Kristi Abrahams is finally sentenced

It always happens - the Defence lawyers of brutal murderers like Kristi Abrahams come up with a sob story of how they were mistreated as a child, and even though it shouldn't make a difference, it does.  They looked hard for a reason why this cruel woman made her daughter's life a misery by torturing and finally killing her and they found one - because of her Aboriginal background, she was placed in the indigenous care system that let her down.

Her barrister Janet Manuell, told the court that Abrahams' father was a violent Aboriginal drunk who spent most of his time in prison and when she was 10 years old, and found her mother dead in their home, she went into care.

"She was confronted with a system which said no, you're Aboriginal - it dictated the care structure, it dictated the level of care she got, or didn't get, and it stayed that way until the ages of 11 to 16 when she moved into girls' refuges.  She was never given the love and support which was so important for her development, she simply doesn't have the emotional coping skills and has punished herself and continues to punish herself for what she's done" Ms Manuell said.

Please stop Ms Manuell, you are breaking my heart.  Prosecutor Chris Maxwell's heart was breaking too because he said that her background should be taken into account when deciding what her sentence should be.

So we can assume that time will be taken off her sentence because she had a rough childhood, and time will also be taken off because she pleaded "guilty" and then there's the Aboriginal connection. That all adds up to letting her off with a light sentence. 

But there's one thing that Kristi Abrahams' barrister said yesterday that we can all agree with - "It's easy to hate Kristi Abrahams" and we do, passionately.  Our courts are letting us down, there's far too much compassion shown to the offender and not nearly enough for the victim - in this case, a little girl who had nobody to turn to.

Justice Ian Harrison will sentence Abrahams on July 18.

Edit July 18, 2013:  Justice Ian Harrison sentenced Abrahams to a minimum 16 years.  He said she lived a troubled life "beyond most people's understanding.”  There was a 25 year standard non parole period for the murder of a child, he said, but other factors could be taken into account when determining the sentence.  He felt she had been “publicly vilified” for three years and was entitled to a 10 per cent reduction for pleading guilty on the morning her trial was due to start. The general consensus is that 16 years is not long enough and that the judge gave more sympathy to the mother and not enough to the murdered child.

Comancharos bikie clubhouse ambushed

South Chapter including Mick Hijazi, fourth from left in sunglasses and blue jeans

It's a sad state of affairs when our police force are incapable of protecting us from Sydney bikie gang wars.  They don't care if their intended victims happen to be in a busy carpark, Sydney airport, a shopping centre or a suburban street, in broad daylight, with guns blazing, they are intent on getting their man, no matter what and if an innocent bystander gets in the way - bad luck.  The word is that the Comancheros are preparing for civil war.

About 80 Comanchero members from three different clubs ambushed the newest Sydney chapter at Turella on Wednesday night with guns and torches.  They told the 20 members inside that their clubhouse was about to close and they had two choices - either defect to another club or hand back their patches (colours).  A number of men were bashed and one man known to police, took himself to Bankstown hospital with a broken jaw, nose and ribs.  But as usual, nobody knows anything so there's no point in asking.

South commander Mohammad "Mick" Hijazi became one of the country's highest ranking members likely to become national president. He set up the newest chapter in April but flew out to Lebanon when tensions grew among members, but the word is he's coming back to "sort it all out."

Last November, Comanchero Faalau Pisu was shot dead outside a wedding reception in Canley Vale and two days later John Devine, cousin of club president Mark Buddle, was lucky to survive serious gunshot wounds to the stomach.

Last month, police dismantled the gang's Milperra clubhouse and arrested four members, including Giacomo Dipizio.   He was charged with trying to blow up a hotel in Milperra last year and refused bail.

For a country who is supposed to be clever about gun control, we now have a huge problem with hand guns - they are pouring into the country from overseas undetected.  And gun control is like drug control, if you want it badly enough, there will always be a way to get it.

Julia Gillard rolled by Kevin Rudd

Stunt: Gillard knitting a toy kangaroo as a gift for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby

Oh the irony.  The Labor Party had to eat humble pie last night and bring back Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, after throwing him out three years ago.  The people love him yet some of his colleagues have thrown their political careers away and quit, rather than work with him. We, the electorate, haven't a clue why they originally dumped him and wonder what his problem is.

