Posts filed under 'General News'

Rush Limbaugh: Obama is destroying the economy

Direct from the Rush Limbaugh Show webcam (or the “dittocam” as Rush calls it), Rush Limbaugh’s monologue from Monday last week (includes the parody ads which play during radio network ad/news breaks). Ten part video. Enjoy!

Samuel

June 15th, 2009 at 08:03am

It’s not a prison, so there’s no surprise: Conjugal visits at the St. Alexander Maconochie Centre of Respite for the Criminally Challenged

I can’t claim to be surprised by this, because quite frankly when the ACT Government builds a prison which isn’t a prison, but rather some nice, warm, fuzzy, friendly, wondrous place of leprechauns and criminal bonding sessions, this is inevitable.

The ACT has become the second jurisdiction in Australia to allow prisoners who behave to receive conjugal visits.

The Alexander Maconochie Centre’s conjugal visits policy, which includes same-sex couples, came into force on March 30 when the jail received its first prisoners.

The Canberra Times reports prisoners and remandees who meet certain criteria can have access to such visits every two months.

During the visits, couples are provided with “domestic surroundings”, condoms and reduced supervision so they can have their intimacy.

But there is a catch – the prisoner has to change the linen after the visit.

The policy excludes partners who are also prisoners at the jail.

It’s ridiculous that a place which is supposed to be an unpleasant punishment for doing something wrong, a place which should be bad enough to ensure that criminals don’t want to reoffend and find themselves “inside” again, a place which, whilst not necessarily awful, should not be a place which inmates can enjoy…it’s ridiculous that a place which should be all of these things I have mentioned, is instead being turned in to a nice friendly place.

Naturally the ACT Government are clinging to the “Victoria are already doing it” line, as if that’s some sort of good reason to do something…”oh, but they’re stealing candy, so therefore we should steal candy too”.

Realistically, prisons should be places of solitary confinement in small rooms with just a bed and a toilet, and three meals per day. Prisoners should not be permitted human contact except for occasional (monthly at most) monitored visits with family and legal counsel (the latter would have to be allowed at any interval if an appeal is either likely or underway). As far as I’m concerned, if prisons can be made as inhospitable and unaccommodating as possible, then people would be far less likely to re-offend, as they wouldn’t want to go back there.

Samuel

2 comments June 13th, 2009 at 06:34pm

A new ranking system for students, and only a bureaucrat could have come up with it

It must be a year with a 2, a 5 or a 9 in it, because the bureaucrats have decided to overhaul the ranking system for students wishing to enter tertiary studies.

The good ole University Admission Index (UAI) is dead, and is being replaced by the “Australian Tertiary Admission Rank” which…try and get your head around this one, will have scores “higher than equivalent UAI ranks which may push up course entry scores at universities” but will have a lower maximum score.

In a show of true political correctness “we can’t let people get a perfect score in case others don’t feel just as perfect” methodology, the new top score will be 99.95.

So, everyone gets a higher score and feels better as a result, but nobody is able to get a perfect score. I see how this could backfire very quickly…with scores being effectively squeezed in to a narrower band, students are going to miss out on entry to their preferred course or university by smaller margins, which will probably make them feel somewhat hard done by.

Here’s the really amusing part of all of this though, Kim Paino of the Universities Admission Centre is urging students not to worry:

The scaling process for students will be the same, the rank order of students will be the same, and the same applicants will be selected for the same uni courses

So, if the only thing which changes under this new scheme is the end score, why do we need a new system? There is only one good answer to that question, and it is this: it keeps our bureaucrats in a job, pushing paper for the sake of pushing paper.

It’s a shame that we have wasted money on a pointless new system, when that money could have been better spent on school maintenance or, shock horror, actually educating students.

Now there’s a thought…actually educating students in schools. Oh Mr. Rudd, what happened to your “education revolution”? Did you accidentally empty a sauce bottle on it during your shaking of said bottle fairly?

Samuel

June 13th, 2009 at 12:55pm

Mike Jeffreys’ “High Speed Analysis for the Conversationalist on the Run”

One thing which I have been enjoying of late on the Internet is Mike Jeffreys‘ “High Speed Analysis for the Conversationalist on the Run”. Basically, Mike is taking a brief look at a number of issues at a time which is proving to be quite interesting.

