- Hark's Barks
- Australia shamed by Ruddock
- Rotting teeth to extract Howard
- Pell Pot takes Sydney, Melbourne rejoices
- A genuine step for mankind
- A fair dinkum Liberal? One still exists!
- We'll be right ... but they won't
- Is Tony Abbott Australia's Zippy the Pinhead?
- The Adventures of Fang and The Hun
- Buggery schoolboys bugger justice
- Downer drops daks for Dubbya
- A momentary revivification for uncreate John
- Price-line fire sale: Cheap! Jeff for Canberra
- Gothshier mastiff needs restraint
- Michael Moore's Message
Nothing will eternally damn John Howard's Coalition more than it's treatment of illegal immigrants. Not since governments condoned or turned a blind eye to the slaughter of Aborigines or the removal of their children for the purpose of ethnic cleansing, have we seen anything like it. What is now occurring is a systematic breaking down of the will to live of people who endured hell to escape hell only to find themselves at the mercy of the ugliest, hell-born government in Australia's history. The snakes, crocs and sharks Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock warned undesirables about are in reality himself and his colleagues in government.
Through Ruddock, who has the gall to wear an Amnesty International button on his lapel, John Howard has fulfilled his own and One Nation's xenophobic dream. We know that a boat load of white Zimbabweans would be treated with all the ersatz compassion the coalition is capable of. But those from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other troubled countries are neither white nor gentry. They are thus accorded hostility and hatred.
It's as if the Coalition and its supporters were a different species from the rest of us. A species still developing in its comprehension of ethics, morals and conscience. Like the people who lived near Nazi Germany's notorious concentration camps, these people also choose to turn their backs on suffering. Obsessed with efficiency, they shout "queue jumpers!" and want them either returned to their countries of origin for sure executions, or hidden away in barbaric concentration camps run by American owned thugs every bit as evil as the Nazis.
But when these immigrants are at last released from their concentration camps into the wider community with legal status, they are given temporary protection visas and nothing else. No money. No English lessons. No job-seeking aid or settlement support. This is truly hard to fathom. It must surely mean that Philip Ruddock and the Coalition government are not just heartless, but wilfully, evilly so. There can be no other explanation, especially when one hears the lifeless voice of Ruddock defending the indefensible. He speaks with less soul than the blackest hearted Nazi. It is a frightening experience.
Some 563 now-legal immigrants were recently left to their own devices in Victoria alone. The Victorian Government's Community Services Minister Christine Campbell announced a one-off grant of $100,000 to help the refugees, having previously joined local governments and community groups in spending $625,000. Meanwhile the Federal Government does nothing but sneer. Howard knows that the greater part of his supporters approve of this misanthropy. It is the signature of the Coalition and its legacy to Australia's future. What a shameful lot.
Ed. Note: We were mesmerised by John Highfield on The World Today (28/3/01) as he lit into Minister Ruddock for having reacted to the escape of some 11 detainees at Port Hedland by ordering the homes of the detainees visitors to be searched. Highfield's was one of them ... "because of my wife's involvement in social justice issues and concern for children behind the razor wire," he told Ruddock. For a moment we thought Highfield--whom we love to describe as Australia's only Shakespearian news presenter--was going to leap through the telephone and punch Ruddock or order him to resign. It goes to show that the dam is about to burst all over this exceedingly anti-Australian government.
Rotting teeth to extract Howard
Every government going into its final election evokes an image or symbol of the reasons for its demise. For Paul Keating, it was his arrogant fin de régime exhortation to a protestor "get a job". Bob Hawke never recovered from his encounter with the "silly old bugger".
For John Howard it may well be the Commonwealth Dental Health Scheme he so callously and contemptuously cut almost immediately after his election in 1996. Like Kennett before him, he chose the vulnerable to penalise by removing the $100 million subsidy on the grounds that it was the responsibility of states. (One of Kennett's first heartless acts was to remove state funding of a measly $40,000 for the Grey Sisters of Croydon, a home for new mothers suffering severe post-natal depression.)
The issue faded, as we grappled with new cuts and legislative atrocities, until this week. New research may give it the status of an Achilles Heel for the government. As John Kerin reported in The Oz (20/3/01), Adelaide University's dental statistics and research unit says that people aged over 25 are avoiding the expense of dental care until they need their teeth pulled. They are putting up with toothaches, gum disease and tooth decay because public funding is no longer there. As a result of the intentional shortfall of money, public dental waiting lists have blown out to 500,000, with people waiting up to four years for treatment.
