Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 3:38 pm

Jim05 wrote:
tipper wrote:
not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new

Exactly.
I find it funny how people always think the other side would’ve been any better


I find it funny that people always use that as an excuse to never hold anyone to account.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jim05 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:01 pm

Q. wrote:
Jim05 wrote:
tipper wrote:
not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new

Exactly.
I find it funny how people always think the other side would’ve been any better


I find it funny that people always use that as an excuse to never hold anyone to account.

Everyone should be accountable regardless of the party but we all know this shit happens regardless of who is elected and nothing ever changes.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:03 pm

Jim05 wrote:
Q. wrote:
Jim05 wrote:
tipper wrote:
not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new

Exactly.
I find it funny how people always think the other side would’ve been any better


I find it funny that people always use that as an excuse to never hold anyone to account.

Everyone should be accountable regardless of the party but we all know this shit happens regardless of who is elected and nothing ever changes.


Nothing changes for a reason.

A federal ICAC would be a good start and we should all be demanding it regardless of who we voted for.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Booney » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:04 pm

Jim05 wrote:
Q. wrote:
Jim05 wrote:
tipper wrote:
not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new

Exactly.
I find it funny how people always think the other side would’ve been any better


I find it funny that people always use that as an excuse to never hold anyone to account.

Everyone should be accountable regardless of the party but we all know this shit happens regardless of who is elected and nothing ever changes.


I can't see how you can say this for this isolated incident currently in the spotlight.

If you're generalising then yes, they're all ******* rabbits. I agree.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:06 pm

tipper wrote:
Booney wrote:
Dutchy wrote:Do we know for sure he is in Hawaii? Surely the media would have got a photo by now?

Im not saying he shouldn't be here, but I think we are all getting a little bit outraged about anything currently.


For mine it looks worse because the pressure he's under. The fires in NSW, the budget being torn to pieces, the economy stalling, now's the time to roll up the sleeves, not the put the out of office on.


personally, after he critiscised others for going to dinner during the black saturday bushfires, his disappearing act is massively hypocritical. and going away without any announcement shows he absolutely knows its terrible timing

not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new


Murdoch hacks like Albrechtsen were pretty quick to condemn Christine Nixon - I wonder if they'll be doing to same to ScoMo in their columns tomorrow?
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby tipper » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:10 pm

Q. wrote:
tipper wrote:
Booney wrote:
Dutchy wrote:Do we know for sure he is in Hawaii? Surely the media would have got a photo by now?

Im not saying he shouldn't be here, but I think we are all getting a little bit outraged about anything currently.


For mine it looks worse because the pressure he's under. The fires in NSW, the budget being torn to pieces, the economy stalling, now's the time to roll up the sleeves, not the put the out of office on.


personally, after he critiscised others for going to dinner during the black saturday bushfires, his disappearing act is massively hypocritical. and going away without any announcement shows he absolutely knows its terrible timing

not that hypocrisy from our politicians is anything new


Murdoch hacks like Albrechtsen were pretty quick to condemn Christine Nixon - I wonder if they'll be doing to same to ScoMo in their columns tomorrow?


well it has been rumoured he was out of the country for a few days now, and it was confirmed yesterday, so the papers have had plenty of time to get stuck in already, so i wont be holding my breath.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Trader » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:11 pm

Ok, so new rules, people over 50 cant vote on environmental issues as they won't be around much longer.
People under 35 can't vote on economic grounds, cause they've never lived through an recession.
Oh, and the plebiscite is now invalid cause 85% of people who voted aren't gay.
And the guy in the pub watching the cricket can't comment on warner cause he's never played test cricket.
etc.
Danny Southern telling Plugga he's fat, I'd like to see that!
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jimmy_041 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:18 pm

Indeed, Dastyari wasn't charged or convicted because accepting the donation was within the rules.

Was Angus Taylor funneling 80mil of taxpayer money, for water that never existed, into a Cayman's Island account within the rules?


Is that all Dastyari did? All this other stuff is bollocks? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-12/sam-dastyari-resigns-from-parliament/9247390

I have no idea whether what Taylor did is within the rules. I dont know what the "rules" are and don't care.
I will say it again: Why hasn't he been charged with fraud considering the impeccable evidence against him from credible journalists?

