Mood:  d'oh

 

September 25, 2008

     

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska met Wednesday with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York.  

We don't run a story category for the USA presidential elections. We feel it would be impertinent from this far away for a 290 million population 'democracy'.

But we can't help noticing that the author of the Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie 'Charlie Wilson's War' based on a true story as set out in the DVD special extras package was the same guy who wrote the West Wing first season or two. That is Aaron Sorkin. Really excellent writing it is too. All based on a true story too.

The real womanising drug taking Charlie Wilson (as he confesses on the DVD special extras) is here:

 The real Joanne Herring played by Roberts is here in Afghanistan via Pakistan:

Joanne Herring in Afghanistan with the mujahideen

And though Sorkin was gone by the time the later seasons ran with the coloured Matt Santos candidate in West Wing tv series modelled on the real life Barak Obama, one gets the feeling there is a fair bit of life and art merging here. After all visual mass communication is what tv drama and election politics have in common.

Sooo in the Wilson movie the Julia Roberts character - who is a real life oil billionaire or something like that - holds a banquet and presentation of the president/dictator of Pakistan namely General Zia. Scary huh?

In a brutally blunt line in the movie the Roberts character asserts her guest in the USA 'had nothing to do with the hanging judicial murder of Mr Bhutto', father of Benizir Bhutto. As if.

Sooo now Sarah Palin, another right wing fantasy character from real life, is meeting another Paki leader in the news recently, this time democratically elected. Thank heavens for small mercies.

And if you think this reference to Charlie Wilson's War movie and Sarah Palin is a reach then how come this story ran 8 September here, via Sunday Times?:

8 Sept 2008 Charlie Wilson's new war against 'sniffy' academics | The Australian

It's all part of the same right wing sticht: "... reinvigorated by a recent heart transplant" says the article of real life Charlie, which is sort of like what Sarah Palin is to John McCain.

Posted by editor at 5:59 PM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

Notice the reference to water volumes allowed: Basically they have DA approval for 25 ML/YR which is likely used up by now or soon will be, and have had a temporary license up until Dec 2007 for 66ML/YR under their DA approval.

In other words until the decision one way or the other from the Land & Environment Court in a quite complex and tricky case, hotly contested by neighbouring agricultural land users, community group and the green movement, Coca Cola are faced with running out of their license allocation for their Peats Ridge water bottling plant.

And as their barrister Peter Tomasetti stated/implied in the court on Sept 4, as a public company they have obligations to declare to the market place what their trading situation is. At that time they suggested they had some 3 weeks supply available under their license which bring us to about now 25 late Sept 2008 if not already passed.

One local writes to SAM micro news today that he believes CCA have only themselves to blame as the local staff at Peats Ridge were having their water resource bulk exported by tanker to the CCA Smithfield plant which could have been kept back for the licensed water bottling at Peats Ridge:

Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 10:20 AM

Subject: Re: Fw: LEC No. 10429/05 David Kettle Consulting v. Gosford City Council

> Dear Tom.
>
> Thanks for CCA letter to L&EC This confirms my understanding of the licensed allocations to be 2 seperate amounts 1@25ml & 1@41ml.PRS has reached their 25ml limit for this year. The 41ml subject to the trial conditions is not available to them due to the refusal by GCC to convert the status from temp to perm.The temp / trial period expired Dec 2007.The DWE docs Fraser [counsel for GCC] produced at court don't alter the fact that PRS [Peats Ridge Springs Ltd subsidiary of CCA]  is currently restricted to 25ml. Access to all or part of the 41ml is subject to the courts decision.
>
> CCA have been aware of this restriction of 25ml since GCC refused their application in Feb 2008 however they chose to use up part of their limited allocation for bulk removal to their Smithfield processing plant therefore putting at risk having enough water left to keep the PRS plant operating as a bottling plant.
>
> In the last paragraph of the letter they are using economic blackmail on Comm Moore to try to gain access to the 41ml . This should be pointed out to Council so that Council make it clear that CCA put their PRS plant in this position THEMSELVES and it is not acceptable to try to now blackmail the Court.
>
.....