In his latest post of this ilk, one of the topics is something which I too have noticed…an increase in the number of bank scam emails lately:

There seem to be more than the usual number of bank and credit card email scams right now… and the quality is up. Was a time when the bad spelling and ludicrous grammar made you wonder how anyone could be taken in, but not now. I recently rang the Commonwealth Bank on their praise or comments number – got straight through to a real human being. Full marks. You don’t have to be a customer to get one of these things. Example: today I received an offer to win a Porsche Cayenne for completing a survey as a St. George customer. Which I’m not. Be nice to know of a way to get these damned nuisances where they live. Maybe experienced net nerds know how. Unfortunately I don’t.

A comment from “Alf” of Belconnen in reply to this certainly caused some amusement:

Can’t agree more on the presistent nuisance emails we receive, although quality control still falls down at the scammers end. Raised a smile after receiving virtually identical scam emails, the first “from the St George bank”.

A giveaway in the second was the sign off, as the St Commonwealth Bank.

Perhaps the scammers know about an impending merger?

That said, the last time I checked, there is no “Saint Commonwealth”, and raising interest rates all on their lonesome isn’t getting them any closer to sainthood.

Samuel

June 13th, 2009 at 10:46am

Not a good time to be a politicians named Brown

As Bob and Gordon have discovered, Browns just aren’t the flavour of the month.

Greens Leader Bob Brown admits he’s facing bankruptcy after being forced to pay $240,000 in court costs after a failed bid to stop Tasmanian logging.

Senator Brown has until the end of the month to pay the money to Foerstry Tasmania, after losing a Federal Court case to stop logging in the Wielangta Forest in the south east of the island.

He says he may become bankrupt if he doesn’t raise the money and could lose his Senate seat as a result.

“As a Senator, and somebody who’s been able to accrue assets down the line, I’ll be talking with people who may be able to lend that money and if not, I’ll be taking some more adventurous action,” he said.

Oh goody, adventurous action…perhaps it will be celebrity (if you can call Bob a celebrity) skydiving for the “Save Bob Brown from bankruptcy foundation”.

Meanwhile for Gordon:

EMBATTLED British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was locked in a showdown with angry MPs from his party on Monday, reports said as he clung to power after a second humiliating poll defeat within days.

Mr Brown’s Labour was beaten into third place in the European elections, behind fringe anti-Europeans the UK Independence Party (UKIP), leaving him fighting for his job after 11 ministers resigned in recent days.

But at least one critic confronted Mr Brown at a regular meeting with MPs at the House of Commons on Monday evening, amid growing calls for him to step down and give the party a chance of winning the next general election.

To Gordon Brown’s credit though, he did give a speech which nobody will remember, but somehow seems to have saved his neck for the moment.

“I have my strengths and I have my weaknesses. I know there are some things I do well, some things not so well.”

And in related news, sometimes traffic lights are red, sometimes they are green, and every now and then they are amber.

Samuel

June 9th, 2009 at 01:06pm

Sense prevails in Las Vegas…almost

About two weeks ago I was confused by the thinking behind the answers being provided to a poll on the KXNT website.

The question was:

The [police] officer who was killed in a crash last week was driving 109 mph [175 km/h] with no lights, sirens or seatbelt. The other driver who turned in front of him had been drinking, but was not legally DUI. Who is at fault?

And the results at the time of writing that blog post were:

The Officer. He was totally reckless. ( 57% )
Mostly the officer, but the driver contributed. ( 24% )
Both of them. It was a “perfect storm”. ( 15% )
Mostly the driver, but the officer contributed. ( 2% )
The driver. He was still impaired. ( 2% )

I was part of the 57% and couldn’t comprehend how people could believe the other three answers, especially the last two.

I’m pleased to be able to report that the authorities in Vegas have seen sense, and dropped all charges against the driver.

Metro Police have dropped all charges filed for last month’s crash that took the life of Officer James Manor.

Officer Manor was killed back on May 7th when his police cruiser collided with a pickup truck driven by Las Vegas resident Calvin Darling.

Darling was initially arrested for DUI and failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, but was later released when tests revealed his blood alcohol content was not over the legal limit. Further investigation revealed that Officer Manor was traveling 109 miles-per-hour with no emergency lights or sirens on just before the crash.

With the investigation now complete, police say they’ve determined the accident was caused by Officer Manor’s excessive speed, and that Darling was not at fault.

Police recommended that District Attorney David Roger drop all charges against Darling, and Roger agreed, calling the case “a tragedy all around.”

