I never thought I would find white collar crime remotely fascinating, but I've gotta say this whole AWU scandal has me completely hooked. (Actually, is white collar the right term? It involves roughneck union heavies, so maybe "light blue" is more apt ...)
In any case, it's unfolding before our eyes like some fictional political thriller. There were those diary entries from Ian Cambridge last week. Now there are revelations about several missing files. And Julie Bishop is doing a fine job pursuing this issue.
Ms Bishop said it ''beggared belief'' that documents held in government and court archives could disappear.
''Now this is starting to smell like a cover-up, this is starting to smell like somebody is deliberately destroying documents because if these files in Western Australia and Queensland are not located quickly the police must investigate,'' she said in an interview with Channel Ten's Bolt Report.
As Michael Smith says on his blog, stealing files like this is an extremely serious offence. So if they didn't just get misplaced (highly unlikely) then something has to be done.
If nothing is done, well, that will be deeply disturbing and depressing -- but hardly surprising.
I'm really curious about how this will all turn out. Some commentators are saying that all these developments combined spell doom for Gillard, and soon. But I'm not so sure.
Gillard's been running a completely dysfunctional government pretty much the whole time, and she's still got the backing of her party. I think she'll just keep brazenly ignoring all this stuff until the bitter end, which will come at the next election.
What has been truly astonishing about the AWU scandal is how the majority of journos have willfully ignored it. Imagine if it related to Abbott's or Julie Bishop's past conduct. Every leftie hack in the entire country would be pursuing it with a vengeance, chasing every angle imaginable. But since it pertains to Gillard, most are just desperate to look the other way.
With Royal Commissions all the rage now, there should be one into the Fourth Estate. There's something truly dodgy going on there!
More depressing still is how Gillard's approval ratings have remained quite high, and have even gone up recently. There must be a lot of Aussies who have bought the PM's media cheer squad's line of "nothin' to see here, folks, so you should all just move along".
My advice to these voters is that on the contrary, there's plenty! You just have to go looking for it, that's all.
Two points Matt. 1. Dark Blue singlet crime [or even fluro vest crime] is probably more appropriate than white collar crime, and 2. With a few exceptions the workers in the Fourth Estate now have as much credence as those who work in Real Estate.
ReplyDeleteDo missing AWU files spell doom for Gillard?
ReplyDeleteProbably not.
Yours succinctly,
ThePirateKing
Given the antipathy of significant parts of the media to the Gillard government, and an enquiry that the Murdoch organisation in particular is aggressively opposing, the gist of this piece is a bit strange.
ReplyDeleteIt could well be true that there are some left-leaning sections of the press who are looking the other way when it comes to these allegations. But the idea that the whole 4th Estate is guilty of this is fanciful.
Maybe it's being ignored by both the media and the electorate because a) the story is all froth and no beer and/or b) it's old news.
yours currently,
ThePirateKing
It is true that left-leaning sections of the media have been looking the other way. Some will keep doing this. But if Jonathon Holmes of Media Watch is correct then even the ABC will soon start reporting this story because, in his words, "it's not going away".
DeleteIf and when that does happen I suspect you'll concede it's not all froth. And if you were to look into it now, you'd realize that there were several things that Gillard did in the 90s that were highly questionable to say the least and which deserve to be reported and discussed. And the fact that she has been misleading and evasive recently on this issue -- and in parliament -- make it a contemporary story.
Also, my reference to the Fourth Estate was actually a joke.
Matt, if Jonathon Holmes is correct then this latest attempt to keep the issue alive is a smear. But I'm not ruling anything out and only ask that people provide evidence. In the absence of that, there's a lot of froth.
DeleteMaybe the ABC will shed light on this, maybe they won't. I only realised watching Media Watch last night that the context of this is criticism of the ABC for not being as excited about these revelations as the Australian. Now that's a precedent to set!
As such, I'm sorry I didn't get the joke, it's quite hard sometimes for the layman to work out which of your foam-flecked rants are meant to be funny and which aren't.
yours discerningly
ThePirateKing
Oh froth oh froth, you rise to the top for all the world to see. :)
DeleteAll froth and no beer, are you kidding. Files missing and no matter which way you look at it, if it is not serious misconduct, the woman must have been a complete idiot. Young and naive does not cut it. I'm an admin/accounts clerk and the garbage you need to go through with bank accounts, at the very least, you sure as hell need to know where the money is coming from and where it is going. Yes the left leaning media is ignoring this story and if it was Tony Abbot or anyone else in the coalition it would be plastered all over the news. They still have not stopped banging on about Tony hitting a wall 35 years ago. What is that they keep saying "goes towards character". Well I pay her dam salary and she can answer a few questions to let me see what goes towards her character. What happened was fraud and she was right at the centre of it. If I was involved in something like that I would be in goal, no matter how long ago it was, she is no different to me!
ReplyDeleteWell said, Joan. What a total scammer, to be involved with the alleged HaHa. Disappearance, of hundreds of thousands of Union members funds, Death and injury funds @ that, to even be associated with that is the lowest of the scum. Gillards filthy lies and deceit are all over it. Go to Pickerings post for research among many many forums, the welsh queens toadie Juliar!! BYE BYE.
DeleteJoan, when you say "If I did something like that I'd be in gaol", what exactly is that?
ReplyDeleteyours similarly,
ThePirateKing