 

Nor is the Court's judgement quite the official end of the controversy in this current phase going on for many years now. There are a whole lot of thorny questions being asked in NSW Parliament about how CCA managed to get a state govt license increase in water from 25 to 66 ML/YR (subject to a DA approval for the same amount via the court) compared with neighbouring landholders routinely rejected for any increase. As well as a cognate Water Bill also before the parliament.

One begins to suspect why former minister Nathan Rees preferred to jump up the ladder rather than stick around in this problemmatic portfolio:

Posted by editor at 4:58 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 September 2008 5:43 PM NZT

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Mood:  party time!

29 Sept 08 Criminal pasts but police officers still keep their jobs | The ...

Posted by editor at 3:56 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 September 2008 4:57 PM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounders

Caught the last 30 minutes of Obama v McCain debate which the latter was winning, but Bruce Wolpe says the voters would’ve been trending to Obama on the economy after the last week of financial markets turmoil.

Cool hand Luke dies – vale Paul Newman, what a guy. Slapstick. Colour of Money.

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am

Pensions theme – footage of Macklin Nelson-Turnbull Bill ignores 2 million pensioners.

Paper round up ignores booze attack lead front of Sydney SunHerald. Deborah Rice in chair – Jenny Macklin ignores first question could you live on $270 a week. Ignores it a second time.

$1000 interim payment? Macklin hair looks blonde green, with koala eyes, that droning nasal voice. Waffles on, footage of Senator Joyce.

Out take of Swan sledge of Turnbull re Roosters in AFL [which was a SAM story headline actually and maybe possibly the first to use the line – them’s the breaks big Mal – without fear or favour, repeated in full below].

Panel – Glen Milne news corp looking pudgy but healthy, Louise Dodson AFR rare appearance these days.

Helen Dent Australian Shareholders Assoc. Bit clunky, drags something over the mike, good message on corporate crime, verbal handwringing. Chunky jewellery drags on bench top again. Executive payrate question – blows ASA trumpet. But ASA have rep of weak attitude in light of Stephen Mayne. Rhetoric on reward for failure. Hand action chunky jewellery. Deborah Rice mimics the hand movements.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, 8.35 am

Kevin 747 prime tourist theme. Missy Higgins also in New York. Footage of Rupert Murdoch and many nameless folks. Roosters, Swans, AFL, Ricky Ponting for Brownlow etc. Quite a goose but all very shallow.

Talkies with Riley not a lot achieved on Kyoto etc. Cuts into Oakes on 9 switch. Discusses $4 billion non bank lending segment.

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.40 am

Talent is Lindsay Tanner as Finance Minister. Gets to the hard issue of pension benefits [to share in wealth of resources boom]. Won’t rule it out before next year’s budget.

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

Tues 23 Sept 08 8.05 am

Turnbull an AFL 'rooster', League 'swan' .... and an everyperson 'goose'?!
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: aust govt

Funny to hear Mal Turnbull with Fran Kelly abc radio national just before 8 am this morning in the shadow of the higher rating 7.45 am local radio news on sister abc station.

After cutting strips with a sharp box cutter blade off the Rudd govt "bungling" over timing of bans on naked versus broad short selling vis a vis international market bans on some or all of these, he gets the usual September festival of the boot question.

If he had not been saturated with media engagements all this week he might have had the energy to listen to Barry OFarrell his NSW Liberal Party counterpart answer the same question only half an hour earlier on 702 abc Sydney.

And sure enough Big Mal stuffed it saying he barracked for the Roosters in the AFL which are actually a League team. And Swans in League which is actually an AFL team and then fully correcting himself.

Proving what exactly? That like most mature minds he doesn't give a stuff about big business sport anyway unlike say the amateurs above? That he never earned his sporting component of the Rhodes scholarship after all and he's faking it? That he is only an everyman like bookish Bob Carr isn't? That questions about sport is stupid for political leaders worried about a financial meltdown comparable to the 1930ies great depression. And dangerous climate change comparable to nothing else in recorded history?

Anyway we just wanted to use swan, rooster and goose in the same headline.

