Mood:
loudTopic: big media
So Alison Carabine cheekily refers to Alan Ramsey as 'the sexiest man to have ever worked in the Canberra press gallery' on Sydney wide abc radio. A middle aged female colleague to a retired 73 year old, or thereabouts.
All good humoured stuff, boosting his book promo.
But then an inhouse feud is aired where veterans Oakes and Ramsey didn't speak for 5 years.
It was over Oakes revealing an affair of the flesh and presumably spirit between Cheryl Kernot as then Democrats leader and Gareth Evans then ALP leader of Opposition in the Senate.
Ramsey argues there was no public interest as both were out of politics a good 3 years or so when the revelation was made.
This is why Oakes is right and Ramsey perhaps is revealing his ALP history as press secretary to former ALP parliamentary leader Bill Heydon:
We well recall the agitations around nascent Green Party contesting the role of the Australian Democrats. Kernot was electioneering on such things as preferencing with dubious other minor parties and acting very righeous about political pragmatism.
It was about this time that AD senator Stott DeSpoya (or however you spell it) on the annoucement Kernot was quitting the leadership and defecting to the ALP occurred and Stott referred to the record of Kernot as "very interesting". As if she knew alot more about Kernot's allegiances than she was saying.
And now with the hindsight of the Green Party replacing the Australian Democrats we can say it was quite crucial for the public to know what conflicts of interest the federal party of the Australian Democrats had as the "honest broker" 3rd force.
Potential conflicts of interest specifically include other politicians you are having an affair with. That's the human condition. Not for scandal or senationalism but to know who political players are biased toward from other parties based on other than policy merit. The public at least have a right to know and judge whether performance is being compromised.
For Ramsey to suggest otherwise is highly unrealistic. Oakbarrel was right. Ramsey is wrong. They both remain legends.
