Let him who is without grubbiness cast the first stone
Yesterday’s Laurie Oakes interview on Today made some news. During his interview with Tony Abbott, Oakes revealed that Liberal front-bencher Peter Dutton has bought BHP shares a couple of days after the supposedly industry-threatening super-profits tax had been announced. How big a problem is that for Abbott and the Opposition? That’s debatable. Wayne Swan jumped on it; the AWU’s Paul Howes said it “exposes the lies that have taken place by the Liberal Party”. Senator Bob Brown argued that Dutton was entitled to make his own investment decisions. Dutton himself has claimed that he took advantage of the fact that “Rudd’s reckless announcement of his new mining tax wiped value off good companies”.
The news of Dutton’s investment seems unlikely to cripple the Coalition’s position on the mining tax. But it seems to me that it says something about Dutton’s judgment – while he is certainly free to invest as he pleases, it’s hard to fathom that he didn’t foresee the embarrassment this decision could cause. Yet he took this opportunity for personal profit, either unaware or unconcerned about the political implications. It’s for readers to decide how important this information is, but there’s a reasonable argument that it is in the public interest.
Perhaps the most interesting reaction, then, has been from Glenn Milne (see also this “reporting” on the issue). In an astounding display of hypocrisy, Milne has reacted by accusing Oakes of running a grubby attack on behalf of the Rudd government and has countered by doing what he does best – running his own smear against Wayne Swan’s wife.
Milne’s approach seems to be to show Labor – and, presumably, Oakes – that he can throw muck around as well as anyone. Of course, we already knew that. What’s special about today’s column is that he does it while trying to take the moral high ground, lamenting the dirty road Labor is taking (with Oakes’ assistance) and calling on them to debate the issues.
Meanwhile, Milne spends a couple of paragraphs detailing some of Kim Swan’s investment dealings before assuring us that “no one is suggesting any compromising behaviour between Kim and Wayne Swan or that her decision to divest her Capital China Fund shares was anything but her own”. Of course not. But Milne goes on to recognise that his message will be (rightly) perceived as an attempted smear:
Swan will be justifiably furious his wife has been targeted. But he didn’t raise his voice in protest when the former foreign affairs minister, Gareth Evans, newly in opposition, went after Tanya Costello, wife of then-treasurer Peter Costello over her shareholdings in Telstra and Woolworths, claiming a conflict of interest.
It’s at this point that Milne has become completely divorced from the facts. Gareth Evans’s comments and questions about Tanya Costello came in October 1996 [PDF link to Hansard]; Wayne Swan had lost his seat in the March 1996 election and didn’t return to Parliament until 1998. I’m not sure how Milne believes Citizen Swan should have registered his protest about Evans’ behaviour, but it seems a bit dodgy to claim that Swan’s hypothetical present outrage is inconsistent with his imaginary involvement in a smear on Tanya Costello.
I could continue to point out the foolish and hypocritical defences Milne attempts to mount, such as the implication that Dutton’s investment matters little since it was “the princely sum” of $2,000. But it all boils down to this – however he came by the information, Laurie Oakes asked about an issue that raises legitimate questions about the judgment of a senior Liberal Party politician. Glenn Milne leapt to the defence of that politician – whom Milne has been trumpeting as a potential Liberal leader – by launching a grubby attack based on misrepresentation against anyone and everyone he could link to the allegations, all the while pretending to be defending the standards of political debate. On the Internet, Glenn Milne would probably be labelled a “concern troll”. In our media landscape, he remains a political commentator who is published in our nation’s flagship newspaper.
Well, if Milne didn’t write poisonous stuff he’d only be known as “The Dwarf”.
I couldn’t think of anyone in the Australian media more vulnerable to a well-crafted, gossip-based practical joke than Milne. But then, I suppose anyone who did so would just be backhanded as a Labor stooge.
Okay, maybe Piers.
But that’s it.
Why he remains ” a political commentator…..in our nation’s flagship newspaper” is a mystery to me. If Catherine Deveny gets the sack for tweeting off-colour jibes, why tolerate a hack who attempts to snot someone whilst “tired and emotional” at a major press function; and who has shown such a partisan and grubby attitude?
Why did Oakes know about the investment in the first place? Does Dutton have to declare new financial dealings? Are the rules different for Oppn and MPs?
Since when has anyone ever accused Peter Dutton of having any common sense. This is the man that basically told his electorate to F@#k off and then came crawling back when no other electorate wanted him.
His federal political career can be measured in the days till the next election.
