I had heard about sweets being used before, but as a young cricketer I first overheard about a very particular brand / type of sweet used to varnish the pill from Tony Grieg. We were in the practise nets at VFL park where I had been acting as a net bowler for the WSC players. It wasn't because they were using or discussing the use of the sweets in WSC, but because he was explaining to someone how they did not work for the coating on the white cricket balls of that era.
I gather the redacted evidence probably means legal contracts, it's likely all sides of this case will do the same when commecial confidentiality and non-disclosure applies, but only the government side will be labeled a cover up.
I believe the commission can go into camera and have those issues address, but then the same critics would claim a cover up by the commission.
In many cases it's not just an arbitrary decision to redact but a legal requirement, but the media never report it that way.
So if seems a pretty safe bet that Jess Wilson will be the new premier. It may be a bit of a poison chalice.
The really interesting watch will be how long before the 'old men in blue suits' try to wrest back control of their party......
The hardcore rusted on Libs she would have needed to battle in the olden days are dying off pretty quickly, they were Jack Elliott's generation who grew out of the post war years.
Also what has recently been diminished is the fundamentalist Christian component, they have moved out of Liberal further right towards more Libertarian alignments and closer to PHON.
Much the same is also happening on the other side of politics, which is why I suppose so many now view either side as the same, they all seem to be approaching the median.
The figures in reality are somewhat arbitrary and generally always reported as totals rather than a differential, they do this to make the general public perceive it as worse than it really is which is good for ratings. That's not to say it isn't bad, but it won't ever be as bad as reported, because even after the fact it will nearly always be reported in totals not differences, even in official reports they list totals and then percentages of possible savings or waste.
If there was no corruption or other nefarious practises, what would be the saving, it's not the same as not having the project at all, and is virtually never reported and never sounds as bad as the spin.
Furthermore, in my experience in the union and corporate administration, the very people complaining about union corruption tend to have fingers in the pie from another angle. Short circuiting tenders to block competition for example is very common, and just another form of corruption, sometimes this happens in the very early stages, before the request for tender is even written and well before anybody gets a job. To find "the fix" you might have to go back a decade and several consecutive governments as the process is usually very long. The fastest ever State / Federal project I was ever invovled in was relartively small, and took 5 years spanning two elections, but the public and media by default would blame the people at the finishing line for the result.
Give it up mate and just have the balls to admit your views are skewed like most of us are.
@shawny your problem is you debate based on fantasy, sovereign citizen social media libertarian rubbish.
Whether any of us agree with or disagree with @DJC is largely irrelevant, because he is at least speaking in facts about the Westminster and other analgous politcal systems, genuine systems.
You gather opponents because of the rubbish views you post, not because of your genuine poltical views. If you want to be taken serious and listened to, you can't make sh1t up about the system of checks and balances. At least base your arguments about Australian politics on the mechanism and systems that our democracy works on!
Its funny you said that about the run and pick up as a NM player did it in the 4th quarter and it really stood out to me that her skillset was higher than most of our girls!
I don't think they lack the skill, this might be more about the overall physicality of Norp versus other teams.
Norp tackle to hurt more so than any other AFLW team.
We seem well below our best recently, and our structural issues have been more obvious. Hopefully, we can put it together.
Agreed, is it just a form issue or have we started coming back to the field?
To me it's quite similar to our AFL side, when our AFL mids are hot they plaster over a lot of short-comings, but stifle the mids and the structural defects get amplified.
I think it's pretty clear that recent events show RedTrump's style of "alternative leading" is nothing more than a lack of leading altogether, now they are self-destructing from the inside!
I suppose RedTrump will claim his GOP associates are Demo plants!
It looks like the first people to strike back when you become "a loser" are the ones on your own side you stepped on along the way!
The world is going to pot when you get a 2 year ban for clicking your fingers, sandpaper experts get banned, but you can put half a metre of glass fibre reinforced self-adhesive tape on your favourite bat and it's all OK!
On the Usman issues, I think the lad has gone a bit above and beyond looking for promotional controversies, he stepped right across promo into outright alienation.
Things are looking ugly for Australian cricket at the moment. The sandpaper thing refuses to go away, even 8 years on. I wonder if ANY of the players from that team will survive.
We've been at the top of the tree for a long time, there is a big desire globally to give us a kicking, but it's fueled by hypocrisy.
I honestly do not know how the loudest critics of the qualified mob manage to keep a straight face when launching jibes.
Boiled lollies, bottlecaps, scotch bright, zinc cream, lip balm, brylcreem, none of them were Aussie inventions, most of them were brought back domestically after tours of county cricket. That's not to say we didn't have domestic equivalents, just that we were not alone.
I generally agree DJC. If the Government doesn't have enough money, then those services are either reduced or cut altogether, or the Government borrows the money, and essentially kicks the can down the road. And when services are reduced, it's always the poor who are most affected.
If the government had some cohunes they would legislate to prevent selling the farm on resources, because that's what the likes of Rinehart want to do.
For example, you hear the old tune repeated that manufacturing is dead, but it's not a carte blanche argument for value adding being dead, and manufacturing is dead it's not even an accurate argument anymore especially when discussing labour costs. Advanced manufacturing is almost on equal ground globally, the labour cost differential ins miniscule. the main differences relate to legislation and governance, and all that is in control of the government. Government spending doesn't need to be a sink hole, and privatisation is not always the answer.
Call the bluff, if the likes of Hancock and Fortescue won't add value, auction off the capability internationally to those who will, of course enforced by legislation, and you'll be shocked how quickly the locals change their tune when they are no longer a monopoly!
In Victoria for example, the state signed over 100 year leases to Hancock on huge swathes of land, stretching from Leongatha to Warrnambool, without a single enforcement case that Hancock does anything with it. The resources sit there in the ground becoming more valuable with every passing day, making Rinehart richer and richer on the books, and she does nothing for that increased wealth and doesn't need to. The state can't even borrow against it! It's the same crapty deal Qld gave Palmer years ago making him billion$!
Billionaires increased holdings by orders of magnitude and then issued redundancies, that is what PHON offers!
I'll never understand how people see what is offered by the alternatives as vastly better, when the options are basically the same, or even worse! It's why I think the liberals are the only viable alternative at the moment, at least they have some history of governance to trade on,
Anyone who genuinely thinks billionaire funded political parties like PHON are going to be better for Joe Average and society in general is mind-numbingly naivé.
Whether the billionaire happens to be an individual, co-operative or a union makes no difference.
