Peter Slipper

The Peter Slipper fiasco continues on in Australia. Julia Gillard’s government is in disarray, propped up by crooks, liars and dodgy bastards, and one by one they are being picked off.

Slipper was summonsed to face court next month for alleged breaches of federal criminal laws, further destabilising Julia Gillard’s minority government in an election year.

The police statement said it was ”in relation to three offences of dishonestly causing a risk of a loss to the Commonwealth”.

The Queensland MP is due to appear in the Canberra Magistrates Court on February 15, where he can expect to be formally charged.

The Australian Federal Police have not confirmed what the summons is about, but court documents show that they relate to Mr Slipper’s alleged misuse of travel entitlements. The alleged offences carry a maximum five-year jail term.

He is alleged to have rorted his expenses to pay for cab charges carting his arse around vineyards.  Read more »

How do Len Brown’s donors reconcile their statement that the Kayaka nd Rafting Centre will benefit under-privileged in South Auckland because “with an entry fee of $35 for kayaking and $55 for rafting, [the centre] is budgeted to run profitably” with statements from the Labour party that have consistently told us that the under-privileged of South Auckland can’t even afford to feed their children and so the state must intervene?

Is Mike Tyson going to replace Peter Slipper?

Does anyone really care which jail a transgender crim gets sent to?

When will media just tell Gareth Hughes to STFU when he makes spurious claims without a shred of evidence?

Do we need a union for people who work for unions, to protect them from dodgy employment practices?

The Speaker, Peter Slipper, has resigned in Australia and it was unsurprising as he was having the ignominy of having his text messages read out on court, one by one:

Within a week, the well-travelled Peter Slipper is scheduled to jet off overseas on parliamentary duties, sipping from the cup of perks and privilege bestowed upon the Speaker of Australia’s Parliament.

This is a world of pleasant bon mots and lavish hotels, representing Australia on the big stage. It is far from the grubbiness revealed in a Sydney courtroom this week where Slipper was shown as the author of sleazy text messages describing women’s private parts as looking like mussels out of the shell.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

We think our troughing politicians are bad, check out these Aussie troughers and their waste. Even embattled Speaker Peter Slipper is deep in the trough:

THE federal opposition communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, spent $26,000 on phone calls and faxes in six months. And the Speaker, Peter Slipper, took a trip to New Zealand to better understand its Parliament’s acquisition of art.

The facts and figures are contained in the Finance Department’s records of politicians’ entitlements, claimed between July 1 and December 31 last year, which were released by the department yesterday.

Mr Turnbull spent $13,608.04 on October 20 alone for ”Mobile PDA overseas calls”, the records show.

Mr Slipper said his trip to New Zealand was also to compare parliamentary practices and innovations.

Mr Slipper, who has long faced intense scrutiny over his travel entitlements, tabled a report of his two-day trip, in which he had four meetings, but did not list the cost.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Julia Gillard is in serious trouble with many dailies now calling for her to go.

JULIA Gillard should consider falling on her sword for the good of the Labor Party, because she can no longer present an even slightly credible face at the election. Her spectacular U-turn on everything she’d said before on Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper has left her looking nakedly expedient, and further exposed the state of crisis within the government.

At one point in her news conference Gillard wrung her hands. It was a metaphor for what the caucus is doing. Her claim that suddenly ”a line” had been crossed, so she had to act to preserve Australians’ respect for Parliament, came out as a workshopped confection she could not explain. After months of declaring Thomson had her support, after a week of backing Slipper returning to the Speakership if he was cleared on criminal allegations, she wants us to believe she arrived back from Gallipoli and suddenly realised that the public see a dark cloud over Parliament?

What actually happened is that she and whoever she is listening to observed a storm enveloping the government that could threaten her leadership.

Refusing to utter criticism of Thomson was always defending the indefensible. When Gillard then had Slipper added to her political burden, the weight simply became too heavy.

The Slipper affair tipped the balance, because she wasn’t going to be able to sustain her stand. The opposition and crossbenchers had the parliamentary numbers to keep him out of the chair. In more normal circumstances, Gillard might deserve some credit for doing the right thing, albeit late. But when she said black was white so vehemently and, in the Thomson case, for so long, her cynicism overwhelms any other impression.

While on Slipper she acted because she was cornered, she could not deal with him without distancing herself from Thomson, because the parallels were too close. Bearing down on her also was next week’s budget: hence the need for speed.

