In Case You Missed It….

…Barry O’Farrell resigned on Wednesday.

It turns out that O’Farrell did receive a bottle of $3000 Grange (1959 Vintage) from Nick Di Girolamo and did write a thank you note. But, given he vehemently denied it on Tuesday and may (or may not – I could be wrong) have said that he would resign if proven otherwise, he’s had to go.

On Tuesday, following his appearance at ICAC he spoke to the media.

Then overnight, it appears Di Girolamo found the letter and gave it to ICAC, which meant that O’Farrell had to resign – you can see his speech here on the ABC website. Then, O’Farrell was called back to ICAC, speculation arose as to who would become the new Premier of NSW and Tony Abbott spoke to the media. Abbott was mainly talking about Badgery’s Creek, but that was taken over by the news of the resignation – and the first question asked by a journalist at Abbott’s press conference went like this:

From there, Barry O’Farrell pulled out of welcoming the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George to Sydney, and has been keeping quiet ever since. The reactions from the other sides of NSW Politics have been interesting, with John Robertson (NSW Labor Opposition Leader) and John Kaye (Greens MLC) both talking to the media about it.

On Thursday, Gladys Berejiklian and Mike Baird released a statement saying they would run on the same ticket for the party leadership with Baird as Premier and Berejiklian as deputy leader. Pru Goward put her hand up for the deputy leadership in the morning, before pulling out after lunch as did Anthony Roberts. Meanwhile, Jillian Skinner, Barry O’Farrell’s deputy stepped aside to allow for Gladys Berejiklian to take up the role. Both Baird and Berejiklian were elected unopposed to the Liberal leadership.

And that is it for now, as Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian spend Easter reshuffling NSW State Cabinet.

The Week That Was – March 30 to April 5

So this week was pretty busy too for politics what with Western Australia going back to the polls to re-elect their six senators – Louise Pratt copped judgement for voting below the line and putting herself first – but hey, she has every right to do that and that is how she decided to vote.

The week began with a protest from Qantas workers who are upset that 5000 jobs are going. They are threatening to engage in civil disobedience, but have said that they will warn customers and the public if they plan on doing anything, unlike Alan Joyce when he just decided to ground Qantas flights back in 2011. They have support from some politicians as well, with Bob Katter and Tanya Plibersek attending their protest. Labor has been giving the government a hard time about all these job losses, given they promised to create them, asking if any of the one million jobs they have pledged to create will be in Australia.

We’re starting to hear about the budget a little bit as it gets closer and closer to May. The government has been saying that it’s going to be tough because according to Tony Abbott, “Labor booby-trapped the budget. Labor booby-trapped the budget” – Yes, he did say it twice – and that means its going to be a tough one. Labor seems to think that isn’t the case, and is saying the government is being over dramatic in order to get away with making huge cuts. To be quite honest I would not be surprised – given that booby-trapping a budget would have been quite difficult if it is computer based – maybe it had a virus…

The International Court of Justice in the Hague has ruled that Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling expeditions are not for scientific purposes as the Japanese have claimed. The court ruling is final, but the Japanese are expected to continue whaling in the Northern Pacific Ocean because they can. But it is a win for Australia and most, if not all, Australians are pretty happy about it.

Also this week, the government is being accused of moving asylum seekers for their own purposes – and not good ones. According to the government, Villawood Detention centre is being renovated and that means the asylum seekers inside need to be moved. The issue is that there are some asylum seekers at Villawood who are suing the government for protection because of a bungle a few months ago that saw their information put on the Dept of Immigration website, and their court cases are due to start this and/or next week. These asylum seekers are being moved to Curtin Detention Centre in a remote part of northern WA, which has what has set off the conspiracy alarms. The suggestion is that the government is moving them to a remote centre on the other side of the country, where there is limited communications and the possibility of not having contact with their lawyers, such that they will voluntarily leave Australia and return home or drop the cases. There were protests outside Villawood Detention Centre on Friday and Saturday, with people blocking the entries on Friday and others clashing with police on Saturday.

Also this week, Angus Houston was put in charge of the Australian-run search for MH370 and Tony Abbott has promised to look for as long as is possible for the flight, the Malaysian PM also came to visit to check on how it was going and to say thank you, Arthur Sinodinos suffered from ICAC Memory Loss Disorder and the ICAC was gatecrashed.

Tweet of the Week

There was mention that the guy who gatecrashed ICAC is a serial pest….

Is a "Cereal Pest" someone who leaves only a few crumbs in the box? #ICAC @Kate_McClymont

— Steve Williams (@therandomswill) April 4, 2014

Stuff I’ve been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

A dating site in the US prevented Mozilla Firefox users from entering their site before they read a letter about how the Mozilla CEO was homophobic – SFGate

But was this an overreach by activists? – The Advocate