Bloody Nora! Rupe's excelled himself

Rupert Murdoch knows the power of images and he's so determined that his mate Tony Abbott will be the next PM that his Shakespeare-quoting henchmen depicting present Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a straight jacketed, serial killing cannibal is par for the course.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: TheAustralian
"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5"

Sack the letters editor at The Australian

Today's edition of The Australian carries a letter to the editor that should never have been printed.

The letter writer is wrong. The writer's understanding of geography is abysmal.

The letters editor should have seen the error in the letter, but perhaps the editor knows no  better. Then again, the letter suits the agenda of this rabid right wing rag that pretends to be a national newspaper.

Here's the letter:

Last Post, July

Kevin Rudd, a former diplomat, less than 48 hours into his new/old job, is talking up conflict with our nearest neighbour. Is this a record?

Roseanne Schneider, Yeronga, Qld


For the record, Indonesia is not Australia's nearest neighbour.

Source: The Australian, July 1, 2013

Kingston vs The Australian propaganda sheet

 

News Limited's The Australian newspaper gets caught distorting known facts – again.

 

The Australian 8 January 2013:

 

 

Margot Kingston 8 January 2013:

 

Just to keep the record straight in the face of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's claim that these new allegations reflect on Australian Prime Minister Gillard's judgement (but apparently not on his own judgement or that of former Prime Minister Howard), herewith timeline information taken from the Parliament of Australia biography of the Hon. Peter Neil Slipper:

Elected to the House of Representatives for Fisher, Queensland, 1984 for the National Party of Australia. Defeated 1987.

Re-elected for the Liberal Party of Australia 1993, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government Whip from 11.7.97 to 18.10.98.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration (Coalition Ministers John Fahey & Nick Minchin) from 21.10.98 to 26.10.04.

Acting Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister John Howard from 14.3.02 to 7.10.03.

Member, Liberal Party 1989-2008; Member, Liberal National Party of Queensland 2008-11.

Alternate Representative, Liberal Party State Executive (Qld) 1990-92.

Vice-Chairman, Liberal Party Sunshine Coast Zone 1990-92.

Membership Development Officer, Liberal Party Sunshine Coast Zone 1990-92.

Branch Vice-Chairman, Liberal Party 1991-92.

Delegate, Liberal Party and Liberal National Party State Conventions (Qld) 1990-2011.

Became an Independent MP from 24.11.2011.

On 7 January 2013 the Australian Federal Police served the legal representative of Mr Peter Slipper MP with a summons in relation to three offences of Dishonestly Causing a Risk of a Loss to the Commonwealth pursuant to section 135.1(5) Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

The same day The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

 

It is understood they relate to three Comcar trips in 2010, in which Mr Slipper - who was then a Coalition MP - travelled beyond the allowed Canberra region. The trips are understood amount to about $900.

Dennis Shanahan finally loses any grip on reality

Mal Brough (top) and Dennis Shanahan (bottom)

 

Dennis Shanahan writing in The Australian on 12 December 2012:

 

FORMER Howard government minister and putative MP for Fisher, Mal Brough, is the latest political casualty in the ongoing scandals surrounding Peter Slipper….

But the real political victim is now Brough, who stands accused of working with Ashby and co-worker Karen Doane in an underhanded political scheme based on disloyalty, political preferment, duplicity, and lies - all aimed at bringing down Slipper and promoting Brough….

In the face of what is set out below, one wonders in what alternative reality this political editor now dwells if he can seriously apply the term “victim” to this man.

Justice Rares findings concerning Mal Brough in his Ashby v Commonwealth of Australia and Peter Slipper judgment of 12 December 2012:

 

135 Mr Ashby asserted to Mr Harmer that his justification for his disloyalty as an employee in providing copies of Mr Slipper’s 2009 and 2010 diaries was that he wished to place the material in the public domain. That was, his assertion went, because he “believed that the conduct was morally and legally wrong and he felt aggrieved that he had been placed in the situation of becoming, as he understood it, exposed to (and potentially implicated in) what he regarded as the wrongful conduct of a public official”: [116] above. The words I have emphasised were ambiguous. If they referred to Mr Slipper’s conduct on the days covered by the 2009 and 2010 diary entries he surreptitiously sent to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis, there is no evidence to support Mr Ashby’s description or that he had any knowledge of particular conduct of Mr Slipper that was morally or legally wrong prior to him or Ms Doane sending the diary extracts to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis.

136 …..Rather, Mr Ashby’s and Ms Doane’s conduct at that point indicated that he and she were anxious to supply information to Mr Brough and Mr Lewis so that they could use it to assemble an attack on Mr Slipper, if they could find sufficient material to do so, using the diary entries and other evidence…..

138 I am also satisfied that Mr Ashby and Ms Doane by about 29 March 2012 were in a combination with Mr Brough to cause Mr Slipper as much political and public damage as they could inflict on him….

141 Mr Brough was unlikely to have been offering to assist Ms Doane and Mr Ashby in seeing Mr Russell QC for advice or looking for new careers out of pure altruism. Realistically, his preparedness to act for them was created and fed by their willingness to act against Mr Slipper’s interests and assisting Mr Brough’s and the LNP’s interests in destabilising Mr Slipper’s position as Speaker and damaging him in the eyes of his electorate…..

