Garry Stannus Greens vindicated over donations!
IN 2007, Susie Russell, an active green campaigner living in northern NSW, came into an unexpected inheritance. At the time she was standing for Parliament, but thought it would be better used if it helped Bob Brown get back into the Senate. She donated $45,000 to the Tasmanian Greens through a business which she and her husband operate from their home in northern NSW. The money was paid through their business, Gladneys Pty Ltd, by their accountant whose office is in Melbourne.
The donation was disclosed to the AEC by her husband and fellow director, Greg Hall, and Michael Dempsey, for the Tasmanian Greens, made the appropriate AEC recipient disclosure. In due course the AEC released the details of the years political donations and this sizable donation was noticed. I do not know if it was first noticed John Dowling, State Secretary ALP Tas and then passed on to Gerald McManus of the Melbourne Herald-Sun. Dowling, according to Sue Neales of the Mercury, has admitted to some involvement in the matter. McManus wrote a smear article, suggesting the names of the donors had been disguised, that Gladneys was not to be found in its so-called Melbourne office and that its operating premises were vacant bush.
Lara Giddings led a day-long smear in the Tas Parliament, which Nick McKim rebutted with the facts at his disposal and the matter had a more modest flutter in the Victorian Parliament – Fiona Richardson MP geeing up her Attorney-General to buy into the act and direct the smear to the Victorian AEC. Despite the fact that Sue Neales twice identified through her articles how ridiculous the scenario created by the Labor smear-unit was, George Harris, aka Woodworker, one of the members of the Tasmanian Labor Party, is not convinced. He persists with the smear, calling after McKim and Neales, like the armless, legless Black Knight in Monty Python, ‘‘it’s ‘just a flesh wound’… come back and ‘I’ll bite your legs off!’ ”
The purpose of the following article is leave readers with an understanding of what dirty government is:
31st of August, 2004
Gerald McManus – Herald-Sun Journalist
Let’s begin this story back on the 31st of August, 2004. A journalist called Gerald McManus, wrote an article for the Melbourne Herald-Sun, entitled “Greens back illegal drugs.” This was just before the federal election in which Paul Lennon and Scott McLean betrayed Mark Latham and the Federal Labor Party and condemned the country to a further four years of John Howard. McManus’s article made wrongful claims about a number of Green policies, and he had refused to correct them and had been taken to the Press Council of Australia by Bob Brown. In February 2005, the Press Council found that:
“a number of false claims were made [by McManus] about Greens Party policies … the actual electoral impact cannot be known but readers were seriously misled … the claims … were seriously inaccurate and breached the Council’s guiding principles of checking the accuracy of what is reported, taking prompt measures to counter the effects of harmfully inaccurate reporting, ensuring that the facts are not distorted, and being fair and balanced in reports on matters of public concern”
http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/adj/1270.html
2007 Oct & Nov
Donation to Greens
A few years passed, nothing much had changed. The mill that we had to have was upon us. Bob Brown had auctioned his personal possessions to fund his Wielangta legal battle. He had put everything on the line to stop it being logged. There were still green-haters out there – in Tasmania, and over on the mainland. Some of them working in the government, some writing for newspapers, and alas, one even writing just a week or so ago, on Tasmanian Times. More of him later.
Meanwhile the work of the Greens went on. Up in NSW, rusted-on green Susie Russell, whose partner is Greg Hall – they live at 330 Glenwarrin Road, Elands – came into an unexpected inheritance. She decided to give it to the Tasmanian Greens, to help Bob Brown and to help the Tasmanian Forests. They donated the money ($45,000 !) in Oct and November 2007.
2008
Donations disclosed to AEC
Greg Hall, as company secretary, filled in and submitted a disclosure form to the Australian Electoral Commission. He did this on the 22nd of July, 2008. You can see the form he completed here: http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/10/D8379.pdf
This money was paid through their business: Gladneys Pty Ltd – ITF Gladneys Trust. Hall had completed the donor disclosure form, giving all the details required on the form, including his name, position, company name and their address at Elands – which is where they live, and where Gladneys operates from. This information comes, not from any special source, but just from the internet and is available to any member of the public who cares to look.
