Peter Slipper

Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper have allegedly made a fair few errors in their life. But perhaps their most costly mistake was choosing the wrong profession.

Politics is an unforgiving game. Your each and every move is scrutinised by the public, making it imperative for those in power to behave appropriately at all times. A single slip-up, with or without context, can erupt into a full-scale Parliamentary inquiry.

Years ago I allegedly spotted the alleged Federal Treasurer Peter Costello allegedly jay-walking across an alleged road. At the time I considered sending off my candid photograph to the papers, just for a laugh. But I stopped myself in my tracks; could a photo as harmless as that be dangerous to the politician’s long-term reputation?

Continue reading "Even slippery politicians deserve a sporting chance" »

Breakfast television viewers must have fallen out of their chairs in shock at Joe Hockey’s words last Sunday.

“It is a very honourable profession, politics,” the shadow Treasurer said.

It was the day after Craig Thomson’s extraordinary “I was framed over hookers” interview, with its claims of the most elaborate identity theft plot in the annals of Australian crime.

Continue reading "Spoof sagas consume an “honourable” profession" »

If there’s one thing you can count on in Canberra these days, it’s that nothing is guaranteed. As the government dances along the knife edge of minority support, the balance of power seems to be shifting on a daily basis.

Such is the case with Andrew Wilkie. Only a few months ago it appeared that his influence with Labor had been dealt a serious, almost terminal blow, with the role of Speaker moving from Harry Jenkins to Peter Slipper. Indeed, it was only a short time later that Julia Gillard reneged on her agreement with Wilkie, which in turn led to him withdrawing his support for her government.

Yet here we are just a short time later, with Slipper on the cross-benches and embattled Labor MP Craig Thomson joining him. Anna Burke has stepped into the Speaker’s role temporarily, reducing her influence to that of a casting vote. And amidst all the turmoil, while allegations and sordid details are replayed endlessly in the media, Wilkie has found himself once more in a position of power.

Continue reading "Gillard’s time to go double or nothing on pokies" »

Australian politics at the moment is a strange sort of Wonderland. It’s filled with odd characters – some weird, some slightly sinister – and it’s all more than a little bit nonsensical. Some voters are stamping their feet in frustration at the stupidest tea party they’ve ever been to, while the more violently inclined are calling for decapitation.

In the most recent chapter, Greens Leader Bob Brown disappeared back up the rabbithole, sidelined Labor MP Craig Thomson’s alleged adventures have shrunk his stature significantly, while Liberal-turned-Independent Speaker Peter Slipper’s problems seem to be experiencing unstoppable growth.

Yesterday mining magnate Clive Palmer announced he wants to join the party. He wants to challenge Treasurer Wayne Swan in a battle that seems to have just a whiff of the personal about it – Swan and he have been engaged in a war of words over the mining tax and the role of billionaires in public life.

Continue reading "Australian politics gets curiouser and curiouser" »

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Julia Gillard moved to disperse the “dark cloud” over Parliament by further distancing Labor from embattled pollies Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper. Here is political editor Mal Farr’s take - and find all the latest news at news.com.au.

The cost of holding onto a minority government is angering senior Labor figures frustrated by the non-stop arm wrestle since the inconclusive 2010 election.

“Maybe we should have told the Greens to get stuffed and gone on our own,” said one exasperated Labor voice last week.

So many votes have been lost keeping the Labor government afloat the negotiated survival has guaranteed it will be sunk. Labor has been compromising itself into defeat. The “get stuffed” approach still might be an option. Julia Gillard has 18 months to convince voters she stands for solid and distinct policies, not what she can wrangle through a Parliament riven by dozens of competing agendas.

Continue reading "Gillard may need to consider the “get stuffed” option" »

Journalists who report on politics for a living see plenty of hypocrisy. We’re seeing plenty now from Julia Gillard.

She asserts that Peter Slipper should not be sidelined until sexual harassment allegations are dealt with by the courts because he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. It’s the same excuse the prime minister uses when she refuses to intervene in the Craig Thomson affair and says the Labor backbencher accused of grossly rorting union credit cards still has her full confidence.

Yet when Wikileaks infuriated the US Government by publishing a stack of leaked diplomatic cables, Gillard immediately accused editor-in-chief Julian Assange of acting illegally. There was no presumption of innocence for him.

Continue reading "Gillard’s hypocrisy on the presumption of innocence" »

Last Friday, Minister for Mental Health and the Ageing Mark Butler gave Canberra correspondents a pre-announcement briefing on his aged care reforms.

Silkily handling a complex brief, he fielded questions on the $3.7 billion package, the biggest shake-up of the area in decades.

Aged care of course is a political and demographic mine-field with its burgeoning demand, under-supply, competing interests, regulatory problems and much social and familial guilt thrown in.

Continue reading "No comfort for Gillard even if Slipper dons robes again" »

Peter Slipper attempted to enhance the reputation of Parliament by wearing the robes of an 18th century English parson and forming the world’s shortest formal procession to mark his entry to the House of Representatives.

It looked funny, but it was a genuine bid for a more dignified legislature. He backed up the pomp and frippery with measured and applauded management of the most boisterous chamber in the Westminster system. He was sincere in wanting to lift the image of the House, and the Parliament itself.

But it now can be argued that the current focus on Peter Slipper has endangered the very dignity of the national Parliament which he had wanted to reinforce, and through that the image of the entire nation.

Continue reading "Slip sliding away from the Speaker’s chair" »

One of the best expressions of morally ambivalent political pragmatism came from American president Franklin Roosevelt, who said of the murderous Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza that “he might be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”.

