The court of McArthur Anyone whose writing relies on a healthily absurd political scene can only be struck dumb by gratitude for the Victorian Liberals, the political party equivalent of a suicidal clown. According to Federal Court affidavits The Australian got its hands on, Liberal upper house MP Bev McArthur is suspected of being involved with Real Freedom News, the late gossip site — “salacious” according to the Oz, “scurrilous” per The Age, “grotty” according to the Herald Sun — that has published serious allegations, including accusations of criminality and sexual misconduct, about various state and federal Liberals. McArthur, through her lawyers, strenuously denied any involvement.
The allegation comes as part of a long-running campaign from senior Liberals, led by former state and federal Liberal candidate Sean Armistead, to identify who is behind the blog, which spread damaging gossip from January 2021 to its deactivation in October 2022.
Last we heard of McArthur, she was one of two Liberal MPs — the other being anti-abortion obsessive Bernie Finn — to cross the floor to vote against legislation banning conversion therapy back in 2021, if that gives you a sense of anything. A fun detail is the cameo from Liberal staffer Edward Bourke who, according to Armistead’s affidavit, told the administrative committee about screenshots which allegedly “indicated a backup of the website had been emailed to [McArthur]”. Bourke got his start as a Trump-loving 15-year-old turned Liberal Party member, anti-Dan campaigner and political strategist.
Gas Cooker Western Australian leaders are probably the political group whose plans on the environment are the hardest to take seriously. This is a state where government seems to act as some kind of HR onboarding process for resource industry jobs, and fossil-fuel lobbyists quite openly write government announcements.
So it was always going to take a shaker’s worth of salt to swallow their “ambitious” carbon reduction plans. Still, we were surprised at just how explicit the fossil-fuel-friendly rhetoric was when a tipster drew our attention to a speech by new Labor Premier Roger Cook while on a trip to Japan at the end of October — spruiking WA gas exports, he insisted that “we’re not simply wrapping ourselves in a blanket of self-satisfaction by reaching net zero ourselves if that is going to be at the detriment of the globe”.
Extra marks for Cook’s comments in support of carbon capture and storage (CCS) — Crikey has long catalogued what an ineffective scam that is. Later this month the premier is a keynote speaker at the WA Energy Transition Summit. We’ll keep a close on what he has to say there.
The case of the missing recommendation While the media mostly parroted the government’s claim that it was adopting “all 56” recommendations of the robodebt royal commission (we’ve not read the whole report but if one of them was “make a robot out of papier-mâché and foil and bonk it on the head” they can tick that off…), a few eagle-eyed parties noted a curious point.
The report hadn’t made 56 recommendations — it had made 57. And what was that final recommendation the government was looking to sweep under the carpet (with the help of our biggest news outlets)? Reform of the freedom of information laws, specifically to make it less easy for governments to immediately shield decisions from view simply by describing them as a cabinet document.
We will fight them on the beaches It looks as though the uneasy truce that has held between humans and birds on this continent since the avian victory in the Emu War of 1932 has ended. A tipster has got in touch to let us know that the people of Lorne in Victoria are in battle with local cockatoos:
This has been the biggest societal (and quasi military) issue in Lorne for a decade. Now the humans have opened a new tactical front against their formidable beaked foe, who have won basically every battle and skirmish in the war so far, deflecting each piece of technology and psychology the humans have deployed, year by year, bin by bin. The warfare, and often the rhetoric, has almost been Churchillian.
The sulphur-crested fiends, who have a taste for human food and do not know fear, have taken to opening bins and leaving streets strewn with refuse. After years of failed attempts to combat the attacks — the issuing of bricks to weigh down lids, fines for presumed turncoats who put their bins out early — Surf Coast Council is commencing Operation Lockatoo: “Council will fit locking mechanisms to kerbside bins across Lorne to help stop clever cockatoos from opening bin lids and pulling out rubbish.” We will monitor the situation as it unfolds.
That Dreyfus went to the trouble of lying to cover up number 57 is about true to form, after all he is the bloke who is prosecuting David McBride.
He’s still trying to have all court documents (ie publicly available evidence) from the Collaery/WitnessK persecutions sealed and sequested by the 30 – so to be 50 – year rule.
Remember, this bloke slithered into pre-selection for federal parliament on the grounds that he was “a prominent & respected human rights lawyer“… at least according to himself.
To paraphrase Matthew 7:15-20 “By their works shall we know them” so nobody can claim not to know what the A/G really is – a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
The full passage is pertinent ” “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
Worth a thumbs up, minus the strictly biblical references. He can’t be too well respected as a human rights lawyer if he’s prosecuting David McBride and STILL trying to cover up the Collaery and Witness K corruptions. What on earth could be in that stuff worse than we – and the Timorese – don’t already know?
There must be something awful, given how much stick they could give the Coalition over this whole debacle otherwise. Of course, the “modern” ALP has shown time and again how much more comfortable they are in making deals with the Coalition rather than any actual progressives.
Agree entirely
I had expected them to use theses cases as a huge weapon against the LNP as soon as they got into power.
So something very sinister is up.
Imagine the kudos they would have got if they’d immediately stopped all actions against ‘whistleblowers’, and immediately started promoting policies to protect them. This whole debacle is another indication that the current govt is LNP light – a huge disappointment and worth ignoring at the next general election.
Anyone still Laboring under the assumption that the Alternative Liberal Party are the good guys should ask themselves why the sneaky fcks love unjustifiable secrecy so much.
And anyone who consumed the drivel pumped out by the enablers of the MSM and considers it journalism should be wondering why they’re so blase about FOI chicanery.
This crap makes me hopping mad, but it seemed like hardly anyone gives a damn.
Had a fight with a couple of blind Labor supporters yesterday on X following Rick Morton’s revelation there were 57 recommendations in the Robodebt report. The recommendations were only numbered under each chapter, and #57 was under ‘Closing observations’ heading simply because it didn’t fit neatly into the chapters of the report. Dreyfus was being disingenuous claiming it wasn’t a recommendation.
Lesson for future Royal Commissions: number your recommendations so each one can be accounted for.
The Albanese Labor government must enact that final recommendation. If they don’t it smacks of hypocrisy as well as an attempt to curtail transparency. I want a government that works for everyone not a government that tries to hide behind Cabinet documents.
“Recommendation 58 :- Learn to count before attempting to run a government, or trying to hide duplicity from rubes that can.”