http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/life/satire/the-disability-care-game/

 

And should you wonder about the article in the Friday merde-och Terrorgraph about Craig Thomson and the obviously Photoshop-ed picture (see toon at top), it now only appears in a RUSSIAN website... I can't find it at news.com.au... I'll keep looking...

Greg Sheridan himself is no stranger to fiction... What he writes here has no resemblance to what the White Paper is all about. Greg Sheridan writes total crap and he is proud of himself...

 

No Dennis. What you write is total crap... Julia Gillard wanted to have the NIDS or whatever it's called now to be in motion before the election because she knew that Tony would not go with it AFTER the election... Taking this good policy to the election was not going to "save" Gillard's skin with the electorate that you massage always in favour of dicky Tony. Julia Gillard cares far more about the disable people than of her own fate...

 

And Troy, stop smiling... The merde-oh press has done everything it can to achieve this impossible feat... The merde-och press does not like Julia because she has been doing "socialist" things that the Liberals abhor —including the protection of workers rights which John Howard was trying to bury... Of course, Tony the little whit wants to continue John Howard's tradition of worker's bashing under a different name. Imagine the gall of the woman to save the environment and the planet with a carbon pricing!

 

Dear Chris Kenny. You are a disingenuous crapper. Strangely enough, the government of Julia Gillard has been CONSISTENT AND COMPETENT, despite a few attacks from within its own ranks, all Kevin Rudd, and from constant idiocy from the little rat, Tony Liar Abbott who has tried all the tricks in the book to destabilise the government. Go away in you little merde-och hole...

 

Ah Peter Peter... What brilliant crap!!!

What you're doing here is preparing a large soggy ground of excuses for Tony being a crappy little PM if he ever gets there...

The prosperity of this country is there, despite what you say and it will continue — especially for the rich, who, under a conservative government would make sure workers are trodden upon and that workers are divided so they trod on each others... Labor DID NOT MAKE ANY MISTAKES on prosperity...

The American banks tried to con the world and they succeeded with brilliance by killing off the world economy. THAT WAS NOT A MISTAKE. that was a deliberate con. The only "mistake" was someone call their bluff, but the American banks had structure the crap so that if they went down, the WHOLE WORLD went down with it... Except Australian Labor saw through this crap-game (designed to enrich the super rich and subdue the "emerging" middle class and also make sure the poor were still poor paying for the rich) and DID NOT DO any mistake about it... 

This has enraged the conservatives with vengeance... The middle class and the poor in Australia did not go down the drain because of Labor's policies...

 

It worked for a while, or did it in a way. Though the competence of Combet, Plibersek, Roxon, Carr, Clare and Shorten cast doubt on what was being said, the underlying mutiny of Rudd and the daily travails of the Hung Parliament delegitimised Gillard’s imperium. It seemed she was not in control, and crazy to keep going.

Then the Rudd numbers were shown to not be there, and things changed. Policy after policy was shown to be better than Abbott’s. Redmond, Mills and Baillieu fell and Newman was shown to be a punishing maniac and Greiner, once again, a crook. Gonski was favoured by the public and Abbott said it was unaffordable. And crucially, last week, Pyne, following the Rove Rule Book said the Prime Minister was ‘unhinged’ for wanting the levy, Hockey said we couldn’t afford it, and Abbott called it a temporary inconvenience he would abolish very soon. This offended three million disabled people, their families, carers and attendant paralympians and showed it was the Liberals, not Gillard Labor, who were klutzes, kooks and slimeballs and it was Gillard, not Abbott, who was getting on with the job of government and Abbott, not Gillard, who was flapping about and changing his mind like a madman.

Van Onselen, Murray and the two Kellys still call an Abbott government inevitable and speak warmly of what it ought to do in its first term, but the shine has gone off their certainty. There will not be a No Confidence motion now and it is Abbott, a defender of pederasts on a criminal charge in Brisbane, and Pyne, a framer of Slipper denounced by a judge, who seem the slimeballs now.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/the-karl-rove-method/

-----------------------

See comment above, on the bullshit from the merde-och press...

 

Things have changed for Rupert too. The British papers have suffered significant circulation losses and so have the Australian papers. He is unlikely to be able to buy any more papers in the United States.

