But may I ask about the elephant in the room?
What about Gillard's false evidence given under oath to the Trade Union Royal Commission?
Why is each of Morrison and Steggall so willing to just accept that?
Thanks to reader Denise for the tip on the video.
And the Senate is where it will get interesting for the government.
Here's the current Senate composition:
Labor and The Greens - 35
LNP - 35
One Nation - 2
Team Xenophon - 2
Cory Bernardi
Jacquie Lambie
On Saturday, Nine's newspapers ran a story about the bill, including this paragraph:
On its union bills, the government already counts the two votes of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, and the vote of the senator Cory Bernardi. That means it need convince only Tasmania's Jacqui Lambie to support it to make the bills law. Or one or both of the South Australian senators of the Centre Alliance, the legacy of Nick Xenophon
https://www.theage.com.au/national/lambie-v-setka-senator-wants-union-boss-gone-20190726-p52b71.html
May I suggest that the government shouldn't count its chicks before they've hatched.
It may well be that prior to empowering this government with new legislation, many, many people - just like you - would expect to see action on the union-corruption that's been staring this government in the face for far too long - The AWU Scandal.
If the government is serious about union corruption, it's fair enough to ask it the question - why have you allowed corrupt Thiess executives along with GILLARD and Bruce WILSON to walk away unscathed from their taxpayer-funded crimes?
You'll read much more about this issue here shortly - including a 20 page submission to Senators and the Attorney General from retired DETSGT Dave McAlpine.
Here's The Australian today.
Proposed laws making it easier to disqualify union officials and deregister unions have passed the Lower House but will not be voted on by the Senate before late October.
Lower House MPs voted 75-67 in support of the Coalition’s Ensuring Integrity Bill today with the government now facing the challenge of meeting concerns expressed by the Senate crossbench about the proposals.
In Parliament today, Attorney-General, Christian Porter, sought to rebuff ALP and union claims that unions could face deregistration by the Federal Court for relatively minor civil breaches.
Mr Porter also again denied Labor and union claims the legislation would open the way for the nurses’ union to be deregistered if members took unprotected industrial action in support of better staff ratios.
The opposition and the ACTU insist passage of the Coalition’s Ensuring Integrity Bill would allow the Federal Court to deregister the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation if nurses took unprotected action to protest unsafe staffing levels at a hospital or aged-care facility.
But Mr Porter said today the claim was patently absurd, saying no nurses’ union had engaged in the type of systemic unlawful conduct that would provide the basis for a court to deregister them.
In considering whether it would be “just, in all the circumstances” to deregister an organisation, the government says the bill expressly requires the Federal Court to consider the nature of the matter giving rise to the application and what is in the best interests of the members of the organisation as a whole.
Mr Porter also rejected claims by Greens MP Adam Bandt that industrial action by bus drivers was potential grounds for deregistering their union under the bill.
The bill will be subject to a Senate inquiry reporting by October 25 before being voted on in the Senate.
The Lower House will tomorrow vote on a second workplace relations bill to apply tougher governance rules to worker entitlement funds
I've been discussing this documentary online with a few military and police mates.
It's a breathtaking glimpse into social justice warriors in governments and their mind-boggling feel-good waste.
We (the West) spend billions to put warships and troops in harm's way in the Middle East - only to observe acts of piracy WITHOUT TAKING ANY ACTION!
The consequences of this approach are lose, lose, lose - negative all around. The pirates know they can act with impunity so they continue to engage in piracy. It's hugely costly and terribly destructive of morale for our military. And we all pay in increased taxes and costs for everything we purchase.
I know of plenty of private contractors who work on commercial shipping, fully tooled up. They shoot pirates to kill them.
It'd be a lot cheaper to put a section from an infantry battalion onto each ship, fully tooled up and ready to engage with and kill pirates while committing acts of piracy on the high seas.
Just take a look at this monstrously expensive impotence.
Exhibit One - thanks to reader TazSpinZone for the tip!
Love the commentary to this vid.
— Polemic Paine (@PolemicTMM) July 18, 2019
Sorry I don't know who to credit.