One anonymous insider who worked with Rudd when he was PM said he is a control freak who holds grudges. If someone crossed him, he would refuse to look at them in meetings and simply ignore anything they said until they gave up, quit or made amends.  Another criticism was that he is a workaholic who needs little sleep and kept his people working into the early hours of the morning on a regular basis.  If this is true, I can see him walking on egg shells with his colleagues until the election, trying not to upset anyone.

When Julia Gillard announced last night there would be a leadership ballot at 7pm, she said it would take place on one condition - the loser would have to leave politics.  Perhaps she was confident she would win when she made that pledge, which could mark the end of her political career.  After easily winning leadership ballots before, this time she lost by 57 votes to 45.

I'm not sure if Kevin Rudd's return is going to help Opposition Leader Tony Abbott win the next election because nobody should underestimate his popularity.  Although his colleagues can't stand him, he's mobbed by the general public everywhere he goes.

It's been a foregone conclusion for months that Tony Abbott will be our next Prime Minister, it was going to be a rout, Labor was set to lose 35 of its 71 seats.  But it's a whole new ball game now.

Rob Oakeshott quits Parliament

Rob Oakeshott told his local newspaper yesterday that he will not contest the September 14 election because he wants to spend more time with his family.  The real reason is that he would be humiliated by the conservative electorate he betrayed by throwing his support behind the Labor Party in a hung parliament, allowing Julia Gillard to govern for another three years.  The federal member of Lyne said yesterday "Now is the moment."  It's a pity he didn't have a 'now is the moment' epiphany when it counted.

In April 2011, Oakeshott admitted his electorate had turned against him, he knew the overwhelming majority of voters were dead set against a carbon tax, but went ahead and made a deal with Julia Gillard anyway.

He was vilified in the media, especially by Sydney broadcaster Ray Hadley and The Australian's editor in chief Chris Mitchell, but they weren't the only people angry with Oakeshott when he swapped sides, half the country hated him with a passion and many still do.  When Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones heard the news that Oakeshott wanted out, he said on his radio show this morning 'cowards always run' so the hatred is still there in spades.

But we have to be fair, Oakeshott worked hard for his electorate and he's responsible for bringing $1.2 billion to the people of Port Macquarie, Kempsie and Taree, $160 million of which went towards education programmes.

There will be three candidates standing for Lyne in September, Labor's Peter Murphy, the Greens Ian Oxenford, and Rob Oakeshott's old party The Nationals' David Gillespie.

Even though Oakeshott went to the election as an Independent, he will always be remembered as a Labor supporter.  He is one of three independents who put Julia Gillard into government - Oakeshott, Windsor and Wilkie.

With the Labor Party in crisis and their popularity continuing to fall every week, a Nielsen poll last week put Julia Gillard's primary vote at 29 per cent. 

Speculation about Kevin Rudd's return continues as the top news story of the day which is appalling but the media isn't interested in anything else.  

The electorate now knows that it was Kevin Rudd who changed John Howard's border protection rules that has cost the country dearly housing, feeding, and paying welfare benefits to thousands of boat people who continue to arrive by leaky boat almost every day.  So if Labor replace Gillard with Rudd, will it make a difference?

But one thing is for sure, Julia Gillard won't step down voluntarily.  As one of her Labor colleagues said this week "she's one tough chick" and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming from the top job, even though it's Labor's only chance of winning the federal election in September.  I just wish they would sort it out so we can talk about something else.

Edward Snowden still missing

Edward Snowden still thinks he's done nothing wrong.  He's admitted he had a definite plan - to get a job with defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton so he could find out who the US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on - who were having their computers hacked into and who were having their phones tapped - and then to release that information to the world.  He says he has high ideals and talks about freedom of the press yet seeks out China and Russia for help, two countries known for having virtually no freedom of the press at all.  He must be delusional if he believes any country would countenance such behaviour.

