The number of Australian military personnel deployed overseas since 1999 now exceeds that sent to fight in Vietnam, with experts warning many may face physical or mental trauma on their return.
More than 73,000 individuals have been deployed overseas since 1999, mainly to Afghanistan, East Timor and Iraq, compared with 60,000 sent to Vietnam, figures from the Australian Defence Force show. A separate submission by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to a recent Senate inquiry shows 81 per cent of those who served in Vietnam have had at least one disability formally accepted by the government.
DVA data also shows that there are already 3500 Afghanistan veterans who have an accepted disability. The number of those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder has more than tripled since 2012, to more than 1000, with that figure growing by 300 a year.
The incidence of suicide among veterans also appears on the rise. The ADF submission to the Senate inquiry says 108 personnel were “suspected or confirmed to have died by suicide” since 2000, with the 47 having previously deployed. A web-based register created by Iraq veteran Aaron Gray put the number over the same period at 180.
Melbourne University health economist Philip Clarke said the community needed to prepare for a significant and ongoing cost to look after veterans, many of whom were suffering from PTSD.
Overseas analysis had shown that governments faced a very high ongoing cost — estimates of the total cost of the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, including caring for returned military personnel, were now running at up to $US6 trillion ($8.36 trillion), Professor Clarke said. “It is important to estimate comparable costs for Australia’s involvement, and there is need for the community to understand the resources that are required to care and compensate veterans for war-related disability over the rest of their lives,” he said.
Now compare and contrast that with the view of ADF chief medical officer Admiral Robyn Walker who told us that
Australian Defence Medical Chief Says Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: “Not About Being In The Military”
Australian Defence Force surgeon general says post-traumatic stress disorder is a result of a “lifetime exposure” to trauma – not military service.
“What we do know is it’s not about being in the military,” Rear Admiral Robyn Walker, Commander Joint Health and Surgeon General Australian Defence Force, has told marie claire magazine. She says PTSD, which is believed to affect about 30 per cent of military personnel worldwide, usually occurs after a “lifetime exposure to traumatic events”.
Rear Admiral Walker said data compiled by the ADF showed that “many of our members have been exposed to [trauma] before they’ve joined the military … It’s exposure to car accidents, it’s exposure to domestic violence, it’s exposure to sexual assault.”
Marcus Priest and Chris Winslow phone conversation. Winslow sends Priest a copy of the Sir Garfield Barwick address invitation with attachments. At 7.30PM Winslow creates a document that summarises the ACTU's position and emails it to Stoljar. That email, once produced, would be useful evidence that the Commission had been warned by the Bar Association:
13 August 2015
10.35AM the story first broke in the press.
11.20AM Tony Burke interrupted the House of Reps to move this meaningless motion clearly intended for media consumption:
(1) The House notes that:
(a) the Hon. Dyson Heydon AC, QC has agreed to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser on Wednesday, 26 August 2015 at Castlereagh Boutique Hotel in Sydney;
(b) the invitation to the Liberal Party fundraiser states that 'cheques should be made payable to the Liberal Party of Australia, New South Wales division'; and
(c) the invitation also states 'all proceeds from this event will be applied to state election campaigning'.
(2) Accordingly, this House declares that by his own action, the Hon. Dyson Heydon AC QC has disqualified himself from conducting the Prime Minister's royal commission into trade unions.
11.20AM the ACTU announced that Dave Oliver would give a press conference at 12.30
11.25 AM the Commission released statement confirming the Commissioner had declined the invitation to speak.
11.44AM Marcus Priest retweets:
12.30 Dave Oliver ACTU media conference commences
12.37PM the ACTU tweeted this pre-prepared promo piece
At 12.41 ABC News tweeted this, immediately retweeted by Ged Kearney, ACTU President
12.42PM ABC News tweeted this piece of absolute, still un-retracted tripe, immediately retweeted by Ged Kearney, ACTU President
1.13PM Brendan O'Connor fronts media to call on Commissioner to quit or PM to sack him
1.29PM - the ACTU formal media statement starts circulating
And here is that statement - listed as an Exhibit at the TURC. It clearly sets out that the ACTU has formed the opinion that the Commissioner is biased. Further it was issued two hours after the Commissioner's announcement that he had declined the invitation - a fact not noted by the ACTU.
