Listening to his babble direct from Indonesia, I cannot help but be amused at the level of gullibility he assumes the Australian and Indonesian people have. A diplomat he most assuredly is not, an obsequious, double-talking little weasel he definitely is!

greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 5^th, 2013 at 11:23am:


Looks more like Kevvy

Here's another job for Mr Fix-it . . .. .

NT Labor stands by Gillard 'captain's pick' plan

Staff reporters

Updated 4 hours 32 minutes ago

Top End Labor party officials say they will not seek to change former prime minister Julia Gillard's "captain's pick" of Olympian Nova Peris at the top of the ALP's Senate ticket for the looming federal election.

Ms Gillard revealed that she had persuaded Ms Peris to join the Labor party in January this year, offering her a fast track to a political career.

She replaced veteran Senator Trish Crossin as the number one pick on the ALP's Territory Senate ticket.

The move was attacked by some party members in the Territory, who said Ms Gillard had trampled over local interests in the selection of a candidate.

After the announcement, Senator Crossin, the first Territory woman to be elected to the federal parliament, announced she would step down from politics after 15 years in the Senate.

In a valedictory speech last month, she slammed the preselection process of Ms Peris.

"Just because one person says it must be so doesn't make it right or democratic," she said.

Fellow Labor Senators Kim Carr and Doug Cameron said they believed that Senator Crossin had been treated unjustly by Ms Gillard.

Following Kevin Rudd's return as Prime Minister after Ms Gillard was rolled in a party room vote, Territory Labor circles began talking about the possibility of reinstating Senator Crossin at the top of the party ticket.

But Territory ALP president Mathew Gardiner says the party will not be seeking a change to the list of candidates for the federal election.

He says the ultimate decision on candidates is made by the national executive, and he is not aware of any planned changes following Mr Rudd's return from the wilderness.

"Look, one of the things that happened after the leadership change was making sure we were being sorted out," he said.

"One of the things we wanted to find out from national executive was, would there be a change of heart?

"As far as we are aware, there is no change of heart."

The Territory branch of the ALP does not have a place on the party's national executive.

Mr Gardiner says he would like to see the rules changed so the national executive can't easily overrule a local executive in the choice of candidates.

He says he will raise the issue at the next ALP national conference.

"Having an intervention in the candidates is a very rare occurrence, but it's not unknown," he said.

"[We will] try to get the national rules changed so it can't be brought in at the first instance, but as a last option."