Turnbull holding his advice from his office as he shouted, “the politics of fear over the economy has been replaced by the politics of smear.”
I think this was the week of the national accounts and Rudd and Swan had been crowing. Rudd got angry because they called his integrity into question.
He then called Turnbull a “grub”, which he was asked to withdraw.
None of this behaviour strikes me as a man who had something to hide, and now calling in Auditor General and AFP only serves to reinforce that earlier behaviour.
I will never look a ‘reply all’ the same way again.
Neither, I’m guessing, will many in Parliament House…!
But Lewis didn’t make it up. All we have is the news.ltd papers saying the text was read to Lewis.
Ah bugger this, it’s all circle running. Back tomorrow once the news has broken!
Good composite from Skynews of the state of play.
http://www.skynews.com.au/video/?id=41&articleID=621087
Another Labor person on TV was Maxine on Sky Sunday Agenda today, also putting the heat on Malcolm
transcript of interview here
http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/
BB – yes, I grant you that George’s article re schools stimulus was fair and I really meant to delete that last sentence because I felt for him. Must be awful to work with that company when you are a person of George’s calibre. I apologise for adding that sentence.
But the discussion for nearly an hour was all on this subject and altho we have a great deal to say on PB, we are not wasting taxpayer’s money on something which is not nearly as important as CC, the awful Iranian situation or even female pollies being able to do their work and be a mum at the same time.
Barrie Cassidy no longer suits my needs as host and, supposedly, one of the deciders of content of this program.
It has become a gossip house and nothing more.
There’s no doubt The Arsetralian will have some big hyped-up piece of trumpery on their front page tomorrow (”RUDD IN CRISIS”, “SWAN MUST GO, SAYS NATION”) to try to salvage their own reputations as kingmakers and to help out their embattled mate Turnbull. There will be ponderous pronouncements from Paul Kelly (”RUDD IN RE-RUN OF LOANS AFFAIR, SAYS I WHO WAS THERE”). But unless they can produce some hard evidence that Rudd or someone in Rudd’s office, with Rudd’s knowledge, asked someone at OzCar to give Grant preferential treatment, it will all just be the usual Murdoch press efflatus.
I noticed Maxine Mckew also made mention that Malcolm Turnbull has to 24 hours to produce the evidence or saddle up his horse and ride out of town.
Possum, that’s a long way to go for some more popcorn.
I think it’s already “broke”!
More likely to be news about the news. Like Peacock. “All feathers and no meat.”
We dont break the news here at PB, we smash them.
Or all ‘tip and no berg’
Hey Acerbic Conehead,
Can I just say I always love your pieces over at Jack The Insider’s.
As said before there doesnt nef to be a real email of any kind, just a hard copy that puports to be a real email, everything flows naturally from this and is the simplest thing to do. It is most impossible to deletd existence of a genuine email. And why email something you would naturally do by phone?
If there was more news to break tomorrow that favored the Libs and put the heat back on Rudd surely Turnbull’s ego would have him out doing press conferences today looking and sounding all confident knowing he had a killer blow to drop tomorrow?
To create a record, of course. Email is god’s gift to public servants, because they can document every conversation they have.
I think it’s just inconceivable that a public servant of Grech’s seniority would have got an email from the PM’s office telling him that the *PM wanted him to do something* and then (a) not replied to it, (b) not acted on it, and (c) deleted it.
I think this is the nub of it: Grant did not receive a loan from Ford Credit. OzCar was not in existence at that time (although its setup was just about complete). Grant’s plight was treated straight down the middle: “We’ll put in a good word, but that’s all we can do.” And that is all that was done. It is done like this every day of the week. Sometimes the only way you can get access to the top is by knowing someone close to the top who can cut through the red tape, as Gillard (pretty close to the top) attested today. She is stopped in the street all the time with specific complaints, as are all politicians, often on minor issues.
My only complaint is that I wish Rudd and Swan would stop playing by Turnbull’s rules and spell this out more often: it is not a hanging offence to help out a constituent. Howard did it all the time. I think, faced with the same questions, Howard would have brazened it out and said, “Of course I did! What’s wrong with that?” Rudd and Swan’s reaction show that they still have a slight inferiority complex when ti comes to government. They are allowing the Coalition to act like absentee landlords explaining to their old neighbours after returning from a long overseas trip that they’re sorry the new tenants haven’t mowed the lawns, or have their music too loud but it’ll all be OK when the lease is up and they, the rightful owners, move back in.
Downer’s advice on this would be: “Toughen up.”
I think Rudd and Swan should heed this.
I reason I sent a lot of emails when I could have phoned was that the recipient was “away from his desk”.
turnbull on sky now
Further to that, emails of such nature are required to be printed out and kept on file.
Yes, you’re right Bushfire Bill. The ALP still hasn’t come fully to terms with being in government and the Coalition definitely has not come to terms with being out of government. One more election tends to change all that.
looking gloom. attacking swan.
now is hiding behind the AFP enquiry about the email. refuse to say anything more about the email. he said he will co-operate fully.
But this sort of thing you would use phone or not use PM in your email, fairly basic stuff, have seen it done like this many times.
Running away from the email as fast as the speed of light.
Turnbull just had news conference, just repeating same stuff about Swanny and calling for his resignation. He welcolms AFP inquiry, Opp will share what they know about email etc etc
Asked if he or anyone had seen copy of email he said no we never claimed we had a copy
He is squirming, and just keeps repeating that they will cooperate with AFP, talking over top of reporters asking about email, then said he will say nothing more about email
He is on the back foot, now practically shouting that Rudd should say why they shut up Cretch
Question if email is false will you resign
Turnbull no no it’s nothing to do with email it’s all about Rudd distracting you all with the email that’s not the story, Rudd using his tactics to distract from misleading parl etc
OK, Rudd now has to narrow focuss specifically on who created the fake email, nothing else.
Good excuse – as you say, Finns, the silly man is hiding behind the AFP but the mob are not having that. He doesn’t want any questions re the email. They only want to ask questions about it.
Getting more flustered practically calling Rudd a serial liar…
The scumbag is putting great pressure on Grech.
ABC summary of the saga to date
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/21/2604029.htm
Hockey’s presser article.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25667135-5005961,00.html
Turnbull was yelling and sneering. He really hates Rudd. His lip was literally curled.
Sky defending their man – cut it off.
They gave Kev a right awful telecast on Friday night – went to a red screen yesterday before he had finished saying something and now we don’t get to hear why Hockey thought the email was inconsequential.
If Turnbull won’t speak about the email until the AFP have all the info does that prevent Lewis from putting anything in paper tomorrow. Should he be handing stuff over as well now there is an enquiry.
Reporter asks “This email was your centre of attack a few days ago now joe Hockey is calling it just a distraction” but Sky ended coverage before we got to hear Turnbull’s reply
The problem for Turnbull on the Swan case is not clear cut, black and white. However, with email case is black and white, namely real or fake.
Turnbull waffles too much and the media did not buy his spin. The false email is the story and Swan is a side show.
Finns the Swan case is open shut he’s guilty of misleading parliament he said his office didnt make representations of John Grant and the faxes he recieved showed his office was so he’s a liar and should resign…
If we cant find the email then there is no proof of Rudd’s corruption however.
If Hockey is the future of the Liberal Party – it doesn’t look too bright.
Talk about out of his depth!
That seems to be his problem, rational behavior has gone out the window and he is making fool of himself.
Who’s in your gravatar photo, Glen? Looks like Joe McCarthy.
What about Erica, what punishment should be dished out to him for using a fake document, if it turns out to be, to intimidate a witness.
Hockey looked like a bumbling idiot, and Turnbull ended up losing it and shouting over the top of reporters question lol I bet Kev and Swanny are sitting back with their popcorn enjoying this afternoons goon shows
Glen Swan received the emails and faxes, not him asking for more information on Grant just on more on the meeting with Ford. You can’t say that Swan asked for any special treatment of Grant because theres no evidence in the emails from him that say that.
So your asking for the resignation of the Treasurer of Australia because a public servant sent ‘a’ fax to his home address when he was home in Feb and hasn’t been corresponded with since. Flimsey and desperate Liberals tactics that won’t wash.
Glen – Just heard Swan on Sky Active saying that he had referred Ripoli had told Grant to ring him. Swan spoke with him on the phone for a few minutes and then referred him on Ozcar officials. Where is the misleading in that. That is what he said in Parliament too.
Cuppa (361). Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. Jack the Insider has always given me lots of encouragement. He is the salt of the earth. Due to time constraints, I only get the opportunity to lurk here from time to time. Its a great site and the coverage of the last couple of days here has been marvelous.
Glen sending a fax constitutes sending representation, receive one represents receiving representation.
That aside, after Howard’s years do you really think anyone is going to resign over this trivia even if parliamentary miss-representation occurred, get real.
Glen i think you just got yourself a gig in court ro6 9
correct Ari…
Room 9
It is Joe McCarthy, a drunken incompetent liar and bully who ruined the careers of many innocent people, including several driven to suicide. He’s Glen’s hero it seems, and given the blind stupidity of Glen’s posts on this subject it’s easy to see why.
Saw that – the journos were certainly on the front foot.
Turnbull says he only brought up the issue because it had came up in Senate estimates!!! The only reason it came up in senate estimates (on June 4) was Abetz asked Grech the questions.
I guess Turnbull wants us to believe that Abetz was just asking out of curiosity as well.
Anyone got a transcript of the estimates session with Abetz and Grech?
btw as to my earlier post about an Elvis movie, there actually is one on!
Roustabout on Fox Classics. It’s good to know there are some things you can count on.
The June 4 ones are here Oz:
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S12054.pdf
Lighten up Adam…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#Ongoing_debate
“…Venona decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy’s subcommittee, asserting that these have vindicated McCarthy, showing that many of his identifications of Communists were correct…Venona and the Soviet archives have revealed that the scale of Soviet espionage activity in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars suspected…”
I am quite confident to say that nobody has seen a digital copy of the email. Grech, Lewis, Erica, Turnbull etc etc, they have only seen or shown a paper copy. The only person who has seen the digital copy will be the author, real or fake. That is why it cannot be found in the Govt systems.
I can read too, Glen:
“These viewpoints are considered revisionist by most credentialed scholars.[112] Challenging such efforts aimed at the “rehabilitation” of McCarthy, historian John Earl Haynes argues that McCarthy’s attempts to “make anti-communism a partisan weapon” actually “threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus,” thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping.[113] With regard to Coulter’s views in particular, the response among scholars has been all but universally negative, even among authors generally regarded as conservative or right-wing.[114]
Although there are some cases where Venona or other recent data has increased the weight of evidence against a person named by McCarthy, there are few, if any, cases where McCarthy was responsible for identifying a person, or removing a person from a sensitive government position, where later evidence has increased the likelihood that that person was a Communist or a Soviet agent.[115]
Maybe it was a tattoo.
Probably never a digital copy.
Malcolm has also been a company director, again you do not make statements without checking the facts. How many companies and directors have been admonished by ASIC for their reporting of results and/ or preliminary finds.
Bye bye Malcolm.
Adam there were Communists in the government departments of the US and indeed Australia for heavens sake that’s why we got blacklisted by the US with regards to nuclear technology because they found out that the Soviets were getting British Cabinet minutes from their spies in Canberra…Project Venona showed just how much the Reds were under the beds…
I do not deny that JM may a few mistakes but these things happen.
As a general rule, Glen, it is not advisable to use Anne Coulter as a source for anything. Her credibility is well south of zero. As is yours. McCarthy was one of the most evil, malicious and harmful men in American public life, and the fact that you want to defend his disgusting acts tell us more about you than we wish to know.
Thanks Grog.
No 321
Adam, Turnbull is not stupid and reckless. He asked the PM & Treasurer to justify themselves or resign. The prima facie evidence was pretty damning. It’s not as if he asked them to resign without qualification.
So it was 3pm before Turnbull got the courage to face the press and only after sloppy bumbling Joe fluffed his go at it after Rudd this morning (under an umbrella with the lovely Therese exiting chuch) called for turnbull to put up or shut up.
No, we were blacklisted because we were sharing information with the British, in whom the US had no confidence following the Burgess-McLean affair. That’s why Chifley set up ASIO as an independent agency to deal directly with the US. The US was then quite happy to deal with us.
No 413
Anne Coulter provides great reading when one is intoxicated.
I’m more a Bob McCarthy man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McCarthy
What surveilanc methods are the AFP allowed to use to look for leakers? Just currious what has been in place this past 12 months.
Er.
Did everyone miss that? Isn’t this what the email is all about?
Adam, the US gave us the same security level as the USSR after they found out spies in the Australian civil service were handing over copies of minutes from British Cabinet meetings…we had quite a few Reds under the bed indeed.
It’s pretty obvious that Abetz “knew something” about Grant. Grech didn’t come up with the name unbidden.
