Down with sport …

I was horrified this morning as I watched Aurora the Explorer admit she plucked the number of people needing to be interviewed in relation to Australian Sports Blackest day out of her backside …

The Australian brings us more Black views …

JOHN Black, the former Labor senator who in the late 1980s chaired the first government-appointed inquiry into drugs in sport in Australia, has labelled the present Australian Crime Commission investigation as “amateur hour”.

The Senate inquiry headed by Black, which ran concurrently with the Dubin inquiry set up by Canada after Ben Johnson tested positive at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, pioneered drugs-in-sport reform not just in this country but globally. It led directly to the establishment of the Australian Sports Drug Agency – the forerunner to the present Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency – and indirectly to the creation in 1999 of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The Black inquiry, conducted nearly a quarter of a century ago, covered virtually the same ground being explored by the ACC, including the possibility of organised crime infiltrating sport through the supply of drugs, the danger associated with athletes being administered drugs intended for veterinary use and the involvement of corrupt doctors and sporting officials …

… But he has little regard for the way the present investigation has been handled and sympathises with innocent athletes and sports angered by the fact they have been embroiled in what he views as a fairly cynical political exercise.

“Well, why the hell wouldn’t they (be angry)?” he asked. “It was just amateur hour. You looked at it and you thought, ‘Oh my god, this is going to end in tears.’ But it kept the Eddie Obeid (ICAC) inquiry off the front pages for a week, so that was the purpose of it.

“It was clearly some kind of media diversion but it was at the expense of sport. It’s had a melancholy and predictable conclusion …

He also points at a reasonably easy avenue towards keeping organised crime out of sport …

“I am just appalled at the advertising for gambling in sports programs, the current exotic betting odds … I’m repelled by that. I think it’s appalling and I think the sports that do it should be condemned for it.

“The emerging problem that has come up has been gambling and sport has embraced it.

“I don’t get how a government can get all wowser-ish about tobacco and then turn a blind eye to this.

“And I don’t know how sport can embrace it either, bearing in mind what has happened on the subcontinent. It’s sitting up and begging for trouble.”

Cruise ship adrift …

Latest report from the Costa Gillardia …

Food and water running out, the toilets are flooded, the electricity cut off, Where are the tugs?

It seems the navigator, Aurora, has been making up the coordinates, several of the crew have abandoned ship, today they can’t find Scotty McClelland. Will there be any lifeboats left for the rest of us.

Nonetheless, Mr Swan, the first mate, is still promising to make port on time even though the fuel is all gone.

Captain Julia hopes to raise everyone’s spirits with a pass close to the shore … as soon as the engines are running.

 

 

 

At our expense …

According to today’s Australian the Labor Party will continue to advertise itself at the taxpayers expense until the writs for the election are issued. It seems they do not subscribe to the view that the election period has started.

The first clause of Schedule 2 of the Broadcasting Services Act seems clear enough ..

 

“election period” means:

(a) in relation to an election to the Legislative Council of Tasmania, or an ordinary election to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory–the period that starts 33 days before the polling day for the election and ends at the close of the poll on that day; and

(b) in relation to any other election to a Parliament–the period that starts on:

(i) the day on which the proposed polling day for the election is publicly announced; or

(ii) the day on which the writs for the election are issued;

whichever happens first…

… whichever happens first. There can be no doubt that Jules has made the announcement …

So, today I announce that I will advise the Governor-General to dissolve the House of Representatives and to issue writs on Monday the 12th of August, for an election for the House and half the Senate to be held on Saturday, the 14th of September.

Government advertising last year last year cost us $139.7 million. That’s more than the Mining Resource Rent Tax raised!

Can’t govern, can’t even read, can spin and it sure can spend.

 

 

Digging …

Julia denies any wrong doing in regard to slush funds and major frauds by former boyfriends. Michael Smith is a journalist who lost his job for breaking this story. He tells us …

Wayne Hem says that he deposited $5,000 in cash into Julia Gillard’s bank account, at a time when she was paying back 100% of the borrowed value/price for her home, plus a $20,000 further bank loan, plus an advance on her salary – and during which time her home was being extensively renovated.   Hem says the cash was handed to him by Wilson.   Within weeks of Gillard receiving that money, Wilson was informed that he would be charged internally within the union and referred to police over allegations of fraud involving the AWU Members Welfare Association and other accounts.

Borrowed 100% of the house, a further loan of $20,000 and a salary advance … what was she going to fund it with, a mining tax?