Dyson Heydon: Abbott's Attack Dog Tactic Turns Around To Bite Him

Dyson never found a single anti-refugee policy he didn't want to rigorously apply.

It appears clear that Heydon accepted an invitation that stated the event was a fundraiser.  No ifs, no buts ... he has to go - if for no other reason than that he was stupid enough to accept.

I can't wait to see the pay back when this feckless government are cast into political oblivion and Abbott is made to face multiple Royal Commissions into his crimes against humanity and his wanton destruction of our environment, institutions and our future.

RossC, excellent observational quote. Just how many "stupids" did it take to bring about this ludicrous situation?

It was pitiful watching some on the Drum panel this evening trying to laugh off the $80 a ticket bash.

That eighty dollars would probably pay for the groceries for a fortnight for some person trying to survive on the lengthening dole queues.. minced meat and Black and Gold baked beans.

Recall an example of a lickspittle judge who brown-nosed the Executive, then James II. The people who rose against the king in the Monmouth Rebellion were eliminated by the Bloody Assizes, presided over by the ever compliant Judge Jeffreys. Old ladies who had helped rebels were sentenced to burning alive - commuted to beheading in one case, men who had supported the ending of divine right monarchy, beloved by James, were hanged, drawn and quartered. 800 were transported to slavery in the West Indies. However this mass slaughter of the opposition did not have a happy ending for either the king or the compliant judge. James II was removed in the Glorious Revolution, forced to flee for his life, and Judge Jeffreys died in the Tower of London where his crimes against the people had taken him.

Could history repeat itself?  The Executive under Abbott seems to regard itself as all-powerful and tries to subordinate the legislature and the judiciary. Perhaps we will also see the legislature rise up and assert itself against would-be tyranny and the tyrant forced to flee and his compliant judge put into a difficult situation. Then of course those old ones had guts. Not too many like that in our parliament.

dodgy gov.com.au.

The government's response to Labor's accusations about Commissioner Dyson include these claims: (1) Mr Dyson is an eminent man; (2) former AG Dreyfus' recognition that Dyson is not necessarily actually biased is a huge own goal (per Pyne). Both assertions are wrong. The eminence of a person is entirely irrelevant to the issue of bias, and the law refers to "presumptive" bias: it is never necessary to show actual bias, the appearance or possibility of bias, or of a conflict of interest, is sufficient. Mr Dyson should resign from the Commission, which would or ought to mean that everything done so far must be expunged and the whole process started again.

Good post Paul-the people you describe obviously live in their own egocentric little worlds,not knowing or caring about the hidden poverty and incredible hardship in Australia.A less circumspect man than I would call them ignorant and delusional, but despite their worldly affluence, they have actually lost the plot and should be pitied.Thank you for your  original caring and compassionate analysis.Keep the faith.

RC into Unions what a joke, the terms of reference had to be reigned in so tight, to prevent more than an iceberg (union corruption) being exposed, in an ocean of corporate corruption in Australia.
A few millions compared to billions of dollars.
Heydon just another partisan parasite, stand down.

Fundraisers should be called what they are - corruption parties, schmoozing parties, graft parties, removing all impediments to businesses doing business parties, devising new favourable laws parties, keeping the bastards dishonest parties, corrupting any notion of fair government parties, landing a great job for when we exit politics parties, landing a great job as a political advisor parties, landing that fat government contract parties, getting a criminal mate into the country parties ............

bigrtreeman:

Very true.

Abbott and Dyson Heydon between them have blown it. This 'Royal Commission' has been a travesty, an inquisition and a farce. Heydon can hang in there like Captain Ahab on the flank of Moby Dick, only that every day will just bring worse stuff, and the longer he hangs on, the worse it will get.

Heydon cannot possibly recover an 'impartial' image. If he was replaced by George Brandis himself, it could hardly be worse. If he's smart he will excuse himself and head for the exit. If he is stubborn, he will stay.

