Brandis Eliminates Red Tape By Insisting That All Inquiries To The Solicitor-General Go Through His Office First!
Yeah, I know. Irony, eh?
I mean, the Liberals are always on about getting rid of red tape. You know, that bureaucratic nonsense where people need to get permission before they do things, because, well, it just slows things down unnecessarily.
So, I’m trying really, really hard to work out how George Brandis’ decree that everyone – even the PM – needs to get his permission before consulting the Solicitor-General fits with the whole “eliminate the red tape” thingy! Actually watching the clips of the Solicitor-General in the Senate today, I wondered why he didn’t ask the members of the Coalition if they had sought George “The Fudd” Brandis’ permission before asking him a question…
Ok, while I understand that the legal niceties are a bit hard for us all to understand, the fact remains that the Liberals will now be trying to paint a public servant as a puppet of the Labor Party. You know the way this works: Anyone who agrees with us is quite independent, while anyone who disagrees is clearly a member of the socialist/United Nations/ISIS alliance and can just be ignored because they’ve shown how biased they really are. Andrew Bolt, on the other hand, calls it as he sees it after giving careful consideration to everyone who agrees with him. And just to prove how independent he really is, Andrew is telling us all how little he approves of Malcolm as PM which just show that he doesn’t agree with everyone in the Liberal Party, because Malcolm thinks he’s doing a great job, even if the rest of us want to dump him for Tony first chance we get. It’s just a little hard because we took Malcolm to the election and now we feel obliged to stick with him just a little longer. You know what it’s like. You let someone take you to the dance because he’s the one with the car, and you really want to dump him and start dancing with the cool kids, but you know that if you do it too early in the night everyone’ll know that you just used him to get where you wanted to go ’cause he was the one with a car.
>SIGH< Well, at least we can count on Donald Trump to give us all something to make us shake our heads and feel superior to the USA. So just to reiterate, in case you missed it: 1. Donald Trump is caught on tape boasting how he just goes up to women and kisses them or grabs them by the pussy. (I presume that's what the "p*ssy" meant in various publications.) 2. He tries to justify this by going on the offensive. He appears with several women who allege that Bill Clinton sexual assaulted them and suggests that while he was merely "boasting" about it, Bill was actually doing it, because people have claimed that he did. (Let's not delve too deeply into this one because they are so many aspects to this that I feel we could debate them for ages. If I suggest that there's something strange about the facts that he thinks this reflects badly on his opponent, even though it's her husband whose the alleged perpetrator, we'll end up talking about Hillary and whether her refusal to leave Bill is a feminist issue, or whether she shouldn't even have to consider this and then someone will suggest that she's responsible for ISIS and then someone will say that Trump's no worse, followed by Trump has some great ideas and I'll never get to point 3. And, if I mention Monica, we'll be here all night just asking why she never washed that dress with semen stains before we even get back to the feminist arguments!) 3. When he's accused of doing the things he's on tape saying that he used to do, he tells us that they're lying. And he's not lying. And you can trust him because he's been honest about the fact that he was lying on the tape when he suggested that he used to sexually assault women and isn't it terrible that these women can just tell lies. (Go back to point 2 for a second, and without making a conclusion about Bill's guilt or innocence, ask yourself if the word, "hypocritical" may just come to mind. 4. Some people still say that they still support Trump because he tells it like it is. So it seems that according to some people (politically incorrect comment warning)
If you want to be President, you can grab one. You can be one. You just can’t have one.
Cheers.
Have a good weekend!
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Return to home pageBrandis can be Elmer Phudd all he bleeding well likes while the LNP Degenerates are in power.
Nonetheless, I applaud Soiicitor-General Gleeson for his determination to uphold his office and accountability.
Is he any descendant of THAT Gleeson of the High Court?
If so, maybe that’s why he takes pride in his position which is diametrically opposed to what #Bandit Brandis has done.
Brandis on a power grab. Dutton has more power over our lives than he has.
Brandis is the individual who brought us the obnoxious set of surveillance, arbitrary detention and censorship laws that have contributed to the death of msm and the amoral individual who oversaw the vile and graft rifdden travesty that was the trade unions inquiry.
This time he willfully and viciously crossed the line on another basis of Habeas Corpus law, the Separation of Powers, in commanding that the Solicitor General act as guard dog for the government involving referral of opinion requests from Parliamentarians as Brandis’ defacto personal agent. This is as crude a strike against the law as any one should be able to remember.