(line breaks added by Samuel for readability purposes)

There is one part of the story which still leaves me puzzled though, and that is the original cause of Officer Manor’s decision to speed and what authorities have decided to do about it:

In addition, Metro says no charges will be filed against the 14-year-old girl who placed the fraudulent 911 call prompting Officer Manor’s rapid response.

A fake 911 call which results in a death, and no penalty? Not even community service? If it were up to me, she would be working alongside the emergency services for a while so that she comes to grips with the extraordinary work these people do, and why you can’t waste their time with fake emergency calls.

Samuel

June 9th, 2009 at 11:46am

Barack Obama’s Rasmussen approval ratings for May

Sorry that I’m a bit late with this. I was going to post this at the start of the month but got sidetracked and forgot about it. None-the-less, here are US President Barack Obama’s approval ratings for May as measured by the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll.

May saw a stop (for the most part) the closing of the gap between the approval and disapproval numbers, and on the whole Barack Obama enjoyed a pretty good month by the polls.

Barack Obama's approval rating during May 2009
Data courtesy Rasmussen Reports, LLC

The gap between the “strongly approve” and the “strongly disapprove” numbers, known as the “Rasmussen Approval Index” were fairly positive with only a couple low points.
Barack Obama's Rasmussen Approval Index during May 2009
Data courtesy Rasmussen Reports, LLC

To put this in context, here are the graphs for all of 2009.
Barack Obama's approval rating during 2009 until May
Data courtesy Rasmussen Reports, LLC

Barack Obama's Rasmussen Approval Index during 2009 until May
Data courtesy Rasmussen Reports, LLC

It’s quite clear that from those graphs that May was a better month that the preceding few, however I have to wonder about June as it hasn’t started brilliantly for Mr. Obama, with the Rasmussen Approval Index hitting zero on the 5th, however it has rebounded since then.

I should point out that the missing day in the graphs is the 11th of May. No polling was conducted on this day due to Mother’s Day.

Samuel

June 9th, 2009 at 09:44am

The minister assisting the minister

I was looking through the list of appointments following Kevin Rudd’s cabinet reshuffle this morning (that is, I was looking at the list this morning, Kevin did not have a reshuffle this morning) and couldn’t help but be amused by some of the titles.

Of particular interest to me is one of Craig Emerson’s many titles, namely “Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation”. If we ever see that as the title given to Craig on a TV news super, I will fall off my chair, get back on the chair and fall off again just to make sure the point gets through.

What makes Craig’s title all the more amusing is that Senator Nick Sherry is the “Assistant Treasurer” and not the “Minister assisting the Treasurer” or even worse the “Minister assisting the Minister for the Treasury on matters of Treasure”.

Apart from that, there are just a whole heap of minor roles which I think we forget exist, and I am forced to wonder how many exist merely for the sake of ensuring that a certain number of MPs get an extra allowance because they are a minister or a minister assisting a minister.

[Greg] Combet becomes Minister for Defence Personnel, Material and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change.

[Chris] Bowen becomes Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law, as well as Minister for Human Services.

Brendan O’Connor takes on the Homes Affairs portfolio, replacing [Bob] Debus, with responsibility for policing and law enforcement and the administration of Australian territories.
[..]
In other movements Craig Emerson, Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy and Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation, will also become Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs.

Senator Nick Sherry a former Shadow Assistant Treasurer, will be appointed Assistant Treasurer.

Brendan O’Connor will be appointed Minister for Home Affairs, with responsibility for policing and law enforcement and the administration of Australian territories.

Warren Snowdon will be appointed Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Services Delivery.

And Kate Ellis will be appointed Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth and will continue as Minister for Sport.

At the risk of picking on Craig Emerson again…the Minister for Independent Contractors? Seriously? Why don’t we just have a Minister for Baked Beans while we’re at it?

Samuel

June 8th, 2009 at 02:00pm

Air France wreckage found (this time they’re sure)

And possibly more importantly, French authorities have some very worrying revelations about the maintenance standards on the crashed plane.

To the wreckage first:

Searchers found two passengers’ bodies and a briefcase containing an Air France Flight 447 ticket in the Atlantic Ocean near where the jetliner is believed to have crashed, a Brazil military official said Saturday.
[..]
All were killed, the world’s worst commercial air accident since 2001, and Air France’s deadliest plane crash.

The bodies of two male passengers were recovered Saturday morning about 45 miles south of where Air France Flight 447 emitted its last signals — roughly 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil’s northern coast.