Abbott, being the creature he is, will probably urge him, publicly or privately, to stay.

Eighty bucks a head is just the price of the nosh - and where the players get themselves sorted.  Note that the invite said 'cheques to be made out to Liberal party...'   Those cheques wouldn't be for $80... no sirreee bob!

The $80 meet and greet is merely the appetizer.  The main course and dessert is the cheques, baby!   And you get to listen to the dragon-slayer into the bargain. 

@aussiegreg

Imagine if Gillian Triggs, the Abbott government's bête noire, had accepted an invitation a year before she was appointed to the Australian Human Rights Commission to deliver the annual Herbert Vere Evatt address on Human Rights Law. Her after-dinner speech would be to a roomful of other human-rights lawyers, and her predecessors would have included many eminent people in her chosen academic field. The cover price for the dinner would be about average for this kind of event, but should the takings exceed the cost the profit would go to the organisers, the Labor Lawyers of NSW."

If you're referring to this from Brandis-
The attorney general said this in the face of an invitation to Liberal lawyers emblazoned with the Liberal party logo and a message saying that “all proceeds from this event will be applied to State election campaigning"
Yes it just emphasises the point, he needs to stand down.

Ross, it's spelt IDDIOTT's. Ok. I thought I'd been clear on that some time ago :-)

Aussie Greg - that would dypocrisy. No need for tanks.

peterws gets the chocolates with coffee after desert.

One wonders how a proof of bias (except at the Cotton Tree Bowls Club) would be established? Probably by using one's perception, perchance?

Yeah AG. But thats a hypothetical that could only eventuate if Triggs was a naive idiot. But she isn't, so it didnt.

what is your point again?

(Ps you have seen the commissioners reply implying the offer of a talk to a liberal fundraiser when his commissioner duties have ended, havent you? That is also evidence of political bias)

What's the name of that rule for posting to boards like these which says something like "whoever is the first to mention Hitler loses"?

(I think I've fallen foul of it once or twice myself!)

Also in this hypothetical example I suppose is Triggs on the selection panel for the Rhodes Scolarship, selecting a student of shared extreme political ideals but otherwise average ability, and, years later, hitting the jackpot with a highly-remunerative commission rewarded in return by said student? 

No, that could never happen.  

Oh...Wait...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-17/dyson-heydon-on-panel-approved-tony-abbott-rhodes-scholarship/6703188

@RossC

I always wondered how the Mad Monk scored that Rhodes scholarship! (Of course, in the hypothetical mirror universe, Triggs would have been on the Rhodes committee which selected Bob Hawke, although I would have imagined him as an above-average university student.)

If I was telling tales out of school, I might mention a legal-eagle friend who was bemoaning the decay of a once-fine mind back when Heydon was on the High Court and the calibre of his judgements was thought to be steadily slipping from the high standard he had set as a judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court.

Maybe it wasn't his mind that was slipping, just his work ethic now he had reached the pinnacle of the profession and was no longer motivated by ambition.

Not that any of that changes the tiny glimpse of the organised-crime racket that masquerades as so much of Australian trade unionism – and I have personally been on the receiving end, so I know of which I speak – we have been granted by his Royal Commission.

@boganbludging

I'm not falling for anyone's trick – I was threatened with physical violence by a delegation from the combined building unions in Melbourne and effectively run out of town (a tale I have told elsewhere on these boards) and I have had pallets of my business's stock threatened with "going missing" by a union rep for the shoppies. 

While catching my breath back in Sydney, I was overheard recounting my near-death experience to some friends, with the qualification that I thought my experience had been a rare and exceptional one, by a bloke so scared of the threats that had been made to him and his family by the building unions in Melbourne (he had packed his family up in a weekend and moved to Sydney) he wouldn't even give me his name, he just wanted me to know that my experience, far from being exceptional, was standard going, and the reason why high-rise construction in Melbourne cost 30% more than the same projects in Sydney.