He was hired to help maintain NSA's secret computer networks in Hawaii and when the company sacked him for leaking secret information to the press, he managed to take a large quantity of top secret documents with him.   He left Hawaii on 20th May and flew to Hong Kong where he leaked details of secret US intelligence programmes to the world media.

Edward Snowden is charged with espionage.  The US is calling on Russia to give him up and are annoyed with Hong Kong for letting him go.  The seat he booked leaving Russia bound for Cuba was empty and the plane left without him and nobody knows if Russia is planning to hand him back or help him get to Ecuador.

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaking from India said "In the last two years we have transferred seven prisoners to Russia that they wanted, so I think reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important" he said,  "And I suppose there's no small irony here ... I wonder if Mr Snowden chose China and Russia as assistants in his flight from justice because they're such powerful bastions of internet freedom."

White House Spokesman Jay Carney said last night "Mr Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press, and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen:  China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen. His failure to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance internet freedom and free speech."

Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have alienated themselves from their own kind - they've gone over to the other side.  And now they have found a friend in Ecuador - a country full of corruption, extortion and repression.  What on earth were they thinking? 

Dingoes in suburbia

Sometimes I marvel at the stupidity of some people.  A woman who lives in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown, Desiree Hemberger, owns not one, but three purebred dingoes.  She's on the front page of today's Sydney Morning Herald singing their praises.  They are not savage animals, she says, but shy and huggable companions.  But it gets worse - sometimes she minds a little baby for a friend.

She's not breaking the law, just the law of stupidity.  It became legal to own a dingo as a pet in 1999 and 580 purebred and 500 cross-breeds were registered last year.  But ask any old bushie about dingoes and he will tell you that having a dingo as a pet is like having a loaded gun in the house, and that goes for cross breeds as well.

But thank goodness there is one lone voice of reason.  The President of the Australian Native Dog Conservation Society, Lucile Ellem, stated the bleeding obvious when she said the animals needed to roam "and should not be a pet sitting on someone's lounge."   Her society receives two calls a week from owners who said their dingoes were "getting out of control, climbing fences and killing the local cats and they want us to take them in."

This year authorities published guidelines for dingo owners, pointing out that most people who bought the animals "did not fully appreciate their hard-wired behaviours."  The guidelines also warned of destructive, aggressive, and escape behaviour and a limited ability to be trained or rehoused.

Some people think that dingoes will only attack babies and small children but it's not true.  Last year a 23 year old male German tourist on Fraser Island was hospitalized with serious injuries to head, legs and arms and a 14 year old girl at Kakadu woke to find a dingo dragging at her sleeping bag.  In 2011 a 3 year old girl was bitten at Fraser Island;  in 2009 a nurse on the Stuart Highway near the Devils Marbles was attacked and bitten on the hand;  in 2007 a 4 year old female on Fraser Island was severely bitten; in April 2001 Clinton Gage 9 was attacked and killed on Fraser Island by two dingoes; and last but not least, at Uluru camping area, Azaria Chamberlain, 2 months, was taken by a dingo in 1980.  These documented cases are the ones we know about but there must be countless others.

Meanwhile, trendsetter Ms Hemberger is deliriously happy to continue showing off her three dingoes, while those in the know just shake their heads and wonder why.

LNP plan to develop northern Australia

Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott is about to release the LNP vision for developing northern Australia.   He sees our north as the "next frontier" and wants to transform it into a food bowl for the world. He also sees great opportunities for tourism and will bring in tax concessions for individuals and companies prepared to move to Darwin, Kununurra, Karratha, Cairns and Townsville. 

A view of Kununurra

He wants to double Australia's agricultural output, draw in 2 million international tourists every year and build a new clean and efficient energy export industry which will add $150 billion to the Australian economy.

Cruising Lake Argyle

But to attract sufficient investment, they must first change much of our land tenure from long-term crown pastoral leases to freehold title. Investors from Europe, China and India have been reluctant to buy northern cattle properties to grow food because of their leasehold land status and restrictions on irrigation.  Lack of water in the north has always been a huge problem.


Although we don't identify ourselves as Asians, we'd better get used to the idea because our economy is now linked to Asia and that's where our future lies.  So much so that Tony Abbott wants to establish first class medical centres in the north for wealthy Asians wanting the best surgery money can buy.

