Occasionally adding corroborative details to add verisimilitude to otherwise bald and unconvincing, but veridicous accounts with careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination.
Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.
Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.
And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.
And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.
And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. (33-37)
What happened over the seven plenteous years:
And [Joseph] gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. (48)
What happened when the seven years of plenteousness were ended:
And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.
And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do.
And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands. (54-57)
In times of plenty, we see, Joseph advocated laying a store for the inevitable time of dearth.
What the Prime Minister of Australia said unto Australians yesterday:
The Pharaoh might have kept one fifth part of the grain from the field but the Tax Commissioner collects in dollars and cents.
Uh huh. So, a modern Government cannot lay stores during plenteous times for times of dearth? What happened over four plenteous years and thereafter in the case of the Prime Minister’s imaginary “wage earner, John”:
For a period in 2003 to 2007 every year his employer gave him a sizeable bonus.
He was grateful but in his bones knew it wouldn’t last.
The bonuses did stop and John was told that his income would rise by around five per cent each year over the years to come.
That’s the basis for his financial plans.
Now, very late, John has been told he won’t get those promised increases for the next few years – but his income will get back up after that to where he was promised it would be.
What is John’s rational reaction?
To respond to this temporary loss of income by selling his home and car, dropping his private health insurance, replacing every second evening meal with two-minute noodles.
Of course not.
As always with our dichotomizing PM, there are ever only two extreme choices to make. Could not John exchange his car for a smaller, cheaper model? Could he not economise without adopting a monochromatic, all-or-nothing approach? Could he not have set aside some funds, sincehe knew “in his bones” that his prosperity “wouldn’t last”? Of course not. Notice that the “loss of income” which the PM describes is not so much a loss of income but a brief cessation of expected increases. Notice also that, as the PM uses her imaginary friend to represent the country, she assumes that current financial difficulties are merely temporary and slight and that, mysteriously, prosperous times will return in a few years. What is the PM’s “rational” recommendation:
A rational response would be to make some responsible savings, to engage in some moderate borrowing, to get through to the time of higher income with his family and lifestyle intact and then to use the higher income to pay off the extra borrowing undertaken in the lean years.
The PM, after alluding briefly to a sound policy of laying stores during times of plenty in order to be prepared for times of dearth, contrarily recommends that people should spend when times are good and borrowwhen times are bad in the certain expectation that, somehow, good times will resume. It is no wonder that this inept PM, with the connivance of her incompetent accomplices, is ruining Australia’s economy. How the PM summarises her exegesis:
This revenue discussion is not historical, it’s very contemporary.
There is new news here compared to six months ago—and new news here compared even to three months ago.
Pharaoh said unto Joseph, “There is none so discreet and wise as thou art.” Our prime minister is no Joseph.
“Let’s talk about John!” Looking very wan, the inept PM intones “Let’s talk about John” (a bogus man on whom she could project wonted lies—a noumenon which she’ll use anon). The poor cove has lost all hope; his prospects are gone; and, living upon credit, damns Gillard’s stupid global warming con. The Treasurer, Swan, is livid since his fictions have now been outshone. Gillard’s benison to those folk whose lives she’s wrecked? “Let’s talk about John!”
UPDATE I:
“Simpletons and Sloganeers” “Inevitably, confronted with a fact, economic simpletons and sloganeers will squirm and throw in arguments to distract.”* The PM, of course, would never bend our ears with less than truthful words! She would not enact a “carbon” tax once she’d given an exact undertaking not to do so, or stoke fears or ever break an oath, would she? She’s attacked only because she’s a woman, it appears.
Nonetheless, the PM who claims to oppose “economic simpletons and sloganeers” cannot seem to discern that she is one of those.
UPDATE II:the PM’s scriptwriter seems to have a commendable familiarity with Genesis 41:
“The Pharaoh might have kept one fifth part of the grain from the field”; but the treasurer and I, for now, must take a smaller yield. Irksome checks on our authority, of course, should be repealed,
and we’ll find a way to screw all—not just the rather well-heeled.
