Anna Bligh's Australian Story fluff piece ...
See - ABC - Anna Bligh reinvented on Australian Story.
A part of Anna's life seems to have been swept under the carpet (although Eugene O'Sullivan drops some decent hints).
And perhaps someone should tell Anna's husband that it has been quite some time since Kampuchea was the official name of Cambodia:
OLIVER FRANCES, SON (to his father and brother): Kampuchea is now the official name of which country?
JOE FRANCES, SON (to Oliver Frances): Cambodia?
GREG WITHERS, HUSBAND: (to Oliver Frances): Cambodia.
And we pay this guy how much to run Anna's climate change department ...
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 7:07 AM
1 Comments:
Courier Mail:
Bligh flies mateship flag
By Mike O'Connor
April 28, 2008
As the final, poignant notes of The Last Post faded in the dawn light last Friday, all over this wide brown land people reflected on mateship, a quality that has sustained our fighting men and women through their darkest hours.
As Queenslanders, we had reason to be particularly reflective, for nowhere in the country is the principle of mateship so exalted as in our very own State Government.
If they gave medals for mateship, the Premier's progress through the corridors of power would be to the symphonic clang of metal on metal, her awards for mateship above and beyond the call of duty and in the face of hostile public opinion attesting to her courage under fire.
Her latest selfless act of mateship was to give Mike Kaiser, one-time Labor member for Woodridge, the job as her chief of staff on a salary package of about $270,000.
Kaiser resigned his seat when his involvement in the time-honoured Labor Party art of branch stacking was revealed at the Shepherdson inquiry.
Advancing fearlessly across No Man's Land in the face of a barrage of "fair go" and "you've got to be joking" exclamations, Bligh not only gave Kaiser the job but cranked up the pay rate by a massive $100,000 a year.
She later denied being directly involved in setting a specific salary. There may well be someone out there who believes her.
If there is, they should urgently seek psychiatric help.
The Kaiser Military Medal for mateship under fire now joins the Victoria Cross Bligh earned when she announced that Peter "I'll Never Take A Government Job" Beattie was to be appointed our $300,000 a year trade commissioner to Los Angeles.
This was true mateship. Denying that the deal had been done before Beattie retired, Bligh revealed that he actually had not wanted the job.
"I had to talk him into it," she announced.
A fearsome artillery barrage of public outrage ensued. But as cries of "Lies! Crap! Pull the other one!" were exploding around her, brave Anna continued her advance.
Halfway across the field of fire, she encountered a close friend of hers and a factional ally, former state Labor minister Steve Bredhauer, sheltering in a dugout and reading the Positions Vacant columns. Steve, obviously, was a mate in need.
Suspecting he may have been suffering a fiscal flesh wound, she rallied his spirits with a cry of "follow me" and led him through another broadside of public fury, dodging shellbursts of "Turn it up! Not another one"' and "Fair Go" to the safety of a bunker marked Special Trade Representative to Vietnam and China.
Promising to nominate her for the Military Cross with Oak Leaves and Bar, Bredhauer sat down in his bunker to count his new salary.
"One hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. Not bad," he mused, ducking involuntarily as a dozen high-explosive shells of voter outrage exploded overhead.
Being a naive soul, I rather imagined that to be a trade commissioner to Vietnam, it might be helpful to actually live there. Apparently not, for Bredhauer can pocket his $118K while flying the flag for Queensland trade into Vietnam from the comfort of Brisbane's leafy 'burbs.
In the course of a chance social encounter with him last week, I offered the view that he must be possessed of an encompassing knowledge of Vietnam and he assured me this was indeed the case.
Those close to him, however, have said they would be mightily surprised if he could tell the difference between Ho Chi Minh City and Hooterville.
Mateship, while oftimes forged in the furnace heat of battle, can find an expression in less combative surrounds, such as the marital home. A husband, for example, could be a mate and it is a matter of record that Bligh's hubby, Greg Withers, her partner of more than two decades and whose career has followed an ever upwards path in the public service, now enjoys a highly paid position as head of newly created Office of Climate Change.
Withers moved from the Premier's Office to avoid perceptions of a conflict of interest. His new position wasn't advertised but delivered to him as if a gift from on high. When you're a mate, sometimes good luck just follows you around.
Having survived the shot and shellfire of the Kaiser-Beattie-Bredhauer-Withers appointments, the fusillade which followed the naming of mates Stuart Dignam, former director of the Premier's Department, to an overseas trade post and mate Rob Whiddon, former Beattie chief of staff, as general manager of Trade Queensland, merely bounced off Bligh's body armour.
In fairness, it must be said that such decorations for mateship are not the exclusive province of the Premier. Public Works Minister Robert Schwarten also qualified for the George Cross for mateship when he gave mate Chris Cummins, sacked by the voters of Kawana at the last election, an unadvertised, $100,000 a year job as an IT adviser.
Cummins has no previous IT experience so his advice on the subject promises to be illuminating.
Mateship equates with honour. The ghosts of the Anzacs must turn their heads in shame.
9:42 AM, August 05, 2008
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