CCC Tarts get Nasty with Bowler

CCC adjudges Bowler LBW - a metre outside the off stump and off a No Ball

The incompetent Crime and Corruption Commission has magnanimously decided that John Bowler MLA (who was recently re-elected with over 60% of the vote) should not face further disciplinary action for not keeping official records of his contact with lobbyists.

What puerile nonsense!

Did failed Minister Jim McGinty keep official records of every contact he had with Left lobbyists - powerbroker John Halden, ex resources minister Clive Brown, ex Kalgoorlie MP Megan Anwyl, and new deputy ALP Leader Roger Cook - all active lobbyists. Hardly likely!

Why do these clowns expect official records to be kept of every meeting and phone call they have of everyone that approaches them?

If the CCC thinks Bowler has engaged in misconduct, then the CCC should state its case.

The Desert Rat can only congratulate John Bowler and Julian Grill for their work in getting the Windimurra Vanadium Mine reopened after it was bought and shut down by multinational Xstrata, who then sourced vanadium supplies from its cheaper South African mine putting 300 men and women out of work.

That was more productive than 150 Crime and Corruption Commission employees spending $150 million over the last five years pursuing legitimate lobbyists such as Brian Burke and Julian Grill - who solve real problems. The CCC has not ventured near drug dealers or organised crime and the people who destroy our society - that is personally too risky for them and their families, too hard and not as glamourous as phoney political "scalps" for our CCC tarts.

CCC - a media Harlot?

CCC - working the media to discredit Burke and Grill

The blatant political activities of the Crime and Corruption Commission were on display when they announced the further charges against Brian Burke, Julian Grill and Norm Marlborough.

The announcement was designed to get prime time evening television coverage and upstage the opening of the new State Parliament.

The alleged charges arose from evidence given at public hearings 2 years ago! The public hearing were a device to use the media to discredit and prejudice the reputations of Burke and Grill. They amounted to a show trial - trial by media if you like. The most salacious and gratuitous material was aired to achieve the desired effect. Neither Burke or Grill could cross-examine their accusers!

Why did it take two years for Dad's Army to lodge these new charges? Have theybeen lodged because every other charge has been thrown out of court?

Watchdogs and prosecutors are there to put all the facts dispassionately, not to run blatantly political campaigns to push their own careers or justify their public funding and existence.

Western Australia has seen many serious miscarriages of justice where overzealous and ambitious prosecutors and police have been blinded to alternative explanations; have ignored or not disclosed exculpatory evidence in order to get convictions - and a feather in their collective hats. The CCC has been a prime offender.

It is appropriate that this incompetent and political outfit was not called the Anti Crime and Corruption Commission.

In recent years we have seen three murder convictions overturned - Andrew Mallard, John Button and Darryl Beamish, after collectively serving 32 years in gaol; men who were convicted when there was palpable evidence as to who was the real killer. Evidence that was incompetently ignored or selectively ignored.

In the last case, the Court of Appeal hearing, the former Judge and current Commissioner of the Crime and Corruption Commission Major General Len Roberts-Smith was not convinced that John Button was innocent. Button's lawyer Malcolm McCusker QC had to take the case to the High Court to finally get justice.

Investigations of matters where there is evidence of corruption is essential; political motivated witch hunts have no place in our democracy.

Some of the current CCC media activities have all the ingredients of 1950's McCarthyism - which prejudice the possibility of a fair hearing or trial.

McGinty's Coup: Inpex Gas hub to NT, WA Labor to the dog house

Sidelining Troubleshooter Grill - Cost State Labor the $25b Inpex Gas Project and Government

Jim McGinty must be ruing the sidelining one of his perceived political rivals Julian Grill - as Labor's political negotiating weakness was exposed in the Inpex saga

The ironies the Desert Rat sees in the failure of the Carpenter Labor Government to secure a Kimberley site for the $25 billion Inpex Gas Project was that if Julian Grill was involved, the gas hub site would have been resolved.

