Ken,whoever the lady works for she still made a statement that the entire NSW government was corrupt which makes her a D**k Head and Abbott was quite correct to take her to task.
P.S I've been around a few years and I don't know what a bottle of anything costs but what I do know is that a "Lady of Negotiable Virtue" costs a great deal. I hasten to add that I don't know this from personal dalliances with such ladies but from the relevations of the spending by a Labour M.P. who was supported by our Prime Minister for 4 years while he lied about his night time meetings with the aforementioned ladies. The fact that this person was spending his unions members monies indulging in his sexual fantasies makes B.O's bottle of plonk look like small beer doesn't it?
Oh,and my Missus is still awaiting acknowledgment of her letter regarding those funds from her ex union.

O'Farrell is a career politician, not a labourer. He'd know Grange was valuable, even if he didn't know the exact value of that vintage. The stuff starts at about $600 a bottle so it was always going to be over the $500 NSW declaration threshold.

I think that even the average labourer now knows that Grange Hermitage is an expensive wine. It's been heavily marketed as such, and frequently referenced in TV shows and articles about the rich and famous. Also, people are more interested in wine than they used to be and it's often written up in the paper and on wine websites.

Re Navy ships into Indos waters. The latest. Serious stuff.

"The captain of a navy vessel which blundered into Indonesian waters while on border protection duty has been sacked from his command.

A second captain will be administratively sanctioned while five others will be counselled about their responsibility to ensure their vessels stay out of Indonesian territorial waters."


You can read more here.
Navy captain sacked for Indon incursion

Wasn't there something about getting thier orders from Canberra..?

That was the excuse I was finally given for the show of force to my VFR aircraft by an F18 during CHOGM. Apparently pilot was "talking on the radio to someone in Canberra" instead of the frequency required for the restricted airspace he was flying in, ie 135.25, so he was merrily pointing his guns at legit aircraft following published procedures, on the correct frequency and identified by Perth Centre and the only VHF frequency he would use was 121.5

It's a long story.



:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Do you know that for a fact?

Quote:

---

One would have to have been living under a pile of rocks to not know that Grange is a very expensive red

---

I'm 47, half bogan (trady) and half tertiary educated, I wouldn't have a f#$%en clue what Grange is. He got a bottle of wine, probally didn't take any notice put it on the long list of thank you notes and forgot all about it.

I'd be disturbed if a person in his position would actually remember receiving such trivial gift. I'm more disturbed that there's bottles of plonk on the market are actually worth that much:p

I think people automatically assume that Grange is expensive.

I believe some are and some aren't, depending on the vintage.

This does not seem exactly fair to me...they were doing a job.

Senior Navy officer loses command over incursion into Indonesian waters during Operation Sovereign Borders - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

War in Australia (any Oz Politics)
 

I think most people have followed Party lines over the BO'F resignation. If you are Lib, he's done the honourable thing after forgetting the arrival if the wine. If you are Labour, he's guilty of something and was trying to hide the wine gift. Basic logic would say that if he thought there was something dodgy about the wine gift, he would not have risked his whole career over such a small (in the grand scheme of things) amount and would have returned it - and certainly not have written a thank you note. But then I am of the Liberal camp.

SOPS

The problem is, the buck stops with the Captain.

I made a wrong call when this first blew up, thinking it a mistake.

But what gets me about the whole thing is 7 different ships crossed the line.
Something somewhere went seriously wrong for 7 Captains / Navigation officers to make the same mistake in such a short period of time.

Hell, with GPS etc, it is a hell of a lot easier to Navigate than when you just had a map, compass and protractor.

Well I'm 72, (tertiary educated, world traveller), don't like or drink red wine and am no connoisseur of any wines. I have seen bottles of Penfolds on the shelves at what I call sensible prices, nothing special. Until yesterday I hadn't heard of Grange. I have a wine cabinet that has, (just checked), bottles of red we have been given as long as ten years ago, when we have guests who drink red they are invited to look and see if any particularly take their fancy.


'Knowing' one's wines is a very subjective ability at best and of questionable value, also not an ability I would expect to find in more than one in ten or twenty politicians.


So, just how many wine clubs is O'Farrell the president of then? :)

Okay, if neither of you had heard of the stuff I stand corrected. I still think the Premier of New South Wales would know what it was, though; he'd go to enough posh functions and restaurants to at least see it on the wine list.

I think it's smelly, though as Saltie points out it probably comes down to party lines.

He said he knew about it (wine) as he commented on the year as it being
the same as his birth. Now whether he knew it was worth $3000 or $300,
I don't think he has said but he sure knew it wasn't a $5 bottle of plonk !

The same could be said for Buswell, but between having chairs in one hand and the other unclipping bra's he would never have been able to hold onto a wine list:E

Was he the chair sniffer?
The only time I travelled to WA was just as that story broke. I bought a copy of the West Australian to read with breakfast and it was full of references to 'the notorious chair sniffing incident,' of which I knew nothing :confused:. Fortunately the rest of the cafe enlightened me, which (while appreciated) didn't improve breakfast. :}

Maybe these guys should be pollies...they seem to have a similar level of personal awareness.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/quee...416-36rub.html

Yep, thats our buzzy:p.

To be fair, he wasn't actually a chair sniffer, he just cracked a joke about doing it. A standard bogan male sort of thing, though most have the good sense to not do it with a female:ugh:

Okay, I didn't realise that. To me the appropriate answer would be 'what are you, some sort of pervert?' but I'm several rungs below pollies on the social/workplace scale. :\

Agreed. After far too many years in male dominated bogan workplaces I've never heard that sort of joke about any women in those workplaces (obviously jokes about Miley Cyrus et al don't count; there's a big difference). No doubt they've been made (and I have very selective hearing) but... I've never actually heard them. :suspect: if I had, the point would have been made in a short and sharp fashion. :cool:

FWIW I've generally found that guys are very careful to be non-offensive around female employees, to the extent that I've had to break the swearing/dirty joke barrier myself. :\ Once that's been sorted everyone relaxes and gets on with the job, talking about footy and bitching about management. :}

WitW,

Far from it: Grange ranges from mid $300's on up: Grange prices.

Indeed, all of mine are in the $4-500 range, and I would moot that anyone receiving one as a 'gift' with half an idea of its worth wouldn't bother to list it since the natural assumption would be that it would be <$500. The 1959 value depends on the Bin, and could actually be as low as $1,700. Not knowing which bottle was sent to BoF the media have latched on to the highest price of the best Bin (46) but I'd wager that the gift would have been the cheapest!

Another ambush, IMO, and has achieved the square root of FA. There was no corruption, no deliberate deception nor any dishonesty worth taking a capable leader out of his job.

Yep thats what it takes, generally most are naturally polite, the ones that arn't are the @rse holes.
Yes but there's still the secret squirrel business of the unbroken line you never cross, you will never truely be one of us:E

So maybe he should have toughed it out, apologised and said it was a mistake. Personally I wouldn't have had a problem with that, but he chose to resign. That was (presumably) his decision.

And you will never truly be one of mine. Fair deal, IMHO. :} In the meantime, we all work together and go home safely, which is what the game's about; nothing more and nothing less. G'night! ;)