Abbott lies again...... IT’S the curious case of why the Prime Minister’s office lied. On January 1, Prime Minister Tony Abbott hosted the Australian and Indian cricket teams at Kirribilli House. It is a yearly event leading up to the annual SCG New Year’s Test. As usual, when attending a function at the Prime Minister’s Sydney residence, the guests line up one by one and are greeted by the PM. When David Warner reached the front of the line this year, a curious exchange occurred between he and Mr Abbott. It was all filmed by the pool news crew, and distributed to every electronic media outlet in the country to see and hear. PM: “David, hey we sorted out that park which you were anxious about.” Warner: “Oh appreciate it. We might have to have a talk about it.” We saw the exchange in the Channel Nine newsroom so I phoned the PM’s office the next day, January 2, to ask what it was about. After all, the PM sorting out an issue about a local park for a famous Australian sportsman is rather interesting. His office immediately went on the back foot, as if being peppered by Mitch Johnson short balls at the WACA. “It’s a private matter between the PM and David Warner,” was the official, and immediate, line. Hardly. It was spoken about before television cameras. It was then suggested by his office Warner, as a ‘‘constituent’’, was entitled to have a matter looked at by the PM. I then said well, first, Warner lives in Coogee and the PM is the member for Warringah, well over the other side of Sydney Harbour, so he’s hardly a local constituent, and, second, if ‘‘Mavis Temple of Bankstown’’ had an issue with a park concerning her, the PM would not be helping to sort it out. The PM’s office then said Warner raised it with his local member, who brought it to the PM, and this sort of thing ‘‘happened all the time’’. A highly unlikely proposition. A local member would not escalate to the PM’s office a matter about a cricketer and a local park and, second, the PM’s office cannot get bogged down dealing with suburban issues raised by constituents. There are 23 million of us, and we all have issues of some sort. The next fact which made it highly doubtful is that Warner’s local member is Matt Thistlethwaite, the Labor member for Kingsford-Smith. A Labor member would not take such an issue straight to a Liberal PM. A simple check with Thistlethwaite confirmed his office had never heard from Warner. Maybe the state member for Coogee, the Liberal Bruce Notley-Smith, was so concerned about David Warner’s park issue he bypassed premier Mike Baird and went all the way to the top? Notley-Smith went to the same school as Warner, and knows him, but confirmed he never heard from him about a park. The PM’s office told a whopping pork pie. It was, in fact, Warner who raised it — directly — at the corresponding Kirribilli function a year ago. It concerned Heffron Park in Matraville, in Sydney’s working-class southeast, where Warner spent his youth fine-tuning his skills as a batsman and developing into the most lethal stroke-maker in world cricket. For a decade, Randwick Council has had a grand, $20 million redevelopment vision for the huge site, which hosts multiple sports, but was depending on joint state and federal funding. The South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league club plans to abandon its Redfern Oval home and move to a high-performance centre there. In 2013 it looked like a goer, but Warner read an article that suggested the funding may not be forthcoming and that other facilities, including Brookvale Oval in Mr Abbott’s electorate, were seeking funds. So he shirt-fronted the PM about it at Kirribilli, worried Brookvale may be getting Heffron Park’s cash. Two weeks later, he ran into Mr Abbott again and the PM said he hadn’t forgotten. Soon after, the funding was confirmed. It was never in any doubt. And it had nothing to do with Warner or the PM. There was no impropriety. It was always going to happen. So, a year later, the PM was able to greet him at the very function where it was raised a year ago, with a reminder it was all sorted. So why did the PM’s office, said to be in crisis and poor when it comes to media strategy, lie about it, saying it came through the local member? Were they concerned it looked like the PM played favourites, and sorted issues for the rich and famous personally? Probably. But this was not an issue to lie about. A simple: ‘‘Warner was worried about funding for Heffron Park and raised it with the PM at a function but the funding was never in doubt and Warner was informed.’’ That would have been the end of it. Instead, they lied. And lied about something minor. It makes you wonder. Footnote: For his troubles, this year Warner grilled the PM about marginal tax rates, the $7 GP co-payment and possible changes to the GST. PM’s office in bizarre cover-up over chat with Dave Warner IT’S the curious case of why the Prime Minister’s office lied. theaustralian.au ..
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:57:53 +0000
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