Saturday, February 18, 2012

Just The Ticket For Tony

A COUPLE of days ago, a woman by the name of Cheryl Carter was prohibited from leaving England to start a new life with her family in Perth. Carter was for many years the secretary to Rebekah Brooks, the Murdoch editrix near the centre of the ongoing hacking scandal. The suspicion that Carter was being rewarded for her silence with a comfy job on the other side of the world, far from Scotland Yard’s investigators, was immediate.

Today sees another story of an aspiring traveller’s intention to pursue overseas opportunities. Like Carter, this one might also shed quite a lot of light on some disgraceful carryings-on.  Yes, that person would be the recently unemployed Tony Hodges, the prime ministerial intimate whose phone calls prompted the Australia Day riot. Hodges went to earth after the incident, untroubled in his solitude by reporters camped on his doorstep, which makes him a good deal luckier than Godwin Grech.

Now, according to the Daily Telegraph, he is off to London, where there are rumours of a comfy, feather-bedded job on the staff of ex-Labor minister Bob McMullan, Australia's rep on the European Bank of Reconstruction. Good work if you can get it, although igniting a riot and being fired by a prime minister would hardly seem recomendations. Perhaps McMullan needs someone to fine-tune his speeches -- add a preamble about the Celts, Picts, Scots and Saxons on whose lands he collects his old boy's sinecure today. Given Hodges' demonstrated ability to communicate quickly with natives, especially at an emotional level, that might be the qualification which clinches the deal.

Would it be rude, do you reckon, to call on Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus to confiscate Hodges’ passport until the investigation is complete, as British authorities have done with Cheryl Carter?

No one is suggesting Negus is there to sweep things under the carpet or let prime witnesses slip away, but if Hodges collects his boarding pass without impediment there are sure to be uncharitable souls who will claim as much. Negus could do himself and his force a bit of good by following his English counterparts' example.

UPDATE: While the AFP has interviewed Kim Sattler, there is no indication Hodges has been called in for a chat. Surely investigators would wish to speak with him -- unless, of course, the AFP recruits its investigators from the ranks of press gallery journalists, who with very exceptions have shown no interest at all in finding and quizzing someone widely suspected of promoting a race riot in the name of cheap political advantage.

32 comments:

  1. One can well imagine Tony Hodges being briefed by Gillard's office. "Shut up. Keep your head down and remain invisible. We'll find you something if you don't rat on us."
    Young Mr Hodges has a number of questions to answer before he collects his boarding pass.

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    1. Guys - you're living in dreamland if you think the AFP wants anything to do with this. They'll drive him to the airport, if necessary, and carry his bags.

      Delete
  2. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.February 18, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Well, Prof, there's that old saying "The Devil looks after his own", and the Labor party certainly take care of theirs. No mainstream media report of this, naturally.

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    1. The Old and Unimproved DaveFebruary 18, 2012 at 12:52 PM

      "there's that old saying "The Devil looks after his own"

      Only in-store. When they reach the checkout.....

      Delete
  3. The Old and Unimproved DaveFebruary 18, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Uh-oh. What if the Hodge-meister starts up a rival blog to 'Bunyipitude' ?

    He could call it 'Turpitude'.....

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  4. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.February 18, 2012 at 10:28 AM

    Oops - "No MSM report ...", well, noted by the Telegraph, but not from the usual suspects at Fairfax and TV channels? Or am I wrong on this, and there is a great outcry?

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  5. heh. Nice joke, Prof. I actually know Negus from when I was in Canberra - he's a political animal to the absolute core. AFP's internal political wars are legendary in Canberra, it had a genuinely horrible work culture when the HQ as on Northbourne and it's gotten worse at the new digs at barton.

    When even ASIO (ASIO!!) people say 'wow, their corporate culture blows dead elephants', you know it's really, really bad. ASIO's internal culture is appalling hence the rule we had - when seconded, wear uniform.

    There's as much chance of Negus canning the racebaiter's passport as there is of the sun coming up in the north tomorrow morning.

    Mk50
    brisbane

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    1. Interesting take on matters. But how does one explain why there are so many "failed initial screening" applicants from DIO? Some bitterness, perhaps?

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  6. I am still surprised McMullen even got as far as London. When he was a Minister he refused to travel outside Australia. But then I suppose a cushy London job would be tempting ,...and now he will have a masterspinner to help him. I am not surprised a job was found for Hodges, knew he would be warehoused somewhere on the Labor gravy train...he took one for the team.

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    1. Ha! Hodges was never a "masterspinner",just a hack following orders from PR goons working for an unsavably incompetent polician promoted beyond her station.

      Delete
  7. "igniting a riot and being fired by a prime minister"

    He certainly ignited a riot, but sacked by JG? I thought "his resignation was accepted". He was the fall guy for the team. His silence - well jobs for the boys allows drawing your own conclusion. Looks like the team got away with it.