Ken Davidson had this to say in The Age (22/3/01), "What is truly despicable is that the abolition of the program was justified by reference to the 'Beazley $8 billion black hole', which was conveniently discovered within days of the 1996 election. If there was a skerrick of truth in that excuse for the mean-minded attack on the oral hygiene of Australia's poorest citizens, it was not possible to justify the decision in the very next year to offer a $2.5 billion bribe to the middle class to abandon Medicare in favour of private health insurance."
A national disgrace? That's our John Howard.
Further Reading: Tooth fairy the only winner as rot sets in
Pell Pot takes Sydney, Melbourne rejoices
Alongside the Pope and thousands of others in the Sadean fraternity of Catholic hierarchs, Archbishop George Pell, is an exemplar of medieval thought and deed. Here is a man of the cloth who refuses to give communion to unrepentent, consenting homosexuals, differentiating them from repentent priests who for so long enjoyed the practice without the consent of their victims. A real spokesman for Jesus is old Pell Pot.
(Speaking of Jesus, it turns out he bears a striking resemblance to comedian Mel Brooks. Or one of Philip Ruddock's illegal immigrants. Refreshing to be rid of the Aryan image so beloved of Jewish-origin deniers.)
Sez Pell: " ... it's only a minority of homosexuals who are irretrievably and inevitably determined in that direction." Pamela Crosthwaite, of Beechworth, Vic, wrote to The Age asking, "Does he have a special message from their Creator that we--ordinary mortals that we are--do not hear?"
Alas, that is the position so many "great men" find themselves in. Whether representing God or the electorate, these men sit on high and, by virtue of this lofty position, presume to control we "ordinary mortals" in our best interests.
It's safe to say that most Labor-voting priests and Catholics dislike his Inquisitorial influence, but the Liberals, at least those who deign to regard Catholics as human, would find it in keeping with their own rigid, plutocratic orthodoxies.
In Pell's defence, Alistair Macrae of the Uniting Church in Victoria, says, "Whether you agreed or disagreed with his position on particular issues, he was clear about what he believed and why."
So was Adolph Hitler.
It took a few hours to sink in.
What I'd heard on PM (while washing the dishes and tending to my daughter's after school famine requirements) sounded too good to be true. Here was a man, whose eight year old daughter was conceived through IVF, not only as happy as Larry that his daughter wanted to know the identity of her biological father, but openly welcoming it. As a result his daughter was as happy as Mary in her pursuit of information.
From now, IVF children will be able to communicate with sperm and egg donors via a voluntary register launched by the Victorian Government and the Infertility Treatment Authority. Parties involved in the IVF process since 1988 can record information which will then be shared with other relevant parties if they both consent.
The compere also must have thought it was too good to be true, because she kept trying to find a hole in the man's reasoning. But no, this was a truly sane, open minded individual who felt neither jealousy nor lack of self esteem over this ground breaking removal of secrecy: the very opposite of those closed-minded, fearful folks who keep trying to shut down human evolution. For centuries, conservatives have been trying to make us afraid of just about everything in life, the sole exception being the drive for more and more money.
The greatest problem for humanity, after male aggression, is secrets. They are based on some form of transgression or other and transgressions are begat of formative years where ignorance is taught wilfully.
It is almost impossible to arrive at adulthood with an even remotely enlightened world view. We carry the baggage from any number of "cookie jars" whose contents, forbidden and desirable, are begging to be opened. Generations of honest sex education, for example, could eventually wipe out the traumas that later send people over the edge. Ethics struggles to find leverage because it is always countered with politically condoned greed. Compassion cannot exist in an atmosphere of conflict over status or race or beliefs. God cannot be on my side if he is not also on your side, and for either of us to claim Her exclusively amounts to treason against our fellows. That religion has been of use in the past to unite scattered peoples is arguable. It has also united them into tribal, other-hating, separateness. Freedom has many responsibilities, and chief among them is to live and let live, but this will never be accomplished until its true meaning is established and the burden of secrecy and it's soul-dwarfing result, fear, is forever wiped from the slate of human consciousness.
Humanity has not really come very far, but this man and his daughter are seeing to it that the road remains clear.
A fair dinkum Liberal? One still exists!
Speaking for a hopefully massive number of disenchanted followers of the Liberal Party, Greg Barns, a Liberal himself, has written a passionate article in The Age (29/3/01).