You are right that Abbott wants to keep the involvement of corporations out of this Royal Commission, just as Howard kept it out of the Cole Cover-up Commission, but it is not your paranoia about miners and Murdoch, it is the very real criminal conspiracy between the Victorian building unions and the big builders. 

The builders make all the corrupt payments for phantom payrolls, fake union "services", overmanning etc, and force all their subcontractors to sign similar enterprise "agreements", in return for the unions agreeing to make sure no new competitor will be allowed to survive.

Governments of either political stripe turn a blind eye to all this lawbreaking because they are taking their cut of the proceeds of this crime through affiliation fees if they are Labor or donations if they are Liberal.

They don't have to worry about the police honouring their sworn oaths because coppers across Australia take the view that industrial disputes should be resolved in the industrial arena and they therefore take no interest in criminal conspiracies between unions and employers, any more than they move to prevent unionists and their paid muscle blockading a business in the guise of a "picket".

@ aussiegreg

I'm not falling for anyone's trick – I was threatened with physical violence by a delegation from the combined building unions in Melbourne and effectively run out of town

Sorry to hear that, when did this occur, if it was following the workplace harassment laws coming in, if you had evidence you'd probably have a case.
I've been on the receiving end, of a mob, as well, when part of a small contract work group, apparantly stepping over an unknown line, but in retrospect, it's got nothing on management intimidation, I've seen and the natural affinity for the scum to float to the top of the corporation ladder.
With corporate corruption and bullying you only have to look back to the most prominent case of the miners campaign to remove KRudd, never a more blatant case of high level corporate misbehaviour.

@ Imagine..

I can't wait to see the pay back when this feckless government are cast into political oblivion and Abbott is made to face multiple Royal Commissions into his crimes against humanity and his wanton destruction of our environment, institutions and our future.

Wishful thinking I believe, after all, John Howard is a war criminal and is still freely profitting off it all..

http://theaimn.com/complaint-john-howard-international-criminal-court/

Labor could've done more to hold him accountable, if they were not as equally as corrupt and immoral, wrong and stupid. We may well get rid of Abbott sooner or later, but don't hold your breath in anticipation of anything getting any better. This website seems to convey the idea, get rid of the Coalition government, and everything will be fantastic. If only.

@boganbludging

No, not the union guys, mostly my client in return for him not suing me for the losses he sustained from the union action, and a bit to the suppliers in lieu of my paying their final invoice, although another dispute I had with them about the cost of my website remained unresolved and does so to this day.

It was a kind of third-party case of obtaining property by menaces, but even had I been so suicidal as to go to the police they would not have been interested as it was an "industrial matter".

@swarmi

The rank and file don't deserve them but, under capitalism, everything is corrupt and corrupted.

Not everything, I was never corrupt, and nor were my colleagues, nor a single one of my suppliers, to my knowledge. (Although that may be why no-one on the Left seemed to care about destroying my businesses, putting scores of people out of work in the process in the case of my agricultural products business.)

As for socialism, anything done in the Party's name, from petty corruption in a union down to mass-murder of the innocent, is simply rebadged as virtue.

@ AG

The error you make consistently is to see the world through your own personal perspective. When I say this world is 'corrupt and corrupting' I exclude genuine working people, like your good self, in whole or in part ie in part because, obviously, some working people are corrupted but before we point the finger of blame we need to address the primary cause.

I reserve this accusation of 'corrupt and corrupting' for the system, its institutions, our culture and the class of people, the one percenters, and their lick-spittle attack dogs, who own and control this system, capialism.

Thus you make a very obvious and common error. You dismiss my general assertion against the system because you take it personally. Then you go to show no 'personal' or individual  exceptionism for so-called socialist states and the left in general. There, you only see the system.

Consequently, your world becomes a convenient grab-bag of observations and eclectic explanations. While it may help you get your head around your own personal dilemmas, nothiing can be reasonably generalised from it.