Sam Dastyari

Things are getting tough for the dodgy Labor ratbags in NSW, even their own party is over them:

Former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald are set to be expelled from the party within days after a call by NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson following evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Mr Robertson wrote to NSW Labor Party general secretary Sam Dastyari on Wednesday.

”I write to request that you expel Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald from the Labor Party immediately on the basis that they have brought the party into disrepute,” he wrote.

”Brought the party into disrepute”: Ian Macdonald.

”These are extraordinary circumstances and I request you take action as soon as practicable.”

Read more »

Labor has called for some heavy hitters to help them in the Federal Election this year. He is a big wig campaigning expert who has worked for Obama.

Labour here has previously used Obama resources like Blue State Digital, who ironically the other day were impressing the young impressionable idiots of Young Nats without them realising that BSD has previously worked for Labour.

Where Labor goes, Labour follows…so I wonder if Patrick Batchelor will pop over here for some campaign advice, or whether labour thinks Trevor has them covered again like last time?

The Australian ”whiz kid” who helped run Barack Obama’s grassroots re-election campaign, Patrick Batchelor, is bringing his expertise to Sydney for the federal election.

Taking a leaf from the Obama re-election playbook, Labor has established a 40-seat call centre at its new campaign headquarters in Parramatta, modelled on those used by the Democrats during last year’s presidential race.  Read more »

Thieving ALP ratbag Craig Thomson is having a big sook about being treated like every other charged criminal. Not for these union and ALP ratbags it seems…they want to be treated special:

More and more information is coming out about Thomson, the man who props up Julia Gillard’s government.  Read more »

The Daily Telegraph

Why don’t we have sledges like this in New Zealand politics? This is ALP hit man Sam Dastyari talking about Greens:

“Because I believe they are an extremist party and I do believe they have some very loony policies and what I think they are very effective at is portraying themselves as a kind of peace, love and mung beans party, that all cares about wombats and the trees and the grass and the environment, without exposing themselves to any critique of some of their very wacky policies.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

The Greens here in NZ certainly appear on the surface at the moment to be benign…but in Australia internecine war has opened up amongst the left wing with Labor attacking:

When the NSW Labor Party machine flips the switch to “exterminate”, things never turn out pretty. In recent days, NSW Labor secretary Sam Dastyari has been saying the Greens policies are “bordering on loony” while AWU boss Paul Howes likened the party to “extremists who threaten our democracy”.

It seems the Greens are dangerous – although not so dangerous that Labor couldn’t enter into an agreement with them to secure minority government following the 2010 election.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Looks like the NSW ALP has been caught with its pants down. Union corruption went unreported and was not dealt with.

THE corruption crisis tearing apart the Health Services Union threatens to engulf NSW Labor with claims emerging that key party figures were warned about the alleged antics of senior HSU officials but took no action.

Emails obtained by the Herald reveal the state Opposition Leader, John Robertson, was warned three years ago, when he was a minister, about allowing the HSU national president, Michael Williamson, to serve as the ALP national president.

Mr Williamson, the ALP national president for 2009-10, is facing allegations of extensive corruption but is fighting a push from HSU officials to resign.

The Herald has also been told the former NSW Labor powerbroker John Della Bosca twice warned Labor officials, including the now-NSW ALP general-secretary, Sam Dastyari, not to endorse Craig Thomson for the 2010 election because the allegations against him concerning credit card misuse would flare.

The emails concerning Mr Williamson show union official Peter O’Toole contacted Mr Robertson to warn him about the HSU boss. Mr O’Toole’s warnings followed the airing of similar concerns in 1999.

”Do you remember the coffee we had at Haymarket when you tried to dissuade me from running against Williamson,” wrote Mr O’Toole.

”Didn’t I mention the number of times Michael had been mugged at ATMs and had to withdraw additional money with the union credit card?

”Didn’t I mention the six-hour lunches every Thursday before Labor Council?

”Knowing what you know, if you think Williamson should be the next federal president of the ALP then do nothing. But, I think it’s about time this bloke was taught what it is to care for union members. Why isn’t there a standard of practice for these guys?

”You have the power to do something about this, why don’t you?”

Mr Robertson replied that he didn’t recall their earlier conversation and said Mr O’Toole should ”take the matter up with the party’s national office”.

Makes you wonder what union corruption the Labour Party here know about but have done nothing about. Like the Meatworkers Union hiding $4m of union dues?

