From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …
Unlike. Has Bob Carr, fingered by Fairfax today for allegedly “deserting” Julia Gillard (he denies it), deleted his Facebook page? A mole reckons it’s been taken down some time in the last month — “guess there were too many honest comments about Australia and the world in general”. Fortunately you can still read his opera, book and film reviews on his blog.
UPDATE (posted March 20). No Facebook for Carr. Yesterday we passed on a tip that Bob Car seemed to have deleted his Facebook page some time in the last month. His office got in touch to point out he never had a Facebook page — there was a fake one doing the rounds, which Carr’s office reported to Facebook about a month ago. Sorry for the bum steer folks — we’ve ticked off the Crikey staffer who reckoned Carr definitely used to have a Facebook page. Seems they fell for the spoof.
Old Macdonald certainly (allegedly) had a farm or two. Former NSW minister Ian Macdonald has been much in the news of late due to ICAC. A tipster wonders if he was involved in the decision to overturn environmental laws in order to permit the Repco World Rally Championship in the Tweed Valley. Some environmentalists were annoyed the NSW government passed legislative changes in 2009 to lock in the event long term. Macdonald left the ministry in 2010. If you know more, fill us in.
When googling around on this tip, we got rather confused by the presence of two Ian Macdonalds in politics. One is a sitting Queensland LNP Senator, the other is in the dock at ICAC. One wonders is this has led to any confusion around the former, who is a Right-leaning anti-ALP warrior in the Senate. Have you got the same name as someone famous or infamous — and has this ever led to a sticky situation? Tell us your anecdotes. We want to hear from all the other Peter Slippers, Tony Abbotts and Tom Waterhouses out there.
AFL r-pe case? The case of two US high school football players found guilty of r-pe in Ohio has received widespread coverage in the States and a fair bit here. Legal adviser Stuart Gibson told 3AW radio yesterday in relation to the s-xual abuse of women, there would be a case sparked in the AFL community in the next month or two. One to watch.
Cinderella wants to go to the IPA ball. Yesterday we brought you the exciting news a mere $995 will buy you drinks and dinner with Rupert Murdoch at the IPA’s 70th anniversary dinner in Melbourne next month (compere is Andrew Bolt). A reader reckoned the event was not invite-only and encouraged us to attend, so we rang up and discovered that if you haven’t received an invitation (ours must have got lost in the mail), you can lodge a request to attend. Which we did. We’ll keep you posted.
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Ian MacDonald the QLD LNP senator would have made the better ALP member.