Your comment was:
Funny that you've been quiet regarding Angus Taylor's corruption

1. I didn't know about it. I only read the AFR these days. So, in a effort to be enlighted, I conducted a simple search and found this: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/did-activists-push-the-media-into-fake-news-over-watergate-20190430-p51ilg Gee; who would have thought Alex Turnbull and Holmes a Court were involved. Then, chuck in Mike Carlton (hopefully before noon), Barry Cassidy, Peter Fitzsimons, The Project and the Guardian. **** me - credible to whom? I admit, I have never heard of Michael West. Have now. Credible? You may think so. I've wasted 5 minutes reading about him.
2. Is it corruption before being proven guilty? Let me know when he's been charged, and found guilty, with dishonesty or fraud and I'll make some really loud noises.

I'll post the AFR piece separately in case its paywalled
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby tipper » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:20 pm

Q. wrote:
Nothing changes for a reason.

A federal ICAC would be a good start and we should all be demanding it regardless of who we voted for.


i see no problem with running a federal ICAC.

just like they say every time the pollies bring in some invasive law for us plebs, if they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby mighty_tiger_79 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:20 pm

From a centralist viewpoint.

ScoMo is entitled to holidays

However

In this current climate where his state is suffering severe Bushfires, it would have been nice for him to have perhaps cancelled holidays or atleast offered some significant assistance before quietly slipping away.
Matty Wade is a star and deserves more respect from the forum family!
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jimmy_041 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:22 pm

Did activists push the media into fake news over 'Watergate'?

Aaron Patrick
Senior Correspondent
May 2, 2019 — 11.37pm

In a younger era, Angus Taylor could have killed the story with a few phone calls to the top political journalists or newspaper editors.

This time, the ambitious energy minister was hit by an impossible-to-control force more dangerous and unpredictable than journalists on the hunt for a big news break: a social media campaign to portray him as corrupt.

Propelled by the most evocative phrase in political journalism, #Watergate may be the first major story of a federal election driven by Twitter – and based on innuendo and tenuous links that would – and did – cause experienced editors to pause before publishing, at least until the story was too big to ignore.

The week before the Easter break, an anonymous Twitter account described, in the pacey style of a BuzzFeed article, the purchase of the Kia Ora and Clyde cotton farms in outback Queensland in 2007 by Eastern Australia Agriculture. An economist, management consultant and agricultural expert, Taylor advised on the deal, and later disclosed his connection on an official CV.

A decade later the farms' owner sold water rights to the federal government for $79 million, a transaction the anonymous Twitter post implied was linked to Taylor's political relationship with the water minister at the time, Barnaby Joyce.

An anonymous Twitter post implied the water rights transaction was linked to Taylor's political relationship with the then water minister, Barnaby Joyce. David Rowe

From the start Taylor has denied the post's main inference – which was energetically seized upon in the Twitter universe – that he was a financial beneficiary of the water sale.

No new facts
A loose alliance of Taylor opponents and pro-independent campaigners pushed the #watergate story, including Alex Turnbull, the son of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was responsible for the introduction of the national water plan in 2007 when he was environment minister.


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Turnbull was joined by his frequent Twitter ally and long-time Taylor detractor Simon Holmes a Court, and two former Sydney Morning Herald journalists, Michael West, who specialises in business investigations and was a contractor to the anti-Coalition group GetUp, and Margo Kingston, an online campaigner for independents, including Dr Kerryn Phelps in Turnbull's old seat of Wentworth.

Through hundreds of posts, the campaign built enough momentum to break the story out of its Twitter home and into newspapers and on to televisions screens. A story that contained no new facts, and may have been based on a false premise, was turned into a national story.

What Taylor privately refers to as "fake news" has damaged his reputation, aided his political opponents, and caused pain and embarrassment to his family, who include a brother at McKinsey, another brother who is a farmer, and his wife, lawyer Louise Clegg.

The story could have long-term consequences for the Liberal Party. In March Michael Photios, an influential member of the NSW division, told Taylor's wife, in the presence of a reporter, that he considered Taylor one of several leading candidates who might have the skills to eventually take over the party's leadership.

Awkward questions
The story has led Taylor to adopt a lower profile in the election campaign, making it harder for him to attack the economic cost of the Labor Party's climate change plans. An ABC radio interview on Thursday morning about modelling of the policy led to an awkward question about the Cayman Islands.