Perhaps the PM and her ministers indulge in other Biblical allusions:
Julia Gillard: Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? Wayne Swan: Abbott hath done this!
It seems to be me that the only limit on how much they think they can spend is their imagination.
Somewhat luckily for us, our Government is extremely unimaginative.
As a John or in the John
Gillard and her crew know naught of science
but well they know how to diddle clients;
it should not shock us when these paragons
denominate unwilling victims “johns”.
Sometimes that word refers to “toilet”, too, such aswherein the PM’s sleazy crew would dump us; still, it isn’t fixed in bronze quite yet that all must be reduced to johns.
UPDATE V(30 April): if you listen to the PM dogmatize, recall that she lies and lies and lies and lies.
UPDATE VI(30 April): the PM’s office helpfully provides a transcript of the Question and Answer Session of the Reform Agenda Public Forum; after answering various fawning questions, the PM concluded with this eloquent response:
[Australians]should absorb that news, but they should also absorb the full suite of economic data available to people: jobs continuing to be created, economic growth continuing to be there, us [!] making the wise investments to set us up for a stronger and a smarter and a fairer future, us [!] making responsible savings and asking people to share in the task of putting those savings together.
“John” appears to be the human embodiment of [Gillard’s]government, two weeks before Wayne Swan hands down his fifth Budget, complete with its fifth deficit.
In the real world, a man who found his income reduced would tighten his belt. His family would look at the household budget and figure out what luxuries to give up.
Lamb might be off the menu, for instance, as would the Foxtel subscription, and the HCF membership. The holiday overseas might become a trip to the Forster caravan park. Private schools would have to wait until Year 11.
This is the sort of thrift Australian families have practised as a prudent response to global economic uncertainty, job insecurity, and a mercurial government, with household savings tripling in two years.
But the Prime Minister scoffs at such parsimony.
In “John’s world”—that arcadia of protected jobs, plenty of cash and government benefits that flow like water—, when John’s income is cut, he doesn’t curb spending.
Eat two-minute noodles for dinner? Take his kids out of private school? Perish the thought, says the PM.
He borrows money to keep his “family and lifestyle intact” because tomorrow is always another day of free money.
You can understand John’s behaviour only if, like everyone in government, the public service, academia and a good deal of the media, he has a protected job sheltered from the disciplines of the market.
UPDATE VIII(7 May): our floundering PM said today that she’s “passionate about delivering better opportunities”:
The PM’s Passion
Her “being passionate” means nought
if those passions have no backing
from prudence, skill and learnèd thought.
In all three, she’s sadly lacking.
UPDATE IX(7 May): according to Hon. Wayne Swan, the Treasurer, “nobody has lost any money” after the Government announced that the promised increase to family benefits would never be delivered. He should have a chat with the PM; when her imaginary friend, “John”, was told that “he [wouldn’t] get those promised increases”, she referred to his “loss of income”.
We already know that Hon. Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, is a crooked liar. Today, St. George’s Day, 2GB’s Ben Fordham publicly confirmed on his radio show that the statement he made in March, when interviewing the PM, that she is being investigated by Victoria Police, for alleged fraud, is true. Naturally, our mendaciloquent PM denies everything.
Si noscat mendaciloquam, oderit Julia Gillard
et nostram haec ministram illam prima nefaria primam.
(“If she knew our mendacious prime minister
even base Julia Gillard would hate her.”)
Listen to Ben Fordham’s statementon April 23, 2013.
Listen to Ben Fordham’s interview with Hon. Julia Gillard on 7 March, 2013.
Remember, the PM has already lied in Parliament:
Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:48): I have in fact dealt with these questions on the public record. I stand by those truthful statements, and the construction that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is trying to put on them is not a fair construction. I refer her to my extensive press conference, where I dealt with all of these issues in a great deal of detail.
