Peter Van Onselen gives his opinion of Speaker Bronwyn Bishop

The Advertiser online 23 November 2013:

THE first fortnight of parliamentary sittings has proven one thing: Bronwyn Bishop is going to be a hopeless Speaker.

Not, of course, if you are a partisan who happens to enjoy the Coalition winning the day in Question Time, for Bishop ensures that happens on an all-too-regular basis.

She is hopeless for anyone who thinks a Speaker operating with even just a modicum of independence is good for our parliamentary process.

Every day of Question Time over the past two weeks she showed her partisan stripes. She was condescending to the Opposition, to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and, particularly, to manager of Opposition business Tony Burke.

She let the manager of government business, Christopher Pyne, get away with behaviour even Prime Minister Tony Abbott thinks is unparliamentary when Pyne called Shorten "electricity Bill".

Bishop has only just started in the role, so the many slip-ups forgetting members' electorates and basic procedures can be forgiven. But the overtly partisan style she has adopted is unlikely to change.

In fact, it will probably harden as the political contest becomes tighter, once the Coalition starts making unpopular decisions.

I didn't have much time for the performances of her predecessors Harry Jenkins or Anna Burke during Labor's time in power but at least they tried to develop non-partisan approaches to rulings.

If one good thing came out of the minority Parliament that was it. Bishop can't even keep her snide remarks out of her partisan interventions. She has reverted to the well-worn precedent in this country (as opposed to in the UK, for example) of the Speaker simply being an extension of the government - a hack who might as well be sitting on the benches behind the Prime Minister.

If there is one shining light in Bishop's woeful performance as Speaker this past fortnight, it is that she is doing her relatively insignificant job rather than being a member of Abbott's cabinet.

When are organised religions finally going to freely admit the degree to which paedophiles and violent personalities number in the ranks of their clergy?

ABC News 27 August 2013:

The Anglican Church set up a national register in 2004 designed to provide a database for information if a member of clergy had a complaint or finding of abuse established against them.

The General Secretary of the Anglican Church Martin Drevikovsky told the Commission that right now there are hundreds of abuse investigations taking place nationwide.

"In the case of Sydney it was 600. In the case of Melbourne I know it was hundreds," he said.

He said the number of clergy to make it onto the register is expected to be far fewer when the review is completed in the coming months.

What ABC News is not saying is that in relation to abuse allegations the Anglican Church is understood to have a record of 122 clergy who are persons of concern and up to 209 more clergy who are under investigation in relation to emotional/physical/sexual abuse.

It would appear that some of these alleged offenders/members of the Anglican clergy were not reported to police until earlier this year – presumably only after the church realised that it could not avoid giving an accounting of it actions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

UPDATE

The Daily Examiner 27 November 2013:

Martin Drevikovsky, General Secretary, General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia told the commission this morning that the register was incomplete.

He said that when the royal commission was announced, every diocese was given directions to "search for (complaint) files and review them to ensure all necessary steps had been taken and if not, to take immediate action".

As a result, Mr Drevikovksy said, "a large number of files have come to light".

He said an estimated 209 files were listed for review and expected that between 40 and 45 and "possibly more" names would be added to the persons of concern register.

Earlier, Grafton/Newcastle Diocese Professional Standards Director Michael Elliott said at least four names of concern from northern NSW region had not been added to the register including that of Allan Kitchingman, a former Lismore priest who was jailed in 2003 over the sexual assault of a teenage boy.

Mr Elliott also confirmed that along with the North Coast Children's Home files, there were between 10 and 15 files involving allegations against members of the Grafton Diocese which had yet to be reviewed.
The hearing continues

Hopefully Prime Minister Abbott will handle this Snowden revelation better than the last

The Age  24 November 2013:

Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia, according to top secret documents leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. New details have also been revealed about the involvement of Australia and New Zealand in the interception of global satellite communications.

A top secret United States National Security Agency map shows that the US and its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners tap high speed fibre optic cables at 20 locations worldwide. The interception operation involves cooperation with local governments and telecommunications companies or else through “covert, clandestine” operations.

The undersea cable interception operations are part of a global web that in the words of another leaked NSA planning document enables the “Five Eyes” partners – the US, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - to trace “anyone, anywhere, anytime” in what is described as “the golden age” signals intelligence.

The NSA map, published by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad overnight, shows that the United States maintains a stranglehold on trans-Pacific communications channels with interception facilities on the West coast of the United States and at Hawaii and Guam, tapping all cable traffic across the Pacific Ocean as well as links between Australia and Japan.

