There is no knowing what you 'meant' SM.

This is what you 'said':

"I'm sure that he will follow the high standards of living set by the previous speaker, and Craig Thomson."

Your analysis does not survive a basic scrutiny. It is an offensive assault on the previous Speaker, as is your later comment an offensive assault on the broader union movement.

"Craig Thomson lived the high life the traditional way by embezzling union dues."

I do not believe either comment deserves to remain on OLO.

You infer with that last comment that Belly also had his hand in the till, as a 'traditional activity' of union officials.

Thomson is not charged with any crime, and certainly not been found guilty of one either.

That may change, and I really am not concerned if it does but you are sailing close to the wind with your accusations.

You should remove them, and rephrase what you wrote into something that does not offend so.

TBC,

It is a pity that your English skills do not survive basic scrutiny either. I asked you whether you could explain exactly what the insult was against the previous speaker, and you cannot. I can only assume that you prefer to maintain a Faux outrage, or are intellectually inadequate.

The insults against Slipper, Thomson and the unions are intended and well justified.

I like it when these Red vs Blue squabbles break out. It makes the

*Greens*

look better.

<snicker, snicker>

..

*Neutral*

Instead of " ... schizophrenic <snip> conservatives ..." consider trying a different and more accurate insult, if that is what you are trying to achieve.

I really don't think that their behavior can be attributed to a fundamentally altered state of consciousness. They are just bent, perverted and perverting, and when they go too far, a normal prison is their just deserts, as opposed to a psych hospital.

I too Lexi, have hopes and fingers crossed about Peter Slipper.

cheers T2

thinker 2, you say in your post of Tuesday, 29 November 2011 at 6:51:08 PM, that:

"Slipper himself could well be the subject
of blackmail over the christmas break with
the Australian newspaper first in in line
for the Slipper video (or else) from his
former confidants, prior too the opening
of the Houses in the new year."

It is a concern that such might be attempted, given that the allegation of one sort of sexual misconduct or other is seemingly such a commonly used tool these days in attempts at the manipulation of public opinion where the standing of persons prominent in matters of public significance is sought to be undermined by one interest or another. Think Polanski (extradition), think Howes (extradition), think Strauss-Khan (opportunistic political smearing, entrapment in a hostile foreign jurisdiction), think Assange (extradition, entrapment in a hostile foreign jurisdiction).

It is equally important to recognise that claims as to the very existence of some allegedly compromising video in relation to the former Deputy-Speaker, now Speaker, is, up to this point, pure inuendo.

At this point, should any claimed evidence of allegedly 'inappropriate behaviour' on the part of the Speaker on some earlier occasion in the context of a private parliamentary or electorate office celebration now conveniently emerge, it would have to be assumed that the sole intent behind such emergence would be one of deliberate damage to the reputation of the person and/or office. It is to be hoped, and I would expect with some degree of confidence that there would be support by a majority in the House, that the publishing of any such purported video would be treated as a deliberate contempt of the Parliament.

What goes around, comes around, as they say. Seemingly no significant timely zeal existed in either major party for the upholding of Parliamentary privilege in relation to immunity for testimony to a Committee by Allan Asher a month ago. Now members of both parties are going to have to learn all about privilege and immunities, in many cases perhaps for the first time.

Karma.

The link in my post of Tuesday 29 November 2011 at 11:57:39 AM, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10712#178530 , that revealed from official AEC records the statistically improbable (impossible?) number of 47,579 17-year-old provisionally enrolled persons seemingly turning 18 during the 22 days between 30June 2010 and 22 July 2010, may just have afforded us a window on a possible reason for Julia Gillard's pre-election duplicitous promise of 'there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead', followed by its post-election reversal.

With automatic electoral enrollment already legislated in NSW from 14 December 2009 but not proclaimed until 22 September 2010, whilst simultaneously there had been no gazettal of 12 months notice of NSW' intent to withdraw from the Joint Roll Agreement, there is every indication that there existed a tacit understanding that the Commonwealth, too, in the near future would be adopting automatic enrollment. That intent would now seem to be confirmed by the introduction in recent days of a Bill to that effect into the Commonwealth Parliament. http://twitter.com/#!/mumbletwits/status/139204858132709376

It could just as easily be that the non-statistical move of 47,579 names out of the 17-year-old roll cohort into the 18-year-old roll cohort in just 22 days constitutes tip-of-the-iceberg evidence as to a pre-existing clandestine variant of 'automatic enrollment' having subsisted unidentified within the Commonwealth rolls, one that, with the imminent introduction of official (and hopefully transparently accountable) automatic enrollment would have been seen as having a very limited shelf-life. What is there to say that such a clandestine scheme would have been confined to the 17-year-old roll cohort?

Perhaps it was seen in some quarters that Federal elections held in 2010 might be the last that could be influenced by what looks like just such a clandestine enrollment manipulation system. The last chance for ramming a carbon tax down the Australian's throats, perhaps?

Is that the underlying explanation for the desperation move of 'putting in the slipper' in holding power?