ORIS

We've already proved we can grow top quality fruit and vegetables in the north as Kununurra is home to the mighty Ord River Irrigation System (ORIS).  The Ord was once a fast flowing river in the wet but in the dry, it was reduced to a series of small water holes. Someone with vision could see there was an urgent need to harness the huge amount of water that pours out of the sky in the wet season every year and rushes straight out to sea, so in 1972 they built the ORIS that took nine years to complete.  It provides irrigation to farmland every day, all year round, and the flow down the river is regulated by the opening and closing of gates.

The Gascoyne River is the longest river in Western Australia and also provides water for hundreds of hectares of thriving fruit and vegetables.  Each plantation is allocated a yearly allowance of water.  

Gascoyne dry river 

The Gascoyne is an upside down river - it's only full 4 months of the year but still provides water when the river dries up. Confused? Under the river bed are layers of sand and gravel that collect water when the river is full, called aquifers, and a well is sunk to extract the water when the river dries up. Even though the river is dry, those aquifers are still there, full of water, and provide water for the plantations and the township of Carnarvon for 8 months of the year.

Kimberly Agricultural Investment, an Australian company owned by China's Shanghai  Zhongfu is all set to construct a $250 million sugar mill near Kununurra where it plans to produce and harvest 4 million tonnes of cane a year and about 500,000 tonnes of export sugar crystal.  

Carnarvon

The Coalition's 2030 vision for developing northern Australia is something that should have happened years ago.  We've had a succession of politicians over the years with no vision and they have let us down badly. We may be the lucky country but we are definitely not the clever country, so much more should have been done and we have a lot of catching up to do.

Of course there's only one problem.  Tony Abbott has to win the federal election in September first.

Islam convert home-wrecker, says ex wife

Before

Lauren Booth, Islam convert and half-sister of Cherie Blair, has been called a home-wrecker by her new husband's ex wife.

She's in the news once again for saying that since British soldier Lee Rigby was murdered, she's noticed a difference when she travels on public transport dressed as a Muslim woman.  Men look at her with hatred as though they want to hit her, she says.

Cherie Blair is Booth's half-sister

Tony Blair was quoted recently as saying  there is a "problem with Islam" which allows the seeds of extremism to be sown.  His sister-in-law was not impressed and said "Absolutely not, and I think it's very dangerous to take a summary of a religion from a man who's overseen the invasion of several Muslim countries and overseen a war where a million people who are Muslims, have been killed and millions displaced."

After

For such a pious woman, Ms Booth thought nothing of having an affair with a married man and father of two, right under the nose of his wife.   Her new husband's legal wife of 16 years, Faiza, said she is nothing more than a home-wrecker and her legal husband Sohale Ahmed is a bigamist - he married Booth in a Muslim ceremony while keeping her as his legal wife.

Speaking from her brother's house in Texas where she went to recover from the collapse of her marriage, she said "Lauren destroyed my home - you can't just put on a hijab and say you are a good Muslim woman - it's about having boundaries with men, and love and respect for women. She came into my house as my and my husband's guest and did this under my nose.  Her behaviour appalls me, and other Muslim women - the very people she professes to support - now must judge her."

Booth placed a jokey ad on Facebook last year, looking for a good Muslim husband.  She said that "Mossad agents, secret drinkers, CIA stooges, men who don't pray and men who don't pay, need not apply."

She came to stay with the Ahmed family in March 2012.  Mrs Ahmed cooked and stayed home with the children while her husband and Lauren went out together and came home late.  One night she was shocked to see him coming out of her room, he said he'd just popped in to get something.  "It was killing me, I told Sohale that even though I knew he was not going to stop seeing her, she was not allowed back in my house.  So he started going away on business for three and four days at a time and spending time in London on weekends."

The happy couple

In April 2012, Sohale launched the Gaza fundraising charity Peace 2012 and signed up Ms Booth as a co-director two weeks later. 