Electric digger. pic.twitter.com/0hhdRee6u3
Exhibit Two - spied in car park of a permanently warm Thai hotel!
PS - with apologies to the Grumpy Old Man who owns © the expression, "I don't want to live in a country where the cars are sold with heaters in them".
Taxpayer funded salary for GetUp operative!
Amortiser has had a long career in the construction industry finance arena.
He is a senior specialist. He understands construction projects and the way they're financed and managed.
Yesterday he sent us this comment.
When you understand how a construction project is managed and controlled, the statements by the Thiess executives at the Royal Commission are false and misleading. The payments were purported to be for "training purposes". The Thiess executives claimed to be deceived.
Each month of the project, the whole project is subject to review including the financial aspects and the project profit forecast. The payments to the AWUWRA were significant (in excess of $300,000) and would have been budgeted prior to commencement it added as a variation post commencement. Both stituations have documentation to support them.
We know that there was a meeting with Wilson, Ludwig, Albrecht and Jukes where the deal was done. Jukes and Wilson were left to sort out the details.
The idea that Thiess was deceived is nonsense. The project was completed months ahead of schedule. Any project training would stop at the end of the project yet payments for this "training" continued for months afterwards. To make such payments requires specific approval. The payments or costs post completion are defects and maintenance costs and claims that may have been in dispute and resolved later. None of this applied to these payments.
If the Royal Commission counsel understood how construction projects are controlled they would have quickly worked out that what they were being told was rubbish.
ENDS
During the course of the Trade Union Royal Commission I sent a copy of this interview to Senior Counsel Assisting, Jeremy Stoljar SC.
I explained Amortiser's background, including the company he'd worked for.
No reply.
Thanks to Colin Potts on Facebook for the photo.
UPDATE
Thanks to reader and great contributor Marmion for more on the source!
From the Daily Telegraph today!
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/ex2gb-host-smith-anyone-presenting-after-alan-jones-would-rate-well/news-story/0b3a3ab4b93952943b6f6f76340d9dea
Former 2GB radio announcer Chris Smith has taken a swipe at his ex-colleague Ray Hadley, saying “anyone presenting after Alan Jones would rate well”.
During an interview with veteran journalist Michael Smith, published on Monday, Chris Smith said he did not hold grudges against the network that sacked him this earlier month.
However, while speaking about the power Alan Jones holds over the airwaves, Smith took a swipe at Hadley.
“(Jones) is essential (to the network), anyone that comes after Jones will be successful,” he said. “You take Jones out of a framework like 2GB and it will hurt you.
“I don't know whether 2GB is going to see that into the future and if Jonesy is going to continue, I don't know.”
Both Jones and Hadley topped the most recent radio survey for their timeslots.
Smith said that during his earlier years he was the benefactor of Jones’ success.
“Jonesy is the foundation, in the early part of my time at GB I was really on his coat-tails,” he said.
After 19 years with the station, Smith was fired because he refused to swap his regular lunchtime spot with night host Steve Price.
Smith said he was given no choice but to leave the network as the new night shift deal, demanded by his bosses, meant he would not meet personal legal obligations.
The Daily Telegraph revealed it was an agreement of Smith’s divorce that he needed to be available to pick up his daughter Ashley and son Morgan from school, and look after them in the evenings.
During the 10-minute interview, Smith said his former employer was eventually sympathetic to his situation.
“Towards the end 2GB were very understanding and very generous,” he said.
“Getting them to that process was interesting. They (2GB) were eventually quite understanding about my inability to do nights.”
ENDS
(Ray Hadley inspecting the knife he tried to shove into Alan Jones's back)
Poor old bugger, he still doesn't get it.
Bill Shorten says the election result Australians voted for is "very disappointing for The Nation".
Well we are The Nation Bill - and we got what we voted for.
Former Opposition Leader @billshortenmp has sat down with our political editor @andrewprobyn in his first broad ranging post-election television interview #auspol pic.twitter.com/hRe0bK268d
— ABC Politics (@politicsabc) July 30, 2019