Brazilian air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said an Air France ticket was found inside a leather briefcase.

“It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight,” he said.

Admiral Edison Lawrence said the bodies were being transported to the Fernando de Noronha islands for identification. A backpack with a laptop and a vaccination card also was recovered.

The finds could potentially establish a more precise search area for the crucial black box flight data and voice recorders that could tell investigators why the jet crashed.

The U.S. Navy is sending two high-tech devices to French ships that will help them locate the black boxes, a senior U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The Towed Pinger Locators, which can detect emergency beacons to a depth of 20,000 feet, are being flown to Brazil on Monday with a U.S. Navy team, said the official, who requested anonymity because the decision, which came in response to a request from France, has not been announced.

We’ve heard about the inconsistent air speed messages which came from the plane in the moments before it crashed. Now we have answers as to what caused those messages.

The French agency investigating the disaster, meanwhile, said airspeed instruments were not replaced as the maker recommended before the plane disappeared in turbulent weather nearly a week ago during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard.
[..]
The French accident investigation agency, BEA, found the plane received inconsistent airspeed readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.

The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane’s speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake in severe turbulence.

Airbus recommended that all its airline customers replace instruments that help measure speed and altitude, known as Pitot tubes, on the A330, the model used for Flight 447, said Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the agency.

“They hadn’t yet been replaced” on the plane that crashed, said Alain Bouillard, head of the French investigation.

Air France issued a statement Saturday saying it began replacing the monitors on the Airbus A330 model on April 27 after an improved version became available.

The statement stressed the recommendation to change the monitor “allows the operator full freedom to totally, partially or not at all apply it.” When safety is at issue, the aircraft maker puts out a mandatory service bulletin followed up by an airworthiness directive, not a recommendation.

The Air France statement said that icing of the monitors at high altitude has led at times to loss of needed flying information, but only a “small number” of incidents linked to the monitors had been reported.

If they manage to find the black box data recorder, then this could be a very interesting investigation, with important ramifications on future part replacement by airlines following recommendations by manufacturers.

Samuel

June 7th, 2009 at 08:52pm

Rush Limbaugh on ‘Hannity’: If Al Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they’d better hurry, because Obama’s beating them to it

Earlier this week Sean Hannity went to Florida and interviewed fellow talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh for his show on the Fox News Channel. The interviewed covered a wide range of topics including Barack Obama’s policies and the problems with the Republican party in its current form.

The interview was long enough to be spread out over two nights, and is well worth watching.

Part One
Topics include:

  • Why the Democrats are seemingly focussing on Rush as if he was the leader of the Republican party.
  • Why Rush wants Barack Obama’s policies to fail.
  • Why Obama is “running around the world and apologising for America”.
  • Fidel Castro believes Obama is further left than he is.

Part Two
Topics include:

  • Some thoughts on Colin Powell and why he supported and voted for Obama, despite him being in the other political party.
  • Sonia Sotomayor, why she shouldn’t be a judge, why she is being nominated, and the unknown factor which could make her racist comments overlookable.

Part Three
Topics include:

  • Who Rush thinks should replace him as the person Obama declares the “titular head” of the Republican party.
  • How to understand the thought process behind Obama’s policies.
  • Why Rush is optimistic that the American people will stand up to Obama in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
  • The hypocricy of Obama saying that America can’t impose values on other countries, and then going ahead and doing it anyway. (which includes a comment on Israel).

Part Four
Topics include:

  • Obama’s socialist policies, and the effect it will have on the economy, and on peoples’ lives.
  • The so-called “Fairness Doctrine” and a possible way to introduce it by stealth.
  • The problem with the Republican Party in its current moderate form.
  • More on the problem with Obama’s policies.

Part Five
This section doesn’t appear in the transcripts and appears to be a portion of the interview which wasn’t aired in the “four parts spread over two nights” version, and instead aired later on.

Topics include:

  • Rush describes the real meaning of conservatism, and how that differs from many perceptions of it.
  • Obama’s speech to the Muslim world, and what he should have said.

The transcript of parts one and two can be found here, and parts three and four, here. If I find a transcript of part five, I’ll let you know.

Samuel

June 6th, 2009 at 01:32pm

Air France wreckage is not Air France wreckage

It seems that ill-fated Air France flight 447 is actually still missing, and that the stuff which they thought was wreckage is actually just “sea junk”.