So what did Abetz know when he was asking these questions? Surely the Libs aren’t suggesting we believe they just got the name from Rudd’s private declaration and just thought they’d throw the name out and see what bit?
#413 – Turnbull is not stupid but reckless, just like any investment banker.
Finn @405
Are you suggesting that the next tack will be semantic games over “digital copy”, “email” and copy?
You have Abetz citing the exact wording of email, and now MT’s presser with verbal denial of either him or anyone elsy having seen email or copy.
Wouldn’t seem to be any wriggle room there.
June 4th.
So are they talking about other representations, not on behalf of John Grant?
I feel a tragic twist coming on. I hope poor Godwin is being looked after. The man would be a wreck. I have to assume through out all this escapade the mental and physical health of the man must be shot. Let him do things in is own time I say.
#423, i was just trying to figure out why the email, if it was sent from the PMO to Grech, cannot be found or located, even if it was deleted. The email was never sent from a Govt system.
or never sent.
So Grech said that the PMO did make representations on behalf of one dealer, and the Treasurer also made representations on behalf of that dealer. That has to be Grant, doesn’t it?
Also note how Sherry butts in everytime there’s something that gets to the crux.
Most appalling zombie were the TV reporters knocking on his home front door.
Zombie Grech has done nothing wrong so i wouldnt fear the worst…
Abetz had info about BOTH companies that made representations to the Treasurer.
Seriously, these June 4th transcripts. Read them.
I believe she is favourite jerk-off material for the many Young Libs who are too repulsive even to get a date with Belinda Smythe-Ponyclub. Little do they realise she is a man.
Grech was going off of the fake email that was dumped on him, this is how the scam worked and why it was so easy to do.
I Know a thing or two about breakdowns/mental illness etc. Logic and rational thought doesn’t come into it. His demeanour just looks familiar.
Question: Is Psephos really Adam from Canberra?
TP
I’m with you. There never was an email, just a print out purporting to be a copy of an email. Someone set Grech up big time.
So Grech was talking about the alleged fake email as far back on the 4th of June and no thought to correct him? The PMO didn’t say “Hey Godwin, we never sent you an email”?
Adam have an apple martini and take a rest
Your dislike for young liberals is almost as bad as your dislike of the Senator from the great state of Wisconsin???
They arent all Jeremy Bornmouth IIIs and Belinda Symthe-Ponyclubs….but there are always a few rotten apples now and again…
Diogenes, if there wasn’t an email why did no bother to tell Grech, when it was on the public record weeks ago?
zombie
Agree. I hope he doesn’t end up like David Kelly.
Herr Doktor, so was Loretta.
Sweet loretta martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlWFpdPX45g
I’m not sure I understand why this whole saga is so important. Surely the original contention was that the PM had potentially breached the ministerial ethics code by being under some “financial” or “other” obligation to an individual or organisation?
As much as the Opposition would like to believe that the loan of a ute is sufficient to create such an obligation… I’m yet to be convinced.
All this quibbling over whether there was an email or not is surely not that interesting. Even if such an email existed, surely Rudd is covered on any question of ‘misleading parliament’ by his original statement that he’d been informed by his office that there were none.
I fail to see the Earth shattering significance of the whole thing…
Oz
I’m guessing you meant “no-one”. They DID tell Grech it didn’t exist. Grech had seen the hard copy, but not the soft copy (which never existed).
How would that work? Does the PMO have one brain, and know all incoming and outgoing correspondence? It was only after a specific sender/recipient pair came up where they able to conduct an expensive search which revealed: nothing.
Why is it so significant if there was an email or not. Surely you’ve read the part of the transcript that says that all communication from the PM’s office and Treasurer’s office were of the regular sort you’d expect in the situation and nothing sinister in the slightest.
The only reason the whole thing was raised in the first place was that Abetz was contending Rudd was under some sort of obligation that was borne out of the gift/loan of a ute… which surely is ridiculous.
ltep@442 – I think a lot are going to be in agreement. But I also think that Turnbull went too far with his aggressive pompous jerk show, and plenty of folks (from all places on the spectrum) are going to be pretty happy to have a part in taking him down a peg or two.
On friday he should have demanded Swan resign not Rudd…
Itep, Turnbull demanded that Rudd resigns based on that email.
When?
On June 4th Grech said the PMO, via email, had made representations on behalf of one deal.
On June 19th Grech said the same thing.
The only difference between what happened last week and what happened on the 4th is that the alleged email has been leaked.
So after Grech said on the 4th that he had got an email, why did Rudd’s office not clarify that no such email had been sent? And if they did, why did Grech say the same thing two weeks later?
Funnily enough, I agree with Glen!
The problem for the Libs is that they’d get Tanner as Treasurer instead, and he’s far more formidable than Swan.
Yeah, and maybe I’m just ridiculously confused.
But the PM said “I am advised that neither I nor my office made any representations on behalf of John Grant”.
But on June 4th Grech said yes, the PM’s office had made representations.
On June 19th Grech said yes, the PM’s office had made representations.
?!?! Help?
Update of the situation with comments from Turnbull’s presser.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-gives-turnbull-24-hours-to-produce-email-evidence-20090621-cs89.html
RT: @stephenconroy: RT @courtney_gibson Show yr support for Malcolm Turnbull by turning your avatar yellow
hehehe
Yes and later that day in QT Rudd said no one from his office had made any such representations.
Well I suppose it comes down to… what is a ‘representation on behalf of John Grant’? Would you classify them referring a case to the relevant public servant as a representation on behalf of the person being referred?
If so, it looks like Rudd’s office has provided him with the incorrect information as it looks clear on the evidence that a reference was made by the PM’s office in relation to a car dealer (most likely John Grant Motors).
I don’t see what the big deal in relation to that reference would’ve been though. I suppose it comes down to a lack of willingness from the PM’s office to own up to innocuous things it may have done if it looks like the Opposition will attempt to use it for some beat up.
We aimed too high by thinking we’d get a 2 for 1 when we should have used all our weight to ruin Swan now (which is easy considering the evidence stacked against him) the AFP are just investigating the PMO not the Treasury where Swan is on shaky ground IMHO…
I still think Swan will go but that’s is my opinion…
Rudd has been very skillful at boiling this down to one simple question; Is the email fake or real?
Hockey’s comments show he’s running a mile from the whole thing, even conceding that Swan had dodged a few bullets this morning.
The Libs really need to shift it from being a question about whether the email is fake or not. Good luck with that.
Every time Malcolm gets up in Parliament to ask Rudd a question about a document, Rudd will ask if it’s real or did someone just read it to you over the phone.
Glen, exactly what would you be getting him for?
I think the market value of your opinions is about on a par with the Zimbabwe dollar right now, Glen.
Ok, it was that same day. Thanks.
My thinking is that if the head of OzCar says he got an email from the PM’s office and then the PM says, no our office didn’t send an email, surely there should have been some kind of investigation into this discrepancy?
misleading Parliament…
Psephos,
Glen is trolling. He hasn’t added a link or provided new info. His sole purpose is to wind you up. Take a deep breath and ignore the cretin.
Yes, you’d imagine the official would immediately check their emails so they can back themself up if they need to.
In fact given Grech ‘was Ozcar’ you’d imagine there’d need to be routine print outs of all his emails and they’d all be required to be kept on file.
Glen
Misleading parliament is indeed the topic, but the question is who has done it. If Turnbull can’t come up with that document he is the misleader not the misled.
I presume that, now teh Liberals are in oposition, the Westminster principle of resigning if you mislead parliament will be in force once again, after its ten year hiatus?
ltep
That is a good point, especially for an email allegedly from the PMs office. When I worked in Canberra we had to file all correspondence from Ministers’ offices, even from staff in junior ministers’ offices. So Grech should have this on file….
Thanks GG. I think a cup of tea and a Tim-Tam will do the trick. I usually tolerate Glen as an amiable idiot, but when he starts defending McCarthy I do get annoyed.
Rudd is linking Emailgate to Children Overboard and Lindsay Fake Poster
How exactly did Turnbull mislead Parliament?
Also, no document needs to be provided. The PM’s statement was that he’d been informed that noone in his office had made representations on behalf of John Grant Motors… this includes emails as well as verbal contact I’m sure.
From the evidence it looks clear the Grech received some type of contact from the PMs office in relation to a car dealer so it’s irrelevant whether that contact was via email or some other mode of communication.
a view from the great unwashed ?
@SnarkyPlatypus: Not quite understanding the big deal over the Ozcar email thing, except for several politicians engaging in public political masturbation.
Psephos: You’ve got links to the ALP, what are their tactics for the coming week?
Can we look forward to new attacks on Turnball’s role in the HIH collapse?
So Grech gets an email supposedly from PMO.
He tells estimates he got an email.
Rudd says his office didn’t send an email.
Apparently no one tries to figure out why Grech was saying he got an email that was never sent.
The email goes missing.
On Friday Grech says a search couldn’t find the email but he thinks he remembers getting one from PMO.
The bit in the middle has me scratching me head, otherwise I could easily believe that someone sent a fake email.
And the fact that everyone Abetz came close to saying Grant’s name, Sherry had a fit. The same happened with Charlton and Martine on Friday.
What evidence, they can’t find any emails from the PMO to Grech between the dates of 19th – 22nd Feb.
Grech may be talking about the Bennelong caryard owner who Rudd said asked for help and his office put him in contact with Treasury..
Grech needs to be interviewed again.
As i said a thousand posts ago if Rudd had found he was wrong it would have been a simple thing to correct the record. Embarassing but in a minor way. But the email itself isnt that damning, only its denial is a problem, but not really in a major, given how rudd informed the house.
There’s no way Turnbull mislead anything. Because even though we know he had info about the case for some time, and Abetz had been given the text of the email on Friday by Lewis, presumably, he never claimed to have the email at any stage.
Oz, to be fair Grech says he can’t remember exactly but thinks he received emails from the PMs office.
It’s possible that he could not be remembering correctly. In such cases I’ll believe hard evidence (that is, records of emails which are required to be kept) over admittedly sketchy memory.
Unless you’re alleging there’s been some cover-up and email records have been tampered with?
True, but somehow I doubt the Government will be offering to support another Senate inquiry and allow him to give evidence uninterrupted!
I’d assume there’ll be some attempt to set up a select committee into the matter.
Adam whilst i often disagree with your politics i never call you an idiot and it speaks volumes of your ability to tolerate those with views different to your own by using that word to criticise me.
I don’t know, but I don’t see why Grech would lie repeatedly, first on the 4th and then on the 19th.
Sure he added a caveat “I may be completely wrong” (if he thought he was completely wrong he wouldn’t have said anything) on the 19th, but he seemed pretty certain on the 4th.
And if the emails were tampered with, ie being deleted off the dept’s computers AND the central Server, then the AFP can recover them with the appropriate tools.
Rudd didnt go the ‘correct the record path’ which is instructive, he is no novice.
Oz, please. The Libs have been attacking Rudd over Grant and the ute for weeks now. Having a fit whenever Erica breathed his name is not exactly a surprise. Poor form, but not a surprise.
diogenes @ 436
“TP
I’m with you. There never was an email, just a print out purporting to be a copy of an email. Someone set Grech up big time.”
Who is this someone? Another PS in Treasury? He or she must be sh*tting themselves now that the AFP have been called in. Surely if this someone is another PS they will be found out by the AFP?
Itep, he seems pretty clear here:
No caveats, nothing.
I think there’s only two answers now.
1) Grech received fake correspondence. No idea who by or who it was supposed to snag. This should have become apparent straight away on the 4th and the PMO should have tried to get to the bottom of it.
2) The correspondence was legitimate and this is an enormous cover up.
evan14, Kevin rang me this morning and asked me what he should do, because he was at his wit’s end, poor man. I told him to get a grip and remember he was the PM. I told him he should go in hard on the fact that Turnbull is a big pompous rich arrogant windbag tosser and merchant banker who thinks that the earth is flat and that slavery is a good thing. He was pathetically grateful for my advice, as always. Kevin’s problem is that he has no self-confidence.
It’s worth mentioning again that Dougie Cameron, at the very end of latest Senate Committee where Grech was being questioned,changed his mind after a small period and asked that Grech’s answer be heard.
Something that the Coalition is pretending did not happen, and something everyone seems to be regularly ignoring.
This was the first time Grant’s name had been in mentioned in relation to getting representation. I’m not sure why you’re saying it shouldn’t be a surprise. If there was nothing dodgy then why not just let him answer?
The same goes for Charlton on Friday.
I think you just answered your own question:
The guy is all over the place. I’m not sure we can take anything he said as reality at all. It may well be, but it also may well be not.
Oz, another option is that there was non-written (phone) communication:
He says ‘going from memory’ and ‘mostly emails’ which leaves it open that the particular reference was via phone call.
Eric Abetz has the most irritating voice of the parliamentarians.
