Federal Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash has rejected accusations she misled the Senate over her former chief of staff's lobbying links.

Senator Nash's senior adviser, Alastair Furnival, quit after being accused by Labor of having a conflict of interest over his links to a company that lobbied for the food industry.

The Minister initially told the Senate he had no links to the company but later said he had a shareholding.

Senator Nash has told a Senate hearing why she made the clarification.

"My mind, I do have to say, was turning to the substance of the issue, which was the separation between my chief of staff and the business," she said.

"Now when I went back to my office and reflected on the comments that I'd made in the Senate, I recognised that I did need to provide additional information."

She says when Mr Furnival was employed he agreed to remove himself as a director of a lobbying company, but according to documents, that only happened recently.

"If there has been some administrative error that left him on the website, that is a matter to be determined," she said.

"But in terms of the processes of my office, he was not acting as a director and there was a strict separation between he and the business."

Labor Senator John Faulkner did not accept her explanation.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/fiona-nash-rejects-claims-she-misled-parliament/5285038

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has accused the government of engaging in “kindergarten, flag waving, faux patriotism” as parliament descended into uproar over claims about the conduct of the military commander of the operation to stop asylum seeker boat arrivals.

The lower house passed a motion admonishing Labor’s defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, for criticising the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, while government ministers argued Shorten had failed an important leadership test by not demanding an apology.

The parliamentary debate stemmed from Conroy’s contribution to a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, when he accused Campbell of engaging in a “political cover-up”.

Conroy withdrew the remarks but government ministers said he should offer an unqualified apology for attacking a serving military commander.

The assistant defence minister, Stuart Robert, said during parliamentary question time on Wednesday that Conroy “couldn’t man up” and apologise.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/shorten-accuses-faux-patriotism-campbell-cover-up-

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In fact, it's the Abbott regime that should apologise for dragging the army into the political arena... If there is some flack falling on Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, so be it... The government dragged him into the front line of political fudge, lies and cover up... 

UPDATE:

It is understood Mr Shorten made it clear to Senator Conroy the military commander deserves respect, but did not demand he apologise.

The ABC has been told this has surprised and disappointed several Labor MPs, with one saying the party should not defend the indefensible.

Defence Minister David Johnston yesterday defended Lt Gen Campbell and called on Mr Shorten to "discipline" Senator Conroy.

Senator Conroy said on Tuesday evening it was the Government who should be apologising for placing the military in a highly partisan position during.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/general-deserves-respect-shorten-tells-labor-senator/5286518

The rest of the article has been truncated. Who by?... Censorship? Accident...? Let me know...

'Therefore, I wish to correct the record and I apologise to the Special Minister of State.''

Mr Shorten got the ''coward'' tip from his Victorian Labor colleague David Feeney. Mr Feeney had passed a note to the Opposition Leader telling him about Senator Ronaldson's alleged exchange with the Chief of Army in 2011.

When Fairfax Media called Mr Feeney on Thursday morning, the member for Batman admitted he might have unwittingly misinformed his leader.

General Angus Campbell is a soldier. He follows orders. He cannot seriously question those orders without resigning his commission. He cannot even reflect on government policy without resigning his commission. General Angus Campbell, like the men and women under him effectively has no opinion on the government’s use of the military to intercept and turn back asylum seekers.

And be not mistaken, this is a good thing.

You do not want to live in a country where the military makes policy.

But living in a country where the worst sort of people, the liars and scum and vicious misanthropes make policy, and where they use the armed forces of the nation not just to enforce that policy, but to surround it with the reflected aura of Anzac, that is not such a good thing.

Because that country sucks. That’s a not a country to be proud of. That’s not a country to love.

That’s the sort of country that gets called out for lulz by egregious hypocrites like China and Iran ‘for violating the human rights’. That’s right, you’re living in a country that the worst regimes in the world feel comfortable criticising as a human rights abuser. Nice work, Australia.

That’s the sort of country that forces decent men and women who have taken an oath to serve, to not serve the national interest but rather sectional, partisan interests that are deeply destructive to the esteem in which that service would otherwise be held.

So Senator Conroy is right to call General Angus Campbell to account for the lack of transparency in the use of Australian military forces to seal the borders against the hungry and the wretched and the damned, even if Conroy and his party played their own ignoble role in turning away the seekers.

In free, decent countries, where the military stays quietly in its barracks, and callous deceivers and hypocrites do not debauch the public offices and discourse, in those countries it is considered a matter of no great import for tendentious policy and those who implement it to be questioned with the utmost vigour.

In this country though, that is not the way of late. In this country the worst are full of a passionate intensity, the best lack not conviction, but the means to effect that conviction in any way beyond gathering in their thousands, impotent and grieving with candles to mourn the murder of one such as Reza Barati, his head smashed to a pulp of bone shards and blood and grey offal as a consequence of public policy.

A new Fairfax investigation has shown self-professed HSU whistleblower Kathy Jackson as spending more than $1 million of Union money on personal credit cards. Peter Wicks from Wixxyleaks, who has been investigating and reporting on Jackson and her cronies for several years, reports and adds new revelations.

There is a saying some would have been best to take note of:

"Beware the crow that coos like it's a dove"

This week, the walls moved in a little closer again on the Coalition's darling girl, who loves to blow her own whistle.

I speak, of course, of Kathy Jackson — and it's about time too.

Further evidence has come to light from the excellent work of Fairfax investigative journalists Nick McKenzie, Ben Schneiders, and Richard Baker. This evidence supports my investigations and backs some of the claims I made here over a year ago.

With this new evidence of the seemingly systematic bleeding of the union members hard-earned money under Kathy Jackson, let's have a quick refresher of what Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne think of her.

Tony Abbott and I differ greatly on what makes a brave and decent woman — however, oddly enough, I agree with Tony Abbott on some things.

The 70,000 members do deserve answers and it's about time Jackson and her Branch Committee Of Management cronies gave some for her unauthorised use of credit cards and unauthorised expenditure.

Let's not also forget others from the Coalition have showered Jackson with praise.

Eric Abetz and George Brandis leap to mind, and who can forget the cosy feed she had with Peter Reith, before making a speech to that bastion of union love, the HR Nicholls Society.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/jacksonville-69-the-age-exposes-whistleblower-jackson--much-more-for-still-to-be-revealed,6550

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