    -Carl

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    1. Correct. And besides, under JG's Fair Work Australia, she couldn't have sacked Hodges even if he'd murdered Abbott, set fire to the tent embassy and sold national secrets to the Chinese

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  8. It's so obvious he's been paid off to take one for the team.

    He deserves all the media scrutiny he can get for his despicable actions not to mention being charged for incitement but instead...nothing.

    Can this government's corrupt behaviour get any more obvious?

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  9. Count me amongst the uncharitable souls.

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  10. Gillard should have been asked if Hodges resigned or was sacked, and that if he resigned, had he committed a sackable offence. Of course Gillard was allowed to skate.

    But anyway, we know them by their lack of accountability.

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  11. Orwell's pigs flying to the rescue? Or will they really just high five each other as they pass at the equator?

    Fair go Prof, Fair-Work Australia are announcing, or trying to, an enquiry into themselves so that their fairness is seen to be above reproach. The enquiry into the enquirers will report back by the end of the decade and no-one will comment while the independent auditors conduct their important job.

    A city that turns it's back on Jesus is apt to look something like this. The post rational post modern post Christian, Gaia fearing, electricity price doubling, dam hating truth. So Onward Chinese soldiers - where "soldiers" has some endogenous sort of integrity. Let's just outsource Government. You know, restructure, move it off-shore, have a few growing pains, and embrace the new economy - where CO2 "traps" heat - that photon hugging little beasty.

    Julia's grip on office is having a remarkable resemblence to Bashar and Muammar's. A scorched earth policy of conflict resolution.

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    1. It's time you got your own blog, Phillip. I'm sure Bunyip would link to it, and I could get you linked with some of the best minds in the interwebsophere. Christ minded gnostics and so forth. Time is of the essesnce and running short.

      Delete
  12. Several commenters have noted that Hodges resigned. Well that is true. But there are resignations and there are resignations, some in the name of principle and others because the boss wants you gone. As the source of the "resignation" was Julia Gillard, it is safe to assume acounts that he went voluntarily are all lies.

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    1. Exactly -- and I speak from experience. The London job would have been dangled as the incentive to go quickly and quietly. He would have been told, "Take it or you'll be dismissed and that will look bad on your CV".

      Delete
  13. Old Fedpol joke -

    What does ASIO stand for -
    "All Simpletons In Origin."

    The force was best under the command of Mick Keelty - this Tony Negus lacks balls.

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    1. The best thing about that joke is the irony of the AFP bumpkins having the stones to make it.

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    2. It was Mick Keelty that said to the media that there was no proof to hold him. It was only the idiot legal eagles who thought otherwise.

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    3. That still doesn't exonerate you from the irony of making that joke, Mr.Plod.

      Delete
    4. You must be a policy wonk -

      Incomprehensible and Irrelevant.

      Delete
    5. You must be one of BBQ Mick's mates. (Ah, now you know I know what I'm talking about, plod).

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  14. If lies and deceptions were 2 bucks a kilo ,this shower of "socialist" no hopers would all be Millionaires. They make the Mafia look like St Vinnies.

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  15. Here's Peter Reith on the EBRD. Not too complimentary.
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3726930.html

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  16. Andrew O'Connor of 7.30 WA had the perfect opportunity to set the record straight on Friday night when interviewing an aboriginal elder over the establishment of another tent city on Herrison Island, Perth. The elder repeated the lie that Abbott had commented that the Canberra tent embassy should be pulled down. Andrew carried on without missing a beat, leaving the lie unchallenged and in place. One wonders at the truely evil self interested groups such as the WWF, Conservation Australia, lawyers and journalists who are using aboriginals like this to well and truely destroy what once was a relatively ordered society. Maybe the ordinary, moderate, wage earning, law obiding, tax paying citizen should start behaving like the bastards these groups insist on saying they are . . . cut off welfare payments for a start?

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    1. @Anon - Indeed he did, and not only that, but alluded vaguely to some kind of "setup". The elder was comdemnatory of both sides of politics and whitey in general. He might even, perhaps, have been capable of saying something that may besmirch the Court of the Ginger Queen!

      "Instantly, his training kicking in, Andrew hit the afterburners and whooshed the interview clear out of harm's way."

      Ordinary tax paying citizens aren't bastards.

      The Left wing grievance industries that have been using the Aborigional people as a cat's paw for years, bounced a cheque on them last Australia Day. It would be interesting to find out how they feel, being stooged like that.

      Expect even less coverage of indigenous issues than usual, from thier ABC.

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  17. Bunyip, I note that a private equity group has made a $750 millionor so bid for the billabong. Are you going to sell, or stay with your crazy neighbour?

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  18. The least investigated police force in the world... Because it obligingly does the least investigating of any police force in the world.

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    1. Not if you ask AD (attention deficit), above. If AD and his cohorts spent more time policing instead of making lame jokes about their intellectual and professional superiors, we might see some RESULTS.

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