The hubris exceeds all expectations from such a little man. In the way of little men, he has encouraged himself to over reach. Were press and media not so tame, you would expect his resignation for intimidation and a bald faced power grab, to have become a reality already.
Instead the wrong is compounded in the vile treatment of the Solicitor General before a Senate Star Chamber operated as mechanism for smear and misrepresentation of Gleeson’s ethical Thomas More-like position. The man shows the reality of Brandis and the government as to those who speak truth to power.
The Senate antic ,looked straight out of “Judge John Deed”.
T
Absolutely brilliant!
MN reminds of how Prof.Triggs has become the paradigm for Brandis’ operation…abuse and intimidation against worthwhile individuals, primacy of ideas, society and justice.
And let’s not forget Brandis and Arts funding.
Perhaps there’s a Minister of sorts who’s completely of control?
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-overhauls-george-brandis-arts-slush-fund-20151119-gl35nc.html
But Turnbull has no ability to discipline anyone, particularly if they are named George. Or so it seems.
By George takes on new meanings
If Brandis wants everything to go through his office first, one would have to ask, whey then have a Solicitor-General?
It all smacks about a power grab for Brandis and he is being very, very circumspect in the interpretation of how he did advice the Solicitor General of this fact, was it by smoke signals on a windy day? when Gleeson was not looking out of his window? that what Brandis is saying about his communication-as I see it. He sent the smoke signals knowing full well they would either not be seen or be corrupted by wind and distance to be readable by Gleeson. No doubt the sooner the LNP pack up their tent and move on, Australia might stand a chance of moving forward and proposing and debating some of the real issues facing this wonderful country.
I’m of the same view as Paul said above, and suspect we all are.
I so wish there was something to force Brandis out….and so many others for that matter. Perhaps the huge downside of close parliaments is the abandonment of any form of principled behaviour. Surely there must come a point where enough people can no longer take their abusive actions or fall under the spell of the media apologists and co-manipulators.
I’m going to hope this posting from FB from the Don’t Blame Me I Didn’t Vote Liberal page, from a poster called Costa A, shows up ok, as to the link.
I did a report card on George in February – the list of arrogant stuff ups just keeps growing. Don’t forget, he wrote to a court to get Peta Credlin off a drink-driving charge and he sacked Disability Commissioner Graeme Innes to gift a job to his little friend Tim Wilson so he had something to put on his resume while he waited to be gifted Andrew Robb’s safe seat. He raided the office of the lawyer in the East Timor case and confiscated the witnesses passport. He pissed off the Palestinians by refusing to call East Jerusalem Occupied Territories. In the budget from hell, he gifted the Australian Ballet School $1 million towards the purchase of their new mansion. On and on it goes.
He will no doubt be rewarded with the High Commissioner to London job since Tony now has his sights set on a comeback
http://www.afr.com/brand/rear-window/george-brandis-tipped-to-take-london-posting-20160908-grbi5w
I don’t know a lot about the respective roles of Attorney General and Solicitor General but I do understand that one (AG) is a politician and a member of the government and the other (SG) is not and I would expect that a separation of powers principle would apply so that the independent role of SG was not politicised.
Watching parts of the Senate Enquiry yesterday I noted that Liberal bomb-chucker Ian MacDonald was one of the panel and that immediately told me that this enquiry was rigged. MacDonald is an appalling character who will disrupt proceedings, be rude and generally try to derail proceedings : he has form.
If the SG is required to give fearless and independent advice to the government and the parliament it seems obvious to me that you cannot hobble him/her by making his/her every move subject to the dictate and approval of a political appointee (Brandis). It seems to me that the government want a passive and tame servant on a leash doing the government’s bidding : that is not independence and is not part of our democracy.
Brandis should resign or be sacked.
Turnbull is so weak and afraid to lose the “leadership” of the party that he runs purely in name only is allowing (as if he had any choice) the rabid right to create their own little empires that are not beholden to anyone or any other authority. Then there’s Rasputin Abbott lurking in the background preparing to make a come back. Things in my view don’t bode well for Malcolm still being P.M. after the middle of next year, if not earlier.
Terry2: The balding coconut will neither resign or be fired by Malcolm because he’s a political coward.