There is no way real emails can be made on one bank of servers let alone two.
Sorry Itep, but a document most certainly does have to be produced. You just can’t go around, as Turnbull has (and a few others too), demanding the Prime Minister and Treasurer resign from office based on an email that does not exist and get away with it.
Turnbull was prepared to spruik this email to all and sundry. Abetz was reading from it. Lewis published it. You can’t go on a wrecking expedition against the highest levels of the state like this and then claim, “Anyway, iwhether the email exists is irrelevant.” This entire blow-up is based on that email. a email from the highest executive office in the land has been faked by person or persons unknown, and used by Turnbull to go on a wrecking expedition without a comeback when the fakery s finally exposed.
Turnbull is one of those “Bad News” types that causes everyone to meet them throughout their career to regret ever doing so. He feeds off crises and drama. He will damage the Liberal Party unless they get rid of him. In this Costello was right. He’s a bull in a china shop who has betrayed commercial confidences, threatened people with violence, threatened even the BCA just recently, and generally been a trouble maker all his life simply for his own advancement. His ego is too big for even the Liberals and many in that party realise this already. Many more will do so soon. He is not a Party man, he is Malcolm Turnbull’s man.
This time he’s bitten off more than he can chew. His reliance on a faked email cannot be allowed to stand. You can’t just shrug off a forged document used to attempt to discredit the highest levels of government with an, “Oops! My bad…”, or a “Sorry, I was wrong, but…”
ltep,
The fact that a senior PS of Grech’s standing who had previously worked in the PMO is not astute enough to keep copies of emails beggars belief.
His performance on Friday was incoherent and inconsistent. If he is in the midst of a breakdown then I would be taking the evidence of the internal audit that no email ever existed.
Turnbull using such flimsy evidence to demand the resignation of Rudd is a matter of judgement and integrity. He has backed off as are his minions.
Possibly would have been a bigger scandal if they hadn’t let Grech speak.
Especially since he’d said something that contradicted the PM previously. If they hushed him up it would have looked very suspicious.
Hell it could of been carrier pigeon or magic harry potter flying mail
Made to dissapear that is, on my mobile
Oz, there’s little possibility that Sherry would’ve known about representations made by the PMs office in relation to John Grant at the initial estimates hearing. He’s a junior minister and it’s unlikely he would’ve been briefed on the matter.
Minister during estimates have the habit of taking just about everything on notice if it appears the Opposition are on a fishing expedition (it’s just safer). Additionally, Sherry even explains that it would be inappropriate to answer questions relating to individual small businesses as it might breach confidentiality.
Because the Libs have been trying to smear Rudd with Grant, the ALP senators were not entirely happy about what they expected would be more of the same. Why is that so hard to grasp.
Dario, as I pointed out, he added no such escape clause to his comments on the 4th. If you missed it;
Not everyone. I brought it up about a thousand posts ago. I opined at the time that Cameron had finally been let in on the secret.
Acerbic Conehead @ 394 said: “Its a great site and the coverage of the last couple of days here has been marvelous”
As one of those here who was unable to log on PB until quite late in this coverage, I totally concur with Acerbic here. None of my own posts have been related to the substantive matters/issues involved with this “crisis”, so I greatly appreciate the incisive commentaries which many of you have taken the time to write.
Accordingly, it was sad to read earlier today that Antony Green (for whom I hold singular admiration) was underwhelmed by, if not put-off by, posts on this thread. I hope that Antony will be rejoining us for future threads, as he has always been an invaluable contributor to PB with his vast knowledge of electoral processes and history.
Precisely
Sorry BB! Missed it in the cacophony!
Good point.
Yes, he was not 100% on the form of communication but he was very clear that was *some* form of communication. He did restate again on Friday that he thought it was an email though.
And as I pointed out, the guy was all over the place, and the reliability of his entire testimony is highly questionable
Zombie,
I like that. Maybe he received an owl.
Perhaps Kevin Rudd is Harry Potter. Certainly, Turnbull is a muggins.
Lewis had better put everyone out of their misery tomorrow. Given the AFP is involved, he’s not going to lie about it.
I’m sticking with my story of Grech telling the truth but the email being a hard copy fake so leaving no trace, planted in his files by someone in Treasury.
I can’t see the ETS getting up while this is going on. Aren’t they voting on it next week?
Could be a very nasty week in Parliament.
BB, I agree the Opposition have needlessly painted themselves into a corner by referring to this alleged email. They’d have been smarter to just attempt to get more information from Grech about the PMO”s representations in this case (email or some other form of communication).
Then, when (or if) it became clear that there had been some type of representation from the PM’s office they could make the case that he had mislead Parliament.
They’ve over-egged the whole thing and made it more confusing than it need be.
Yeah GG
and poor Godwin reminds me of Dobby the house elf
Please point out anything from his testimony on the fourth that contradicts or undermines what I quoted above.
Likely to be the case, given the alternative is a massive government cover up. Over a ute? Doubt it.
Muggle?
But that makes no sense at all. What would that achieve? It could easily be discredited by a simple search of the email system as has just been done.
My bet is it will be delayed till August.
Why? I will repeat. His entire testimony is in question.
Yeah. It’s let Rudd tie the whole thing to whether or not the email exists, when the story was that a Treasury official had contradicted statements made by the PM.
It’s easier for Rudd to disprove an email (that most likely doesn’t exist) than prove that a public servant was lying, twice, under oath.
Exactamundo
You have to give reasons, otherwise that statement is meaningless.
William never replied to me – why doesn’t MHS’ leadership turmoil of 17 of 22 Liberal MPs wanting a change of leadership feature in this thread’s stories?
Watch Channel 10 News: Turnball about to be blown out of the water!
Swan and Rudd in the clear.
So Malcolm is blustering again! This whole affair is getting so Kafkaesque, more the surreal “A Country Doctor” (Ein Landarzt) and “The Judgement” (Das Urteil) than the novels. Weird.
I’m waiting…
Second story already.
Your kidding aren’t you?
Diogs,
As your predictions are always wrong, your assertion that the ETS will not get up this week fills me with confidence of the contrary outcome.
However, my prediction remains the same that the ETS will not pass this week by being deferred or voted down and that the real vote will happen in September.
Indeed, two issues here . Was there a fake email that has been used to attack Rudd and was there other types of communication on these tpes of things generally. The libs have stuffed up by focussing on their own scam and grant.
@BernardKeane: Big report from Bonge on Ten News just now – Motor Trades’s Association Michael Delaney rejecting “special treatment” claims for Grant
Now Muggins is in the poo
Surely even you aren’t that thick?
You’re expecting people to simply disregard the testimony of a public servant during Senate estimates, when he was very clear about what he was saying, just because you said so?
Oz,
He wan’t that clear on Friday.
RT: @BernardKeane: AND Delaney says Charlton sent him an email which he forwarded to Grech – but not about Grant.
Muggins is completely in the poo
I’ll watch Channel 9 News too, perhaps Laurie Oakes will have a scoop?
First the media said “Rudd helped mate”, now Turnbull is saying that Grant is Swan’s mate. Swan met the man 4 times, i wouldn’t think that you would say that you would misled parliament, then have to defend yourself over a person you’ve met 4 times. That liberal talking point changed over the w/end from Rudds mate to Swans mate. Turnbull needs to get his talking points down pact.
I bet the media won’t ask over the sudden change of talk from Rudd to Swan
Lets also remember that Grant himself has said that he NEVER called the PM or his office over this, but went through Ripoll, then Swan. I still would like someone from the Liberal side of politics explain how someone who knows Swan from his electorate can now get representation without it becoming a front page story with a senate enquiry? What is exactly wrong with Swan helping this guy and others.
heh snap Frank
I know that very well.
I was explicitly talking about his testimony on the 4th, which Dario knows, because I said so several times.
Turnball will be torn to shreds in QT this week, Rudd will let Tanner off the leash!
Paul Bonjourno says a white knight has come to Swans rescue, the much respected the head of the MTA who says Grant got no different treatment than any of the other hundreds of dealers.
Bonjournoi finished by saying the email would not be mentioned by the libs in parliment this wek but expect the govt to bring it up , and also said expect by the end of the week there to be hundreds of emails in support of Swan
It’s too late now to make vague accusations that the PMO spoke to Grech on the phone or whatever. Grech said it was an email. Turnbull said he had “documentary evidence.” So where is it? If he doesn’t produce it in the House tomorrow, he is sunk.
Moa, never take any notice of a platypus. stick with doplhin.
He said that on Friday at estimates as well (the press pretty much ignored it – but he was asked by Abetzx if it was unusual for the treasury to be talking to finance companies about individual dealers. He said yes – before Ozcar it would never have happened. HOWEVER since then there have been hundreds. IN fact that that was the whole point of the scheme).
(going from memory – wish the Hansard was up)
No, but it would seem you are
Thanks for verballing me. I said it is in question, not that it should simply be disregarded. You are trying to assert that just because he supposedly seemed clearer on one thing than another that it must then be true. I am saying that such an assertion is not valid, given that he is appearing to be a very unreliable witness.
Possum Comitatus at 4:48 pm said: “It’s worth mentioning again that Dougie Cameron, at the very end of latest Senate Committee where Grech was being questioned,changed his mind after a small period and asked that Grech’s answer be heard.
Something that the Coalition is pretending did not happen, and something everyone seems to be regularly ignoring.”
Good call on the MSM coverage though, estimable Marsupial. For example, the representatives of MSM on ‘Insiders’ this morning ignored this. I kept wondering …
SNIP: See article two of comment moderation guidelines.
It’s getting better for Rudd & Swan
But Turnball now says he doesn’t have the email, so he’s blatantly lied to the Australian public, and should resign!
RT: @BernardKeane: Delaney also says he has copies of the “100s” of contacts he says Grech made between dealers and finance companies
Goodbye Malcolm
Somehow I predict the Libs will now attack Delany as being a patsy for the ALP.
Dario,
Correct.
Unreliable people tend to be unreliable generally.
That’s about the number of times I’ve met Wayne Swan. Glad I never asked a favour.
damn you Frank. Again !
It would be odd if a ministers office didnt inquire who was being accommodated by some new scheme. However hard copy memos emails and notes actually stating the minister are very rare because of some novice.
RT: @BernardKeane: AND Delaney says Charlton sent him an email which he forwarded to Grech – but not about Grant.
That’s what I’ve been saying that Grech probably confused the PMO email about other caryards, remember incorrectly it was about Grant.
Grech got the caryards mixed up about which Rudd has already gone on record of helping the bennelong caryard.
I believe that Grech when rang by Lewis answerd correctly that he had not seen the Email but when Lewis says that he has a copy of it Gretch goes over and over in his mind trying to recall the Email.
When Lewis rings the next two times he is still sure there was no Email but by the forth call after being repeatedly told Lewis had a copy of it, he thinks he must have received it and says yes.
The next morning after a sleeless night of going over and over it in his mind and checking his computer and finding nothing he is confused and under a great deal of stress.
He goes before the committee with Abetz waving the supposed Email in his face he semms to recall it but cannot be sure. After Two hours of being verbaled of being asked the same questions over and over again and under a great strain his Department head steps in and protects him.
If the police when they question him quitly and calmly go over the sequence of events the truth will out No Email
In the immortal words of the PM, get ready for the ‘political shitstorm’
“Sloppy Joe” ought to be happy, he could be Liberal leader by the end of next week, or will the Mad Monk Abbott put his hat into the ring?
yes, you have to admit poor Grech is a confused soul. he needs to take a long long sabbatical.
From his presser on Sky he seemed to be running away from that statement. Or denying he said it.
Though when he commented on Charlton’s statment on Friday he didn’t actually deny it then:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25659559-12377,00.html
And Rudd can be a ruthless bastard when he needs to, Turnball is about to be covered in it LOL
I must say I find it a little odd there is no independent corruption commission for the federal parliament… it’s about time one was established.
GG (505)
Certainly looking like a mug, alright. Carrying on the Harry Potter theme, he is resembling a Death Eater at the moment.
Dogma and WarrenPeace, thanks very much. I think your two posts between them have just about nailed the biggest mystery here – SNIP: See article two of comment moderation guidelines did Grech think he was doing on Friday?
Me too. I can understand why we never saw one introduced during the Howard era. It would have been run off its feet!
All that is left is a fake email~tumble weeds. Wind and sand~ everyone looks at the liberal party.
He probably wasn’t thinking much at all, or maybe too much. I think on reflection he will be seen as a guy who just ‘lost it’.
News are obviously under pressure. When they’ve been found out dealing in dodgy information, what would you expect them to do. Contrition? Remorse? Sorrow?
Nah, go the punch!
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dodgy-brothers-rudd-swan-utegate-emails/
How long do you reckon The Oz has left before its wound up? A year or two?