Awesome quote about Gillard’s fleet footed appointment of Bob Carr:

What Carr did not know when he proffered his advice was that he would become the centrepiece of a plan to address the talent question and the need for mentors. What he could not have imagined was that the plan would come together as exquisitely as it did yesterday – but only after it had been written off as a complete debacle, along with Gillard’s reborn prime ministership.

“A reverse wedgie on the press gallery,” was how one senior reporter described it at yesterday’s media conference. And it was.

Here was a relaxed, urbane, affable and utterly engaged Carr pledging his ”unbounded admiration” for a Prime Minister who had been castigated by many in the room for botching an opportunity to secure him. ”And I suspect that the more I see of her, the more I will be impressed by her steadfastness under pressure,” he added.

Gillard’s failure to secure Carr had been painted as evidence of the lack of authority that had haunted her while Rudd was stalking. Yet, here was Carr, offering testimony to that authority. ”When the distinctive voice of Prime Minister Gillard rouses you from your slumber and says, ‘Will you be foreign minister of Australia?’ I couldn’t have found it in me to say ‘no’.”

Her obsfucation while she was working on her reshuffle had been interpreted as an inability to stand up to demanding colleagues and think strategically. Yet here was Gillard, unfazed by the media hysteria, making the right call after three days of thought and discussion, and getting her way.

”This was all her,” is how Sam Dastyari, the party official who made the first approach to Carr, expressed it yesterday. ”She showed guts. She showed determination.”

Most telling of all, her unqualified repudiation of the Wednesday splash in The Australian headed ”Mutiny kills PM’s Bob Carr plan” was depicted by Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop, and many others besides, as evidence of Gillard having only a passing acquaintance with the truth. ”She is still silly and slippery, slimy and shifty,” Bishop told reporters on Thursday.

”This whole sorry farce about Bob Carr being offered the Senate spot and the foreign minister’s job shows that she has difficulty with the truth and, when she is under pressure, she manufactures a story. It shows that she lacks authority in her caucus and it shows an incredible lack of political judgment.”

Now Gillard is vindicated and Bishop looks silly.

This is a good sledge…for both sides of the sledge war.

A WAR is simmering war between the Education Minister and the ALP boss he calls “the work experience kid”.

In State Parliament last week, Adrian Piccoli referred to Labor’s youthful general secretary Sam Dastyari as the “guy doing work experience at Labor’s head office”. A scan of Hansard reveals the minister has made four such gags at Mr Dastyari’s expense since June 2010. The latest taunt was one too many for 28-year-old Mr Dastyari, who has sent the minister a letter of complaint, obtained by The Sun-Herald.

“I am writing to thank you for your ongoing efforts to raise my profile …” he wrote. “I had wrongly assumed, that after 16 years of opposition you would be too busy with ministerial commitments to provide a running commentary on my career.”

One of the first things Judith Collins should do is look at the creation of an Independent Commission Against Corruption. Whining leftist will probably say we can’t afford it but if you put the SFO into the new ICAC that would go a long way to providing a budget for it. Australia has one and we should certainly be looking at something similar here. They are busy again charging former Ministers.

Former NSW planning minister Tony Kelly faces the prospect of criminal charges for forgery after the Independent Commission Against Corruption found he acted corruptly over the purchase of the former union retreat Currawong.

Mr Kelly will be expelled from the Labor party after the opposition leader, John Robertson, wrote to the NSW general secretary, Sam Dastyari, requesting that his membership be terminated.

”There’s no place under my leadership in the Labor party for anyone like that,” Mr Robertson said shortly after the report’s findings were released today

Mr Kelly and a senior public servant, Warwick Watkins, were investigated over the purchase of Currawong for $12.2 million on behalf of the state government, less than a fortnight before this year’s state election.

The historic Pittwater property was bought by Mr Watkins, who was then chief executive of the Land and Property Management Authority, on March 15 from a property developer, Eco Villages, when the government was in caretaker mode.

It is a long standing convention that major decisions are not taken while the government is in caretaker mode.

We could give it a cute name, something along the lines of the Winston Peters Memorial Commission.

I have a brilliant idea for Phil Goff. He has a major problem with renewal of his party, but all is not lost. To show how much of a good guy I am and in the interests of having a quality opposition I have an idea for Phil Goff.

Outsource the chopping of his dead wood.