Posted by editor at 10:53 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 28 September 2008 12:26 PM NZT

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Mood:  on fire

Well we wish. Here was our derivative wrap on the weekend which did indeed look grim for the infamous blatherskite:

[21 Sept 2008 Posted by editor at 10:27 AM EADT] Ex treasurer's '$500M risk' to AAA rating for NSW is stupid say Walkers
Mood:  irritated
Topic: nsw govt

Here is the big news media reference today of Costa's resignation by fax to the Governor NSW:

23 Sept 08 Costa resigns from NSW parliament - Breaking News - National ...

Certainly Costa already made it clear he would quit soon enough, and he suggestively passed his qualification time for a cosy pension for life recently. (Accrues at 55 years of age according to colleague Peter Primrose on abc radio just now.)

But we would like to think that Stateline work last Friday ventilating the Walkers' financial expertise building on their work earlier this year in cooperation with such as Greens MP Dr John Kaye including citizen's right of reply, finally finished the guy's political career:

There is a big big difference between $500M and $14M in annual interest exposue in a AAA to AA+ credit rating and a NSW Treasurer has to know that difference or to quote Costa look "like a joke".

Posted by editor at 10:42 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 23 September 2008 1:32 PM NZT

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Mood:  cheeky

 

winners are grinners

Funny to hear Mal Turnbull with Fran Kelly abc radio national just before 8 am this morning in the shadow of the higher rating 7.45 am local radio news on sister abc station.

After cutting strips with a sharp box cutter blade off the Rudd govt "bungling" over timing of bans on naked versus broad short selling vis a vis international market bans on some or all of these, he gets the usual September festival of the boot question.

If he had not been saturated with media engagements all this week he might have had the energy to listen to Barry OFarrell his NSW Liberal Party counterpart answer the same question only half an hour earlier on 702 abc Sydney.

And sure enough Big Mal stuffed it saying he barracked for the Roosters in the AFL which are actually a League team. And Swans in League which is actually an AFL team and then fully correcting himself.

Proving what exactly? That like most mature minds he doesn't give a stuff about big business sport anyway unlike say the amateurs above? That he never earned his sporting component of the Rhodes scholarship after all and he's faking it? That he is only an everyman like bookish Bob Carr isn't? That questions about sport is stupid for political leaders worried about a financial meltdown comparable to the 1930ies great depression. And dangerous climate change comparable to nothing else in recorded history?

Anyway we just wanted to use swan, rooster and goose in the same headline.

Posted by editor at 10:05 AM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounders

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am

Golf. Waste of broadcast airtime.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, 8.35 am

Missed the first section. About Nelson getting a duck in bowling picfac with Kevin Rudd to adopt our cricket metaphor about Nightwatchman Man Nelson batting too long without making any runs. Food theme regarding ALP (poor) judgement re priorities.

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.40 am

Interesting interviewing with new Opposition Leader Turnbull on 28% preferred PM already. Tone of interview is most noticeable thing. MT feels the love and is deeply gratified and relaxed about where he has arrived.

Opening question says it all – how does it feel to not have blood on your hands. Exactly. [He didn’t pull on the vote, he didn’t actively undermine while Costello appears to have done so even if unintentionally. He won on merit and he is actually humbled by the choice freely made by majority of his Party.] Hence the picture here.

Not a harsh pose, rant or acid gibe. Quite a gracious presentation.

Prime Tourist rather than Prime Minister. Cute line LO takes him to task on this but in mild tones.

Turns to economics, confusing “motion with action” is a cutting line. Doing the spade work on need to consult and accept the wisdom of others in a complex very challenging world.

LO tests him out on problematic Nelson policies re cut in fuel excise and pension boost etc. Says it all fits into the lower tax philosophy of the govt while arguing less than .5 of 1 % of Govt revenue, or something like that. Only vaguely convincing.

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Press roundup Panel is KA Walsh, Meglogenis, Milne.

Chris Bowen assistant treasurer is talent. Funny comment Greens more economic responsible than Liberal Party in the last week. Who is more arrogant Rudd or Turnbull – suppresses a smile gives boilerplate answer about in touch.

Every person segement – the famous pole dancing in suburbia. Distracting. All about who is better Lib leader.

Lots of footage about MT taking and Nelson conceding Lib leadership. What folks who think the Eastern Suburbs are so rich and privileged should check out country town Warrnambool. Air is cleaner. House blocks as big or bigger. Little traffic. In short it’s all an illusion folks based around social tribalism.