Information about the water purchase wasn't hard to find if you had been following the story.

Taylor received a consulting fee for helping the future owners of Kia Ora and Clyde buy the farms, according to sources familiar with the transactions. But holding secret shares or receiving money from the water sale would have not only been a serious breach of parliamentary disclosure rules but might have made Taylor constitutionally ineligible to be an MP.

"I haven't had any interest in the company in any form, nor did my family members," Taylor says in an interview. "I concluded any relationship with the company before I was elected to Parliament."

No person, anonymous or otherwise, has produced evidence that Taylor holds secret shares in Eastern Australia Agriculture or its Cayman Islands parent. Even those calling for a royal commission don't assert Taylor is not telling the truth.

Anonymous information
"No, I don't think he has been involved in this company," says Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick, who has been investigating water buybacks for 18 months. "He would be pretty foolish to be in a situation where he holds shares in the company and has told the media he hasn't and has told the Parliament he hasn't."

Journalists have always relied on anonymous sources. But media outlets almost never publish information from sources they don't know the identity of. Watergate changed traditional news rules.

The original post, on April 10 or 11, was made on Twitter by an account named Ronni Salt, or Ms Veruca, an apparent reference to the spoiled factory owner's daughter, Veruca Salt, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Ronni Salt credited research from another anonymous account, Jommy Tee, who has identified himself as a 55-year-old former public servant with an interest in water policy.

"I started doing some research on a specific water issue, and then went down a rabbit hole that led to watergate," a person who controls the Jommy Tee account says.

"I contacted some journos but got no real traction. I then made contact with Ronni Salt on Twitter. We developed a strategy to eke out information via Twitter threads, and see where it'd go.

"Some independent journos [Michael West and others] were quick off the mark to make contact and the momentum started to build."


Mike Carlton
@MikeCarlton01
Thanks for that, Angus. Very helpful. But is there anything you’d like to add about #watergate, the Cayman Islands, $80,000,000 etc ? Take your time, we’ll wait. https://twitter.com/AngusTaylorMP/statu ... 3082445824

Angus Taylor MP

@AngusTaylorMP
“Bill Shorten and Labor’s car tax will see a host of popular vehicles and engines Australians want stripped away from them” #auspol #ausvotes https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/ ... ec7298feb9

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One of the media outlets that saw the post was the Sydney Morning Herald, where it circulated among senior editors on April 11. The paper would pick up the story 11 days later.

Information about the water purchase wasn't hard to find if you had been following the story, and those who had were surprised, and a little miffed, when a couple of anonymous Twitter accounts got all the credit.

Year-old story
In February 2018, Senator Patrick from South Australia had obtained some 60 megabytes of partially redacted documents from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. His parliamentary colleague, Rebekha Sharkie, conducted a companies search, according to Patrick, and found out that Eastern Australia Agriculture's parent was registered in the Cayman Islands, which is not uncommon for investment companies. The Adelaide Advertiser reported on the Caribbean connection a year ago.

The files were placed on the parliamentary website, and the Australia Institute found that the water rights had been bought at the highest price ever, and the water would likely only be available during floods. The left-wing think tank published a critical analysis of the sale, which was reported by media outlets last March.

"This Jommy Tee person took our work and wrote it up differently and gave it to Ronni Salt like it was a brand new thing without acknowledging it was our work," says Maryanne Slattery, a senior water researcher at the Australia Institute.

"It was really annoying. We had done all the research on this, working with Rex Patrick and getting Senate Estimates questions up. We didn't draw the links with Angus Taylor but we knew about them. You just had to do a Google search and see."


What Angus Taylor privately refers to as "fake news" has damaged his reputation, aided his political opponents, and caused pain and embarrassment to his family. Nine

Taylor has never tried to hide his work for Eastern Australian Agriculture, whose main shareholder disclosed to the London Stock Exchange last January the business was "able to negotiate the price for the water entitlements to the highest level ever paid".

Critics complained the price was too high and the purchase wouldn't reduce the amount of cotton that could be grown. "Either there is low-level corruption or incompetence," says Slattery.

A reporter on the Guardian newspaper, Anne Davies, was also working on the story. With the help of Patrick, a former navy technician, Davies began raising questions about the value of the water purchased by the government. Patrick even said he would consider making a speech in the Senate detailing information Davies had found if she was unable to obtain legal clearance to publish by the Guardian.

