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Two Australian Heros- that don't Give up the Fight!

Hello members,

Have just got back after a 10 day holiday to the Gulf - fishing , 10 other blokes - no radio ,computers and was very good to clear the mind and reflect.

I had almost resolved to put a hammer through this and vanish into thin air due to the hopelessness of all the time and energy spent for zero results.The country has stagnated and when things are rotten -right at the top -it is little wonder that even the opposition( while far from perfect themselves ) have not laid a glove on this pathetic national Government. PLEASE - every one sit through this interview between Alan and Michael.

Forget Political allegences and just think about the integrity of these people that are sending us over the cliff. We all know what goes on but when Smithy is brave enough to run with it - he looses his job. News Ltd and Fairfax both turn to water over the threats made! With the unseen powers involved - we see the root cause of every single issue that peeves us all off on here. I won't reach for the hammer yet as these two haven't given up and with the content of this interview, could well be the catalyst to purge them all forever . We must support their efforts by sending the links to anyone that might read them as surely they must go when this sinks in- where is the Governer General?????

http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&...

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on September 27, 2012 at 5:34am

For various reasons, I’ve travelled a lot and had the opportunity to meet and get to know, people from many different countries and cultures. It’s one of the pleasures of life and if you’re a gregarious person, which I am, you find out about each other. Like you and I, they all had their own [...]

Hello and welcome Craig King, Rob Moore, Stephen Cox, Matt, and Pat K, enjoy yourself here. Obviously, there's been a lot of commentary and I'd have to say, I've picked up a lot more info on Aussie politics. Certainly, judging from some of the links posted, political corruption is a problem, but from the self-serving style of the politics, I suppose it's to be expected, though some of the examples are shameless. @Graeme No 3. Agreed, the piece is light on reasons, and your comment supplied some of them. Your point about a professional political class, appears to be a worldwide proplem. I touched on it briefly in a piece on the American Tea Party, and I think in bears heavily on their indifference to the hardships caused to working families by their policies. http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/america-is-throwing-ano... I'm optimistic and think a change is on the way, and the fracture point will be next year's election. As HillBilly said, a sleeping giant is awakening. Pointman

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on September 27, 2012 at 5:36am

The inevitable decline of democracy as the voters vote themselves an ever increasing share of handouts from the government. Everyone is on the make. It ain’t gonna change soon as even relatively well off citizens now have their noses in the welfare trough. So called “conservative” parties (thought the Liberal Party was never a truly [...]

Pat K - "the relatively well off citizens" got access to the trough in the 90s when Labor's Paul Keating decided to CONVERT what had been merely a line entry for a family tax deduction in a breadwinner's Income Tax Return into some cash-in-hand for the 'little woman', the stay-at-home full-time wife and mother. Such women were getting pretty pissed-off at the mounting tax concessions and subsidised child-care fees for mothers in the paid workforce, while there was little recognition for those who chose to become full-time homemakers and take care of their own families themselves. And so it began. A little tweak here, a pinch of that there, and before you know it families who once had simple 'dependant spouse' deductions on their taxable income, have now been labelled as Welfare Recipients, earning the ire of those on less or zero incomes - a very neat move in the 'class warfare' intentions of the Marxist/Socialists. Before you know it, with disadvantaged people clamouring for those with higher incomes to be banished from such financial recognition of their family's needs/expenses, such 'benefits' will come to an end and the Govt can say "We listen to the people" and respond. Keating was always harping about the Big Picture. They are a patient lot and understand that it will take a decade or two or three to implement their strategies, but then that's what Fabians do. Named for their hero Fabius, a master at the tactics of a 'war of attrition' and seige, he would starve his conquests into submission. Who would have thought that a gungho Marxist student activist, whose parents were from the coal mines of Wales and both members of the Communist Party would, within 30 years, become the first female PM and get to strut the world stage, having implemented policies and strategies that she was always told could never happen in this country. We all have a lot to learn about how these people operate, and the sooner the better.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara lee on September 27, 2012 at 6:55am

Ah Rob my hubbie saw you on Black swan yesterday. He ask me if that was you. I said yes, and he kept on reading, must have been a good read, said also way above your head Barb. :))

But this is all great reading all along this page.

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Permalink Reply by Max Dench on November 4, 2012 at 7:28pm

Michael Smith and the others, Shane Dowling Larry Pickering and Andrew Bolt are still working hard digging to uncover the corruption which has entrenched our current government. They continue to make progress with the opposition now starting to run with it through the efforts of Julie Bishop.

So much for the AWU's Paul Howes claiming the corruption was limlited to the likes of the HSU. He won't reply to Michael Smith's requests for a talk and when he bumps into him, Paul Howes runs a mile.

It would appear that the Labor Party as a whole may have been rorting and ripping off Government grant money for years for their own purposes through the union movement. It appears the government sets up grants and the unions and or their leaders access these grants and then donate large amounts back to the Labor Party. It seems not all this money makes it back to the Labor Party as various amounts are sifted off for personal use by various officials but with large amounts making it to the Labor Party.