Good grief. Can it get more childish? The sooner papers like the Oz realise that this kind of smear-for-smear toss-off drives people away the better.
Also, I played ‘spot the difference’ with Milne’s opinion piece and his report. No luck.
Yes he does. No, the rules are no diff for any MPs or Senators.
I can’t find them on the aph website (can you find anything on that site??), but OpenAustralia has each MP’s and Senator’s register of interests (Dutton’s hasn’t been updated on the website though)
http://www.openaustralia.org/mp/peter_dutton/dickson
Peter Dutton probably got his share advice from Santo Santoro.
Maybe Oakes looked up the register, or someone did it for him.
Yes, of course. All financial dealings above a certain level must be disclosed toa public – repeat PUBLIC – register of pecuniary interests. A Howard innovation, by the way.
But obviously, Peter Dutton is some super smart share-buying guy! What a dude!
Downer had the sense to at least operate a blind trust for his investments. No doubt, they were more extensive that Dutton’s.
If Dutton had been Labor, then, yes, there would be a problem. A big one. Since Dutton works for the Libs it simply shows savvy foresight. (Something I rather admire in a politician.)
I bought BHP (and other miners) at the low point after the announcement (and our self-managed super fund did, as well) knowing this super-profit tax won’t be going ahead in its current form. And it’s all the clever buyers who sent the stocks back up a couple of days later.
Bushfire @ 10: The transaction would not have hit the public registry that quickly.
Big surprise! Pedro admires a creep.
Pedro
Nice try at spin, but how can Dutton stand beside Abbott and shake his head gravely as Abbott says that the GBT will destroy mining share prices when he is betting it won’t?
Now he did nothing wrong, but it doesn’t look good and that’s the whole point. It’s rather like finding that Minchin, Plimer or Monkton had shares in a solar cell maker (which they don’t as far as I know).
And it was from the register that Laurie got it, the paper he had was Dutton’s letter to the register. It may have been someone in his office or the register who tipped him off but that is about the end of any conspiracy theories.
Face it I am betting Abbott would have preferred he hadn’t bought those shares.
Surly.
Who mentioned “conspiracy theories”?
I simply said the ASX registry entry itself for that particular transaction would not have been available to the public by Sunday’s Oakes interview.
Quantize. Oh go on. You just wish you had a spare $36 to buy ONE share. But don’t worry. Us “creeps” who pay your bills and make sure you get a free ride through life will continue to do so. (As long as you don’t mind us keeping just a little bit for ourselves.)
how can Dutton stand beside Abbott and shake his head gravely as Abbott says that the GBT will destroy mining share prices when he is betting it won’t?
Ahh Surly – you’re not giving the Pedros of this world enough credit if you think that a logical impass like this will stop them for long.
All they need to do is pretend that Dutton’s investment is a bet that the tax won’t be implemented, rather than a bet that the tax won’t significantly damage the value of mining stocks. And bingo bango – Dutton’s investment is suddently nothing more than a vote of confidence in Abbot’s re-election.
Think I’m being too hard on Pedro? Don’t think that even she would mangle logic in such a transparent self-justification?
LOL.
Pedro, go explain that to Bolt. He’s taken the opportunity to so, so politely attack Dutton for his cleverness.
All he’s really done is remind everyone of the sort of journalist he is, and the sort of journalist Oakes is. That’s hardly a good idea for Milne.
Even Bolt thinks it was a bad move, which puts Pedro some way beyond Bolt in the wingnut stakes. This is a difficult concept to appreciate. Are there really people that extreme?
Why not?
On Q&A Hockey suggested labor had searched the public register for Dutton’s entry, which in turn suggests the register is updated fairly soon after MPs advise of a change.
I would trust Hockey’s knowledge of how the system works over pedro’s.
Mondo at #16, you can then go the other way, if this is a vote of confidence in Tony Abbott, then Dutton bought the shares before the announcement in the budget reply.
did Dutton know that Abbott would reject the tax.
All I am saying is that it doesn’t look good, it was a nobrainer that Abbott would reject the tax, so Dutton needn’t have known anything.
Sorry, Confessions. Two or three days is not enough time for a transaction to hit the PUBLIC record. Go on. Buy a share, even a $1.32 one, and get back to me when you realise how the system works. K?
On your other point. Dutton’s internal advice of a purchase wouldn’t have even been in the overnight mail by that time.
Somebody dobbed Dutton and there’s no other option.
Pedro, when you have some actual evidence that someone within the government put Dutton in to Laurie Oakes, let us know. Until then, all you and Milne have is your conspiracy theory.
