One question on the latest round in the Burke saga. If Rudd were not in the firing line, does anyone think that Howard would have encouraged/forced Ian Campbell to resign?
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John Quiggin 
Pr Q mischieviously suggests:
Maybe, maybe not. Campbell throwing himself on the wire verifies the “Machiavellian Howard” theory, but in a way not implied by Pr Q cynical suggestion.
Accusations against Howard’s serial misdeeds and misleads in the political domain have generally trickled off him like so much water off a duck’s back. This is because most of Howard’s skullduggery (kids over board lies, AWB bribes, WMD hoaxes) have been for political, not personal gain – and arguably in the national interest. Most Australians are content to allow some bad means to be undertaken for good ends, if done effectively.
But Burke Inc uses politics as a profession for personal gain. The Australian public are unforgiving when corruption directly benefits the pockets of politicians. When Campbell was implicated in this Howard was so keen to see him quit the ministry pronto.
Of course the Howard ministry’s post-ministerial kick-backs and cronyism are another story. But these horses have well and truly bolted.
Jack I think the distinction you make about what is in the national interest and what is in the polkiticians interest are not as clear cut as you make out and points out ( cutting out all the wafflegab ) what the central problem is. Brian has been caught out doing what a lot of retired politicans do : peddle influence to the corporate sector. To view Burkie in context you have to examine a list of other infleunce peddlers , and you would need the equivalent of the CCC at the State and Federal levels. Think of the number of scandals over the years due to relationship between politicians and the corporate sector : the MRI scandal immediately comes to mind.
No way would Campbell have resigned. Pundits may argue that it will take a while for the electorate to digest the intricacies of the Burke dirt, but methinks the electorate can fully recognise an act of desperate hypocrisy when they smell one. If $300 million in material support to a terrorist regime isn’t a sackable offense, then people know that the sacrifice of Campbell has nothing to do with meeting with Burke and everything to do with grubby politics. The more Howard and Costello dig, the deeper the hole will get.
Burke met with Campbell as part of a delegation from the WA Turf Club (including other WATC officials and a state Labor MP) to discuss a proposal for an indigenous cultural centre. There is no suggestion Campbell was compromised by the meeting. His sacking is transparently a desperate device to preserve some sort of image of propriety for Howard in order to keep the smear on Rudd running for a few more days. The whole Rudd/Burke thing, it might be recalled, was dredged up as a means to deflect attention from the smelly relations between Howard and nuclear power proponents not a million miles removed from the Liberal Party – the story has been public knowledge for four months. At any event, the electorate has already formed its judgment on the moral standing of Howard and his gang, and may well see through this transparent bait and switch manoeuvre. The 7:30 Report last night drew attention to the many Howard ministerial transgressors kept on despite egregious breaches of Howard’s Code.
I wonder if there might be other ministers or coalition mp’s in the same situation as Campbell. Seems likely.
Campbells sacking had nothing to do with Rudd.
By the way, does anyone know where I can get a 2nd-hand bridge……
PrQ, to answer your question: no, but if he had not resigned, do you think the ALP would be saying that what he did was OK and so minor as to barely warrant comment? Hardly.
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Hal9000 – the reason it came out now is that Burke’s activities only obviously fell into the corrupt and seriously manipulative categories when the evidence the CCC had gathered came out. Are you suggesting that the Federal government can alter the timing of the (WA Government’s) CCC inquiry to their own benefit? If so, this is arrant nonsense.
The ALP (or at least Geoff Gallop), OTOH, obviously knew – otherwise, why ban contact?
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slim,
If you have evidence that the government knew that the payments were being made then you should have given it to the royal commission, who specifically found no such evidence.
If it is just your own belief that they knew you should, if you are being honest, state that it is your own belief.
As I read elsewhere, Mr Rudd only got 2 of 9 possible votes from WA members in the leadership contest, so if one were to consider facts, his 3 meetings the year before last with Mr Burke has been of no benefit to him in any secret deal that Mr ‘clean hands’ Howard wants him to come clean about. This business, unlike a lot of the other WA dealings, is what Mr Keating called Mr Costello: ‘all tip, no iceberg’.
“If Rudd were not in the firing line, does anyone think that Howard would have encouraged/forced Ian Campbell to resign?”