The split in the company between entertainment and print have given him two roles to play, but his attention is going to be partly on Britain but even more on Australia, now one of the richest and most progressive nations on the planet (despite what Joe “small business” Hockey tries to tell us).

Rupert is only interested in BIG business. He wants to stop the NBN rollout and become the sole owner of everything worthwhile in Australia ― including every source of information, entertainment and politics.

His chance to do so lies with the outcome of the election on September 14.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/the-wives-of-rupert-murdoch/

I ask what role Abbott has played in creating a very divided public discourse? Thomson is scathing about the way he has used the declining standards of the old media for his own purposes.

“Tony Abbott has given the media the go ahead for the treatment a lot of people have received, including myself. At a time when the media is going through enormous changes and cost pressures, he has given them the go-ahead to go the dirty cheap road in terms of what they call journalism.

“I mean, there are stories about me that are so fantastically fabricated that they are simply beyond belief. But you find that once the media reports a story, the rest of media just copies it and never looks to shoot it down.

“Tony Abbott has encouraged this and sought to take advantage of it for his own selfish political purposes. I believe he will not be judged very kindly by history.”

I ask Thomson whether the country would change if Tony Abbott was elected. Thomson is unequivocal.“I think it would be a terrible thing for the country if Tony Abbott is elected,” he says

He says that although he is an Independent and would look at each piece of political legislation on its merits no matter who put it forward, Abbott’s aggressive style, which seeks to exploit every division and difference in a “fighting way” would be “a terrible thing for a country like Australia”.

“He is the most extreme, aggressive, politician in Australian history and it frightens me that we are starting to develop some of the politics of the deep south of the United States here in Australia.

“I believe he is too extreme even for his own party and they dare not move on him at the moment because they hope he will deliver them Government. But they talk amongst themselves about the problems with Tony and getting rid of him.

“He should not be the leader of a major political party and, if he became prime minister, I doubt he would stay as leader for long — he is too extreme.”

 

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/craig-thomson-speaks-to-ia-part-2-media-misogyny-and-malice/

 

With the Craig Thomson case in court again this week, Peter Wicks reports on the magistrate lashing News Ltd’s coverage and gives his own view on Thomson’s guilt or innocence.

I AM ALWAYS asked my opinion on what has happened with the HSU and in particular my thoughts on Craig Thomson’s guilt or innocence.

Given Thomson’s matter was once again in court earlier this week, with reports on what happened varying despite it amounting to nothing in the end, I thought it may be an appropriate time seeing as I have not given my opinion thus far.

Bear in mind, this is only my opinion and is based on what I have seen and heard so far on the matter.

Firstly, I don’t believe that Craig has rorted Health Services Union members.

As pointed out in the Financial Review the other day, even with some of the charges that involve living away from home expenses while away on business the total amount of equates to approximately $150 a week for the time he was union secretary. Not quite the hundreds of thousands of dollars some in the mainstream media and Coalition would have us believe.

When it comes to the brothels, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am of the impression Craig has been set up. My reasoning is that given the history of HSU factional brawling and tactics used in the past with regards to brothels, and the threats allegedly made to “set people up” with prostitutes, it seems highly likely that those who set out to destroy him would go down that route.

I have also considered that the original evidence produced by Fairfax in relation to credit card slips has all been quashed and is not considered evidence any longer. In fact, despite years of searching for further evidence ‒ including serving subpoenas on countless brothels all over the country ‒ so far, nothing has surfaced.

----------------------------

What this allegation is based on appears to be credit card statements for a credit card for which everybody working within a union in the midst of a factional battle had access to the details. Anybody who has ever paid for something on the phone or online with a credit card can tell you how easy it is to make something appear on a statement.

Given that one of these supposed brothel visits occurred in Sydney while Craig was in Perth makes the allegations look even more like they have been concocted. Evidence for that alleged brothel visit is highly circumstantial to say the least, given it is only sourced from a credit card statement, whereas Thomson has his alibi verified by a hotel booking and Qantas boarding passes.

As for all of the other charges, I believe the vast majority of these are valid work expenses for expenses incurred whilst away from home on business. I also believe that spousal travel is acceptable where there are work events being held and someone who spends a lot of time away from home in their work should not be dragged through court to explain why spending time with their wife was important. These were not luxury holidays, as some would have us believe.