“Pedro, when you have some actual evidence that someone within the government put Dutton in to Laurie Oakes, let us know. Until then, all you and Milne have is your conspiracy theory.”
Well someone in the present government would appear to have form:
“Wednesday, 14 April 2004, Page 280
I’ve had a suspicion for some time now that Rudd has been feeding material to Oakes. Decided to set him up, telling Kevvie about our focus groups on Iraq. No such research exists-Gartrell says he’s doing some quantitative polling but not focus groups. Today, right on cue, Jabba has written in the Bulletin: ‘The Labor Party’s polling firm has been busily running focus groups to test the public mood following Latham’s ‘troops -out’ announcement. The most significant finding, I understand, is overwhelming support for the alliance with the United States’.
Trapped him. Two weeks ago in New Zealand, I announced our intention to have a Minister for the Pacific Islands. That’s the job I’ll give Rudd if we win. Joel thinks I’m joking, but I’m deadly serious. Rudd is a terrible piece of work: addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in Government, at best.”
From The Latham Diaries.
Still waiting on that actual evidence, Gavin. Latham is hardly reliable. He admits to lying to Rudd in the section of his book you’ve quoted there.
It’s not meant to be evidence fred, just an example of who in the government might have a propensity to leak information to Oakes, based on past history.
As to it’s reliability, I know that Latham was a bit of a nutjob, but I doubt that even he would write stuff about people that never happened in his diary — I suspect also that it would have to pass legal muster for accuracy before being published for public consumption. Otherwise he and/or the publishing company would be in court for defammation.
I don’t see the relevance of your point about Latham lying to Rudd in the context of my quote.
What’s really amazing about you Pedro is that you know nothing about anyone here but you make these sweeping, idiotic, bizzare and patronising assumptions about what people here earn and how much they contribute, like you’re somehow desperately trying to elevate your credibility here based on your claimed financial state..
get it, nobody CARES.
I love it when conservatives are so desperate they quote Latham.
Oh dear. Pedro assumes the MP disclosure record operates with no input from the individual MPs themselves.
What part of ‘disclosure’ is she uncertain about I wonder?
Oh please, Confessions.
I neither assumed nor said nothing of the sort. I said the paperwork wouldn’t even have been in the overnight bag out of Canberra by the time the transaction was leaked.
Good grief.
.
Quantize? I know you are probably in awe and taking notes of all the big words used here, but why not take a break and drop back when you’ve dealt with the acne and can actually engage with grown-ups.
pedro @ 23:
pedro @ 31:
Oh dear. Still struggling with that word ‘disclosure’.
“I love it when conservatives are so desperate they quote Latham.”
I love it when someone criticises a source but can’t actually offer anything to rebut it — show me your evidence that Latham was lying about Rudd leaking information to Oakes, Quantise.
GavinM, Quantise didn’t make that claim. So why do you think he should provide evidence of something he hasn’t said?
Peebee,
He is inferring that Latham is an unreliable source thus he is attempting to invalidate the quote that I posted — it is therefore up to Quantize to prove that Latham didn’t tell the truth in that diary entry.
Normally I’d agree on Latham, but as I said previously, I highly doubt that an accusation such as that would be published if it wasn’t true because of the possibility of legal action against the publishers and the author.
GavinM,
One thing I have been pondering since I wrote the last post, was how do you actually prove that something DIDN’T happen ie show me your evidence that Latham was lying about Rudd leaking information to Oakes. Meaning (I think) Q thinks Rudd didn’t leak stuff. I think that would be impossible to prove.
When something DOESN’T happen, it doesn’t leave a lot of evidence around that you could point to say here is proof that it didn’t happen.
Does this make sense?
He has attempted to discount my post and smear me as a desperate conservative — neither of which I am, I’m just not as left-wing as he is – by inferring that Latham is an unreliable source in this case — he should back that up with some evidence or withdraw it.
To answer your question, and to perhaps give him a clue on where to start — perhaps he could point to a reference to a libel case for going to print with the allegation or a denial of it made by either Oakes or Rudd.
Just because Latham is bitter and twisted doesn’t make him wrong. I for one liked his policies, his personality? not so much, but I don’t think what he says/writes should be dismissed on the basis of his obvious character traits.
As far as I’m concerned Latham at least represented those of us on the left. Rudd? Why isn’t he in the Liberal party??? He hasn’t got a left wing bone in his body, he’s conservative in every facet, especially when he appeals to the idiots (like when he was slagging off not only Henson, but the model he photographed)
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