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Talking Politics

IanG

Tiger Legend
Sep 27, 2004
18,087
3,323
Melbourne
The multiple ministeries affair gets worse:


From the article:
"Records released this week show Mr Morrison was near-constantly holding meetings via a secretive cabinet committee of which he was both chair and sole member."
and
"The arrangement was deeply unconventional and allowed Mr Morrison to declare unrelated conversations officially secret under laws relating to cabinet confidentiality."
 
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TigerMasochist

Walks softly carries a big stick.
Jul 13, 2003
25,567
11,443
From the article:
"Records released this week show Mr Morrison was near-constantly holding meetings via a secretive cabinet committee of which he was both chair and sole member."
??? So was Scomo talking in tongue all by himself or something? Looks like he never got all the right answers.
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,199
17,593
Camberwell
Is this just a vent or would you like to pick a scandal to discuss?

Or is the topic the unelectability of the Libs?

The floor is yours.
I’m no Andrews fan even more so as he continues to show more and more sign of the arrogance of power, although he has always been an autocratic leader.
Some of the things that I have seen around health in recent times border on stupidity.
However I have no hesitation in voting them back in ahead of the Libs. A more talentless and irrelevant opposition has likely never been seen in this state.
 
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tigerman

It's Tiger Time
Mar 17, 2003
24,150
19,618
What a sleazy, conspiring government the Morrison government was.

"The secret decisions to install Scott Morrison in five extra ministries turn out to be examples of hidden paperwork used elsewhere in his government – with great reward to Liberal mates – when his time as prime minister was drawing to a close.

Ten days before Morrison called the election, for instance, one of his ministers asked Governor-General David Hurley to sign a series of legal instruments that gave new or extended appointments to Liberal loyalists who gained salaries of up to $496,560 a year.

On that day, March 31, the then attorney-general, Michaelia Cash, appears to have appointed 26 people to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) in a classic “stack” of friendly faces to an institution that hears complaints on everything from welfare payments to visa approvals and – here’s an irony – access to information.
The jobs were not revealed in the old way of doing things, by publishing appointments in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, so there is still some doubt about the paperwork. But there is growing concern that some of the people who were given jobs on March 31 might not be properly appointed and could, in theory, have their decisions challenged.

We know this due to the careful work of two observers with impeccable expertise. The first, Keith Mason, AC KC, was the solicitor-general of NSW for a decade before becoming president of the NSW Court of Appeal from 1997 to 2008. The second, Leslie Katz, SC, also served as the NSW solicitor-general before becoming a Federal Court judge from 1998 to 2002.
“Our efforts to date have revealed serious shortcomings in the information that ought to be available to the public and litigants before the AAT. And they have raised in our minds serious doubts about the validity of an unknown but significant number of the recent appointments,” they concluded.

Details of important appointments to public office used to be individually gazetted. No longer.

“We have discovered that the 26 appointments to the AAT whose validity we wish to explore were made by Instrument of Appointment executed by the governor-general in Executive Council on 31 March 2022, a fortnight before parliament was dissolved and the writs issued for a general election.”

In other words, the political mates gained cosy jobs in March in exactly the same way Morrison gave himself extra jobs over the past few years: a legal instrument signed by Hurley. In the AAT case, at least, there was a press release to confirm the appointments.

Even so, there was no transparency about the dates of appointment and there was a common problem. Morrison and Cash did not list the appointments in the Commonwealth Gazette.

Mason and Katz put their concerns in writing to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus this week. Dreyfus has criticised political appointments to the AAT in the past and has talked about doing a review of the system. The new government has begun a more open process to decide the next round of appointments.
But that does not end the questions about those who now sit on the tribunal after an opaque process to install them to statutory positions.

To offer an example, Mason and Katz cited one person: Karen Synon, a former Liberal senator for Victoria. Defeated at the 1998 election, she was appointed to the Refugee Review Tribunal in 2001 and the Migration Review Tribunal in 2004 and then, after the return of the Coalition to power at the 2013 election, to the AAT in 2015. She was made a non-judicial deputy president of the tribunal in 2020. Her appointment was extended by Cash in the instruments signed on March 31 and announced by press release on April 4, so her time on the tribunal now runs until 2027. The full-time salary for a non-judicial deputy president is $496,460 a year.

The legal mystery is that the starting date and terms of her recent appointment are unknown. Synon is only one example of the problem with the process: this is no reflection on her character, her decisions as a tribunal member or her ability to carry out her role. She was just one of 26 members who had their terms extended just before the election, along with 19 new appointments on that day.

“To announce March 2022 appointments as extensions of existing appointments that have months if not years to run is misleading,” say Mason and Katz.
“Which of Ms Synon’s appointments is the one currently operative? The original one commencing in 2020 and expiring in 2023 or the one made in 2022 and expiring in 2027? If the latter, was the requisite oath or affirmation taken before 9 May 2022?”

