Saturday, February 12, 2005



Neville Wran, that engaging pragmatist, was the first to codify one of the iron laws of Australian politics: never hold an inquiry unless you know beforehand what the result will be...

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has rejected as "terribly exaggerated" an Israeli newspaper article claiming the newly appointed consul in Canberra, Arie Scher, had to leave Brazil five years ago after being implicated in a sex scandal Sex scandal past haunts new envoy
The sport industry continues to roll out scandals. Army Officers in the Nitra Barracks know a thing or two about disarming a certain type of women: Referees' cruel sex ritual - find a fat woman

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Odyssey of a lost soul
Anna's bizarre and shifting claims are the only evidence anyone ever has that she is in Australia illegally. The Department of Immigration has no proof she is telling the truth. Nothing ever turns up to corroborate her claims. It doesn't matter ...

This is a story of official bungling, denial and cover-up. And the whole sorry saga happened for no good reason. David Marr with Mark Metherell and Mark Todd reveal the facts behind the imprisonment of one very troubled and confused Australian.


Ach, Mike Carlton never misses the target when it comes to pointing out the deep tragic irony of human existence: The grandly titled National Missing Persons Unit, an agency of the Australian Federal Police, consists of precisely two people housed somewhere in Canberra. It has a website, though, and a splendid thing it is, replete with pages and pages of stodgy bureaucratic hogwash about vision, mission statements and the like.
[The name Ms Rau was using when arrested by police – Anna Schmidt ; Camden Hospital's maternity unit Gone: a number of departures from an acceptable standard of care]
• · When bosses junked job security, they ended the days of loyalty to the company Be nice, boss, or you can keep your job ; Despite contribution limits, lobbyists and PACs keep filling the candidates’ coffers. David S. Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix analyzed campaign contributions to Massachusetts state legislative candidates, finding that of the 650 registered lobbyists and 167 active PACs in the state, just 20 prominent lobbying firms and 10 large PACs collectively pumped more than $1 million into legislative candidates’ war chests in the past two years Who’s buying the legislature?; The bad news for the people of Strathfield is that some of their councillors appear to be conspiring against one another. The good news is that they don't seem very good at it Mayor culpa
• · · Israeli Amir Laty was told to leave Australia last month, but just why is hard to pin down. At first blush the secretive expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Canberra a month ago had all the makings of a James Bond movie - there were claims of espionage, liaisons with women, and plenty of intrigue. The strange case of the disappearing diplomat ; How he quit in disgust after the CIA censored a crucial WMD report, leading to deletion of central facts and conclusions. We left the impression that maybe there were, was WMD out there … I thought it was dishonest Secrets and Lies
• · · · Here's a story that will cause every cattleman to choke on breakfast. Bill's beef: who let the Wagga shipment in?
• · · · · Sunday Nine: Interview: Alexander Downer [Once upon a time Lord Clarendon's daughter Anne shocked her father and consigned him to political oblivion by marrying the future James II and VII and becoming a rock chopper. Royal]
• · · · · · The Indonesian province of Aceh bore the brunt of the Boxing Day tsunami, more than 230,000 Acehnese were killed and a similar number are still missing The Fortunes of War