Spearheaded by the feisty Simon Troeth, Red Ted Baillieu's media adviser with a flair for the dramatic, the Victorian Tories are picking up the pace a little, if today's efforts are any guide. In today's Question Time, the normally pedestrian Liberal leader ambushed the government with questions that referenced what they claim to be "minutes" of a confidential meeting of Labor caucus members discussing electoral strategy.
The notes show a number of Labor members of parliament complaining about various aspects of ministerial staff arrogance and incompetence.
Click below to see the typed up version of what they say are "leaked" notes from a meeting of Labor marginal seat MPs which they eagerly distributed to inquisitive newshounds today.
The nature of the notes suggests that they might well have been left lying around - in the style of the missing notebook saga of 2006 - as they don't seem to particularly make any one of the players look bad.
Flies on the wall of Treachery Place say that the Chairman of the Labor marginal seats MP's meeting, Don Nardella was summoned for an afternoon crisis meeting with the Premier to discuss the consequences of the leak.
The notes show the Premier's staff outlining methods by which MP's might manipulate local media (with free lunch outings) and show the none-too-subtle profanity uttering Socialist Leftista Eltham MP Steve Herbert facetiously requesting "any chance of tours/intros" to the Premier's office which he asserts "seems out of bounds".
They show other marginal seat holders complaining that Ministers hog their limelight when doing local announcements, which is a backbencher complaint probably as old as Parliamentary politics itself.
Enjoy. All tips/ideas about who authored or even "leaked" these notes will be gratefully received. Anyone fessing up will be advised not to do so within a five hundred mile radius of JB, who we hear was rampagingly mad about the stupidity of the whole thing this afternoon.
Game on.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
THE LEAK: The OC Exclusively Reveals The Explosive Minutes From Victorian Labor's Marginal Seat MP's Meeting
LEFTIES AT WAR: Socialist Left Ministers At War Over Trendy Power Schemes That Would Cost Battlers More
Paul Austin has dusted off the cobwebs from his usually indolent body politic by writing an amusing yarn today about our favourite subject, left on left violence.
He reports on a ten-rounds stoush between two leading state government Socialist Left ministers over plans to slop out extra loot to high-income households who choose the luxury of "green" energy rather the power the Lord provided from His bountiful supply of beautiful brown coal in Victoria's east.
Socialist Left Environment Minister Jennings was pushing for the scheme but his Socialist Left comrade Pugnacious Pete Batchelor, the Energy Minister, boxed him around the ears with a stunning display of patriotic fervour:
Sources said Mr Batchelor convinced cabinet colleagues the Jennings' plan would mean unacceptable increases in the electricity bills of the vast majority of Victorians who relied on traditional energy supplies.
A comrade will have to sit me down one day and explain what particular aspect of socialism leads Gavin Jennings to want to increase the power bills of people who can't afford to install or run central heating so try desperately to keep one room warm in winter and sometimes struggle to do even that.
He's a man who appears to have checked his concern for the disadvantaged at the oak-panelled Ministerial Cloak Room. If Gavin Jennings can't figure out a way of increasing alternative energy use without hurting the people who would follow Labor into the Valley of Death by voting for them in all circumstances and deliver them safe seats across Melbourne, then he should perhaps give the job to someone who can.
So kudos to Batch, and many more continued boos for Jennings. He presumably can't be as bad or as heartless or as enviro-ideological as he appears. But he certainly appears to be an out-of-control menace to - dare I say it - "working families.".
Game on.
FORKED TONGUES: The Age Caught Out Falsely Boasting of Sponsorships They Don't Make
The nation's most left-wing daily newspaper The Age is facing an investigation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Victorian Office of Fair Trading following complaints made about deceptive and misleading self-promotion on their web-site.
Former chemicals, construction and casino czar cum company chairman of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Age, Ron Walker was known for these kind of "sharp practices" when he was a young crook on the make. He was routinely denounced by the left-wing newspaper before he became its chairman, particularly in the days when he was active within the Liberal party, probably its most effective fundraiser in history.
These days they are extremely polite to the gent, publishing his letters to his friend the editor Andrew Jaspan in a near in cognito fashion and subjecting those who dare criticise his many projects to Star Chamber style inquiries without aid of legal counsel.
Walker's company website repeatedly makes false claims about the extent and generosity of their sponsorship programme that the left-wing newspaper would be the first to condemn had anyone else been guilty of such dishonesty.
FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT SPORTS SPONSORSHIPS
Spring Carnival? Nuh uh. We understand that one is firmly in the turf of the Herald Sun. Always was. Oh, and the Aged have just rationalised their form guides down to almost nothing, so any claim to horse racing cred is a poor joke.
Australian Tennis Open? - Sorry, that's another Herald Sun exclusive. The Age was shown the door in 2006.
