"Morris Iemma has failed the leadership test today by not sacking the factional hacks and mates from his cabinet. We have too many of Morris' friends, too many of those he is indebted to, sitting in key portfolios, and too many problems across the state for Morris to have left them alone today. This is a bloke who displays inertia and a lack of energy even when the stench of corruption starts to hang over his government. If he is serious about ending the stench of corruption that hangs over the state's development industry, he should put in place a system that limits the amount of power that planning ministers have. We have a state that over the last couple of terms power has been centralised into the hands of the planning minister. Morris Iemma needs to commit to planning reforms to reduce the minister's powers, and he needs to commit to finance campaign reforms that cap expenditures on what parties and candidates can spend."
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell as scandal subsumes the NSW government.
There were spasms of love at inappropriate times, moments of unrequited love so rare he had no idea how to cope; then an old age without love. The middle years were a slow, settling decline. The myths he had built up about his earlier life meant nothing to anyone else; they just added coherence to his story telling. I never had sex except for money until I was well into my twenties, the man said. The words gay sex went unsaid. It screwed me up, really screwed me up, he said; after he had finished saying how most of his friends from the old days were dead, overdoses or AIDS. He felt like a spy in a foreign country, a visitor in a strange land called the future, the sole survivor of a holocaust. But in reality it hadn't screwed him up at all; he gave little and was always drunk; and the cars, the money, the apartments he got in return were the part of the bargain he cared about.
There were people who had been screwed up, desperately screwed up, by what they remembered as the tendrils of evil crawling out from the Rex Hotel, in those far off days, 40 years ago. My gang hung around the fountain, before the park was renovated and for a long time the mysterious, muffled mystery of the place was filled with crains and piles of paving bricks. To the astonishment of us locals, trees were brought fully grown and planted. The barmaid Judy ruled us all with a rod of iron. If any of us misbehaved we were thrown out on our ears. We were only 16. I now have teenage children the same age as I was when all these things happened. The brand new two-tone commodore I was briefly driving, with its sheep skin covered seats and it's flecked gold burnished exterior, made me briefly the envy of my fellows, who never quite got it together to service a sugar daddy.
In contrast to the beautiful apartment I had, and which I often invited friends to during the day when there was no chance of us being sprung or compromised, the flash, rotating cars as I fell in or out with one or the other, the trail of I love you wreckage I left behind whenever they got too serious, the casual cruelty I adopted to survive the persona I had adopted, the confusing blasts of other words that swamped through what I almost regarded as an idyllic life; all these things had been established for protection. I remember to this day the crumbed concrete ceiling of the apartment in the Cross, crumbed concrete being big in those days. It was the height of sheak as far as I was concerned, exactly where I wanted to be. Except for the sugar daddy bit, and the things they wanted. I lay there. I wouldn't lift a finger. That would have made me gay; and was against our code. I lay there drunk and they did what they did, gobble gobble, and I just wanted the sticky moments to be over so I could go back to being fabulous at their expense.
In retrospect the sugar daddies I exploited so mercilessly, so intentionally, weren't that old themselves, unattractive men in their 20s, 30s, sometimes 40s, men prepared to pay for youth. Hugh, the old queen who always bought us drinks when we were short, he was the kindest of them. He was in his 70s and was a retired doctor or judge, it's become cconfused now in my head; but a retired professional man nonetheless. He'd always buy us drinks and was always kind, as he sat in the Rex sipping his scotch and water. Once we offered, me and Alan and Jack, to do something for him if he ever wanted. Free, we said; in exchange for being so nice to us all the time. Oh no dear, oh no, he said. You're all too beautiful. I would have a heart attack.