The map confirms that Singapore, one of the world's most significant telecommunications hubs, is a key “third party” working with the “Five Eyes” intelligence partners.....

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/11/23/nsa-infected-50000-computer-networks-with-malicious-software/

The Guardian 27 November 2013:

Indonesia's president has said that his country will restore normal diplomatic relations with Australia if prime minister Tony Abbott signs up to a new bilateral code of ethics on intelligence-shariing.
But Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also said that his government would summon Singaporean and South Korean diplomats in Jakarta over reports they had assisted Australian and US spying in the region.

Liberal-National Party Coalition now paying for Abbott's deficiencies

The gloss has gone off the Federal Coalition Government.

This is how one political cartoonist sees this loss.

Ian Martin at laberal

This is how Nielsen pollsters measured the situation seventy-seven days after the Australian federal election.

Financial Review 25 November 2013:

Tony Abbott may have proved himself electable against an unelectable government. But the first post-election Nielsen poll suggests voters find him and his government underwhelming.

With the Julia and Kevin show over, voters have shaken off some of their sourness towards Labor, cured themselves of the view that Clive Palmer represents a real alternative and are viewing the new government in a more pragmatic light altogether.

This will come as a rude shock to Abbott’s expanded backbench and provoke internal debate about the strategies pursued since September 7. The poll will quieten any government triumphalism and crystallises the question many voters are asking: what on earth is the new government actually doing?

The Sydney Morning Herald 25 November 2013:

The first Fairfax Nielsen poll since the September 7 election has charted a rapid recovery for the ALP, with the opposition shooting to a 52-48 per cent lead over the government on the preferences of respondents - the quickest poll lead achieved by any federal opposition after losing an election.

By 25 November 2013 the results of a Newspoll survey had confirmed the Coalition’s tarnished image.

The Australian 25 October 2013:

And as the Prime Minister's personal support has dropped from a post-election high, the Opposition Leader's voter satisfaction continues to rise.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian on the weekend, the Coalition's primary vote went from 45 per cent two weeks ago to 43 per cent as Labor's rose from 32 per cent to 35 per cent. Greens' support went from 12 per cent two weeks ago to 10 per cent, and ``others'' went from 11 per cent to 12 per cent.

Financial Review 26 November 2013:

A second poll in as many days has shown fading support for Tony Abbott’s Coalition government since the September 7 federal election, with a Newspoll published on Tuesday showing a 1.5 per cent swing against the government on a two-party preferred basis.

The poll, published in The Australian, found that the Coalition’s share of the two-party vote had eased to 52 per cent to Labor’s 48 per cent, down from 56 per cent to 44 per cent in a Newspoll taken in late October.

The October Newspoll had shown the Coalition increasing its share of the two-party vote since the election. At the election, the Coalition’s two-party preferred result was 53.5 per cent to Labor’s 46.5 per cent.

Rev. Pat Comben resigns from all duties to Anglican Church

www.abc.net.au

According to The Australian on 25 November 2013, former Clarence Valley Shire councillor and former registrar of the Grafton Diocese, Rev. Pat Comben has resigned from the Anglican priesthood:

He said on Monday he was quitting because history is being re-written by some members of the church.

Mr Comben said he had signed the letter of holy orders relinquishment outside the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse on Friday. That was just before he took the stand to give evidence into the diocese's handling of allegations by former residents of the home.
"Fifty years in the Church and I do not know if I can even say I am a Christian," said Mr Comben outside the commission on Monday after he had completed two days of evidence.

By 7pm his resignation "minutes before" he was due to give evidence before the Royal Commission was confirmed in an ABC News broadcast.

Caught out in what appears to be a second instance of failure to report, one suspects the Anglican Church may have been grateful for this resignation.

1999

Mr Comben testified that he did not know why he asserted that ‘we’ know something. He said only he knew things and he erred in asserting that Cabinet had knowledge of what he knew….

He said that he had no specific knowledge about any matters involving child abuse.  Over some period of time he had received complaints at his electoral office about things that had allegedly occurred at the Sir Leslie Wilson Youth Centre, he had received complaints from homeless youths who had were detained at the John Oxley Youth Centre and had received ‘low grade scuttlebutt’ from some staff about children being inappropriately treated or inappropriately punished. He said that it was information of this nature which he had in mind when he referred to ‘child abuse’ in the statement broadcast in 1999. [State of Queensland,3(e) Report: Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry, June 2013]

2013

The Royal Commission into child abuse has heard a former Anglican Church official responsible for responding to historic abuse claims did not pass on allegations to police.

