Mal
prefix: mal-
- in an unpleasant degree. “malodorous”
- in a faulty or inadequate manner. “malfunction”
- in an improper manner. “malpractice”
- not. “maladroit”
Origin from French mal, from Latin male ‘badly’.
When the Howard Government came to office in March 1996, one of the issues it took on with gusto at its first meeting of the new Howard cabinet the following month was the “waste, fraud and ineptitude” in ATSIC’s near-$1 billion budget for indigenous programs.
Howard walked out of that first cabinet meeting and announced a “series of reforms” to funding of indigenous programs, including the appointment of a “special auditor” to oversee all ATSIC spending. John Herron, Howard’s junior minister, said on John Laws’ radio program that perhaps “up to $100 million” a year could be saved from ATSIC’s “waste and extravagance”. This was subsequently found not to be the case and the appointment of a special auditor was found to be illegal.
Mal Brough entered Parliament that year and ten years on he was part of Howard’s inner cabinet as Minister for Families and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. His great grandfather was an Indigenous Australian.
Chris Graham reminds us of some of the low lights of Mal’s term.
One of Brough’s first acts as minister was to take $100,000 from the Aboriginals Benefit Account (which holds NT mining royalties on behalf of indigenous owners) and provide it to the organisers of the Woodford Folk Festival, in his electorate in Queensland.
By law, ABA funds must be spent for the benefit of Territory Aborigines.
His also took $4 million to upgrade the Alice Springs Aquatic Centre, a pool owned by the Alice Springs town council.
At the same time, Brough attacked Traditional Owners repeatedly for what he claimed was the irresponsible expenditure of mining royalty monies.
In 2006 Brough promised more than 80 demountable buildings from the recently closed Woomera detention centre would be urgently installed in remote Aboriginal communities as emergency housing.
By the time he left office 18 months later, not one demountable had been installed.
Instead, they sat rusting in an Alice Springs industrial yard until the Rudd government finally sent them north in 2008 . . . as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers on Christmas Island.
In 2012, the average number of Aboriginal people per dwelling in the NT was around 9.4 persons per dwelling, the same level it was when Brough entered office. This is despite the expenditure of at least one billion dollars on Aboriginal housing across the Territory over six years.
The Community Development Employment Program – aka the black work for the dole – was designed and run by Aboriginal people, and had been chugging away relatively successfully for more than three decades.
Mal Brough decided in 2006 that CDEP had become a “destination” rather than a “path to real employment”.
He began abolishing CDEP in remote regions, despite the fact CDEP was the ONLY source of employment in impoverished towns, not to mention the major funder of basic services.
Aboriginal unemployment when Brough left office was at near record levels.
In 2007, Brough decided Aboriginal people were at risk of becoming communists, because they couldn’t purchase their own homes on collectively owned Aboriginal land in remote areas.
So, after amending the NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the NT, Brough unveiled the Home Ownership on Indigenous Lands program (HOIL), a government-funded scheme aimed at helping Aborigines buy a plot of land they already owned.
He quarantined $100 million in government funding for HOIL while at the same time underfunded the highly successful Home Ownership Program (which enabled Aboriginal people anywhere in the country to access home loans).
HOP’s waiting list blew out exponentially while money sat locked in the HOIL program.
Finally, after five years of operation, Brough’s HOIL was quietly shelved and the money diverted into HOP. The HOP waiting list dropped instantly from 1,500 to just over 400 – that’s more than 1,000 Aboriginal families into home ownership almost overnight.
And the cost of Brough’s HOIL adventure? $10 million to administer a program that provided just 15 loans worth $2.7 million.
Brough spent much of his time as minister pounding the state and territory Labor governments for their poor performance in Indigenous affairs.
But at the same time, in 2006-07 his department underspent the Indigenous affairs budget by a staggering $600 million, one-fifth of the total budget. This in the same year that Brough declared “a national emergency” in NT Aboriginal communities.
Brough was the chief architect of the government’s controversial Northern Territory Emergency Response, a package of measures designed to combat alleged high rates of child neglect and abuse in the territory, which saw school attendance drop, suicide and self harm rates double, and a more than doubling in reports of violent incidents.
All the while the incarceration rate has soared to almost 90 percent of the prison population.
