Andrew Bolt on Rudd's hypocrisy

Or, to put the above heading into broad Australian: "Bolty thinks Rudd is bunging on an act and not being fair dinkum" ("Bunging on an act" is a great sin in a traditional Australian scale of values. Fair dinkum = sincere, genuine)



THERE'S an even funnier joke than the one about the drunken Christian socialist who walked into a strip joint. It's the joke Labor leader Kevin Rudd has made of his defence. How we've laughed. And how we should again wonder if Rudd is all spin and no traction.

Like most Australians, I suspect, I barely care that Rudd when blind still got an eyeful at Scores, which ABC newsreaders at first delicately referred to as a New York "gentlemen's club". After all, nothing Rudd did reflects much on what kind of Prime Minister he'd make, and so much of it seems out of character, anyway. I'm sure he's not a regular drunk, and drank himself paralytic this time only to impress the famously gregarious Col Allan, the powerful editor of the New York Post who was not only his host but is said to have the ear of our boss, Rupert Murdoch. Same story with the lap-dancing dive. I'm sure Rudd just tagged along, and Allan thought he'd give this eager bloke something to steam his glasses.

I'm just speculating, mind. Just as I'd guess Allan wouldn't dream of doing the same to John Howard. So, all that we worldly types can gather from this jaunt - as we did from Rudd's busy courting of the disgraced Labor numbers man Brian Burke - is that perhaps Rudd is a little too eager to impress, and a little less sure of himself than he pretends.

Yet that's not the real political damage done to him by this frolic. The true problem with this self-confessed "old-fashioned Christian socialist" winding up blotto in a strip joint is that it's a category error. Like an elephant in tap-dancing shoes, something doesn't quite fit. Either Scores didn't really seem like a strip club - which has been Rudd's hilarious defence. Or Rudd isn't quite the pure package he's wrapped himself to be - which may for many voters become the real question, even if subconsciously.

Just who is this man? Take away the flimflam, what do you really have left, other than an aching ambition? That's a noose that Rudd makes even tighter with each of his increasingly odd explanations of when exactly he figured he was surrounded by strippers, and should be leaving.

Which gives us another category error: a man who this month preached to evangelical Christians about his faith and is again boasting of "levelling completely with the Australian public" is actually telling a string of porkies [lies]. Indeed, Rudd is demonstrating the truth of what any PR pro would tell him: It's not the stripping that hurts you, but the covering up afterwards.

Observe: Scores not only has a spotlit stage with strippers, but is crawling with tectonically-arranged women who sit topless with you for a drink and will dance in your lap for dollars. Even Ray Charles would have noticed. Yet, Rudd says for the life of him he can't remember any ... you know. Here he is with Channel Nine's Laurie Oakes:

Oakes: Were there semi-naked women there and what were they doing?

Rudd: Well, Laurie, because I had actually drunk a fair bit, I don't have a completely clear recollection . . . We can't actually recall anything that you wouldn't see at most pubs across Australia . . .

Huh? Most pubs now have lapdancers? Or is Rudd really insisting he was too blind to see bared breasts? Kerry O'Brien of the ABC's 7.30 Report got much the same mendacious answer from Mr "Levelling Completely":

O'Brien: Can we just get this straight - you can or you can't remember things from being in that club?

Rudd: What I can absolutely recall is that there was nothing inappropriate as far as my behaviour was concerned . . .

(Gee. Too drunk to remember the strippers, but not too drunk to remember not touching them. How does that work?)

O'Brien: But can you remember seeing lap dancers performing?

Rudd: Look, what I can recall in terms of the actual venue itself was that not much more than you would see in the last 20 years in certain of the pubs in Australia, I've got to say.

O'Brien: But . . . you don't see lap dancing in most pubs in Australia. Can you recall seeing lap dancers performing while you were there?

Rudd: No, I can't.

Whew. Glad Rudd finally cleared that up. Or did he? Because despite saying he saw nothing inappropriate - certainly no lap-dancers - he still says he should have left as soon as he saw he was in, er, a lap-dancing club:

Oakes: I suppose the question is why, when you saw what the club was like, you didn't leave again straightway?

Rudd: Well, that's true, and that is a fair question. I think when you are there with a couple of blokes and you've already had a few too many drinks, which I had had on that evening, then I think it is always better to see these things with hindsight. I should have got out of there.