547 warrenpeace – that is my reading as well
So was the punch supposed to be a non partisan version of the papes? They to buikd credibility?
Darn cell phone!
LTEP
Turnbull said there was documentary evidence (to the staffer). If so, whether fake or not, produce it.
556
Didn’t Howard also promise an independent speaker when elected?
I’m hoping for some props during Parliament this week, maybe some rubber fried eggs?
thanks gg :
What?? we hate polticians becaure – in Swans’ case he bought a car 4 years ago from a guy who knew Rudd? And because Rudd put this donation on the public register???
Talk about setting the bar low.
I hate it when politicans give out $10b to companies run by a mate even though his department advises him not to.
Dario, they should wind up THE DAILY TELEGRAPH too!
Like the republic, you wont see the demise of the OO until its monarch is gone.
Well folks, methinks the next target will be Rudd’s children.
Rudd’s children overboard?
Several people have mentioned that Rudd made the referral to the AFP. I think is was somebody else, someone linked to the enquiry. Normally with an enquiry referrals happen once the findings of the enquiry are made known. Does this mean that somebody in the enquiry found evidence of criminal activity and decided that the AFP needed to be brought in straight away?
Nah just give it to Lachlan to stuff up like he did to Festival Mushroom Records
What a moron Penberthy is – he doesn’t even know where Ipswich is. And he says that Swan buying a car for the use of his EO staff *at market value* from Grant’s dealership is a “benefit.” Swan and Grant should both sue him. Is there no-one at the Murdoch press who is not a pathological liar?
I am with Zombie Mao 100%
I hope that Grech is being very well looked after – he must be suffering terribly.
Specifically Rudd’s Daughter and her Asian Husband.
OK, we “almost” know how Grech got confused, sweet. He needs sabbatical.
But we still dunno who’s done this:
“Hi Godwin, the PM has asked if the car dealer financing vehicle is available to assist a Queensland dealership, John Grant Motors, who seems to be having trouble getting finance. If you can follow up on this asap that would be very useful. Happy to discuss. A,”
sent on February 19, says.
Yes the various News ltd editors have a lot of explaining to do.
That is a fairly disgusting article by the News ltd site ~ you can tell just how upset they are now.
Grog, you should reply …”and that’s why journalists are on the bottom of rung when it comes to public opinion, because some of them write unrealistic, untrue, poorly worded, shit”
Hopefully the AFP find out, and hopefully it’s somebody high up at News so they can get charged and sued.
Can’t you comment at that Punch site? I wanted two questions answered.
What news organisation was fooled by the fake email and forwarded it to the Liberals?
Very few it would seem
#580
and stripped searched and probed
Yairs, I chanced upon it this morning. Full of factual as well as logical and ethical errors (and it seems geographic ones, too).
If this email is fake, Lewis must $hitting himself right now.
Look, neither Rudd nor Turnbull is going to resign. It’s more likely to just end in stalemate. Swan is a bit more iffy.
In other news Greenland gets self-rule tomorrow. Congrats the people of Greenland!
The murdoch mob helped the destruction of reputation of journalists. Is it any woder they rate below pond scum now.
If only it was enough to get him sent to the big house. I’d be the first one to buy him some lube as a going away present.
Sorry James, Malcolms position has become untenable. If he dosen’t resign, the Party will shaft him.
And I note none of the online News Sources have reported on the Ten News item either.
You’re dreaming. Turnbull is in deep shit, and growing deeper by the hour.
All the non-News media are running a mile from the email and turning their guns on the Liberals.
He just cant help himself. he has to drag Therese into his sleaze. scumbag.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dodgy-brothers-rudd-swan-utegate-emails/
I agree Turnbull probably won’t resign, because he is psychologically incapable of admitting error or failure. But if he doesn’t produce hard evidence against Rudd tomorrow, he is dead meat politically. As an ALP hack I hope he doesn’t resign, because we have him by goolies now and we won’t let go.
I go back to my earlier question, just how closely have they AFP been watching Treasury?
The Paul Bongiorno report on Ten was very, very important.
He is highly respected and his reports are always factual and professional.
I agree.
psephos 594
I agree.
The punch have revealed their colors. Another spitefull pit of right wing vipers.
Psephs
I didn’t really hate Turnbull before, and I didn’t like him either, but after seeing his display of hatred yelling and sneering, lip curl and all, I would rather vote for Pauline Hansons nude lookalike than vote for that man.
He should not run this country, he would not listen to what the people want and would be very patronising to the Australian people. Turnbull arrogantly thinks that he’s always right, but I’m hoping that the Australian people will do their usual, and have their bullshit spidey senses going off when it comes to him.
As Antony has observed, there could well be something new by a professional journalist (PJ) in the Australian tomorrow:
1. PJ receives a Deep Throat hint that there is evidence that will bring down the Rudd Government – AFP investigation has tape of conversation between Rudd and a C*r D**l*r in which the said C*r D**l*r is offered umpty squillions in exchange for the occasional use of a second hand ute. Makes sense to PJ. Code is ‘A.’
2. PJ Breathes heavily, salivates, wets pants.
3. Receives a call from ‘A.”; tape is read over the phone, through a handkerchief, with Costello’s resignation speech playing in the background…
4. (Repeat of 2, in spades).
5. PJ Needs confirmation; phones Patsy of the AFP.
6. Patsy says, ‘Well, uh, um…p’raps, not exactly, but…can’t remember too well right now, but the gist…’
7. PJ has all the confirmation she needs.
8. PJ accidentally sends text of transcript to Turnbull instead of to Editor (see 2 above).
Nobody’s going to lose their job. Somebody will just come out of it with their credibility extremely tarnished. Who that is will most likely ultimately be determined by what the polls do.
Boerwar @ 571
No, it was Rudd – the secretary of the Attorney-General’s department, Robert McLelland’s department. It wouldn’t have been referred unless Rudd said so. The inquiry is being run by the Auditor-General’s department.
Your confusion I think was the result of one of Diogenes’ bold mistakes earlier on.
Borewar: I don’t think there are any PJs at The Australian. It’s become the Fox News of Australian politics, and I can’t think of anything worse to say than that.
JV
Thank you
Diogenese
Thank you very much, I don’t think.
We have a Treasury insider that has created a fake email ~ a criminal offence, anybody in the know that didnt report is in trouble, assuming the assertion is true.
Psephos
I think I will stick with Megalonis as PJ, but beyond that I am not too sure…
cf 610
Oops that should have read Megalonis as ‘a’ PJ, and not ‘the’ PJ in the story, which latter appellation was meant to ironic.
*goes to buy food*
Nothing much new on 9 news. No mention of the MTA.
Boarwore, since I don’t actually read the rag, except the occasional article when necessary for work purposes, I’ll take your word for it.
Turnbull “will not comment on the email – because it is a police matter”, does he really think he can get away with this?
mmmm food.
Every weekend should be as exciting.
Ah, ruawake, what whispers have you heard? Fill us in, while I go to replenish essential stores depleted by the weekend’s frenetic activity.
*goes to buy beer*
ru
If you remember back to the refugee boat burning and the enquiry by the NT police in which Debus said that it’s prudent to wait for the results. Turnbull then screaming show results, ppinion writers repeating and publishing everythingTurnbull said for weeks.
Fast forward today, won’t comment on email because of police investigation. More like he won’t comment because he knows that the police investigation is going to show that his past comments on documentary evidence is non existent.
jv
I have spent a liesurely afternoon having lunch with my mum and dad, it was my mum’s birthday.
Surf and Turf at “Something Blue” in Caloundra was a great way to spend Sunday arvo.
Mark Reilly on Channel 7 says if nothing more comes out no one will quit, but if someone has faked an email, that person is going to jail.
I actually don’t think an email has been faked. I think a text may have been faked, and someone told Lewis saying I got this tip, don’t know if it’s real or not, but here it is….
But like everyone else here I’m just thinking outloud, trying to find some logic.
If I actually knew anythng, last thing I’d do is tell you lot!!!
Rudd is expereinced at building questions in parliament against the govt. So when turnbull ran his line Rudd have known exactly what was afoot. The best easiest thing would have been to correct the record, by far the safesp path to take if you know there is something. He didn’t because there was nothing, but it gave him time to work a strategy to the smear he knew was coming.
Yep, had my eye off the ball for a day or so there. New post added.
For the same reason countless other bigger stories than this one didn’t rate a mention: it is a purely political rather than electoral matter.
All these people commenting that Turnbull isn’t about as deep do-do as he could possibly get, are missing the point that he has accused Rudd of “corruption” (about the worst possible charge) and said that he “must” resign.
Misleading Parliament is but a blip in comparison with this! Turnbull has massively over-read the political possibility in this and will pay the price.
Question Time will be fascinating this week. Every “dorothy dixer: will be focussed on Turnbull’s actions. Pyne will be beside himself trying to keep the wolves at bay and a fairly sure bet will be that he gets expelled four days out of four.
Possibly new records will be set for expulsions this week if the rest of the rabble try and prop up Turnbull!
Erica war reading from an email? Will he be assisting police on what document he was reading?
The Liberals game plan was to attack the stimulus packages – failed.
They then hoped the economy would go into recession – failed by 0.4%
So seeing that they could not attck the policies they switched tack to attacking the implementation.
That is why they have tried to discredit the school spending.
The OzCar thing is just a continuation of this strategy – except they could not restrain themselves.
There is not email, there never was an email, its just that the Libs hoped so much it was true. They re-enforced their desires and the email became fact.
No one is going to resign over this – but it greatly weakens Turnbull. The next Newspoll will probably revert to “normal” with a slight gain by Labor. This will be seen as “voters turn on Turnbull” as the media dream up another way to sell newspapers.
…and labor haven’t even turned the spotlight on turnbull’s business career – who knows whats there – HIH anyone ??
Costello may come back after all….
Geez “Rudd survives car spat” is on the BBC web site, right under the Iranian riots. How embarassing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Australian PM escalates car spat – that should read.
Would be so funny being taken down town to assist police with their inquiries. He was reading from something so he will have to produce it.
Erica that is.
Aw Malcolm, why not just tell us.
Yes, TP, Abetz may well be in a very hot seat. He can’t deny that he has the email, since he read it out on Friday. He said a journalist gave it to him. But maybe he got from the original fabricator…
Geez politics has been boring since Costello left…
Goodness me, Freo is giving Geelong a scare – scores equal at 3/4 time.
These are not mutually exclusive…
What a shame
Protected by parliamentary privelege, I’m afraid.
The huge story here is a possible criminal forgery to slander the PM and with the Liberal party mixed up in it. This real juicey stuff, but are the media doing? Very poorly.
8.13 is terrible kicking.
BB, you are confusing parliamentary privilege with parliamentary immunity. An MP cannot be prosecuted or sued for anything they say in Parliament, but they can be questioned, and they can be prosecuted for any other offence, such as forgery for example.
The Finnigans @3597
“‘At last count, when she was selling out of the domestic arm of the business, Kevin Rudd’s wife Therese Rein was worth an estimated $127 million. If the PM wanted a ute so badly – and felt that his salary as Opposition Leader wasn’t enough to cover the cost, which it was – maybe he could have bought a ute himself. In fact he could have bought 10 utes, probably with the change out of the ashtray in his family car, and still not noticed the cost on his family bank balance.’”
‘He just cant help himself. he has to drag Therese into his sleaze. scumbag.
For god’s sake, it’s called “an election donation”! This is a broad democracy, & people from very rich to very poor raise money for election costs, as people from very rich to very poor stand for election!. It’s being part of that broad democracy. Nothing to do with sleaze or scumbag – unless you don’t contribute to election fundraising so don’t know that. Or that’s the way your mind works.
Donatons can be made in cash or kind. Many businesses contribute printing, time, food, use of premises & equipment for work, or fundraisers etc etc AND use of an old ute. In fact, many businesses, especially small businesses, prefer to give in kind, as it doesn’t affect their cash flow. Rudd declared the ute on his pecuniary register in 2007!
Many dedicated campaign workers with little money offer their homes for fundraisers, like barbies, dinners with guest speakers, collectors afternoons etc. I’ve done that myself in the past. Perfectly normal, as anyone whose been in or on the periphery of electoral fundraising know!
Had Howard not changed the rules, so donations could be up to $10,000 – surely you can remember the hooha on this – it would have been declared as such; but he did. Incidentally, you’ll find Turnbull, who’s worth much more, also accepted election donations, inc fundraisers.. If you want to do the pills, do it on Howard; the one who used Treasury funds to bail out his brother’s business, remember?
I’m sure he would have kept the electronic copy, if one existed.
If it is still required that dead-tree versions be produced and filed (heaven forbid, in this day and age), I expect there will be Records Management staff that organise this. I doubt that Grech or any other senior ps does this for themselves.
Poor Peter Costello…
1995 – duped by Howard out of a dead cert for Prime Ministership.
