Labor party

The former Labor party ratbag Craig Thomson is facing yet more fraud and theft charges. I’ll say this though, he has more cheek than a fat man’s bum to still continue as an MP.

Former Federal Labor MP Craig Thomson – accused of using a Health Services Union credit card to pay for prostitutes – has appeared in court today to face 19 fresh charges.

Mr Thomson, 48, who last week announced he would stand as an independent for his NSW seat of Dobell at the September federal election after being suspended by the Labor Party, appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with a total of 173 fraud and theft offences.  Read more »

Kevin Rudd is starting up the rumour mill again after his last cowardly leadership challenge. He always does this with a bit of seeding from the back benchers who then leak to outside sources.

Senior Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne says a Labor source has told him Kevin Rudd will again challenge for the leadership in June.

Mr Rudd this week revealed he now supports gay marriage, having voted against it in parliament in 2012.

Mr Pyne told ABC radio on Wednesday the change of stance on gay marriage was a signal Mr Rudd intended to challenge Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Read more »

The ALP is full of ratbags, union ratbags, dodgy ratbags but all ratbags nonetheless. A little law change here, another there, some bribes and rots over there, and their mates score over $1 billion in windfall profits.

Former resources minister Ian Macdonald introduced legislation which overruled the highest court in NSW and resulted in a $1 billion windfall to two mining executives who have been under the scrutiny of the Independent Commission against Corruption.

Travers Duncan and Brian Flannery had owned the Moolarben coalmine near Mudgee for more than 30 years. But it was not until the Labor government intervened that it made a big profit.

The NSW Court of Appeal had ruled they could not mine at Moolarben because the lease encroached on a lease held by mining giant Xstrata.

But after the court decided, in August 2008, they could not mine at Moolarben Mr Macdonald stepped in to champion Mr Duncan and Mr Flannery’s cause.

Read more »

Julia Gillard reckons she can win…she oughta have a chat with Daryll Kerrigan:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has given a fiery defence of her chances at the September election, saying she believes Labor can win as the “white noise” of politics falls away.

Ms Gillard was responding to News Ltd reports that Labor MPs were expecting a drubbing at the election, with one unnamed MP predicting a “bloodbath” with the loss of 35-40 seats.  Read more »

Why does Australia seem have more dodgy ratbags than other countries?

Is it because most of their ancestors were chosen by the best judges of England to live in Australia?

The ALP seems to also have more dodgy ratbags than most other parties as well. Take these two examples.

First up is their very own Phillip Field:

Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor has admitted his claim the 457 visa scheme had been rorted 10,000 times was simply his own ”estimate” – but insisted there had been ”more than a few” transgressions.

Mr O’Connor floated the number during a television interview on Sunday, yet his office was unable on Sunday or Monday to point to any specific evidence to back up the claim.

Employer groups told Fairfax Media on Monday they suspected Mr O’Connor had plucked the number ”out of thin air” and it was part of the ongoing exaggerated rhetoric surrounding the government’s proposed crackdown on the skilled foreign worker program.

In an interview on ABC’s AM program on Friday, Mr O’Connor conceded the suggestion that the 457 visa scheme had been used illegitimately more than 10,000 times was ”a forecast” he had come up with rather than a firm fact.

Read more »

The ALP is struggling to recruit members. It seems there is simply no reason at all to join the party. it is probably why so many ratbags are rising to the surface.

Labor party membership is plummeting and people don’t see a reason to join the party, Labor elder John Faulkner says.

“Party membership is not only declining in number but it is ageing,” Mr Faulkner, who was part of a Whitlam Institute panel in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta, said.  Read more »

The knock shops will be putting out the welcome mat to have a bit of Craig Thomson’s donated money. You would think with all that disappearing union millions he would have held some back.

A fund has been established to allow supporters to chip in to help pay Craig Thomson’s mounting legal fees.

Earlier this month Fairfax Media reported the independent MP had only $60 in his bank account, with $23,000 owing on credit cards, and a legal bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars looming.

MPs are ineligible to sit in parliament if declared bankrupt.

In a letter headed ‘‘Craig Thomson Legal Defence Fund’’ the embattled former Labor MP has now urged friends to contribute to an account established by two of his supporters.

Read more »

Life isn’t that sweet under Labor. No wonder blue collar Kiwi workers are coming home in droves.

The Liberal party is highlighting the disaster that Gillard is visiting upon Australia.

Labor’s carbon tax and anti-business practices are hurting Australia’s manufacturing industries.

Instead of delivering certainty and confidence for investment and jobs in manufacturing, Labor is becoming more chaotic and dysfunctional.

Read more »

The Labour party here is making as much as they can about what they call a crony appointment. The very next thing they will allege is corruption. They know what they are talking about.

Take a look at Australia and the ongoing revelation from the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The latest revelation shows just how corrupt the ALP and their affiliated unions became.

The managing director of NuCoal admitted in a private examination by the state’s corruption watchdog that John Maitland, a friend of the then mining minister Ian Macdonald, had done his job by “opening doors” and obtaining an exploration licence worth millions of dollars.

In a secret interrogation just last month, Glen Lewis said Mr Maitland was removed as chairman of Doyles Creek Mining – a company which was sold into NuCoal before being floated on the stock exchange – because he had already “helped facilitate the application” for an exploration licence, which Mr Macdonald directly issued to the company without a tender.

The circumstances of the allocation of the licence are under public investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Mr Macdonald announced he had approved a “training mine” for Doyles Creek in the Hunter Valley on Christmas Eve 2008, but he did so contrary to the advice of his department, the ICAC has heard.

The decision effectively turned an investment of $165,000 by Mr Maitland, a former mining union official and Labor Party figure, into shares worth as much as $14 million.  Read more »

Nowhere in the world are ratbag unions worse than Australia. Over there they are mired in scandal, bribery and corruption allegations. And yet they are still trying to pervert democracy.

After the excesses that are now being borne out in the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption the O’Farrell government moved to clamp down on political donations and the unions are fighting back.

Political donations laws in NSW will be tested in the High Court for the first time in a case brought by the union movement, which argues they infringe freedom of political communication and association.

The laws, introduced by the O’Farrell government in 2011, ban donations from anyone other than individuals on the electoral roll and restrict what individual unions affiliated to a political party can spend on campaigns.

They also prohibit the payment of affiliation fees such as those paid by unions to Labor and restrict the ability of Unions NSW and business or environment groups from receiving money from member organisations to run political advertising.

In documents to be lodged on Monday, lawyers for Unions NSW and five trade unions – including two not affiliated with the ALP – argue the legislation ”interferes with the right of free communication in relation to political matters”. The secretary of Unions NSW, Mark Lennon, said if the laws were allowed to stand they would ”muzzle debate and silence the voice of working people”.

”This case transcends the interests of any one political party,” Mr Lennon said. ”At its heart, our High Court action is about the right of working people to ensure their collective voice is heard.”

The unions have also announced an all out war to keep the Coalition from winning in the election later this year.