The next day the ACTU wrote to the Prime Minister quoting a detailed legal opinion (Mr Heydon's) about apprehended bias and his it applies to The Commissioner, that letter too is exhibited at the TURC. "By any standard Justice Heydon's behaviour fails the apprehended bias test".
Compared with the time and attention that went into the ACTU's media strategy the cavalier way the ACTU approached the Commission was contemptuous.
Mr Newlinds SC was poorly briefed and apparently unable to get instructions on certain important matters. He was not instructed to make any application that the Commissioner excuse himself on the grounds of apprehended bias. That was breathtaking given the clear and detailed public statements the ACTU had made questioning the Commisioner's integrity and impartiality. Further, the ACTU had written to the Prime Minister setting out its position, including the legal reference to Mr Heydon's own legal opinion on the question of apprehended bias.
The slipshod way the Gordon letter was presented to the Commission is instructive: This is the Commissioner speaking in the transcript:
Keep in mind the ACTU's media statements - the Commissioner is biased and must go.
The morning's session on 17 August concluded with this - the Commissioner speaking:
That afternoon Mr Newline asked to be excused.
Meanwhile, while Dave Oliver couldn't give instructions to his lawyers at the Commission as to whether or not the ACTU apprehended bias on the part of the Commissioner, here's the public statement he found time to issue that afternoon.
I just thought the following given tomorrow's expectations might be of some albeit belated interest. I have practiced in administrative law for 30+ years. The following is an extract of the thoughts of one of the Commissioner's former colleagues who taught law at Sydney Uni.
Firstly, the Privy Council in Durayappah v Fernando, the House of Lords in Ridge v Baldwin and the High Court in Twist v Randwick Municipal Council when applied to the Heydon facts including the R.C. Act would all say that you need an express provision in the R.C. Act for the bias rule to apply because there is no implication in that act to import a bias rule. All binding unchallenged authority. There is no express provision in the R.C Act allowing anyone to make an application for bias: I thought it odd the Commissioner didn't rule so but entertained hearing submissions and demands he recuse himself. Secondly where the bias rule applies it is an application that a judge not hear a case. It is not an application that judge ceased to be a judge and cannot hear any case again because he has an “apparently biased” personality for the rest of his career not only in this case but every prior case and every case in the future.
Heydon is a RC inquiring into criminal corruption and mismanagement in unions. The point is that investigations and the bias rule are like chalk and cheese and have nothing to do with one another. They (Unions, Labor party parliamentary members and MSM) have used some wonky notion of the bias rule totally out of its true legal context to repeal in essence the RC Act. There is no lis inter partesat all. The contest is between the party and the R.C. he is supposed to be bias in favor of himself.The only rights of the parties before the Royal Commission is what the R.C. Act gives them with any necessary implication that arises from that. All cases (and I have had a little bit of a look) on the application of natural justice to investigative bodies concern the right to be heard rule so unless the bias leads to a denial of the opportunity to be heard there is no independent case as far as I am aware that the bias rule can apply to any investigative body let alone a Royal Commission. Further the decision to call a Royal Commission into union corruption was an administrative decision made by the executive government so why is that not invalid for bias because Abbott is leader of the Liberal Party and the decision to call this particular R.C is polluted by apparent bias and invalid making Heydon’s appointment invalid. It all seems to me again of large numbers of idiots trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I assume that Heydon was to be paid a professional fee for the Barwick speech and I note this aspect seems to be overlooked. Tell me if instead of Heydon and the Barwick speech the Libs decided to hire a stripper instead would the reasonable observer think that the stripper had a close connection to the Liberal Party?
Keep up your valuable work.
Regards
JW
ENDS
Here is the opening paragraph of the Letters Patent appointing the Hon John Dyson Heydoc AC QC to be a Royal Commission of Inquiry (full copy here)
Unlike courts, the community does not expect investigators like police to meet the apprehended bias standard in investigating crime. Police are required to swear an oath that they will discharge their duties "without favour or affection, malice or ill-will". I'd hope that citizens would apprehend a police bias towards the interests of the law-abiding citizens and against the interests of criminals. It makes good sense that apprehended bias should not disqualify investigators who have to get to know the antecedents of crooks very well. So too for the Royal Commission in my correspondent's opinion - and mine.
