20 May 2013

ACT Policing picks up Tony Abbott's Chief of Staff

| johnboy
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The Herald Sun reports on the local police just happening to catch the high flying Lass from Wycheproof Peta Credlin for a low range DUI.

Mr Abbott’s office earlier confirmed Peta Credlin was caught outside her home with a ”low-range reading” after returning from a dinner in the capital last week.

ACT Police have since confirmed a 42-year-old woman was picked up drink driving on Thursday night with a reading of 0.075.

Hopefully the local plod has not ended up on the enemies list.

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Here_and_Now10:59 am 11 Sep 13

Robertson said :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/credlin-escapes-punishment-as-drink-driving-charge-dropped/4947944

No fine, no conviction even, just $69 court costs.

Reminds me of when Gallop got done: no punishment for him either.

No (or little) punishment for loads of others too – but they weren’t well-known so it didn’t make the news.

Robertson said :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/credlin-escapes-punishment-as-drink-driving-charge-dropped/4947944

No fine, no conviction even, just $69 court costs.

Reminds me of when Gallop got done: no punishment for him either.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be one law for some, and a different one for others?

I mentioned it in the related thread but this kind of ‘punishment’ (non conviction orders and low or no fines) are very common, even for much higher readings. No conspiracy here.

Robertson said :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/credlin-escapes-punishment-as-drink-driving-charge-dropped/4947944
No fine, no conviction even, just $69 court costs. Reminds me of when Gallop got done: no punishment for him either. Is it just me, or does there seem to be one law for some, and a different one for others?

If it is party politics you’re on about, it’s just you:
John Hargreaves quits cabinet after drink driving charge

No recorded conviction for John Hargreaves

Drink Driver has returned as minister

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/credlin-escapes-punishment-as-drink-driving-charge-dropped/4947944

No fine, no conviction even, just $69 court costs.

Reminds me of when Gallop got done: no punishment for him either.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be one law for some, and a different one for others?

Captain RAAF8:54 am 23 May 13

IrishPete said :

Of course, we forget that Kevin Rudd abused the fuck out some poor RAAF trolley dolly who didn’t give him the right sandwich.

Sorry? The right sandwich?

And by abused, he really went completely overboard. So much that RAAF staff were conflicted as to step in.

Credlin fucked up, but really, is it a major thing? Nah, not really…

I don’t believe a fraction of the stuff written or said about KRudd. I’m an atheist Green, and I yet I retain a lot of respect for Catholic Right Of Centre Kev (I’ve just realised the wonderful acronym that makes!), who apologised to the Stolen Generations and ended the Pacific (Final) Solution. In my book he can do almost no wrong after that stellar performance in just a couple of years.

If a RAAF person, trained to kill (as all ADF uniformed staff are – that’s what the ADF does) hasn’t been verbally abused or worse by her superiors before, I’ll eat my hemp hat.

IP

Sorry to revisit this but I can’t let this one go.

Irish Pete, bust out the knife and fork and start chewing because modern day ADF personnel are not ‘all trained to kill’.
We have people in the organisation that rarely touch a weapon as they can’t be stuffed and are purely managers of personnel. We also, for the most part, handle a weapon at the range once every two years and sometimes that’s at the WHTS or simulated range using beams of light to ‘kill’ the enemy.
85% of ADF personnel would not recieve any training in how to ‘kill’. Going to the range and shooting a target is not training to kill someone.

As for being yelled at, yes that still happens in the Army, you get throroughly beasted and can expect a tirade of verbal abuse at least every other day while in training and once a month once you get to your unit, but that’s army!

In the Airforce, its all softly softly, especially for the women. Theres every chance that the trolly dolly at 34SQN had never been really yelled at, they find the weapon handling tests ‘icky’ and anything to do with killing people an absurdity. They are trained to serve orange juice and smile, and that’s it!

As for Krudd and that whole incident, his staff fcked up, they were asked to provide 34SQN with details of his meal requirements for the flight, they didn’t, so the trolly dolly served up the standard fare which did not meet this fools dietary requirements and he lost his shit!

Sometimes these flights have serving ADF members on board as passengers and if I’d been there that day, i’d have punched him in the face and told him to sit down, shut up and eat his food, and he bloody well would have.

For the record, I have been yelled at and am trained to kill.

Interesting post LSWCHP.

After your post I did a bit of googling and found a bit of information and it was quite illuminating.

It seems that all coordination testing proves that there’s a huge difference in ability to do driving tasks for every 0.02 BAC rise. All tests are pretty aligned and there was one study that correlated 109 different pieces of research around the world and substantiated this.