The question with the other charges related to credit card expenditure are a matter of whether Craig had authorisation to use the card as he saw fit or not. That will be determined by the court and I don’t really have an opinion on whether that is true or not although I have not seen any guidelines for credit card usage in the HSU rules for the period Thomson was secretary.

What I do think Thomson may have done is put the odd small personal expense on the Union card. I don’t mean things like holidays and jewellery as Thomson’s accuser Kathy Jackson appears to have done, I mean things like coming home late at night from a work function, stopping for fuel in the company car and, when discovering you have no cash on you, putting a packet of smokes on the card when you pay for fuel — that type of thing.

-------------------------------

Whilst this may be technically out of order, it is usually overlooked and shrugged off as anybody who meets this many people and travels this much in their job always incurs work expenses out of their own pocket that they don’t get back or obtain receipts for. These would include things like occasional coffees or a round of drinks, parking meters which back then did not accept credit cards or give receipts, road tolls which back then were predominantly paid with change from the car ashtray, the list goes on… My point being that these things tend to balance out with the odd pack of smokes, chewing gum or ice-cream.

Again, this is just my opinion and I could be way off the mark.

The reason, I assume, Craig won’t plead guilty to these charges is because he believes he had authority to use the card. In fact, this is the argument being put forward by his lawyers.

One reason he would not be bothering to get bogged down in disputing facts in the case is that each fact would cost a fortune to dispute with added witnesses, experts, court costs and lawyers bills — and we know lawyers don’t come cheap. As you can imagine, Craig isn’t exactly flush with funds right now.

Craig, as most would be aware, did not succeed in his bid to be re-elected as an Independent MP in the seat of Dobell on September 7.

Therefore Craig has suddenly found himself without an income and facing mounting legal costs that seem to have no end in sight.

Some sections of the main stream media have been predictable in their reporting of events involving the case.

The Australian on 10 September was fairly representative of how the media has been portraying the Thomson case.

------------------------------

In her opening paragraph, Pia Akerman stated:

‘Ousted MP Craig Thomson will not dispute specific facts of the allegations that he used union credit cards to pay for escort services and pornographic movies, a court has heard.’

However, Thomson’s barrister, former Supreme Court judge Greg James QC, has clearly stated that Craig not disputing the facts was:

“… not an admission to allegations.”

Even in her own report, Pia Akerman says for those who made it to the bottom of her piece about the Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg not giving access to the disputed facts to reporters.

‘Mr Rozencwajg refused to grant reporters access to the preliminary list of undisputed facts.’

So what, then, does she base her opening paragraph on?

What I didn’t find any coverage, commentary, nor reporting on was the Magistrates opening remarks. This is hardly surprising, though, given the Magistrate was highly critical of the reporting of News Ltd’s Pia Akerman and Ean Higgins in their report the hearing of the matter the previous week.

The Magistrate was critical as he felt the reporting in The Australian article misinterpreted the events and had given an inaccurate portrayal of the proceedings.

Yesterday, I approached Pia Akerman for comment on this by phone.

Ms Akerman refused to go into the matter, only saying that her interpretation of the Magistrates comments were that he had not liked the headline and then referred me to her editor, saying she would pass my query on to that person for comment.

I would be comfortable assuming that the magistrate knows the difference between a headline and an article.

-------------------------------

Despite asking for a comment from her editor, I have yet to receive a response, although yesterday afternoon I received a written response from Ms Akerman that simply stated.

Hi Peter,

My comment is simply as I said on the phone: I stand by the story.

Regards,

Pia Akerman
Journalist
The Australian

It is great that Akerman stands behind her story, however the magistrate overseeing the matter certainly doesn’t appear to think a great deal of it given his comments.

In regards to the headline that boldly states:

‘Court rejects Craig Thomson’s denials‘

This is a completely false, as there were no denials from Thomson or his defence for the court to reject.

In fact, Magistrate Rozencwajg stated that the headline was:

‘…completely at odds with the facts.’

Another example of the story being at odds with the facts was this gem:

‘Mr Thomson, now an independent candidate for the NSW central coast seat of Dobell after he was suspended from the Labor Party, is facing 173 criminal charges over allegations he misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of union funds.’

Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Really?

In fact, the total of all the charges is just a little over $28,000 in total.

