Category: State
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – IMF “trained” journalists on Greek crisis coverage
Journalists covering the Greek crisis were briefed at IMF seminars to give the bankers’ view in their reports from Athens. Panayiotis Roumeliotis, the former Greek delegate to the IMF, made the accusations in evidence to MPs sparking a media scandal of far-reaching proportions. ESIEA, the Athens journalists’ association, has launched an investigation into the corruption…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Please, don’t erect a shrine in Martin Place
I walked through Sydney’s Martin Place on Wednesday, June 3, the day after vandals smashed windows of the Lindt Café, the scene of the fatal siege last December. The footpath was crowded with television cameras, photographers, tourists and rubber-neckers. People were taking “selfies” with the café as a backdrop. In their own way, so was…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Stench of cover-up from Lindt inquest
Stage management of the coronial inquest into the Lindt café siege broke down in spectacular fashion this week with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions scrambling to ban publication of embarrassing evidence. The DPP wants to suppress evidence of why the siege gunman Man Haron Monis was on bail on serious criminal charges when he…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Oz Greens step into the mainstream
“The fix was in” when Dr Richard Di Natale was elected unanimously as the new Greens leader. The resignation of Christine Milne was sprung on the party’s Canberra representatives this week. It succeeded in sidelining deputy leader Adam Bandt, the Melbourne MHR who had been expected to succeed Milne. But to the Tasmanian Greens, i.e.…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Only a Royal Commission will tell who’s got Bali blood on their hands
A royal commission remains the only way to establish the facts about the complicity of John Howard’s security committee, the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and ASIS in the arrest the Bali Nine drug smugglers and this week’s execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Senator Nick Xenophon’s well-meaning parliamentary committee inquiry should not become an…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – ANZAC spirit tainted by Abbott and greed
Politicians, the media, the RSL and the military lobby have kicked an own goal. Incredibly, they have managed to tarnish the Anzac legend and turn off a large number of Australians. How did they do it? By crassly politicising the event and grossly commercialising it. The Abbott Government invested some $200 million in the 100th…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Why “star” MPs can be unpredictable disaster
NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley is rarely photographed without Jodi McKay at his side. She is the ex-TV host who has just won the seat of Strathfield after being parachuted into Sydney’s inner-west by Foley himself. Ms McKay is channelling the role which Cheryl Kernot once played for federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley. He would…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – How the old aged pension became a rich bastard’s rort
Out to lunch in the Tweed Valley last year I was astonished to learn from my fellow lunchers that everyone at the table, except me, was receiving the old age pension. All were of a mature age, over 65, and had completed their full-time working lives. But all had swish homes or apartments, gleaming upmarket…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Mad Monk is on death row with execution date pending
Tony Abbott will remain prime minister until after the NSW election on March 28, Anzac commemorations at Gallipoli Cove on April 25 and his second federal Budget in May. Then all bets are off. His survival is directly linked to this week’s poll which tested public opinion on federal Liberal leadership. Malcolm Turnbull easily topped…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Abbott is channelling President George Bush
Who’s speaking here? “We are a free and fair nation. But that doesn’t mean we should let bad people play for us for mugs, and all too often they have. Well, that’s going to stop.” Amazingly, it was the Mad Monk speaking during his weekly broadcast, a PR concept he’s borrowed from the White House.…