2005 – betrayed by an over-keen Glen Milne out of a dead cert for Prime Ministership.
2007 – didn’t have the guts to go for a dead cert Prime Ministership.
2007 – handed the leadership, squibbed a dead cert.
2008 – Launched his book, and was busy at the Press Club on the very day the a dead cert leadership spill was on.
2009 – Retired from Parliament the day before Turnbull begins a week long process of self-destruction.
This man has no luck. Couldn’t win a toss-up with a double headed coin.
On the other hand the Australian people are VERY lucky they didn’t get such a political klutz as PM or Lib leader.
Quo vadis Liberal Party? Your true destiny is revealed this week.
Heads up to Perth Bludgers – Ten News about toStart
“I don’t believe in luck. Politicians make their own luck.” Paul Keating.
#642 – we are on the same side.
This was meant for the journalist, not kevin Rudd.
As you are new here and dont know me. I forgive you.
Bloody good point, this would be like asking Turnbull to pay for all the costs associated with being re-elected, because you know penthaby says that millionairs aren’t allowed to except donations and this is low and why everybody hates politicians. A bitter class warfare at the Punch – just like everyday you read news ltd.
Did I miss something? When did Howard sell the ABC to Murdoch?
The last politician who refused to resign following a no confidence vote against him in the Queensland parliament was a former Attorney General Denver Beanland. He lost his seat at the following election.
BB
Costello hasn’t retired from parliament. He has only said that he will not seek pre-selection for the next election. If Turnbull goes down in flames Costello may reconsider. There is a recent precedent.
FRANK STOP BEATING ME TO IT
Oh, It’s Time, I was being poetic. Cozzie exhibits the worst political timing I have ever seen in a supposed genius politician.
*No confidence* motions can only passed against ministers. If they are passed the minister must resign. They can’t be moved against Opposition members, because by definition the House has no confidence in the Opposition, or they’d be the Government. *Censure* motions however can be passed against anyone. But there’s no obligation on Opposition politicians to resign when a censure motion is passed against them by the Government, because the Government always has the numbers and such motions don’t mean very much.
People you seriously need to sign up to twitter. Myf Warhurst is posting pics of herself in bikinis diving into a pool in Thialand
Why would a Govt. want to censure an opposition member when they have dorothys in QT. ?
Aurelianus – Howard probably sold the ABC to Murdoch the same day that Turnbull handed out $10ml. to his mate for the u-beaut cloud seeding failure, i.e. 2 days before the election (22/11/07).
The only interesting thing on Insiders today was Brian Toohey’s final comment on Costello’s legacy.
No one from the ABC or the Murdoch camp would be game to say that. It was classic Toohey and accurate.
Bernard Keane
Bring it on Rudd
Dogma – that is so good to read. Better watch Parliament tomorrow a.m. in case Turnbull tries to censure Swan or would he only do it through QT
How long before Mr Speaker issues a “General Warning” to the House tomorrow?
House dosen’t sit till 12:00pm AEST
Go Kevin!!
Phesphos, Beanland was the Liberal member for Indooroopilly when he refused to resign as Attorney General after losing a no confidence motion. But my query is just what will it take to get through to Turnbull when it is time to go?
#665
Ironbar with his Ironbar
That seemed evident from the begining, wonder early he cottonf on? When Hockey mentioned Grechs name?
I reckon this Dodgy Brothers thingo is worthy of a run on Media Watch tonight. There is probably a few others that could do with an airing too. I hope so!
Could Turnbull bring on censure re Swan at 12 pm? Hockey says they are going to get heavy with Swan. Luckily that Swannie has improved and has worked out to handle them now.
ZM, that’s if Ironbar doesn’t get kicked out of the chamber with one of his useless interjections first.
BH I like the fact that the governments not letting that man (turnbull) get away with this BS.
How’s the linking going? Have you got the hang of it yet?
Could Turnbull bring on censure re Swan at 12 pm? Hockey says they are going to get heavy with Swan. Luckily Swannie has improved and has worked out to handle them now.
Yes I have thanks Dogma – realised that I actually had to open the item and click on the heading there. I had been trying to do it through the newsletter – derrrr…
Reflecting on Grech’s mindset and the learned opinions here earlier while on the trip to the bottlo (my trip, not his – although Grech is probably doing it too), I grapple with the concept that someone at his level could possibly be uncertain about whether he received an email like that or not, on something so critical. He would simply know. And even if he didn’t, he would have checked back to the PMO immediately the question came up, a while ago. There is still a piece missing.
ruawake – very cagey of you, to keep your own counsel out of the way there. Given the extent of your inside knowledge yesterday, the media must be tracking you. Did you encounter any stake outs as you left the bistro – or was there only steak within?
Hockey may have let the cat out of the bag early on. That would have given time for rudd to sting them. Advice to those already in the mire, dont make it quick sand trying blast your way out. :;
JV – I can’t see free to air telly so missed Ch10 News but earlier posts and Bernard Keane’s twitter suggest that MTA bloke forwarded on email to Grech from Charlton about another motor dealer.
Would be funny if that is the email Grech is thinking of but then the wording would have been different so the question is still whose wording did Abetz, Lewis & Turnbull have.
Fascinating.
Heh, I was wondering to myself “I wonder if Delaney will end up being a Labor member or something”.
“Please note re Delaney – he is an ex-ALP staffer, although it was 30 years ago.”
Doubt it means much though. I didn’t find Delaney’s views that mindblowing anyway.
You’re slow off the mark zombie
I find that very hard to believe. I will check on this.
Yes. Traditionally, governments must accept censure motions, although they have the numbers to shut Turnbull up if they want.
Yes, and the theory that he was flustered because Lewis was ringing up the night before doesn’t explain why he clearly said two weeks ago that the PMO had contacted him.
Expect the Libs to run that line that Delany isn’t as independent as he says he is and will enlist the Qld Libs to find some dirt on his activites at the MTA.
Maybe, but I don’t really think he’s worth it.
BB
Instead of poetic, how about pathos? Costello reconsiders after the Libs skewer Turnbull and come on bended knees to him. Lazarus with a quadruple bypass.
It is all well documented Psephos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Borbidge
Even if Delaney is an ex Labor bloke it doesn’t mean much as he has to keep his reputation as head of the Motor Traders Assoc.
That would be more important to him than to be making up stories to support Labor in this.
I heard his answers to the Committee on Friday. He said they had had 100s of enquiries which they had passed on . Said it was more or less a very frantic time and they were looking for urgent help for dealers. Finns may even have it on his video.
I think people tend to forget just how frantic things were then and in October when Rudd & Co guaranteed the Banks. The urgency of it blows over. Rudd should keep reminding us of the weekend that the Banks realised they could have been in trouble
He explained it beautifully to the Qld ALP conference and he should keep repeating it.
Justin Madden was censured in the Victorian Legislative Council a week or so ago. It’s likely he’ll be the next Premier of Victoria in a couple of years.
who was the last minister to resign for misleading parliament? Jim Cairns? Rex Conner?
BH 676
Exactly – There is not yet a consistent chain of cause and effect. There is a piece or two missing, and I’m thinking it’s the government that holds those pieces, which it will lay on the table when it suits, tomorrow.
Possum has noted the fact the Campbell suddenly gave the green light for Grech to blurt, right at the end of the committee session on Friday. Did that come from someone at the back of the room passing a message from the leadership group because they knew what Grech would say? More likely than not, I reckon.
Good to see that the media and our pollies are concentrating on the big issues, utegate what a pathetic issue. Meantime governments provide a State funeral for person who should be able to afford to provide every person in Australia with a funeral…. What are our politicians frightened of?
Just did the wiki – Cainrs was saked, Connor resigned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Connor
Meanwhile from Mike Rann:
PremierMikeRannIn NZ but just heard former Lib staffer Christian Kerr’s idea… Chris Pyne to switch fr Fed to SA Parl and become Leader of Opp. Stirrer!
See the Bombers fly up, up!
ru,
Essendon spawned him, Carlton perfected him.
Upper house censures don’t count. The Senate could censure Kim Carr every day of the week and he’d laugh it off. But lower house censures should lead to resignation. Beanland not resigning is shocking, and shows how debased the Westminster system became in Qld during the Bjelke-Petersen era. Liz Cunningham should have withdrawn her support from the government when Beanland didn’t resign, it was very gutless of her not to, and effectively negated her censure vote.
JV 688 – Cameron was reading the questions off his laptop – obviously questions were being relayed on to it for him as the session wore on. Fabulous things, computers.
Only downside was that they didn’t know the email may have been a fake so it wasn’t quite the right look to stop Grech from answering for as long as they did.
That darn Ruddy – he had the goods on Howard and he seems to come up with other stuff when it is needed so hopefully you are right and he has some good info.
Justin Madden the person who wants to premier but is unable to run his own electorate office. Justin does not deserve to be sacked and is probably a decent bloke but he is unelectable… He is not overly attractive and not a very good speaker. Unfortunately i see very few people coming through in both parties in Victoria.
Justins’ only skill is that he is charismatic.
Pyne in SA – I don’t think they really like him over there, do they. Some of my rellies in his seat and they think Labor should find a really good candidate to knock him off. They can’t stand him and they are swinging voters.
They all do.
There may be a reason for the different wording
Why the hell is the NSW Government advertising its budget? What a joke.
Oz, to ensure that the media owners get more and more money so to be able to criticise them.
Umm, as far as I’m aware, EVERY State Govt run ads post Budget.
Credit where credit’s due. I noted the off-camera quip by Cameron @ 2497 on the previous (3000+) thread, and Possum even apologized for trying to gazump me!
As I wrote so sagely… http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/15/newspoll-53-47-2/all-comments/#comment-291070
Who says PB-ers can’t break news? Well, not exactly breaking news, but we had the same resources as the MSM did, but we drew better conclusions.
That’s gotta count for something.
Updated story including the Bongiorno revelations.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25667706-661,00.html
Frank @ 651
Your rankings of different news coverages of the political stand-off are spot-on.
It’s as though Murdoch has added two new networks to his massive global empire: ABC and SBS.
Both of their national news reported that Grech stated he recollected the email, but neither mentioned he also stated that his recollection could be “totally false, faulty”.
Really? Enormous waste of money.
All it said was “We’re spending money on infrastructure. Visit our website to find out more”.
Oz,
It appears you have made up your mind.
Looks like they are trying to communicate with people other than political tragics. Apparently, they make up the vast majority of the electorate.
The Howard defence, ok.
I just got back home and have read the news.
Turnball says email is a distraction!?
Is he for real??????
Is he a dead man walking or what???
I keep thinking of the probable probe into previous Treasury leaks . If Rudd is supremely confident them he knows what it is all about? is he holding a few aces? Or maybe just happy there is no real email. Have to wait.
Oz,
Don’t pout.
Governments are entitled to promote their activities. It’s a question of how much is a fair thing.
You obviously think nothing is too much. Get back to me when you are ready to enter the real world.
Either way Turnbull has the goods on Swan and the media can smell blood he’ll be finished…
Glen,
It’s a long way to the top if you want to be a silly sausage troll.
This is getting Pythonesque, how can you have the gall, the arrogance to demand the Prime Minister of Australia resign over documentary evidence you purported to have?
Ok.
What makes you think the email is dead
Tom
Mmmm. Me thinks this comment was a trifle early.
http://twitter.com/_Tors
GG if you think Swan is innocent go take a good look in the mirror…
There may be nothing on Rudd so far but Swan is by no means innocent based on what we currently know despite what the laborite hacks seem to think…
Glen
Turnbull may have damaged Swan if he was a decent politician, but he is a dill. He went after Rudd without any credible of even dodgy evidence.
He can’t say sorry I was wrong on Rudd – but Swan is really, really bad. He stuffed up.
I do not disagree with you about aiming too high but doing so should not excuse Swan for his failings…
Really, if Turnbull doesnt have to resign over this the lib party has no standards or ethics at all. He made the most severe alegations with no evince. He said she said is never evidence.
they can smell something…
Glen,
How about you offer some substantive evidence of your assertions. You are the ultimate bludger of Poll Bludger.
What failings !
Read the following update from Ten News :
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25667706-661,00.html
The Faecal matter emenating from Malcolm Turnbulls underwear
GG the MSM have a lot of evidence out their in the public domain that incriminate him im not going to bother rehashing it on PB…
I’m sure Glen is rummaging through the Liberal propaganda bin as we speak.
failing to roll over like a dog? failing to mess up the economy?
Glen,
Just admit you are too lazy. Intellectual challenge is too challenging.
Look, everyone likes you hanging around as the pet tory you can kick in the nuts when you fell like it. But, really, as an intellectual you make a very good sponge.
Glen, we still haven’t sighted the documentary evidence a Liberal Lawyer claimed to have on Friday afternoon. Any idea when the documentary evidence will be produced?
Well what do you know, he found something in the bin.
