Robert McClelland who could be fairly and generously described as the greatest failure and most corrupt Attorney General Australia has ever seen is no more. As of the 12th of December 2011, with the Julia Gillard cabinet reshuffle, he has passed on a poisoned chalice to Nicola Roxon who becomes Australia’s first female Attorney General.
McClelland could have achieved so much but has achieved so little. The little he has done has been nothing more than smoke and mirrors and he has entrenched the power of the lawyers and judges while continuing to corrupt the judiciary with Labor Party cronies.
McClelland was Attorney General for 4 years since the end of 2007 and I am still to read where anyone in the government has said what a great job he did and then listed all of his achievements. This will not happen because if they were to list his achievements over the four years all it would do is magnify the fact that he achieved bugger all.
It has been reported that he wanted to stay on as Attorney General. If this was true he would still be Attorney General make no mistake about that. There were reports after the 2010 election that he wanted out as Attorney General, but obviously no one wanted the hot seat. Other reports say the Prime Minister Julia Gillard was trying to get rid of him which is probably true as he is a major liability, but McClelland was in a position to stay Attorney General if he wanted as he has too much dirt in Gillard.
Moving forward more and more questions were going to be asked of McClelland and his failings as Attorney General. The sooner he got out the better for him and the government.
His reward for his criminal conduct as Attorney General is that he is still in cabinet with the extra pay and benefits that come with it. His new position is Minister for Emergency Management (created to keep McClelland in cabinet and keep him happy)Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Vice-President of the Executive Council.
If there is a national emergency McClelland is one of the last people you would want managing it. Anyone who has ever seen his press conferences where he lasts 5 minutes and on a good day 10 minutes before he does a runner when the questions get too hard would know what I mean. He avoided press conferences like the plague. Too many hard questions with no justifiable answers.
Some but not all of McClelland failings are:
1. Failed to reform the judiciary. It is still as corrupt as ever. In 2009 there was a Senate Enquiry that covered such things as the judicial appointment process and judicial complaints process and access to justice. Nothing has been done.
2. Driven up the costs for justice with the introduction of the Civil Dispute Resolution Act 2011 (click here to read the press release) which basically means mandatory mediation with a registrar in the Federal Court of Australia and the Federal Magistrates Court before your case can go before a judge. Richard Ackland summarised it well in an article in the SMH titled “Mediation more pork for lawyers” (Click here to read the full article) And what if the registrar is corrupt? Hardly a reform.
3. Failed to close down the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia although this was recommended in an in-depth report. (Click here to read) and then said they would keep it open as a Military Court which would be operating by the end of this year which has failed to happen. (Click here to read) It must be noted that the Federal Magistrates court is run by one of Australia’s biggest criminals Chief Federal Magistrate John Pascoe. (Click here to read my previous post on Pascoe’s handiwork).
4. Committed a criminal offence in support of Julia Gillard in making a false complaint to police about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. (Click here to read previous post)
5. Failed to reform the legal profession. Yes, there is a new National Legal Services Board and National Legal Services Commissioner coming into effect but only four states, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory which makes it nothing more than a joke. And the devil is always in the details so another toothless tiger and more smoke and mirrors from McClelland. And based on how states have previously run things it is hard to see that it will make much difference. Things will just be covered up at a federal level instead of a state level. The Attorney General’s Department are well-trained in cover-ups, just ask McClelland.
6. In writing this site and my previous site Crimes of the Law I have heard from many people who have made complaints about judicial officers and court staff and everyone says there complaint was swept under the carpet and they were never given a detailed response. This has been standard practice under McClelland. As an example I did a post on the 24th of October 2011 titled “How the Australian Federal Police and Federal Courts collude to sweep criminal conduct of judges under the carpet. Part one.” (Click here to read) I then sent an email to Mr McClelland on the 25 October asking him “Can you please advise whether or not only the Chief Justice or Chief Magistrate of the federal courts can make complaints to the Federal Police in relation to alleged criminal conduct by judges and magistrates.” Because this is what the Federal Police have been telling members of the public. I then followed up with a phone call to Mr McClelland’s office on the 31 October and was told I would get a response in two weeks. Well I am still waiting.
There is enough for a book on McClelland’s failings but I think you get the picture. McClelland thinks he can just walk away and anything and everything he did as Attorney General is forgotten. Well think again Mr McClelland, your failings will be documented for many years to come and history will remember you as a bad joke. And take note Mrs Roxon, Robert McClelland’s reputation will never be recovered and nor will yours if you go down the same path as him.
Yesterday when Nicola Roxon was announced as the new Attorney General there was no mention of judicial reform, legal reform or Federal Police reform etc just how she would take on the tobacco companies in the High Court. Beautiful, looks like her honeymoon period was over in two minutes.
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A timely blog mate. I think McClelland was like the Phantom, no one knows who is.
When are you going to get stuck into all those other liars, particularly those responsible for the giant fraud that’s been perpetrated by trying to control the weather.
Your level of detail is astonishing. I just can’t believe they don’t shut your site down to silence you. Keep up the good work.