We all laughed and the day, the moment, the bar dissolved. History has solved everything. Time has swept away not just those people, but the bar itself. I remember vividly, years later, in a self-help group, some bloke talking about how damaging, how evil the Rex had been, how he had been in therapy for years to recover from what happened there, how evil seeped from the walls into the fabric of the place, the ancient gargoyle queens perched on the barstools, bringing out their wallets, the terrible exploitation, the terrible abuse. It wasn't like that for me. I just regarded it as a great adventure; a welcome change from the dreary suburb in which I had grown up, the nightmare silence of my family's home. Anything was welcome after that; and a bunch of drunken queens who would always buy you a drink and who all, seemingly without exception, wanted to sleep with you, that was adventure. The alcohol did more damage than the sexual transactions. It was a shrug, I didn't care, as long as they paid. We've always been welcome here in the future, we just didn't know it. My own kids are so straight, so nerdish, so willing to stay at home and not go out, that the contrast between them and what I got up to at the same age is almost total. We were compromised, our hearts were stained, there was a price to pay for being paid, there was moral compromise at the heat of every transaction; and he didn't care, not even now. How deep was the compromise, how soiled his soul, were all things he would take to his grave. Rent boy.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-games-up-premier-admits-rotten-donations-culture-must-end/2008/02/22/1203467390079.html
THE night before the federal election, four of NSW's most senior ministers starred at a Labor fund-raiser attended by a developer and a former Wollongong council manager who have emerged as key suspects in the corruption scandal engulfing the Iemma Government.
The Treasurer, Michael Costa, the Minister for Roads, Eric Roozendaal, the Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, and the Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, all attended the champagne-and-canapes function with Labor apparatchik Joe Scimone and property developer Glen Tabak.
At the same event the year before, Lou Tasich - a developer later found to be corrupt by the Independent Commission Against Corruption - sat at a table with Mr Roozendaal. Six months later, on May 2, 2007, Mr Tasich tried to bribe a Wollongong council officer during a discussion about his proposal to buy a piece of council-owned land. He passed the officer a hand-written note: "30K 4 U."
These events offer a powerful illustration why the Premier, Morris Iemma, was forced to act yesterday. He pledged to reform laws governing political donations - including introducing possible bans on donations by property developers - in the wake of the Wollongong sex-for-development affair.
Developer donations to the NSW Government totalled $13,180,793 between 1998-2007, while developers gave the Liberal Party $8.2 million over the same period. But Mr Iemma said "change needs to happen" and promised it would occur well before the end of the year.
He also said Mr Tripodi could be stood down next week. If the commission found there should be an investigation into NSW Maritime's appointment of Mr Scimone, Mr Tripodi's mate, to a $200,000-a year job, then Mr Tripodi would be stood down. If the commission made an adverse finding against Mr Tripodi, Mr Iemma said he would be sacked.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/22/1203467342250.html
Senator Hillary Clinton – desperate to claw back ground after losing 10 primaries to Senator Barack Obama – today received a standing ovation to top off her debate with her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The gloves came off in the 90-minute Texas debate between the pair, with the New York Senator lambasting her Illinois opponent’s reliance on words — which she accuses him of plagiarising.
Senator Obama won the draw and elected to go second in the 90-minute CNN debate at the University of Texas.
Before the rapturous finale, he seemed to have won the majority of applause, while Senator Clinton landed the first real blow in the debate.
The March 4 primaries in Texas and Hawaii are seen as make or break for Senator Clinton, who lost contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii this week to Senator Obama.
Asked about the competition between her and her opponent, Senator Clinton took a swipe at his much-lauded oratorial skills and emphasis on the importance of words — a line her campaign team has accused him of plagiarising.
"Words are important and words matter, but actions speak louder than words," Senator Clinton said.
The CNN moderator then asked Senator Obama directly about plagiarism claims over several lines, which he has repeated in recent speeches, that bear a striking similarity to those first uttered by his friend and ally, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Obama defends borrowed words
"There are two lines in speeches I've been giving for two weeks," Senator Obama said. "I've been campaigning for two years."
"The notion I had plagiarised from someone who is one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and suggested I use it, I think is silly.
"This is where we get into (the) silly season in politics and people start getting discouraged about it."
Henrietta with her Aunt Penny in Lismore
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