Stalin would not have stood for it …

THE Greens senator Lee Rhiannon helped to ghost-write an opinion article attacking her party for accepting a $1.7 million donation from the web entrepreneur Graeme Wood.

The article accused the Greens of being ”in the same league as the old parties” for accepting an Australian record donation.

The piece was published under the name of Norman Thompson, a long-time friend of Senator Rhiannon. Together, they founded the Democracy4Sale project, which investigates donations to political parties. But Crikey reported yesterday that Dr Thompson now acknowledged the article had been written in Senator Rhiannon’s office and that the senator herself had made some changes to it. Her media adviser, Alison Orme, had approached Dr Thompson about putting his name to the article.

No one is suggesting that Mr. Binse contributed to the article but we are all overjoyed to hear that he was arrested without loss of life.

Badness …

Senator Rhiannon leapt to Binse’s defence.

“Chris has served his time and is now free to take his place in society,” she wrote in a blog posted a NSW Greens website in 2005. “I am left wondering how long the Minister’s open season on Chris Binse will last.”

“I would like to put on record that I congratulate Chris Binse for the work he is undertaking to reduce the number of people who end up on the wrong side of the law”.

Meanwhile, Victoria Police are hoping he will put down the gun and come out with his hands up.