France’s transportation minister said Friday that French forces have found no signs of the Airbus A330 airplane that vanished over the Atlantic and urged “extreme prudence” about suspected debris taken from the ocean.

Dominique Bussereau said he regretted that an announcement by Brazilian teams that they had recovered plane debris from Air France flight 447 turned out to be false.

The Brazilian air force announced Thursday afternoon that a helicopter plucked an airplane cargo pallet from the sea that came the Air France flight, but then said six hours later that it was not from the Airbus.

“French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent,” Bussereau told France’s RTL radio. “Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing.”

Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority was finding the flight recorders. The plane went down Sunday night with 228 people on board in the world’s worst aviation disaster since 2001.

Meanwhile Airbus are issuing some rather concerning safety messages about the A330

Such warnings from Airbus to its clients are only sent if accident investigators have established facts that they consider important enough to pass on immediately to airlines, an industry official told Reuters.

The French air accident investigation agency (BEA) has said the speed levels registered by the slew of messages from the plane showed “incoherence,” Reuters reports.
[..]
Investigators are looking into whether malfunctions in instruments used to determine airspeed may have led the plane to be traveling at the wrong speed when it encountered turbulence from towering thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean.

Two aviation industry officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators were studying the possibility that an external probe that measures air pressure may have iced over. The probe feeds data used to calculate air speed and altitude to onboard computers. Another possibility is that sensors inside the aircraft reading the data malfunctioned.

If the instruments were not reporting accurate information, the jet could have been traveling too fast or too slow as it hit turbulence from violent thunderstorms, according to the officials.

Jetliners need to be flying at just the right speed when encountering violent weather, experts say — too fast and they run the risk of breaking apart. Too slow, and they could lose control.
[..]
European planemaker Airbus has sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447, which was an Airbus A330-200 version.
[..]
In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and — if necessary — level off the plane and start troubleshooting procedures as detailed in operating manuals, Dubon said.

It’s almost a week now since the plane went missing, so I have to wonder if any of the wreckage (assuming that it crashed and didn’t just disappear in to thin air) would still be floating, and more importantly, be floating near any other wreckage.

Samuel

June 6th, 2009 at 12:51am

Joel Fitzgibbon does the right thing

And stands down as Defence minister.

The announcement has been confirmed with a released letter from Mr Fitzgibbon to the Prime Minister, which acknowledges that he is “not absolutely satisfied that I [ensured full] compliance with your Ministerial Code of Conduct.”

“I have decided to resign as a member of the Executive, effective, immediately.”

Yesterday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was not happy about Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s failure to declare another gift.

Mr. Fitzgibbon’s failure to declare gifts in a timely manner, and his controversial relationship with Chinese businesswoman Helen Liu forced this outcome, and after what I said the other night following Mr. Fitzgibbon’s latest late declaration of a gift, I’m pleased with the outcome.

[..]quite frankly if you aren’t capable of disclosing gifts, I fail to see how you can be considered competent enough to be the minister for defence[..]

I don’t want to take pleasure from the downfall of Mr. Fitzgibbon, rather from the fact that the right thing has been done, and the important role of Minister for Defence can now be handed to someone who won’t bring as much controversy, and will hopefully be more suitable for the job.

Samuel

June 4th, 2009 at 03:07pm

Tragedy confirmed

The wreckage of the missing Air France jet has been found, however there are no signs of survivors.

A five kilometre path of wreckage has been found in the Atlantic, confirming the missing Air France jet has crashed into the ocean carrying 228 people.

Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said on Tuesday the discovery “confirms that the plane went down in that area” hundreds of kilometres from the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.

He said the strip of wreckage included metallic and non-metallic pieces, but did not describe them in detail. No bodies were spotted in the crash of the Airbus in which all aboard are believed to have died.
[..]
A French ship equipped with two mini-submarines is on its way to scour the bottom of the ocean but it is not expected to arrive until tomorrow.

The sparse remains – which included an aircraft seat – were located 650km northeast of Brazil’s Fernando do Noronha island on Tuesday.

Meanwhile details of the plane’s final moments are starting to come to light. Apparently the plane sent more than just the single “electrical fault” message which we had been told about until now.

While the cause of the disaster remains a mystery, Air France chief executive Pierre-Henry Gourgeon said the aircraft had sent a series of error messages before it vanished.