Of course not – this is politics. I still think it was the correct course of action.
If the boot was on the other foot with the ALP and Coalition in identical but opposite positions to the current situation, the ALP Cabinet Minister would have had to have been sacrificed.
06 – I might be wrong but I think you’ve got your numbers arse about.
Crikey was revealing today – Abbott continued to regularly visit in prison a dodgy dealer from his past. What an effing hypocrite!
And the police raids on three liberal backbenchers today may also haunt the government.
Frankly I’m more disgusted about the above board corruption – $10 000 donation to the Liberal party for a dinner table in order to meet a Cabinet Minister. What’s not corrupt about that?
The answer is so obviously no I can’t believe the question was even asked.
Howard has to put a stop to this or he’ll end up sacking half his cabinet. According to Crikey “[Tony] Abbott became a regular visitor at Kirkconnell Prison where [Abbott’s former campaign manager Ian] Macdonald was serving his five-and-a-half year sentence for embezzling more than $5 million from his clients”.
The Mad Monk has been visiting a convicted criminal in prison for Chrissakes! Surely that’s a sacking offence under these new standards of ministerial behaviour?
As slim said: “The more Howard and Costello dig, the deeper the hole will get”. BTW, slim, were you playing in the heat at Byron markets on Sunday?
Costello ( for some reason) revealed the motivation behind this gig “Mr Costello has told Lateline Mr Rudd started the slanging match when he questioned the probity of the Prime Minister’s relationship with businessman Ron Walker”. So it’s merely pointing out to the neophyte politician ” you try one of ours and we’ll get you on yours”. This may be suitable for politicians but not an relaxed and comfortable fact for the general public.
There is no chance that Ian Campbell would have been held accountable if the government hadn’t decided to attack Kevin Rudd about his meeting with Brian Burke. John Howard found himself in a glass house while he was throwing stones. The bigger issue is why this accountability hasn’t been applied over the past ten years.
Andrew Reynolds: It is my firm belief that the government did know about the AWB’s activities in Iraq, it defies belief that they didn’t. I’m not sure that the Royal Commission “specifically found no such evidence” because the terms of reference (set by the government) didn’t allow it to.
“Hal9000 – the reason it came out now is that Burke’s activities only obviously fell into the corrupt and seriously manipulative categories when the evidence the CCC had gathered came out.”
Hang on AR! The meetings happened in 2005, so it’s only what Rudd could or should have known before then that can be at issue. As our beloved leader would say in his convoluted way… ‘No-one could suggest that I could have known then what would happen later. That’s offensive and I reject that completely.’
Far from Rudd using Burke to garner WA caucus votes (as has been pointed out above, a complete non-starter), it’s apparent that Burke was using Rudd to give himself some undue credibility. When Rudd wised up to what was going on, he stopped accepting invitations. Campbell, meanwhile, was doing his job by seeing reps of the WA Turf Club, one of whom was Burke. Still, Howard wouldn’t be Robinson Crusoe (to use Rudd’s metaphor) among Australian political leaders in jettisoning a political mate like so much ballast in order to get just one favourable headline.
carbonsink re Byron Bay – sadly no!
And while I’m here, Andrew Reynolds, no I don’t have evidence, but given the limited terms of the inquiry, the Howard Government culture of plausible deniability, and the good old Westminster tradition of Ministerial responsibility, even if they didn’t ‘know’, they should have resigned. Even incompetence and negligence are sufficient grounds. What the hell did Campbell do that was wrong?
If they haven’t realised by now, campaigning on honesty and integrity is always going to be a liability of the Government. Better get back to policy.
Why does Abbott visit his mate in prison? He’s a catholic, a committed Christian, and for all anyone knows, could well just be observing Matt 25:36: “[I was] naked, and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me”. I don’t have a lot of time for Abbott, but one should be careful, and preferably charitable, about ascribing motives, unless there is clear evidence about what they actually are. Sackable offence? Not without evidence of actual misdemeanour.
As observed by Hal9000, Burke was part of a Turf club delegation, and there was no suggestion he was in any way compromised. Looks to me that he did’t actually do anything wrong. He was just a sacrifical lamb to reinforce a not very strong point, he should not have resigned, and would not have in other circumstances. That he did, or more likely was made to, just shows the extent of the PM’s concern about Rudd. It should give the ALP great heart if they can successfully weather this.