A parliamentary inquiry found its implementation was very poor – apart from alienating Aboriginal people and providing no emergency accommodation for anyone but police and soldiers, it caused widespread starvation among Aboriginal communities.
In May 2006, Brough appeared on Lateline where he told Tony Jones “Everybody in those communities knows who runs the pedophile rings.”
Jones: “You just said something which astonishes me. You said pedophile rings. What evidence is there of that?”
Brough insisted there was “considerable evidence” but gave no detail. Instead he made the blanket assertion of “people at very senior level” who “use children at their own whim”.
Next day, when an angry Clare Martin, the Northern Territory’s Labor Chief Minister, called on Brough “to put up or shut up” on his pedophile allegations, Brough evaded the challenge and said nothing.
Five weeks later, ABC radio promoted a “special report on Lateline tonight” on “unchecked pedophilia in some Aboriginal communities”. It even ran a voice clip of an “anonymous witness” saying: “It’s true. I’ve been told by a number of people of men getting young girls and keeping them as sex slaves.”
Lateline’s star interview that night was a man whose face was kept in shadow and whose voice was distorted. He was identified on the program only as an anonymous “former youth worker”. In a series of inflammatory remarks he supported entirely what Brough had told Jones five weeks earlier about “pedophiles” in remote communities.
The day after the Lateline “special” on June 21, Brough finally responded, in a formal press statement, to Clare Martin’s “put up or shut up” challenge more than a month earlier. Information had been passed on, Brough said, to Northern Territory police, but he’d been advised that “for legal and confidentiality reasons, I am unable to disclose detail”.
Three weeks later, in its issue of July 13, the National Indigenous Times outed the anonymous “former youth worker” on Lateline as Gregory Andrews, an Assistant Secretary in Brough’s department. His job was to advise the minister on issues of child abuse in Aboriginal communities.
Brough always denied knowledge of the appearance, but in later court proceedings it emerged his office was provided a written brief of what the bureaucrat planned to tell Lateline.
Tjanara Goreng worked with Andrews in the Howard Government’s Office of Indigenous Policy Co-ordination, where she was a branch manager. Brough was her minister. Her home was raided by police searching for “evidential material” that Goreng had leaked an internal OIPC email to the press. Gregory Andrews name appeared on the Federal Police warrant. Ms Goreng was suspended from her position.
Why did the ABC agree to hide the identity of a bureaucrat whose bogus interview got his minister off the hook?
Brough also walked out of a roundtable summit on Aboriginal violence and told media that someone in the meeting had revealed things were so bad in NT Aboriginal communities that $1 million in cash had been found in one remote town, the proceeds from the sale of drugs.
It later transpired there was a drug bust in the NT, but it occurred in Darwin, the amount of cash involved was small, and the guy arrested was white, with no links to Aboriginal communities whatsoever.
Mal Brough became President of the Queensland Liberal Party and strongly opposed the merger of the Liberals with the Nationals, which apparently explains why he did not seek pre-selection for Longman at the 2010 election after losing in 2007 with a swing of 10.3 percent.
In April 2012, Brough was accused of trying to entice a Sunshine Coast mayoral candidate to withdraw from the election.
Michael Bloyce says Mr Brough met him in November to ask him to reconsider his run for mayor to help boost the chances of another candidate, Mark Jamieson.
Mr Bloyce, who is a Liberal National Party supporter, says Mr Brough offered to back him financially if he ran for a council division.
He says he refused and now advertisements have begun appearing linking him with embattled federal MP Peter Slipper.
‘‘No doubt at all, I came away with a firm impression that Mal Brough was the intermediary,’’ Mr Bloyce told ABC Radio.
‘‘He had authority to speak on behalf of Mr Jamieson and his team and indeed we had conversations that indicated there would be support for me in a financial way to run my campaign if I chose to run for a division as opposed to the mayoralty.”
It seems that Brough had links with the local developer crowd that backed Sunshine Coast Daily editor Mark Jamieson who was subsequently elected as the local mayor, and faced investigation by the Federal Police over allegations he bribed Michael Bloyce to step aside.
Mr Brough and Mr Jamieson denied the allegations and the investigation did not proceed.
Brough set his sights on Slipper’s seat of Fisher. He won pre-selection courtesy of a good old-fashioned membership drive (which some have unkindly suggested is also known as a branch stack). Whatever it was, despite (or perhaps because?) Justice Rares having found Brough was part of a “combination”, with James Ashby, Karen Doane and others, to bring down the Government , it was enough to get him across the line in Fisher even though high profile federal Libs like Joe Hockey, Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull backed James McGrath.