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

Posted by editor at 12:33 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 21 September 2008 12:47 PM NZT

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Mood:  irritated

Here was the claim paraded in all the 'serious' press courtesy of loud mouth Costa:

Quoting AAP here 5 Sept 08

"The loss of the AAA credit rating would add $500 million to NSW's interest costs over the next few years, he warned, and called for a "push out" in major projects to prevent the need for savage cuts to health and education budgets." at LIVENEWS.com.au > National > Rees rules out returning Costa to cabinet

5 Sept 08 Business Spectator - NSW credit rating future hangs in the balance

On NSW Stateline last Friday 19 Sept 08 had the reality - a AAA rating which is very atypical for a sub national government to a AA+ rating would amount in NSW case with our low debt levels to a mere $14M increased interest payments per year.

To put that in context that is 1/10 of the money thrown at the World Youth Day corporate welfare for the Catholic Church earlier this year.

Here is the referencing:

19/09/2008 Saving NSW  Is it true the AAA rating is endangered?

Over the last two weeks, Premier Rees has been warning of the consequences of that in these terms: a massive cost in interest payments on borrowings of $500 million extra a year.

DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT (voiceover); The main priority was to avoid losing NSW's triple A credit rating, which would mean an interest payment blowout of $500 million a year, Mr Rees said.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Are you saying that that figure is inaccurate?

BOB WALKER, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: That figure is wrong and I think it's unfortunate that Mr Rees was advised in that manner. It's even more unfortunate that he was - repeated it three days later. The NSW Treasury has got a lot to answer for for not intervening and correcting him and giving him the proper advice. I think they've left him exposed in making somewhat exaggerated statements. Now he's the new boy on the block. He needs time to get on top of those facts. But it's the responsibility of the public service to protect their minister, not leave him exposed.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Professor Bob Walker is Professor of Accounting at Sydney University and a former chairman of the council on the cost of government, appointed by the Carr-Egan Government. What would it cost the state if the credit rating was downgraded?

BOB WALKER: The standard reference to this is a publication of NSW Treasury by former assistant secretary Don Nicholls who estimated that the cost of a downgrade from triple A to double A plus would be 20 basis points - that's 20 per cent of one per cent. Now, the interest rates currently being paid by the state are only six per cent, roughly. So if we increased that modestly to 6.1, it would have a very minor impact on the state budget. In fact, not all the debt in the state would rollover at once; about $7 billion might rollover in the next year or so. That would increase the interest cost to the state of a modest $14 million, not $500 million, as has been popularly reported.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Fearing the public was being misled by the Costa analysis and rhetoric about the state's possible loss of the triple A, Professor Walker's wife Betty Con-Walker, an economist and former State Treasury official, has extracted the budget figures on net debt of the state.

At June 2008, the net debt was $22 billion, or 6.2 per cent of gross state product.

With infrastructure borrowings, including the north west metro, net debt was projected to rise to $41.76 billion, or 9.1 per cent of gross state product, by 2012.

BETTY CON-WALKER, FORMER TREASURY OFFICIAL: And remember, it compares with international developed countries at more than 40 per cent. Some of them are as high as 80 per cent of their gross state product. It's going to rise to, according to the budget papers, to $41.8 billion over the next three years. Now, that will still only be nine per cent, 9.1 per cent of the gross state product. Still a very modest indebtedness ratio for the state. And these figures have been there and available to the credit rating agencies.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: We've got a cash flow problem with declining property tax revenues and a blow out in the health budget.

BETTY CON-WALKER: Well we have Mr Costa's word for that because he's claiming that on the basis of two months figures - that's July and August - figures that have not been published, not available to anyone to analyse, and he's projecting those two months figures to the whole year, and we're still talking about less than $200 million in a budget of $48 billion.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: The Walkers believe State Treasury has a responsibility to the public to publish accurate figures about the state's fiscal position and a realistic assessment of risk to the triple A. They say the Treasury website, usually giving monthly status reports, has not been updated since May.

Under the Iemma Government, the north west metro became a showpiece of propaganda designed to show everyone the Government's new found commitment to borrow money for much-needed public transport. At his exit new conference, Michael Costa confirmed there'd been an almighty row in Cabinet over the north west metro; he'd been rolled.

MICHAEL COSTA: We've got to push out our capital program and it's no secret that I'm not a fan of the north west railway.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: So we have to wait to see if the north west metro survives the mini-Budget process. There's no doubt Michael Costa has softened up the public for its axing or radical modification.

