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11
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Cricket thread
Last post by LP -
Just an aside a bit of an anecdote.

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.
12
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by LP -
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.
14
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by shawny -
Quote from: DJC – on
Quote from: shawny – on


Seeing you dodged my point i will do the same on that long winded spin reply about nothing.

Have you noticed the Big build royal commission going on?

Or do you refuse to acknowledge it because its the labour government being accused of corruption? 

Pretend the same inquiry was with Trump instead....  Would be 50 pages written on it if the names were swapped.

 

Cheques and balances    :-[

You really need to think before you post nonsense Shawny ... and you need to stop trying to deflect with continual references to Taco in this thread and continual references to Australian governments in the Taco thread.  They're completely separate issues ... and threads. 

It is the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria.  It was called by the State Labor Government "to inquire into and report on matters relating to corruption, criminal conduct and serious misconduct on or in relation to major construction projects in Victoria."  The allegations that prompted the Royal Commission concerned corruption and criminal conduct by the CFMEU and construction companies and poor oversight by government agencies and, potentially, the Government.  The Commission is in the first week of its first block of public hearings and, to be perfectly honest, it hasn't even begun to warm up.

Your spinning responses actually remind me of Andrews with his covid responses when pressed. Avoid any part that may show you up and go off on a tangent raising different points to move the narrative. 

I will try one more time: Why is a royal commission needed if our polices (cheques and balances) are set up to prevent corruption.
15
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by DJC -
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Quote from: DJC – on


Public hearings started in the same month as the election and will erode any support that the ALP may still have.  The report should be handed down well into the first year of the new government who will be able to use it to their advantage.  Damage control would have been calling the commission far earlier and retaining management of the report.

I’d say that it’s more like self-inflicted, terminal damage.



Sorry DJC, I respectfully disagree. 

This was part of the Jacinta Allen knifing and Ben Carroll handover to attempt to save face leading up to the election race.  Just like the pothole fixing that they are doing.

The spectre of it, was hanging over the Labor government.

Strategically they knew she would lose, and offed her to bring in Ben Carroll.  Would the Royal Commission have occurred had that not happened?  Its a way to attempt to distance Ben Carroll from Jacinta Allen, and save face, and blame the outgoing leader for all the woes.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I cannot fault the strategy, but to think this is noble thinking or "falling on ones sword" is naive, and Ben is actively spruiking it on advertisements as him trying to fix things. 

Even if they had a point, the labor government at state level has ruled the roost for a very long time.  You would be better off mounting an argument that Federal government is more culpable as the Libs have dictated that component for longer.

There's no doubt that Carroll called the Royal Commission in an attempt to distance himself from Allan and Andrews, but the timing couldn't have been worse for the ALP.  We're in the final fortnight of the election campaign and every day there's going to be headlines from the Commission driving another nail in the coffin just like yesterday's scolding from the senior counsel over the redacted diary.  Jess Wilson should be instructing her candidates to keep their mouths shut and let the Commission do their work for them.

I suppose that Carroll really had no option but the unwritten rules of Royal Commissions are never call one if you don't know the outcomes and can't control the timing of the report.  Allan should really have called it when she took over, but it would probably still be just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.
16
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by dodge -
The closer it gets, the worse Jess appears.  Likely to pull the 'I didn't know the true financial position' card in order to not fulfil any promise of spending/cost relief.  My sister describes her as if you're being told off by the seasoned school teacher.

Jess is part of the 'old men in blue suits' - her dad, being part of a liberal think tank etc.

ON won't release any costings - probably ran out of toes and fingers to count.  Motherhood statements are easy.  Tricky bit is the detail of how it's going to happen.

Labor - well, are they even in the conversation?

Of the three, how many are promises for things that are already in the pipeworks, how many are copies/variants of each other, and how many are genuinely theirs.  What are the differentiations that will make the change - probably we don't want labor is it.

As a side note (and not sure if this is right) - teachers got their payrise. It seems budgets for staffing haven't increased, so class sizes are going to balloon as schools can't afford the same staffing levels and support/specialist programs will be cut.  Not a peep from the politicians.
17
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by LP -
Quote from: tonyo – on
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.
19
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Last post by LP -
Quote from: northernblue – on
But, but it was 500 million gazillion !!
🙄
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.

Don't mention the war when discussing war crimes!