It was at a Brough fundraiser in March that the despicable menu demeaning Julia Gillard was circulated. Despite other candidates losing preselection for similar misdemeanours, Brough remained in favour with Tony Abbott.
Brough set up office two doors down from Peter Slipper’s office. This raises questions about who was backing him because, as David Donovan points out:
“unelected candidates don’t have their own offices, or huge billboards, or company cars, or staffers; in the normal run of things, they can barely afford to print their own how-to-vote cards. All this … stuff was not paid for by Brough ‒ who hasn’t worked a day since 2007, as far as we can tell ‒ or his wife, who is a hairdresser ‒ but by somebody, or a group of somebodies, who really want Brough to be elected.
Why are some unknown people spending so much money to ensure Mal Brough is elected? Why is Abbott and the LNP prepared to burn as much political capital as is necessary to ensure he is ensconced in the seat of Fisher? And why was it so important to set up Peter Slipper and totally destroy him?”
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38 comments
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OzFenric -
bjkelly1958 -
Anne Byam -
diannaart -
Geoffrey England -
randalstella -
tet02 -
Neil of Sydney -
paddyohoward -
Kevin Arnold -
Kaye Lee -
Kaye Lee -
corvus boreus -
Kaye Lee -
Neil of Sydney -
Roswell -
All's Not Lost -
dennis -
corvus boreus -
Neil of Sydney -
corvus boreus -
Neil of Sydney -
corvus boreus -
Möbius Ecko -
Kaye Lee -
Kaye Lee -
OzFenric -
corvus boreus -
stephentardrew -
Kaye Lee -
stephentardrew -
stephentardrew -
Wayne Turner -
Kaye Lee -
Anne Byam -
Anne Byam -
Kaye Lee -
billy moir
Return to home pageKaye Lee, your work always impresses but this astounds. I knew Mal Brough was bad news and many will be aware of his grubby, likely illegal involvement in the sordid “Get Slipper” campaign, but his staggering incompetence and breathtaking string of counter-accomplishments really deserves wider attention. Is anybody supporting Bill Gissane, Labor’s candidate for Fisher in 2013? Is he still even in the picture?
Good article. In relation to the paedophilia in the NT, a friend of mine has been fighting to get the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses etc. to look into the situation up there. She was in the NT and rescued a young woman from a situation as described, She mentioned person highly placed in Government and the police in NT were involved in a ring and the covering up of said ring. She has been the subject of a lot of pressure, abuse and threats because of her brave work. I don’t know where Brough got the information, but from the information my friend has shared with me, I believe it is correct.
Kaye – a great and very revealing article. Nothing would surprise anyone, where Brough is concerned. He is truly a ‘malevolant’ creature, malicious and malignant ( Sorry !! couldn’t resist ). AND he should be investigated thoroughly – but it won’t happen.
Ref : ” Why did the ABC agree to hide the identity of a bureaucrat whose bogus interview got his minister off the hook? ”
I suggest it may have been to protect themselves. And who could blame them – back then (2006) , they were seen to be decidedly left-wing leaning, and against the Howard Government ( although that was certainly not always true ) and the higher echelon & legal eagles attached to the ABC, would have been wary of anything that could have them in any awkward, possibly legally questionable, position. The ‘anonymous’ tipster – media don’t reveal their sources etc.
Details provided in this article, especially about the mis-use of funds allocated to Aboriginal welfare, are particularly putrid.
Meanwhile former PM Gillard is being taken to task on a fund she set up for her ex… yet no RC into the great intervention and money-go-round engineered by Mal B.
Of course, we are to continue to endure the hypocrisy and self-serving aims of the LNP – what was I thinking?
(further kudos to Chris Graham’s investigative journalism – sad that this work is not writ large across the MSM.)
Kaye I had an idea he was crooked, but not quite to that extent. He is clearly not to be trusted on any account he gives…..Fleur du Mal?
Very fine article Kaye.
Anne: who could blame the ABC’s Lateline for perpetrating a hoax for the sake of sensational and very damaging lies? I could – and did at the time; and while doing it exposed Jones as a brazen liar, and the ABC’s complaint review process as thoroughly corrupt.
