Local Government

OINK: The Age’s Jason Dowling makes up porkie pies about swine flu

Popular Casey councillor Kevin Bradford must have been very surprised when he read in the inner-city daily The Age that he had swine flu.

Indeed the way its story had been written up, it claimed his entire family had the supposedly killer bug and that Bradford had been in contact with his then employer Luke Donnellan MP and that Luke had been in contact with the Premier. Six degrees of separation meets contagion.

SWINE FLU BY
Only trouble was Bradford didn’t have swine flu. He did have the flu and felt dreadful, friends say, but only tested positive to influenza A.

The only swines who flew by were the pigs that would if The Age was an honest journal of record.

Despite the facts and the outrageous breach of privacy in discussing his private health issues anyway, after Bradford spoke with Jason Dowling (who wasn’t in the by-line of the story) politely telling him to go away and mind his own business, The Age wrote:

Kevin Bradford, an electorate officer who works for MP Luke Donnellan, told The Age he and his family had tested positive for the virus and were in home quarantine. Mr Donnellan, who has been in contact with Premier John Brumby this week, said he had “a sniffle”, but did not think he had the virus.

When Mr Bradford was contacted a second time by The Age to discuss his diagnosis, he said he was still being tested. A spokeswoman for Mr Brumby would not comment on whether the Premier was concerned, but said all MPs were following good hygiene practices. (VEXNEWS: A claim unsupported by those familiar with the dirty dunnies diagonally oppose the Parliamentary Library)

We understand that Bradford at no stage told The Age he had swine flu or that he thought it was likely he had it. He the flu and was being tested for it. Why that is anyone else’s business is something we haven’t yet figured out.

LYING CAN BE CONTAGIOUS
VEXNEWS goes in hard but we generally dislike false pronouncements that people have contagious diseases. It is the one area of defamation law that is rightly very strict. At The Age of course anything goes, the raging dinosaur knows its going to die but is desperate to kill a few random right-wing cavemen in its death throes.

It’s not right to make up tall tales about contagious illnesses.This even extends to one of Bradford’s former colleagues deposed Casey councillor Paul Richardson who is widely believed to enjoy close associations with horses. Richo’s job involves him removing horse manure at several lesser known horse tracks where despite the union having coverage of such duties, he refuses to hold an AWU ticket. Some say this is because he is intellectually incapable of completing the membership form, yet union sources say “other arrangements” can be made in the event of illiteracy.

Dumped councillor Richardson has struggled to let go of the council that let him go and still attends meetings, asking at least two questions at each meeting. Such is his demeanour and close interactions with horses that some fear he has caught a dreaded brain contagion that comes from caressing a horse from behind. We have no evidence that this is the case other than Richardson’s strange conduct. There is no reason to think the illness would spread if left untreated.

SAM “BENZ” AZIZ BACK IN TOWN
On a serious note, Richardson has recently been paying out on wealthy black Mercedes Benz driver and Customs official Sam Aziz. This is unfortunate because Aziz was seen to have adopted the horse manure specialist, even on occasion providing Richo with Dorothy Dix questions in advance for council meetings. Because reading is not a strong suit, Aziz is believed to have coached him orally, a distressing mental picture but understandable in the circumstances.

For all that, Aziz is not beyond hope even if his choice of errand boys appears to be biased in favour of the diseased or retarded. Some say Aziz is learning from past errors and is perhaps more politically savvy than other colleagues associated with Inga Peulich. Aziz, who has been contemplating rejoining the ALP, has discussed his political ambitions with family and friends and still hopes to be in Parliament after rebuilding his ties with the Labor Right’s NUW group. His high rank in Customs and wife’s wealth certainly equip him to put up a good fight should the occasion arise. South-east ALP figures tell VEXNEWS Aziz would be welcomed back, as long as he distanced himself from “loons” like Richardson.

The ex-councillor and horse caresser has previously admitted to “dirty dancing” in full public view with the ex-partner of one of his former council colleagues in a Jerry Springer style vendetta of the kind that gave the former Casey council a terrible reputation.

REJECTING RICHO
Richardson recently got the message that even Aziz wanted nothing more to do with him after the Council unanimously resolved to take special security measures to deal with Richardson’s threatening presence in the Council gallery. A physical barrier and extra security were ordered, with the council officers directing that Richardson cease his email harassment of individual councillors and submit his constant stream of bizarre emails to a brave officer who had volunteered for the task.

The Baillieu faction Liberal Inga Peulich is a good sport and is one of few on either side of politics in the upper house with a pulse but her ongoing associations with the anti-Semite Ken Aldred are a worry. We think she could do so much better than him. Even last night, Aldred’s scrutineer in the Deakin preselection was disgraced former Casey councillor Mick Morland, who has previously been caught stealing beer from the council premises before being unceremoniously dumped by the voters.

If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, in the case of Morland and Aldred it is hard to tell who is the dog and who is the parasite. Both are a disgrace to conservative politics, which if properly implemented on local councils would put an end to the high-spending, high-taxing empire-building policies of pretty much all council CEOs, like Casey’s Mike Tyler.

It is an ongoing source of mystery to council observers why Liberal party members support the big-spender waste-minstrel. Led by Lorraine Wreford and others, they have defended Tyler without question and have totally succumbed to the kind of local administration that ensures rates and spending go up constantly without any serious evaluation of what the council delivers the community and what kind of damage soaring rates does to economic prosperity and community harmony. They might carry a Liberal party membership card but they check their values at the door every time the enter the council chamber to deliver a voracious and ever-expanding Council bureaucracy anything it wants, whenever it wants it. They are Liberals in name only.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.