GG i just thought you wouldnt like me rehashing the evidence that supports the writings of Milne and Van O…
Ahh, the Tweedle Dumb & Dumber of News Ltd.
Really Credible – NOT.
Glen
What most people will remember is Malcolm calling for Rudd and Swan to resign – something about emails – then fake emails – then police investigating.
Thats about it. The story then becomes the “fake” emails (plural because people will think it is so).
Fake emails are something people can relate to – they happen everyday. The only way this can play out is Turnbull being duped by a fake, then the question comes to his judgement.
Politics, I think it is called.
Hey, leave Glen alone, he only said he won’t repoduce any proof, he will just rely on the media for that. Who else in the Libs has done that recently, umm, let me think on that for a while…
Tom.
Glen,
This is and has always been an open forum. So, fill your boots.
However, you’ve yet to convince me you can read let alone analyse let alone provide insight. Reducto trollism whish is what you’ve done with this thread makes you look like a wally.
GG if i put any evidence on here first of all you’ll say its from the MSM which all of your evidence is based on too, second you’ll say im a hack, third you’ll say that the fake email means Swan will get off no matter what and then to retort ill say that Turnbull’s failings should mean Swan gets off the hook….
Am I right so far…
Oh and throw in Adam calling me an idiot too.
shouldn’t
Headline in todays Sunday Opposition (Telegraph)
Why the Treasurer will be lucky to survive
SWAN DIVE
GOVERNMENT IN CRISIS
On the top of pages 4, 5 & 7 reads a heading: UTEGATE LABOR IN CRISIS
On page 49: Piers Akerman
PM shreds his credibility
On page 105: by Glenn Milne
Swan’s defence beggars belief
Glen,
How do you know? You’ve never tried it?
I Don’t buy the paper. I went to my dad’s this afternoon and he was reading it. First thing he said to me was that Rudd and Swan are in big trouble. That was before I tried to set him straight.
Last night had dinner with friends and a group of people. The topic turned to politics. They all think Rudd and Swan are guilty. I barely made it sitting there and listening to it managing not to blow up.
Shouldn’t this be called Email-gate or Turnbull-gate, given those are the critical elements here?
I love putting gate at every hint of corruption or misdeed by politicians…what would we be calling it if we hadnt had Watergate??
Labor must go all the way with this.
TURNBULL MUST RESIGN.
This is one explanation.
But I think a better one, especially as the AG is involved and they are looking to nail someone for impersonation a Federal Official, is this, which explains the falsity of it.
A person quickly copies an e-mail from PMO, (the Bennalong one) replaces it and at another location either at Treasury or alternate, scans it, brings it up on screen in word, highlights the message, hits delete and in the same font, types the new message, (the one causing all the kerfuffle) and alter or delete any identifying log number so it can’t be traced as a different, original, e-mail.
The revised “e-mail” can now be printed out and as many copies as desired distributed as necessary. I would suggest that every copy possible has by now, been destroyed. The wording of the message though is well and truly in the public domain now.
I am a computer illiterate but could do this in under ten minutes.
How many ppl on pollbludger will be…
A. Taping Order in the House tonight
B. Taping QT each day and watching it with popcorn
C. Watching Senate QT lol
D. Taping Order in the House next week
Glen, you’ll have to do more than change your Gravatar to Churchill to bring down Swannie!
Glen, thank you, Churchill is a much better avatar than McCarthy. “I have got much more out of alcohol than it has got out of me” is not something McCarthy could have said.
Apart from that, you are still talking like an idiot. What, exactly, specifically, is the Liberal case against Swan? Please tell us.
746 – if I get to the stage of taping a Senate QT, I know it’ll be time to alert the authorities to up my medication!
What I want to know Glen is why is the Liberal Party intent on destroying small businesses in the car industry?
Glen you have gotten worse. From Menzies to Churchill.
Grog if I ever get to that stage, lock me up and throw away the key
And as you would not have access to the senders email account, the originating mail server, the Receiving mail server and would be unable to edit a mail actually in your inbox, it would support one part of your argument. And that is, with respect, you are computer illiterate
Tom
Adam i dont disagree with your reasons for disliking Senate McCarthy…
Swan failed to justify the why Ford Credit was specifically encouraged to take up John Grant’s case when it was raised with them at a meeting concerned with their access to $500 million of taxpayers’ funds.
Swan failed to detail how many other motor vehicle dealers had their cases raised in that meeting.
Swan has failed to explain why he was being kept informed of John Grant’s case….re the faxes sent to Swannie.
Swan failed to detail how many other motor vehicle dealer’s cases were the subject of personal updates to himself and Ken Henry.
Swan and Rudd failed to have Swan’s actions and those of his office included in the terms of reference of the Auditor General’s inquiry. Makes me think he’s got something to hide.
Swan mislead the Parliament and should resign…
as the media salivates over ute-gate (how did this get to be a gate anyway, when overboard, WMD, AWB etc were never gates?) one thing is abundantly clear- the Rudd govt has few friends in the media. Have just returned from WA where the West (which makes the OO look left wing) reported hysterically that Rudd was “fighting for his political life”!! will the public care?? I think not
So funny to see Cassidy on Insiders barely able to contain his excitement about this crisis. And they wonder why Rudd wont go on the show.
lol @ Glen’s pathetic claims
And Glen you must have tongue in cheek as you bang on about terms of reference and misleading parliament. Have you heard of the Howard government?
Dario if you cant answer them you demonstrate my point that Swan is in trouble
Andrew whatever you may think of the Howard Government doesnt excuse what Swan did.
An AFP source tells me the investigation will have an official- “Operation xxx” – by tomorrow, but that it has already started anyway.
They will go – are already going – gangbusters on it. The entire AFP computer investigative team will be put on it with a view to a quick resolution.
No-one’s PC, lap top or server will be immune. Turnbull will have to hand over his data as will Abetz any any other person of interest. This may include government ministers and staffers too. It will be a fair inquiry.
Howver, journalistic privelege will not be able to be claimed by Lewis as this is not recognized in a criminal investigation (only in Law And Order”). Search warrants will have absolute precedence. Seizures will be carried out if necessary.
In fact the investigation has already begun, so it is too late to start dumping hard drives off the Harbour Bridge
The AFP computer squad can do just about anything, retrieve any data, monitor any PC or lap top “live” and would most likely be doing this already. Attempts to dispose of incriminating material may attract further charges of destroying evidence, perverting the course of justice etc.
In short, this will be taken seriously, very seriously.
A report will be made to the Attorney General within weeks, and to the DPP if necessary. No stone will be left unturned.
Glen, the thread’s slowing down a bit now and I am sure people would be more than happy for you to put forward your case against Swan.
After all, it’s the least they can do after putting forward in excess of 3,500 posts painting Turnbull in a poor light!
Glen, I don’t need to. There are pages and pages of refutation. The fact that you think the rubbish you just put together means trouble for Swan speaks for itself.
Trust me on this one Glen, you’l be reading a number “answers” any time now
Glen, OK, that’s much better than just saying Swan is an idiot all the time.
I’m immersed in Indian election statistics just now, and I haven’t read the Grech-Thomas emails which were tabled on Friday. (Have you?) So I will have to take those questions on notice. I know nothing about the first two points. The next two obviously depend on whether Swan *asked* to be kept informed or whether Grech did it on his own initiative. The last point is just politics. Tomorrow I’ll see what I can find, although of course this may be overtaken by events.
Is calling for the PM to resign based on an email that does not exist, which you haven’t even seen an MT threat?
Adam why would Greck do this on his own accord, he says according to his testimony that he knew about Grant’s relationship with Rudd and i cant remember the right word he used but that it meant more work because of that connection…
Sorry, Tom, I omitted to say that it would be worked off a hard copy of an original hard copy quickly borrowed from the original recipient, (whilst at lunch or whatever) and quickly slipped in a copier and then replaced back in the in-box, file, whatever.
Well Freo did their usual tease.
I swear they should be called the Fremantle Strippers. Lots of excitement, but in the end no pleasure.
I should add. It can be done just by using a photo copy of the original hard copy. It doesn’t have to have “any” electronic involvement leaving any trail whatsoever.
Because he’s a grovelling sycophant, having been well-trained in Howard’s PM&C?
That is one possible reason but there are others…
The other point that many people are missing is that Grech said he had seen representationf from ‘dealers’ not ‘a dealer’ And it is also very possible that Swann had asked to receive faxes and may have received many fax relating to many Car Dealers of which one was Grant. Would that mean that he is seeking to help all dealers on the basis that he once payed full market price for a vehicle?
Tom.
In which case why worry about waing for an actual email, just make something up in Word, print it, voila!
Tom
I am always amused when everyone on this site (which appears to be about 95% leftists these days) believes that News Limited, ABC, SBS and any other news media is against them. What you should realise is that the media is always likely to be more critical of the government than the opposition. It was very much the case when Howard was PM and every Liberal supporter believed that the ABC was an organ of the ALP. It wasn’t true then and the opposite is not true now.
Even more ludicrous is the suggestion that Barrie Cassidy is anti-ALP. For crying out loud he was Bob Hawke’s press secretary for 6 years. I thought Insiders was very good this morning – they criticised Rudd, Swann and Turnbull. The fact that Kelly, Cassidy, Megalonis and Toohey were all in general agreement should tell you something. There is much more for Rudd and Swann to worry about in this matter than for Turnbull.
For those interested, The ABC site has a link to this morning Insiders discussion on the missing email.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/21/2604048.htm
The thing I find deeply shocking in all this is the idea that emails get printed off as a matter of course.
The Liberal Party and some in the msm media have badly miscalculated on this, They have gone for a super smear on Rudd (and will probably continue as much as they can to support their candidate) and used faked documentation, knowingly or not.
Basically the Liberal Party, probably in combination with some in the msm media has tried to bring down a prime minister with faked information – you dont get more serious than that.
Turnbull went way way over the top and now he admits without any evidence except what amounts to ’somebody said she said’.
We had today some parts of the murdoch media desperately lying its head off to smear Rudd and Swan as much as possible while they could.
They have left Rudd in the position that to totally clear his name he has to destroy Turnbull entirely, no matter how long it takes.
Rudd will be very keen indeed to clear his name and will be meticulous in ticking every little box. This means relentless pursuing until he gets his target or gets satisfaction. If he cant get it from this expect some other criminal issues under the Howard govt to be opened up for investigation and maybe a royal commission along the line somewhere if some ‘new’ information on some thing or other comes along.
So the Liberals better hope that this gets resolved quickly and that Rudd gets his name restored quickly.
Some in the murdoch media and Liberals better hope that Rudd didn’t twig to this scam until late or otherwise a whole heap of incriminating evidence would have been gathered. They better be in the position that they knew nothing about it.
“TREASURER Wayne Swan has admitted buying a car from the same dealership his office went out of its way to help at the height of the global financial meltdown”
Thats the opening paragraph on page 1of the Sunday Opposition.
Well there you go Fox News has immigrated to Australia.
Because you have all the relevant header/sender information to make it seem legit as well as formatting and footer/warning etc all in original format but untraceable to any sender or to the person who counterfeited the document. Except if they were spotted or the ultimate recipient, (journalist/political operative or both, fingers them.
Well worth a red about the whole affair on political sword
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/
TP regardless of what you think the media know they have Swan looking really dodgy and they’re the media they’ll call for his scalp and probably Turnbull’s too if the email turns out to be a fake…
I’d more than trade Turnbull for Swan if that was the case…
Turnbull had better hope he never bought so much as a toothpick from any business which ever received any kind of government payment from the Howard government.
“The emails in question were all cc’d to Swan’s home. Wouldn’t every car dealer wanting access to emergency government finance like to have that number?”
Page 105 written in bold letters from Milne’s column.
Every remaining ex-minister from the Howard days had better be damn sure they didn’t do the same.
It is notoriously difficult to fake a document. There can be a thousand different tiny variations between one standard and another though they may look the same. Subtle differences in formatting, fonts, orientation, spaces, alignment – all over the place. And these can change from one month to the next, especially if software is updated or someone changes their preferences from day to day.
Probably why the faked email, if it every existed apart from some invented words, has been hard to come across. As those things would be the first to be examined. And they will compare emails from that month to the Fake to see if it was made at that time and so forth..
The only way that could have “ANY” legs is if it came with a 100% cash back deal and I haven’t heard of too many of them. $100 maybe!
I’m washing my hands with disinfectant before I go to bed tonight
Glen, Swan is going nowhere. Turnbull? We’ll see about that.
I’ve now added up all the votes from the 543 Indian constituencies to produce national and state voting figures. Neither the Indian Election Commission nor Wikipedia have posted these figures yet
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/i/india/india2009.txt
India: a country where the Opposition can poll 101,402,861 votes and still lose. What a miracle of democracy. (The government alliance polled 153,100,493.)