Ramadam was approaching and Sohale wanted Lauren to stay with them but Faiza said no way so he went out with her and stayed out.  "He ate his sehri (the pre-dawn meal) and his iftar (the meal to break the fast of Ramadam) with Lauren, which felt like he was spurning his own family."

"On Eid Day, Lauren arrived home from the mosque with Sohale and other family members and no one warned me.  I walked out of my kitchen and she was there in my front room in full make-up, dressed from head to toe in red, the traditional colour of a Muslim wedding dress." 

They got married in a secret nikah, a ceremony not recognised as legal in Britain.  According to Islamic law, a man is allowed to take up to four wives but it is becoming more acceptable in the UK to have just one. The first wife is told that a new wife is coming and although she cannot object, she is given the opportunity to ask for a divorce.

Sohale Ahmed kept his marriage secret from his wife until he gathered enough courage to ask her for a divorce over the phone.  He then sent her a text to say he was married.

Lauren Booth is a journalist, peace activist and renowned international speaker who champions Muslim women's rights.  She was married to actor Craig Darby and they have two daughters.  She divorced him after he had a serious motor bike accident that left him severely brain damaged.

 Craig Darby, Lauren and their daughters before the accident

Faiza has enrolled her two children in schools in Texas and said there is no going back. "Lauren has cost him his friends, me and the children, all he has in life now is her. When he told me he loved me, he always used to say 'You are my first wife and my last' but he broke his promise."

Booth converted to Islam in October 2010.

Kiesha Abrahams' mother pleads guilty to murder

On Monday, the first day of her trial, Kristi Anne Abrahams pleaded guilty to murdering her six year old daughter Kiesha.  It was a shock that nobody expected.  The trial was set to run for weeks, then suddenly it was all over.  As the news slowly filtered through to relatives and friends of the little girl, there was a sense of quiet jubilation that Kristi Abrahams was finally going to get what she deserved.

She will be remembered as the evil woman who put on an academy award performance, playing the distraught mother whose child had gone missing, when she knew that her body was buried in bushland not far away.

And she must have got a shock when she learned that unlike her partner, Robert Smith, she couldn't plead guilty to manslaughter because the Crown was determined to try her for murder.

In February 2012, Smith pleaded guilty to Kiesha's manslaughter and to being an accessory after the murder.  He told the judge he was physically abused by Abrahams, she often gave him a black eye, and knowing what she was capable of, he once jumped off the balcony of their first-floor unit to escape an argument.  Justice Megan Latham accepted that Abrahams was "volatile, argumentative, domineering and verbally abusive" but rejected his claim that because he was frightened of her, it wasn't really his fault, and sentenced him to a minimum of 12 years jail.

Kristi Abrahams is a cruel woman who hated her daughter.  We will never know how much Kiesha suffered at the hands of her mother and step-father but we do know that when she was 15 months old, her mother bit her on the shoulder with such force, she had to be hospitalized.

Abrahams was convicted of assault occasioning bodily harm and the child was removed from her care for 18 months.  And then the system let Kiesha down by sending her back to her mother.  Abrahams had to undergo a parental care program and attend an anger management course, but in December 2006, someone made the decision to send her back into the arms of her mother.

The abuse ended when Kiesha died from serious blunt force trauma injuries to the jaw area, suggesting her head had been slammed into the ground.  Unconscious with blood seeping out of her ears, Abrahams then put her to bed instead of taking her to hospital and a few hours later she was dead.

Undercover police were able to befriend the couple which led to their arrest at Kiesha's burial site.  Detective Inspector Russell Oxford said Abraham's guilty plea was the culmination of three years hard work. The case had taken its toll on the officers involved.  "The hours they put into this, it was very emotional, very difficult all the way" he said.

Abrahams will be sentenced next Monday, June 24.

Syrian rebels 'organ eaters' says Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized  the West for giving arms to Syrian rebels who not only kill their enemy, but cut open their bodies and eat their organs.  "Are these the people you want to support?" he asked.  There is footage circulating on the internet of a rebel fighter eating what appears to be the heart of a murdered Syrian soldier.

It looks like the US and the UK have made up their minds about supplying arms to the Syrian rebels.  It doesn't matter that the UN says it's a bad idea, they want Assad gone and that's that, end of story.