Lawyers for the parties who've asked the Commissioner to recuse himself seem to agree that there's been no actual bias in his conduct.
It's interesting that from the start of this saga the media (primed by Labor and the ACTU) has been running with the apprehended bias rule as if the Commission is a court and not an inquiry. You'll recall that the Commissioner's own words (meant for Courts) were thrown back at him as the story was breaking.
This Royal Commission is a political plaything. To some extent it has been responsive to media commentary and a perception of what the public may be reading/thinking. It appears to me to have bent over backwards in proving its fair-mindedness and absence of a political agenda. I hope that in doing so, it doesn't hold itself to a test no investigator should have to meet.
As an unemployed middle aged white man, I of course fail in all attempts at gaining employment and my time ordinarily would pass slowly and unproductively, were it not for the fact I have returned to University to study Environmental Law and Science. (My thinking is that if I can’t beat them, I should join them!).
In preparing a contracts assignment I came across this exchange between a trial judge and a barrister regarding apprehended bias during a trial.
Mobil Oil Aust v Wellcome International [1998] FCA 205
Counsel for Mobil submitted that in the light of these statements by his Honour a reasonable apprehension that the trial Judge might not bring an unprejudiced mind to the resolution of the case would be excited in the minds of the parties and in members of the public.
Before dealing with the submission it is necessary to refer to other passages in the transcript of the trial. Shortly before the application was made on 22 October 1996 by counsel for Mobil to the trial Judge to disqualify himself and at the commencement of the hearing that day, counsel for Mobil said to his Honour that he would like to raise with him the ramifications of what his Honour had said the previous day. Counsel said that he wanted to take it up with his Honour later, but did not particularly wish to interrupt the witness then under cross-examination. His Honour said:
"HIS HONOUR: Are you worried about the word `peasants' Mr Gyles?
MR GYLES: Yes.
HIS HONOUR: Look, I am sorry about that. It was - I was just really treating it in a metaphorical statement. I did not mean it literally, obviously.
MR GYLES: Of course not, your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Well, what do you want me to do about it?
MR GYLES: Well, your Honour, may I take some instructions, your Honour, about the situation?
HIS HONOUR: All right. Will we have Mr Higgs back in the witness box?
MR PARKER: Yes."
Later on 22 October the following exchange occurred between counsel for Mobil and his Honour:
"MR GYLES: Now, your Honour, we would point out our concern is that what was said yesterday to Mr Symington indicates, your Honour, a view about his position in relation to the dealer network which is quite critical to the case and that is, was there (a) proper communication with the dealer network; and (b) if your Honour is approached on the matter is there a serf-like or vassal-like relationship between licensed franchisor and franchisee then we are in a hopeless position. I mean, it really ---
HIS HONOUR: What is the proposition, Mr Gyles, that I started biased or I have become biased or what?
MR GYLES: No, your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Well, what is the proposition?
MR GYLES: No, your Honour, that exhibits bias, that is all, your Honour, within the ---
HIS HONOUR: What it does is it exhibits the fact that as the case has gone on, and we are now in its seventh day, I have acquired some impressions about the case and I always thought when I was at the bar that it did not do any harm for the judge to give you some idea of what he was thinking and that is all I am doing.
MR GYLES: Yes, quite your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: I mean, if you want to know do I feel critical of aspects of Mobil's behaviour, I think I indicated as clearly as words could do so last week I did; I also said that I would keep an open mind about it until the evidence is completed and that is still my position.
MR GYLES: Your Honour, we did not complain about that then and I do not complain about that now nor about other matters, I have simply - nor, your Honour, would I ever submit or suggest to your Honour that judges and your Honour in particular should not express views; of course that is appropriate. I am bound, your Honour, to - the High Court tells us we are bound to raise these matters with the judge if there is any concern and I am doing so.
HIS HONOUR: So it is apprehended bias, is that the proposition?
MR GYLES: Yes, apprehended bias, your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Thank you, Mr Gyles. I do not propose to disqualify myself; let us get on with the case."