Solving those types of problems formed about half of the troubleshooting work that Grill had been doing as a lobbyist for mining and energy companies. His main task it appears was overcoming problems resulting from the Labor government's negotiating ineptness. Grill work on mining and energy issues continually saved the Labor Government's bacon. Most Cabinet ministers were too stupid to realise it and those that knew, could not admit it publicly.

The Labor Government Ministers, their political advisers and the public service did not have the skills to negotiate a Kimberley site and the legion of other environmental problems confronted by business. Business needed people like Julian Grill who had the skills and that is the reason why the demand for lobbyists went "through the roof" under Labor.

Julian Grill, was unfortunately sidelined by the shenanigans of McGinty's Corruption and Crime Commission. The Inpex gas hub site negotiations drifted frustratingly for Inpex for years and they could not get a decision from the Labor Government.

There were many mining projects with issues that the ineffectual Labor Governments did not have the political will to resolve, particularly, environmental issues and Aboriginal matters that needed some political skill and negotiating sensitively to resolve. At least half of Grill's consultancies were related to environmental issues that mining companies could not get any decision from the State Labor Government.

Grill has superb negotiating skills and often successfully engineered win-win situation for both parties - where the Labor Government was paralysed for fear of alienating Aboriginal or environmental groups. That's why Grill was so much in demand. He resolved so many problems in this area, that without his efforts the Labor Government would have been "on the nose" years before the public began to sense it's inability to make decisions where Aboriginal or environmental issues were involved.

McGinty through his political pursuit of Grill and Burke and the CCC grubby campaign to discredit them and sideline them as troubleshooters / lobbyists, ensured the problems now remained unresolved and became running sores. The frustration in business grew as the myriad of problems lingered.

The Desert Rat often wondered how the Labor Government got away with it for so long. In the end they didn't because there was no one who could fix the problems they previously avoided.

The result was that Labor lost the election at a time of great prosperity for most and McGinty and others have lost their precious glass palaces - shattered by the electors who thought they needed a little bit of political fresh air in the electoral wilderness.

Another failure which can be sheeted home to Jim McGinty, the person who has had too much influence on the Labor Party in recent years and squandered it on internicine vendettas at the cost of the Party. Well done, Jim!

McGinty's Fiona Stanley Fiasco

McGinty's Fiona Stanley Folly - "Calm before the Storm?"

The Desert Rat is a bit mystified as to why the Liberals haven't called our failed Health Minister Macavity McGinty and the Carpenter Government to account over the continuing shambles at the Fiona Stanley Hospital.

The cost blowouts, the earthworths contract and the cuts to services all reflect McGinty's administrative incompetence.

Earthworks Contract

At taxpayer expense we have seen glossy brochures sent to all and sundry in the run-up to the election campaign which extol the virtues of the Carpenter Government. Stamped on the brochure is "Construction Commenced".

Take for example the site earthworks. The Desert Rat was informed by one contractor that they looked at the earthworks tender and declined to put in a price because they thought it too risky.

Why? Because Fiona Stanley is a contaminated site. It is a former area of silted-up swamps, the area has acid sulphate soils, which have to be removed from the site, because they will eat at the concrete and steel in the foundations. Soils in this area contain naturally occuring iron sulphide which when exposed to air turn into sulphuric acid. The government wants a fixed price contract to be completed in a compressed time frame - a recipe for major disaster and litigation for contractors. Remember the Government contaminated site fiasco with the Minim Cove development at Mosman Park.

The Desert Rat is unsure if McGinty means the pre-election media stunt showing Fiona Stanley, McGinty and Carpenter shovelling at the phony start of "building" is all the construction that has taken place.

It is highly probable that if they have managed to let the earthmoving contract, without secretly amending the conditions of the contract if removal of hazardous waste has been underestimated and the time frame is not flexible.

Cut to Services - Obstetrics and gynaecology gone!