World Swimming championships? - So last year, baby.
INFLATED CLAIMS ABOUT COMMUNITY SPONSORSHIPS
Actually, it looks more like a list of the charities they've given comp ad space to. Big deal. When we asked an insider about The Age giving away free space, he remarked "Big deal. Who doesn't?" It is considered unusual to boast about doing it and pretending it is a form of Spanish.
EXAGGERATIONS ABOUT BUSINESS SPONSORSHIPS
Ahem.
The VANA dinner and awards night? Really? They get their logo on the program by offering to present an award and poke some cash at their most important distribution channel. If they didn't they'd be out of business.
Southern Cross Station? They didn't renew their contract in 2007. Anyway, it was just an ad spend, guys.
DECEPTIONS ABOUT ARTS & CULTURE SPONSORSHIPS
Dymocks Book Events? An advertising partnership. A d v e r t i s i n g.
Comedy Festival. Their biggest partnership. Word on the street is that it's very shaky - the numbers this year were well down from last year's already poor numbers (which were down on the previous years: is there a pattern here?)
Melbourne Museum? They claim to be "principal media sponsor" of the Museum. But they're not any more. They have their name on one gallery, but the rest of the place is Herald Sun territory. Exclusively.
Australian Open Ticketing Program? Guys, get over it. It's over. They hate you. You're history. Didn't they see the big Herald Sun logo on the TV side at centre court? Or the Australian Open's site which list the Herald Sun as their Official Newspaper.
Game on.
POWER WITHOUT GLORY: Greens Party Bosslord Greg Barber Carves Up Internal Opponents Leaving Him Its Unchallenged Supreme Leader
In a frightening example of left-on-left violence, Greens party power junkie Greg Barber MLC has axed three long-term Greens party Yarra councillors in an unprecedented power grab within that once hippy now creepy extreme left-wing organisation.
Yarra Councillors Gurm Sekhon, Jenny Farrar and Kathleen Maltzahn were all put to the blade in preselection bloodshed last week with Sekhon and Farrar put in unwinnable positions in their wards and Maltzahn dumped completely.
GREG BARBER MBA MLC WIELDS THE BLADE
The Greens leader Greg Barber is notorious for saying "The Greens are just a brand, it doesn't matter what our policies are or who our candidates are" was the one who made the move, imposing his own candidates at the top of Greens party tickets for the Yarra elections due in November.
One close Greens party observer told the OC this morning "This is a victory for Stalinism over Trotskyism within the Greens. Barber has used his clout and office resources to build his own power-base. All those who opposed him in the past have suddenly become a politically endangered species."
DENIAL IS A RIVER IN EGYPT
While Barber has denied being involved in the massacre, his fingerprints are all over it.
Gurm's replacement, Sam Gaylard (mocking his name would be the height of political incorrectness) works as one of Barber's electorate officers and principal numbers-man. The candidate pole-axing Jenny Farrar is Amanda Stone, a close adviser to Barber who according to the Melbourne Times "worked on Mr Barber's campaign in the 2006 state election."
The candidate with Kathleen Maltzahn's blood on her hands is the Greens party supremo and state co-ordinator Alison Clarke, who is another Barber faction hard-head.
Barber is simply in a different league from all those who oppose him within his naive party. He is obsessed with winning and determined to clear out all those like Gurm Sekhon who have opposed him in the past, even publicly referring to Barber as a "cowboy".
BARBER'S VICTIMS REMAIN SILENT
What would have once been unimaginable, the wholesale clearing out of every Greens party candidate now occurs with barely a whimper of protest from his victims. Darth Barber is happy to exercise power with more brute force than even the most blood-thirsty of Labor numbers-men.
Even more curiously his victims are silent, with even their supporters being too scared to speak out to the OC this morning.
Sekhon compliantly told the puzzled local press, in the style of the re-educated Winston from Orwell's 1984:
"No one gets to play centre half-forward for the whole life. I am and always will be a team player."
Gurm Sekhon is not the OC's cup of tea politically, but clearly is a popular bloke in his community, with a cult level of support in some circles. The other victims of Barber's blade are lower profile but made the mistake of being opposed to the Barber faction.
THE WAYS OF STALIN
They Greens party have evolved in a highly controlled, secretive and Stalinist organisation, despite its hippy left origins. Barber's supporters say that under the old culture, the organisation was disorganised, nearly insolvent a couple of times and incapable of building on the popular support for at least the part of their policies that dealt with environmental protection.
His foes acknowledge the mistakes of the past but wonder how long it will take for Greens party supporters to learn that the organisation they're voting for is not a collective of worthy hippies trying to save the world but a tightly wound, disciplined, exclusive, Stalinist cadre intent on gaining as much power as possible for ultra-left causes while trading on what Greg Barber himself refers to in commercial language of a "brand".
Game on.