Glen, I’ll give you this, you never give up. I can’t recall exactly how many times you’ve written it, but your message is clear “Swan must resign”.
You remind me of the salmon swimming back up river to reproduce, against the current, against the bears feeding on them, against all the odds, you just keep plugging away.
Yes, i watched David Attenborough tonight, great doco.
There wont even be QT tomorrow it will be a censure motion moved against Swan.
Glen, by a brand new Opposition leader?
Glen,
The Opposition can move their censure motion. The Government will then move an amendment to the effect that Turnbull be condemned for his behaviour.
My guess is that will be passed by the House.
Well the best form of defence is attack…
More time travelling by News Limited.
Here’s there latest on the utegate thing, apparently published 2 hours in the future.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25668680-661,00.html
yeah. cos that has worked so well up till now…
Not if you’re surrounded, sometimes it’s better to retreat. And sometimes it’s better to run.
If you did it the way I outlined it would look totally original to most people. It apparently has been good enough to fool Lewis, Turnbull, Abetz etc.
It doesn’t have to pass muster at the Reserve Bank like currency and would be more than good enough to do the job intended. Until it was determined as a fogery as this one apparently has. Without even being seen, I might add.
I copied one of my e-mails, scanned it and altered and printed it out while I have been trying to follow the posting. it came out good! I’ve done it with many documents just for fun and they usually look original.
Uni Degrees and Certificates are easy to change the recipients name on. I don’t use them for any purpose than to experiment with and tear them up. Scanners are great. $100 bills. A piece of cake. lol
Turnbull cant retreat which is why he’s going full on for Swan….
Glen so strange to hear you relentlessly call for Swan’s scalp- if he’s as bad as youve made out in the past 18 months, isnt it better for your side that he stays rather than be replaced by someone like Tanner???
I noted in that piece Oz, that the AG will be investigating Swan as well. His terms of reference have been broadened.
So according to Turnbull, Grant is suddenly a “crony”.
What does that make Matt Handbury?
From the 794 link of Oz is this gem:
Has the Republican now taken to using the “Royal We”??
Grog,
He’s pissing himself.
Yes, Glen, and no general should put himself in a position from where there is no retreat, you know that.
Yes this is right, I only mean if the ‘email’ actually appeared – forensic comparisons may out it as well. If not and it fits with others then you might know you have an inside faker. So the appearance of the fake can tell us something as well. Maybe why it is isn’t around (if it ever existed).
Then what did Abetz read out to the committee on Friday?
John Grant should demand a refund of all donations and support he has ever given to the Liberal Party.
Talk about “how to make friends and influence people”. Turnbull seems to be smashing china everywhere in the shop at the moment. Desperate indeed!
So what is the documentary evidence that Rudd and Swan are supposed to resign over?
Swan and Rudd cant retreat either Adam…which is why as you say someone will have to resign over this.
I’d say that Motor Traders are more likely to be Liberal supporters than not. So trashing the reputation of a guy like John Grant (someone photographed with John Howard) must be a risk to the Liberals.
Grant has come across as a very straight forward, matter of fact sort of bloke. So the crap against him is probably not going to go down well.
Oz’s link to Herald-Sun – has ‘news reporting’ come to this?
Still, I guess it’s neutral statement of bald fact, when compared with the likes of Milne’s emanations.
I would bet on it having existed. I suspect Mr Grech has sited a copy. maybe Lewis. maybe i hasten to add.
It certainly would not have existed since Friday afternoon late. Only plentiful copies of the message part in the public arena.
Its job has been done but unfortunately, very badly as it turns out for the Libs.
Oh well; till tomorrow night when all will be known… or not.
Just saw a replay of the Turnbull presser on Sky. The journos are out to get him. They smell blood. He was raving.
Yes they are scum, they have their sun king manchurian candidate they have to support.
The Liberal Party tried to use a faked email to bring down the PM – the biggest story since AWB and they are desperately trying to change the subject. Why? Shouldn’t they be chasing up the juicy story of – did someone high up in the Liberal Party have anything to do with this? This is big news.
Nope they are trying to protect themselves and their mates by presenting BS.
At least with concentrating their efforts on Swan, if it doesn’t come off, they can still come out it with only loosing a bit of skin and hair.
By turning their earlier efforts on Rudd with Swan as the fall-back attack position, their greed in trying for a twofer looks like they get none and lose more than a bit of skin and hair. Their commanding officer is on life support at present and may not make it.
Without that e-mail the case against Rudd is over.
From a man that qualified his statemnet with “I could be wrong”.
Rudd doesn’t need a line of retreat: he is General Guderian and Turnbull is General Weygand! Rudd will be in Paris in a month.
CHARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGE!!!!!!!!!
Three questions i would like answered on this huge bulldust issue.
How and where did the Murdoch press get hold of the email message?
and why didn’t the Labor people on the committee on Friday allow Mr Grech to speak or have more time to answer
questions?
And lastly why did Turnbull make such a dill of himself on Friday when he asked for Rudd and Swans resignation?
Adam you should know that it was Weygand’s fault for May 1940 but that idiot Maurice Gamelin whose command HQ was in a castle with no electricity…
It’s like the end of Godfather 2 when Michael Corleone (played by Kevin Rudd) settles all scores including politicians and the media. I think Kev is messing with more than their minds.
“For Whom the Violins Plec” is an Aussie story of mayhem soon to be made in to a movie directed by Baz Luhrman.
Psephos
That seems like a huge production you are creating there. Very impressive effort.
I notice that the seats in parlt. for those parties getting over 5% nationally is relatively more representative than the similar system of one rep per district like, say, here, but still not anywhere near proportional. Why is that, I wonder, not knowing much about modern Indian politics or systems?:
That’s 4 parties over 5% I think. Out of the 546 seats:
Bharatiya Janata – 18.9% of the vote = 116 seats, or21% of seats
Bahujan Samaj – 6.2% of the vote = 21 seats, or 3.9% of seats
Communist (Marxist) – 5.3% of the vote = 16 seats, or 2.9% of seats
Indian Congress – 28.6% of the vote = 206 seats, or 37.5% of seats
And the enemy troops are scattering in disarray, leaderless and without hope.
anybody have any predictions how the live telecast 2-3pm will unfold?
Censure motion.
Seek Leave for Turnbull to table the email?
The moping operation begins at 11.00 hours tomorrow morning to finish off the enemy!
It may take some days but will be thorough and clinical!
Some predictions.
(1) Unless a smoking gun is found by the Auditor-General or the AFP, neither Mr Rudd nor Mr Swan will resign as an outcome of this.
(2) Mr Turnbull won’t be resigning either, because (a) the situation is sufficiently confusing to the public to give him some wiggle room; (b) he and Senator Abetz are on the same side on this issue, not opposing each other; and (c) there’s no way anyone outside the Liberal Party can force him to resign.
(3) Regardless of the findings of the official inquiries, the ALP will be damaged in the polls, because (a) plenty of people believe that where there’s smoke, there’s fire; and (b) a key element of the ALP’s prolonged honeymoon has been the sense that they have been providing a different form of politics to their predecessors, sans argy bargy, and anything which makes day-to-day politics look like the bad old days will tend to break the spell and hurt the ALP.
Glen; how about these dills debate the real issues instead of some bullshit email. What next.
#815 BB -how do you access the Sky replay of Turnbull’s interview pls? – I searched site and couldn’t find it.
Not if the AFP get their man…
Oz 794
ROTFLMAO – a beauty…
Did you see the SNAFU in the caption under Turnbull’s photo? Are there really two M Turnbulls after all?
He has probably spent the past two days asking himself the same question.
Probably wondering why he over egged it by accusing Rudd of “corruption” I think this was his biggest mistake. You don’t accuse the Prime Minister of the country of corruption without “Rock solid” evidence.
Psephos @ 819
But was Paris as good as it go? How did it all end up for General Guderian?
Glen, I think there will be attempted pre-emptive strikes by both sides at Midday. I hope Harry Jenkins is getting a good night’s sleep.
Mr Albanese, Leader of the House (12.01pm): Mr Speaker, I move that so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition speaking for not more than 20 minutes, so that he can present to the House the “documentary evidence” he claims to possess that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have misled the House in relation to Mr John Grant.
Quiz: which two European countries have the same national anthem?
Adam wouldnt he do it at 2pm to allow for greater coverage of the moment Turnbull says Arrhhh more than Hawke has in a single response to a Question/motion?
Anything to do with Orange?
Seek leave for Turnbull to visit the bathroom to change his pants?
So according to Kevin Rudd, Peter Costello has talent and we need people of talent, talented in what?
Slashing budgets, introducing a GST, selling off assets and bringing down a number of budgets which
did absolutely nothing with all those surpluses the Coalition accumulated.
Or was it because Rudds’ wife did very well out of the Coalition government regarding employment services
contracts?
General Guderian fought an honourable war and was sacked by Hitler in March 1945. He was not charged with any offence after the war, and spoke at a British Dunkirk veterans’ reunion in 1950. He died in 1954, and his son became a general in the Bundeswehr.
YES!
Kate Ellis is single!
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25665239-5012985,00.html
To which Turnbull answers,
‘Well, I would like to table the documents but the federales have my computer.’
greece and cyprus
or is it estonia and finland?
I think Labor will act at Midday because they expect that if they don’t, Turnbull will move his censure then. I can’t imagine they’ll spend two hours on the Dried Fruits Slaughter Levy Amendment Bill before getting down to brass knuckles.
Bosnia & Herzegovina?
Greece and Cyprus, poli kala.
Adam i still think you’re being too tough on Weygand he was leave holding the timebomb once that fool Maurice Gamelin was sacked for using WW1 tactics in WW2….
Didnt Heinz write Actung Panzer?
Kate Ellis is a b-mb-. What great ideas does she have.
Dario @ 831 – Think back to Watergate: it took a good 2 years to nail President Nixon even with the FBI, two Special Prosecutors, a Senate Committee, a House Committee, the Washington Post and Deep Throat on the job. If the AFP get “their man” [sic] and if he or she happens to work for Turnbull or a top Liberal, then Turnbull will have a problem. Otherwise, it is likely to be survivable.
Don’t forget the Dr Evatt lasted for years as Leader of the Opposition even when it came out that his Press Secretary had been freelancing writing documents for the Soviet Embassy (the famous Document H, if my memor serves me right).
These media operators are getting cunning now. They have realise that we are political tragic’s and need to follow every source of available coverage and so stick an add for Foxtel an a page they know we will visit!
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25668680-661,00.html
@ 850, “memor” = “memory”.
Psephos
Did you see the recent rant by the German general who was apoplectic about all the whinging coming from German troops stationed in Afghanistan and also about having to pay others a bit more to get them to go to Afghanistan at all?
Heinz would have rolled over in his grave.
Some unrelated comments (well, all related to ‘utegate’ but not necessarily to each other):
1. Oz, I think the difference between Gretch on the 4th and the 19th was that in the meantime he had (I assume after a request from his superior) done a thorough search of his emails and NOT found what he thought he remembered.
The growing conflict between what he thought he remembered and his knowledge that the email didn’t appear to exist is one explanation for his increasing bewilderment.
2. One of the issues that hasn’t been discussed is why MT was so willing to believe the story, without asking some of the simplest questions (and, according to his own statements, without seeing the evidence).
Put simply, he has utter contempt for politicians. He cannot see why anyone would be in politics except for self gain (I assume he sees himeself as the honest outsider, the White Knight who is above it all). That a PM would sell his political soul for a clapped out ute is perfectly understandable to MT. That a Treasurer would sell his political soul even more cheaply is also understandable.
If you try and analyse the Libs willingness to believe the story, you come up with some pretty scary answers.
People do tend to believe that others behave the way they do.
3. To ’scandals’ in the past, Rudd has taken the ‘admit it, fix it and don’t do it again’ approach. The simplest way to deal with this issue, if there was any truth to it, would be to say: ‘Yes, I did ask my office to refer John Grant’s request to the Treasury. Perhaps I should have handled this differently, but he is a constituent of mine and I like to ensure my constituents receive good service. I’ll be a little more careful in future’.
End of story.
The fact is he denied any involvement from Day One and even checked that there had been no involvement.
Marky c’mon, now your attacking Kate Ellis.
You should be happy that Turnbull is making Latham look real good lol.
I think it was Document J, but it’s a long time since I read Robert Manne’s book.
But he didn’t. Grant made a point of NOT asking Rudd to help him, instead he went to Swan via Bernie Ripoll. Rudd knew nothing whatever about Grant’s problems until Turnbull asked his first question about it.
‘If there was any truth to it’, Psephos, which I don’t believe there was.