If only His Honour could answer the ACTU/CFMEU in a similar fashion.
In 1988 the then Hawke Labor Government wanted to spend $3M on an advertising campaign to do with an upcoming referendum. The Liberal Party objected and said the campaign was biased in favour of Labor.
The Electoral Commission had to decide either in favour of the Labor Government or the Liberal Party opposition with Peter Reith as the Liberal Party's shadow attorney general. The Electoral Commissioner engaged Dyson Heydon QC and Roddy Meagher QC to advise it - and Heydon/Meagher's advice favoured the Labor Party's position:
If Labor can win this, Tony Abbott's job will be on the line. This is our chance to put the Liberals on the back foot before the next federal election.
This Wednesday Labor volunteers and activists will be pushing hard and calling as many voters as possible in Canning. We're making an impact, but we need as many supporters as possible to sign up to help us change votes.
If you can't volunteer, we're asking you to help by chipping in to our fighting fund-- even if it's just $1 -- every donation counts.
On 10 April 2014 barrister Greg Burton wrote to the Hon Dyson Heydon AC QC inviting His Honour to give the 2015 Sir Garfield Barwick address. He explained his role in the email
And he introduced Chris Winslow of the Bar Association:
Something is very screwy here.
In February 2015 this enthusiastic member of the Liberal Party lawyers branches opened this Twitter account.
"In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me." The opening line from "Shooting an Elephant", by George Orwell. Mr Winslow's twitter account name is "Moulmein". Orwell's story is about conscience and to quote one analysis,“Shooting an Elephant” captures a universal experience of going against one’s own humanity at the cost of a part of that humanity." I wonder how Winslow's conscience is fairing?
People have the right to belong to whatever Party they want, but it's hard to imagine these heartfelt passionate sentiments developing in someone who was an "enthusiastic member" of the Liberal Party's legal branches.
It was Chris Winslow who wrote this note to Jeremy Stoljar - a note which with the benefit of hindsight clearly mirrored the tone of the ALP/Greens attacks on Mr Abbott and the Heydon Royal Commission.
Wonder what he was hoping for in return - "yes, he's most enthusiastic about helping the Party out"?
In any case this piece of correspondence usefully (for the ACTU etc) puts down in writing a sequence of words that would make good evidence (if true) in a future bias application.
Interesting too that the ACTU lawyers agitated and agitated for more details of correspondence to be released. They appear to have been in the know. Someone ensured that this article appeared in The Australian describing (in fascinating terms) the conversation between Mr Priest and Mr Winslow.
That was Thursday last week, the day before the Commissioner was due to hand down his Judgement on the bias recusal application. Immediately, the ACTU issued process to seek more correspondence from the Commissioner to be used in evidence.
Someone knew what to ask for, only Winslow and Stoljar and the Commissioner knew about that note. I'm tipping it wasn't Jeremy.
.....unions demanded Mr Heydon postpone ruling on his possible disqualification as a royal commissioner, after The Australian revealed the royal commission was tipped off about the brewing controversy the night before it erupted in the media.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Dave Oliver today requested the royal commission disclose all remaining documents relating to today’s revelations that senior counsel assisting, Jeremy Stoljar, had been forewarned by the NSW Bar Association that a Labor-aligned lawyer had inquired about Mr Heydon’s commitment to attend a Liberal event.
Mr Oliver said the revelations raised alarm for the unions movement that the commissioner’s claim that he had acted to withdraw from the event before it attracted media attention “might be misleading”.
He was also concerned that there “may have been inadequate disclosure of relevant documents” and that Mr Stoljar had publicly criticised the ACTU as “grandstanding” when he knew details and events described in The Australian had not been disclosed.
Mr Oliver, in a letter to the commission, urged Mr Heydon to defer the handing down of his ruling, currently set for 10am tomorrow, so that the ACTU can consider the implications.
“The ACTU requests the commission urgently provide any emails or other communications which are referred to, or relate to, today’s article in The Australian (and) once the material is received sufficient time be given to the ACTU to consider the information,” he said in a statement.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Dave Oliver. Picture: AAP
Shorten ‘concerned’ by revelations
Dyson Heydon and senior counsel Jeremy Stoljar SC must disclose all further evidence about the royal commissioner’s decision to withdraw from a Liberal Party function, Bill Shorten said today, amid “new and dramatic” revelations that the royal commission was tipped off about the brewing controversy.