Bill O’Slatter Says: March 6th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I am not making a value judgement of what the national interest is. I am merely surmising what the majority of the AUS populus believe is the national interest. They think that in the so-called headline scandals Howard has more or less acted in the national interest, consistent with the LN/Ps political interest.
That is why they have not punished him politically so far. And why he has not made ministerial heads roll on account of them.
Bill O’Slatter Says:
Burke’s dodgy status is not in question. It is the status of serving Ministers and their Opposition shadows that is at stake. Can anyone name a serving Howard minister who has been caught red-handed lining his pockets, getting kick backs or peddling influence to sleazy types in return for personal gain? This seems to be more a state govt thing.
Bill O’Slatter Says:
These kinds of scandals have not exactly plagued the Howard govt, though have they. Which proves my point.
Its time Howard-haters and Howard-huggers started to come up with a new mantra. The “Tricky Johhny” and “conviction politician” ones were starting to sound old years ago.
Analysis of the Howard govt would improve if elite commentators, Left and Right, got off their high horses for a change. The average punter is way ahead of the elites in this respect.
Hal9000,
I answered your question within my original response – the section you (oddly) neglected to copy into your response.
Gallop, at the very least, must have known what was going on – otherwise, why the ban? Rudd, at the very minimum, should have been aware of the ban. If that did not prompt him to at least ask questions about Burke then Rudd is a complete idiot – something we all know him not to be.
Why, then, did he see him on at least the three separate occasions that are on the public record? Rudd would not have gone to see a person under an interdict from a section of his own party without a very good reason. What that reason is he is continuing to obfuscate about – but I, personally, cannot see it being other than the leadership.
Whether it got him no votes, 2 or 9 is irrelevant.
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slim,
Thanks for the admission that you have no evidence to substantiate. On the Westminster principle – I agree resignations should have occurred if that principle were to be honoured. Unfortunately, the principle has long since been honoured more in the breach than the observance – in governments headed by both the Labor and Liberal parties and at State and Federal levels. It seems to be only personal conduct and scandals that look to have a long term effect can now draw a resignation.
“Whether it got him no votes, 2 or 9 is irrelevant.”
No it’s not AR. That’s a chief plank of the Rodent’s case – that Rudd is beholden to Burke. Gallop’s ban, meanwhile, extended only to his own ministers – backbenchers were free to do what they wanted and so were feds. And Rudd didn’t ‘go to see’ Burke, Burke ‘went to see’ Rudd. As the Campbell case clearly shows, this whole nonsense has no more substance than fairy floss.
And if lobbyists are such a concern, why did Howard in one of his first acts having taken delivery of the keys to the Lodge abolish the Hawke/Keating government’s system of registration, involving background checks inter alia?
At least one thing is very clear now: Howard is afraid of losing. Very afraid. Doubtless the next move will be to try to pin some unwise decision of the Goss government on Rudd, US attack-smear by association style.
1.”I am merely surmising what the majority of the AUS populus believe is the national interest. They think that in the so-called headline scandals Howard has more or less acted in the national interest, consistent with the LN/Ps political interest.” This is a false cnclusion :key marginal electorates were targeted and the advantages of incumbency and the massive increase in taxation due to the GST used to political advantage.
2.”Can anyone name a serving Howard minister who has been caught red-handed lining his pockets, getting kick backs or peddling influence to sleazy types in return for personal gain?” Do we have to go throught the list again. Do some reading Jack.
I am not a rusted on Howard hater. Initially I wished his government well , however it has become increasingly clear over the years that this is the most venal and corrupt government Australia has seen since before the Second World War.
hal9000,
I would disagree that this is the “chief plank”. It shows Rudd is willing to do deals with people even his own party will not touch with a barge pole. To me, it shows Rudd is also weak – he will do some dealing and then only get two votes out of it. That, if I may say, shows a poor, weak, dealer. However, even two votes may have helped when he was putting the original numbers together. Every vote counts in a spill.
As to your other points – Rudd did go to see Burke or was it just a coincidence it was at Burke’s favourite eatery – a place that, by the looks of it, he spends a fair bit of time at? That was Rudd going to see the fat man sitting in the corner, not the other way around.
