We are better served by putting our biases in the bin at the door.
$50.00 to settle
Against a Commonwealth legal bill of $700.000 plus already.
Wobbles you try to swim up a waterfall here.
Facts say nothing for those mining black rocks to throw at Labor.
Remember, never forget, these same folk charge us with wasting money.
Enjoy your swim, other threads beckon me.

Belly - The present labor Government produces enough black rocks that they are not hard to find and you don't have to mine for them.
I believe the black rocks go by another name " incompetence "

The settlement of the case included not only the $50 000 cash payment, but an agreement to put procedures in place to prevent further sexual harassment of staffers. Short of a written confession by NR, this is as close as possible to an admission that Slipper's behaviour was inappropriate.

This settlement is essentially Labor washing their hands of Slipper, as now the commonwealth isn't fighting the action, it is entirely for Slipper's account, and it appears not to be going well for him.

G'day all...

My modest penny's worth if I may...which ever way you cut it, our Mr Slipper aka 'slippery Pete', sounds like a real piece of work ?

Never let it be said I'd support Ms. Roxon on any issue. However, it's certainly not unusual for a legal matter to be determined a 'no bill' or even N E T O, if for no other reason than, purely on fiscal grounds.

Her remarks, apropos wishing to avoid a 'lawyers feast' I'd agree with. Whether Mr Slipper has/had a case to answer in this matter, is now moot. I guess we'll never know whether or not he's in anyway culpable, as alleged ?

Another thought though, I wonder if there are any politicians out there who are actually doing what their constituants want ? Or do they all spend their time ensuring they can make as much as possible from the public purse ?

There's only one, I repeat one politician, that I can recall, who had the legitimate interests of his constitutes, at heart. Trouble was he was only an Independent, pity really ?

Admit it, Shadow Minister. You're clutching at straws on this one.

>>The settlement of the case included not only the $50 000 cash payment, but an agreement to put procedures in place to prevent further sexual harassment of staffers. Short of a written confession by NR, this is as close as possible to an admission that Slipper's behaviour was inappropriate<<

I think you are ignoring the obvious here, in your enthusiasm to find yet another stick with which to beat Labor, this time via Ms Roxon.

This was a "safe working environment" case. Therefore, it is only to be expected that the settlement included "putting procedures in place". In fact, if you think about, *not* including such a rider would have been a clear admission that the settlement had nothing to do with the working environment, and everything to do with political expediency.

>>This settlement is essentially Labor washing their hands of Slipper, as now the commonwealth isn't fighting the action, it is entirely for Slipper's account, and it appears not to be going well for him.<<

No doubt about the hand-washing. Which is why I regard it as a very smart move by Ms Roxon, both from a protecting-the-public-purse point of view, and the separation of her Party considerations from the outcome of Slipper's case.

Which looks as though it will drag out for some time, now that he has been cut off from the taxpayers' teat, and is crying poor.

If the Government used it's own legal resources I imagine most of the $700,000 costs were incurred in-house by salaried staff - much like the cost of maintaining an Army (who get paid regardless).

The remainder would have been on external searches and so on but there has to be a limit to how much time you would waste on a case that clearly breached the Workplace rules - no matter how vexatious.

I recall that years ago, Telstra (then Telecom) spent over $1million chasing an allegedly bogus car claim of less than $150 by a staff member and were roundly criticised by the presiding judge.

When in comes to waste, I also recall a previous administration spending $65million investigating a Building Union and never releasing the results and blowing another $billion or so on a bungled internal IT project.