142…. Certainly, the nature of the allegations that Mr Brough, Ms Doane and Mr Ashby had provided Mr Lewis in about late March and early April 2012 would have suggested to a political journalist that there would now be more than one news story about Mr Slipper to pursue….

146 Mr Ashby and Mr Lewis had planned that articles about Mr Slipper’s use of travel entitlements would be published shortly before these proceedings were filed. They both knew that Mr Lewis would be able to publish further articles on the subject matter as soon as it was filed in Court in the originating application. Ms Doane and Mr Brough had also discussed the timing and sequence of publication of stories by Mr Lewis. So much is clear from Mr Ashby’s texts to Mr Nagle of 10 April 2012, Glen of 11 April 2012 and Ms Doane’s email to Mr Brough of 10 April 2012: see [82], [90], [86]. The planning reveals that Mr Ashby calculated how he would attack, and use the press to attack, Mr Slipper.

147 Mr Ashby had planned with Mr Lewis, and probably separately with Ms Doane and Mr Brough, the sequence of publications so as to raise the more serious allegations in the originating process, after the stories of 16 April 2012 appeared. The timing of those 16 April stories was linked to when the originating application would be filed. Once Mr Ashby began seeing Harmers and went into “lock down”, Mr Brough and Mr Lewis became anxious to know when the proceedings would be ready to be filed. Hence their strenuous attempts to contact Mr Ashby once he began to act on Mr McClellan’s advice to filter media contact through him. Mr Ashby had emphasised in his text to Mr Lewis on 10 April 2012 that “We need to act fast mate”. And Mr Brough told Ms Doane on learning that, eventually, Mr McClellan would meet Mr Lewis “Everything will be fine”: [94].

196 Having read all of the text messages on Mr Ashby’s mobile phone, as Mr Ashby’s senior counsel invited me to do, as well as the other evidence, I have reached the firm conclusion that Mr Ashby’s predominant purpose for bringing these proceedings was to pursue a political attack against Mr Slipper and not to vindicate any legal claim he may have for which the right to bring proceedings exists. Mr Ashby began planning that attack at least by the beginning of February 2012. As Mr Ashby and Ms Doane agreed in their texts of 30 March 2012 what they were doing “will tip the govt to Mal’s [Brough] and the LNP’s advantage”: [66]. It may be a coincidence that Mr Ashby suggested to Mr Slipper the idea of becoming Speaker just as Mr Brough began to move towards challenging Mr Slipper for LNP pre-selection for his seat and Mr Ashby ended up in an alliance in late March 2012 with Mr Brough to bring down Mr Slipper after he became Speaker….

http://youtu.be/AEWfsUO7YZY

* Photographs found at Google Images

UPDATE:

Justice Rares found that Mal Brough had known in early April 2012 that an application was to be filed by James Hunter Ashby. Court records show that it was filed on Friday 20 April 2012.

This is what Oppostion Leader Tony Abbott told the media on 13-14 December 2012:

'I think that Mal Brough was perfectly and properly endorsed by the Liberal National Party. He's been quite transparent and upfront about his involvement and, as I said, the matter is now subject to appeal,'

Teh Opposition Oompah-pah Machine misrepresents Flannery

The Australian newspaper online has gone behind a paywall, but its mindless anti-climate change propaganda still gets exposed.

From The Power Index on 25^th October 2011:

“Professor Flannery has released a statement this afternoon on information relevant to the above.

"The Australian (25 October) portrayed me as a 'backer' of the coal seam gas industry. This is not only wrong, but a serious misrepresentation of my speech to the New South Wales Minerals Council from which the headline was drawn.

What I in fact said at the meeting of environmental workers in the minerals industry is that serious conflicts exist between the coal seam gas industry and landowners, and that the industry faces enormous challenges as a result."

Chip Le Grand creates a climate change sob story

The Australian published a s-s-s-so-sob story:

IT is not easy watching one of your reporters get done over by Media Watch. Particularly when you have worked with the bloke for the best part of 20 years and not once had reason to question his journalistic integrity. But there was something about last Monday night's mauling of Stuart Rintoul more troubling still.
Rintoul has done some great work over the past month examining the vexed issues of sea rise projections and the response of coastal councils to the risk of future inundation.
He exposed ludicrous planning laws stifling development at Port Albert, a fishing village on Victoria's Bass Coast. Those laws are currently being torn up by the Baillieu government.
He brought to national attention research by NSW researcher Phil Watson showing that sea levels around Australia over the past 100 years haven't risen as quickly as scientists would have expected them to as a result of global warming.
For the first story he received the gratitude of a frustrated coastal community. For the second story he was pilloried, first in obscure, left-leaning blogs and finally on national television, for misrepresenting scientific research for "partisan political" purposes….[my emphasis]

Take a well-deserved bow Deltoid (then and now) – as well as every other blog (including NCV here) who commented on Rintoul’s ‘opinion’ piece before Media Watch administered the coup de grâce on 1 August 2011.

News Limited needs to get its own house in order before it starts throwing sh*t at Fairfax

In its rush to publish Mark Day's piece criticising Fairfax The Oz overlooked its own imperfections. Not a good look!

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/sale-junks-asset-thet-could-drive-future-of-fairfax/story-e6frg9tf-1226110417155