Most lobbyists are not a concern. Ones prepared to engage in (what looks like) criminal corruption and fraud are.
Me – “a chief plank”
AR – “the chief plank”
Spot the erection of a straw man.
You then go on to mount an argument that assumes the 2 votes Rudd got from WA were delivered by Burke, and that Burke could have delivered more but for Rudd’s stunted negotiating skills. Neither assumption appears to be supported by evidence.
Your concern about dodgy lobbyists is not shared by John Howard. The evidence for this assertion is his abolition of the Hawke/Keating system of transparent lobbyist registration with background checks as a matter of priority back in 1996. It’s an amusing exercise to speculate which particular unsavoury cronies that decision was designed to shield. Since Howard recently attempted to elevate a tax cheat to the board of the Reserve Bank, there are no doubt rich pickings to be had in such speculation.
The whole Burke story is a beatup, with no evidence that Rudd either sought or received any benefit from Burke, but plenty of evidence he decided to shun Burke over eighteen months before the leadership challenge. We can look forward to more such smear efforts over the coming months – the politics of smear and innuendo is Howard’s chosen battle ground. Evidence for this is plentiful – the non-existent Latham bucks’ night video, the unthrown kids overboard, the Keating piggery hoax etc.
Well regardless of the merits of the allegations the politics of it are interesting.
I can see that the Liberals have decided that they want to define who Rudd is on their own terms while he is still an unknown quanity and that is generally a good idea. But the approach they have taken is hard to understand. At the least they should have had this attack carried out through surrogates.
Going hard negative on an opponent in politics is usually a desperate move reserved for the end of a failing election campaign. You usually succeed in increasing the negatives on your opponent but you run the risk of driving up your own negatives as well. For them to run this risk this early suggests a mistake or that they’re seeing seeing something we don’t and think their situation is so bad they have to run the risk now. Strange.
In reference to the original question, no, Campbells demotion is purely due to the desire to keep the pressure on Rudd.
As far as any substance to the allegations, I’m with Hal9000. I know the WA ALP well. Burkes influence is real, but limited largely to his extensive state contacts (not just in the party, but in the bureaucracy, business and local govt), and unlikely to have any effective power in a Federal matter that current national players have a strong interest in – and those most vulnerable to Burkes influence were those most solidly in the Beazley camp, with the sole exception of Graham Edwards who was obviously close to Rudd before introducing him to Burke.
The person whose political common sense is really lacking in this episode is Edwards. Rudd can be excused for not fully being aware of what Burke has become, and backed away pretty quick once he worked it out. Edwards, who has no excuse for not being aware of Burkes role and liabilities in the WA political scene, should have known better than to give Burke any political leverage even if he insists on maintaining his personal friendship.
There is plenty of meat to the Burke/Grill scandal, and the ministerial scalps it has taken over here in the West are mostly with very good reason. But Rudd has had less to do with that dubious duo than practically any person who was a member of the WA state ALP in the 1990s. I went to a party at Grills house myself in the late 1990s, and I never had any position more senior than a single state executive vote.
Hal9000,
Sorry for the conflation of “a” with “the”. Duly noted.
As for the rest of it – seriously, what do you think he was meeting him for? Discuss the cuisine at Perugino’s?
Who cares why he was meeting him? People meet people. This whole thing is an amazingly boring non-story and it has had the appropriate impact on the polls (ie none).
Andrew Reynolds: “As for the rest of it – seriously, what do you think he was meeting him for? Discuss the cuisine at Perugino’s?”
Well, probably not. But it looks to me like mutual friend of Rudd and Burke, Graham Edwards, invited Rudd to dinner with a group that included Burke. Burke then, to big note himself, emailed invitees to put a spin on it that Rudd was somehow his ‘guest of honour’.
If you are selling influence then you do things to make it appear you know people and have influence. What a surprise!
Meeting with Burke would only seem to be a problem if you were in a position to do something for him and yielded in an improper manner or for improper reasons to his attempts at persuasion. e.g. accepting an inducement from him or succumbing to a real or imagined threat. Neither Campbell or Rudd appears to have done either.
