Yesterday, when all these troubles seemed so far away, dependent I was on hearsay, that heads had rolled along the way.

http://twitter.com/#!/LaLegale/status/133302060505497601

But that was only yesterday.

Late yesterday, asked Google what it had to say, on Metcalfe taking leave this way. Here's what it told me, yesterday:

http://bit.ly/rTj4jh

And just to back up this, my claim, I put its answer in this frame:

http://twitpic.com/7bpty8

I know to have to click these links, a thing that really, really stinks
Along with all those twittered links, when done, it starts to make one think.

Now I believe in yesterday.

`

The links engendered: not hearsay.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-05/metcalfe-takes-extended-leave/3636996
http://www.theage.com.au/national/change-of-climate-as-bowles-replaces-metcalfe-20111104-1n05g.html

`

Three days to 11/11/11

My apologies to Sir Paul McCartney. I guess I was just desperate to get a knight on this case. My train of thought was: Senate. Allan. Hearings. Alan Joyce. (US) Senator McCarthy. McCartney, Paul. Hearing. Music in my head.

That was yesterday. Today I used a little poetic license in using the expression 'heads had rolled', for only one head (that of the erstwhile permanent one of DIAC*, Andrew Metcalfe) was seemingly involved, and it hadn't rolled, but had gone, or shortly was to be going, to some other place, on leave, still attached to its body.

Presumably that will mean Andrew Metcalfe will be unavailable to further testify before the current Joint Select Committee on Australia's Immigration Detention Network, one due to report by 30 March 2012. DIAC, as had the Ombudsman, made a submission to that inquiry, and the Parliament may yet have required to question both Andrew Metcalfe and Allan Asher in their respective official capacities as to those submissions. As things stand, that looks like it won't happen now.

Looks like dirty pool to me.

Allan Asher's head did roll, however, inasmuch as HIS high regard for the standing in the public eye of the Statutory Office of Ombudsman was used against him to force a resignation, by means of a press beat-up of misplaced outrage that had arisen from two separate invasions of Senate privilege: the leaking of the Ombudsman's responses to the LCAR Committee's question-upon-notice before that Committee had authorized its tabling in the first place; and then the carpeting of the Ombudsman on the basis of those leaked, then subsequently tabled, responses when he was supposed to enjoy immunity from reprisal for such privileged testimony.

Only the reinstatement of Allan Asher can undo the damage to the Australian body politic that these breaches of privilege have caused.

How about it, PM?

`

*Homonymic with the acronymian DIAC is the tribal name Diak, the famed headhunters and shrinkers-of-heads of the island of Borneo. Spooky in the circumstances, eh? Departmental name-change soon, I wonder?

Belly,

Here's a bit more media analysis about your mate Bill, just in case you haven't seen it already, as I've just seen your userID come up on the 'users currently online' display.

http://bit.ly/ul4t1a

Interesting how the news item uses the 'Rocky' analogy in relation to PM Gillard. "Cut me Bill!". Also interesting, in relation to this 'sort of blog' about the forced resignation of the Ombudsman that you are good enough to let me run here, is Rob Burgess' relaying of the speculation that the 'kingmakers' may have been preparing a knife more for stabbing than cutting.

Stabbing Julia, that is.

It isn't hard to understand the desperation that must be being felt in Federal Labor circles, with respect to electoral survival, for every extra day Julia Gillard stays as Leader. Especially when members of the public are saying things like this:

http://twitter.com/#!/Scruffbucket/status/133770188616245248

I wonder, could the leaking of the Ombudsman's responses to the LCAR Committee's question-upon-notice, and his subsequent being told in breach of privilege that he had lost the confidence of the government (when it was to the PARLIAMENT that he was answerable) have been a 'kingmaker' style plan intended to provide a reason for deposing JG as Leader that necessitated little or no internecine bloodletting?

Was the damage done to the office of Ombudsman, and to Allan Asher, simply 'collateral damage' unavoidable as part of a now seemingly failed plan to dump Julia Gillard? In which case, or for that matter in any case, now that 'the polls' look like they may be 'turning around' (being turned around?) for Julia, how about doing the right thing by Allan Asher and the Australian public and facilitate his reinstatement?

As by now SH-Y, and many others, may be able to see, its all about being able to ask the right questions.

I could never understand how KRudd could have been knifed without a word getting out in advance, nor one voice in dissent. Now I think I can.

Two days to 11/11/11

Belly,

You may have noticed that I have posted several times to the OLO article published on 2 November, 'Is political leadership a lost art?'. Just in case you, and others who may be following this discussion, haven't noticed, here is the link to those comments: http://bit.ly/rJ6w2d

So far there have been only three comments to that article, all by me. I have, as viewers will see, been trying to give the authors at least some encouragement, because they have given an important 'heads up' for potentially millions of Australians in relation to the threat posed to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme by the currently-being-negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. Another opportunity for PM Gillard to show some leadership, and especially so in the light of President Obama's impending visit to Australia.