Just reading about these slug-like men makes me reach for my garden spray..
Putting Brandis and bookcase in same sentence is an insult to any bookcase…
Watched Sophie York on The Drum last night and she offered the advice that the way forward was for the two protagonists to get the ‘correct’ meaning of the word ‘consultation’ and the problem was solved. Hilarious!
Sophie, here’s a clue, people change the meaning they give to words over time. Try, ‘haircut’, ‘nice’, ‘silly’, ‘fathom’, ‘clue’, ‘naughty’. ‘guy’, ‘hussy’, ‘spinster’ and so on and on.
When it comes to legislation and disputes over interpretation, the Courts usually go back to the Hansard and read the discussion surrounding the introduction of the legislation to see if there was any ‘intent’ and if so then rule accordingly. It’s always possible that no ‘intent’ can be discerned that goes beyond the ‘common sense’. In that case the dictionary definition tends to reign supreme.
But I suspect this dispute won’t get to the courts and a decision will be hammered out on the political anvil. In this case, it’s likely to be the Senate which in all probability will overrule Brandis.
Many thanks Kaye Lee. That keeps things VERY relevant.
Its very nineteen thirties, what goes with Abbott, then Turnbull. The aim has always been to implement the IPA agenda and thus the agenda of Murdoch and the hard right in general. As with the nineteen thirties, not enough people will wake up until it is past too late.
The AG’ s and Turnbull’s behaviours are not accidental but quite deliberate, although Brandis’ megalomania was bound to bring him to his current situation.
Every week it seems, buried on the back of page 14 in the top left corner, is more of the sort of thing proposed last week by David Kalisch, who oversaw the Census bungle, announcing that the ABS should no longer release Economics reports through lack of funds. Cut funds the executives then claim lack of funding always ensures that politically dangerous stuff is first to go, as we have seen with ABC and SBS using the excuse to cut genuine news in exchange for tabloidia.
It is not just outright censorship but the cutting out of infrastructures that ensures the information vacuum we begin to live in; an information vacuum that creates anxiety and the opportunity for consent manufacture.
MN, Sophie also struggled with words when talking about whom she preferred as the new President, she seemed to lean towards Donald Duck.
Could hardly bear to watch Jim Molan (Q&A), the boat stopper, having a good old laugh when talking about asylum seekers…
Add to that Brandis, Christensen and the like and despair….what’s happening to Oz…
helvityni, for a good response to Jim Molan and his ‘thinking’ go here:
Just picked this up at the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/15/ian-macdonald-could-do-with-a-lesson-on-the-art-of-respectful-questioning#comment-85465738
Thank you Lenore Taylor. What a pity so much of the rest of msm so lacks a sense of what makes these sorts of issues so important.
MN, I often read the articles on Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations,( we have some shred history, we lived in the same inner-city neighbourhood.)
Totally agree with Robert Manne’s views on Molan,
Here’s the problem Australia has got.
A PM that’s to gutless to do anything.
So, here’s 3 options that are open to turnbull.
(1.) Turnbull to turn around to face all of his sever right wing factional members including the Natts, and, to tell them that he’s been elected as the PM, he will do what he wants to do to govern the country.
Of course he’s to gutless to do this as he knows that he would be stabbed in the back by his sever right wing faction.
(2.) Resign as the PM because he can’t govern withing his own right because he’s been boxed in to the corner with no where to turn by his won sever right wing faction, as well with the Natts.
(3.) To call a very early federal election to clear the air, but, I doubt he do’s this aw well.
If we think under Turnbull can’t get any worse? Think again. The longer everything go’s along, the worse the Turnbull government will go.
Of course, if Turnbull do’s get knifed by his own sever right wing faction, then, Turnbull’s “morordate” faction will be seething, and, will try to destroy the Liberal sever right wing faction.
Then, this will make the LNP imploe.
Who realy cares if we have 6 PM’s in 6 years.
But just think how the world wound think if Turnbull risked options 2, and, 3, and, Turnbull gets knifed how the rest of the world would see Australia?
The same if Turnbull takes option 3?
If Turnbull dosn’t risks something soon, then not even Australia will suffer a lot more, and, will be seen as a laughing stock with the rest of the world.
It’s now up to Turnbull to do what he wants to do for the sake of all Australian’s!!