Maybe next time The Australian should try for millions, billions, or trillions, just to make a really compelling story,

------------------------------------

In fact the magistrate was reportedly so unimpressed with the reporting he not only was critical of it in open court, he went a step further.

According to Greg James, QC – who represents Thomson – the magistrate said in open court that he has referred the article in The Australian to the executive officer of the court for possible charges of contempt of court. We cannot independently confirm this until we see the transcript of the relevant session of court, which the court officer’s tell us should be available early next week.

Magistrate Rozencwajg also saved criticism for the prosecution, querying why there had been a need for a court mention in the week of the election.

The prosecution, as you may remember, from my article on the matter, requested a mention last week. When it was granted, nothing new was introduced and nothing was gained or learned. What it did do, however, was waste the court’s time, taxpayers’ and Craig Thomson’s money, and give The Australian a chance to bash Thomson yet again in the week leading up to the election.

In my article last week, I suggested that it seemed as though the whole court mention was set up to give News Ltd a story. Now that theory seems even more plausible.

It would seem to me, from his words and actions, that Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg doesn’t like being used as a media and political puppet and appears to be pulling them into line. Who can blame him?

Where this saga will end up is anybody’s guess. So far the prosecution have managed to drag out the matter past the election without offering any real evidence to support their case.

Now that there is no real political mileage to be gained in pursuing the matter, I wonder if the Coalition will continue to think it is worthwhile to spend millions of taxpayer dollars, thousands of police hours and waste endless court time, chasing less than $30,000.

Whether you think Thomson is innocent or not, one thing is for sure: Thomson has been more than punished for anything he may have done. He has effectively been put in stocks in the city square and been left there for the public to hurl things at. No matter how this case turns out, he will spend many years as the punch line in a joke about sex workers.

---------------------------

Given his lack of income, as of Saturday, those of you who still believe Thomson should have an adequate defence against the Coalitions prosecution machine can still donate to Thomson’s legal fighting fund via the link below:

• Craig Thomson Legal Defence Fund.

It is my opinion that if this was really about retrieving stolen union funds and not a political witch-hunt, then we should be seeing just as much focus and just as many investigation hours dedicated to looking into Kathy Jackson and her time controlling the HSU number 3 branch. We have already seen evidence uncovered of apparent spending of Union members money that makes Thomson’s matter pale in insignificance; details of this evidence may be found on the Wixxyleaks Jacksonville resource page.

For those of you who take in interest in this case, I would recommend taking anything is read in the mainstream media, particularly The Australian with a grain of salt the size of the rock of Gibraltar.

I will continue to report on events to do with the case as they develop.

People after all deserve the truth.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/jacksonville-58-the-australian-vs-craig-thomson/

---------------------------

Gus : see toon at top. Note that since this toon Kim has been booted out with thanks by the boss who thought the company was too soft on Labor. Note also how the new Attorney General, George Brandis,  then did not have any knowledge of the law whatsoever of this fair country and declared Thomson "guilty"when  in opposition... The gall of that man Brandis.

See also how Gail explained how the Labor Government saved Australia's banking from the GFC — which she says is not over unlike the little turdy clown we've (not me) elected as priminister of this fair country... She could have done this earlier and saved us three years of turdy policies experiments from Abbott:

Meanwhile, in Canberra, another war cabinet had been formed. It was made up of then prime minister Kevin Rudd, his deputy Julia Gillard, treasurer Wayne Swan and finance minister Lindsay Tanner.
This gang of four as it became known was the touch point for senior executives in the banking industry. Every two weeks the four major bank chief executives (and sometimes their chairmen) would meet with Mr Rudd, Mr Swan and others, and in between times they spoke on the phone.
The inner circle was completed by senior Treasury officials, the chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, John Laker, and Reserve Bank governor Mr Stevens.
The collapse of Lehman stamps the climax of the global financial crisis in the memory. Ms Kelly tells of the intensity of the ensuing weeks. She says she is not a person who needs much sleep - a real advantage at the time.

