A woman of the streets

ONCE, she was the queen of all their hearts, the irrestible object of Trades Hall desire.

A new front fence? She had only to mention it in passing for Bill the Greek to lay his bricks and woggy efforts by her front door.

A new bathroom? No sooner was the old one's disrepair offered as an excuse for inadequate personal hygiene than a volunteer work crew was on hand to gut the old one, not even bothering to ask for permission.

A little cash shortfall? Not to worry. Bruvver Bruce would send a lackey to the bank with a $5000 cash deposit.

Ah, life was good back then ... but not these days.

Divorce, Kerr Street-Style

MICHAEL SMITH has a new swag of documents relating to Julia Gillard, Bruce Wilson, the purchase of 1/85 Kerr Street, Fitzroy, and the beard Ralph Blewitt. They make for interesting reading and further the impression that the nation's leader is either very dim or very bent. With Mark Baker's latest article on the matter published today in The Age -- yes, The Age, so you know this is getting serious -- we can all assume the Prime Minister will need to summon a few sympathetic, ill-informed hacks and clarify her former youth and naivety all over again. That performance will be very interesting, no doubt, but not entirely so satisfying as might be if one of the quality journalists neglects to put the following question.

"Prime Minister, at the time you were handed Ralph Blewitt's pre-signed power of attorney, your lover Wilson was a married man with children and in the process of leaving his family in order to take up residence in Melbourne, where for several years he shared his life with you. Would it be fair to say that one obvious advantage of listing Blewitt as Kerr Street's buyer of record was that it shielded Wilson's wealth from his soon-to-be ex-wife and her divorce lawyers?"

Given Gillard's high-decibel assault this week on the patriarchy and her stridency in demanding that women be given a fair shake, a follow-up question would be in order:

"Does your sympathy for women extend to humble housewives cheated of their marital assets by the legal deceptions of philandering husbands' and their new girlfriends?"

Many of the hackettes are giving Gillard rave reviews for her Question Time harangue. Come the election (and may it come soon!), it will be interesting to see if that enthusiasm is shared by the wider female electorate, especially those who have been robbed blind by ex-husbands.
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The Liar's Love Nest

HOSPITAL duty and geriatric taxi services mean no more posts until Sunday night, but until then contemplate this lovely home at 85 Kerr Street, Fitzroy, where "a young and naive lawyer" wiggled and wobbled  in her scanties with love god and shakedown artist Bruce Wilson.

 
Andrew Bolt, the bravest man at News Ltd., refuses to drop the subject of our PM and her light-fingered  former swain. He has some fascinating documents on  his Herald Sun site, where the evidence mounts that News Limited is going down the Fairfax road. First, the company's papers were banned from examining our PM's dark background. Now readers cannot comment on the evidence Andrew is providing.

And on the subject of hospitals, many thanks to the several readers who offered to buy Father Bunyip a wheelchair. The generosity is appreciated, but money isn't the issue. Rather, it has been the Pater's refusal to admit he is getting older and now needs one. The hobbles down hospital corridors over the past week or so appear to have finally persuaded him.

Back Sunday night or Monday morning. 

From Retreat To Rout

ANY military man will tell you it can be much more dangerous to retreat than advance. Panic sets in, order breaks down and fatal vulnerabilities are exposed, leaving even the best troops to be isolated, overrun and put to the sword. When the rout is over, the most lackluster foe will survey the butcher’s harvest and feel emboldened to attack again. It is a lesson News Limited appears not to have grasped, as today’s escalating assault on The Australian by our PM’s left-flank irregulars all too clearly demonstrates. 

Just to recap the details – or, rather, what appear to be the details: The Australian published a column by Glenn Milne dealing with Julia Gillard, her crooked former boyfriend and allegations that misappropriated union funds were poured into, amongst other things, renovations to the couple’s purported Fitzroy love nest. Something in the story was incorrect, and the PM was soon howling down the phone lines at News Ltd. chieftain John Hartigan. The column was pulled, an abject apology published -- and that retreat has set the stage for a humiliating rout which, in turn, opens the field for a further and perhaps even more damaging offensive. If the best defence is offence, the besieged and beleaguered Gillard government now has the momentum to rally its supporters and push back on several fronts. 

At the Herald Sun, where Andrew Bolt, aired similar allegations over the weekend, his blog’s current lead item is an opaque expression of discontent with, one assumes, News Ltd.’s generals and their legal batmen, who appear to have ordered his item be stripped of all quotes from an affidavit alleging wrongdoing by Gillard and her light-fingered former swain, Bruce Wilson. “No politics until further notice,” writes Bolt. “Principles to weigh up. Faith to keep. Sorry.” Today saw none of the Herald Sun blogger’s customary early morning updates, the only additions to the site being hundreds of reader comments requesting further explanation. Nor has he posted an item since.

Bolt is quite clearly ropable, but he is, as yet, holding his tongue. Asked on MTR this morning to explain the cryptic post, he declined. Later, during a phone-in on 2GB with sparring partner Paul Howes, he was more stroppy but equally unforthcoming (audio here). His tone of voice suggested a fellow with a letter of resignation in his pocket, although that is but a Bunyip’s intuition. (Bolt has since updated the post and promised to write more tomorrow)

While Bolt is unhappy, Gillard’s snipers are picking and blasting targets at will. The Phage, for example, recaps the Milne column, repeats the original allegation and provides the low-down on our PM’s righteous fury. Being an ardent ally of the PM has done nothing for the paper’s circulation or financial security, but it certainly makes for fast and reliable lines of communication. (By the way, to see how thoroughly Fairfax is tearing the arse from its own trousers, consult the annual report. The numbers for The Age and Silly on page 50 are shocking enough, but the EBITDA figure three pages later for the Financial Review – down 51.7% on the year – is a testament to staggering managerial incompetence.)

Crikey, which yesterday did truth a favour by failing to appear, summoned the wherewithal to grunt, strain and squeeze out an analysis by Andrew Crook, whose prose was the very picture of delight. The Milne piece was “error-filled”, the allegations long ago “discredited” etc etc. Crook managed to name only one perhaps-significant error – the assertion that Wilson and his doxy shared the same address. The excised portions from Bolt’s post said the couple kept their own addresses, and that the AWU had been billed for renovation work on both. If the scandal is the alleged rorting, Milne’s error would seem to be of no consequence whatsoever. All of which makes The Australian’s retraction and News Ltd’s retreat all the more curious. Hartigan was evidently so in terror of whatever Gillard threatened, the apology also was published in the Herald Sun, which did not run Milne’s column in the first place!

Those who missed Milne's column can find it here, where allrightallright has done the transcription.

If Hartigan hoped to calm things down, make nice with the woman who might soon order an inquiry into the ownership of Australia’s media, it was another ham-fisted move. There have been a lot of those lately, starting with the inept firing of Herald Sun editor, Bruce Guthrie, which has so far produced a scathing critique from the bench of News executives’ veracity under oath, a best-selling book and a former company insider who is making a fresh career out of telling tales and bagging his old bosses. An amicable parting or pre-trial settlement with a confidentiality agreement would have avoided all that. Now there is further evidence of things being not being quite right atop of News Ltd. Consider this paragraph from the Phage report on the Milne column’s disappearance:

The Age understands Ms Gillard was furious not only because the column included a false claim, but because she had been led to believe by Mr Hartigan that News Ltd newspapers were not intending to pursue the decades-old story of her former conman lover.

If true – and the Age’s loyalty to Labor makes you think that nugget came straight from the PM’s office – then one of the most oft-repeated charges against News Limited has just been confirmed: It cuts quiet deals with the powerful to benefit News Ltd. That may not be the case, but it is not a good look, not a good look at all – and now it is out there, grist for every journalism department’s academic mill.

Did Hartigan’s acumen go AWOL when he ordered the retraction? Was he in something of a panic, temporarily dazed and disoriented? He would have known that Four Corners was about to devote last night’s programme to the News of The World stink in Britain, so perhaps he had that looming distraction in the corner of his eye. It could easily have been a night of bruises – the possibility of a news report at 7 o’clock, a bashing from 7.30 and then Four Corners’ megadump of sleaze.

And finally there is the biggest question of the lot: Why retreat at all? If, as seems likely, Milne published only a minor error, it could have been easily corrected and the focus on our PM’s association with corrupt unionists allowed to stand. As for Andrew Bolt, there has been no suggestion of inaccuracy concerning his blog post, which actually corrected Milne on the matter of separate addresses. Why was Bolt’s coverage wrapped up and muffled in the same blanket edict to back off and back off quicksmart?

Gillard might have threatened a libel action, but would she have followed through? Craig Thomson took that route and dropped his case against Fairfax at the court’s door. Would Gillard have been any more eager to go on the sworn record about Town Modes, her grifting ex-squeeze and what she knew and when she knew it? Not a chance.

This could all be very sad for those hoping to see an early election. Now the government’s media militia can point to the Milne debacle and claim that any further attention to Craig Thomson is but more of the sleazy, error-riddled same. It will not be true, but it does not have to be for Tony Jones, Michelle Grattan and other camp followers to take up the cry. 

And News? Well if Hartigan did have a deal to make sure News Ltd was not dismembered, he sure does not have one now. 

Learned Friends, Baffled Readers

DESPITE electing Adam Bandt, there remain many fine citizens who make their homes in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. They like to keep an eye on the neighbourhood, watch out for thieves and other unsavoury sorts. One such bourgeois propertarian is a particular friend of the Billabong, and he has owned a nice little terrace around the corner from Kerr Street since 1982. He speaks with great authority about the area, its history and with some pride in the many famous people who make the suburb their home. This topic comes up quite often these days, as several-too-many drinks and an encounter with a booze bus cost the poor fellow his licence. Since he is also a golfer, the Professor must overcome a disdain for those who over-indulge and ferry the poor fellow to weekly rounds at Yarra Bend or Freeway. He pays for these trips by not leaving empty beer cans in the Bunyipmobile, not objecting to tobacco smoke and by pointing out the homes of famous neighbours. Actor Bruce Spence lived there, he announced recently, and further up the same street, Helen Garner hung her hat while penning Monkey Grip. Around the corner dwells former Skyhook Red Symons etc etc etc It is not terribly interesting, but it does keep his mind off Demon Rum.

Well the phone rang a moment or two ago, and on the other end was Double Bogey Daddy (renowned amongst golfers and associates alike for those extra strokes with his big-head wood). “You know, I used to see her around here a bit in the mornings,” he said of a red-headed woman who has since moved somewhere out west.

Readers curious about the inspiration for this post might want to hunt up a copy of today’s Australian and turn to page 14, where they will find a column by Glenn Milne. They will not find it online, however, because the Australian’s lawyers have pulled it and issued an apology.

Milne asserts that the carroty girl lived in Kerr Street. Double Bogey Daddy reckons she was probably just an overnight guest. If frequency of occupation is the only matter that prompted the Australian’s lawyers to such nervousness, it might be time for the newspaper to get some new ones.

UPDATE: Andrew Bolt’s post, up since the weekend, also has been redacted, despite many thousands of people having read the now-excised portions. The bits vanished are from the affadavit.

On the radio front, 2UE’s Michael Smith appears also to have had something resembling a lawyer’s hand clamped over his mouth – although this broadcast remains available.

Parliament, however, cannot be gagged nor Hansard trimmed of potentially embarrassing material. Readers curious to learn more about the lifestyles of other Fitzroy residents should go here. Make a point not to have a sharp object under the chin because the reference to $17,000 worth of dresses from Town Mode is guaranteed to make the jaw drop.

Oh, and well worth checking out is Catallaxy’s thread.

UPDATE II: allrightallright has been moved to verse by the incredible disappearing story