Psephos @ 856 – Document H was O’Sullivan’s work, and conceded as such. Document J was the one which the Royal Commission found had been written by Rupert Lockwood, which the Commission characterised as a “farrago of fact, falsity and filth”. Good discussion at http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/online/petrov/content-48393.html
zoomster
Yes, why so sloppy indeed. This is the former legal emporer who embarrassed Maggie Thatcher through absolute precision in planning and execution and deft use of the stilleto at the precise moment required, in a case against a formidable opponent in the Spycatcher case (even if he did have a lot on his side, such as public sympathy).
Chanced upon it on A-Span.
Pedant, if you say so.
jv,
Some people win Tattslotto and think that makes them a genius.
Sounds a very straight forward case for defamation, even an admission that the alleged document was not held and if fact I believe it was just someones word or some news paper wrote something. This one will have a big price tag on it too I imagine. But I know nothing about such things.
Will there be a Liberal Party Room Meeting and a Coalition Party Room Meeting this week?
If so, I would love to be a fly on the wall. It’d be pretty safe as long as Obama isn’t there!
I wonder if AFP phone taps have been in place since yesterday arvo.
There must be some very nervous people in Canberra these last 30 hours or so. Hang on. Rudd announced the AFP investigation in the afternoon but the investigation might well have been on the go as early as Friday evening. Now that would have caught people off guard.
Pary meetings are on Tuesday mornings, but they can be brought forward in a crisis.
Mr Hockey (12.01pm): Mr Speaker, I rise to inform the House that at a special meeting of the Parliamentary Liberal Party this morning I was elected Leader of the Party and the Hon Member for Flinders (Mr Hunt) was elected Deputy Leader. I want to take this opportunity of thanking the Hon Member for Wentworth (Mr Turnbull) for his courageous decision to stand aside as Leader in the interests of the party, and I thank him for his service to the party. I also thank the Hon Member for Curtin (Ms Bishop), who stood aside as Deputy Leader. Mr Speaker, it’s a great honour to lead the Liberal Party etc etc etc etc.”
Why cant we have a scandal worth mentioning
Look at Silvio Berlusconi now that’s a red hot scandal unlike ute-gate…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5588183/Sleaze-threatens-to-topple-Silvio-Berlusconi-as-friends-warn-over-scandals.html
“On Saturday the scandal deepened with claims that Miss D’Addario was in fact a high-class call girl who slept with Mr Berlusconi at the end of a party he threw at his Rome residence, Palazzo Grazioli, in November.
“She told me that she had sex with the prime minister,” said Barbara Montereale, 23, a former model and Miss Italy contestant who claimed she too had been paid to attend his parties.”
Escort-gate??
Thomas Paine
Depends on what Turnbull actually said in public. He obviously knows the limits as far as defamation goes, but having to back down on the ‘documentary evidence’ could have opened him up for an action. It doesn’t help at all in such cases if you are shown to have known you had nothing but hearsay at the time you defamed. Particularly when you are someone who should have known better.
In fact when you think about it, if he said in public that Rudd had mislead parliament as a public statement, then the elements seem to be there for an action, and the defences are very shaky – unless the email turns out to be real. Otherwse he hasn’t got the defence of telling the truth, or of public duty, or of expressing an opinion. I’ll do more research if required, as it it’s never been my area of practice.
You’re dreamin Adam but it would make for an interesting day
…
It’s very rare for a sitting politician to sue a newspaper for defamation, and I sincerely doubt it will happen in this case. Most defamation actions against newspapers in this country are initiated by restaurant owners. They don’t like it when reviewers – who are mostly non-journalists – criticise the tripe they serve up.
Here, on the other hand, is an example of truly great newspaper reporting. And look, they’ve made it all multi-meeja, for teh internets.
These people will definitely be sued.
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/#story_anchor
This “time line of events” in this Kerry Anne Walsh article has some notable “Gaps” in it. One could easily assume it was done on purpose to make Rudd’s position look shaky and Turnbull’s quite a reasonable one. Stranger still is that the rest of the article is similar in effect also. I wonder why that would be?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-i-insist-the-email-isnt-genuine-20090620-crus.html
Italian PMs have call-girls, Australian PMs have utes. I think that says a lot about our respective national characters.
Anybody off the top of their heads remember what Turnbull actually alleged in public. I have a memory of him saying that the PM had acted corruptly.
There are some risks for the Government in going after Mr Turnbull in Parliament with every bit of ammunition they can find. The Howard government tried the same thing against Mr Rudd in 2007, and achieved absolutely nothing (partly because people had made up their minds that they liked Mr Rudd, admittedly not a form of public support which Mr Turnbull enjoys). But the Government has worked very effectively for the last 18 months projecting an image that it is about governing well in difficult times, not about political brawling on the floor of the Parliament, which most non-Poll Bludgers dislike. If they go in too hard on this, they run the risk of losing the benefit of that product differentiation, without really threatening Mr Turnbull, who plainly has a thicker hide than Jessie the Elephant. Mr Turnbull appears to have overplayed his hand last week; the Government should ensure that it doesn’t make the same mistake. At the minimum, they should keep Mr Rudd out of the forensic stuff.
On the ABC news on Friday night he said Rudd had acted corruptly and had lied to Parliament. I don’t think he qualified it in any way, but I was fairly het up by that stage and I may not be remembering it clearly.
Yeah, even the British media are treating it as a non event. Now, they “DO” know how to have a decent scandal. We have a long way to go yet.
Ignorant Colonials that we are!
Turnball has basically accused Rudd, Swan and Andrew Charlton all of corruption.
Throw John Grant into the mix too, and Malcopops should have the pants sued off him.
Adam this might help…
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=3312
“Fri, 19th June 2009
Statement from the Leader of the Opposition
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
Leader of the Opposition
We have seen extraordinary evidence before a Senate Committee today that demonstrates beyond doubt that the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, has repeatedly misled the Parliament.
We have also heard evidence that suggest the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has also misled the Parliament repeatedly.
These are grave allegations that reach the highest offices in the government of our nation.
The Prime Minister and Treasurer have used their offices and taxpayers’ resources to seek advantage for one of their mates, and then lied about it to the Parliament.
Ford Credit, a company desperately seeking a $500 million loan from the Government, was asked, by the Government with the full knowledge of the Treasurer himself, to provide financial assistance to a car dealer simply because he was a mate of the Prime Minister.
This is a shocking abuse of power and a betrayal of public trust.
We have also seen extraordinary attempts by Labor Senators and a senior Treasury official, to obstruct the giving of evidence and prevent the truth from being revealed to the Australian people.
If the Prime Minister and Treasurer cannot immediately justify their actions to the Australian people they have no choice but to resign.”
RT: @theburgerman: RT @mfarnsworth: Brisbane Courier-Mail headline tomorrow morning: LOAD SHIFT – Heat now on Turnbull.
Kevin Rudd is not going to sue Malcolm Turnbull for slander. It’s too hard to prove.
I don’t think Rudd will sue. He would be accused of using the courts to silence his enemies etc, and compared to what they do in Singapore, where the leader of the opposition was bankrupted and had to flee the country. I think a court would find that Rudd had been defamed but that he had plenty of opportunity as PM to defend his reputation, which is true. Swan ditto. Charlton, however, is a private citizen, and Turnbull has called him a liar and an agent of corruption, to the potential immense damage to his reputation and career. If I was him I’d sue.
Glen,
A suicide note. How lovely.
I’ve said before that Turnbull is a pompous tosser who thinks eloquence is a substitue for intelligence.
The more he talks, the more damage he does to himself.
There we go. In relation to Rudd that is a totally false, reckless and defamatory accusation, which is not supported by a shred of evidence. In relation to Swan it’s a matter of opinion, although it’s false to say that Grant is a “mate” of Swan’s.
Could you point me to where Turnbull has said this about Charlton, Adam?
Charlton could lay charges of physical harrassment and intimidation against Turnball.
I think that will be a bit hard. Rudd is furious and would like nothing better than Turnbull’s blood all over the floor and will want to wield the hatchet.
You have to prove an actual loss of income or profits for slander, which is why this is rarely contested. For libel, it has to be in a written record, and normally the defendant doesn’t have much money, which is why people sue newspapers instead, as they published the libel.
Either way, most states and territories have differing defamation laws. As far as I know, only in Victoria is there a defence of truth in the law.
And Kev’s not gunna sue Mal. He’ll just grind him into the dirt.
If Mr Rudd were to sue, it wouldn’t be for the money, but in hope of seeing Mr Turnbull forced to apologise and lose face, a la MHS. But people apologise when faced with bankruptcy following a failed attempt to defend the indefensible. Mr Turnbull, we know, is in no immediate danger of bankruptcy, and could tie opposing litigants up in the Courts for years. Such a circus would simply keep this issue alive beyond its use by date, which could only damage the Government.
Mr Turnbull could represent himself in court
Turnbull said that Rudd had sought favourable treatment for Grant at OzCar. The only suggested way in which he could have done that is via this alleged email from Charlton to Grech. Charlton has denied any communication with Grech. Therefore Turnbull is accusing Charlton of doing a corrupt act and then lying about it. If he didn’t think that he wouldn’t have confronted Charlton at the ball.
There’s countless variations of this. If Rudd & Swan’s lawyers want I am sure the pieces alleging corrupt behaviour would be quickly retrieved by regulars on PB! lol
I agree it would be pointless for Rudd to go for defamation unless he was about to retire or do it as a back bencher. How long can he wait to bring a case?
Scorpio @ 887 – You may be right, but Mr Rudd has been notable for his self-control, at least in public. He might well take the view that revenge is a dish best served cold. By firing off the big guns, he would be conceding that Mr Turnbull is a tough critter. They would in my view be better off keeping Mr Rudd as the calm and collected leader of the nation, and letting some of the others pick Mr Turnbull off. Remember how Bob Carr diminished Kerry what-was-her-name by simply ignoring her?
and of course we have Keanes twitter – [Government sources say Rudd is ultra-confident about the email and preparing for some interesting revelations tomorrow.]
This bit would make me nervous if I were anybody involved in this scam..
Glen @ 890 – “Mr Turnbull could represent himself in court”
There’s an old saying that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.
Is that Rudd’s Chinese curse about may you live in interesting times.
Perhaps so pedant but it would still make for good TV mind….
Glen, that’s too funny, even for you!
Malcolm is of course arrogant enough to think he could represent himself.
The investigation started immediately after the announcement.
Thomas Paine: Rudd’s got a ruthless streak in him that the media hacks and the Liberals haven’t got a taste of yet.
Still evan it would be very Churchillian
Adam, he didn’t actually outright defame Charlton. There is certainly the implication that Charlton was involved in this, but that is not enough for legal action, certainly not for slander and probably not for libel.
I agree with you that it is outrageous that Turnbull has made these accusations against a private person, but I doubt Charlton will have grounds for a suit. For political purposes he’ll be counselled against it, even if he were considering taking action. You know this.
Hack’s bedtime – a biiiig day tomorrow
marktwain are you Tom Hughes or what?
Thanks Glen – If Turnbull had been giving himself advice he would have excised the 4th and 6th paragraphs of the statement on Friday. No wriggle room in those, just bald statements. But Psephos is right, Rudd will only use the defamation option if it appears to be electorally beneficial, or as a short-term threat.
But Swan has also potentially been defamed in exactly the same way, so he could take the action, while Rudd resumes his ‘above the fray’ persona.
Winston did go mad towards the end, maybe the same fate awaits Turnball?
Incidentally, Ford credit was NOT “desperately” seeking finance from OzCar. If anything it was OzCar seeking desperately tro sign up Ford Credit. The appointment with Ford Credit ws made BEFORE the mention of Grant to Grech by Thomas. Grech made this emphatically clear.
Kerri-Anne Walsh is either ignorant or is deliberately lying in her “timeline”. Too late to point this out, of course. Her wrong version has been splurged all over the papers since last night.
No Adam, I’m a hack.
marktwain
god, not another one. Every day is like the night of the living dead. Where’s Buffy when you need her.
Pedant @ 895,
I’ll still be stocking up with the popcorn, tomorrow morning.
It should be an entertaining and eventful week!
Hax rule OK?
*gone*
I’m really peaved i dont have APAC but then id do nothing tomorrow…still an hour of QT will be fun
Psephos
You’re really only just waking up, I know that, ready to go out and do what must be done to ‘gather’ more hacks. The unspeakable things you must do to innocents to create such monsters … I must introduce you to Dr Van Helsing.
Adelaide advertiser : PROVE IT OR QUIT
He wasn’t known as “Dr Death” for nothing up in Queensland!
Yet the age is behind the times ….
within 24 hrs the courier mail has gone from SACK WAYNE to fence sitting.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25667500-13360,00.html
in the oz no less
“Turnbull tries to hit a target too far”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25669041-5017906,00.html
I smells back peddling at news ltd
And the Courier Mail takes abckward step:
“Utegate pressure mounts for Turnbull”
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25668837-952,00.html
I reckon their Lawyers have been hitting the phones over the last 40-72 hours and have read them the Riot Act.