RObert I address my remarks to you.
Some time ago, I highlighted a poster was, in my view, one from our past.
You thought I was wrong.
But later became a believer.
That poster, with help from another, intruded in to my private life.
You will note a slur aimed at Lexi, she for her own reasons is still the same person she always was.
My warrior, I remain one,fight face to face, had to stop.
OLO is of far more worth than anyones ego.
But I must not either, let insults go unanswered.
In the past posters, new ones, tasked with insulting me or others turn up.
And increasingly old posters return with new names but old habits.
I have, in the last month,see EXTRAORDINARY! changes in posts from one poster who has had other names.
Mental illness is involved, sad,true honest I think that, but I also think some threads must die than become a slander wall for some to scribble on.
My regards see you in another thread.
PS this posters post history shows my evidence .

Belly, whilst there were a lot of similarities with that poster I'm not convinced it was the same person (there was an easily tracable identity). As CJ once suggested possibly something in the water.

I don't do well at spotting identity swaps, generally takes a while (or someone pointing it out) and do try and avoid running battles (although I've had a few).

We may just have to agree to disagree on the topic of this thread.
See you later.

R0bert

Belly,

This whole debacle that culminated in the resignation of the Commonwealth Ombudsman has been an 'own goal' of federal 'Team' Labor's own making.

To suggest that it was in any way wrong of the Ombudsman to have 'used' the Senate by way of supplying one minor party Senator with a list of questions that could in due course prove revelatory if put to the Ombudsman in a Budget Estimates Committee hearing, is to endorse the spin so endemic to the miserably brief and superficial MSM reporting of this whole issue. Granted it may have appeared UNCONVENTIONAL, on the face of it, for the Ombudsman to have solicited the help of Senator Hanson-Young in ventilating his concerns as to the adequacy of resources with which to do the job for which he was appointed by this very government only 14 months ago.

What the Ombudsman was demonstrating by this seemingly unconventional tactic was ability at recognising and revealing administrative obfuscation and obstructiveness by executive government to his discharging of the very functions placed upon him by the Ombudsman Act. In short, demonstrating competence at, and independence of government in, the doing of his job. The spin, reported to have been parroted widely across the major parties, was that this was in some way 'wrong'.

What seems to have gone uncommented upon in the MSM is that Senator Hanson-Young was, at the time of the Ombudsman's submission to the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Immigration Detention Network in September 2011, the Deputy-Chair of that Committee of the Parliament. It seems only natural and proper that, in relation to ongoing matters affecting the Ombudsman's oversight of the application of the 'immigration detention values' promulgated by the Labor government in July 2008, the Ombudsman should have sought a meeting with any non-government member of that Committee, and all the more so its Deputy-Chair given she met this criterion and that the inquiry was ongoing. See: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/immigration_detention_ctte/immigration_detention/interim_report/index.htm

Did the spinmeisters count on nobody even reading the tabled emails? See here for a link thereto: http://www.smh.com.au/national/ombudsmans-independence-questioned-after-greens-link-20111012-1ll48.html

TBC

Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 11:18:58 AM

" ... Did the spinmeisters count on nobody even reading the tabled emails? See here for a link thereto: http://www.smh.com.au/national/ombudsmans-independence-questioned-after-greens-link-20111012-1ll48.html ... "

*Forrest* thanks for some great linkies and a very enjoyable read. I didn't read all of the emails, but enough to feel sated and intellectually satisfied. I did note there was some duplication amongst it all, but otherwise again, great work.

It seems to me to be a great loss that we no longer have *OmbudsPerson Allen*

..

A couple of associated comments. I recall reading a High Court case some time ago regarding a junkie and an appeal in relation to the *Rights of the Child Convention*

Even though the High Court has original jurisdiction in such matters, from memory I believe that the crux of the decision essentially stated that to be a signatory of such conventions has no real legal force unless it is enacted in local Australian law.

Thus, the Human Rights Commission jurisdiction here as of my last reading does not extend to social security or to immigration matters.

This is supported by the ALP's desire to remove the provision relating to Human Rights from the Immigration Act and though I note there appears to be an aspect of political opportunism on *Mr Abbott's* part, and whilst I am generally no fan of the Liberal party, I am strongly supportive of their stand.

You see, in my view, the Australian guvment should be forced to resign from the Asylum Seekers Convention, from the Rights of the Child Convention and also from the Torture Convention and stand before the world as the despicable individuals that they, in my view, really are. But here again, there appears to be no mechanism for this to be done, or alternatively if it is a matter that needs to be brought against them by another State, is indicative of the fact that most if not all of the other States, in various shades, are pretty much as bad as one another.

Continued

In expressing no confidence in the Ombudsman, and thereby pressuring his resignation, the Labor government has simply been seen to have 'shot a messenger'.

By trying to spin it that the Ombudsman was 'secretly' and partisanly 'colluding' with a Greens Senator, those within the government that have expressed this lack of confidence may have not only sailed very close to the wind with respect to contempt for the ongoing proceedings of a committee of the Parliament, but put the spotlight right on the very failing of the Labor government that re-ignited the maritime asylum-seeker issue: the promulgation of its 'immigration detention values'.

Its all in the emails, and they were never secret. Even the suggested questions were transmitted as an attachment to an email. There had but to be a request made for them to be tabled, and tabled they were. The Ombudsman, as an experienced advocate, would always have known such a request could have been made, and if he was truly attempting to collude secretly would surely never have transmitted the suggested questions in that way.

What the emails establish is that in mid-2008, the maritime-entry immigration detention pipeline was essentially empty. This is embarrassing to the government because it can be claimed to be evidence that the 'Pacific solution' had worked. There were, essentially, no more boats coming. The budget for the resourcing of the Ombudsman's office was based upon essentially no maritime asylum-seekers being in detention, and thus not contributing significantly to his workload and the costs of discharging his role as Immigration Ombudsman.

At around about the same time that this zero-budget baseline for maritime asylum-seeker detainees was being established for the Immigration Ombudsman's role, it appears the Labor government thought it could afford to indulge an element within its ranks in some triumphalist political corpse-kicking. It promulgated the afore-mentioned 'Immigration Detention Values'.

With that, the Australian government had been seen by the people-smugglers to have blinked.

It might just as well have printed brochures encouraging secondary-movement asylum-seeking.

So stupid.

Forrest thanks for your research and analysis. I'd not dug that far but what you've posted confirms what I thought was going on.

R0bert