Neither she nor her Canberra press lackeys referred to the power of attorney in the transcript which her own office released. By saying she “dealt with these questions on the public record”—specifically, the power of attorney which she “witnessed” as well as the mortgage wherewith it was secured—she willfully misled the House.
UPDATE II: see Grace Collier’s “Diary” in The Spectator of 2 March 2013:
Hedley [Thomas] and I have both written about the ‘AWU scandal’. Some weeks ago I sent the following question to the PM’s office after speaking with the police: ‘I am asserting that the PM is a subject of a police enquiry. I believe the investigation was initiated in response to an allegation made against the PM, specifically that she created a false document … I am wanting to know whether the PM is aware the investigation is into whether this allegation is correct and if so whether she intends to comply. By comply I mean respond to any police requests for interview that may be made.’ And the PM’s response: ‘The investigation into this matter has been known for some time. As the Prime Minister has repeatedly made clear, she was not involved in any wrongdoing. The investigation is a matter for the police.’ The Prime Minister hasn’t denied my assertion that she is a subject of a police enquiry, nor have the Victorian Police corrected it. It strikes me as ironic that a Prime Minister whose primary impairment is a lack of trust from the electorate may soon be interviewed by the Fraud Squad over her rôle in a major crime.
Have we an obligation to listen to our leaders with respect?
Are honour and integrity virtues we may rightfully expect?
Listen to the PM; there is never any honour to detect: she’s a liar.
That woman must equivocate, ever fabricating through each day,
she’s misrepresenting and deceitfully inventing all the way;
misleading, misinforming, the truth is something she will never say: she’s a liar.
It aint so complicated that she’s prevaricated to us all;
perfidious, mendacious, duplicitous in matters great and small,
simply put she tells untruth, accordingly we have to make this call: she’s a liar.
Victorian police are escalating their investigation into the union scandal involving Julia Gillard's former boyfriend, engaging forensic accountants to track hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly suspect payments.
As detectives continue to interview key witnesses in the Australian Workers Union slush fund scandal, Ms Gillard yesterday denied claims from a Sydney radio host that she was being investigated by police over the affair. […]
“The police are interested in comments made by Julia Gillard in the interview with me,” Mr Fordham told his listeners.
Mr Fordham told listeners he knew “for a fact that the Prime Minister is being investigated” by the Victorian police.
But a spokesman for Ms Gillard said the PM has “never been contacted by police and never been asked to provide a statement”.
Well, I imagine that, sometimes, people may be investigated by the police without their being informed, and even without being asked for a statement, until police have completed other investigations and obtained relevant documents. We need not pay very much attention to any typically equivocatory denial from the PM or anything which her lying lackeys assert.
UPDATE VI (24 April): shortly after midnight, mirabile dictu, I could find no reference to Fordham’s claim in either the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.
A former union employee who has told of depositing $5,000 into Julia Gillard’s bank account at the direction of her allegedly corrupt union boss boyfriend has been asked by Victoria Police to make a formal statement as part of an ongoing fraud investigation.
The request came as the Prime Minister denied allegations made by radio broadcaster 2GB’s Ben Fordham that she was under direct investigation.
Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to the money.
Fordham said Victoria Police had verified to him that she was being investigated and asked him to make a statement about responses Ms Gillard gave in a March 7 radio interview about her conduct in an alleged fraud involving several hundred thousand dollars in the early 1990s. The Australian is aware that detectives have questioned more than 12 witnesses since late last year who had direct knowledge of the Australian Workers Union slush fund scandal, the role of Ms Gillard at law firm Slater & Gordon and admissions by former AWU official Ralph Blewitt that he helped perpetrate a major fraud at the union.
In the days after a heated 2GB radio interview in March, during which Julia Gillard was questioned closely about the AWU slush fund scandal, a detective in Victoria’s Fraud Squad, Ross Mitchell, made a strategic decision.
One answer the Prime Minister gave during a dogged tussle in her interview with Ben Fordham stood out.Mitchell knew it when he heard it. The other detectives knew it too.