In it he cites the liberal values espoused by John Locke, Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill, noting that "they are certainly not the mean-spirited, prejudiced, harsh policies such as mandatory sentencing, zero tolerance, inhuman conditions and detention without trial for "illegal immigrants", and attacks on the poor (for example, Minister Abbott's "job snobs" contribution) that have often characterised the record of Liberal or Coalition governments since the Liberal Party veered to the right after 1983."
He goes on to say:
"The political cause of the Liberal Party is a noble one, but we have often subverted its value system by pandering to the politics of extremism and fashionable right-wing rhetoric, generally emanating from the United States or Britain. We have been guilty of not leading, looking as though we are buffeted from day to day by the nonsensical and illogical ravings and peculiar prejudices of "shock-jocks" such as Alan Jones.
"We pursue a policy of mutual obligation - a liberal value - but allow ministers such as Tony Abbott to dress it up as a case of "getting the bludgers" to work and stopping all those "rorting single mothers".
"We roll out the red carpet for migrants with wealth and skills, but lock away in the harsh interior of our land those who come to this country as victims of inhumanity and persecution in their own country.
"This is not the liberal way - it is a political value system more akin to America's Deep South in the 1930s.
"We must reclaim those who are disinterested and who have retreated from civic engagement - Labor has no monopoly on these people. We could do worse than start by showing leadership on two totemic issues - the republic and reconciliation."
Great words coming from a Liberal. Ian MacPhee be proud! That the party was hijacked by that unconscionable economics faddist, John Howard, is indisputable. Unless it is to die a horrible death, his influence must be eradicated, but I fear the cancer has permeated it forever.
Barns' article in SCATT
Barns' article in The Age
We'll be right ... but they won't
These days Tim Costello is regarded as the brother of Peter Costello. In the old days, Peter was Tim's brother. Follow me? No? What I mean is, when Tim Costello praises the Federal Government's intention to ban domestic internet gambling but says nothing about Australia being used as a safe haven for gambling sites to export the curse to the rest of the world, then he is acting as the brother of influential Peter.
In the old days, as influential brother Tim, he would have advised the government to go back to the drawing board or forget it. He wouldn't have liked the idea of making Australians safe while playing spider to the fly with foreigners.
Be that as it may, the government appears once again to have favoured Kerry Packer, who stands to benefit as owner of a Tasmanian licence for an online casino for offshore players. And anyway, the Howard Government doesn't give a shit for foreigners, as is evident by their every move.
Basically, we're looking at the Internet porn ban in gambler's duds. Useless, ignorant legislation meant solely to get the wowser vote. If the government were really serious, they would start ripping out pokies in the bleeding backwaters and desolate, windswept suburbs and confine all gambling to existing casinos.
With the exception of Tattslotto, of course. Our numbers are getting hot here at PPF headquarters. All we've got to do is get the numbers that keep coming up here and there to form a lovely little line, all together now!
Is Tony Abbott Australia's Zippy the Pinhead?
Paul Keating said: "The thing about Mr Howard is that he's got all the vision of Mr Magoo but none of the good intentions."
Tony "Fang" Abbott (left), on the other hand, reminds me a lot of Zippy the Pinhead, but without Zippy's existential inquiry into the law of unintended consequences.
Editors must love to receive Abbott's regular contributions to foot in mouth disease. They must chortle at the unintended consequences of his pronouncements on the gratitude battlers should feel towards the government for degrading their lifestyles and the doublespeak Stalinist slogans used to glorify the degradation.
As proof of the fun they are having, The Oz has headlined his latest rant, "Don't bleat, take your medicine." Abbott lambasts the Australian penchant for "roonism", as penned by John O'Brien in his poem Said Hanrahan, in which "a group of bush parishioners lamenting a world where fire, flood, drought, bad seasons or the banks would surely do them in: 'We'll all be rooned, said Hanrahan, before the year is out.' The only non-contemporary feature of this 1921 cameo is its characters' sense of stoicism about the perils of country life."
Does Abbot want us to be "stoic" about his government's dreadful anti-social policies? Sorry, Fang, stoicism is for the unimaginative. It may have worked in the formative era of the human race, but since civilisation arrived, we would rather bleat about the effects of bad government or invading tyrannies than sit back and take it like good boy and girl stoics.
"A visitor familiar with our traditional readiness to offer the benefit of the doubt might wonder why it no longer applies to anyone in authority or why the price of petrol or the quantity of form-filling should excite so much more anti-government indignation here than in other countries with similar difficulties."