Taking a stand in support of the PBS would juxtapose nicely with any slight loss of face that might be occasioned by a reinstatement of Allan Asher to his Statutory Office of Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Now for another anniversary and a little spookiness, perhaps. Today is the 67th anniversary of the explosion, in Seeadler Harbour, Manus Island, of the USS Mount Hood (AE11), an ammunition resupply ship, on 10 November 1944 in WW2. Hundreds of US servicemen lost their lives that day. The spookiness is that it was the second ship to have blown up in WW2 that bore the name 'Hood'. The other was, famously, HMS Hood, which blew up in an engagement with the German battleship 'Bismarck' in May 1941. Manus Island is in the Bismarck archipelago. HMS Hood was named in honour of Britain's first admiral Samuel Hood. USS Mount Hood was named after a volcanic peak in Oregon that was also named in honour of Britain's first admiral Samuel Hood.

Is that a hoodoo, or does it have some deep symbolic meaning, I wonder?

Oh, and Sir David Hay, Australia's first military Ombudsman (1973) and last Administrator of New Guinea as an Australian colony, was serving in New Guinea on that day in 1944, I think his birthday.

`

One day to 11/11/11

Today, 11/11/11, is for the nation the 93rd celebration of Remembrance Day since that day in 1918 when, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the armistice that initiated the termination of WW1 came into effect. Prior to WW2, which necessitated the remembrance of the fallen in other conflicts, the day was known as Armistice Day. Lest we forget.

Today is also, as has already been alluded to in this 'sort of blog', the 36th anniversary of what has come to be known in Australia as the Dismissal, the determination of the commission of PM Whitlam and the shortly thereafter to be proclaimed prorogation of Parliament and dissolution of the House of Representatives by the Governor-General in 1975, in exercise of the provisions of Section 5 of the Constitution.

`

Given that in my posts to this topic I have laid stress upon the importance of asking the right questions in respect to the recent improperly-forced resignation of the Ombudsman, it seems appropriate to present two of ten as-yet-unanswered questions addressed to the Australian media by Sir David Smith on 7 November 2004 in the Senate chamber of Old Parliament House. The first question was:

"Why did [Whitlam] claim that the Governor-General
acted too soon on 11 November 1975, when it was
Whitlam himself who chose that date to force the
Governor-General's hand, by giving faulty and defective
advice?"

The second question was:

"Why did [Whitlam] ignore the Senate in planning
his Party's parliamentary tactics following the
withdrawal of his commission as Prime Minister?"

`

Today, for as long as the prima facie case of the Ombudsman's resignation being able to be seen as improperly forced in breach of Senate privilege continues unredressed, the Governor-General may see a need to intervene in accordance with the provisions of Section 61 of the Constitution. If an house of the Parliament fails to uphold its privileges granted under the Constitution, it may be for the Governor-General to act.

History could repeat itself, today.

Belly,

How to turn around the polls?

Laurie Oakes has come to the rescue, and explaned everything in just a few words.

"They were considering ways to achieve this when
Qantas management did the job for them by locking
out workers and dramatically grounding the airline."

Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/gillard-gaining-stature-with-obamas-visit/story-fn56baaq-1226193141843
Source of the source: http://twitter.com/#!/GrogsGamut/status/134970455982485504

Everything done at Qantas shareholders', Qantas striking workers', and the travelling public's expense! Brilliant. Even Richo couldn't be that good.

Why do I hold this vision of a Gary Larsen cartoon, one from the Far Side, of a pen full of closely packed sheep all looking (sheepishly?) vacant, with but one sheep wearing a headset and an enigmatic smile on its dial, with the caption: "Baa baa baa, baa baa ba-ran ..."? Of course, as we all know, the next line is the chorus echoing "Baa baa baa ...", don't we? Beachboys, wasn't it?

Just the other day, the day before the day before yesterday (Wednesday, 9 November 2011 at 5:21:12 AM, for the recursively challenged), when I was still fresh in the belief that I had been witness to some carefully scripted theatre between Alan Joyce and Senator Cameron, I concluded a post with the words:

"I could never understand how KRudd could have been
knifed without a word getting out in advance, nor
one voice in dissent. Now I think I can."

Now I think Kevin can, too. But he couldn't have known back in June 2010, could he? Even Sir John Geilgud could not have played that part as an act, could he?

Now, with the imminent arrival of the marines, is it to be a case of 'rendition unto Caesar ...'?

http://twitpic.com/7d6k4b

No wonder Kevin is taking care to look Prime Ministerial. And its looking increasingly likely that not only the Ombudsman, but the Greens as well, are but collateral damage in the shoring-up of what for decades may have been an unrecognised puppet government. The name Vidkun Quisling comes to mind.

Whatever is the Governor-General to do?

Oops! Did I really say all that?