“A succession of a dozen technical messages” sent by the aircraft around 0215 GMT showed that “several electrical systems had broken down” which caused a “totally unprecedented situation in the plane,” he said.

“It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came,” he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport

This is an utter tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those on board, and I can only hope that a black box recorder can be salvaged from the wreckage, and that useful information to prevent a similar tragedy in the future can be retrieved from it.

Samuel

June 3rd, 2009 at 10:32am

Consistency?

I can understand the reasoning behind this decision, but I wonder if it will be applied consistently?

A U.S. court says a kindergartner’s mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy’s favorite book.

Monday’s ruling is a victory for the Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the school’s decision does not violate First Amendment rights given the nonpublic nature of the classroom and the tender age of the children.

The mother, Donna Kay Busch, argues the students heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays.

The appeals court says there is a “significant difference” between identifying those holidays and reading from Scripture.

I can understand the theory that reading extracts of a book which pushes a specific agenda to young children is some form of indoctrination, although I disagree in this case as I think the Bible is, linguistically, too challenging for young minds without a degree of interpretation, and I doubt that the kids would grasp the meaning of much of it…I also doubt that they would be particularly interested unless they happen to live in a devoted Christian household.

My thoughts on this specific case to one side, the ruling here is, effectively, that books which push an agenda which is not shared by all (or at the least, a vast majority) should not be read to young children in public schools. This makes me wonder what would happen if a mother were to claim that one of Barack Obama’s numerous books were her child’s favourite reading material, and then proceeded to read extracts to her child’s class…would the court rule that such activity is not permissible considering that 47.1% of the country voted against him, and his political views are therefore not shared by enough people in the country to warrant them being read to young children?

The answer should be “yes, the court would not allow such an activity”, but I would like to see it tested as I’m not confident that this ruling will be applied consistently.

Time will tell, and I’m sure that this ruling will be tested many many times in the future.

Samuel

June 3rd, 2009 at 04:29am

Likely story Joel

Defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has corrected his entires on the Register of Members’ Interests once again. As ABC News points out:

Earlier this year, Mr Fitzgibbon apologised for not declaring trips to China paid for by businesswoman, Helen Liu.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ordered him to check his records for any other undeclared gifts.

This evening Mr Fitzgibbon has told parliament his staff have discovered that he had not declared a night’s accommodation that was paid for by the NIB Health fund.

However what ABC Online omit from this story is Joel Fitzgibbon’s bizarre explanation for failing to declare the accomodation on this occasion. Thankfully, it’s AAP to the rescue:

In a brief personal explanation to the House of Representatives, Mr Fitzgibbon said his staff had identified an occasion in June 2008 where he accepted accommodation paid for by NIB Health Funds, of which his brother is chief executive.

He said the original plan was to share accommodation booked by his brother.

Mr Fitzgibbon was attending a State of Origin match in Brisbane.

“Due to a last minute change in his plans, my brother was unable to join me. As a result I paid for the accommodation,” he said.

“Shortly thereafter I learned that NIB had contacted the hotel and cancelled my payment and substituted it with their own. I can only say that it is this confusion that led me to overlook the need to declare the sponsored accommodation.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said the hotel bill was $450.

MPs must declared any hospitality from a private source worth more than $300.

A couple points here. Firstly, in my experience, it is quite normal to pay for accommodation as one leaves a hotel, often by credit card, in which case the debt is effectively settled on the spot even if the payment takes a little while to show up on one’s statement. Why any sane hotel would go through the administrative hassle of reversing a completed payment only to substitute it for another payment, and deal with the associated bank/transaction fees, and not bother to inform the original payer, let alone seek their consent, is beyond me.

Secondly, if we assume that the story is true and Mr. Fitzgibbon found out “shortly thereafter” about the musical chairs act with the payment, why did he take nearly a year to disclose it?

I suppose that I should also echo the point made by the federal opposition’s spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, on Lateline tonight. Why wait until 9:30pm, when half, if not more, of the politicians and journalists have gone home for the night, to make the apology?

One wonders what Mr. Fitzgibbon will remember to apologise for next.

I don’t begrudge Mr. Fitzgibbon these gifts, but it’s a pretty simple task to disclose them, and quite frankly if you aren’t capable of disclosing gifts, I fail to see how you can be considered competent enough to be the minister for defence…and if you insist on keeping secrets, don’t be surprised if your underlings start spying on you again.

Samuel

June 2nd, 2009 at 11:29pm

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