This is pure Fang. Why would a visitor be familiar with our readiness to offer the benefit of the doubt, when all they hear abroad is how isolationist and racist we have become under his government? And where does he get his information about no one abroad caring about petrol prices and the horrors of bureaucracy? Finally, Abbott may be surprised, living in a closed circuit world as he does, that a good half of the world's population does not give authority the benefit of the doubt. Even when they have to keep it to themselves.
"In fact, Australian roonism gains its present momentum from a strange alliance between the economically vulnerable and a commentariat that would like nothing better than the destruction of the Howard Government."
Of course he means the centre-left "commentariat," of which, in keeping with his Stalinist tendencies, he would like to silence. If not by legislation then by lies and fear. He certainly has no complaint with government policy spruikers the likes of Piers Akerman. Padriac McGuinness. Stan Zemanek, Alan Jones and Christopher Pearson.
Like a bewildered tyrant approaching the guillotine, Fang will never understand consciously what he knows deep down.
"There is no fundamental community of interest between the battlers whose resentment has been channelled against the government and the elites barracking for a Beazley victory." (all italics ours)
Here he echoes John Howard in claiming that the electorate is too stupid to think for themselves and have consequently been led by a Labor party that mysteriously has had no history of engagement with them. Is this hubris which knows no bounds?
"Politicians in a democracy never set out to punish the electorate. If the government occasionally projects an image of wanting people to take their medicine, it's because the alternative to economic reform is even greater pain."
The Liberal Party under John Howard is nothing if not a party of straiteners and punishers bent on reform at all costs. Worse it's reform based on nothing but an economic fad.
"... it's also important for governments to lead as well as follow public opinion, and to give voters what they need as well as what they want."
John Howard's only evidence of leadership was compromised by his fearful little flak jacket and in conjoining us to follow him in his "great tax adventure." Since then he has consulted private polling and talkback for every move. And it only follows that the most paternalistic government in recent history would know what we "need" more than we do. Forget about what we want. Good government? Don't bother 'em.
"Our task is now is to demonstrate that we can handle the moral deficit as well as the budget deficit and to explain how economics serves society rather than the other way around."
Good luck, Fang. Economics has never served society and never will. And it's interesting to note that the government has changed it's wording from selling to explaining.
"Perhaps what an unhappy citizenry most wants is no longer to be taken for mugs."
As John Howard called us in Parliament. The only solution to that is a change of government, Fang.
Look, I just grabbed a few lines from Fang's speech to the Sydney Institute. Every sentence is worthy of comment. And you may wonder why I'm devoting all these column kilobytes to the words of such a silly man. But now that Peter The Jerk and Peter The Gunsel are about to be tarred and feathered by small business and workers respectively, that leaves Fang as the sole survivor to take over the leadership of the Liberal Party. Once John Howard is run out of town on a rail, that is. Indeed, Abbott is just the man for the job, a fitting final leader of a political party that, in the final analysis, was the one man band of Sir Robert Menzies.
Fang and The Hun in:
"What they don't have is good for them"
Amanda "The Hun" Vanstone: "John Howard is our most female-friendly PM ever, isn't that right, Tony?
Tony "Fang" Abbott: "It sure is Amanda ... I mean, John sure is. And those elites barracking for a Beazley victory by telling lies about us sure aren't representative of our side of elitism. We're the elites that batter ... uh, matter."
The Hun: "It just makes you sick that even after we closed 400 child-care centres in Labor strongholds, they still think we don't like them. Nothing could be further from the truth. We hate them."
Fang: "Ha-ha-ha, good one, Amanda. We've got good reason, too. Calamity Kim Beazley and his team of economic ghouls are seizing on every bit of bad news to talk Australia down."
The Hun: "I mean, John wants mothers to do the right thing by their children and working husbands. Didn't he cut the full entitlements of 100,000 families receiving the family tax benefit to make it easier for them? What more does he have to do?"
Fang: "Exactly, Amanda. If the chattering classes keep trying to use Howard's battlers against him by whimpering that Howard is rooning 'em, we'll just have to re-educate the lot by selling--er, I mean explaining that policies such as putting crips and retards on the dole will give them the opportunity to be as relaxed and comfortable as we are."
The Hun: "Ha-ha-ha, good one Tony. But surely they know that already. A GST on baby products and tampons should make women feel proud to be part of John's great tax adventure. After all, men pay GST on shaving cream. Where's the gender-inequality they keep bleating about?"