So, did Rudd see strippers or not? Rudd even says he rang his wife the very next day to apologise for ... for what? For having been in a bar with not one lap dancer in sight?

Rudd: Well, I spoke to Therese the following day ... and said that I'd been out with Warren and with Col and ended up at a club, which is a place I shouldn't have been.

Hmm. Sounds like he damn well knew where he'd been and was in a panic. No thanks for the mammaries. There's much more of this laughable same, but you get the centrefold picture. The issue isn't the utterly trivial one of whether Rudd saw naked strippers or not. It's how frantically he'll spin, in order to mislead - even on something so minor. And how obvious that spin is. Again and again Rudd hammers the line that his pollsters have clearly told him works best - whether true or not - in drawing a contrast with soiled Howard. Here it is: "My responsibility is simply to be upfront and accountable for my own actions." And repeat this.

Straight from the focus group. No doubt it will work for the many who lazily buy spin, and don't check for substance, but too much such spinning may soon make Rudd seem too slick and insubstantial. Even now, I wonder how much more can he get away with. Look already. He poses as so tough with Labor's union thugs he kicks out one for swearing, yet promises laws that the same tough gloats will let him "coerce" bosses. Likewise, he's the leader who's put Left-wingers in his key economic portfolios, yet claims he's an economic "conservative".

On it goes. He's the mini-Howard who claims there's not a "slither (sic) of light" between his budgetary policies and the Prime Minister's, yet voted against almost every Howard reform. He's the planet saver who promises to slash our greenhouse gases by 60 per cent by 2050, yet offers not a single voter-scaring policy that comes close to meeting that $2 trillion-plus aim. He's the tough-on-bastard-bosses workers' friend, yet has no criticism of his own millionaire wife for stripping employees of basic conditions for just 45 cents an hour. He's the man who calms business leaders by making Sir Rod Eddington his chief business adviser, yet releases a recklessly pro-unions workplace policy without letting Eddington see it.

Spin, spin, spin. Say what's in your interests, not on your mind. Talk tough to those who want tough, and soft to those who like cuddles. But at some stage it won't all fit - like that drunk Christian with the strippers. Like the Mr "Levelling Completely" who can't be sure he saw the lap-dancers who made him say sorry to his wife. Who agreed to play along with Channel Seven's fake dawn service. Who embroidered a tragedy of his boyhood. You will then wonder: just who is this man, so very eager now to please, and what will he really be like if we make him Prime Minister? Will he still remember us in the morning?

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Green/Left paranoia about the Brethren continues

The Green/Left are determined to "get" conservative Christians who campaign against them. And when the Prime Minister meets with the Elect Vessel, the paranoia becomes full-blown. I suspect that, in their heart of hearts, Leftists feel that these religious guys might really have powers not available to ordinary men

JOHN Howard has held a private meeting with the most senior leaders of the Exclusive Brethren, including a man under investigation by police over his massive spending on the Prime Minister's 2004 election campaign. In his parliamentary office two weeks ago, Mr Howard met Sydney pump salesman Mark Mackenzie, whose former company, Willmac, funnelled $370,000 into pro-Howard advertising at the last election. Willmac's spending was later investigated by the Australian Electoral Commission's disclosure arm, and then referred to the Australian Federal Police for a criminal investigation, which is continuing. Also at the August 8 meeting were the secretive sect's world leader, or "Elect Vessel", Bruce D. Hales, his brother Stephen and elder Warwick John.

A Brethren spokesman confirmed to The Age yesterday that the meeting had taken place, but emphatically denied they had asked for Mr Howard's help on the police investigation or offered him support for his campaign against Maxine McKew in Bennelong.

Mr Howard's office said only that he had met members of the Brethren, as he did with a "wide range of groups", and would "continue to do so".

The Brethren spokesman said the elders had "assured the Prime Minister that they were praying for him". "There was absolutely no dialogue concerning Willmac, just as there was no discussion about . Bennelong," he said. "The members of the church primarily assured Prime Minister Howard that they were praying for him, as the leader of the Government, and then went on to discuss the economy. "This was a last-minute opportunity that presented itself. There was no agenda or pre-arranged discussion topics, simply an opportunity to greet Prime Minister Howard. "These mysterious campaign plans being suggested are wild speculation and the reality is they aren't there."

