The Gillard Government

Federal Government criticised over delay of new heart and stroke drug Pradaxa

The outcome of that inquiry has still not been made public and there are growing concerns the Government is trying to delay subsidising the drug, at a cost of about $250 million a year, so it can balance its Budget.

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red123nz said:

Get the feeling that at all costs they will have a budget surplus - even if its just on paper?

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drsmith said:

Polls this week have also showed that the government's recent cliimb in the polls has stalled at 53/47 2PP in favour of the Coalition.

That's despite Tony Abbott as opposition leader being less popular than ever.

Labor's race horse is still as dead as ever.


They will call an election before admitting to a headline deficit.

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noco said:

Heard a news flash on one of the radio stations yesterday, someone is supposed to have a copy of the Gillard missing files.
We might find out soon what she had to hide!!!!!!!

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THE federal independent MP Rob Oakeshott has declared the mining tax ''unsustainable'' and said unless federal and state governments sort out the dispute over royalties, the tax must be brought back to Parliament and amended.

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Former Australian Worker's Union official Ralph Blewitt's return to Australia has put the slush fund scandal around Prime Minister Julia Gillard back on centrestage, and we hear from him why he thinks it sohuld be there.

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Julia said:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3638132.htm

ABC TV has promised more on this in tomorrow's "7.30".

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Calliope said:

It's not an easy life being a handbag.

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SHE was banished from the French presidential website when her refusal to take a back-seat role after her partner, Francois Hollande, became head of state in May went down badly with the public.

Now Valerie Trierweiler is to return after a PR makeover designed to transform her into a traditional First Lady - all smiles, charity work and playing second fiddle to her man. The new Ms Trierweiler told French radio yesterday that it had been a great pleasure to answer the 170 letters she had received last month, and that she was planning to organise gala dinners for an association fighting poverty and to raise awareness about AIDS.

Her comments represented a notable change of tone for a woman who said in one of her first public statements: "I am discovering what is expected of the First Lady... she kisses sick children and looks after the dinner menus. And that revolts me."

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drsmith said:

I think this is about to blow......................, big time.

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noco said:

Doc, Miss Houdini can get out of anything including being in a straight jacket, tied to a block of concrete and droped into a swimming pool.

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MrBurns said:

Dunno maybe that theory should be tested...........

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Bank letter links PM to union mortgage

November 22, 2012 - 7:16PM
Mark Baker

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, told her law firm partners she knew nothing about the mortgage on a Fitzroy property, bought partly with union money stolen by her former boyfriend, despite having been involved in the mortgage arrangements for the property two years earlier.

A 1993 bank letter confirms that Ms Gillard - then a salaried partner with law firm Slater & Gordon - received an insurance certificate of currency, which was required for approval of a $150,000 mortgage provided by the firm's loan department.

But Ms Gillard denied knowledge of the mortgage when challenged by the firm's managing partners in late 1995, after they first discovered her involvement in the work.

"I don't, I don't think I knew that at the time," she told senior partner Peter Gordon, according to new details of the interview obtained by The Age.

A West Australian fraud squad investigation in 1996 found the rest of the purchase money - more than $100,000 - had been siphoned from a union association by Bruce Wilson, Ms Gillard's then boyfriend and a senior Australian Workers Union official.

The unit in Kerr Street, Fitzroy, was bought in the name of Ralph Blewitt, a union crony of Mr Wilson who this week returned to Melbourne from his home in Malaysia to brief Victorian police, who are considering whether to reopen their investigation into the scandal.

In the newly-released details of her September 1995 meeting with Mr Gordon, Ms Gillard - after being questioned in detail about her work for Wilson and Blewitt - denies any knowledge of the Fitzroy mortgage.

Peter Gordon: "Were you aware at any time that the balance of the funds to make up the capital was to be provided by contributory mortgage of which Jonathan Rothfield (a Slater & Gordon partner) was trustee?"

Julia Gillard: "I don't, I don't think I knew that at the time, where the source of funds was. It's subsequently been raised with me that that was done through the Slater & Gordon mortgage register but I didn't have any recollection of that."

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kennas said:

This Fitzroy apartment deal could bring her down. Stinking more and more.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/po...on-mortgage-20121122-29ssd.html#ixzz2CwFswFDn

Anyone have a summary of factual events around this?

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