Fang: "Well, Amanda, all lefties are bleaters, crybabies and Hanrahans. They don't seem capable of living in reduced circumstances with anything like the dignity we would if they suddenly took our taxpayer-funded perks away. Why can't they just take their medicine like good little Aussies?"
The Hun: "Tell me about it. We've provided so many new jobs for casual workers, women especially, that we must be in line for a Nobel prize. And how are they thanking us? By whingeing about the lack of protections and rewards full-time workers enjoy. Goodness gracious, full-time workers have nowhere near their flexibility to go from job to job. And just because they can't look forward to superannuation doesn't mean they can't have rewarding lives. People always get by, they just need to knuckle down and make the best of things. Like we do."
Fang: "They need to learn stoicism. And there's no better way than tightening up qualifications for the dole. We'll make Australia proud yet. Think I'll trundle off and work out a new policy."
The Hun: "Good idea. Pass the Chardonnay before you go."
Fang: "To you, dear Amanda."
Buggery schoolboys bugger justice
The boys from Trinity who played "poke the fresher with a dildo" have been set free by Magistrate John Crawford, with no conviction recorded against them. The extent of their sentence: 12 and six month good behaviour bonds. Thus, their future in the Liberal Party is assured.
In his summation, Mr Crawford remained mystified as to the motivation for targeting the victims, ruling out sexual gratification as all boys remained clothed during the attacks. We find this conclusion ingenuous since he had also stated that "the defendants were either so confident or indifferent to the risk of detection that the offences were on occasion committed in the presence or view of other students."
Perhaps the magistrate himself is a graduate of such an institution and therefore blind to the obvious motivation: power and the delicious thrill it gives to all wheelers and dealers and yes, torturers.
We can only hope that the 30 witnesses whose evidence was quashed at the trial take note: Drop your daks and submit if you want to be accepted into the ruling class fraternity.
Without a will of his own, former Buggery Schoolboy Alexander Downer will most likely agree to Australian participation in the latest resurrection of US paranoia, the ludicrous missile defence system. An original product of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars fantasy, George W. Bush has made it his own personal saviour ... wait, that honour goes to Jesus H. Christ. Make that his personal salvation. Or maybe that honour goes to reducing taxes for the rich.
Anyway, cap in hand, Little Lord Downer will be doing his best "yes, sir!" routine to put Australia offside with just about every country in the world, something this government is a dab hand at accomplishing.
Cameron Stewart, "Let's be under no obligation" (The Oz, 20/3/01), has this to say: "What proponents of missile defence do not tell you is that the success rate of shooting down incoming missiles (akin to hitting a bullet with a bullet) is astonishingly low."
Dubbya wants to spend $US60 billion on the project just in case Saddam Hussein comes up with a formula for compacting the bodies of starving children into explosives for use in long-range missiles made from old car parts.
More from Stewart: "The National Centre for Policy Analysis in the US Department of Defence has tried to hit long-range ballistic missile warheads with an interceptor 17 times, but has succeeded in hitting the target on only three occasions."
Americans, bred on such aphorisms as "if at first you don't succeed, try again," must be cheering at the use of all that money to finally get it right. Infrastructure and decent living standards can wait.
Can't you just hear Little Lord Bummer practising his Americanisms? "By golly, Mr President, yew can count on us'ns. Whar's that dotted line!"
A momentary revivification for uncreate John
"It is disgraceful politics to scare the elderly and vulnerable people," John Howard told pensioners at Forest Place, a posh retirement village in northern Brisbane. Lower lip fairly bubbling with salivatory outrage, the man who reneged on the promise of a 4 per cent CPI increase for "elderly and vulnerable people" by giving them only two, went on: "It is a base, despicable scare campaign. It is disgraceful to scare old people and to spread untruths as the Opposition is doing."
Sincerely believing pensioners to be incapable of thinking for themselves, the lowly PM set about letting them in on a little secret: he alone knows what's best for the old duffers, despite their obviously opposition-influenced views to the contrary.
A few of the pensioners comments to his visit:
"With that GST, it costs more to get cremated and have a funeral, you can't even die in peace any more."
"It's the greatest confidence trick ever pulled on the people of Australia. He gave us 4 per cent, then he took it back."
Little Johnny's response: "I'll take on board and examine what you have said."
(The trouble with John Howard is that you can't conjure a scene where he would retire to his private quarters and do something evil with the above statement, such as laughing like Bela Lugosi as he whips out a doll representing non-Liberal voters to stick pins in it. He is so unformed, so undeveloped, so a-dimensional, that he is incapable of summoning even one of the gamut of psychological types that inhabit the humanscape.)