NOT ONLY CAN THIS SITE NOT BE CLOSED DOWN, IT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN PERPETUITY.
CONGRATULATIONS SHANE YOU ARE TRULY AMAZING.
Always amazed me how McClelland got re-elected so many times. A typical labor party apparatchik who has never done any real work since he left school. A look at his bio indicates he loves taxpayer funded travel to civilised western countries. No study trips to outer bongo-bongo land for him.
I have laid countless complaints with fat head McClelland following my experience with Federal Magot Susan Purdon Sully, who informed me that I could not have shared time with my child, because I had become engaged to an Asian, and placing a child in a home with an Asian could harm development, as their culture is different and harmful to “us”. Response? NIL! String him up by his fat public servant neck up Anzac Avenue I say, as a lesson to other CROWN servants who wish outside of Law. This is how we deal with terrorist’s right?
I wonder how Penny Wong would react to this? Have you had any contact with her?
No I have not had any contact with her. Why would I? She would do nothing.
Only that as someone with an Asian background she would hardly be able to ‘morally/ethically’ refuse to assist with someone whose access was based on racial bias. At the very least it would be embarrassing. Any handballing/stalling etc on her part that got any publicity would be suicide.
Just to clarify my point, if any judge refused me access to a child on racial grounds I would be contacting each and every MP and Senator that has or is in a mixed race relationship.
Sorry, I thought you were commenting on the post when in fact you were responding to another comment.
If I were the tobacco company’s Lawyer (Even a 1st year student) I would obtain records of Roxon’s receipt of monies paid to her party from these companies, shut the case down in half a day, and send her the bill.
There is a new sheriff in town. The mens club days are over.
Meet the new base, same as the old boss. Just wears a dress (though for all we know the old boss may have as well, privately)
Here’s another way of looking at things. Roxon got demoted and naff all is outlined to change under her time as attorney-general, other than a tussle with tobacco she’s carrying over from health.
…But McClelland had to be moved out of the attorney-general’s portfolio because the PM had earmarked that for Nicola Roxon, whom she decided to demote from Health. Gillard has made much of Roxon’s status as the first female attorney-general but that cannot mask Roxon’s demotion from a big-spending ministry at the heart of Labor’s political mission. Roxon had to be moved because the PM judged her not to have generated enough favourable publicity for Labor after the government had spent so much money on health…
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gillard-shuffling-into-a-showdown-with-rudd-20111213-1ot1r.html
Hi Shane.
Thanks for the interesting post. I have a question that has been on my mind…you state
His reward for his criminal conduct as Attorney General is that he is still in cabinet with the extra pay and benefits that come with it. His new position is Minister for Emergency Management (created to keep McClelland in cabinet and keep him happy)Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Vice-President of the Executive Council.” and i would like to know if these guys who hold several offices get separate pay for each Office. There are quite a few members with several portfolios, Marb Arbib for example. It would be quite a large perk to be given 4 titles, like McClelland and presumably would also enhance his pension scheme quite considerably?
Thanks Shane.
Carol Edge
That I do not know. It would be a bit rich if they got extra pay but you would expect they might get extra staff or something like that. Maybe one of the other readers knows.
McClelland was informed of corruption within the Howard cabinet on 15th September 2011, and was sent Expendable reports (http://www.expendable.tv/p/expendable.html) and the original ministerial cables/letters every 72 hours for the following two months.
He not only failed to act upon what what undeniable proof of criminal acts, but at no stage even acknowledged that the material even existed. Instead, efforts are being made to identify those publishing the material, intimidate them, and to close the website.
At the every least this surely constitutes abuse negligence, lack of due diligence, and arguably complicity with the original abuses.
Thank you for that link Laura. I am so sick of tasteless mainstream-media-driven Kangaroo courts attempting to mold our opinions.
(pun intended without malice to the one and only…)
i looked up the bio of roxon ( made up name ) she goes to lengths to not say where she was born ( Sydney is all she says ) and where she went to school ) reason she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth ,, the bio just talks about uni 25 years ago
when i looked up other Labor bios all were the same , have 100 degrees , worked for union not one has ever had a real job in their life , roxon cane to my attention after attacking brit american tobacco coy for using a kangaroo in their advertising of Winfield cigarettes in Europe , roxon had just become aware of this ,, they have been doing it for 10 years !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! brit -american has and does employ 1000s of people she employs nobody ! what has a company creating jobs got to do with her ? its none of her business if people smoke
they are all born rich , they steal oxygen at schools for yeers they get a job photocopying with law firm for 1 year and then they are involved with union then they are elected to parliment ,, than they pretend they are concerned for the working man
as for MCCLELLAND ,, some time ago a token Australian was captured with the Taliban and imprisoned in america , them was imprisoned here , MCCLELLAND was checking what he could be charged for
well nothing its legal to join armed forces of another country but illegal to join a force in rebellion against them ,.. i know this , i left school at 15 ,, but the attorney general does not , the man was then jailed here ,, legally !!!
what did any of them do at uni apart from be involved in the student union