Although seemingly innocuous to those not involved in the probe, Gillard’s answer was new and pivotal. It meant police in Melbourne would need a sworn statement from Fordham in Sydney, even though as a journalist he would be expected to subsequently disclose some key facts.
The actions that Mitchell and other police took in seeking further information from Fordham led to him stating in unequivocal terms on his radio show this week something that had been previously cryptically and very carefully inferred—the Prime Minister is under formal Victoria Police investigation as a result of the 18-year-old Australian Workers Union fraud.Fordham has kept a pledge to police to not publicly reveal more than this. […]
Neither the Police Commissioner of Victoria, Ken Lay, nor the Prime Minister’s office has sought to dispute any of Fordham’s assertions. Nor is the PM’s office now suggesting, as it did in March, that the Victoria Police investigation has nothing to do with Gillard. The reality is that Gillard’s office cannot know the details of the probe.
Lay, who has had the opportunity to correct the record if he decided that Fordham had jumped to a wrong conclusion in naming Gillard, let it stand. […]
For an alleged fraud being taken seriously since late last year by seasoned detectives, Australians should ask hard questions about why large sections of their media, and particularly the public broadcaster, still baulk at reporting the AWU scandal; downplay the story or, worse, self-censor; ask few or no questions; and even mock journalists who have lost their jobs for pursuing it—Michael Smith and Glenn Milne.
Australia’s best-resourced media outlet, the ABC, has scarcely, if at all, reported the ongoing police investigation this year. Only after Media Watch questioned the ABC’s obvious reticence to look at the AWU story in any meaningful way last year, the 7.30 program belatedly weighed in.[…]
For Mitchell's taskforce, one of the most interesting features of [Ralph]Blewitt’s story is that he has told it in the knowledge that he faces going to prison. Having admitted to police an incriminating role in what he calls a fraud, Blewitt can be prosecuted and convicted. There has been no deal.
One of the planks ofBlewitt’s story, which 2GB’s Fordham latched on to in his interview with the Prime Minister in March, concerns a “power of attorney” document bearing Gillar’'s signature as the official witness. According to Blewitt, it was a false document.
Blewitt has repeatedly said the “power of attorney” was not worth the paper on which it was written. The document permitted Wilson to buy the Fitzroy terrace house (in Blewitt's name) at auction. Blewitt, who was living in Perth at the time, claims it is bogus—that Gillard could not have “witnessed” it as they were thousands of kilometres apart at the time.
In previous rejections of Blewitt's claims about this document, the Prime Minister insisted she always witnessed such documents properly as a solicitor. But Fordham tells Inquirer that all of Gillard’s previous answers seemed to avoid declaring outright that she and Blewitt were in the same room when the power of attorney was witnessed.
“I wanted a straight answer from the PM on that simple question when I interviewed her in March and I wasn’t going to let it go,” he said.
Gillard finally confirmed [i.e., asserted] to Fordham that she and Blewitt were in the room when the document was signed. It is an assertion that could only be [proven] wrong if Victoria Police have evidence placing them on opposite sides of Australia.
UPDATE X (27 April): the supposed “specific power of attorney” (note the lack of a second witness):
When you sign your enduring power of attorney form, your signaturemust be witnessed by two people.
Both witnesses must:
•be present when you sign the form
•be 18 years of age or older
•have full legal capacity
At least one of your witnesses must be a person authorised to witnessstatutory declarations under theOaths,Affidavits and StatutoryDeclarations Act 2005(see Appendix B). You may choose to have twoauthorised witnesses, but this is not essential.
The person who is not an authorised witness must not be a party tothe enduring power of attorney (i.e. a witness cannot be a sole, jointor substitute attorney or a person involved in a marksman or readoverclause in the enduring power of attorney).
It is however also recommended that the authorised witness is nota party to the enduring power of attorney, and can be seen as anindependent witness.