In due course, Michael Dempsey for the Tasmanian Greens, having received the donation, filed the appropriate financial disclosure return to the AEC. You can see Greg and Susie’s names and their address, the donations and other moneys that the Tas Greens received. This form was sent to the AEC on Mon, 20th October, 2008. You can see the form here: http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/10/P2606.pdf
2009 – February
AEC records released, ALP ‘goes fishing.’
The AEC form that Greg Hall filled in states that its details will be available for public inspection from February 2nd, 2009, and so it must have been after this time that John Dowling, the Tasmanian ALP State Secretary, started trawling the AEC website for something to pin on the Greens. This is where our story begins to pick up.
2009 – March 9th – Monday
McManus – Herald-Sun Journalist – (‘he got muddy water’)
On that Monday evening, Nick McKim got a phone call from McManus, the Herald-Sun journalist mentioned at the start of this piece. He was asking about a Gladneys Trust in NSW and presumably also the donations. McKim himself, had never heard of Gladneys, so I guess the call was unproductive to McManus, the anti-green journalist.
At midnight on that Monday, after calling McKim, McManus filed a story in the Herald-Sun, entitled ‘A bush lot behind a Green buck.’ In it he painted a picture of a Gladneys business office in Melbourne that wasn’t actually occupied by Gladneys (he knew ’cos he went and looked and didn’t see Gladneys on the list of occupants at the premises!) To him that suggested a fictitious business office!
But he was wrong – he’d gone to the office of the accountants who handle Gladneys books. And it got worse.
His article’s next revelation was that Gladneys operated its business from a piece of vacant bushland in NSW! Extraordinary! He had used Google Maps/Earth and had seen a lot a bush and missed the house that Susie Russell and her husband Greg Hall live in. From their home, Russell and Hall operate a business called Gladneys Pty Ltd.
And the $45,000 donations? Although documents lodged with the AEC by Russell/Hall and the Tasmanian Greens clearly show their names, to the anti-Green journalist McManus, the donations raised “questions over whether the names of donors to the Greens have been disguised.” The documents also clearly and properly identified the Tasmanian Greens as the recipients of the donations, the amounts that were donated and the dates on which they were made, as well as the name of Russell and Hall’s company Trust, ‘Gladneys’, through which the donations were made.
You can review the Greens disclosure notice here: http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/10/P2606.pdf
You can review Russell/Hall’s disclosure notice here: http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/10/D8379.pdf
You can read McManus’s article here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25163026-662,00.html
Have you looked at the article yet? McManus wrote “The $45,000 donation raises questions over whether the names of donors to the Greens have been disguised.” He offers no reasons for this slur, he offers no evidence. Seems like he just made it up. He has created a story of a fictitious business address, then invented vacant bushland … and then a masterly conclusion: must be a case of fraudulent donations, disguised names!
2009 – March 10th – Tuesday
Daniel Hulme – ALP – Tas Parliament
Was it coincidence when by 10:23am that same morning, across Bass Strait, Daniel Hulme, the Labor replacement for one of the recently disgraced Ministers, stood up in Parliament and served up a Dorothy Dixer to Lara Giddings, the Attorney-General? He asked could she inform the house about the matters raised in McManus’s article, and … why … yes, she could!
Lara Giddings – Attorney-General – ALP – Tas Parliament
She was on her feet immediately, reading the article to the Parliament, and then accusing the Greens of not practising the high standards that they preached. She had four prepared questions for Nick McKim to answer:
1 Who or what is Gladneys, and what is the connection between this entity that operates from a vacant bush block in New South Wales and the Tasmanian Greens?
2 Has any other funding come to the Tasmanian Greens in this unusual manner?
3 What does Mr McKim know about this matter?
4 Have, as the story poses, the names of donors to the Greens been disguised?
You may view the Hansard here:
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/5f782c1a-40df-436a-9f6d-ff06f6f12265/1/doc/
[Note: Tas Handsard links seem to sometimes decay and require fresh Hansard searches. Use ‘Gladneys’ et al. for best results]
Lara Giddings – Press Release
Sometime during that day she then issued a press release entitled ‘Questions over Greens donations must be answered.’ She claimed that “I know political staff can be very loyal, but it seems a bit much for a political staffer to donate $45,000 to their political party – let alone an interstate one. McKim later pointed out her error in calling Susie Russell a ‘political staffer.’ The press release then repeated the questions she had raised that morning in the house:
1 Who or what is Gladneys and what is the connection between this entity that operates from a vacant bush block in NSW and the Tasmanian Greens?