''[I remember] night after night after night sitting and watching the Dow Jones in particular and wondering what was happening - the extraordinary volatility.''
Australia's big four banks were among the strongest, best capitalised and best rated in the world, but the second-tier lenders were more vulnerable.
Ms Kelly says nervous depositors were taking money from other areas - smaller banks, credit unions, cash management trusts - and putting it with the big banks. ''We saw deposits flooding in our door. They were coming from somewhere and that was clearly not good for the system. I tried to urge calmness and assure them of their safety.'' She acknowledges the situation placed a great strain on the smaller banks and argues the government's guarantee of customer deposits and banks' wholesale funding was ''entirely the right response''.
Five years on Ms Kelly warns against complacency. ''There will be another crisis at some point. It may emerge out of shadow banking systems that are not subject to those regulations.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/they-came-with-suitcases-for-cash-westpac-chief-20130913-2tqcd.html#ixzz2eoFUsGaO

 

 

 

More than 100 witnesses will be called to give evidence against former federal independent MP Craig Thomson as he fights fraud charges.

Thomson is fighting 173 charges over the alleged misuse of his union credit cards while he was the national secretary of the Health Services Union.

It is alleged he spent $28,000 of union money for personal use, including paying for escort services, adult movies, hotel stays and flights.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard 113 witnesses will be called to give evidence over whether it was Thomson using the cards, and if he was authorised to do so.

The hearing will run for more than a month.

Thomson's lawyers are challenging whether he had authorisation to use the cards.

If they are successful, the case against him will be thrown out.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-18/more-than-100-witnesses-in-craig-thomson-case/4966412

--------------------------------

More than 100 witnesses???? Blimey!!! Can I be one more???... We're in hard criminal territory here!!! Has Thomson shot 32 people dead in Woopwoopland? One month to hear 115 Joe Blows telling us that it looks like Craig may have been the person who bough the ice cream on a credit card, but they really can't recall... it's hard to remember these things unless the Liberal party — or George Brandis who has long ago already "announced Thomson's guilt" possibly for ordering a double-vanilla-cone, attached to a visa voucher for petrol" — pay me money (I take cash only) to remember with more vigour... the law appears to be an arse!!! Prosecuting lawyers are making a good job at reinforcing the concept... The point being that some of the Visa charges where for visiting prostitutes in Sydney, while Craig was doing business for the union in Perth. Things don't add up. Possibility of witness corruption? Heaps... 

This is of course the grand farce of all court cases, though for Craig Thomson who claims his innocence, and most likely is innocent of larceny, the game is getting beyond the joke since it's costing him heaps of money... Should Craig not be found guilty as the court should, my opinion if you ask me, who is going to pay his costs?...

 

 

This writer can only hope that the recording of today's proceedings do not end up the same way as the previous day of hearing, when the court reporter's transcription tape had a malfunction, so that precise records of the hearing before the court were lost and led to Thomson’s barrister Greg James, QC, and prosecutor Lesley Taylor SC both offering to provide an aide memoir for the trial record.

Those familiar with audio tape recording would be aware of the phenomenon known as 'drop outs', where the tape experiences a momentary loss of signal during playback.

Had a tape dropout occurred on Monday’s proceedings, it may have erased any record of the whole appearance on the stand by jet-setting former brothel owner, Peter Lazaris, whose entire testimony lasted no more than five minutes and, as both Greg James and the magistrate pointed out, could have been covered by simply reading an entry on one of the credit card statements.

Mr Lazaris, who was not summoned to appear by either the prosecution or the defence, apparently volunteered of his own volition and out of the goodness of his heart, to fly from Sydney to Melbourne to appear at the hearing yesterday.

Before Mr Lazaris was called by the prosecution, Greg James, QC, appearing for Craig Thomson, objected, telling the court that

“… calling this witness serves an obvious purpose.”  

It soon became very clear what purpose Mr James meant.

 

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/craig-thomson-trial-day-one-what-you-didnt-hear-about-in-the-old-media,6081

 

 

Finally, it should be noted that an application to the court by the ABC to access the charge sheets wasn’t going to be granted until the prosecution had amended the revised charges, so instead of reporting the facts, the ABC led its nightly TV news bulletin with the fanciful claim that “sex workers” may be called as witnesses on Tuesday.

It’s disappointing to see the ABC joining Rupert on the black side of the proverbial ‘S’ bend.

The trial continues today.

IA will be there, watching intently (not doing crosswords or playing games on the iPad).

Follow Umberto Ledfooti on Twitter @Uledfooti. Catch up on the full Jacksonville saga on IA by clicking here.

See toon at top...