The spokesman also said that the Brethren's private schools, which benefit from millions of dollars of federal funding, were not discussed, nor was the Government's policy to exclude unions from Brethren workplaces. The spokesman added that, in the context of Mr Howard and Kevin Rudd addressing Christians across Australia the following day, "the particular meeting with the Brethren church group seems very unremarkable".

The Age believes the Brethren are likely to be substantial donors to the Liberal Party in the lead-up to this year's election, and that some donations will help fund the Bennelong campaign. Stephen Hales ran the Brethren's pro-Howard drive in Bennelong at the last election, authorising a number of the group's controversial print advertisements using the address of the Brethren school and helping find Brethren members to campaign for Mr Howard.

One Greens campaigner in Bennelong, Matthew Henderson, told The Age the sect was already working on Mr Howard's campaign. At the Prime Minister's recent walk-through at the Eastwood Plaza shopping centre in his electorate, "there were a bunch of people I went to school with . I recognise them as Brethren - and they appeared to be more than familiar with the Liberal Party supporters' group". Greens senator Bob Brown said yesterday that Mr Howard should reveal the "full nature of not just these discussions but his whole ongoing relationship with the murkily mysterious Mr Hales and the Exclusive Brethren". "I am concerned that the Prime Minister should be so guileless and desperate that the access to potential money from this cashed-up sect should be so important him," he said.

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Useless female police

Men and women are NOT equal. Female police should not be on general duties

PASSERSBY have come to the aid of two female police officers under attack from an allegedly drug-affected man in Sydney's west. The Bankstown constables attended a Woodville Road car dealership at 3pm (AEST) yesterday after receiving reports of a man causing problems. Police said the 28-year-old man became aggressive and violent towards the officers but when they tried to subdue him with capsicum spray, it had no effect on him.

The man, who police believe to have been affected by the drug ice, then allegedly assaulted them and tried to remove one of the constable's guns from her holster. He then pushed the other officer into a parked car, causing her to hit her head and drop her baton which he then picked up. The man was about to strike the officer with the baton when he was restrained by up to 10 passers-by, including one motorist who stopped his vehicle and ran across six lanes of traffic to assist police.

Police arrested the 28-year-old and took him to Bankstown Hospital for psychiatric assessment. It's expected he'll be charged when he is released.

Bankstown Local Area Commander, Superintendent Dave Darcy praised the officers involved for their courage and tenacity and thanked the public who intervened. "This was a particularly nasty incident and could have ended very differently had it not been from the brave intervention of those passers-by," Supt Darcy said. "It's very positive for us to see this courageous show of support from members of our local community."

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Some life in Australian mathematics

The University of Wollongong has defied the sector-wide trend of cutting back mathematics and has more professors and honours students in the field than ever. Departing deputy vice-chancellor for research, Margaret Sheil, said a combination of "opportunity and strategic planning" had given the university eight full professors and 21 honours students. The eight includes three professors recruited in the past year and a half. One of them, Iain Raeburn, bought a whole maths team with him from rival the University of Newcastle.

Professor Sheil, who started as Australian Research Council chief executive officer last week, said the school of mathematics and applied statistics' beefing up had been driven partly by a need to be prepared for the RQF and by a sponsorship from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a popular graduate destination. "We are looking to build maths more generally; it's going to come back," Professor Sheil said.

A report released last month painted a bleak picture for the discipline across the nation. The National Tertiary Education Union found that at least seven universities had cut maths staff in the past 18 months. Melbourne, La Trobe, Macquarie, Flinders, RMIT, James Cook had all cut staff. The University of New England had made two maths and stats staff redundant but they won their jobs back on appeal.

At a time when enrolments in maths have fallen by 34 per cent (from 1989 to 2005, according to the Australian Councils of Deans of Science) Wollongong has three times as many honours students as normal. "That's because of a combination of our reputation and the fact that we've got a really dynamic group in maths," Professor Sheil said. The university had a history of strength in the discipline, mainly because local industry needed good graduates, and a more recent association with the ABS had kept that strength.

Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute executive officer Jan Thomas said it was good that Wollongong was expanding but other universities needed to do more.

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