"We've been trying to get the issue discussed in the public arena but it took a far more salacious version on Twitter to capture everyone's attention," Davies says.

The Ronni Salt post, which described Taylor as "Mr X" before revealing his identity in the last line, portrayed the cabinet minister as the architect of a covert scheme to exploit the government.

Accounts belonging to West and Kingston both retweeted the post, prompting Taylor to threaten them with legal action for "the defamatory imputation that our client has acted corruptly".

They deleted the retweets, but it was pointless. Alex Turnbull and Simon Holmes a Court fanned the "watergate" story across Twitter, tapping into thousands of followers who enjoyed their daily sarcastic and colourful observations about politics and the Coalition.

(Neither man would take questions for this article. Both have expressed support for an independent candidate running against Taylor in the NSW seat of Hume. Alex Turnbull recently deleted the thousands of tweets he posted before April 25.)


Limited comments
Holmes a Court, whose late father, Robert, tried to buy BHP in the 1980s, convinced thousands of followers to place blue raindrops next to their Twitter handles to symbolise their wish for an official inquiry.

"#watergate is very confronting for so many of us," Holmes a Court tweeted on April 21. "as australians, we really care about water and our regions and we despise all corruption. we like to think we‘re untouched by corruption compared to 'other countries'. #watergate challenges our self-image."

Turnbull accused Taylor of trying to hide his involvement through alterations to his Wikipedia entry. "Guys pour one out for @AngusTaylorMP and his career," Turnbull tweeted. "The digital footprints on his wiki are the end of him."

On the eve of Good Friday, the story broke in to the mainstream. The Channel 10 show The Project broadcast a report by journalist Hamish McDonald and West connecting Taylor with Eastern Australian Agriculture, the expensive water purchase and the Caymans. At the Guardian, Davies had published a similar story two days earlier, but it didn't attract much attention.


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Taylor hadn't given The Project an interview. But he offered some limited comments when asked questions at a press conference the day before. "I have responded to this issue," Taylor said. "There's no basis in fact on some of the claims that have been made and I've no further comment to make on it."


The Project

@theprojecttv
The Government’s been buying up water at record prices, leading to millions of dollars flowing to offshore tax havens. But now, two of our top pollies are facing questions over just who is making a fortune off our water.@HamishNews and @MichaelWestBiz bring you this report

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Twitter erupted. For three days posters bombarded the ABC with demands that the national broadcaster cover "watergate". The term started trending in Australia, which meant it was one of the most popular topics on the social media. (Sources close to Taylor say bots, or automated accounts, were used to inflate interest.) An ABC business reporter, Stephen Long, apologised for not beating The Project to the story.

The purchases were part of a $3.1 billion scheme to shift water from farms to the environmentally degraded Murray-Darling river system. As for the substantive issue – whether the $79 million water purchase was appropriate – the answer was lost in the outraged Twitter maelstrom.

The day after the Project segment, the Agriculture Department complained that McDonald and West's report was inaccurate. The price was struck at the market rate, it said, based on an independent valuation, and was designed to limit the loss of jobs and protect a nature reserve known as the Narran Wetlands near Bourke.

On Saturday morning ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy tweeted the Project segment to his 131,000 followers. "This is important," he wrote. The following day he interviewed Patrick on the show. Patrick called for a royal commission into the water buybacks.

The call wasn't new. It was standing Centre Alliance policy. But it gave the rest of the media a simple and obvious way to pick up the story. The next morning the ABC television news was reporting on "watergate", a word every journalist knows invokes the corruption of Richard Nixon.

Front-page news
Versions of the story would appear on the front pages of the Border Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald (which had originally passed on the story), the Age, and the Herald Sun, which reported on publicly disclosed political donations from Eastern Australia Agriculture to the Coalition six years ago.

The Daily Telegraph and other News Corp papers would even link Taylor to a nuclear weapons program. They reported Eastern Australia Agriculture's legal parent is registered at the same Caymans corporate office – along with presumably thousands of other companies – as an investment fund accused of trying to bust anti-proliferation sanctions on Iran.


