Category: Australia
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Abe Saffron had a little mate at ASIO headquarters
BOOK REVIEW Abe Saffron, the king of Sydney’s vice rackets, had a long friendship with Dudley Doherty, a top spy with the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Doherty used his accountancy skills to draw up a false set of books for Saffron’s racketeering to evade taxation, a criminal offence. They went to brothels together, shared…
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Undertakers are ready to bury NSW premiership
Watching life ebb from the premiership of Gladys Berejiklian requires a strong stomach because it is a most terrible experience, rather like seeing someone running out of breath. After keeping a daily record of the scandals raining down on her political career, the question keeps surfacing: “Why does she do it? Why hang around while…
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Sea of scandal ends Premier’s career
Is Gladys Berejiklian waving? No, she’s drowning. Her premiership has been struck amidships by a tidal wave of scandal. She can run fast but history shows that the scandals, once they start, will run even faster. In this hyper-charged environment, leaking and back-stabbing take over over from loyalty and obedience. You won’t find integrity among…
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Premier launches goodwill tour to say Bye-bye
Every departing politician wants to leave office with three things: dignity, their legacy intact and making a point of principle, and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is no exception. Ms Berejiklian is behaving like a Premier on the way out and not one who wants to hang around. This week she went to the NSW South Coast…
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Scandal spoils Premier Gladys’s farewell party
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Opposition Leader Jodi McKay slugged it out in Parliament House this week as if their political futures depended on it. Both NSW political leaders want to deliver a knock-out punch. All observers agree that they are on the ropes and that neither can last the course. The Coalition has lost…
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Unruly scenes as removalists arrive for Premier Gladys
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is publicly pretending that she is not leaving in March but privately she has already walked off the job. Meanwhile, her Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, has elbowed her out of the way and is behaving as if he has been sworn in as the State’s 46th Premier. In the polls, Empress Gladys…
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Bye bye Premier Gladys – it’s time to go
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has had enough. She plans to leave the premiership in March hoping that her political legacy is in reasonable nick despite her personal reputation being in tatters. As Transport Minister, Treasurer and then Premier, Berejiklian was the hardest working Minister in the Coalition Government. There was not a skerrick of scandal attached to her…
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Alex Mitchell’s Notebook
Murdoch-free current affairs, free of charge, with independent opinion: Donald Trump reflects America’s madness; Queensland Premier versus Rupert Murdoch; Edna Ryan, trail-blazing feminist and socialist, remembered; Labor’s right-wing salutes Susan Ryan (no relation whatsoever to Edna Ryan); Pages from history: attempted assassination of Arthur Calwell recalled by Bob Gould and Wayne Haylen; plus Quotes of the…
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Alex Mitchell’s Notebook
Stay indoors, practice social-isolation and wear a mask when you go outside. But please read independent (non-Murdoch) current affairs and stay informed. It’s FREE. No paywall. This edition’s menu: Scott Morrison rewards his maaates with gongs; ABC ratings go sky high; Noam Chomsky on climate change and Black Lives Matter; List of unwanted words; my…
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The Dismissal papers remain locked up
Stay isolated, stay indoors and wear a mask when you go outside. But stay informed by reading this exclusive menu of important current affairs: Why Buck House documents on Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s Dismissal in 1975 remain under lock and key; US President Trump weaponises COVID-19 and militarises America; Gun sales soar in America; NSW…