What a Prime Prig I am my Boys... (1813)

Setting robbery on stage, some actors were blamed for encouraging stealing, leading poor people to be convicted for stealing a loaf of bread and be sent to his or her majesty's pleasurable NEW SOUTH WALES JAILS. Was it better than hanging? The choice was on offer: go to hell now or HELL on the other side of the world...

While in the USA, the Mayflower "forefathers" were religious righteous idealists escaping EU persecutions, the forefathers in Australia were Anglo and Irish CONVICTS and (often) crooked military personnel. The tradition of CONNING (and ROBBING) people, has flourished and, as seen too many times in this lovely country, it has reached the height of power. Corruption is endeared in Australia with the term "rort" which may be alien to the Mayflowerians in their new land, but the feeling was shared by the Bostonian revolution against tea drinking, with deceit and corruption soon becoming hardcore US traditions in order to minimise taxes and avoid floggings. 

The trick of the trade, when "one is caught with a hand in the cookie jar", is to deny there is a cookie jar — or when records are burnt with no trace of where/why most the cash was transported to, is to appear like a self-righteousness moralistic fool who behaves as if superior to others, rather than be exposed as a crafty corrupt con-person. It works with the media that are maned by self-righteousness moralistic fools who behave as if superior to others: the blabber-mouth shock-jocks are paid to help the other self-righteousness moralistic fools who behaves as if superior to others, as long as the others are not equalitarian COMMUNISTS (horror! Labor!!)... 

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And please note: a sum of little rorts does not a big offence make... Lovely. 

Victoria has ramped up its highly criticised contact tracing system to a “gold standard”, according to a leading epidemiologist who says only “toxic” politics is preventing border openings.

Remarks by New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian have overshadowed just how much Victoria has improved the speed with which it can now identify new clusters and stop community transmission of the coronavirus.

Professor Mike Toole, an epidemiologist at the Burnet Institute, said Victoria is on par with NSW, and the two states compare “very favourably” with the contact tracing systems in only about five other countries.

...

The contact tracing strategies in Victoria and NSW are comparable with South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Thailand, which have the best practices for stemming outbreaks and identifying and managing close contacts in a timely fashion, Professor Toole said.

But for NSW to open its borders to Victoria, Ms Berejiklian insists the state must demonstrate it has “the capacity to get on top of any outbreaks, because there will be”.

Professor Toole said this was “highly unfair” because “Victoria has been able to ramp up contact tracing to, I think, a gold standard.

“I think the politics has been toxic.”

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2020/10/31/contact-tracing-victoria-nsw/

Meanwhile the chief NSW rorter blasts Queensland for not opening its borders to NSW... Yap yap yap...

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Australia's political leaders need to be held to account for their legacy of destruction of our environment and the death of the planet, writes Sue Arnold.

THE LOVE AFFAIR between NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire has provoked a huge public response.

Mainstream media response tends to support the impression that “our Glad” is as clean as they come and let’s face it, many of us have had experience in picking the wrong guy.

However, one letter in the Sydney Morning Herald summed up the feelings of a large contingent of the public.

Bob Edgar from Westmead wrote: 

Many communities will remember Berejiklian for her arrogance. Communities whose only crime has been to seek to preserve their heritage. Indigenous, colonial and natural heritage are routinely disregarded and destroyed. Community assets such as pools, parks, bushland are arbitrarily given over to stadiums, toll roads or high-rise. Community consultation is a one-way conversation. Adverse findings from parliamentary inquiries count for nothing.

A most accurate summary of the Premier. Her arrogance has driven off many communities. Letters, petitions, emails, phone calls are ignored. This has been the case since her inception as Premier. Apparently, the voting public is a bunch of zombies, undeserving of any response.

The hypocrisy shown by Berejiklian to the environment is legendary. Relying on spin and pictures of her clutching koalas, Berejiklian has done her best to portray herself as a person who cares for wildlife and the environment.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Under her leadership, the NSW Government has trashed the environment, community assets, democratic rights and legislation which allowed for public interest challenges.

But isn’t this grubby saga just another distraction from the real issues facing us all?

In the old world when integrity still existed, Berejiklian would have no choice but to resign. But not in our current experience. If Berejiklian goes, she’ll be opening the door for another clutch of anti-environmental pro-development Right-wing would-be Premiers.

Nothing will change.

Over the last few weeks, some very serious issues have been raised. Sir David Attenborough released his documentary A Life On Our Planet, which was so depressing in its message that Prince William had to turn it off as Prince George, aged seven, became too upset.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/political-leaders-such-as-premier-berejiklian-are-getting-away-with-murder,14430

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NSW Parliament is forcing the Premier’s office to recover deleted documents detailing the allegedly partisan allocation of government grants, as the State Archives confirms it is also investigating the incident.

The grants have landed the Premier Gladys Berejiklian in hot water after it emerged more than 95 per cent of the $252 million handed out to NSW councils in the lead-up to the 2019 state election went to projects in coalition-held seats.

The scrutiny over the alleged pork-barrelling intensified after a senior government bureaucrat admitted in a parliamentary inquiry last month to shredding documents relating to their approval.

Sarah Lau, an adviser to the premier, told a NSW parliamentary committee she had shredded records showing Ms Berejiklian had “signed off” on $141.8 million of the council grants.

Ms Lau also deleted electronic copies, saying it was “normal record management practice”.

The Premier denies she approved the grants and says she had no role in the destruction of the documents.

Labor leader Jodi Mckay says the government rorted the Stronger Communities Fund for political gain and destroyed the paper trail.

Greens Upper House MLC David Shoebridge says the shredding was an “outrageous” attempt by the premier and her office to hide evidence they used hundreds of millions of government dollars to buy the last state election.

“A ‘document management process’ that involves the routine shredding of unique documents is highly suspect and a light needs to be shone on what is happening here,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

The upper house on Tuesday night voted to force the Premier’s office to undertake a forensic document recovery to find briefing notes.

They must be produced to Parliament by midday on Monday.

It comes as the State Archives and Records Authority of NSW has confirmed it will investigate the destruction of the documents after it received a referral from NSW Labor.

“The complaint raised provides a sufficient basis and meets the threshold … for the NSW State Archives and Records Authority to commence a record keeping assessment,” a letter to Labor local government spokesman Greg Warren from the State Archives says.

NSW Labor has also referred the matter to the NSW police commissioner, and the information commissioner, who has also confirmed the matter is “under active consideration”.

-AAP

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2020/11/11/nsw-government-forc...

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