These characters at the ABC need no prompting from anyone to be reactionary connivers. They are not victims. They are victimisers.
For example, Lateline’s smearing of an indigenous elder as if complicit in widespread sexual crime; by creatively editing an interview with the man – who was ostensibly being interviewed about a documentary on his life. A grievous and filthy attack – by low political operators. Endorsed by management.
Not one word of back-down or any hint of apology for any of this, despite the clear subsequent disproving of the sensational claims and lies of Lateline and Brough. Birds of a feather.
Can someone please explain to me how it is that these morally dysfunctional, lying, conniving sleazebags from the Prime Minister down, are still in positions of power. In fact why are they even walking around breathing the free air. If it was any normal person that did these things he would be rushed off to some dank, dark obliette for the remainder of his natural life. And yet these ‘paragons of leadership’ seem to thumb their nose at society with impunity, and should things start to get a little ‘iffy’ they simply claim ignorance and carry on. I was always told that ‘ignorance was no excuse for breaking the law’, but apparently that’s not the case in the ‘Abbotts us and them’ political agenda, (perhaps we could get a slush fund together and employ Putin to take ’em out.)
“Why are some unknown people spending so much money to ensure Mal Brough is elected? ”
Why are some unknown people who post on blogs spending so much time talking about Mal Brough?
Journalists might also like to investigate his role in the relocation of the people of Kiwirrkurra to Morapoi Station (owned by Mal Brough’s sister and some 2000kms away), following floods in 2001 and the federal funds injected into the station (now a private tourist venture)?
You can also add the Outback Stores he set up in the Top End. The Intrevention quarantined half the payments to Aboriginees for groceries and the franchisees of these stores, set up by an ex Coles executive, received quite a windfall at the expense of the community based stores of the local communities .
Gee Neil,
Could it be because he categorically denied having anything to do with the theft of Peter Slipper’s diary….until the proof was presented? Could it be that he categorically denied staging a fake interview to justify the NT intervention….until the proof was presented? Could it be that a woman who blew the whistle got the sack? Could it be that this man destroyed another for his own political gain and it is becoming increasingly apparent that it was with the collusion of senior members of the current government? Could it be that Peter Slipper has been found guilty of criminal charges for $ 900 of cab fares while the Liberal Party have slush funds in the hundreds of thousands yet get us to pay for them every time they want to go somewhere?
paddyohoward,
Every thread leads to another. What a can of worms….
A CONVICTED pedophile who worked in numerous Aboriginal communities across central Australia lived at an outback station run by the sister of Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough.
Police are investigating whether Geoffrey Kenneth Siggs, 61, was part of any organised pedophile rings that Mr Brough earlier this year claimed were operating throughout remote indigenous communities.
Mr Brough has confirmed that Siggs had lived at Morapoi station, in the West Australian Goldfields, for three months in 2003.
Morapoi is run by his sister, Carol, and her husband, Pastor Greg Stubbs. The Stubbses are committed Christians and are involved in numerous church groups, as was Siggs, the son of a missionary who grew up at Warburton in the Great Victorian Desert.
Siggs was arrested three weeks ago at the remote Aboriginal outpost of Kiwirrkurra, where he was living with a couple and running the community store. He has since pleaded guilty to one child pornography charge and is now in custody.
That charge relates to a laptop and computer disc seized from him in 2003, which contained 337 images of child pornography downloaded from the internet.
Another two computers have been seized from Siggs but it may take police up to 18 months to download material from them.
http://www.news.com.au/national/convicted-pedophile-linked-to-ministers-sister/story-e6frfkp9-1111112454667
Could it be that some of those ‘unknown people’ prefer seeing politics conducted with minimal deception and corruption, and take a duty of interest when suspect behaviors are revealed, particularly in those currently exercising power?
It could 😉
Could it be that some people only care about alleged corrupt behaviour in one particular party and don’t give a stuff about corruption in another party.
And why do so many people on blogs bother with Neil.
Totally agree, Neil. Well said! I’d much rather talk about something Gillard supposedly did 30 years ago. That’d be far more topical than corruption within the membership of the current administration.
Can someone please explain to me how it is that these morally dysfunctional, lying, conniving sleazebags from the Prime Minister down, are still in positions of power.