2 Has any other funding come to the Tasmanian Greens in this unusual manner?
3 What does Mr McKim know about this matter?
4 Have, as the story claims, “the names of donors to the Greens been disguised.”
Did you notice how Question 1 contains the phrase ‘from a vacant bush block.’ McManus wrote it, maybe John Dowling was somewhere involved? Hulme put it into play, Giddings formalised it by referring to it as if it was a fact. Her question from the floor of the House and repeated later in her press release was based on a fiction presented as a fact.
Read Giddings’ press release here http://www.media.tas.gov.au/release.php?id=26160 and you will notice in the fine print that it has been prepared and vetted in the Department of Premier and Cabinet: and in particular by the Tasmanian Government Communications Unit – I can see nothing in the unit’s ‘terms of reference’ which authorises it to involve itself in agitprop, engaging in the political fray, attacking the government’s political opponents. Here is a link to the units ‘terms of reference’: http://www.communications.tas.gov.au/home/communications_policy/5._accountability_and_responsibility
Bryan Green – ALP – Tas Parliament
At 6:18pm, disgraced ex-minister, Bryan Green rose to repeat the smears. He went further than Giddings, saying that “what we are seeing here is a $45 000 donation, which is a significant amount of money in anybody’s language, towards a campaign and it has been disguised.”
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/2bd82303-8df3-488b-862c-73f5ad7a23b9/2/doc/
[Note: Tas Handsard links seem to sometimes decay and require fresh Hansard searches. Use ‘Gladneys’ et al. for best results]
Nick McKim – Greens – Tas Parliament
Finally at 6:30, Nick McKim was allowed to rise and tell the house that Russell was not a Greens political staffer (though he added that she had been one some years before). He then answered the four questions raised by Giddings:
1 Who or what is Gladneys, and what is the connection between this entity that operates from a vacant bush block in New South Wales and the Tasmanian Greens? ‘I did not know when Mr McManus called me and I still do not know. And what is the connection between this entity that operates from a vacant block in New South Wales – and I do not know if that is true, by the way – and the Tasmanian Greens? Well, none that I know of.’
2 Has any other funding come to the Tasmanian Greens in this unusual manner? ‘Well, I do not know what the unusual manner is so the question does not pertain. Because getting a donation from individuals is not unusual. All political parties get donations from individuals. I have checked Labor and Liberal disclosures.’
3 What does Mr McKim know about this matter? ‘Well, when Gerard McManus called me yesterday evening I had never heard of Susie Russell or Greg Hall, I had never heard of the company which is allegedly involved – Gladneys – and I had also never heard of the Northern New South Wales Environment Group that was allegedly involved in these matters. Obviously since the media have raised this issue with me I have conducted some inquiries and I now know for example that Lara Giddings owes Susie Russell an apology for disseminating incorrect information about her.’
4 Have, as the story poses, the names of donors to the Greens been disguised? ‘In her fourth question to me … she asked whether the names of donors to the Greens have been disguised. I am not sure what information Ms Giddings was relying on, but given the fact that we published the names of the donors to the Greens in our disclosure to the Australian Electoral Commission, it seems very hard on the basis of that fact to substantiate an allegation that we were trying to disguise the names of donors to the Greens. We published the names of these donors to the Greens.’
Mr Llewellyn – ‘You cannot read it, no way.’
