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- Minister apologises for 'boisterous' comment
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- Local MP urges PM's carbon tax tour to visit Riverina
Rudd meeting Burke - who cares?
The Federal Government is in a lather over Kevin Rudd meeting with former West Australian Premier Brian Burke three times in 2005. Their claim is that if Rudd met Burke, and Burke was corrupt, then Rudd must be corrupt. Now Burke, of course, has met other people so a bunch more people must be corrupt too. And if Rudd is corrupt, he has met a lot of others too - all of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, of course, and in effect the entire House of Representatives, including most of the present Ministers of the Howard Government, so on this theory of infectious corruption there must be plenty of corruption going around in Canberra. The real shame of it all is that I have met Ministers of the Howard Government (including the Prime Minister), and so by their logic I must be corrupt. The Prime Minister has met George W. Bush, so he must be corrupt, and he also met the former President Clinton. Another path to infecting Clinton goes through me, since I was infected with this corruption virus by Howard Government Ministers, and I sent one of my staff to Washington DC to do some work for the US army, where he met Colonel Tripp, the ex-husband of Linda Tripp. I must have infected this staff member with corruption, who must have infected Colonel Tripp, who must have infected Linda Tripp, who must have infected Monica Lewinsky, who must have infected President Clinton. Where will the infection end?
Right wing commentator, Hal Colebatch, in the course of supporting the Government's attack on Rudd, had this to say on Burke's Government:
the whole record of his state Labor government was an unprecedented saga of sleaze and malfeasance, and outright contempt for morality, the democratic processes and notions of government accountability: in the end, of contempt for Australia.
The Prime Minister must be praying vigorously that Colebatch does not turn his sights on the Howard Government's record.
The fact that Rudd met Burke is of no significance at all unless some corrupt purpose can be attached to the meeting. No such corrupt purpose has even been alleged, making this one of the great beat-ups of all time. If the Howard Government needs to use this to attack Rudd, they must be feeling very desperate indeed.