From: yar@cs.su.oz.au (Ray Loyzaga)
Subject: Re: NSW Court of Appeal exonerates Greiner?
Reply-To: yar@cluster.cs.su.oz (Ray Loyzaga)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 05:43:27 GMT

In article <chris.714917479@suite.sw.oz.au> chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:
>In <1992Aug25.220714.24052@cs.su.oz.au> yar@cs.su.oz.au (Ray Loyzaga) writes:
>
>>In article <chris.714733702@suite.sw.oz.au> chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:
>>>In <1992Aug25.015204.25364@cs.su.oz.au> yar@cs.su.oz.au (Ray Loyzaga) writes:
>
>>The critical finding by the Supreme Court was that Temby's reasoning
>>was faulty, and no finding of curruption could be sustained. For a
>>person to have acted corruptly in law, he has to have had malice
>>of forethought, Temby himself found so such malice in Greiner or Moore.
>
>This is where you need a jury, and where I agree with you about the
>problems with the ICAC act. Only a jury (at least under our judicial
>system) is capable of deciding if someone could be reasonably expected
>to have known that what they were doing was wrong (ie malicious).
>Without this you would have the ludicrous position that Russ Hinze
>popularised "Conflict of interest? I'm Minister for Racing and I own
>racehorses. They fit together perfectly. Where's the conflict?"

The point is that Ministers are permitted by law to appoint any body,
it is only convention that makes them go through the "interview" stage.
The specifically made sure that they adhered to the letter of the law,
they may not, however, have stuck to the spirit of the Public Service Act,
but then again they don't need to, since the minister can appoint at will.
Temby found that they acted partially toward Metherell when they found
a job for him, it should go without saying that "partial" acts such as this
have been going on since time immemorial, I can assure you that despite
the fact that there are no positions available here, if Ken Thompson
was ever down on his luck and needed a job, we would find some money
for an instant position, the interviews would not be required for a short
term posotion (ala premiers dept), and when it came to creating a full-time
pos, he would be an internal applicant and be a shoe-in.
Sadly, the only corruption that occured was of parliament and the judical
process by the opposition and the independents who played politics
and caused the unjustifiable resignation of 2 ministers to further
their "partial" aims.

>
>>>What matters, of course, is how accountable politicians are to the
>>>people for their partial behaviour. In the case of NSW, they were
>>>immediately and devastatingly accountable.
>
>>The point is when did this "new" accountability occur? Was it in force
>>for Whitlam? Fraser? Hawke? Wran? Unsworth? Or is it only an artifact
>>of the NSW minority government, i.e. all of the above performed
>>similar "partial" appointments but knew that they had a majority
>>in the lower house.
>
>So it is a function of the minority government. Are you suggesting that
>that is an undesirable result of the democratic choice of the people?
>Of the leaders you mention, a significant part in the downfall of all
>(even including Wran) was their perceived abuse of partiality. The people
>had to wait their chance to say so, however.

Last I remember Wran resigned while in government, rather suddenly,
the people did not vote him out. And yes it is an undesirable feature of
a the democratic choice of the people. The government had a mandate
for 4 years, the independents even recognise that, they also vowed
to not vote for a no confidence motion for that term unless there was
a gross act of corruption by the government. Not only was this act not
a gross act of corruption by anyones view, it was not by the government
but by some individuals and after the Supreme Court ruling, it
was not even corruption.

>>I sure am glad that you can read the community's mind, funny that
>>the only poll that I heard during the whole thing was one conducted
>>in Mosman (in the independent Peter (I listen to my constituents) MacDonald's
>>electorate), which found that 56% of people wanted the Independent Party
>>to wait for the appeal before proceeding with any action.
>
>Peter MacDonald's electorate is Manly. There were a series of polls
>run in the Independent held seats by the Liberal party with such weighted
>questions that everyone laughed at them. Do you remember how many of
>those surveyed said that they approved of Greiner and Moore's behaviour?

Weighted questions huh, who cares if they approved, the point is that
they probably didn't think it was enough to have them resign, I can disapprove
of the action, as I do, but that does not mean that I think that they should
resign.

>>Funny, I find the behaviour of Keating outrageous at times, but we
>>don't hold an election each time do we?
>
>But we're not a majority are we, Ray... And of course, the people trusted
>Labour enough in 1990 to give them a good working majority in the Reps.
Funny, last survey I read that a majority of the people think that Keating is
outrageuous at times.

>And then too, the Federal Government wasn't silly enough as to make a
>rod for it's own back like Greiner did with the ICAC. I seem to remember

Oh, trying to set up a body to fight real corruption is silly,
thank god we have some smart operators in the Labor Party, they
won't make that sort of mistake.

>the civil libertarians pointing out how draconian the ICAC legislation
>was when it was first proposed. But then it was intended to show how
>corrupt Labor had been when in office in NSW. Sadly for the Liberals,

Funny, Greiner specifically said that the past is forgotten, they did
not go after any of the rorts in the previous administration so that
the ICAC could not be seen as an anti-labor witch hunt. Temby was appointed
because he was seen to be a Labor appointment and so would dispel
any doubts that the ICAC would be a tool of the Liberals.

>the very first case involved corruption in a Liberal controlled council
>(Waverley), then it was the National party's coastal real-estate deals,
>and so on...

That is right, it only dealt with the current term of government, surprise
surprise it will hassle more Liberals (is the council Liberal controlled
or Civic Reform?).

>"Very courageous, Minister".

I take this to mean that you think Greiner deserved what he got for
an honest attempt to clean up corruption with a body such as ICAC, he can't
help it if after $30million the morons that control the organisation
have not come up with any substantial corruption, with their best effort
to date being the selling or interchanging of supposed "private" data
between large financial organisations, and of course the wrongful
dismissal of a Premier. Excellent stats so far.

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