The effect on traffic incidents from a reduction of BAC from 0.08 to 0.05 is not so clear. There are different results in different states and even different results on different nights and localities. The results are further clouded by the amount of publicity that the law change got or didn’t get at the time.

It appears that there’s a drop of about 5 to 10%, so a few dozen less people killed a year and a substantially bigger drop from the well publicised introduction of RBT.

The trouble is that just one thing doesn’t change behaviour and that developing social norms that find drink driving abhorrent is the end game. Thanks for making the effort to write the post.

w1

LSWCHP said :

Finally, I think it would be good if we had a system that could actually measure impairment through altered reaction times etc rather than relying solely on BAC.

The yanks have such a test, it’s called the How Drunk Are You Really test. Cops administer it on the roadside, and it tests co-ordination, balance, and reactions. It’s physical. Doesn’t measure BAC, it measures how the people behave.

They don’t tend to run RBTs though, the chances of being subjected to the test are quite low, and that’s its downfall. The cops have to have stopped you for something, and suspect you’re blotto. Then you walk a line, touch your nose, count or recite, various things like that.

Orrite. Warning…here are some semi-random thoughts. This may too long. Don’t read if you don’t want to.

My life has been profoundly and sadly affected by alcohol related road fatalities. I have no time for drunk drivers. At best, I’d put them in the stocks and throw dog crap at them. At best!

Having said that…

I have a friend with a PhD in maths and stats who worked for a government agency back in the 1990’s doing statistical analysis of Australian road crash data in a large state. He analysed all sorts of things, including alcohol related crashes. This involved looking at the BACs of of all the dead bodies and injured survivors, among other things. Overall, his work was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of new road safety measures, such as the vibration strips on the side of the road to wake up people who have fallen asleep at the wheel and are drifting off the road.

Anyway, based on the best Australian data available to him at the time he concluded that the knee in the curve of “intoxication” versus “probability of being in a crash” occurred above 0.08 BAC. In other words, your chances of causing a crash increases slightly, up to around 0.08, and then increases more quickly after that.

I haven’t had a chance to look at HardBallGets numbers, so maybe things have changed in the last 20 years based on more data, (or maybe my friend screwed up his analysis!) but that’s what a guy with impeccable credentials and no vested interest told me at the time. He said he felt the move from 0.08 to 0.05 was based on the idea that “If 0.08 is good then 0.05 must be better”, without being based on the evidence that was available. I was surprised, but there it is.

Maybe an extra 20 years of data might produce different results. I don’t know, but that’s still some thought provoking stuff. It does seem to me (gut feeling only here) that most serious crashes are caused by hugely pissed people, rather than those who are just over 0.05.

At a personal level, I agree with Captain RAAF. Different people have different levels of tolerance to alcohol based on age, weight, history of alcohol usage and a thousand other things. I have a personal breathalyser that I use constantly, and when I blow around 0.05 I certainly feel no noticeable degree of impairment. What I feel at 0.05 may actually not be valid if my reactions were measured in a lab, but I certainly don’t feel any impairment, and I’ve considered this carefully. Above 0.08 I feel some impairment, and I wouldn’t get behind the wheel regardless of what the law said, just for my own safety. Because of what the law says though, regardless of what I feel, I don’t drive if I’m above the legal limit.

However, whatever individual circumstances may be, we can’t have a system that says “Oh…we’ve pulled over LSWCHP. He’s a large bloke with a tolerance to alcohol developed over 35 years of regular boozing, so he’ll be fine. And there’s The Captain in his GTHO Falcon…go like the wind, Captain!!” The end result is that we have to have a system that caters for the lowest common denominator.

Finally, I think it would be good if we had a system that could actually measure impairment through altered reaction times etc rather than relying solely on BAC. Because it’s the degree of impairment that ultimately matters, not the absolute BAC. My daughter is a petite woman who doesn’t drink at all, and she’d probably be unsafe after drinking a rum flavoured chocolate. So, I think it’s unfortunate that individuals who may actually be unimpaired at 0.05 are convicted of offences, while people who may be substantially impaired at a lower BAC are free to drive on.

Until we develop such a wonderful device though, it looks like 0.05 is the law in Kennesaw.

Back on topic, anyone can make a mistake, but I think this lady made a pretty damn bad choice, and it reflects poorly on her judgement, given her position. Not as badly as choosing to work for Tony Abbott tho’…:-)

That’s all folks. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. 🙂

Holden Caulfield9:47 pm 21 May 13

Hang on a minute, so the new boss of ACT Policing isn’t the former Chief of Staff for Mr Rabbit?