The former registrar of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, Pat Comben, today took the stand for a second day at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Mr Comben, who had previously served as Queensland education minister under premier Wayne Goss, was the first to receive claims about the North Coast Children's Home at Lismore.

He has faced intense scrutiny about the evidence given to the commission by former residents of the home about the physical and sexual abuse they suffered between the 1940s and 1980s.

Witnesses at the commission last week criticised Mr Comben's handling of the allegations and subsequent negotiations for compensation, with his actions described as cruel and inappropriate.

Today counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett questioned Mr Comben about his actions.

"You were in possession of serious allegations of child sexual abuse made against a number of people, some named, some unnamed," Mr Beckett said.

"You did not provide that information to police. Why was that?" 
"I have no idea," Mr Comben said....[ABC News,25 November 2013,Anglican Church official Pat Comben quizzed in Royal Commission over response to child sex abuse at North Coast Children's Home]

"I became aware that (a convicted pedophile) Reverend Kitchingman, as he was, was still in the stud book...

 Mr Comben also told the commission that he subsequently took no disciplinary action against Reverend Kitchingman or another alleged pedophile priest at the home, Campbell Brown.
"I did nothing at all (about Kitchingman)," he told the commission. "I think we were too busy to take him on."
[The Australian,25 November 2013,I'm not sure I'm still a Christian, Anglican priest Pat Comben says]

* Day One (22 November 2013) of Mr. Comben’s evidence to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses To Child Sexual Abuse,pp 64-115

* Day Two (25 November 2013) of Mr. Comben’s evidence to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses To Child Sexual Abuse will be found here when transcribed.

Abbott's adviser deletes Twitter account now the damage is done - blames death threats

Mark Textor an adviser to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has deleted his Twitter account @markatextor after employing the same boots and all approach to Australia-Indonesia relations as Abbott himself.

Textor claimed he could not tolerate the 'death threats' received since he sent the tweets set out below, however if these alleged threats happened they must be thin on the ground because the Topsy archive carries little or no trace of these threats as far as I can tell.

Indeed the twitterverse was more likely to respond with comments such as You are a bogan moron, end of story or "Conduct unbecoming?" Don't f*cking flatter yourself, no one expects anything better from you.

Time online 22 November 2013:

Textor has admitted he slipped up. "Twenty-five years in politics, one or two mistakes, this is certainly one of them," he said Thursday.

As we ponder what the other mistake of his career could be, here are some of his mud-slinging tweets preserved for posterity.

The one where he brought up the 2005 suicide attack in Bali and linked to a photo of the bombers

"Last time I looked no Indonesians were ever bombed in Australia" (removed from Twitter)

The one where he slammed Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's propensity to use Twitter

"What sort of head of state communicates with a head of a neighbouring government by twitter FFS? SBY" (removed from Twitter)

The one where he gave tips for saving on apparently alcoholic beverages to the leader of the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world

@Drew_Bowie @Colvinius @SBYudhoyono @TonyAbbottMHR I think he should sack his foreign service and just do twitter. Save on the drinks bill

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 19, 2013

The one where he predicted journalists would find Indonesia's relationship with Australia sexually arousing…

Indonesian junior official criticises Oz Government. 2 things happen: left media gets hard on. Govt gets more domestic support

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 11, 2013

… but that anyone who mattered didn't care if Indonesians were offended

"No one gives a rat's arse in the real world. The bubble at work." (removed from Twitter)

The one where he described Indonesia's ambassador to Australia as a chess piece

Indonesian ambassador Read: Pawn of Indonesian domestic politics #indonesiavotes2014

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 18, 2013

The one where he implied the Indonesian President was senile

"Poor old bugger SBY is confused." (removed from Twitter)

The one where he re-tweeted a political reporter's response to his porn star slur

@latikambourke @markatextor Personally I disagree Mark. Marty looks more like a bad 70′s Bond villain.

When he reacted to the controversy over his porn star slur

@cathywilcox1 @jonathanvswan it's dull. Silly, gossipy and moronic. Compensated for by fake moral outrage and intellectual snobbery.

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 19, 2013

The time he claimed Indonesia's reaction to the spying controversy was fake

@PetefromHayNSW I think we act peacefully. But the fake indo outrage posturing is frustrating.

