Jon Stanhope’s never been a skilled negotiator. His latest effort as reported by the ABC is to demand the Greens respect his 37.4% of the vote as a right to rule.
Meanwhile in the Canberra Times Zed appears to be challenging Shane Rattenbury to be a man. More generally though he’s sounding keen to do a deal. Far keener than the shrill commands coming from the Labor camp.
The Greens are just thrilled to have realised their potential and haven’t given up (with some good reason) on the fourth seat coming home to them.
But when does the new Assembly actually meet and formalise the victor by voting for a Chief Minister?
The helpful Assembly secretariat informs us that the Assembly will sit within 7 days of the declaration of the poll. The Elections ACT’s site says that they’ll be able to declare the poll “around 2 to 3 weeks after polling day”. If the electronic scanning of ballots works as planned it might go quicker. (Having a lot of experience with OCR I’m not so confident but would be happy to be corrected)
With things in flux it could drag on for a month I’m afraid.
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Man, if I were Big Bill and someone offered me a choice, high paying position whilst I was in the twilight of my working life I’d be taking it as well….
I am not suggesting that labor stole the election.
If you are telling me that he is the best person for the job – then there should be no issue putting it under the microscope.
Was anyone else considered?
Smacks of political opportunism designed to use the public purse to make political headway very close to an election.
This article by Moore (of all people) sums up my concerns – http://www.citynews.com.au/index.php/content/article/the_lumpy_ethics_of_clever_politics/
thetruth; stefaniak sought out a new job, when a suitable position appeared he applied for it and given his qualifications and expereince got the job. there has been no suggestion (apart from that you are creating) that stefaniak didn’t get the job on his merits. there is no conspiracy.
your whole speil reeks of sour grapes; surely your time would be better spent looking at why the liberal’s policies/message failed to strike a chord with voters rather then desperately trying to find a way labor ‘stole’ the election.
What about statues of Al Grassby sleeping with town planners??
Maybe I will go to ACA/TT with that one
Mrshmellowman said :
Well, that rather depends on whether you consider statues of Al Grassby to be better or worse than town planners sleeping with developers and taking bribes while the senior council members deliberately turn a blind eye.
On the other hand, the latter option does make for much more interesting content in the local newspaper.
Whether I do something concrete or not is irrelevent. this is a blog site where folks vent or exchange ideas about topics – the threads evolve and sometime merge.
Why do you care so much about what i am saying compared to anyone else?
(Apologies to Lateline I suppose for lumping them in with TT & ACA)
johnboy said :
jb you’re a tease 🙂
thetruth said :
Again thetruth if you think it’s so suspect why not do something concrete about it instead of simply posting the same comments on RA across numerous threads? And then come back and tell us what response you get (or maybe you’ll get lucky and we’ll see it on Lateline/TT/ACA).
caf said :
The implication of what you are saying here is that the appointment was not merit based and was exploited for politicial gain – Nick Greiner was forced to resign regarding his appointment of Terry Metherell. Whats the difference?
I think the Stefaniak Affair needs to be fully investigated – if it was above board ie he applied for an advertised position, there is documented selection process and it was not tainted by political expediency then fine.
The fact that we accept it as “normal” means that we are normalising a type of behaviour that can get very morally tricky – eg what if someone “suggests that you apply”, or it occurs the day before caretaker mode, what if there are 5 appointments instead of one, what if as now occurs under the electoral system an appointment results in Stanhope gaining two seats and majority government?
Stefaniak knew what he was doing when he approached the Government before the election. If he didn’t have the regard for his own party to wait until after, why should their political opponents?
On the Comnnolly and Follett appointments – They were made after the 1995 election and two YEARS not MONTHS before the next election.
If faced with an approach such as this the Government should have said “after the election”.
I think there are a lot of questions about this which are not your normal “after election finding a safe home appointments”. Likewise – they could investigate those other appointment if appropriate (or at least compare them). This is getting very close in my mind to some of the practices in third world countries – we are now at two months, next one month, why not the day before?
So not happy with policial appointments that are not open to scrutiny, but to make one so close to an election, in your own electorate hmmmm
Judgement on Stefaniak’s actions I think he was disloyal, but some would say others were disloyal.
We like to keep an air of mystery and excitement to it.
I’ve just realised I’ve graduated to a Rioter from a Hooligan! JB how much more bs do I need to post to make it to the next level? What is the next level?
thetruth just can’t seem to let it go. If you care so much why don’t you write to someone or start a petition or something asking for an enquiry? Write to Faulkner or whoever the Territories Minister is.
The reality is that there is no Stefaniak Affair. amarooresident beat me to it mentioning Connelly and Follett. These things happen all the time and I think unlike what usually happen in this situation Stefaniak clearly approached the ACT Government instead of the other way around. So far no one (Stefaniak or the Libs) has disputed either that or Katy’s assertions on Saturday that Stefaniak approached them several times. (and not the other way around) I thing the only thing wrong with this situation is that Stefaniak didn’t tell his own party. If I were the Libs I’d be more pissed about that – you’d expect some sort of loyalty from someone on your own side.
That should be Carnell offered…
You speak the truth thetruth
I acknowledge that the govt is not actually corrupt (Stefaniak Affair aside)but can we agree that they are arrogant untrustworthy liars?
The same way Carnell appointed Follet and Connelly Government appointments? And according to the published accounts Stefaniak asked for an appointment some months before he resigned, rather than Stanhope offering it to him out of the blue.
That said offering your competitor a government appointment months out of an election to get them out of the race
Says more about councils than Stanhope – but have to agree
The Stanhope government has been light years better than those dysfunctional, and in some cases actually corrupt, councils. And they don’t even have to deal with the big stinking political dirty nappies of Education and Health, either.