How_Canberran9:03 pm 21 May 13

p1 said :

Hey Cap’t, haven’t caught spray from you on RA for a while, where ya bin?

Whether you’re pissed or not isn’t my issue in this instance. We are talking about someone who runs the office of a potential PM, yet can’t make the decision to get a cab. Not that I think she should suffer in any specific way – I certainly am not suggesting she be fired – but I was more responding to the earlier suggestion that this wasn’t news worthy. I think when people who are part of the political process do stupid, reckless or illegal things it should be brought to the publics attention. For two reasons, so we know the sort of people they are, and in the hope that these people refrain from doing stupid, reckless or illegal things in the first place.

Lets just back up here a bit. Since when is a low BAC reading stupid, reckless or illegal for ‘someone who runs the office of a potential PM’?

Example: Three cans of full strength beer and you are over .05 I hardly think that will impare her ability to make the instantaneously reflexive decisions demanded of her high office.

Once .02 (cork sniffing) becomes the legal limit, how will the holders of high office fare then?

How Canberran

Of course, we forget that Kevin Rudd abused the fuck out some poor RAAF trolley dolly who didn’t give him the right sandwich.

Sorry? The right sandwich?

And by abused, he really went completely overboard. So much that RAAF staff were conflicted as to step in.

Credlin fucked up, but really, is it a major thing? Nah, not really…

I don’t believe a fraction of the stuff written or said about KRudd. I’m an atheist Green, and I yet I retain a lot of respect for Catholic Right Of Centre Kev (I’ve just realised the wonderful acronym that makes!), who apologised to the Stolen Generations and ended the Pacific (Final) Solution. In my book he can do almost no wrong after that stellar performance in just a couple of years.

If a RAAF person, trained to kill (as all ADF uniformed staff are – that’s what the ADF does) hasn’t been verbally abused or worse by her superiors before, I’ll eat my hemp hat.

IP

If the politcs are left at the back door, a number of State Govs had a breath alcohol limit of .08. That was seen as an appropriate limit. If you blew .075 in NSW you were free to go.

So lets not get too het up about this incident.

Hey Cap’t, haven’t caught spray from you on RA for a while, where ya bin?

Whether you’re pissed or not isn’t my issue in this instance. We are talking about someone who runs the office of a potential PM, yet can’t make the decision to get a cab. Not that I think she should suffer in any specific way – I certainly am not suggesting she be fired – but I was more responding to the earlier suggestion that this wasn’t news worthy. I think when people who are part of the political process do stupid, reckless or illegal things it should be brought to the publics attention. For two reasons, so we know the sort of people they are, and in the hope that these people refrain from doing stupid, reckless or illegal things in the first place.

dungfungus said :

rosscoact said :

Captain RAAF said :

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

90% of the population (the remaining 10% being vehicular rejects that the laws are made to protect) could drive a complicated slalom course in a paddle geared ferrari at .05 and not have a prang, .075 is barely worth a mention. I hold .075 in one leg when I’m on the piss and can still obey every single road law out there, safely and with no risk to anyone.

Pissed, what a joke! I

That is simply a silly post, I assume meant to troll. No basis in fact or common sense. Fatuous

But then everything that you don’t agree with is trolling isn’t it?

here you go http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trolling

HardBallGets5:53 pm 21 May 13

Captain RAAF said :

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

I call “bullshit” as CaptainRAAF is clearly just making this stuff up.

The .05 BAC level is set in accordance with a massive data set gathered over many years which shows the level of crash risk at various BAC levels.

See here:
http://toolkit.irap.org/default.asp?page=treatment&id=37
with particular reference to ‘related images’ on the upper right hand side.

rosscoact said :

Captain RAAF said :

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

90% of the population (the remaining 10% being vehicular rejects that the laws are made to protect) could drive a complicated slalom course in a paddle geared ferrari at .05 and not have a prang, .075 is barely worth a mention. I hold .075 in one leg when I’m on the piss and can still obey every single road law out there, safely and with no risk to anyone.

Pissed, what a joke! I

That is simply a silly post, I assume meant to troll. No basis in fact or common sense. Fatuous

But then everything that you don’t agree with is trolling isn’t it?

How_Canberran4:58 pm 21 May 13

Captain RAAF said :

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

90% of the population (the remaining 10% being vehicular rejects that the laws are made to protect) could drive a complicated slalom course in a paddle geared ferrari at .05 and not have a prang, .075 is barely worth a mention. I hold .075 in one leg when I’m on the piss and can still obey every single road law out there, safely and with no risk to anyone.