A rebel spokesman said that if the US will provide enough training to organize themselves, as well as more arms, it will probably take them about six months to topple the regime.

The US says it has proof that Assad has crossed President Obama's "red line" and used chemical weapons against his people.  President Putin says this is not true - there was no need for Assad to use chemical weapons against the rebels because he is making steady advances on the ground.  So someone is telling porkies.

There will be no diplomatic breakthrough at the G8 summit on the Syrian civil war.  Putin says he will continue to support the legitimate government of Syria and President Obama and David Cameron will push ahead to bring the heart-eating rebels to power.

Nigella Lawson humiliated by angry husband

Nigella Lawson must be going through hell now that everyone knows she's married to an abusive man.  Wealth, beauty and success don't count for much when a woman is frightened of her husband, and judging by the photos just released of their argument at a London restaurant, she is indeed very afraid of Charles Saatchi. 

She married an angry man who thinks it's okay to grab his wife by the throat and squeeze it tight to get his point across.  We are left wondering - if he does this in public, what's he like at home?

Although some diners were aware of the argument, nobody actually intervened. When he finally got up and left, she walked sobbing towards a waiting car.

Happier days

Nigella is Saatchi's third wife.  His second wife Kay was granted a divorce on the grounds of his 'unreasonable behaviour' and Nigella was named as the 'other woman.'

Nigella's first husband died in 2001 aged 41 from throat cancer and they had two children, Cosoma now 19 and Bruno 17.  The family live together in Chelsea with Mr Saatchi's daughter from a previous marriage, Phoebe, 19.

Saatchi was a close friend of her late husband and Nigella moved in with him nine months after her husband died.  Born in Baghdad and educated in London, he is reclusive and rarely seen in public even though he is Britain's most influential art collector.  He doesn't even attend his own art shows.

Last year Saatchi said that far from being possessive, he is proud of his wife's sex symbol image.  He also said that her cooking skills are wasted on him and he can't understand why Nigella wants to be with him.  "It's beyond human comprehension" he said.  After seeing the photos, we now know why.

Please Mr President, stay out of Syria

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday if America supplies arms to the Syrian rebels, it won't stop the bloodshed. "Only political solutions can address this situation sustainably" he said.  President Obama appeared to be on the brink of helping the rebels after reports that Bashar al-Assad had used sarin, a nerve gas, to kill up to 150 people.

But as we now know, on September 16, 2004, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan said about the invasion of  Iraq "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter and from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."  So what the UN says doesn't really count.

Meanwhile, Russia says they are not convinced that chemical weapons have been used and Putin is working with President Obama to arrange a peace conference.  If the two mightiest nations on the planet can work out a peaceful solution for Syria, the world would be eternally grateful.

Russia reminds us of the mistake the US made when they rushed into Iraq after reports that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and they believe that false evidence of chemical weapons could also apply here.

Assad issued a statement that read "The White House published a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information, through which it is trying to hold the Syrian government responsible for such use."

David Cameron needs to keep his nose out of Syria too.  The British government have said they are happy with America's "candid assessment" that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons.  They need to remember that Tony Blair also believed the myth about WMD and plunged the world into two wars.

I can well understand that it's not right to stand by and allow a brutal dictator to use nerve gas to kill innocent civilians, but please wait until the evidence is irrefutable.  

Meanwhile, in a televised address yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said they will continue to help Assad after recapturing the key town of Qusayr.

We now focus on the G8 in Northern Ireland where hopefully common sense will prevail.

Edit June 17, 2013: Iran will send 4,000 of its troops to Syria to aid president Bashar al-Assad's forces in its fight against rebels.  Just another reason for those not involved, to stay out of it.

Julia Gillard asked if her partner is gay

Yesterday Julia Gillard was asked by a Perth radio host if her live-in partner of seven years was gay.  How did it ever come to this?  Howard Sattler hit the bottom of the barrel when he pretended to quash rumours that because her de facto used to be a hairdresser, he must be gay. Nobody that I am aware of ever suggested that Tim Mathieson might be gay and by asking the question, Sattler proved beyond all doubt, that he has absolutely no respect for the Prime Minister of our country, and that's really sad.