Can any one answer that question? look at history, It’s there for all the world to see, but like the tree in the Forest no one see’s it till all the shade has gone. How do we get dictators? because the more wealthy in society allow them.
Control the media, control the police, control the army, control the customs, and we feel a lot safer if we have vast wealth, the biggest fear on this planet now is, the people that have it are determined to keep it at any cost.
Even if it means destroying all, not much different from the school yard, the husband, if I cant have it no one can.
Some may. Others employ universality of standards.
He said she said- who cares?
Brough was not in Parliament when who knows what did who knows what.
Brough was in Parliament when much of the shit mentioned in the article occurred. Talk truth and sense or piss off.
No. The article covers a long period of time.
Brough lost his seat in 2007 and was out of office until 2013. The year 2012 was mentioned in the article.
I would not know much about Brough if lefties did not continually mention him.
Bless the lefties then, they bring you knowledge.
Bye.
Please people I beg of you don’t respond to Neil as that’s exactly what wants, to derail this topic by posting nonsense one or two paragraph replies that are designed to get a bite.
He has never changed and not only repeats the same posts over and over for years, he also employs the same tactic whenever malfeasance or corruption of a conservative minister or the L-NP is raised. That is to derail the topic by shifting it to Labor and away from the subject of the L-NP failures. By responding to him he achieves exactly what he set out to. By completely ignoring him altogether he’s nothing more than a pixel smudge as you scroll past his posts, and as irrelevant.
Au contraire Neil. There are many things I deplore from both sides. I think the bugging of the Indonesian president’s wife instigated under Labor’s watch was a very bad mistake – probably illegal too. Thankfully the man that would have recommended that is retiring before he actually heightens us to a state of civil war.
Personally I find Neil an excellent straight man (apologies if you aren’t straight Neil).
“The colourful mining magnet (sic) said he met with Mr Brough at the Palmer Coolum Resort, where Mr Brough detailed the case against Mr Slipper.
Mr Brough confirmed the meeting took place and said shadow treasurer Mr Hockey was also present.
At the time of the gathering, Mr Palmer was an LNP member, but he had a public falling out with the party and established the Palmer United Party.
“Mal Brough said to me that we needed to destroy Peter Slipper,” Mr Palmer said.
Mr Brough labelled the allegation “ridiculous”.
The Daily asked Mr Abbott several questions, including whether he had sought a briefing with Mr Brough and other senior Liberals relating to Mr Brough’s actions in the Ashby matter and his April 2012 meeting with Palmer at his Coolum resort.
Mr Abbott was also asked if he stood by his December 2012 comment that he was confident that Mr Brough had “acted rightly at all times”. We received no response from Mr Abbott. ”
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/abbott-quiet-on-mal-brough-plotting-claims/1996523/
“Why are some unknown people who post on blogs spending so much time talking about Mal Brough?” Answer: probably because the attempt by a cadre of senior Coalition politicians and associated staffers to collude in bringing an elected minister into disrepute and penury, to drive him out of office and force a change of government, is close to the most serious political corruption people in my generation have *ever* seen. If not for that conspiracy, then Mr Brough’s inglorious roster of failures and betrayals as listed in the article above may never have been brought to scrutiny – just another ideologically driven and factually deficit Coalition minister amongst a long line of them. I also would not know much about Brough and his time as a Minister if he hadn’t indulged in allegedly illegal, and quite definitely unethical, practices more recently.
Möbius Ecko,
Re. nos, as I said “bye”.
As to the topic, B. Shorten’s office just reiterated his faith in the relatively pristine nature of federal politics.
He said he wanted to “work constructively in a bipartisan fashion to ensure we have the strongest possible defense against any perception of corruption full stop”.
I ‘love’ the use of “perception” of corruption. Not it’s possibility or occurrence, just that it seen or suspected. Could be misconstrued as collusion to conceal. Not inspiring of confidence in transparency of conduct.
He recently stated at a Labor conference that he ‘wouldn’t necessarily rule out’ a federal corruption investigation, but shows great reluctance in endorsing one.
Labor seems a little dirty itself at the moment, and rather unwilling to share a bath.
Oh Lordy Lord (with apologies to John) as usual the enlightened Neil speaks truth and wisdom for all while we lefties wallow in grand lies, gross inequality, wealth redistribution and corruption. Neil you are stupid and ignorant: stupefied by your own dogmatism while you choose to ignore anything that contradicts your myopic stance. There are many self-critical people on this site (including Kaye) but you are not one of them. Go play with the sharks.
