A timely question

Has any journalist ever had the courage or the lack of regard for their career to ask former ALP Prime Ministers of Australia Bob Hawke or Paul Keating what and when they knew about the alleged child sex abuse activities of the late former ALP federal minister Bob Collins? It is too late to ask the over-rated Hawke, who died shortly before the recent federal election and will have a state memorial service in his honour next month at the Sydney Opera House, and will also soon have a new school in Perth named after him. I very much doubt that anyone has or will have the fortitude to ask the acid-tongued Keating what he knew, even though there has been an allegation reported that Keating's office was informed about Collins' activities when the ALP were in power (presumably during the Hawke/Keating era in the 1980s-1990s), to be told that they couldn't do anything without evidence. An allegation is counted as evidence when it is made in a court hearing, but like many men accused of child sex abuse crimes, Collins took his own life before he had to face a courtroom, saving the ALP and his supporters the trouble and dishonour of having to acknowledge any guilty findings of a court, and also denying his many alleged victims the "closure" and personal validation of a guilty finding. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20071224195947/http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=299532

https://web.archive.org/web/20071224195953/http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=301641 

https://neverheardofthebloke.blogspot.com/2017/12/vile-deeds-grave-accusations-non.html

I really shouldn't laugh.....

Julia Gillard vows to plough ahead despite polls.
From: AAP
Herald Sun.
June 28, 2011.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/julia-gillard-vows-to-plough-ahead-despite-polls/story-e6frf7jx-1226083234667

"She is now the most unpopular modern prime minister since Paul Keating at his worst."

Julia Gillard now leads 'most unpopular Australian government in past 40 years'.
Alison Rourke
Guardian.
18 June 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/18/julia-gillard-most-unpopular-leader-australia

"With her personal approval rating collapsing (nearly 60% of those polled disapprove of her), Kevin Rudd is now the preferred Labor leader by a margin of two to one."

Labor would win election under Rudd: poll
By Jeremy Thompson
Updated Mon Jun 27, 2011.
ABC News.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/27/3254766.htm?section=justin

"Fifty-one per cent of those polled believe Australia has become a "worse place" since Ms Gillard became Prime Minister."

Secret behind Blanche d'Alpuget and Sue Pieters-Hawke airport scuffle.
Annette Sharp and Clementine Cuneo
The Daily Telegraph
June 28, 2011.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/bob-hawkes-wife-blanche-dalpuget-and-daughter-sue-pieters-hawke-in-catfight-involving-afp/story-e6freuzi-1226083064129

"Federal police were called after an altercation between the two women in the Qantas chairman's lounge at Brisbane Airport on Thursday. Witnesses said one of the women slapped the other four times."

Gutless

I’d like to dedicate this lovely tune, by the legendary and not-gutless Courtney Love, to the Australian Labor Party,

the party who have never had the guts to challenge or to educate voters who misguidedly view refugees as a threat to our nation

the party who swiftly respond to popular outrage over animal cruelty while not swerving from policies which cause cruelty to human refugees

the party that has leaders who stuffed up the live cattle trade with Indonesia and endangered the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, leaving the great big mess for their outcast Foreign Minister to sort out

the party who can’t bring themselves to catch up with the twentieth century and end the embarrassment of our backwards nation still not allowing same-sex marriage

the party who has caved in to the expensive and questionable demands of a professor psychiatrist who has a flair for self-promotion, who lacks scientific credibility, has many conflicting interests and has routinely broken the rules of professional conduct by failing to declare conflicting interests in published journal papers

the party that has a long history of political dynasties (the less polite term for this is nepotism)

the party who were happy to sit in opposition for many years under an internally popular but shockingly useless leader

the party who still revere a past leader who was a drunken womanizer who ruled during times of high unemployment and high interest rates, and has been a vocal advocate of the brutal regime of “Myanmar”

the party who still revere a past leader who was a smug smartarse despite the shockingly high rates of unemployment and interest rates during the times when he was a treasurer and a Prime Minister, and who appointed an obese predatory paedophile as a federal government minister

the party who were happy to allow a hardworking individual to pull them out of the wilderness of opposition, and later pull the nation through the international global financial crisis using great judgement and decisiveness, while all the time reserving the right to knock him down and replace him should he become less useful

the party who failed to support their leader when he took on the might of Australia’s mining companies with a new tax

the party who failed to confront that leader when all that power went to his head, preferring instead to simply wipe him out and start with someone else

the party who allowed an unelected union leader to publicly announce the outcome of the most controversial leadership coup in Australian political history

the party who caved in to the demands of mining company billionaires who don’t like to pay tax

the party who kiss-up to and obey the US government, and who have prominent members who inform on other members to the US embassy, and who trot along to the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue every year, and munch hot dogs at baseball matches like the aspiring yankee doodle dandy suckholes that they are

the party who has a leader who will soon be going to Western Australia for a conference, perhaps in the hope that the mining state will be the least hostile place to be a year after the political assassination of their former leader, and months after the party caved in to the threats and demands of mining billionaires who like to avoid paying tax

you’re gutless!

A political quote to ponder

".... I carried you through the whole 1984-1987 parliament, insisting you look like the prime minister, even if your staff, the Manchu Court I called them, were otherwise prepared to leave you in your emotional hole. No other prime minister would have survived going missing for that long. But with my help, you were able to. Kevin Rudd had two months of bad polls and you were the first to say he should be replaced. And you have since repeated it."

- Former PM of Australia and former Deputy PM Paul Keating in a letter to former PM Bob Hawke

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/keating-hits-back-hawke-only-survived-as-pm-with-my-help/story-e6frgczf-1225891811095