Beleaguered Labor MP Noreen Hay has been dumped as a New South Wales parliamentary secretary by Premier Nathan Rees. The move comes after the member for Wollongong was caught up in the scandal surrounding disgraced police minister Matt Brown’s drunken romp at a post-budget party in June. Mr. Brown was sacked yesterday after news of his actions became public.
A witness said Matt Brown, who was sworn in just three days ago, stripped down to his “very brief” underpants and danced to loud “Oxford Street-style” techno music on a green leather Chesterfield couch he had recently ordered for his office. The witness said Mr Brown “mounted the chest” of Wollongong MP Noreen Hay.
It is a measure of the Prime Minister’s commitment to national security that with the economy slowing and the country suffering increased unemployment and the effects of international financial crises, he should so specifically recommit to real growth in the defence budget of 3 per cent a year for the next decade.
Three state and territory Labor governments are at the heart of the storms buffeting Australian politics. New South Wales’ economy is shrinking and last week its government imploded spectacularly. The Northern Territory Government mismanaged the crisis of child protection in indigenous communities that led to the federal intervention last year. And the West Australian Government is on the verge of losing office after an opportunistic and cynical election campaign.
With the mood turning against Labor in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, Kevin Rudd may need a new plan. How about an action plan? For more than nine months, like a period of gestation, we have waited in anticipation for the change that the Prime Minister claimed this country needed after the Howard years. Smarting from attacks that his Government lacked direction, Rudd hurriedly rushed out a few planks in his education revolution a few weeks ago.
The surreal is everywhere. Witness Alan Carpenter, failed Premier from the rivers of gold state Western Australian telling the ABC’s The 7.30 Report on Monday that he wants to start “a completely new era in Western Australian governance” by teaming up with the Nationals. No, it wasn’t Clarke and Dawe. Don’t check your sets, this is supposed to be serious.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson will shortly announce a $30-a-week increase to the singles rate for pensioners and a bonus payment of about $500 a year to be paid shortly. The Coalition is trying to capitalise as the Rudd Government ties itself in knots by conceding pensioners can’t live on what they are paid now. The Coalition resisted pressure to lift the pension rate in the dying days of the Howard government - including rejecting a push by then minister Mal Brough.
The federal Government has been forced into a $6million emergency package to prevent RAAF air traffic controllers and airfield workers with a trade from being poached by the private sector. The move - which will put an extra $30,000 in the pockets of air traffic controllers - is the latest in a series of desperate measures.
In a blunt warning to the national congress of the Returned and Services League, Kevin Rudd also said he wanted to use Australia’s status as “a middle power” to promote comprehensive diplomatic engagement within the region and through the UN as a buffer against regional rivalries.
Total government spending for each Victorian government school student in 2005-06 was $10,352. Total spending for each non-government school student was almost half that figure — $5614. Independent school parents pick up the difference and in Victoria they are going to have to make an even bigger sacrifice.