I doubt that many reasonable people, knowing of Julia Gillard’s relationship with Bruce Wilson, would contend that she was “an independent witness”. Victoria also requires two witnesses; see the Victorian Office of the Public Advocate’s helpful advice in “Take Control—A kit for making powers of attorney and guardianship” (p. 41):
The two witnesses must sign the ‘Certificate of witnesses’. You cannot be a witness and neither can your attorney. At least one of the witnesses must be someone who is not relatedto you or the person(s) you appoint as your attorney(s). One of the witnesses must be authorised by law to witness the signing of statutory declarations.
When Ben Fordham asked the PM whether she were in the same room as Mr. Blewitt when she supposedly witnessed the “specific power of attorney”, she replied:
I properly witness documents as a lawyer. So you can believe Mr Blewitt or you can believe me, Ben. I’m not overly fussed what you conclude, but I witnessed documents properly as a lawyer. […] I’ve witnessed documents properly as a lawyer. […] I don’t remember each document, but I witnessed documents properly. […] I witness documents properly. […] I witness documents properly. […] my practice as a lawyer was to witness documents properly.
I should hope that a qualified solicitor, in order to witness a document properly, would ascertain that the said document was drafted with a reasonable level of competence and that the proper number of suitable witnesses were present. Section 106 of the Victorian Instruments Act (1958), which Julia Gillard, who was practising as a solicitor in Victoria, should have known, is:
Execution of powers of attorney
(1) An instrument creating a power of attorney may be executed by, or by direction and in the presence of, the donor of the power. (2) Where such an instrument is executed by a person by direction and in the presence of the donor of the power, two other persons shall be present as witnesses and shall attest the instrument.
I dreamed our prime deceiver,
arrested by “the man”;
protested, “I’m your leader!”
as they put her in the van.
She feigned a stout denial,
and claimed she was naïve;
the jury at her trial,
though, ignored her make-believe.
Once in gaol she might spend years
considering her fall;
may her shame—at last!—and tears
be a lesson for us all.
The Latest Scheme
Accounts aren’t robust;
Gillard says new taxes could
stop things going bust.
In her greedy lust
for pelf, she feigns some care, but
can’t hide her disgust
for crippled kids thrust
near her. Remember:all her pledges are as dust.
People surely must
consider how well Gillard last set up a trust.
UPDATE XII(10 May):a reminder of the PM’s supposed position on telling the truth when she was in opposition; on October 5, 2005, Julia Gillard said in the House of Representatives:
The Labor Party is the party of truth-telling. When we go out into the electorate and make promises, do you know what we would do in government? We would keep them.
When we say them, we mean them. That is the difference between [the then Coalition Government] and us. If I were Minister for Health it would be my duty to implement lock, stock and barrel—word for word—exactly what we had promised in the election campaign.
Ha!
UPDATE XIII(16 May):
Sunt lacrimae rerum Introducing a
new Bill, Julia Gillard
chokes up, weeps and cries
“Disabled people
will be supported quite soon!”
As ever, she lies:
in a few weeks, a
small trial will commence; the
main scheme will take years
to begin. Gillard
has, for many, caused much pain
without any tears.
