Thought you might be. :}
For all that, when it comes to cancelling citizenship I'm a bit concerned about the Minister's recent statements about not being 'second guessed' by judges? What a big tough pollie. Isn't he just so Bruce Willis? :}

I thought the system was that the parliament/ministers made the laws and the courts passed judgement. Of course I'm not a lawyer, but gosh damn it, neither is he. The two Ministers who are actually lawyers (Bishop and Brandis) seem to be a bit un:cool: with the recent turn of events; maybe they foresee a High Court flogging? :hmm: Or maybe they have a better idea or where the boundary between legislative and judiciary powers lies...
Chapter III. The Judicature. ? Parliament of Australia

How many other Australians have died due to violent acts this year? Lots more than two. Never mind Terrorism; they've died due to domestic violence, disputes over money and dumb, often drunken fights about stuff that doesn't matter.

Look at how many Australians are actually killed wrt terrorism, then look at how many others die for other stupid, boring reasons. So far two Queenslanders have died this week because some poor bloke had a blackout and drove his ute into a coffee shop gas bottle. :{ Another ten or so people are in hospital with critical burns because someone stuffed up. You might be in the chocolate shop, or you might be in the NQ coffee shop. Either way, which is more likely? In truth, probably neither. Statistically, you'll die of heart disease and/or old age.

Ignore the media hyperbole (they're in the business of selling papers and it pays them to be alarmist :mad:) and keep it in perspective.

Asylum boat turnbacks: Australia paid people smugglers under former Labor government


This just gets better and better. How are Labor going to weasel their way out of this one? After Question Time yesterday, there better be a long line of them apologising to Abbott and the Liberals, led first up by that idiot Tony Burke. And considering the Greens were in cohorts during the Labor years, they'd be complicit too. Mind you, they probably wouldn't have known what was happening. You wouldn't let anyone from the Greens within cooee of any operations conducted by ASIS.

Hempy, I'm under no illusions about Pickering's political stance and make it clear when I post something from his sight that it is from his site and unconfirmed.

Pickering's main failing is his 'cry wolf' factor. There is sometimes some truth to be found in his articles, but he all too frequently robs such articles of impact by posting too many other 'revelations' that are just plain wrong and all too easily disproved.

The Libs might be being a bit more clever than most give them credit for in keeping this people smuggler bribery issue to the fore. Labor and SHY, in mock outrage override mode, have been burning their bridges merrily for the last few days - and then the Libs let drop that money was paid to the people smugglers by Labor.

Look as though Labor has been caught red-handed. I do wonder whether the vocal Laborites of the past few days had any idea what was going on behind the scenes, in which case they are being disgracefully hypocritical as usual. Either way they ought to be red-faced over this one.

bosnich... I was going to spend some time and find you some evidence but I figure you'd just dismiss anything contrary to your worldview as leftie-spin tainted by the influence of Triggs & Co. So what's the point?

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Labor was hypocritical to call for the Government to provide answers it would not give.

"Labor's hypocrisy has been revealed, really, because when Labor and Bill Shorten were asked to rule out that any such payments were made under the period of the Rudd and Gillard Governments, what was the answer by Mr Shorten?" Mr Cormann said.

"That they don't comment on intelligence and security matters."

Please explain this Bill and SHY while toning down your mock outrage.

They may not have known. I can't imagine this sort of operation was discussed openly in cabinet, so maybe it was only the PM and relevant few ministers who knew about it. For that matter, the same goes for the current government.

WTF, surely your taking the P!ss? And someone has the cheek to say I'm a bit short in the top paddock:p.

Me thinks you are either having a wind up, or jst trying redefine the mean again for the naieve people out there:=

The "no comment" method of dealing with media seems to be working well for Mr Abbott. No one knows what happened with the recent turn back, and letting everyone speculate plays into the governments paradigm.

Irony would be that no payments were made.

On another matter, recent polling shows that 60 something percent of those polled are concerned about terrorism in Australia, this is good as it keeps peoples minds off the real issues.

Oh this just gets better and better. Now the Indonesian VP says that ' bribing' boats to turn around is bad because bribing people is bad. Of course, no bribing of officials goes on in Indonesia, does it? Oh the irony of it all.

I'm just waiting for SHY to stick her head up and try to back out of her calls for an AFP inquiry, now that it seems her mates on the left have been paying a few boats off as well.

I must get the popcorn ready.

The line 'We cannot comment on operational matters' was the inspired idea of Morrison when he was minister for immigration. By recasting the asylum seeker strategy as a military operation, Morrison made that response valid and it worked a treat right from the outset. In denying that payments were made to smugglers, Dutton, Bishop and Brandis failed for some reason to follow the script, and it has got the Libs into trouble.

It seems to be that we all regard ourselves (and media which reflect our views) as reasonable and moderate. Anyone Left of us is 'a Leftie' and anyone to the Right is a damned conservative. Like driving - each of us is a good driver, neither overly cautious nor too reckless, although other drivers are.

Costello was flapping his gums the other day saying its not unusual to confirm or deny such things in these circumstances regardless. Both side do it.

Another quote from the Pickering site. (With apologies to Hempy.)

Chuboy ... " I was going to spend some time and find you some evidence".
Well that would have been a first, as is you actually replying to questions on this blog. But don't worry too much I've grown accustomed to your silences as no doubt has everyone else.

Re bribery in Indonesia
It is important that you bribe the petty official who is in front of you, be it the policeman, customs guy or whoever. He will jack you up a bit but just accept it, he knows if he takes you to the main man he will get fck all of the bribe.

Cheers for that!
Visiting Indons (and others) try it here all the time, and get very grumpy when it doesn't work :E. You can see it written on their faces; 'what sort of inefficient dump is this? Why can't I just pay to make this problem go away'? Used to keep me amused, anyway...:}

I agree with all you have written. Despite attempts however by certain 'damned conservatives' here to brand me as a 'looney Left huggy fluffy' because I disagree with them, I remain firmly in the centre. I'm open to both sides of the argument, but the fact is that this whole thread (with certain exceptions e.g Worrals) is dominated by 'dyed in the wool' hard-line conservatives who refuse to look past the ends of their own noses.

And that's ok. Opinions are like :mad:holes, everyone has one. Just don't expect everyone to 'march to the drum'...some of us are capable of independent thought rather than falling for hyped up propaganda.

Well well Mr Hemp, trying to be the voice of reason; that's a good look.
Personally, I am to the right of Genghis Khan on some issues and to the left of Gough Whitlam on others

Sorry to disappoint you Mr Dean, but I'd never deign to be quite so righteous as that. Each to their own though...

p.s I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't bring Hitler and Stalin into the conversation, but Khan and Whitlam will do :rolleyes:

Not a fan of either Hitler or Stalin, although I am in agreement with Karl Marx and Fred Engels on a lot of their writings.
In case you missed it, I was implying that my ethic encompasses both extremes.
Did you just invoke the Goodwin Law?

And why doesn`t that surprise me Worrals. How are ya BTW?:D

And re the bribery bits in Indonesia and various other places in the world;
I have on occasion wondered if the two recently executed persons in Indonesia had offered an `appropriate` amount at an early opportunity whether or not they would still be alive!

I read such an observation made a long time ago by some Journo but (surprise surprise:eek:) it seemingly was never followed up or indeed mentioned again as far as I am aware.:hmm: