Today it is successful Melbourne businesswoman Joanne Painter who must be beside herself with anxiety. Painter is mentioned in The Australian's latest report as having been The Age reporter who was working in 1996 on a story concerning renovations to 36 St Phillip St, Abbotsford, where Gillard sometimes rested when not sleeping over with Brown Bag Bruce at 1/85 Kerr Street, North Fitzroy. Here is the paragraph that must be causing Ms Painter quite some agitation:
The Cambridge diary states that in September 1995 Mr Gries revealed to Mr Cambridge that a journalist at The Age newspaper was going to publish a “fairly correct” story about union-funded renovations at Ms Gillard’s house… The diary states that Mr Gries knew the proposed article was the work of Age journalist Joanne Painter.... According to the diary, Mr Gries said he had “specifically requested” Painter drop the article and she had agreed to do so. Painter declined to comment yesterday.You can understand why the cat has Ms Painter's tongue. She is the founder and proprietor of Icon PR which boasts a slather of blue-chip clients. The last thing the poor woman needs is questions about why, while still a reporter, she (reportedly) agreed not to publish a story that would have been of considerable interest at the time and is even more compelling today.
Joanne Painter, PR lady with a problem
Ms Painter must be hoping the whole damn thing will just go away, leaving her free to polish the good name of the Australian Taxation Office and other customers. Adding a certain poignancy to Ms Painter's ordeal are her own words, tweeted last year by way of commentary on a rival PR firm's then-woes.
As for The Age, with Mark Baker poking about in other organisations' records, surely he can have a hunt through his own employer's files and memories. It would seem his readers are owed an explanation as to why Painter's original expose was scuttled. Australia might have been spared the ordeal of a liar in the Lodge if only The Age had done its duty all those years ago.
Why did the Age spike the story? Why did Painter agree to see it spiked? What must her current clients think of a contractor whose most adept response to date is silence?
Nobody wants to comment. The diary author, Cambridge, now says it's not appropriate for him to comment. He's a Commissioner with Fair Work Australia. Remind me who appointed him.
ReplyDeletePedro of Adelaide
Some heated Celtic phone calls in the interim I would suggest.
DeleteAnd I should feckin' know
The Irish Lion
You've got to love Gillard's repeated insistence that, "I did nothing wrong", "nothing wrong", "nothing wrong", when, in fact, she did EVERYTHING wrong!! This statement alone constitutes a gross misleading of Parliament.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, she has an affair with a married man.
Secondly, this man turns out to be a sleazy con man, for whom she sets up a deceptively named "reform association", an entity that was, in reality, a secret slush fund. She does all of this off the books, keeping her partners at Slater and Gordon in the dark, as well as the Union the law firm is supposed to represent. Then there's the issue involving the signing of a power of attorney unlikely to have been witnessed by Gillard who signs off on it anyway; required for the dodgy purchase of a house under another name (Ralph Blewitt's) with the money misappropriated by Gillard's boyfriend; a purchase which also relied on money from Slater and Gordon's loan facility; a house whose auction Gillard attended, and which she subsequently visited numerous times. The proceeds of which, when later sold, went straight into Wilson's pocket. And when all of these shenanigans came to light, what does Gillard do? She fails in her duty to alert the relevant legal authorities, or even the Union whose interests her law firm are under obligation to protect.
"Nothing wrong"? You decide. Nothing right, more like it!
As neat a summary of the whole tawdry business as I have yet seen. They sugest a set of questions that should be asked of the Ranga each and every day until there is an answer to each of them or an election to shed us of this weight around our necks.
DeleteOOps that should have been "suggest a set of questions". Sent before proof reading - mea culpa or will that get me hauled before a Royal Commission notwithstanding I'm Jewish.
DeleteSlagging off a competitor in a tweet? Must be some of that advertising "rolling it in Twitter" that we hear so much about.
ReplyDeleteIn my memory of events in Melbourne, one of the most notorious "I did nothing wrong" claims was made by a Collingwood footballer, one Duncan Wright, in the aftermath of the 1965 preliminary final against Essendon. Some 90 yards behind play, 10 minutes into the game, and in plain view of many of the 95,000 at the game, Wright felled John Somerville, who was carried off to hospital. In the next week, Wright and his lawyer, Frank Galbally, attended a police station, on the steps of which Wright declared "I did nothing wrong".
ReplyDeleteNeither the police of the VFL took action against Wright, and it was at the demand of the Collingwood coach, Bob Rose, that Wright was told to leave the 'Pies early in 1966. (Wright did later in life admit that he punched Somerville.)
Which raises the question: is there someone in the ALP who has the character of Bob Rose and will call out Gillard for what she is?
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen Raf. A labour party member with that sort of honour will happen around the same time as "the Second Coming".
DeleteRaf,
DeleteAs a Bombers supporter I used to watch Peter Somerville (son of John) go round for the Dons.
There were days we prayed for a reincarnation of Duncan to take out Somerville Minor.
David, shalom,
DeleteThe apostrophes around "the seceond coming" are superfluous. Ask your Rabbi to explain the difference between Messiah ben Yosef and Messiah ben David. Nazarenes say they are one and the same, different roles however. Messiah ben Yosef has come, he shall return as Messiah ben David.
Does Julia's entrenched prejudice against married women define her as a misogynist?
ReplyDeleteThis story is becoming such a parody.
ReplyDeleteBill the Greek is semi-retired back in Greece with a bad back - tracking him down will be like trying to find a straw in a haystack.
Maybe this whole thing should be renamed "Booty and the Greek"
(with apologies to Channel 7)
The Irish Lion
"tracking him down will be like trying to find a straw in a haystack"
DeleteHang on a minute - a Melbourne Greek, crook back, semi retired, returned to Athens ... .
Centrelink! - try Centrelink, they'd have an address where they send his fortnightly benefits cheque.
we know that she had affairs with Wilson &Emerson whilst they were married with young children, evidence of GIllard's true misogyny. but is there evidence of her affair with MIchael O'Connor whilst he was married?
ReplyDeleteJoanne Painter must be an Emily's lister to get all of those nice contracts
ReplyDeleteWhat is so very blatant is that everyone who was involved or could be asked later to say anything about their knowledge or conduct with regard to Gillard's situation seems to be so nicely stitched into the tapestry of sinecure and reward that the silence is deafening. Add to this the participants' awareness of the shovel-ready sort of tribal loyalty for which the union party is famed, and lips are firmly zipped. Or are a few slowly opening up?
ReplyDeleteThe head tilt, people, the head tilt! At the perfect angle to denote A: I'm a fully paid up Leftie and B: as such, I'm a humungous hypocrite!
ReplyDeleteClient list noted, thank you. Joanne will probably ride this one out, thanks to (you know).
ReplyDeleteI will be contacting her clients,however, my distaste will be obvious.
Pedro, while the Red Dalek appointed Ian Cambridge to a quasi-judicial position, *somebody* gave his diaries to Hedley Thomas *and* authenticated them. In short, while Ian Cambridge (rightly to my mind) feels that his position does not allow him to openly comment, his actions in leaking his diaries shows that he still wants justice done, as he did in 1996 when he lodged his summary of his investigation into the AWU-WRA frauds.
ReplyDelete