Bob and Betty Walker believe that while some reprioritising of capital works projects may be necessary along with some economic stimulus, the state's triple A credit rating is not at risk.

You, I take it, would be surprised if the state does lose its triple A credit rating?

BOB WALKER: I'd be rather shocked because there doesn't seem to be any justification for it and nor have the credit rating agencies indicated that is even a likelihood.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: So, what do you think's at play here?

BOB WALKER: Oh, it's a common practise when there's a change of government, change of minister for some bureaucrats to wheel up their pet projects and their pet scare stories. I mean, a case in point is this talk about a decline in state revenues. The fact is the Government publishes monthly figures about its revenues, but for some reason, nothing's been published since May.

..............................

Back on 24 June 2008 we notice this Citizen's right of reply to Michael Costa then Treasurer of NSW who has the smell of dead cat about him now in the politics of NSW, via largish PDF file off the parliamentary website (at least with Explorer brower if not Firefox):

Appendix 1

Response by Professor Bob Walker and Ms Betty Con Walker, agreed to by

Professor Bob Walker and Ms Betty Con Walker and the Committee, according to standing order 203(4)(b)

We seek a Citizen’s Right of Reply regarding comments made by the Hon Michael Costa MLC in the

Legislative Council on 6 March 2008 regarding the proposed privatisation of the State's electricity industry and issues relating to public sector financial management.

We believe that Mr Costa’s statements under privilege are wrong and that they have adversely affected our reputation; and have the potential to injure us in our occupation and/or trade (Bob Walker as a Professor of Accounting with expertise in government finances; Betty Con Walker as an economist with experience in both the public and private sectors).

Mr. Costa was asked a question by Dr John Kaye on the basis of the contents of our jointly authored book, Privatisation: Sell off or sell out? released with a New Introduction that morning at Parliament House.

Dr Kaye specifically referred to two pieces of information contained in the New Introduction, namely:

the more than 25 per cent rate of return on equity of the six electricity agencies being considered for privatisation, and the 93 per cent of the electricity retail market served by the three Government agencies with 7 per cent being served by privately owned retailers.

Dr Kaye asked Mr Costa why the Government’s submission to the Unsworth Inquiry referred to a much lower rate of return of 5 per cent and a much higher proportion of 20 per cent of electricity customers as being served by privately owned retailers.

The rate of return on equity of 25.2 per cent rate, reported in the New Introduction, was calculated on the basis of detailed analysis of the audited financial statements of the six agencies for 2006-07. Data regarding the market share of state-owned retailers (Energy Australia: 44.1%, Integral Energy: 25.0%, and Country Energy: 23.8%) and of privately owned retailers (7%) was sourced from the Standard & Poor’s, Industry Report Card: After Weathering A Stormy Year, Will Valuations Hold Up For  Australian Government-Owned Energy Utilities Facing Privatization?, 12 February 2008.

Mr Costa did not answer Dr Kaye’s questions. Instead he attacked the content of our book, and did so by referring to one of the authors – Bob Walker. Since the book is a joint publication, we believe that any attack on its content is an attack on both authors.

In particular, Mr Costa accused Bob Walker of being wrong on four separate times without providing a single example. He stated variously:

Bob Walker is wrong.

Bob Walker has been wrong on a number of issues.

Bob Walker is consistently wrong.

Bob Walker gets these analyses wrong because he assumes that State governments and some national governments can borrow at some preferential rate.

Mr Costa also stated:

One problem Bob Walker has regarding his economic and financial analysis … is that he thinks that governments can borrow for nothing. That is his fundamental problem.

These statements are false. Neither of us has ever made such claims. A reading of our book or of several submissions prepared to various Parliamentary inquiries will show that to be the case. The differential between the cost of public sector and private sector borrowings and the impact of that differential are reviewed in our book at Ch 5 and elsewhere, while a 22 page technical appendix examines the related concept of the 'cost of capital'.

Mr Costa also asserted a lack of understanding on our part of key financial management issues (which are our areas of expertise) on a further four occasions. The assertions focused on our understanding of credit ratings, and their impact on interest costs.

In response, we note that that the use of credit ratings began in NSW in the 1980s. Before then, governments were able to borrow without the benefit of credit ratings.