The Australian revealed Mr Stoljar had been forewarned by Chris Winslow, an official of the NSW Bar Association, that a Labor-aligned lawyer, Marcus Priest, had made inquiries about Mr Heydon’s commitment to attend the Sir Garfield Barwick lecture the night before it erupted in the media.
The Opposition Leader today said even Coalition voters would now judge the royal commission as being in a “shambolic and politicised state”.
“Today’s reports in The Australian newspaper are most concerning. They do reveal the possibility that evidence by the royal commission and the royal commissioner and counsel assisting has not been disclosed or not been disclosed until today’s report,” Mr Shorten said in Melbourne.
“I think it is now time, on top of all the other issues, for counsel assisting and the commissioner to explain and answer these very serious questions about whether or not further evidence which has now been revealed in The Australian should have been disclosed earlier.
“I think in are questions here to be answered here by the commissioner and by counsel assisting now who is embroiled in this matter. Did Mr Stoljar tip off Mr Heydon? These are questions that the commission is going to have to answer.
“I think today’s report is quite a new and dramatic development.”
Tony Abbott deflected questions about whether the government was canvassing possible replacements for Mr Heydon, but insisted the inquiry “will continue” regardless of the commissioner’s judgment tomorrow.
“This is an absolutely vital royal commission. Even someone of the stature of (former ACTU president and Labor minister) Martin Ferguson says this is an important part of cleaning up the union movement, an important part of cleaning up the Labor Party. So it must and will go on regardless of any decision that Dyson Heydon AC QC makes in the next day or so,” the Prime Minister said.”
"The rule of law is not a nebulous concept but does have some very specific components, one of which is the doctrin…" http://t.co/NEeLKrrfKK
CORRECTION: This column incorrectly asserts that the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was involved in the decision to launch a planned Border Force operation in Melbourne. Fairfax Media accepts unreservedly that Mr Abbott was not involved in this decision, and also accepts that Mr Abbott had no foreknowledge of the Border Force plan to stop and speak to people about their visa status.
If you were wondering why the Prime Minister, without consulting his cabinet, decided to launch Friday's ham-fisted assault on Australians' freedom of movement, his poor poll ratings are only part of the answer.
He invents faux security measures in a transparent effort to look tough. And, whether it's stripping citizenship or ordering the stopping and questioning of ordinary citizens in their daily lives, Abbott hopes to inflame Labor into opposing him so that he can point gleefully and shout "Labor is soft on terror!"
The brilliant political strategists who brought you the fastest implosion of any postwar prime minister, confronted by his backbench with a spill motion halfway through his first term, think that this is a sure fire way of winning the country's respect.
But the other part of the answer is what Abbott doesn't want to deal with. He is straining to find an unending series of security events, stunts and stirs because of the absence of a real agenda for governing.
He is conjuring colourful political tricks because he is not up to the real work of addressing some of big, hard problems facing Australia, and none is bigger or harder than the one Abbott ostentatiously avoided this week.
In April this year we reported on a declaration by the Clinton foundation(s) that Australia had given it between $5 and $10 million.
Our search of the Austender website showed up around $30M in declared contracts between Australia and the Clintons. The Clinton Foundation is big news in the US, so I've had a closer look at just how much you might have enriched it.
$27M - 2013-2014 plus a $12 million contract with the foundation's Clinton Climate Initiative to help the Kenyan government calculate its greenhouse gas emissions in the story here
But there are other ways for a government to dole out our money to mates.
Kevin Rudd was the master of the grand gesture. In 2008 he gifted $400,000,000.00 of our money to a piece of chicanery unchallenged for primacy in the snake-oil stakes.
Here he is making his announcement, squished between a speech by Barack Obama and the class photo for some ignoble and unmemorable forum.
Note the decorous way attendees are ushered onstage to chat among themselves while the Rudd rudds. Various mobile phones beep to accompany the rapt attention given to this Australian Prime Minister as he announces his donation of $400 million of our money to do nothing.
