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Day: August 23, 2011

Rape, Lies and Socialism

August 23, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the former head of the International Monetary Fund. Whatever happened in his New York hotel bedroom on May 14th, prosecutors are right to drop rape charges against him.

“The nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant,” the motion states. “If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.”

Among those falsehoods was that she had been gang-raped by soldiers in Guinea.

Prosecutors said that at one point when she was confronted with untruths, “she dropped to the floor and physically rolled around while weeping” before saying she did not know the answer to their questions.

Even her insistence that no one could “buy” her, and that she had no interest in earning money off the case, was greeted with suspicion by prosecutors.

“The complainant had a recorded conversation with her incarcerated fiance, in which the potential for financial recovery in relation to the May 14, 2011, incident was mentioned,” the document says. “Although there is nothing wrong with seeking recovery from a defendant in a civil suit, the complainant’s disavowal of any financial interest is relevant to her credibility.”

The sad thing is that she may very well have been raped. But her history of lying about sexual assault, and her myriad changes of story in this case, put prosecutors in the position where they were no longer certain beyond reasonable doubt, and consequently, could not put the case to a jury.

Before the accusations, Strauss Kahn was considered the leading Socialist Party candidate in the next French presidential election.

How the heck does a socialist become head of the International Monetary Fund?

What Oakeshott and Windsor Should Be Saying Now

August 23, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Andrew Wilkie wouldn’t recognise a pimple on his own nose. But Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor just might. This is what they should be saying:

After the general election I believed the interests of my electorate, and the people of Australia, would best be served by a Labor government.

I was wrong.

This government has been the most inept in Australia’s history. Its major projects and policy announcements have been a series of expensive and embarrassing failures.

Whatever you may think of the carbon and mining taxes as policy, the government has no mandate for them, and in the case of the carbon tax, can only introduce it by breaking a clear pre-election promise.

The government’s reluctance to act over allegations involving the member for Dobell have made it clear that the leadership of the Labor Party is more concerned with holding onto power than with justice, or the rights of ordinary Australian workers.

Anthony Albanese’s description of hundreds of truck drivers and their families and supporters as ‘the convoy of no consequence,’ demonstrated the contempt the Labor Party feels for the concerns and aspirations of Australian families and small business owners.

A government can only function fairly and effectively if it governs with the consent of the people. The Labor Party has lost the right to claim that consent.

As a result, I have to announce that I intend to support the Leader of the Opposition in a motion of no confidence in the government.

Not only would Oakeshott and Windsor be doing the right thing, and earning the gratitude of the entire country, this is the only conceivable way their own political careers have any chance of continuing past the next election.

A Government of No Consequence

August 23, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese today threw his support behind Mr Thomson, saying he “absolutely” believed the Member for Dobell’s denial of wrong-doing.

“I have the view in life that when someone tells you something you believe them,” Mr Albanese said today.

That would be fine it Mr Albanese applied the same rules to everyone. I too believe in the presumption of innocence. Although the only thing that makes that possible in Craig Thomson’s case is the presumption of idiocy.

But Mr Albanese, while willing to believe someone who is either a lying, thieving, sleazebag or a lying, irresponsible moron, is not willing to grant the same courtesy to hundreds of truck drivers and their supporters, some of whom have travelled thousands of miles to put their views to the government.

These are not your typical leftist Canberra rent a crowd. It is easy to drag to together a few thousand people who have nothing better to do than play computer games, whine about John Howard and line up for their dole money.

These are mostly small business people, the ones who drive the Australian economy, people who pay taxes and employ other Australians. Many of them are already struggling, yet they have given up days of time and thousands of dollars in lost income and expenses, to come and talk to the government they elected.

For the Labor government to dismiss them as a bunch of whingers whose views are of no consequence, is rudeness driven by a pungent blend of arrogance and stupidity.

No one from the Government appeared before the group.
 
Inside Parliament federal transport minister Anthony Albanese criticised the event.
 
“The convoy of no Consequence, Mr Speaker, the convoy of no consequence where a couple of hundred people gathered with no support from the mainstream organisations, the people who believe in one world government.”

I guess most Australians have already worked out that the Federal government thinks their views and livelihoods are of no consequence, but for the Minister for Transport publicy to despise ordinary people in this way is an indication of how hollow and isolated from reality this government really is.

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