26.5.05
Private parts of councillors
6 Prairial CCXII
When I first started BOB nearly a year ago, I'd preface any posts about local politics with the day's date from the French Revolutionary Calendar.
For obvious reasons - follow local pollies for any amount of time and you'l find most are little suburban Robespierres. Take Glen Eira, where Mr & Mrs Mallrat Snr live - you can't put in a swimming pool without incorporating the equivalent amount of excavataed earth into a landscape feature or some such, because there's a 1925 covenant on many properties banning gold mining, hence excavation.
Then there's all that stuff about a Port Phillip councillor and some dude in Belgium (small minds think alike) wanting DNA testing of dogshit to identify owners who don't scoop the poop. (Pity the poor fucker who has to collect and analyse)
Anyway, my dating convention (along with that other one, three feet on the floor at all times, even if you are crabby) slipped into disuse.
But now some neuron seems to have got firing again - probably cause I've just given up the fags (thanks to Synchotron colleague Xavier for pointing out I'm gonna chunk out for the next six months until my appetite stabilises again...)
This seems an appropriate time to start it up again.
It might even be good at some stage to adapt the French rev cal to Melbourne suburbia - after all, it seesm absurd to be calling our shivery May down here "prairial" when it so obviously is not. The only cherry blossoms you'll find now are made of crepe paper in a bargain bin at Lincraft.
And I'm not sure I like the idea of a 10-day week.
Fucking frogs.
The ever-entertaining Andy Landy caught me to this story a few days ago. Damn.
Glen Eira councillor Rachelle Sapir admitted using her job at Centrelink to conduct an "inappropriate search on fellow councillor Peter Goudge. Goudge was claimed to be living in Eltham - other side of town - at the last election.
Then the silly bint tells all to a Leader reporter.
30 minutes later, she calls to retrospectively declare the conversation "off the record".
How much of an idiot do you have to be to get on council?
Jeez, what a shame Sapir doesn't work for the department of immigration - she would only need a pawprint from a JP to conduct raids. Wouyldn't that have been even better? She could have made absolutely sure from Goudge's kitchen scraps where he was living.
Do you think your email is being spied on by cardinals of the order of the Rosucrucians or Jedis with plastic light sabres?
Well, here's your chance to speak up, because the Federal Government is reviewing the Telcommunications Interception Act.
It's a 25-year-old piece of legislation, so of course, it pre-dates the net, and even Kylie's breasts.
Electronic Frontiers Australia is getting shitty about the fact that it doesn't afford any privacy over stored communications like emails, SMSs, and voice messages.
Right now, law-enforcement agencies only need a warrant from a JP to access these things - with no requirement to alert the victim that their commu ciations are being pored over like the contents of Ray Martin's trash can.
So Rachelle - get cracking, cause on December 16, your e-spying playhouse is gonna get torn down, down, down....
Sapir ain't the only one.
And jeez it's fantastic when JIIS (Jack or is it Steve) Medcraft, of Hume Council - proponent of mandatory detention - gets caught out.
This from Vic Parly Hansard, via GuruAnn. I have cut out the boring bits. Coming from a pollie, of course, there were many. My interjections (order!!) are in []...
So fucking naughty, inne?
Taking comments now on best punishments.
When I first started BOB nearly a year ago, I'd preface any posts about local politics with the day's date from the French Revolutionary Calendar.
For obvious reasons - follow local pollies for any amount of time and you'l find most are little suburban Robespierres. Take Glen Eira, where Mr & Mrs Mallrat Snr live - you can't put in a swimming pool without incorporating the equivalent amount of excavataed earth into a landscape feature or some such, because there's a 1925 covenant on many properties banning gold mining, hence excavation.
Then there's all that stuff about a Port Phillip councillor and some dude in Belgium (small minds think alike) wanting DNA testing of dogshit to identify owners who don't scoop the poop. (Pity the poor fucker who has to collect and analyse)
Anyway, my dating convention (along with that other one, three feet on the floor at all times, even if you are crabby) slipped into disuse.
But now some neuron seems to have got firing again - probably cause I've just given up the fags (thanks to Synchotron colleague Xavier for pointing out I'm gonna chunk out for the next six months until my appetite stabilises again...)
This seems an appropriate time to start it up again.
It might even be good at some stage to adapt the French rev cal to Melbourne suburbia - after all, it seesm absurd to be calling our shivery May down here "prairial" when it so obviously is not. The only cherry blossoms you'll find now are made of crepe paper in a bargain bin at Lincraft.
