Dear Paul,

Peta Credlin has been dragged into the ICAC
controversy over carbon tax emails. To me
this amounts to a "bit of smoke but no gun."
All the emails reveal is Credlin doing her job,
which in Opposition focused heavily on finding
people prepared to say that the carbon tax was
killing them.

It is a separate issue - whether existing disclosure
laws on political donations are adequate and whether
there should be a federal equivalent of the NSW ICAC?
At present there is no consensus on this, even within
the Labor Party.

As for Peter Slipper? I watched "60 Minutes," on
Sunday night and it raised more questions than
it answered. The main one being - why did Ashby
not simply walk out of the job if the sexual
harrassment was as bad as he claims it was?
Why did Ashby keep a daily diary of everything
that took place? The entire episode smacks of
being a political set up. And why has he now come
forward with all this information? Who's put him
up to it - and what has he been promised this time
around, or is this simply "pay back," on his part?

Ashby claims that he's now got a new life for himself
so why would he want to drag all this up again - to
what end?

I'm undecided about this entire matter. It doesn't
sit well with me, and I'm sorry that I watched "60
Minutes" on Sunday night. However, I guess this
won't go away - and we can merely watch the news as
this unfolds. Which undoubtedly it will.

Hi there FOXY...

I too saw most of the ASHBY segment on 60 Minutes, and found very little evidence of veraciousness from anybody who'd been interviewed. Certainly nothing emerged from anyone who'd been interviewed where a brief could be raised.

The problem also arises, these people lie so often, they've not believed even when they do tell the truth ? I tend to agree with much of what PAUL1405 has stated, generally these 'Commission's' of Inquiry rarely lead to successful prosecutions, but by 'outing' the culprit does seem to impede them from repeating those illicit activities if nothing else.

Moreover, there was something about ASHBY's whole comportment, his evasive countenance, that got my antennae quivering ? When I was still working FOXY, you could almost 'smell' someone who was lying ? Still I could be doing the fellow an injustice, who knows ?

Dear O Sung Wu,

I guess we'll have to wait and see what if anything
happens next with what Ashby disclosed on 60 Minutes.

As I stated previously - the program raised more
questions than answers. And I can't help wondering
WHY?

What's the point of it all?

If, we as tax-payers, demand a Federal ICAC and bring out the level of corruption into the bright light of day, which there will be, we had better have an alternative plan on how political parties can raise money to put their case to the people, the voters.

It's for similar reasons I find Royal Commissions a massive waste of money that go on for too long with very little real benefit. We all get to be horrified for a while and grow a bit stronger in our opinion of the evilness of whatever, but nothing changes much, if anything at all.

We have a small pool of sources for money. We have a small pool of politicians. We have very, very poor diversity of news and information. This leads to corruption.

If we make all and sundry entities 'illegal' to donate or put caps on the amounts, then all that will happen is more convoluted and opaque set-ups to raise money. Like in the USA. This will not change the unhealthy influence of people with too much money or businesses. Prosecutions will not stop that, only cost us.

Are we as voters willing to pay for our politicians to state their case to us? Are we to ban 'vote for' advertising altogether (I say, YES PLEASE!).

I enjoy much of how it's done in the Netherlands, 'round table' discussion with 2 mediators/facilitators (to curb the bias factor) and have the opposing factions debate each other on live TV. You get to see how they perform, what they say and how they answer direct questions.

Australians only get little sound-bites, an interview or two and lots of stupid advertising to form an opinion on who to vote for. As if it's not anymore important than buying a brand of laundry detergent: this one's safe for the environment, this one's made by hard-working Australians, this one's real cheap. The interviews, which give more of an insight, immediately get dismissed by the 'follower' if negative as being from a 'biased source'. Crazy stuff.

I think the purpose of a Commission should be to look at all facets of political behavior, from the outright criminal, the Obeid type, to the ethical behavior of others, like a dimwitted chair sniffer from WA.
Present matters are hot topics, but a commission should be on going, and able to investigate much more than the present matters. With the results of the ICAC inquiries in NSW so politically damaging I can see why both THE LABOR and LIBERAL PARTIES wouldn't warm to a Federal Commision, Greens democracy spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon said major party resistance to a "national ICAC" – as many dub it – was becoming increasingly hard to justify, especially when money flowed routinely between state and federal accounts of political parties.
And she said the standard refrain from the major parties that NSW was a special case was also wishful thinking.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/pressure-builds-for-federal-icac-20140909-10ed3n.html

Paul 1405,
Lee Rhiannon as democracy spokesperson, how amusing.
Also, this is off topic but when this arrived in my inbox I immediately thought of you :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d_pAdpJ5Ps
He's baaack!