If not, they suggest, the decisions of those 26 members might be open to challenge. These are statutory positions, after all, not office jobs where promotions can be agreed with a handshake or a letter.
The concerns about the AAT are not new. The tribunal is now populated with allies of the Liberals and Nationals after nine years of Coalition rule. It includes former Western Australian Liberal MP and state attorney-general Michael Mischin, former NSW Liberal MP and state minister Pru Goward and former federal Liberal MPs Jane Prentice and Andrew Nikolic.
The most recent years, when the post of Attorney-General was held by two WA Liberals, Cash and Christian Porter, saw the appointment of no less than four former Liberal state MPs from that state: Mischin, Peter Katsambanis, Michael Francis and Michael Sutherland.

This is no reflection on the capability or impartiality of any of these individuals. The Coalition government appointed some former Labor political figures to the AAT as well, among them John Rau from South Australia and Philip Dalidakis from Victoria. But the pattern is the problem.
When the Australia Institute looked into all the appointments to the AAT from the election of the Howard government in 1996 to the end of the Morrison government this year, it found the Coalition made 109 political appointments over its 21 years in power and Labor made 10 political appointments over its 6 years in power. The detailed analysis by Debra Wilkinson and Elizabeth Morison classified tribunal members as political appointments if they had ever worked for one side of politics or another in a paid or unpaid capacity.

More political mates have gained more jobs in recent years. The analysis found that 8 per cent of appointments were political in the three years after Labor gained power in 2007. This rose to 23 per cent in the first term of the Coalition from 2013 and then 35 per cent in the second term. By the time Morrison was in control it reached 40 per cent.
Mason and Katz have been trying to find out more about these appointments for months. Their effort highlights a basic weakness in our system: if prime ministers and ministers want to ignore or bend the time-tested ways of doing things, the safeguards that could stop them are too weak

Political allies can be the best choice for key posts like the embassy in Washington DC or the high commission in London, but an independent legal tribunal should not be a retirement village for Liberal mates. Any step in that direction is a step toward the toxic politics of the United States.

It is now up to Dreyfus to come up with a better way."


 
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Ian4

BIN MAN!
May 6, 2004
22,180
4,679
Melbourne
Wasn’t sure whether to create a thread about Optus but decided to post it here.

Not only do we have the current privacy controversy, but Optus has terrible customer service and the have considerably jacked up their prices in recent times. There is a lot of anger especially towards the appalling price increase of Optus Sport.

I’ve often wondered if the appointment of Gladys Berejiklian has been a factor. Afterall, everything she does turns to 5h!t.

But maybe this is the actual reason… Paul Fletcher has some serious questions to answer.

TODAY.jpg
 
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Ian4

BIN MAN!
May 6, 2004
22,180
4,679
Melbourne
I’m no Andrews fan even more so as he continues to show more and more sign of the arrogance of power, although he has always been an autocratic leader.
Some of the things that I have seen around health in recent times border on stupidity.
However I have no hesitation in voting them back in ahead of the Libs. A more talentless and irrelevant opposition has likely never been seen in this state.

When Howard was PM, he used to campaign really effectively on interest rates. He would argue that interest rates would always be lower under the Liberals. I personally disagreed with that, but there is no doubt people believed it.

Well, you can make the reverse argument for healthcare. People know the healthcare system will always be better under Labor.

Sure, there is no doubt the pandemic showed how inadequate our healthcare system is. Not just in Victoria, but in all of the states. Even if it’s not in the best shape now, it still would be worse under the Liberals. Just look at NSW, who’s response times are far worse than here.

I think the Victorian Liberals are going with the wrong strategy for the election campaign by focusing on healthcare. People just don’t trust them on this issue. It will not cut through.
 
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Baloo

Delisted Free Agent
Nov 8, 2005
44,113
18,923
Wasn’t sure whether to create a thread about Optus but decided to post it here.

Not only do we have the current privacy controversy, but Optus has terrible customer service and the have considerably jacked up their prices in recent times. There is a lot of anger especially towards the appalling price increase of Optus Sport.

I’ve often wondered if the appointment of Gladys Berejiklian has been a factor. Afterall, everything she does turns to 5h!t.

But maybe this is the actual reason… Paul Fletcher has some serious questions to answer.

View attachment 16930

Just on the Optus 'hack". There was no hack. There was an open API that could be called, without the need for any authentication, published on the public internet that anyone could have accessed. While the stolen data could be called a breach, their means of accessing that data did not involve any hacking or circumventing of security controls.
 
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AngryAnt

Tiger Legend
Nov 25, 2004
27,017
14,792
Just on the Optus 'hack". There was no hack. There was an open API that could be called, without the need for any authentication, published on the public internet that anyone could have accessed. While the stolen data could be called a breach, their means of accessing that data did not involve any hacking or circumventing of security controls.

Yep - they left the door wide open with a sign saying "free customer data here"
 

Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,199
17,593
Camberwell
When Howard was PM, he used to campaign really effectively on interest rates. He would argue that interest rates would always be lower under the Liberals. I personally disagreed with that, but there is no doubt people believed it.

Well, you can make the reverse argument for healthcare. People know the healthcare system will always be better under Labor.