That’s just totally gorgeously gay Kaye.
Senator Milne said Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten had no excuse not to support the national ICAC.
“If they’re serious about cleaning up politics, this is the way to do it,” she said.
“We need to make sure that at the federal level, the same sorts of things emerging in NSW don’t occur.
“You’ve got a revolving door between business, between political offices, between political parties, a whole lot of money changing hands, a whole lot of slush funds being set up [and] nobody having any real insight into who is giving money to whom and for what.
“That is clearly something that corrupts the political process.”
Mr Abbott has promised to fight influence peddling in the Federal Parliament.
The Greens proposal calls for three new integrity officers: a national integrity commissioner, a law enforcement integrity commissioner and an independent parliamentary advisor.
“So come on Bill Shorten, come on Tony Abbott, step up, support the ICAC bill,” Senator Milne said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-call-for-national-icac-vote-20140506-zr5k0.html#ixzz3CtHnIt8e
She has my 100% support.
Common Bill ava go and surprise us all.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………………………………………………………………………………….. wake me up when its done.
How I wish the SMH opened it up to bloggers.
Mal clearly has some good dirt on Abbott and the like.Or Corrupt buddies in arms.
Did Barry O’Farrell give Mal that wine?
A bottle of Grange red wine signed by every PM since Gough Whitlam will be auctioned and the proceeds donated to children’s charity. PMs include Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Faser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and most recently Tony Abbott.
“I’ve been really impressed by the generosity of our past Prime Ministers and their staff for helping me with this crazy quest,” said organiser Bill Darby, who is Director of Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd. “They’re all keen to find out how the auction goes as none of them have seen anything like this before. The pressure was really on when the Coalition won the election. Paul Keating’s office kindly couriered the bottles straight over to Parliament House and Mal Brough got them signed by Tony Abbott the same day.”
The Boxed 1999 Magnum (1.5 litre) of Penfolds Grange has been professionally cellared since new and presents in excellent condition.
This magnum is one of only two in existence that have been handed to every Australian PM born in the last 100 years in order to raise funds for charity. It can be cellared by its new owner for many decades to come. It is believed that no other items in history have ever carried the signatures of eight Prime Ministers.
With arguably what will become two of the most valuable autographed items in Australia, the 2001 cousin of the signed magnum offered here will be sold at a private auction on Friday September 20 at 2.30pm.
Serious collectors interested in securing the pair should contact the seller for details no later than Thursday September 19.
All funds raised will be donated to Wishlist on the Sunshine Coast to fund a diversional therapy program for kids in the Nambour Hospital Children’s Ward.
http://malbrough.com.au/bids-flow-for-bottle-of-grange-signed-by-every-living-pm/
Kaye …. part of your comment 2;22 pm ….
“Another two computers have been seized from Siggs but it may take police up to 18 months to download material from them.”
That comment came from the smh link you provided. I cannot believe for one moment, that it would take 18 months to uncover and download material from ANY computer.
UNLESS, that is there is corruption also going on within the offices of the protectors of our law and order at a Federal level.
I say that, because I have often wondered about it before.
Nobody knows just HOW FAR this Governments’ corruption, hypocricy and underhandedness really does stretch … ….
Ref: the Grange. THAT is bi-partisan. Even from old and ancient ex Prime Ministers – amounts to the same.
A very good thing. ( for once ).
p.s. Wonder how much the Grange will go for at auction – anyone in a betting mood here ??? !! 😉
Anne,
Whilst I applaud raising money for charity, Brough’s connections to the Sunshine Coast make it look like another example of pork-barrelling.
good one ann, the way the ruperts and the rabbotts of the world work is by selecting zealots who fall over backwards to repay favours. They are already corrupted(in a program sense) by their special status. Very quickly any sense of fair dealing is replaced with pragmatic decisions allowing justification lies to flow easy. Corruption, once justified, is a cancer. We have a petty, vindictive nastyman leading the government and we deserve him. We do not deserve the zealots. Pyne, morrison, andrews, hockey, copper turnbull, a bishop and the lady in waiting with an appropriate handle ‘michaelia cash’ are a blight on Australia. Sadly with no opposition leader with the ire of Albanese, we have no choice but to wait them out.