Mr McKim – ‘Well, go to the AEC web site and download it, Bishop, and you will find that we fully published the names of Susie Russell and Greg Hall making two donations, one of $20 000 and one of $15 000 to the Greens fully published, fully disclosed. And yet Lara Giddings does not seem to possess the capacity to do even the most basic web search.’ In case readers want to look again at the document, here again is the link: http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Returns/10/P2606.pdf and the Hansard link:
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/2bd82303-8df3-488b-862c-73f5ad7a23b9/2/doc/
[Note: Tas Hansard links seem to sometimes decay and require fresh Hansard searches. Use ‘Gladneys’ et al. for best results]
Google maps get it wrong
McKim’s answers bear the hallmark of honesty and of frankness. He says until the reporter rang, he’d never heard of Hall and Russell or of Gladneys; he said he still didn’t know who they were, and about the vacant bush (and here he paused to say that he didn’t even know whether this was true – ), …and so on. That ‘vacant bush’ error of McManus and then of Giddings, was not repeated by McKim, because he was speaking truthfully about what he did and didn’t know about the matter. As it turns out, it wasn’t true that the business was mysteriously operating from a vacant bush property. In my own locality, there is significant divergence between what is represented on the Google map and what actually exists on the ground (e.g., location of roads, existence of structures, presence of bush)
Gerald McManus, the journalist, appears to have stuffed up. Had he spoken to Hall and Russell before he rushed to file his story at midnight, he would have been in possession of the facts. Due diligence would have established the truth. Instead his error-laden story was published, smearing the innocent Hall and Russell, and smearing the Greens. And when Hulme, a first term Labor backbencher in Tas ‘dorothy dixed’ Lara Giddings, she repeated the journalist’s errors and smears.
Kim Booth – Greens – Tas Parliament
Kim Booth got up and followed McKim, but chose to focus on advising Hulme, as a new member, not to allow himself to be used and compromised by the Labor Party machine, which had shamefully manipulated him into raising a falsity so that it might be called a truth.
Brenton Best – ALP – Tas Parliament
Brenton Best followed Kim Booth. A selection of Best’s remarks might show how the Govt was running on empty, himself included:
Best: …is not going to be fooled by the structures the Greens have in place…a number of questions have been unanswered…Greens run by a corporate structure…refuse to answer questions about its finances…links the Wilderness Society and the Florentine protests to the Greens…there is some sort of underbelly over here…deals going on over there…
Best: …McKim is running a ‘company propriety limited’… is a disgrace… needs to clean up his act…a mainland corporation is pulling the strings of the Green MPs in Tas…admitted castigating the Deputy Premier…McKim spends half his speech denigrating Giddings, admits when Russell was a political staffer, she donated money…Hansard would bear this out!…denigrates Hulme…tries to bully new members…has been caught running a business…Greens Inc…McKim is the marketing manager…
Best: …things will come out, make no mistake about that…we will get to the bottom of it eventually…we will find out where all this money is going…how these protest groups are being funded…will be surprised if McKim doesn’t come into the House to apologise to the people of Tasmania…
You’ll find Booth’s remarks and also Best’s drivel in the Hansard, at 6:37pm and 6:40pm respectively on the link already provided. Here it is again: http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/fb341fd1-ec44-4de2-8fdc-53162e8f086b/2/doc/
[Note: Tas Hansard links seem to sometimes decay and require fresh Hansard searches. Use ‘Gladneys’ et al. for best results]
But though this was the end of it in the Parliament, the beat-up still had some distance to run. In the meantime Sue Neales did what Gerald McManus had failed to do. After the smear was implemented in the Parliament, the same day Neales contacted Susie Russell in NSW, and learned from her the truth of the matter, that Russell had unexpectedly come into an inheritance, and that she had chosen to donate it to support Bob Brown, via the Tasmanian Greens. Neales also contacted the Tasmanian Labor Party and confirmed that the State Secretary, John Dowling, had been involved in investigations relating to these donations.
2009 – March 11th – Wednesday
Sue Neales: Govt smear campaign unstuck
Following her own enquiries, Sue Neales filed a story rejecting the govt’s take, supporting the Greens. Neales’ article summarised the allegations contained in Gidding’s address to Parliament and McKim’s response to them. Neales investigations revealed that :
1. John Dowling, State Secretary of the Tasmanian Branch of the ALP, had been involved in investigating the donations. (i.e. a player in the smear campaign?)
2. Nick McKim was correct when he told Parliament that there had been no attempt to hide the fact that they had donated money to the Tasmanian Greens
3. Documents supplied by Hall and by the Greens to the AEC, clearly showed Russell and Hall as the donors, the Greens as recipients and the amounts and dates of the donations.
4. Susie Russell had said she was shocked by the allegations and shocked and appalled at the attack on her integrity and honesty.
5. Russell had said the donation had come from recent and unexpected inheritance of $45,000 and that she had not worked as a Greens staffer for Mr Cohen since 2003.