They've conferenced in empire-style Parisian ballrooms and dined in Kyoto on food cooked by a genuine Iron Chef. But deeply disgruntled former staffers believe Australia's $300 million Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute has not achieved very much.
In 2008 the then prime minister Kevin Rudd decided a fledgling technology called carbon capture and storage was the key to two of his government's big aims: joining a successful international fight to reduce global warming and continuing to be the world's largest exporter of coal.
In his grandiloquent style, he promised $400 million to a new not-for-profit company, the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, which would get CCS up and running at home and also "lead the world".
The funding was pared back over time, but industry and government sources and former staff of the institute are frustrated that much of the $300 million spent on the institute has been "squandered".
Even the man appointed to haul it away from government hand-outs and into the world of commercial reality - Brad Page, the former head of the peak electricity industry body - concedes the original $100 million a year "seed funding" given to the institute was more that it knew how to spend.
"It's actually impossible to spend that amount of money responsibly," he tells The Sun-Herald.
But his predecessors tried, in lavish ways that raised the ire of senior bureaucrats and ministers. Since 2009, more than $235 million has been delivered to the institute, $122 million of it already spent and another $113 million in its bank account, beyond the reach of Treasury's razor, information provided at a Senate estimates hearing reveals.
The institute has 78 staff, including nine permanent employees overseas - two in Washington, three in Tokyo and four in Paris. Former senior employees say its first chief executive, the British businessman Nick Otter, was paid well over $500,000 a year - more than the Prime Minister.
Page insists he has "no idea" what his predecessor was paid and his own salary is "nothing like that". The institute's five board members are paid from a budget of $400,000 a year and are entitled to first-class air travel.
The first members' meeting was in Canberra, where the institute is based, in early 2009. But its second, in November 2009, attended by more than 15 Australia-based staff, was in the luxurious ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel in Paris, opposite the Paris Opera and decorated in similar ornate style.
Both industry sources and former staff concede the jaw-dropping opulence sent "all the wrong messages" to the 180 members who attended.
"The spending was very difficult to justify," said one former employee.
And it did not end in Paris. In 2010 when they met in Kyoto, they enjoyed a dinner cooked by a celebrity Iron Chef ( the institute says his services were thrown in for no extra charge by the hotel).
Documents released under freedom of information show a staggering $54,257,000 was spent on "operational expenses" in the first two years.
After the money was handed over to the Institute, its financials were accounted for separately from Australian Government accounts so any money it spent with the Clintons may not appear in the amounts listed above. But the "Institute" was having trouble spending everything it had been given.
And if you've got money and need help to get rid of it fast - who ya gunna call?
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Clinton Climate Initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Under the MOU Australia and the Clinton Climate Initiative will work together to help tackle climate change.
The MOU will see Australia and the William J. Clinton Foundation collaborate to;
Deploy carbon capture and storage technology to large scale projects.
Examine policies to encourage large scale solar power generation in Australia.
Design collaborative policies in conjunction with large cities and other organisations on improving energy efficiency.
The William J Clinton Foundation will work with the Australian Government through Australia's Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Initiative announced by Prime Minister Rudd last week.
This collaboration will help accelerate the development of CCS technology and pave the way for its commercial deployment by the end of the next decade.
The Clinton Climate Initiative will draw on its experience in international collaboration and work with Australia and other nations to help achieve a balanced portfolio of demonstration projects.
The Clinton Climate Initiative is already working with a number of Australian states to develop solar power facilities. The MOU will enable the Australian Government to explore opportunities to draw on the Clinton Climate Initiative expertise in considering policies to encourage large scale solar power generation in Australia.
The Australian Government is developing a national energy efficiency strategy as one of the keys to successfully addressing climate change.
The Government will draw on the experience the Clinton Climate Initiative has in working with large cities and other organizations on improving energy efficiency in the drafting of this strategy.
Australia and the Clinton Climate Initiative will also explore opportunities for collaboration in the energy efficiency area across government, business and the community.
I don't know how much went the Clintons way through this debacle - but it will be worth the Australian Government's while to find out. There's plenty of interest in the USA as Hilary Clinton considers a second tilt at the Presidency and lots of inquisitive minds who, like me, are digging tirelessly.