Pissed, what a joke! I

Spot-on! Many moons ago, you got busted for .08 and higher. Then the federal government dangled the ‘road safety’ dollar in front of the States and Territories to drop it to .05

Give it a few more years and a reading of .02 will have you up on a charge. Shock/horror! Imaging being caught low range drink driving at say .03

“I swear occifer, I only sniffed the cork!”

How Canberran.

Captain RAAF said :

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

90% of the population (the remaining 10% being vehicular rejects that the laws are made to protect) could drive a complicated slalom course in a paddle geared ferrari at .05 and not have a prang, .075 is barely worth a mention. I hold .075 in one leg when I’m on the piss and can still obey every single road law out there, safely and with no risk to anyone.

Pissed, what a joke! I

That is simply a silly post, I assume meant to troll. No basis in fact or common sense. Fatuous

Captain RAAF4:28 pm 21 May 13

p1 said :

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

.075, pissed? Really?

You do realise that the .05 law is designed for the worst case scenario, the lowest common denominator or more simply, the highest amount of alcohol that the worst driver in the country can have in their blood without having a crash and killing someone.

90% of the population (the remaining 10% being vehicular rejects that the laws are made to protect) could drive a complicated slalom course in a paddle geared ferrari at .05 and not have a prang, .075 is barely worth a mention. I hold .075 in one leg when I’m on the piss and can still obey every single road law out there, safely and with no risk to anyone.

Pissed, what a joke! I

Felix the Cat4:13 pm 21 May 13

Could be worse. She could of been seen running a red light on her push-bike while wearing lycra.

HiddenDragon said :

rosscoact said :

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

If only this show, particularly the coming episodes, could be as funny as Seinfeld:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scofflaw

although unintended irony (of which there will likely be quite a lot) is often funnier.

I thought scofflaw had the ring of Monty Burns (or his mother) to it, but you learn something new every day.

😀 but will we look back 20 years from now and still laugh? Possibly, after all, the silly Billy’s Sneddon and McMahon are still funny, even if they are pretty much forgotten.

Credlin fucked up, but really, is it a major thing? Nah, not really…

Well, it’s as major a thing as any DUI is. Which, here on RA at least, is a pretty unpopular charge.
Especially if you consider the fairly high recidivism rate of drink drivers:
http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/pages/bocsar_mr_cjb135

(Not saying that she is one, but do I believe this was her very first time and she just made a bad judgement call on this one occasion??) 🙂

HiddenDragon11:04 am 21 May 13

rosscoact said :

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

If only this show, particularly the coming episodes, could be as funny as Seinfeld:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scofflaw

although unintended irony (of which there will likely be quite a lot) is often funnier.

I thought scofflaw had the ring of Monty Burns (or his mother) to it, but you learn something new every day.

dungfungus said :

rosscoact said :

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

And what other charges have been laid for her to earn the title of a scofflaw (no hyphen)?
Who are the others that make up “them”?

A bit defensive aren’t you? If you are going to get all twisted up every time someone says something that you perceive as derisory about the Libs (there was nothing partisan in what I said) then you will be a very unhappy camper after September.

rosscoact said :

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

So are the people who drive this vehicle but they are not named are they.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/tickets-to-ride-in-pms-vehicle/story-fndo28a5-1226548166224

ACT Policing is sooooo buggered. After September, they’ll all be on litter patrol and cop work will be contracted out to Quangers.

I hope this woman isn’t the one who was on IVF…

bd84 said :

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

Chief of Staff to the PM has a pretty large amount if power in this country (actual, practical power, not any legal power). Do we want someone with such obvious poor judgement or self control with so much power and influence?

And to the Dï?khèäds out there thinking “she was just unlucky to get caught” (it was just driving pissed, what’s the big deal) I say to you – do we want someone with bad luck in a position of power and influence?

rosscoact said :

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

And what other charges have been laid for her to earn the title of a scofflaw (no hyphen)?
Who are the others that make up “them”?

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd5:23 pm 20 May 13

Wow

I don’t really think much else does this justice besides this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrfCixsd2N8

After this news, I’m sure some CFMEU-hired ‘comedian’ could come up with lots of jokes about swallowing in time for the next Federal Labor piss-up……

I’d be drinking too if I had to work for Abbott.

Hardly worth the effort writing the news story. It’s no different to any other person getting caught drink driving.

May have been more newsworthy and interesting should it have been Tony getting caught.

.075 might be low range, but that’s still more than an accidental sip over. Very bad judgement.

These people, honestly, scoff-laws the lot of them.

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