6. Russell had said that the Elands address was not a vacant block, but the home of her and her husband.
The thrust of Neales’ article was contained in its first sentence: “THE Government has been left wrong-footed after a smear campaign against the Greens turned out to be untrue.” Here is a link to her article: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/03/11/60481_tasmania-news.html
Fiona Richardson – ALP – Vic Parliament
That same afternoon, in the Victorian Parliament, Fiona Richardson, a rookie Labor MP like Hulme, rose to her feet to ask of her Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, a Dorothy Dixer, just as Hulme had done in Tasmania, the day before. She drew the A-G’s attention to McManus’s Herald-Sun article, and asked for an urgent investigation into the donations, to ensure that they comply with all the relevant laws. Basically she was just rehashing McManus’s article, adding that Hall and Russell however, were secretary and vice-president of the North Coast Environment Council, and that Russell also had strong connections to the Greens, as a former candidate and as a former staffer. Strangely, while Richardson repeats the empty Melbourne premises and vacant bush-block misinformation, she does acknowledge that Russell is a ‘former staffer’. She seems to think that for Russell and Hall, as directors of Gladneys, for the NCEC, and for the Greens, important questions have been raised concerning the donations. She complains that there is no way to verify Russell’s claims about an inheritance. Her remarks to the A-G then taper off, with a half-hearted attempt to suggest that NGOs are prone to becoming siphons for political donations. Accusing the Greens of being strangely silent on this matter, yet with a history of calling for transparency, she concluded her attack. Here is the Vic Hansard link (pg 633): http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Assembly/Feb-Jun%202009/Assembly%20Weekly%20Book%203%20Feb-Jun%202009.pdf
2009 – March 13th – Friday
$45,000 donation claim riles Susie Russell – (excerpt, Port Macquarie News)
Ms Russell said there had been no attempts to “hide the fact” they had made the donation to The Greens’ leader Bob Brown.
“It’s just complete fantasy,” she said.
“It’s disgusting, really, that the ALP and the government can get away with making such allegations when the sources of funding for the big political parties are so lacking in transparency.”
Ms Russell said the $45,000 had come from an unexpected inheritance.
“We could have invested it in the stock market but we thought an investment in The Greens was an investment in our future,” she said.
Ms Russell said they chose to donate the money to Mr Brown rather than use it in her own campaign for the seat of Lyne because the Senate outcome was “of vital importance”.
“It was absolutely vital that Bob Brown get re-elected and that The Greens have the funds at that national level to wage a profession campaign,” she said.
“My own campaign we were able to run quite effectively for the circumstances.”
http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/45000-donation-claim-riles-susie-russell/1457874.aspx
Examiner misses the point
The Examiner bought into the act here, in a short article, on page 15. On the face of it, it seemed to present a reasonably concise and fair report of the matter – if you weren’t aware of what had gone before. The Examiner in fact sanitised the smear. There is no mention of the McManus’s invented vacant bush block, no mention of the ‘empty’ accountants’ office in Melbourne which does Gladneys’ books, and which was mistakenly thought by Herald-Sun McManus to be Gladneys’ bogus/vacant office. There is no mention of McManus’s suggestion and then Bryan Green’s statement, that the names of the donors had been ‘disguised.’
No, the Examiner did not mention those smears, and its article hinged on a Victorian MP having said that there was no way of verifying if the donation had actually come from an inheritance that Russell had received. No mention of the Tas Govt stuff-up. The article is reproduced here:
“Electoral Commission looks at donation to Greens” Examiner
‘VICTORIA’S Attorney-General has referred concerns about a $45,000 donation to the Australian Greens to the state’s Electoral Commission.
NSW couple Greg Hall and Susie Russell donated $45,000 to the Tasmanian Greens for the campaign to re-elect Greens leader Senator Bob Brown.
The money was donated through a Melbourne-based trust, Gladneys.
Ms Russell said that the money had come from an inheritance.
The matter was raised in the Tasmanian Parliament earlier this week, Attorney-General Lara Giddings referring to an interstate, media report of the donation as raising “potentially very serious” issues about donations to the Greens.
In Victorian Parliament this week, Labor backbencher Fiona Richardson urged that state’s Attorney-General Rob Hulls to investigate.