Such strong language should obviously not be applied to describe the controversial and short-lived former Speaker of the House of Representatives Peter Slipper. Slipper is not a brute, but he is clearly something of a buffoon. His cross-party nickname Slippery Pete rightly suggests that he is more comic than corrupt.

But the Machiavellian sentiment behind Roosevelt’s aphorism helps explain why the Coalition held on to their man for so long, in full knowledge of his propensity for weirdness, and despite the fact that he had memorised every eddy, tributary and byway of the parliamentary entitlements handbook. More tellingly, it helps explain why a desperate minority government led by Julia Gillard would have taken the enormous gamble of wooing Slipper across, despite also knowing that he came equipped with his very own filing cabinet of alleged travel rorts, spurious overseas study tours, and murky stories of peccadilloes involving young male staffers.

Continue reading "The rorting oddball Labor should have avoided" »

The public view of the Gillard Government is it’s shielding a man who took union money to pay for prostitutes and another man who tried to get a male staffer into the cot.

None of these claims has been tested or confirmed by a court, all have been denied. But they have become currency in front-bar political debate and can only hurt Labor.

It has been hard enough for the Government to sustain Craig Thomson on its back bench. It now has Peter Slipper – who has never been a member of the ALP – to manage.

Continue reading "It’s no longer about the majority, it’s about integrity" »

Speaker Peter Slipper and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had a minor but telling test of wills on Monday, and the Speaker prevailed.

The moment helped identify who, after the first 18 sitting days of the year, was the dominant player in the jockeying for parliamentarty advantage.

It was one of a number of incidents, including Wednesday’s ejection of Wayne Swan, the first Deputy Prime Minister ever to be tossed from the House, which have shown The Slipper seems to have the measure of his charges.

Continue reading "When it comes to parly, slipper cramps the boot" »

Peter Slipper, draped in black in a manner most young voters will not see outside Hogwarts, has dramatically altered the style of the Speaker’s office.

All occupants of the chair consider the job important. Slipper believes that previously discarded layers of trappings and ceremony are needed to make the point.

Predecessor to this Prince of Pomp was Harry Jenkins, who was more a “People’s Speaker”, a Labor lefty whose natural mode was of informality. But his love of Parliament has been genuine and deep.

Continue reading "New speaker’s slack clobber, old speaker clobbers slackers" »

Those in the business of applying the defibrillators to Julia Gillard’s prime ministership have been quick to talk up her grace and decency during the tent embassy mayhem, while also pointing an accusatory finger at Tony Abbott for inciting the chaos.

Whatever sympathy Gillard may have received after her frightening ordeal will now be undermined by the resignation late Friday of a junior staffer who had stupidly worded up the protesters as to Abbott’s whereabouts. Nevertheless the PM clearly handled herself with courage and compassion.

The footage revealing her asking the security service to ensure Abbott would also be safely escorted from the restaurant was a credit to her. She didn’t know she was on camera, and there was nothing confected about her concern. Laudable, too, was her comment later that day that her only regret was the violence had disrupted an event recognising the courage of emergency services crews. At a more human level, Gillard simply looked terrified as she was rushed from the building. Only the most jaundiced critic would have felt for her as she was dragged to safety.

Continue reading "Year starts with shoe off, trouble ahead is a shoo-in" »

The ghost of Mal Colston is wandering the corridors of Federal Parliament, and some Labor people with long memories fear the worst.

When Colston ratted on the Labor Party in return for the post of Deputy Senate President 15 years ago, giving John Howard a senate majority on crucial issues, it ended in tears.

Will the same thing happen as a result of Julia Gillard’s decision to tighten her government’s grip on power by making disaffected Queensland Liberal MP Peter Slipper Speaker of the House?

Continue reading "Exterminate! Exterminate! Slipper has target on his back" »

Tony Abbott described the events in Canberra yesterday surrounding the speakership of the Parliament as a bad day for democracy. Abbott was right, but for the wrong reasons.

The most undemocratic outcome of yesterday’s events could now be that a reform aimed at making life more bearable for problem gamblers, which is supported by a majority of Australians, will now be dumped because Labor has the numbers in the house to get away with pulling it, thus avoiding a fight to the death with powerful gambling interests.

Labor might have been cock-a-hoop at yesterday’s developments but the people who will be even happier are the cashed-up, morally ambivalent multi-millionaires in the gaming industry, who have been escalating their self-interested campaign to knock off suburban Labor MPs lest the Government support the proposed pokie reforms.

Continue reading "Hokey-pokie over speaker may shaft problem gamblers" »

Tony Abbott could have done more to look after Peter Slipper as ambitious enemies lusted after his cushy Queensland seat of Fisher. But he didn’t.

Now the Opposition Leader will pay the price.

Slipper, or Slippery Pete as his nickname goes, has looked after himself by quitting the Liberals and taking up a Labor offer to become Speaker replacing the estimable Harry Jenkins. There is no formal requirement for the speaker to be from the party of government.

Continue reading "Sinking in the Slipper to restore some order to Parly" »

As is the custom for a Speaker of the House Harry Jenkins yesterday welcomed new members of Parliament with a quote from the British band Chumbawamba: “I get knocked down, I get up again, you are never going to keep me down.” Amen.

It was sound advice, and considering the nature of the new paradigm, we can soon expect a private members bill that would make the playing of Tubthumping compulsory before each Question Time so we can “get into the mood” for democracy.

But perhaps a few others should have joined the speakers list with cautionary tales of what not to do. Here are some interesting topics that could’ve made quite the Power Point presentations for the new kids:

Just a lot of advice from Peter Slipper

Continue reading "The old lessons new MPs should be taught" »