ᔥ ABC

It things weren’t dire enough already for Julia Gillard with the Peter Slipper affair, now embattled union crook Craig Thomson has been suspended from the ALP:

Julia Gillard has asked MP Craig Thomson to quit the Labor Party and told Speaker Peter Slipper to accept a longer suspension as she moves to dispel what she says is a “dark cloud” hanging over the Federal Parliament.

Mr Thomson, who is facing allegations about the misuse of a union credit card, has been suspended from the ALP but says he remains a “Labor person” and will continue to vote with the Government as an independent MP.

Meanwhile Mr Slipper has moved to head off a possible no-confidence motion by confirming he will not be in the chair when Parliament resumes on budget night, May 8.

Mr Thomson, the embattled member for Dobell, on the New South Wales central coast, has been under investigation by Fair Work Australia for nearly four years over allegations he used his Health Services Union (HSU) credit card to pay for prostitutes.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday afternoon, he confirmed that he had asked to be suspended from the Labor Party after a discussion with Ms Gillard late yesterday.

“I am still a Labor person … I will be supporting Labor’s agenda … clearly I am not going to be part of the Caucus process… but broadly I will be supporting the Prime Minister’s position in terms of the reform agenda… certainly in terms of no confidence motions, supply motions,” he said.

ᔥ The Guardian

Bill Shorten has to be the most loyal politician in the world. It doesn’t even matter that he has no idea what Julia Gillard has said, he is sure she is right.

Australia‘s Julia Gillard gets a minister happy to tell a TV interviewer that whatever his prime minister said, he agrees – even if he doesn’t know what it was.

Bill Shorten, the Australian workplace relations minister, was asked by Sky News Australia whether he felt the parliamentary speaker, Peter Slipper, should be allowed to go back to his job after being accused of sexual harassment and misuse of funds.

Aware Gillard was abroad, but unaware of what she’d said on the matter, Shorten replied: “I haven’t seen what she’s said, but let me say I support what it is she said.” Pressed by an astonished presenter to confirm he backed his boss even though he didn’t know what she’d said, he nodded: “I support what she said … My view is what the prime minister’s view is.” A new record in on-message obedience?

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Lenore Taylor explains why it is almost impossible to have a no rooting rule in politics…it doesn’t stop a no dickheads rule though:

If every MP who has ever had an affair, or ever tried to have an affair, was forced to resign, there would be some empty seats on both sides of federal parliament.

Peter Slipper is a scum bag, just like Darren Hughes. The difference between Slipper and Hughes is Hughes got caught in a compromising position early in his career, not after he had been chosen to run nine times.

The first ranga and proven liar goes out of her way to try to prove two wrongs make a right, or at least a slightly less wrong on her part.

If it was OK for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to question her integrity and judgment for making Mr Slipper the Speaker when it was generally known that Mr Slipper had a pattern of questionable behaviour, why, Ms Gillard said, did the Coalition preselect him nine times?

“Mr Slipper was preselected as recently as the last federal election and was a candidate in that election under Mr Abbott’s leadership,” Ms Gillard said.

Political figures the world over have ethic issues. There is no monopoly on dodginess on either side of the spectrum. For the sake of political expediency wife beaters, rooters, sexual predators, kiddie fiddlers, corrupt and lying political figures are protected.

Too often the press gallery does more drinking, rooting and drugs than the politicians who they are supposed to hold to account, so don’t bring down those like Slipper, Field, Hughes, or Orkopoulos even when just about everyone knows they are dodgy.

What makes it worse is the hypocrisy of politicians. They will rail against something like wife beating, piously wear white ribbons yet won’t adopt a zero tolerance approach to wife beating amongst their own.

Eventually it all comes out and then you get days of headlines like those with Darren Hughes and now with Peter Slipper.

I’m on the Huddle tonight with Larry Williams and the lovely Josie Pagani.

Our topics are:

• The idiot in Christchurch who was involved in the mountain bike rage – he’s blaming Youtube because apparently we only look at stupid people on Youtube. I guess he is right on that count, he was on Youtube being a dork.
• There have been the MMP submissions to the Electoral Commission today, pure self interest from the parties. Asking Turkeys to vote for an early Christmas is never going to give good results.
• The Peter Slipper scandal in Australia – its the best political story of the year by far!! It has all the necessary ingredients for a spectacular outcome: gay sex, dirty txt messages, sordid, bribing, rorting politicians and a government in the balance.

As usual you can listen live online or the wireless. I will post the audio tomorrow morning.