24 August 2005

Stanhope says staffer's wife was not improper and journalists need to watch out

| Kerces
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Jon Stanhope says there is nothing improper in the wife of his chief of staff not declaring her affiliations in a letter to the editor and that journalists should be more careful of uncovering political associations themselves.

He said the author of a letter to the Canberra Times that defended him, Liz Clarke, was a “long-time very good friend” of his and that he regretted her support had “backfired on both of us”.

He then went on to take pot shots, without naming names, at one of the Canberra Times journalists in the room for writing a story quoting a member of the ACT Civil Liberties Council who is also an executive Liberal party member. The story was in relation to calls for police reports into the events surrounding the accident involving Clea Rose to be released to the public.

Mr Stanhope said these calls were an attack on the ACT Government and had nothing whatsoever to do with civil liberties and so the source should have disclosed their status within the Liberal Party.

He then went on with a rather nasty, petty rant about journalistic ethics and finished by saying he knew who all the players were in this town and who they batted for and that journalists should be more careful in future.

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Sorry thumper – the Oz doesn’t seem to print Strewth online anymore (they used to) you’ll have to go to the hard copy. And re Liz on the payroll
– I would be astounded if she wasn’t an ACT public servant.

Is ‘long-time, very good friend Lizzie also on the ACT payroll somewhere? Just wondering?

I probably wouldn’t claim anyway, it was a claytons comment ;P

careful maelinar, canberra blogs are monitored by HIS.

Read Janie Fraser’s Strewth par in today’s OZ – right on the money “one red face, one brown nose”

Hey I don’t mind if the secret police come knocking, it’ll be a good reunion 🙂

For the record, we’ll go straight for the Johnny Walker Blue Label (top shelf pantry), then follow up with Cognac.

I’ve still got some Cubans left over from somewhere I never went, (bedside cabinet bottom drawer).

Once they’ve been destroyed by clumsy search techniques and can of course be claimed back through insurance, I’m sure we’ll all be in too good a mood to do any arresting, so we’ll just talk shite about what we haven’t ever done or places we haven’t ever been to.

I don’t think he hid it that well, he managed to horrify large chunks of his natural constituency.

The libs got stuck on their first breakthrough issue and didn’t keep going, and the public had enough after the federal election.

We’ll never really know. The liberals were, and are, so unconvincing as an alternative.

Stanhope is an angry, angry man. He hid it quite well before he got elected the first time, but has been gradually showing more of his true side these past few years.

Be interesting to see what sort of media strategy this turns out to be.

Reptiles don’t normally respond well to this sort of thing.

I wonder who he thinks we’re batting for?

That being said, should the CT look into this stuff before they publish letters?

I agree with most of this government has done, but god his office are a bunch of idiots.

Sounds like someone hasn’t completed Politics 101 – if you want to push a letter to the editor, don’t allow some from within ‘close circles’ to do the work….these amateurs shouldn’t throw stones at glass houses either.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Stanhope seems to be getting more and more like Josef Stalin by the day?

Are we players ?

Can I have a special card that says I am an ACT Player ?

I certainly didn’t think that Standope would have remembered the guy looking at him as he crossed over the overhead bridge at Belconnen Mall thinking ‘I hope he doesn’t get beaten up cause that guy looks like Stanhope’, but then again I could be wrong.

Then again, my email addy identifies me, and a quick look in the telephone book will give you the fact that I live in Holt and am understandably quite concerned about the closure of it’s local school and various other stances I have taken within this blog site.

Given this site’s current exposure level, I would guess that they felt that some positive karma was needed. I suggest they rename a road to Clea Rose Memorial Way if they want some positive PR. And of course to jump on the bandwagon.

Careful of what I ask?

I am not a great advocate of many forms of the media, but I believe that all of them* have their place.

Should the media be concerned with putting forth their point of view because the CM has asked them to be carreful? Is the CM frightened that the media might inspire a wave of common sense and justice in the good people of this town?

Or was it a ‘be careful you don’t wind up in the bottom of the lake in a shiny new pair of concrete skechers”… I don’t really think so, but it’s worth pointing out just how stupid the statement was.

*There is only one form of media in the ACT that has no place here: City News.

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