“Susan Russell has claimed that the money she has generously donated to the Tasmanian Greens has come from a recent inheritance, but currently we have no way of verifying this,” she told Parliament.
A spokeswoman for Mr Hulls said the matter would be referred to the Victorian Electoral Commission and from there could be referred on to the Australian Electoral Commissioner.’
Here is the link to the above article in the Examiner http://www.examiner.com.au/news/archive/2009/3/?page=99
2009 – March 14th – Saturday
Sue Neales – Mercury wraps it up
In a lengthy article, Neales reviewed the smear campaign, showing it in the context of a constant and ongoing attack on Nick McKim by the government. The attack was explained in the light of a government concerned by McKim’s political progress, as he sought to reposition himself and his party for the coming election, in the context of a Labor Party faltering in government. With regard to the smear campaign, Neales’ remarks included the following:
“The unrelenting broadside by Labor launched against the Greens — which shows every chance of persisting for the rest of the year and on until the March 2010 election — this week included an extraordinary and ill-directed attack by Labor on a private $45,000 donation given to the Tasmanian Greens late in 2007.
Led by Attorney-General Lara Giddings, it was a demeaning display of pure smear and innuendo by the Government. It was also degrading to the institution of the Tasmanian Parliament.
Simply, a $45,000 donation made to the Greens by two supporters from NSW was painted in the Tasmanian Parliament as having a bad smell about it, of being a cover or front for donations from other undisclosed and disguised sources.
The only reason the donation made by a private Greens-leaning couple to the Tasmanian Greens — and properly declared to the Australian Electoral Commission — was questioned seemed to be that an overpaid Labor apparatchik somewhere had decided it was impossible for the couple to have afforded such a gift themselves.
And then there was the claim that their home address was a vacant bush block — apparently deduced by a Labor official using Google Earth — and that another of their addresses was a Melbourne CBD building that showed no signs of being connected to the donors.
Actually, the bush block behind Port Macquarie housed the couple’s home. The money came from an unexpected inheritance following a death in the family. The Melbourne address was their accountant’s office.
A simple phone to Greg Hall and Susie Russell, as made by most media outlets later that day, could have assuaged all Labor’s concerns and addressed their “unanswered questions”, but it was not made.
Instead Ms Giddings stood up in Parliament and declared there were many “serious and unanswered questions” about the donation which deserved “thorough and proper investigation”. ”
Q. Is John Dowling the person referred to by Neales as “an overpaid Labor apparatchik”?
Here is the link to her article: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/03/14/61325_opinion.html
2009 – March 19th – Thursday
George Harris – ALP Tas – aka ‘Woodworker’
On Thursday 19th March, there appeared in Tasmanian Times an article by George Harris aka Woodworker entitled: “Interstate donations to the Tasmanian Greens.”
http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/interstate-donations-to-the-tasmanian-greens/ Harris is well known to Tas Times readers. He is bitterly anti-green, anti Mercury and in particular, anti Sue Neales. Here is Woodworker with the Mercury journalists esp. Sue Neales in his sights:
“…conspiricy theorists with brains the size of a grey pea…….spew an unsubstantiated load of tripe to which an equally unimpressive bunch of dick-smackers can add there misinformed dribblings…….well, up yours…….to those whinging, couch dwelling latte sippers, I again say up yours. You too, Sue…….bullshit from mis-informed parasites full of self-righteousness, whose only ambition is to park their flabby bludging arses on the climate-change gravy train…….the rabid bludging Green parasites…….what a pathetic bunch of suck-holing arse-wipes! …….pathetic imaginings of that seriously misguided journalist from that shitful organization…….bullshitting activist…….couldn’t give a sick monkey’s fuck…….get real you dickheads…”
He doesn’t write like this any more, but he is still aggressively anti-green and an apparently unofficial apologist for everything emanating from the Labor Govt and Forestry Tasmania. Oh yes, his abuse, printed above, is, in this instance, directed largely at Sue Neales, under whose name the Mercury published a number of analyses of the then imploding Lennon cabinet.