Rudd was no doubt ‘strutting his stuff’, as he has long done on TV and in countless meetings large and small, to raise his profile. So what? He probably felt competent to deal with any dubious propositions from Burke, something which, sadly too many West Australian politicians appear to lack. Therein lies the problem.
Bill O’Slatter Says: March 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am
I’m shocked, shocked. If levying taxes and playing politics with pork-barrell expenditure is now classified as a crime or corruption then democratic polities may as well pack up their bags and go home. You will be needing to find some enlightened despot with Platonic inclinations to run the kingdom. Good luck.
Bill O’Slatter Says:
Have you been living under a rock most of your life? Ever heard of the Askin govt? Bjelke Petersen? WA Inc? Vic Inc? And the Whitlam govt did not exactly cover itself with glory with its shady international financiers and green light to exorbitant union demands. Plus launching the multiculturalist, feminist and indigenous bureaucratic industries.
It would be a pleasant change for Howard-hostile commentators to put up or shut up instead of trading on dark hints insinuating that the Howard govt has been implicated with criminal activity. Do some thinking, Bill.
As I have repeatedly said I dont rate “kids overboard” lies, “wheat for weapons” bribes or “WMD’s under the bed” hoaxes as examples of criminal corruption since they were misdeeds perpetrated in the national interest. They generated political, not personal/professional, benefits for LN/P ministers.
Apart from the ethanol scandal I cannot recall any serious corruption charges levelled against the Howard govt. The media-baron friendly legislation is a typical example of the govt pre-emptively responding to the thinly veiled extortion threat latent in the two company town Aust. media industry. This is making the worst of a bad situation.
True, Howard ministers have parachuted out of parliament into some cosy industry sinecures. One has to raise an eyebrow at this. But “jobs for the boys” is not exactly a Howard govt discovery.
I dont want to turn into a one-eyed apologist for Howard govt misdeeds and misleads. But the general attitude towards Howard on the Left is borderline paranoia. All this hysteria about Howard only turns the electorate and sensible opinion off the hysterics.
Surely the blow-back notion is more applicable to the ALP? They have been the ones raking much about Howard’s dirty doings. Now some of the slung mud is sticking to the self-annointed one. Poetic justice.
Well said, Jack.
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Bemused,
At the very least it indicates that Rudd is very unwise in his choice of people to meet. At worst, well…
Jack, I assume Bill is referring to Federal governments, in which case his statement is accurate. Ethical standards at the Federal level have declined drastically over the past 30 years or so, with each government being worse than the one that preceded it. Howard didn’t invent “jobs for the boys” or even “parachuting into sinecures in industries you have previously given favours to”, but it’s far worse now than under Keating or Hawke (such things were virtually nonexistent until well into the Hawke era).
It’s notable that you attack Whitlam on one case where the ministers concerned acted irregularly while pursuing their view of the public interest (something for which Howard gets a free pass from you) and are then reduced to saying you didn’t like his policies.
As regards who suffered blowback, Labor deserved some, having overplayed the nuclear power stuff, but as it turned out, the government has clearly suffered more.
I think at some level we are at furious agreement with Jack. His analyses of why conservative politicians ( and I include the right wing of the Labor Party as conservative )can be enthralled and in the service of large corporate interests involves an element of both personal corruption and a more general corruption of political ideas. That is what is in corporate interests is defined as being in the national interest and public service in the publics interest is denigrated. Politicians feel that there must be some reward at the end of their public service e.g. a job with Maccas bank or as a consultant with a Defence contractor etc.
There has be a royal commission or equivalent body into this type of corruption of the polity and the subversion of democracy by lobbyists ( to clean out the Aegean stall).
Morgan poll just out: 61.5% ALP, 38.5% LNP 2PP
I’d post the link to the Morgan Poll but PrQ’s spam filter doesn’t like it.
Morgan says:
Kelvin Thompson’s reference for Tony Mokbel – of all people! – has certainly blown back onto him.
“Mr Mokbel has in partnership purchased a number of business properties in the Brunswick area. As a result of his business and property ventures, Mr Mokbel is making a significant contribution to the community and employing a substantial number of people.
“I urge you to take into account Mr Mokbel’s last year of unblemished conduct, his commitment to family and his successful establishment as a local businessman in making your decision concerning his application.
“Yours sincerely, Kelvin Thomson, MP, Member for Wills”.