Jim McGinty's planned obstetrics mess has further deteriorated. The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department was part of Stage 1 when Woodside Hospital and Kalamunda Hospital maternity services were shut. It wasn't announced when later the Obstetrics and Gynaecology had been moved to Stage 2 and a month ago it was scrapped from Stage 2. No Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Fiona Stanley - despite the promises and the incredible pressure on King Edward Memorial Hospital.

The only reason why it has been scrapped is to contain costs at Fiona Stanley Hospital and have the public believe the blowout are less than they really are. All about perception, nothing about substance and reality - spin, spin spin.

Cost Blowout - now over $2 billion!!

In a previous post the Desert Rat pointed out that Fiona Stanley costs had blown out by $1339 million , from $451 m when it was announced in 2005 to $1721 in the December 2008 estimates. Those figures are now 9 months old and the price of steel went up 38% in the last 12 months as well as other costs adding another $500 to $600 million in costs. By the time construction starts the cost will be well over $2 billion. It is a fiasco.

Very few building contractor are interested in taking on the job because of the short time frame and fixed price contract that McGinty wants to cover his political arse in the short term. He will be retired when the shit hits the fan! The unrealistic expectations created by McGinty are pure politics.

We get the politicians we deserve it seems.

Mt Kilimanjaro - Quintessential monitor of global warming?

Of volcanoes and glaciers

One has to be careful drawing the conclusion that the retreat of glaciers is evidence of climate change. The glaciers of Mt Kilimanjaro in equatorial Africa have been referred to in American Scientist as a poster child for global climate change. This mountain has lost 90% of its glacial cover since first climbed in 1889.

Is this enough evidence to prove climate change?

Some more observations by Professor Neil Phillips a geologist in a letter to the AGE 30 July 2008, may help.

"Most of the glacial retreat on Kilimanjaro happened before World War I - that is, almost a century ago. Second, because of its altitude of 5895 metres and position three degrees south of the equator, Kilimanjaro does not have a hot and a cold season, and the temperature at the summit rarely exceeds minus 3 degrees. Glaciers do not melt in this temperature range.

Third, glaciers extend down from the outer crater edges of Kilimanjaro but are absent in the crater, where there is a 20-metre ice wall; these glaciers appear to be retreating from the top.

More likely than climate change, the Kilimanjaro glaciers could be retreating because of increased volcanic activity below the crater. More volcanic heat means melting of the snowfall rather than replenishment of the glaciers' source.

We cannot prove Kilimanjaro's glaciers are retreating because of volcanic heat, but we need to be careful before jumping to conclusions that the poster child of glacier retreat is support for global warming. The main message here is that the obvious answer may not be the correct one.”

Left Utopias and the real world

Education is where the Left have done the lasting damage.

Love him or hate him, Bill Gates hits the nail on the head with this speech he recently gave at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

McGinty's stupidity on cannabis laws exposed

Smokescreen to hide McGinty's failed cannabis laws?

The Minister for Health and Attorney General Jim McGinty is at it again, attempting to dishonestly spin his way out of his failed liberalisation of drugs with trendy cannabis law "reforms", the "success" of which he has crowed about for years.

The Liberals have always opposed McGinty's trendy drug "reforms" which encourage the drug culture and substance abuse, and contribute to and exacerbate mental illness, particularly schizophrenia.

McGinty has hidden behind an inquiry which has recommended he dump the patently foolish elements of his policy which allowed cannabis to be grown in homes and stupidly increased the amount cannabis that drug users can carry.

McGinty now says the Liberal Party's proposed changes to cannabis laws are similar to those already agreed to by Labor!

The Opposition leader, Colin Barnett, has reaffirmed the Liberal's position to repeal the laws, which would make the possession of cannabis plants an offence and cut the cannabis possession threshold by two-thirds.

McGinty was too gutless to defend his cannabis laws - probably because some opinion poll commissioned at taxpayers expense showed that most of the public thought McGinty's laws were dumb.

In typical McGinty spin he now says he is "making sure we're tough in dealing with cannabis laws."

McGinty should be frank about his many stuff-ups and not continually treat the public as fools. The public deserves a more respect from McGinty.