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 19, 2013

The one where he demanded Indonesia apologize for spying in 2004

SBY should apologise. "Indonesia 'bugged' Australia By Brendan Nicholson National Security Correspondent Canberra November 15, 2004″

— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 19, 2013

The one where he took a dig at Australia's public broadcaster and gossip columnists

@latikambourke Where did i mention SBY exactly? More ABC inaccurate nonsense. More ant rooting from glorified gossip columnists

Front page mock up courtesy of @lol_trotsky

Miranda Devine's conspiracy theory travels into regional NSW

On 26 October 2013 Prime Minister Tony Abbott had a handful of right wing media trolls to dinner at Kirribilli House and one, Miranda Devine, returned this hospitality by obligingly beginning  a conspiracy theory on 20 November about the timing of Fairfax media reports on Australia’s spying activities in Indonesia.

Why did The Guardian sit on its bombshell allegations about Australia spying on Indonesia for five months? Ms. Devine began, went on to imply the timing was suspect, then demolished her own argument by including some inconvenient facts.

Andrew Bolt hopped on the bandwagon (along with fellow dinner invitees Greg Sheridan and Paul Sheehan) on 21 November and hasn’t exhausted his vitriol yet.

Her theory was also quickly picked up by a Northern Rivers troll who ditched the inconvenient facts and sent off a letter to the editor which was published in The Daily Examiner on 21 November 2013:

Leftwing nonsense

According to the latest revelations by the ABC, Australian spies have had their eyes and ears focused on Indonesia for years, intercepting the president's telephone calls at will and generally doing what spies are paid to do.

Shock, horror in Indonesia and threats to disembowel present relations with Australia, while the ALP demands PM Tony Abbott apologise and the ABC lovingly stirs the pot.

The question here is just when did this ABC/Guardian coalition really discover these damning revelations considering the so-called Snowden leaks have been about for quite a while, certainly before September 7, 2013, and the spying claims relate to the period of the previous Labor/Green government.

Why now with relations with Indonesia at a critical point, and not at any period of time between 2007, a year Snowden alludes to, and September 6, 2013, the six years Rudd/Gillard/Rudd took turns in the captain's cabin steering us in circles?

The election loss really got up the noses of Labor and the Green lefties and this sort of nonsense designed to detract from the workings of the new government is a good reminder of just why we voted them out en masse.

Fred Perring,
Halfway Creek

Almost as quickly, the Perring version of this conspiracy theory was knocked down in another letter to the editor on 23 November 2013:

No conspiracy

Fred Perring [The Daily Examiner, November 21, 2013] is hot on the heels of what he obviously believes is a possible Guardian Australia-ABC conspiracy, with regard to their reporting of alleged spying on the Indonesian President, his wife and assorted ministers/advisers.

"Why now, with relations with Indonesia at a critical point, and not at any period of time between 2007, a year Snowden alludes to, and September6, 2013, the six years Rudd/Gillard/Rudd took turns in the captain's cabin steering us in circles?" he asks, concerning publication of these news articles.

Now let me see - the public record shows that the original story broke on June 5, 2013, that the US National Security Agency was collecting metadata from internet service providers' records of phone calls.

The whistleblower revealed his identity on or about June 9, and then revealed Australia's links to the spy web, with a map identifying the location of Australian assets assisting American Government covert operations.

Between June 16-27 it became obvious that Snowden had taken a large number of classified intelligence documents and was releasing them to select international media as a single information transfer.

On October 31, the National Security Agency (NSA) admitted that the classified documents stolen numbered somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 individual documents.

The agency also admitted it had no way of knowing precisely which documents had been accessed until the media reported on them.

ASIO has conducted an audit of documents it shared with foreign intelligence agencies, but the Department Of Defence's Signals Directorate remains silent on whether it was aware that its documents has gone feral, before Guardian Australia and the ABC jointly reported on the directorate's alleged spying activities.

Now, if we take NSA's conservative estimate of 50,000 documents available to the media, a news agency would have to read and check the details of at least 295 intelligence documents a day to have opened all the documents by the day I write this letter.

All of which points to the fact that The Guardian UK did not have these documents before June 5, and has not yet completed reviewing all the documents in its possession.

In fact, according to evidence before a November 19 Senate Estimates Environment and Communications Legislation Committee hearing, The Guardian UK did not give Guardian Australia access to the relevant documents until November, and the ABC was not alerted to the existence of documents outlining alleged spying on Indonesia until approximately 24 hours after Guardian Australia came into possession of these documents.

Senate Estimates evidence also revealed that the ABC consulted with government authorities prior to publication and "in light of representations that were made, a decision was made to withdraw some elements" of these sensitive documents.

So on the basis of the publicly available timetable of the Snowden leak, it was impossible for the ABC to publish any details between 2007 and September 6, 2013; and therefore Mr Perring's conspiracy theory fails.

JUDITH M. MELVILLE

Yamba