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On April 23, Holmes a Court tweeted: "i agree that twitter is a smallish bubble, but we've reached the point where #watergate has jumped the confines of twitter and has become a major national issue."

Desperate to staunch the story, that day Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred all water purchases since 2008 to the federal auditor general for review.

It wasn't the first. South Australia had already conducted a royal commission into the Murray-Darling River system. There had been a Senate inquiry, a review by the Productivity Commission, an earlier review by the National Audit Office, an investigation into water theft by the NSW ombudsman, and one by Ken Matthews, a former senior public servant. The Murray Darling Basin Authority reviewed itself.

The story might have finally died there, but for Sun-Herald columnist and author Peter Fitzsimons, whose wife, Lisa Wilkinson, co-hosts The Project. Last Sunday Fitzsimons – another supporter of independent political candidates – published an account of an interview with Ronni Salt, whom he wrote "will never identify herself publicly, nor her Deep Throat – not even to me".

"Late on the night of releasing it all on Twitter, knowing it was out there and copies would have been made, and that powerful forces wanted her shut down, she deleted the thread and deactivated her own account," Fitzsimons wrote.

"I repeat: this is a very strange tale, a complicated saga. And it needs, urgently, more light. A large part of the complication is Taylor declining to give a full and frank account of the whole thing."

"Deep throat" and Ronni Salt communicated through an untraceable phone system called Signal, according to Fitzsimons. The source disguised their voice too, he wrote.

The source appears to be the self-identified ex-public servant who answered questions from The Australian Financial Review but wouldn't reveal his or her identity.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jimmy_041 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:25 pm

and it all gets back to Twitter.
Both Turnbull and Holmes a Court are very lucky that their parents made lots of money so they can sit on Twitter all day talking $hite.
If Boomers are so bad then trust fund kids are effing worse!
I don't bother to read what either of these twits think.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jimmy_041 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:30 pm

Taylor didn't invest in 'Watergate' farms: law firm

Aaron Patrick
Senior Correspondent
May 3, 2019 — 3.02pm

The law firm representing the company at the centre of the ''Watergate'' story over water buybacks said Energy Minister Angus Taylor had never been an investor and didn't get a cut from an expensive water sale.

Ashhurst issued a written statement on behalf of Eastern Australian Irrigation, the Cayman Islands farm investor Mr Taylor helped established that sold $79 million of water rights to the Coalition government.

Opponents of Mr Taylor have mounted a Twitter campaign that suggests he may have been a secret financial beneficiary of the sale, which was signed off by then agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce in 2017, four years after Mr Taylor became an MP.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor helped purchase the Clyde and Kia Ora farms. Alex Ellinghausen

Ashurst said it had been told by the company, which bought the near-bankrupt Clyde and Kia Ora cotton farms in Queensland in 2008, that Mr Taylor was one of its directors but ended his involvement in 2012. It said he had never been an investor either.

"The board of our client confirms for the record that neither Angus Taylor nor any member of his family had any financial interest in EAI or any associated company," Ashurst said.

"We are further instructed that he has not received any benefit of any kind for the sale of any water or land owned by EAI or any associated company and we are not aware of any matter which would cause us to doubt the accuracy of these instructions."

Mr Taylor, who has previously denied investing in the company, said he did not want to add anything to the Ashurst statement. Ashurst was responsible for setting up the corporate entities to own the farms while Mr Taylor found the farms, valued them and wrote a plan to make them profitable, according to a person involved in the business.

#Watergate
Using the hashtag ''Watergate'', political activists and others have promoted the story that the water purchase may have been illegitimate because it was the highest price ever paid, and was for ''overland'' water only available from heavy rain or floods.

"Either there is low-level corruption or incompetence," said Maryanne Slattery, a senior water researcher at the Australia Institute, this week.

Eastern Australian Irrigation recently agreed to sell the farms to a Canadian superannuation fund, according to a person familiar with the deal.

The Twitter campaign was driven by several activists who support independent political candidates challenging Liberal MPs, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's son, Alex Turnbull, mining heir Simon Holmes à Court, and former Sydney Morning Herald journalist Margo Kingston.

On Friday Twitter contained hundreds of tweets from people responding to an article in The Australian Financial Review detailing how the campaign used previously published information, some as old as one year, to inject the story into the election campaign.

