week in review july 31

HE many never make it to The Lodge but Tony Abbott sealed his place in history yesterday by becoming the first Australian politician to acknowledge not only his publisher and his priest at the launch of his new book, but also his celibacy adviser.

No, not his celebrity adviser ... his celibacy adviser.

"It's fabulous to have you here," Abbott boomed, as the crowd at Sydney's Wharf Restaurant turned to stare at a woman standing at the back of the room.

To uproar, Abbott then added: "Thank you for your advice!"

Abbott was referring to counsel offered by Josephine Ul, and subsequently ignored by Abbott, when he was young, handsome, and considering the priesthood.

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Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has disputed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's claim Australia is facing the worst economic crisis since the depression.

Mr Turnbull has written an essay in response to Mr Rudd's essay last weekend, which has been published in today's Australian newspaper.

He heavily criticised Mr Rudd for "Orwellian" spin, describing the Prime Minister as a "would-be philosopher king issuing edits about how the world should be governed better".

He criticised Mr Rudd for not crediting previous governments with leaving Australia well-prepared for the recession.

Mr Turnbull says it is a falsehood to say it is the worse economic period since the 1930s and that conditions were far worse in the early 1990s.

In response on ABC Radio's Saturday AM, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner called Mr Turnbull's essay a rant.

"[The essay] has almost entirely ignored the big issues facing Australia, that is, the global recession and the threat to jobs," he said.

"That's the number one issue that Australians are concerned about.
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A RESIDENT from one of the troubled Alice Springs town camps has confronted Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin in Sydney and told her she does not want the government telling her how to live.

Ms Macklin announced on Wednesday that 16 of the 18 town camps had finally agreed to the federal government's offer to spend $138 million on new houses, renovations and other works in exchange for 40-year leases.
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LOS ANGELES/EWORLDWIRE/July 31, 2009 --- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly cutting up to 100 percent of state funding for domestic violence services in California, according to the National Coalition For Men, and these cuts can hurt both male and female victims of domestic violence. Yet, many in the domestic violence industry are leaving male victims invisible as usual in their public outcry against the funding cuts.

For example, a July 30, 2009, news release by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence repeatedly refers to victims as "women and children" or "women, children, and families," leaving male victims and their children invisible
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July 31, 2009
U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved.

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”
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from Annabel Crabb
I am writing this column in the press room at the Australian Labor Party’s 45th national conference. It’s like the hospital scene from Gone With the Wind in here. Wave after wave of injured journalists reel in, bleeding from the ears, nursing their heads and moaning from dreadful tedium-related injuries.

In the press room two televisions are lined up side by side. One is showing the conference proceedings.

One is showing ads for the Snuggie, a preposterous cross between a dressing gown and a blanket, made from what looks like an extremely flammable fabric.

After a few hours of conference business the Snuggie is looking pretty compelling.
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Farmers had been warned of the risk of passing swine flu from humans back to pigs, says the peak body which oversees Australia's multi-billion pork industry.

Two-hundred-and-eighty pigs on a farm in central western New South Wales have contracted influenza, possibly the H1N1 strain of the virus, from workers on the farm.

Three staff were sent home after falling ill, but the property owners who also became sick had to stay to look after the herd.

The piggery is now under quarantine.

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The final day of the ALP national conference has seen protesters demonstrate against the Government over gay marriage and climate change.

Hundreds gathered outside the conference venue at Darling Harbour today to voice their anger at Labor's refusal to allow gay marriage, while on the conference floor activists accused the Government of pandering to the coal industry.

Earlier today, the conference passed amendments which supported a system to allow same-sex relationships to be recognised, but opposed gay marriage.
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THE Labor Party's has honoured one of Australia's favourite sons, Bob Hawke, bestowing on him life membership of the national ALP.

The former prime minister and trade union leader, who turns 80 in December, absorbed what seemed like waves of love from 400 delegates who gave him rapturous standing ovations during his speech to the ALP national conference in Sydney today.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared Mr Hawke the heart and soul of Labor as he made him just the third person to receive life membership, after Gough and Margaret Whitlam at the last conference in 2007.