So what is Harris’s contribution to this smear campaign against the Greens? He begins by implying that information in his possession shows that McKim and Neales haven’t given a truthful account of the donations. He correctly writes that McKim had denied that Russell was a staffer at the time the donations were made, and then seeks to contradict McKim by writing: “a simple google search would have revealed that Susie Russell was a staffer at the time the donation was made”
This is not the case, and it is reasonable to think that Woodworker knew, or should have known, that the ‘staffer claim’ had already been discredited, and accepted as such by the Examiner when it chose to run with Richardson’s version of the smear. While repeating the other ‘furphies’, ALP Vic Parliamentarian Fiona Richardson had however distanced herself from McManus and Giddings, by calling Russell a ‘former staffer.’ Alas, Woodworker chose to ignore this and to repeat McManus’s original ‘error.’
Why did Woodworker not offer documents such as employment records, pay details, office listings to support his claim? Any evidence at all? All he offered, as evidence, was four words: “a simple google search” – no details, no documents, no links … no nothing … just an unfounded assertion. If the reader cares to go further into this question, a good starting point would be the following link, which shows that Susie Russell is not on Cohen’s staff: http://www.iancohen.org.au/contact.aspx Alas, there was no lead in Woodworker’s journalistic pencil. He had promised “that the real story of political donations might be a little different than Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim and the Mercury’s political reporter, Sue Neales, might have us believe.” But he had failed to deliver.
Like the black knight Harris concluded: “Well, there you have it. Not only does the Victorian Electoral Commission and most likely the Australian Electoral Commission have something to look at, but the Tasmanian electorate has cause to look beyond the squeaky-clean image of the Greens parliamentary leader, and the ABC’s Mediawatch might have something else to add to its dossier on our local star political reporter… “
Good idea George Harris …. [email protected]
Conclusion
By the time of Harris the woodworker’s intervention, the matter had died:
· Instead of the company not being at its Melbourne address – we learnt of the Herald-Sun’s mistaking the accountants premises for those of the company itself.
· The vacant bushland? Not vacant, just the Herald-Sun relying on Google and goofing up.
· Disguised names?: Not disguised, just the Herald-Sun smelling a non-existent rat.
The Victorian Attorney General was said to be going to send a query to the Victorian Electoral Commission. Our Tasmanian Attorney-General, while demanding an investigation, did not implement one herself. Nor did she make a complaint to the AEC herself. Can we presume that Gerald McManus, John Dowling, Daniel Hulme, Bryan Green, David Llewellyn, Brenton Best and George Harris likewise will back her up with similar inaction, now that their smear campaign lies ‘dead in the gutter’?
Questions for Harris the Woodworker:
· What involvement, if any, did Woodworker have in this smear campaign prior to publishing his article on Tas Times?
·What was the role of the ALP State Secretary (Tas), John Dowling, in this affair? Has Woodworker discussed this matter with Dowling or other ALP members/officials?
·What communications were there between Tasmanian and Victorian ALP officials or MPs ? Before or after the publication of the Herald-Sun article?
·Was it John Dowling who supplied the original information to the Herald-Sun journalist? Was it Harris the Woodworker?
·Has Woodworker received any gifts or benefits from the CFMEU and if so, how has he declared them?
· Does Harris the Woodworker still believe:
.That Susie Russell is a Greens staffer, that her home is a vacant bush block, that she did not inherit $45,000 and that she did not donate this inheritance to the Tasmanian Greens
·Does Harris the Woodworker still believe in spite of all available evidence, that names have been disguised?
·Will Harris the Woodworker make a public apology to Russell for without foundation having joined the smear campaign against her?
Dramatis Personae
Best, Brenton: ALP Member of Parliament. Deputy Speaker. Inept participation in the smear.
Booth, Kim: Greens Member of Parliament. Admonished Hulme for being manipulated into initiating the smear.
Brown, Bob: Greens MP for Tas in Fed Parlt. Leader of the Aust. Greens, Donations intended to assist his campaign & forests.
Cohen, Ian Greens MLC NSW Upper House, had Susie Russell on his staff until 2003.
Dempsey, Michael: member of staff, Tas Greens, gave proper disclosure of donation details to AEC
Dowling, John: State Secretary, ALP (Tas), admitted involvement in smear ‘investigations’ of the donations to the Greens.
Giddings, Lara: ALP Attorney-General of Tas. Smeared Susie Russell by reading in full, the Herald Sun article, to the House.