Contrary to Mr Costa's assertions that we believe that government borrowings are 'cost free or at a very low cost', our book provides an extended discussion of yield differentials between differently-rated securities. That discussion was based (among other sources) on information presented in the 1994-95 NSW Budget Papers, which reported that during 1993-94 the average yield differential was only 0.25 to 0.35 per cent, and that a downgrading of the NSW credit rating by two notches - from AAA to AA - would have added less than $20 million to the NSW Government interest bill in the first year (at a time when Gross State Debt was reported to be almost $31 billion).

Further, our book acknowledged that governments with high levels of borrowings relative to Gross National Product or Gross State Product, may have to commit a high proportion of their expenditures to interest costs. However it also pointed out that this was not relevant to Australian federal or state governments, because of their relatively low (and historically low) levels of debt.

We also noted that on 11 October 2007, the credit rating agency, Moody’s Investors Service, in confirming its Aaa credit rating of the State and describing the outlook as ‘stable’, reported that the State has the capacity to take on more debt, and that State Owned Corporations, such as water and electricity utilities, are capable of funding new infrastructure investment since their debt is selfsupporting.

In summary, each one of Mr Costa's defamatory statements is contrary to evidence.

Posted by editor at 11:27 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 22 September 2008 2:38 AM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

Sold for $47m .... this house in Vaucluse.
Photo: Louie Douvis

Well it takes all kinds.

In the last several months we have been noticing our cohort in the news. Yesterday (p3 Sydney Daily Telegraph) it was the rather beautiful kind hearted Marina Ritossa of tall slender Croatian extraction and wife of rich man Ivan Ritossa even back then in 1990-91. Marina started out in the local property section of multinational Baker & McKenzie lawyers same year as us in litigation. We remain eternally grateful for her helping carry a brutish bill of costs up Phillip St in 3 copies by 4 volumes we had to file by a deadline one Friday for senior partner Keith McConnell.

We won that one against a Hong Kong developer but the firm gave moi the flick soon after in the property crash of 91, while she is the rich patron of the Royal Flying Doctor Service today as well as purchaser with Ivan of a $47M pad in Vaucluse. Phew.

17 years back Marina knew all about how the "Title deeds" column in one of the property newspapers indicated who was on the way up and who was going down and now she's in the story herself.

Then there is Gordon Plath, class of 1989 ANU law school now manager of environmental litigation at the NSW Dept of Environment and Climate Change in charge of 15 or 20 bods after starting out in criminal prosecutions. He doesn't look any different to 20 years ago to his picture in the professional pages of the Weekend Australian Sept 13-14 08. Just hope Mr Plath is nailing the white collar polluters and rednecks according to his mandate (?).

Then there is Shane Barber, another lawyer starting out at Bakers in 1990 who turned up in the legal pages of the The Australian as some high power IP and technology lawyer as partner at firm Truman Hoyle. Nothing exceeds like success.

We wrote in our penultimate post about whipper snapper at 36 Kirsty Ruddock on her altruistic and acclaimed trajectory in the public eye as principal of the EDO - not strictly this writer's cohort but a contemporary of sorts.

Other sundry folks - Tom Baddeley from the ANU law school in the eighties on abc tv there in WA, or was now some Economic think tank, and handy Aussie Rules player too. We might even have noticed a relative Chris McLoughlin as reporter on abc Adelaide tv news last night.

Then there's the discovery of grandfather we never met Eric McLoughlin, journo, and confidant of Robert Menzies famous founder of the Liberal Party of Australia, not quite my politics but there you go. I do suspect we express alot of his genes - the good ones!?

Bete noire of HIH corporate criminals is another ANU lad Robert Beech Jones now at the Sydney Bar. Tragically we learned of high school contemporay Brendan Keilar's successful legal career in Melbourne only to hear of his foul murder. 

Which in aggregate reminds of a collectivist radical academic in the USA who said it's hard sometimes in the hippie herbal food co-op when your peers are so financially successful and embraced by the Establishment and you are down in the humble grovel as undoubtely the SAM operation is.  Yet it is the life we choose, and that's the point really that constantly reinforces our sense of self. We've done a few things so far and it ain't over yet!

Time stands still for no one so best to play the long game:

Posted by editor at 8:42 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 23 September 2008 11:35 AM NZT

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