Police from the Victorian Fraud Squad have seized boxes of legal documents from Julia Gillard’s former employer, Slater & Gordon lawyers, as part of an ongoing probe into the AWU slush fund scandal. The documents were removed from the firm’s Melbourne offices after the execution of a search warrant and co-operation between the firm and detectives, sources told The Australian yesterday. Fraud Squad detectives want to examine all legal files related to controversial legal work done by Ms Gillard and the firm for her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, the allegedly corrupt Australian Workers Union senior official, and his union sidekick, Ralph Blewitt, in the 1990s.[…] Mr Wilson and Ms Gillard, whose relationship ended [according to her] over the AWU scandal in 1995, have repeatedly and strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and accused Mr Blewitt of being unreliable and a liar. It is understood that while Mr Blewitt wants police to examine all AWU-related legal documents held by Slater & Gordon, Mr Wilson will seek to prevent police from examining the files that are relevant to him.[…] Victoria Police, which has had a taskforce of detectives working on the AWU investigation since late 2012, have repeatedly declined to comment on their most sensitive probe. Police last month sought documents from the archives of the AWU’s West Australian and Victorian branches, in which Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt worked in the 1990s during the alleged fraud. The legal work done at Slater & Gordon for the two men includes the Prime Minister’s role in helping Mr Wilson establish the AWU Workplace Reform Association. Ms Gillard says she provided legal advice to help set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association, which Mr Wilson later used to carry out the alleged fraud. She later described the association as a “slush fund” for the re-election of union officials, but said she had no knowledge of its operations. The slush fund was used by Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt to bill building company, Thiess, for hundreds of thousands of dollars for work that was not performed. The union was not aware of the existence of the slush fund. Slater & Gordon was the law firm for the AWU at the time. Money was withdrawn from the slush fund to purchase a $230,000 Fitzroy terrace house in Mr Blewitt’s name at a 1993 auction Ms Gillard attended with Mr Wilson, who subsequently lived in the property. Slater & Gordon handled the conveyancing and helped provide finance.
Victoria Police will seek to use documents taken from prominent law firm Slater & Gordon in framing potential criminal charges over the Australian Workers Union slush fund scandal. Fraud squad detectives are expected to appear before a Melbourne magistrate within two weeks to obtain approval to use documents seized under warrant last month from the firm. […] The investigation focuses on the 1993 purchase of a Fitzroy house involving some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly misappropriated from the AWU Workplace Reform Association by former senior AWU official Bruce Wilson, who was then the boyfriend of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Ms Gillard, then a partner at Slater & Gordon, gave legal advice in relation to establishing the association—ostensibly for promoting work safety and training—which she later confirmed to be a “slush fund” to bankroll union elections. She later created a power of attorney to enable Mr Wilson to buy the property in Kerr Street, Fitzroy, in the name of union crony Ralph Blewitt. Mr Blewitt has confirmed in a statement to police that he was involved in fraud but both Ms Gillard and Mr Wilson have vehemently denied any illegal or improper conduct. Detectives are believed to have removed two boxes of documents from the La Trobe Street head offices of Slater & Gordon, including one labelled “Wilson”. […] Mr Blewitt, who says he did not sign the Wilson power of attorney until after the property was purchased and that he never benefited from the deal, has already publicly waived client privilege over his dealings with Slater & Gordon. […] A team involving as many as 12 detectives has worked on the AWU investigation since late last year. It is believed they have interviewed more than 60 people including former employees of Slater & Gordon who have provided important leads. Sources said it was unlikely any charges would be laid before the election, but this was due to the complexity of the investigation rather than any desire to avoid embarrassing the government.
UPDATE XVI(13 June, 2014): at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, Bruce Wilson claimed that Ralph Blewitt did indeed sign the supposed Specific Power of Attorney on 4 February, 1993:
UPDATE: see Michael Smith’s “Deny, Deny, Deny. True to form and entirely unbelievable”.
Of course, ABC News fails—yet again—to mention this important story.
UPDATE II: see Grace Collier’s “Diary” in The Spectator of 2 March 2013:
UPDATE III: a song:
See also “Unfit to Lead” and “The PM Lied”.
UPDATE IV: Andrew Bolt joins in the fun with “Claim: Police investigating Gillard on slush fund”.
UPDATE V: see “PM denies AWU investigation claims”, by Steve Lewis and Carly Lawrence:
Well, I imagine that, sometimes, people may be investigated by the police without their being informed, and even without being asked for a statement, until police have completed other investigations and obtained relevant documents. We need not pay very much attention to any typically equivocatory denial from the PM or anything which her lying lackeys assert.
UPDATE VI (24 April): shortly after midnight, mirabile dictu, I could find no reference to Fordham’s claim in either the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.