Well it’s been a bad few weeks for the Federal Parliamentary Liberal Party.
Brendan Nelson decided to POQ, his parting message to many of his more senior colleagues to join him. Julie Bishop was effectively demoted. Former leader John Hewson wrote op-eds in Fairfax papers telling Costello to also POQ. Joe Hockey reckons Costello’s refusal to POQ makes him resemble Prince Charles waiting for Queen Lizzy to kick the bucket or abdicate. Both Phillip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop are facing pressure from their branches to POQ. And just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, it now seems the Federal Police have been investigating links between the Liberal Party organisation and a local franchise of the Calabrian mafia.
The Party has seen better days. Who could forget that famous scene when John Howard told a packed hall of Liberal Party faithful on the eve of the 2001 federal election: “We will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come”. If allegations raised in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today are anything to go by, it seems the Howard government was quite happy to allow persons with links to organised crime to enter and remain in Australia — at a price.
It shamelessly lied in accusing asylum seekers of throwing their children overboard. John Howard and Phillip Ruddock, in the name of “border protection”, happily took a cue from Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld by locking up in detention centres ordinary Iraqis and Afghans (including children) fleeing persecution, all the while boasting of a “war on terror” designed to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet the Liberal Party Division in both John Howard’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s home state was happy to accept donations from people allegedly close to the Calabrian mafia. Liberal MP’s happily lobbied to keep a man accused of having mafia links in Australia and happily received donations of up to $150,000 from his buddies.
Vanstone denies donations affected her decision to intervene, which she claimed was made on humanitarian grounds. Vanstone had evidence of the person’s links to organised crime. She overruled her Department’s recommendation and exercised her discretion to allow the individual to remain in Australia, overturning the decision of her predecessor. Fairfax also reports that the man was subsequently arrested in relation to his alleged involvement in the world’s largest importation of the illegal drug ecstasy.
This was supposed to be the government which prided itself on its national security credentials. This is the party which wants to form the next State Government in New South Wales. Both Barry O’Farrell should be more than a little nervous And Malcolm Turnbull must be on the verge of a cardiac arrest.
So is this why Vanstone was able to extract the highly sought after Ambassador post to Italy from the Howard government as her prize for leaving politics? – threatened to expose the dirty, hypocritical and entirely cynical dealings of the Liberal Party and scuttle their chances at the 2007 election? and how do we know this isn’t just the tip of the iceberg of what they don’t want us to know.
And NSW people – are you really getting the politicians you deserve? Labor and Liberal parties in that state (at least) are evidently such thoroughly corruptable and despicable operators that I doubt anything other than a complete delete-replace and reformat is going to be enough to get rid of these political bugs. And that means not only the political-electoral institution and its regulations but the party institutions as well.
And the AFP I don’t think we need any more evidence that they’re well overdue for a damn good spring-clean. How about a Federal corruption commission for a start. What is Kev et al doing about that? And while they’re at it, they can spring-clean the bloated national security institutions too – and perhaps even introduce them to some innovations in 20th (let alone 21st) century public service ethics practices.
And politicians and commentators worry about the ‘unhealthy’ cynicism of the public…
My contacts who, with reasonable plausibility speak with apparent authority of police and security matters, suggest that this was a case of allowing the individual in to (a) put a lid on the Calbrians suspicions that they were infiltrated and (b) get him where he could easily be found and picked up. It is at least far more plausible than the idea that Vanstone, whatever her faults, would knowingly reward a crook for a donation to the Liberal Party. And I am sure Bernard Keane could put Mr Yusuf right on that one.
It is not surprising that the Liberal Party would take funds from this mob – or anybody else – after all it is only the Tories who take funds from the tobacco industry
The AFP have reopened the original investigation based on new information from the reporter
Al Grasby was the infiltration the Mafia were seeking. He even got a state funeral even though he was corrupt as hell. Vandstone was useless and her ex portfolio is a poison chalice, cashed up crims “pay to stay” and lard arse said ok. And now for the lady who loves a pearl necklace, Bishop, when in power she was obnoxious obfuscator now in opposition she has proven to be useless, she was given the job as deputy to combat Gillard and failed now another demotion. Bishop wont quit not as long as she doesn’t have to do any housework, not to mention the pension. Now she has the same attributes as Magdalen…….