Sure, there is no doubt the pandemic showed how inadequate our healthcare system is. Not just in Victoria, but in all of the states. Even if it’s not in the best shape now, it still would be worse under the Liberals. Just look at NSW, who’s response times are far worse than here.

I think the Victorian Liberals are going with the wrong strategy for the election campaign by focusing on healthcare. People just don’t trust them on this issue. It will not cut through.
It is about perceptions in the end. I have worked in health under both the ALP and LNP and there isn’t much difference in reality.
This push from the Libs to invest really heavily in health infrastructure and “fix” health sounds great but is not that well thought through. They are “funding” it with cancelling a big capital project in the forward estimates. However increasing infrastructure also has an ongoing operating cost. Someone has to pay to operate the new hospitals and those costs are in the longer term higher than the capital costs. They don’t even mention those.
Infrastructure is important but is nowhere near the answer in its own. It is also political. I agree entirely with the call from the Victorian hospital association for more transparency and rigour around decisions in this space, they are heavily weighted politically by both sides.
 
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DavidSSS

Tiger Legend
Dec 11, 2017
10,523
17,874
Melbourne
The problem in health is similar to many other problems - a politician can get qudos for opening a hospital, but staffing a hospital gets ignored because there is no big announcement or ribbon to cut. Same happens in education and other areas.

DS
 
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Redford

Tiger Legend
Dec 18, 2002
34,360
26,207
Tel Aviv
Matthew Guy is lamenting the decision to remove Thorburn from Essendon’s CEO position labelling it “ridiculous” and, as you’d expect, panning Daniel Andrews’ comments.

Is Matthew Guy a troll within the Liberal Party ? Has he been planted by the Labor party to ensure their continued demise and failures at the election booths ?

Seriously, the growing disconnect between the conservative side of politics and the community’s expectations, continues to stagger. Just amazing.
 
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AngryAnt

Tiger Legend
Nov 25, 2004
27,017
14,792
"The electorate rejected our move to the right by electing teal independents in our inner city moderate seats. The solution is clearly to move even further to the right!!"
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,199
17,593
Camberwell
"The electorate rejected our move to the right by electing teal independents in our inner city moderate seats. The solution is clearly to move even further to the right!!"
The best advocates for the ALP these days are actually in the Liberal Party.
The interesting thing is that the same thing is happening to the Tories in the UK. They are facing electoral disaster under Liz Truss.
 
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Ian4

BIN MAN!
May 6, 2004
22,180
4,679
Melbourne

This only reinforces my view that the Liberals in their current form will never see government again in Australia. They are controlled by the extreme right and Pentecostals. Once they are wiped out in Victoria and NSW (next March), they will be in the wilderness for many, many years.

I predict there will be an eventual split between the hard right and the moderates. The moderates and teals will merge to form a new centre right party.

The interesting thing is that the same thing is happening to the Tories in the UK. They are facing electoral disaster under Liz Truss.

In the UK is the Labor holds about 200 seats and needs to win 326 to form a majority. I know They are ahead in the polls and Tony Blair did something similar 25 years ago… But gee its still a monumental mountain to clim
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,199
17,593
Camberwell
This only reinforces my view that the Liberals in their current form will never see government again in Australia. They are controlled by the extreme right and Pentecostals. Once they are wiped out in Victoria and NSW (next March), they will be in the wilderness for many, many years.

I predict there will be an eventual split between the hard right and the moderates. The moderates and teals will merge to form a new centre right party.



In the UK is the Labor holds about 200 seats and needs to win 326 to form a majority. I know They are ahead in the polls and Tony Blair did something similar 25 years ago… But gee its still a monumental mountain to clim
I can’t quote the numbers but I read that the polls have them comfortably ahead but of course there is a long way to go. It also has to be remembered that the base for the Labour Party was from an election where they committed their own form of electoral suicide by having Corben as their leader.
 

Redford

Tiger Legend
Dec 18, 2002
34,360
26,207
Tel Aviv
And now Dutton.

“I’m very deeply concerned about the development in relation to this Essendon situation and the dismissal, frankly, should be reversed, and Mr Thorburn should be reappointed to his position.”
 
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taztiger4

Shovelheads- Keeping hipsters off Harley's
Jul 13, 2005
7,814
6,445
Richmond Victoria
And now Dutton.

“I’m very deeply concerned about the development in relation to this Essendon situation and the dismissal, frankly, should be reversed, and Mr Thorburn should be reappointed to his position.”
I thought the twat resigned ?
 
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MD Jazz

Don't understand football? Talk to the hand.
Feb 3, 2017
13,329
13,711
And now Dutton.

“I’m very deeply concerned about the development in relation to this Essendon situation and the dismissal, frankly, should be reversed, and Mr Thorburn should be reappointed to his position.”
They are truly *smile*.

As Ant pointed out they have moved even further right. Personally I don't think it's because of the election result, its because at their base its who they are.

Hopefully, just like religion, they will be irrelevant in 20-30 years time.