Before exiting the usual back door to avoid protestors, John was beset by a certain resident of Forest Place, one Linda Gerot, who wanted to know his intentions of putting her to work for the disability dole.
"We never had that in mind," he lied. "There are different ways in which people with disabilities can be encouraged to work and train, consistent with their capacity. Most people with disabilities would agree with that."
Would they, now?
Amanda The Hun put in her two cents by telling ABC radio that pensioners would have been considerably worse off under Labor. Of course she omitted to say that without a GST the payment would have been about the same.
Like Tony the Fang with the unemployed, The Hun sneered at pensioners for complaining about their lot, saying in effect that poor people always want more and, well, there is only so much of the budget not allocated to private health and private schools, not to mention propping up relatives with their failing businesses, for the government to look after their insignificant needs.
Liberals to the rest of us: "You lot! Take your thin soup, your mouldy slice of bread and shut up! See you tomorrow."
Price-line fire sale: Cheap! Jeff for Canberra
Steve Price, that balanced, compassionate, warm-hearted wireless commentator of Melbourne radio station 3AW has mooted a frightening proposition. "The Liberal Party are kidding themselves if they don't grab Jeff Kennett and put him in a federal seat. He's the most respected and famous Liberal." And if Steve didn't really say that, as quoted in Tracie Winch's article on Price in The Age Green Guide (22/3/01), then we take it back and apologise profusely while simultaneously assuring the kind topicalist that we have no connection whatsoever with Crikey.com.
But gee, if he did, we wish he'd kept the idea to himself. Because the Liberal Party is about to be "squashed like a cockroach on the sticky carpet of a scumbag pub somewhere" (or maybe that's what someone said about someone else), just like rumour had it after the 1993 election and not long before the Party resurrected itself on the back of Paul Keating's arrogance in 1996. Now it looks like the demise is on again. It's likely the only seat the Libs are sure to gain after the 2001 election is Ryan, which shocked and penitent Libs will surely return to the fold.
If Kennett enters the picture, we can count on the party making yet another comeback. Remember, Kennett is the Liberal who made John Howard look like a humanist. Before his morte subite, Jeff managed to pretty well sacrifice Victoria to the privateers. But his influence extended far beyond state boundaries. State leaders around the country realised the wallets and well-being of citizens were theirs for the taking. When John Howard ascended to the leadership of the federal party, by virtue of the fact that he was the only runt left standing, Kennett's legacy encouraged him to get his clammy little hands on the wallets and well-being of the entire country.
Angry peasants like myself are in the throes of an uprising that will decimate his party. But if Kennett makes the comeback all of us fear, our blissfully naive dreams of an egalitarian future will turn to nightmares. It's possible we ain't see nothin' yet.
Gothshier mastiff needs restraint
Peter Wilmoth, (The Age, 21,23/3/01) reports that the Community and Public Service Union has written to the ABC board not once but three times, outlining Jonathan Shier's unsuitability as managing director and calling for a review of Shier's performance. Graeme Thompson, ABC section secretary, submitting that Shier did not possess the qualifications to run the corporation, said:
"The managing director ... does not enjoy the confidence of staff, nor that of the shareholders--the Australian public. The CPSU again calls on the board to restrain the managing director and to restore sound management and stability to the day-to-day management of the organisation. Under his stewardship the ABC has wasted millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on a restructure that is ineffective and unworkable."
Shier's senior executive had been "rendered ineffectual through a climate of fear and confusion. Loyal staff have been disaffected by a closed and autocratic style ... and by the growing realisation that excellence in programming and dedication to the various crafts upon which the ABC's high reputation has been based are no longer valued."
In a subsequent article, Wilmoth reports that John Millard, an ABC television producer, wrote to Shier and the ABC board noting that Shier's referring to a female on-air presenter as "that dog of a woman" "connotes a management conduct transgressing the laws on sexual discrimination and staff victimisation and paints the picture of an MD unsuited to hold such an important, culturally and politically sensitive position."
The SMH earlier reported that at an executive meeting Shier said of the woman: "Who's that dog of a woman? She must be someone's girlfriend to be in that job."
We await Shier's dismissal of the accusation of sexual discrimination as just another example of political correctness. You know, the much maligned attitude of maturity wherein we don't play buggery schoolboys and pile on the epithets according to race, religion or creed.