One of the most crucial appointments the Albanese government must make soon is that of a new commonwealth auditor-general.
As reported, Grant Hehir, the 15th to hold the powerful position of chief public sector watchdog, announced last month that he would finish up this month after serving nine years of his statutory 10-year term.
The Australian National Audit Office website has a quaint little section with speeches and presentations from auditors-general over the years.
With incumbent Grant Hehir announcing his impending retirement, we thought it would be good to look into the digital rabbit hole to see what he has spoken about over the almost nine years he occupied one of the most prominent accountability-related posts in Australia.
Auditing the auditor-general: Grant Hehir’s greatest hits
CPSU hits panic button over potential ATO staff rejection of wage deal
Ukraine to Australia: ‘We don’t want your flying trash’ Australian Financial Review. The AFR is Australia’s answer to the Wall Street Journal, pre its purchase by Murdoch
There’s a reasonable chance I wouldn’t be here without it.
When I was about 17 or 18 I read it front to back twice – stayed up half the night – just couldn’t get enough of it.
Pages and pages of possibility.
Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill is the first Irish Republican to lead Northern IrelandROB BESCHIZZA
NY Times: Former Contractor Who Leaked Trump’s Tax Returns Sentenced To 5 Years In Prison
Donald Trump sued former spy Christopher Steele in the UK over the dossier of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" intelligence report he prepared linking Trump to the Russian government among other salacious things: bribes, parties, being peed on by sex workers, etc. A court there today threw out Trump's case, saying that he had failed to bring the case promptly.
"There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial," she wrote. A statement is expected from Mr Steele later today. The case stems from 2016, when a US political consultancy asked Mr Steele's company to produce a report into potential Russian interference in that year's US general election. …
The dossier, later obtained and published by BuzzFeed News, detailed uncorroborated intelligence claims that Mr Trump had a "compromising relationship with the Kremlin". The former president said in his witness statement when he brought the case last year that "none of these things [in the Steele dossier] ever happened." "I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow."
Trump's obsession with the rumored pee tape is legendary in its own right. You might say he lays in bed at night thinking about it on his smooth, cold, nylon bedsheets. Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Trump obstructed justice in his Russian dealings but left it to Congress to deal with him, and it did not.
Freeports exist to provide opacity for the raking off of public funds for private gain
The Guardian notes this morning that: Taxpayers are not being guaranteed value for money or transparency at a regeneration project overseen by the Conservative Tees
Read the full article…
‘Burning Issues’ Confronting Firm Leaders – At the end of December 2023, Patrick J, Mckeena and Michael B. Rynowecer presented 200 Firm Leaders with a selection of over 40 timely and potential ‘Burning Issues’ – and asked of them “what do you anticipate as the highest priorities occupying your leadership agenda going into the new year?” The team received responses representing firms from 200 to over 2000 lawyers in size. This paper distinguishes the challenging issues for firms in 2024.
Michael vs. Michelman on Legitimate Political Authority The New Digest:
Michael’s final chapter concerns political authority, political discretion, and a reflection on the proper goals of political life; which, following the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition he takes to be the common good.
Michael rejects any cynical picture of political life that portrays it as a Schmittian contest for power – that is about rewarding friends and punishing enemies. He also rejects a framing of political life that places the good of the individual and the good of the political community in which she is born, raised, and embedded in antagonistic opposition. Rather, in Aristotelian-Thomistic fashion Michael argues both stand or fall together.
Both major parties within our political class would, I think, say “We are all Schmittians now.” That’s unfortunate, because Carl Schmitt was a Nazi legal theorist
What are the Enhanced Games? Billionaire Peter Thiel backs new competition labelled ‘doping-legal Olympics’ SportingNews
Hidden prison labor web linked to foods from Target, Walmart Associated Press
Big Pharma will have to answer to the American people Bernie Sanders, Fox
A BBC editor was hired as an expert witness to help at least 15 Somalian criminals fight deportation – including a vile offender who sexually attacked a deaf teenage girl.
Last year, The Mail on Sunday exposed how Mary Harper, Africa Editor for the World Service, was paid to give expert witness evidence for Somali gang rapist Yaqub Ahmed during his five-year legal battle to stay in the UK.
Now an investigation by this newspaper can reveal Ms Harper has given expert witness evidence in a string of other controversial deportation appeals by Somali offenders – including for another three sex attackers, three drug dealers and a career criminal who spent a decade in British jails.
Following a series of questions from the MoS, the BBC last night announced that Ms Harper was leaving the Corporation, but refused to say whether she had been sacked or had quit.
In one of the most shocking cases, Ms Harper warned that a Somali man who committed a horrific sexual assault on a profoundly deaf 17-year-old girl would be at ‘severely heightened risk’ if he was sent back to Somalia because he had committed a sex crime.
Richest five families in Florence 🇮🇹 from 1427 are still the richest today (archival data).
