Two big stories on the news in the morning – neither of them very comfortable for Tony Abbott and his Government.

The entire board of the National Broadband Network has offered to resign, and at the time of writing, Malcolm Turnbull is making ‘no comment’. (Other reports suggest that one member has not offered to resign.) This, on top of Nick Paine’s change.org petition to Turnbull, must be making for an icky day for Malcolm and Tony.

A little background on the petition – a sort of parable, the moral of which is unpleasant: Last I saw, there were more than 200,000 signatures on the petition, and Malcolm Turnbull, via Twitter, had ‘brushed’ it aside.

When I started googling, I discovered that one particular story from AAP (Australian Associated Press) appeared all over the place, under the title: Turnbull brushes aside record NBN petition – ninemsn, The Herald Sun, the Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian. In fact, you will find two whole Google pages of competing outlets which have run this story. You can just google, ‘Turnbull brushes aside’ – that’ll do it.

But The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian? Murdoch and Fairfax? What’s that about? Whatever you read on the subject, it was likely to be this A.A.P. story, and you would have come away not knowing the name of the person who instigated the petition (Nick Paine) or the fact that he claims to have voted for the Coalition. And going on the headline, you would’ve thought that it was a record NBN petition as opposed to a record petition that happened to be about the NBN, which is a whole lot bigger headache for Malcolm.

So now the NBN Board is not happy, Jan, and it seems that Ziggy Switkowski, dumped by Telstra 8 years ago, is likely to get the Chief Executive’s job on the NBN Co Board.

Later in the day it became clear that Turnbull asked for the resignations. Well, I’d still rather not be in Malcolm’s shoes today. But it would be a whole lot more uncomfortable to be in Tony Abbott’s shoes – he is, after all, where the buck stops with the NBN, and everything else for that matter.

Today was the day of the first big challenge to the new ‘secrecy’ approach to asylum seeker arrivals by boat. And the challenge is coming from Christmas Island itself, where 2,000 Australians can hardly fail to notice the boat arrivals or the numbers of asylum seekers.

The Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison has confirmed that information about boat people will not be available ‘in real time’, but weekly briefings will be given.

Gordon Thompson, formerly a Christmas Island councilor, had plenty to say this morning: ‘We can tell the world, ‘the general secretary of the Union of Christmas Island Workers told ABC Radio on Monday. ‘We just think the government should be not trying to keep secrets.’

Already they have been able to tell us that the latest boatload of refugees was taken off their boat and transferred to a ‘military’ ship, before being taken to the island. They won’t be able to tell us about deaths at sea, though, unless they occur close to the island.

But, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Administrator of Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, Jon Stanhope, is not at all comfortable with his position if he is required to withhold information from the media. He would have to ‘consider’ his position, he told ABC Radio’s AM this morning.

‘I find it absolutely remarkable that there could be a policy in place that would seek to prevent 2000 Australians that live on Christmas Island from talking about what happens here.’ The Australian.   However, The Australian didn’t see fit to publish the next bit: ‘If there were a government policy like that I would have to consider my position … I don’t think that is a policy I could abide by.’

Mr Stanhope was formerly a Labor politician and Chief Minister of the ACT.

But what about the deaths at sea? And the tow-backs? We may never know about that, unless someone is prepared to blow the whistle, or unless we bestir ourselves and pile the pressure on. At today’s first weekly media briefing, Mr Morrison said,
‘Our joint operations with our good friends in Indonesia and our other partners are matters that we will deal with directly with them.’

Our good friends in Indonesia? Do they know that they’re involved in ‘joint operations’? We’ll see.

I got a pay rise and a nice bonus last Fri.  Thanks Mr Abbott



http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b76/timbo2530/fc14fed6-ad43-4c28-9dfb-297a6f9b...

Tony Abbott Government: Day 6, 23/09/13


Is it still too early to declare them a failed government or should we wait till tomorrow ??

[...]

Coronial Inquest

Because four people were killed in the fires, the ACT coroner was obligated to conduct a coronial inquest.

That task fell to Coroner Maria Doogan, who carried out the largest and longest running coronial investigation ever heard in Canberra.

The inquest lasted four years, although it was interrupted for a year of that time when Stanhope's government challenged Coroner Doogan's stewardship of the Inquest.

When Mr Stanhope announced the coronial inquest immediately after the fires he described Coroner Doogan as "an excellent coroner and an excellent magistrate".

"There is to be absolutely no suggestion that this Government seeks to undermine or affect the independence of the judiciary in the pursuance of its duties in any way whatsoever," he said.

But Mr Stanhope's view of Coroner Doogan quickly changed and a little over a year after the inquest began Mr Stanhope applied in his capacity as attorney-general to have her removed.

That attempt failed in the ACT Supreme Court and three years later Coroner Doogan delivered her findings in a mammoth two volume report.

It was scathing of Mr Stanhope and his government, which it criticised for giving insufficient warning to the residents of Canberra of the impending firestorm.

But the coronial findings saved their greatest criticism for four senior ACT government employees which it said had failed to adequately attack the fires or warn the public.

[...]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-17/firestorm-fallout-who-is-to-blame/4468934