"AFR reports Barnaby oversaw $80m to Taylor's old Cayman company for near-useless water rights!" tweeted Roderick Campbell, the research director at the Australia Institute, a left-wing think tank. "I think that's what newshound Aaaron Patrick meant to write, anyway."

There have been several inquiries into water in the Murray Darling Basin, which received $8.5 billion from the federal government between 2010 and 2018.

A study by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists said there had been no increase in water flowing through the rivers despite the huge expenditure.


I'm done. No need to read anything else about it, especially from "credible journalists"

Let me know when he gets charged and I'll take notice again
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:36 pm

Michael West is a respected Walkley Award-winning journalist.

Anthony Klan also picked up the story in The Australian, but had his substantial findings spiked by the paper in the lead-up to the election.

Of course you're happy to ignore the corruption of one of your own - I mean it's not the only scandal that has followed Taylor.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Jimmy_041 » Wed Dec 18, 2019 5:16 pm

Q. wrote:Michael West is a respected Walkley Award-winning journalist.

Anthony Klan also picked up the story in The Australian, but had his substantial findings spiked by the paper in the lead-up to the election.

Of course you're happy to ignore the corruption of one of your own - I mean it's not the only scandal that has followed Taylor.


I’ll tell you what I’ll do to settle this one and for all.
I’ll send him a copy of this transcript together with your details.
When he sues you for defamation, you’ll both get your day in Court.
I’m the meantime, I’ll choose to ignore it because I have little regard for online trolls like Turnbull and Holmes A Court.
I do have regard for what the AFR say. You obviously choose to ignore that because they must be biased (sorry: one of their own) as well.

Gotta go.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 5:27 pm

Jimmy_041 wrote:
Q. wrote:Michael West is a respected Walkley Award-winning journalist.

Anthony Klan also picked up the story in The Australian, but had his substantial findings spiked by the paper in the lead-up to the election.

Of course you're happy to ignore the corruption of one of your own - I mean it's not the only scandal that has followed Taylor.


I’ll tell you what I’ll do to settle this one and for all.
I’ll send him a copy of this transcript together with your details.
When he sues you for defamation, you’ll both get your day in Court.
I’m the meantime, I’ll choose to ignore it because I have little regard for online trolls like Turnbull and Holmes A Court.
I do have regard for what the AFR say. You obviously choose to ignore that because they must be biased (sorry: one of their own) as well.

Gotta go.


Why hasn't he sued for defamation already? I mean, if it's all over Twitter already, as outlined in the two AFR puff pieces (one of which was basically a press release from lawyers dressed up as journalism), why hasn't he sued relevant parties for defamation? It's because the claims would have to be proven false and everything would go on record in court.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Wed Dec 18, 2019 5:28 pm

But thanks for the threat on behalf of Mr Taylor. They must be paying you well to astroturf this forum.
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby stan » Thu Dec 19, 2019 12:52 pm

Jimmy_041 wrote:
Q. wrote:Michael West is a respected Walkley Award-winning journalist.

Anthony Klan also picked up the story in The Australian, but had his substantial findings spiked by the paper in the lead-up to the election.

Of course you're happy to ignore the corruption of one of your own - I mean it's not the only scandal that has followed Taylor.


I’ll tell you what I’ll do to settle this one and for all.
I’ll send him a copy of this transcript together with your details.
When he sues you for defamation, you’ll both get your day in Court.
I’m the meantime, I’ll choose to ignore it because I have little regard for online trolls like Turnbull and Holmes A Court.
I do have regard for what the AFR say. You obviously choose to ignore that because they must be biased (sorry: one of their own) as well.

Gotta go.
I must say this is the best thing on the internet right now hahah
Read my reply. It is directed at you because you have double standards
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby stan » Thu Dec 19, 2019 12:54 pm

Unemployment down to an average of 5.2% across the nation.

However the economy is slowing and economic growth forecasts were decreased.

I'll find SAs figures and post them here for the fruitful discussion.
Read my reply. It is directed at you because you have double standards
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Re: Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

Postby Q. » Thu Dec 19, 2019 3:37 pm

stan wrote:Unemployment down to an average of 5.2% across the nation.

However the economy is slowing and economic growth forecasts were decreased.

I'll find SAs figures and post them here for the fruitful discussion.


Ongoing wage stagnation will lead to another rate cut.
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