And I'm not sure I like the idea of a 10-day week.
Fucking frogs.
The ever-entertaining Andy Landy caught me to this story a few days ago. Damn.Glen Eira councillor Rachelle Sapir admitted using her job at Centrelink to conduct an "inappropriate search on fellow councillor Peter Goudge. Goudge was claimed to be living in Eltham - other side of town - at the last election.
Then the silly bint tells all to a Leader reporter.
30 minutes later, she calls to retrospectively declare the conversation "off the record".
How much of an idiot do you have to be to get on council?
Jeez, what a shame Sapir doesn't work for the department of immigration - she would only need a pawprint from a JP to conduct raids. Wouyldn't that have been even better? She could have made absolutely sure from Goudge's kitchen scraps where he was living.
Do you think your email is being spied on by cardinals of the order of the Rosucrucians or Jedis with plastic light sabres?
Well, here's your chance to speak up, because the Federal Government is reviewing the Telcommunications Interception Act.
It's a 25-year-old piece of legislation, so of course, it pre-dates the net, and even Kylie's breasts.
Electronic Frontiers Australia is getting shitty about the fact that it doesn't afford any privacy over stored communications like emails, SMSs, and voice messages.
Right now, law-enforcement agencies only need a warrant from a JP to access these things - with no requirement to alert the victim that their commu ciations are being pored over like the contents of Ray Martin's trash can.
So Rachelle - get cracking, cause on December 16, your e-spying playhouse is gonna get torn down, down, down....
Sapir ain't the only one.
And jeez it's fantastic when JIIS (Jack or is it Steve) Medcraft, of Hume Council - proponent of mandatory detention - gets caught out.
This from Vic Parly Hansard, via GuruAnn. I have cut out the boring bits. Coming from a pollie, of course, there were many. My interjections (order!!) are in []...
Hume: councillor
Mr NARDELLA (Melton) -- I raise a matter for the Minister for Local Government in the other place [Huh? The great upper house in the sky? Speak English, Nardo, will you?].
...Cr Medcraft ... on numerous occasions has broken the law through the illegal use of electoral rolls ... and not destroying a copy supplied to him within 30 days of the date of the municipal election.
March 2003 was the last time an election was held at Hume City Council, which is over two years ago. Under the act all candidates get a copy of the electoral roll to use for official business during the election -- to get themselves elected and to communicate with electors. Afterwards candidates are required to destroy the roll or return copies of the roll to the chief executive officer within 30 days of the election.
*** DAILY HANSARD *** PROOF VERSION ONLY *** DO NOT QUOTE *** [yeah,right]
At 10.15 a.m. on 20 December 2004 Mr Sean Payne complained on a web site called sunburyonline.com about the state of playgrounds in Sunbury -- for which Cr Medcraft is responsible -- and said that he had been derelict in his duty of providing quality facilities.
In a reply posted on the web site ...Cr Medcraft wrote in response to Mr Payne that he was not sure where he lived but he did not appear on the electoral roll as a Sunbury ratepayer. However, he was glad that he was interested in Sunbury issues.
Another example of illegality on the part of Cr Medcraft occurred at 1.06 p.m. on 21 July 2004 when Cr Medcraft responded to a posting by a Dorothy Reynolds the day before and said that he was interested in her comments but asked why she was not on the electoral roll in Sunbury? ...
Cr Medcraft, who is the leader of the 'People against lenient sentencing' group, demands no less in his rantings and public utterances. The full penalties should be applied to Cr Medcraft in view of the fact that he believes there should be no flexibility in sentencing and that sentencing should be mandatory.
Cr Medcraft has undertaken illegal activities because he has not carried out the simple act of destroying the roll. He has blatantly misused the roll to try to humiliate his local residents, which is also in contravention of
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 71
*** DAILY HANSARD *** PROOF VERSION ONLY *** DO NOT QUOTE ***
people's privacy and civil rights. Steve Medcraft is a hypocrite for saying that people should obey the law and that the full force of the law should be applied to transgressors without fear or favour. If he had any integrity or honour he would resign his council position pending the appropriate investigation by the authorities into his illegal activities.
Sunbury residents deserve better from their elected representatives, who should not be breaking the law. They should have integrity and honesty in their dealings with local residents, not abuse their civil rights. That is the reason I am referring the matter to the Minister for Local Government.
So fucking naughty, inne?
Taking comments now on best punishments.
