FED:Editorials, Saturday August 20, 2011

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-2011
FED:Editorials, Saturday August 20, 2011

SYDNEY, Aug 20 AAP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard's problem regarding backbencher Craig
Thomson does not rest on whether he paid for sex for himself or anyone else, but whether
he lied, The Weekend Australian says in its editorial today.

The Prime Minister has thrown the weight of her office behind the member for Dobell.

If it turns out he has not told the truth she could come under intense pressure to cut
him loose.

A by-election does not necessarily follow but that does not mean Labor would avoid
being damaged by this unedifying incident.

If Labor had a healthy majority and was governing in its own right, Mr Thomson might
be gone by now. As it is, Ms Gillard looks desperate to avoid a by-election and risks
losing even more authority than she has since she deposed Kevin Rudd.

The issue is whether we, like Ms Gillard, can take the MP at his word. She would have
found it easier to defend an MP who put sex on plastic, paid back his union, declared
the party's gift on time and got on with representing his electorate. But that is not
the card Ms Gillard has been dealt.

The Sydney Morning Herald says the issue regarding Labor member for Dobell Craig Thomson
is whether he diverted union funds to pay for escort services and to withdraw more than
$100,000 in cash.

The government's apparent attempts to prevent parliament from finding out about the
inquiry do affect its standing.

It should stop trying to stifle questions into the matter. At the very least, parliament
and the public need to know: if Thomson did not pay for call girls with union funds, who
did?

An adverse finding by Fair Work Australia might well end Thomson's political career
and, if Labor lost a subsequent by-election as seems likely, it would probably also bring
down the government.

It is a matter of great regret that so much is at stake on such a trivial matter -
particularly as the government does not deserve to fall, and has much important work to
do.

Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says the troubled member for Dobell might just turn out
to be Julia Gillard's worst-case scenario.

The allegations made against Craig Thomson have become both more extensive and far
more detailed this week. Recent attempts by the government to stem the controversy seem
desperate and evasive.

Stonewalling, a tactic employed by the Prime Minister in parliament this week, isn't
a viable long-term strategy. There are too many questions arriving too quickly for the
government to simply block them all out.

As Australians learned this week, the Thomson case has cost Labor in the region of
$150,000. It could yet cost them far, far more.

Melbourne's Herald Sun says the shame about the controversy over Labor MP Craig Thompson
is not that he may have been using a union credit card to pay for the services of escort
agencies... but that Ms Gillard is prepared to stake her reputation on the weak attempts
by the MP to explain himself.

If Mr Thomson were charged and a by-election were held in Dobell, Labor would likely
lose, which could trigger a federal election.

At stake is political power, and it appears Ms Gillard is prepared to pinch her nose
to the rising political stench surrounding Mr Thomson to keep it.

Melbourne's The Age says looking at the furore over Labor MP Craig Thomson, who is
facing allegations he used a union credit card to pay for escort services, the imperatives
of power remain the same.

When it comes to the crunch, politics trumps propriety.

This does little to restore faith in the political process and its practitioners.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's wariness in exposing coalition members to scrutiny
of their past pointed to a deeper malaise in Australian politics.

The preselection choices party machines make all too often reward party hacks for reasons
at odds with the qualities and values the public would wish to see.

Brisbane's The Courier-Mail says question time, or what should be a 60-to-90 minute
period in the parliamentary day when ministers are held to account and backbenchers get
a chance to raise issues on behalf of constituents, has become propaganda time, dominated
by point-scoring, sloganeering and name-calling.

It has long been the case that opposition teams in parliament seek to disrupt question
time believing that an unruly parliament reflects badly on the government of the day.

No one personifies this more than opposition business manager Christopher Pyne who,
when he's not hurling offensive and snide remarks at the Prime Minister, wastes time with
self-serving points of order.

Our politicians should reflect on their behaviour over the past 12 months and consider
whether what they have done, individually and collectively, has enriched our political
discourse.

Watching question time would suggest that anyone who said it had played a positive
role would be either delusional or lying.

AAP xlc/rs

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

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