Howard Sattler

Here's how the interview went.

Sattler:  Myths, rumours, snide jokes and innuendos, you've been the butt of them many times.
PM:  Well, I think that's probably right, we've certainly seen that this week.
Sattler: Can I test a few out?
PM:  In what way?
Sattler:  Tim's gay
PM:  Well that's absurd
Sattler:  But you hear it, it's not me saying it, it's what people .....
PM:  Well I mean Howard, I don't know whether every silly thing that gets said is going to be repeated to me now.
Sattler:  No, no, no
PM:  But you know, to all the hairdressers out there, including the men who are listening, I don't think in life one can actually look at a whole profession full of different human beings and say 'Gee, we know something about every one of those human beings', I mean, it's absurd, isn't it?
Sattler:  You can confirm that he's not?
PM:  Howard, don't be ridiculous, of course not.
Sattler:  But in a heterosexual relationship, that's all I'm asking
PM:  Howard, you and I have just talked about that, so now that is bordering .....
Sattler:  No, I wanted to get rid of it
PM:  Howard, just let me bring you back to earth
Sattler:  I'm not saying it
PM:  Right, well let me just bring you back to earth.  You and I have just talked about me and Tim living at the lodge.  We live there together as a couple, you know that.  Yes, on the internet there are lots of what I've referred to in the past as nut jobs and I'm happy to use that expression again.
Sattler:  Good
PM:  People who peddle and circulate vile and offensive things
Sattler:  Awful things
PM:  Yeah, absolutely


Howard Sattler came to the east coast a few years back and tried to break into the big time telling everyone that he had every intention of becoming Sydney's number one talk-back radio host, but his ratings were pathetic and scurried back to Perth.   He's been suspended from Perth's 6PR after his outrageous interview, pending an internal inquiry, and hopefully his radio career is now over.


Edit June 15, 2013:  Sattler has now been sacked by his employer who he intends to sue because he has six months still left on his contract.  His radio career is indeed over, as no station in the country would touch him with a barge pole.

Coles in trouble over Cuisine Royale bread

The ACCC - our consumer watchdog - has begun federal court proceedings against Coles for "false, misleading and deceptive conduct" for advertising their bread as "freshly baked in-store" when it is partially baked overseas.  It's hard to believe, but a new line they have introduced called Cuisine Royale is actually par baked in Ireland, frozen and sent to Coles where it is finished off and sold as "fresh."

It's not the budget Coles loaves they bake every day in their bakery, but the dearer, more appealing upmarket loaves such as sourdough , Turkish and olive bread, as well as sweet items, and if you look very carefully, you will see "Product of Ireland" printed on the packaging.

Coles has 749 supermarkets in Australia and  625 of those have an in-store bakery.

Coles Managing Director Ian McLeod said the bread issue is a storm in a teacup. "It is simply a trial of one new branded bread line, and customers will decide if it stays on the shelves.  Contrary to claims, Cuisine Royale is not being used to pressure local bread makers and it has not pushed any locally-made bread off our shelves.  Over 99 per cent of the 3.8 million loves of bread we sell each week in Coles' stores, is made in Australia with local ingredients and that will not change."

One of many Baker's Delight franchises across the country

Mr McLeod went on "Our products are made in Ireland using the finest ingredients sourced all over the world and are not replacing any of the current Coles range, but are an additional, premium range giving the Coles shopper more choice."

He said the Irish company only recently started exporting to the Australian market and they were given six weeks to make an impact on Coles customers or they were out.  If customers like the products on offer, the company will launch a full range nationwide which will create much needed, new jobs in rural Ireland.

But the ICCC isn't convinced and thinks Coles could be aiming to put pressure on Australian farmers and manufacturers to reduce prices. 

But it makes you wonder - we are one of the largest wheat suppliers in the world, yet a suitable gourmet baker can't be found in Australia? Surely not, as much as we love the Irish, shouldn't Mr McLeod be more concerned about providing much needed jobs for Aussies, rather than the rural Irish?