Green, Bryan: ALP Member of Parliament. Ex Deputy Leader, At centre of favours-for-mates scandal.
Hall, Greg: husband and partner of Susie Russell. Director and Company Secretary of Gladneys Pty Ltd
Harris, George: ALP member, pro Forestry, anti-green. Tas Times contributor, brought the smear campaign to the pages of TT.
Howard, John: former Liberal PM. His pro logging policies gained unions support in Tas against Fed Labor.
Hulls, Rob: ALP Vic Parlt, Attorney-General has indicated will continue the smear by referring it to the AEC
Hulme, Daniel: ALP, Co-opted into Parliament after resignation of Paula Wreidt, ‘Dorothy Dixer’ to Giddings re donations.
Lennon, Paul: former controversial ALP Premier, remembered for corrupting the pulp mill process and much else!
Llewellyn, David: ALP Member of Parliament, Minister for three portfolios, said disclosure form was unreadable.
McKim, Nick: leader of the Tasmania Greens, Member of Parliament.
McLean, Scott: State Sec. Tas, CFMEU. Sided with John Howard against Federal Labor. Seen as supporter of Gunns
Latham, Mark: former Federal ALP leader, had promised to end logging of old growth forests, but defeated at election
McManus, Gerald: journalist, Herald-Sun. Wrote the first piece which set the smear campaign in motion.
Neales, Sue: Senior Political reporter, the Mercury, has published articles exposing Govt scandals, including this smear campaign.
Richardson, Fiona: ALP Vic Parliament, first-term member, brought the smear into the Vic House of Assembly
Russell, Susie: wife and partner of Greg Hall, Director of Gladneys Pty Ltd. Donated an inheritance to the Tas Greens.
Woodworker: pen-name for George Harris. ‘Guest of CFMEU’ at Sydney 2007 ALP National Conference
Chronology:
February 2005 Aust Press Council: Herald Sun’s Gerald McManus’s anti green articles seriously inaccurate
Oct-Nov 2007 Russell donates $45,000 to Tasmanian Greens, in 4 separate payments, via Gladneys Trust.
Tue 22/07/08 Greg Hall, Gladney Trust, provides AEC with details of donations >$10,500
Mon 20/10/08 8:39am Tas Greens provide AEC with names, addresses etc of Russell & Hall donations > $5000
February 2009 Details of 2007/8 political donations released by AEC
Early March 09? ALP State Secretary John Dowling trawls through Green political donations
Mon 09/03/09 night: GeraldMcManus calls NickMcKim re donations from Gladneys Trust, SusieRussell&GregHall
Tue 10/03/09 12:00am ‘A bush lot behind a Green buck’ article published by McManus in: Herald-Sun.
10.23 a.m.Mr Hulme asks Attorney General to inform the house of the Herald-Sun article [Hansard Tas]
Ms Giddings in reply quotes from pg 19 of Herald-Sun and asks four questions of Mr McKim
?:??pm? Giddings ‘Questions over Greens donations must be answered’ media release, thru DPAC
6:18pm Mr Green refers to article, says source of funds has been disguised, calls on McKim to explain
6:30pm Mr McKim calls the matter a beat up, exposes Giddings factual errors & answers t. 4 questions.
6:37pm Mr Booth says Hulme has on his first day shamefully raised falsity, calling it truth
6:40pm Mr Best repeats exposed ‘political staffer’ falsity, says Hansard’ll show Booth has admitted it
?:??pm? SueNeales contacts 1.Russell, ‘money from inheritance’&2. ALP, who admit prior involvement
Wed 11/03/09 8:39am Sue Neales (Mercury) says Govt wrong-footed, its smear campaign untrue.
arvo? Ms Richardson informs t. House and asks A-G to investigate t. donations. [Hansard Vic, p633]
Fri 13/03/09 4:00am PortMacquarieNews (NSW) reports Russell disgusted at Giddings’smear – gives her side
early am?Examiner article, Pg 15: “Electoral Commission looks at donation to Greens”
Sat 14/03/09 12:04am Sue Neales reviews the smear campaign, vindicates Greens and discredits the Govt dirty tricks.
Thu 19/03/09 early am?George Harris (Woodworker) submits ‘Interstate donations to the Tasmanian Greens’ to TT: Here
