Where’s the Commonwealth Ombudsman? So the saga of the apparently unsinkable Angus Taylor rolls on. Today it’s been revealed that on the night Taylor’s office leaked documents alleging that Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore had spent millions on air travel, two senior staff members were frantically texting one another, clearly becoming aware the figures were wrong. This was relayed to Taylor as being “messier” that they initially thought.
While the Australian Federal Police (AFP) — having interviewed neither Taylor nor Moore — concluded in February that there was “no evidence” Taylor was involved in the falsification, there is still one avenue for us to find out what really happened. The Commonwealth Ombudsman commenced an investigation into the AFP’s investigation in March, which is still ongoing.
Revelations like today’s raise the question: what’s taking them so long?
RIP accountability A little detail that’s worth remembering as the government cuts funding to the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO): it was the ANAO that probed the operations of Tourism Australia (TA) back in 2008 and found irregularities during the reign of managing director Scott Morrison. These irregularities included requesting tenderers to make a start on multimillion-dollar contracts before the contracts were executed.
Morrison, of course, was given the boot by the TA board. And, as prime minister, he has overseen cuts to the very same ANAO — the one body that is enforcing any accountability on the government.
Get a real education! The Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) Sydney conference is just two days away — it coincides with the US election — but it’s still merrily adding a coterie of hard-right thinkers to the line-up.
CPAC is offering a subsidised student ticket, encouraging attendees to bring along their children who “have not yet been indoctrinated by the woke-left … We can guarantee they will hear some educational thoughts that their lecturers won’t dare tell them”.
While we give CPAC credit for knowing no young people are voluntarily lining up to see Craig Kelly, maybe they ought to stay in school? Continuing the list of hard-right figures, the email announces men’s right activist Bettina Arndt as the latest “edition”. It does this twice.
Is that the kind of “educational thought” a lecturer wouldn’t dare tell?
The Courier-Mail walks it back Do newspapers have any sway in elections anymore? The Courier-Mail made its views very clear in the lead-up to Queensland’s state election. It editorialised for change and produced numerous anti-Labor front pages:
But of course, we saw a big swing towards Labor. In fact, the party’s worst outcome came from the left: losing Jackie Trad’s seat to the Greens’ Amy MacMahon.
The Courier-Mail has now changed its tone. It called Palaszczuk a “Labor legend” on Sunday and noted that Labor had won over seats with more “seniors”. It’s a sensible approach to make nice with her: that’s a demographic which also makes up the majority of the Courier‘s readers.
I cannot believe that anyone, young or old would learn anything useful from either Kelly or Arndt. Exposing the young to these people is tantamount to child abuse.
The Catholic Church used similar tactics,ie catch them young and you have them for life,come to think about there was the Hitler Youth movement,but then. it is a widely used technique.
The Courier-Mail (a publication now so slim that you’d barely wrap two orders of barra and chips in it) self-immolated what little credibility it had as a newspaper with its disgracefully unbalance performance in the lead up to the Queensland election. Print may well be dying, but in this case it’s suicide.
Scotty From Marketing only answer to one dog.
The reason for Morrison’s departure from TA and the irregularities which appear to continue in a similar way in Government just never reaches mainstream media. I don’t know why that is because his assault on the Commonwealth Auditor by cost cutting, as on the ABC is a serious activity to obviously punish anyone who applies scrutiny or calls him to accountability. I cannot understand why he gets away with this repeatedly
Re Courier Mail: In Sydney, News Corps’ Tele routinely savages Labor and barracks for the Coalition too. It sell most if it papers in Western Sydney – to voters who just as routinely ignore its instructions and vote Labor. So what to make of all the bleating on Crikey about News’ alleged influence and “power”?
Could it be possible that there are people out there aware and smart enough to make up their own minds?They may even live in the western suburbs Some may not even read Crikey…
Labor winning now and then provides zero evidence one way or the other about the influence of News Corp, unless you know of an alternative reality somewhere where an entirely equivalent Australia, except it has no News Corp, conducts elections we can compare.
BTRI, the federal election is largely won or lost on western Sydney, and they do NOT routinely vote for Labor. In fact, they regularly vote against their own interests, sold on this BS aspirational vote malarkey. Better that you comment on areas you are familiar with.