No wonder no one is squealing because if they do then they are all or almost all in it up to their eyeballs.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Courtney on November 4, 2012 at 7:52pm

I noticed that Michael Smith has brough Mick Gatto's name into the discussion with regard to the CFMEU, that could be very interesting - maybe even unwise.

Lunch with Mick Gatto, coffee with Bob Kernohan and the search for the Golden Manila Folder

Harry and I have had a really productive day in Melbourne.

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2012/11/lunch-with-mick-gatto-coffe...

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on November 5, 2012 at 10:02am

Did Mick Gatto own the restaurant Jan?

Well said Max and good to see Phil is addicted to the cause like me Barb. Have been listening to 2UE while putting my loader back together and the commentary is crap from start to finish . Boy oh boy these lazy sleepy apoligists are in for the shock of their lives -any old week now and the election will be a total obliteration- inspite of their "donkey polls " every second day!

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Permalink Reply by Jan Courtney on November 5, 2012 at 11:35am

I don't think Mick Gatto owns the Florentino Rob.

Lunch with Mick Gatto, coffee with Bob Kernohan and the search for the Golden Manila Folder
Harry and I have had a really productive day in Melbourne.

Next week some really big stories will break in the popular media that will bring the end of this saga much closer.

You'll recall Phil Gude (Industrial Relations Minister in the Kennett Government) and his well-researched address to the Victorian Parliament where he described Miss Gillard paying back money to cover her tracks after money from the slush fund was used to renovate her own property. The circumstances Minister Gude described amount to a serious indictable offence of theft.

Harry and I had a lovely lunch at Florentino restaurant. We had a good chat with Mick Gatto and his CFMEU compatriots, decked out in CFMEU black shirts and gold chains, Mick with the cigar and diamond studded Rolex.

Melbourne is a place where people have long memories and good records about where to find the manila folders.

You may also be pleased to know that we had a great catch up with Bob Kernohan. Ralph Blewitt was cut off in his last interview with me by our 10 minute interview limit. Ralph had wanted me to pass on personally to Bob Ralph's very best wishes, his congratulations and a word about the highest possible esteem in which he holds Bob Kernohan.

From Ralph Blewitt to you Bob a quote, "Bob, you were right all along."

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2012/11/lunch-with-mick-gatto-coffe...

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Permalink Reply by Jan Courtney on November 5, 2012 at 11:40am

I don't seem to be able to edit that post so Rob, you do know who Mick Gatto is don't you ?????

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on November 5, 2012 at 1:47pm

Yes Jan - I did wonder but maybe it takes a crook to nail a crook. I'm sure the CFMEU are far from squeaky clean. Michael does seem to know -anyone who has ever been anyone!

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Permalink Reply by Jan Courtney on November 5, 2012 at 2:48pm

Michael does seem to know -anyone who has ever been anyone!

Well Mr Gatto certainly fits that bill. LOL

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Permalink Reply by Jan Courtney on November 6, 2012 at 7:30am

Tuesday, 06 November 2012

The Australian newspaper picture editors get it!

ONE telephone call from Julia Gillard or law firm Slater & Gordon would have led to confirmation that a union slush fund she had helped set up was a mystery to its own branch and almost certainly fraudulent, says a former Australian Workers Union boss.

Peter Trebilco, who was joint secretary of the West Australian branch of the AWU in 1995, said yesterday if he had received such a call, he would have done an immediate audit and proved that the AWU Workplace Reform Association fund and its accounts were secret, unauthorised and unlawful. "If Slater & Gordon had contacted us with the name of it, we would have said, 'We will try to get to the bottom of what it is and who the beneficiaries are'," Mr Trebilco told The Australian.

READ MORE ......................... http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/

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Permalink Reply by vivienne skeen on November 19, 2012 at 8:00am

AWU scandal - fourth file goes missing from court archives

Andrew Bolt

November 19 2012 (6:53am)

The AWU scandal

A fourth set of crucial documents on the AWU slush fund scandals has also gone missing - and also from court archives:

... former industrial lawyer Harry Nowicki has told The Age a box of records is also missing from the New South Wales Federal C..., including a crucial affidavit and supporting documents assembled by AWU whistleblower and now Fair Work Australia commissioner Ian Cambridge.

Mr Nowicki said the NSW documents, which could not be located by court staff when he visited Sydney in September, were also believed to include the original copy of a Slater & Gordon conveyancing file for the 1993 purchase of a Fitzroy unit with more than $100,000 stolen from the AWU Workplace Reform Association.

The property was purchased by AWU official Bruce Wilson, Ms Gillard’s then boyfriend, in the name of union crony Ralph Blewitt, who had never seen the unit. Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Extraordinary. What are the odds that so many files innocently vanish?

Slater & Gordon confirmed last month it could not locate an unofficial file prepared by Ms Gillard when she was a partner at the firm in the early 1990s and advised on the incorporation of the Workplace Reform Association.

It was later confirmed that a file in the West Australian state archives relating to the incorporation was empty…

Federal Court officials confirmed on Friday that key documents filed with the Queensland Industrial Court registry in 1995 by former AWU national president Bill Ludwig could not be found.

As Julie Bishop explained yesterday, a box for the Federal Court files in Queensland was found, but was empty. And a police investigation may be needed into what seems a cover-up: