Tag: Bob Carr

The tabloids …

Melbourne’s two daily tabloids were a study in contrasting values this morning.

The Herald Sun was adorned with a picture of the Iron Lady, The Age went for a picture of Gough, the lead story based on the Wikileaks revelations that Bob Carr and Bob Hawke, not to mention Bob McGee, all spying for the Americanos.

Well vale Margaret Thatcher a female prime minister who didn’t need to use her gender as an excuse. I will not attempt a eulogy but let me just direct your attention to the quality of those that are celebrating her demise. She would probably have been quite flattered.

The other big story centres on the low opinion that Hawke and Carr had of the Revered Leader. Well, well, what a scandal. But wait, there’s more … the Americanos made some quite derogatory observations regarding the leader of the opposition at the time.

Malcolm Fraser’s response …

“I think that cable probably demonstrates the incompetence of the American representation in Australia at the time,” he told ABC radio.

He went on to say something about people’s behaviour in private and how they should be exposed. Well, since you insist …

Memphis trousers affair

On 14 October 1986, Fraser, then the Chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, was found in the foyer of the Admiral Benbow Inn, a seedy Memphis hotel, wearing nothing but a towel and confused as to where his trousers were. The hotel was an establishment popular with prostitutes and drug dealers. Though it was rumoured at the time that the former Prime Minister had been with a prostitute, his wife stated that Fraser had no recollection of the events and that she believes it more likely that he was the victim of a practical joke by his fellow delegates.

That of course is from Wikipedia, what a sweet wife …

The Barons of NSW …

Professor Gillian Triggs is President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, a body that seems to exist only to harvest complaints about discrimination …

Prof. Triggs :  … If I may say so, I went to an interesting lecture by the foreign minister the other day to celebrate the Magna Carta, quoting the fundamental principles of the Magna Carta that no man—or presumably woman—can be charged or held without a trial of their peers. It seems extraordinary—

Senator BRANDIS: I do not think the barons at Runnymede had friends like Mr Eddie Obeid and Mr Ian Macdonald, unlike our foreign minister, who speaks with eloquence about the Magna Carta …

Remember Thursday, September 12, 1991 …

The opposition leader, Bob Carr, jumped to his feet saying: ”I propose Edward Moses Obeid, OAM, as an eligible person to fill the vacant seat.”

That was the moment that Mr Obeid’s remarkable political career began, and our sonorous foreign minister was his sponsor.

Appeasing Libya …

You would have thought that safe passage for Lawyers from the International Criminal Court would be guaranteed, at least in any civilised country. You might also be forgiven for thinking that consular access to an Australian citizen arrested in a civilised place would also be guaranteed. You might expect an Australian Foreign Minister might press pretty firmly if it turned out otherwise …

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr last night spoke to International Criminal Court president Sang-Hyun Song, urging him to apologise to the Libyan authorities to help speed up the release of detained lawyer Melinda Taylor.

Neville Chamberlain couldn’t have put it more forcefully …