ANYONE REMEMBER THE PADDINTON BEAR AFFAIR?

ANYONE REMEMBER THE PADDINTON BEAR AFFAIR?

I hark back to the halcyon days when even the third – worst PM in our history sacked Rex Connor and Jim Cairns.

Ministers paid the ultimate price in the Paddington bear affair [John Moore] for family trust minor indiscretions [ Phil Lynch] – and then we had the fascinating Combe – Ivanov Russian spy scandal!

Why Fraser even sacked his numbers man / 'toe - cutter'  Reg Withers.

Yet the incompetents million times worse are safe from the sack because the sackee is more incompetent by mega – factors!

Geoff Seidner

13 Alston Grove

East St Kilda 3183

03 9525 0299

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As a member of parliament, Young remained actively involved in social justice issues. In 1984, during a contentious national ALP conference where nuclear issues were under debate, he openly spoke out against uranium mining, and invited anti-uranium mining activists to use his office as a base. He also made available copies of the secret Fox Report on Ranger Uranium to anti-nuclear protesters and supported their campaign to have the City of Port Adelaide declared a Nuclear Free Zone. In addition he was active in supporting refugees and multiculturalism, and launched an inquiry on immigration policy aimed at reforming the system during his term as minister.

In 1987, Young faced controversy over his alleged handling of campaign donations during the 1987 election. He subsequently resigned from parliament on 12 February 1988, sparking the 1988 Port Adelaide by-election, though he was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

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The Overseas Loans Affair - whitlamdismissal.com» Whitlam

whitlamdismissal.com/loansShare

A Pakistani broker, Tirath Khemlani, was used by Connor to secure the loan. In the ...Whitlam had been forced to sack Dr. Jim Cairns from the government and a ...

Malcolm Fraser appointed Lynch Treasurer in 1975. When the Treasury portfolio was split into Treasury and Finance in December 1976, Lynch held both portfolios. He is noted for using the expression "rubbery" to describe some of the estimates in his 1977 Budget Speech, leading to the use of the expression "rubbery figures" in Australian political debate.^[1] He was forced to resign from the ministry on 19 November 1977 when it became known that he was using a family trust to minimise his tax obligations, which was perceived as a conflict of interests. He was replaced as Treasurer by John Howard and as Minister for Finance by Eric Robinson. An official inquiry found that he had done nothing illegal or improper, and he returned to the ministry in December, as Minister for Industry and Commerce.^[2]

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Yes Minister, No Minister, Sacked Minister? - ABC News (Australian ...

www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-17/yes...sacked.../334722Share

Feb 17, 2010 – He was sacked, along with the Minister for Customs, John Moore, ...Government Cabinet Minister, Mick Young, they found a Paddington bear.

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Politics

After completing an arts degree at the University of Adelaide, Combe became active in Labor Party affairs in South Australia. He moved to Canberra and in 1973 became the youngest serving National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party after the election of the first Labor government for 23 years. In November 1975, he was allegedly co-instigator, with Gough Whitlam and Bill Hartley, of an (unsuccessful) approach to Saddam Hussein's Iraq for a $US500,000 gift to help fund Labor's 1975 election campaign.^[2] Labor lost the 1975 election. He propagated the notion that Labor's defeat in the election had been contributed to by CIA interference, and wrote an article on the subject which appeared in The Bulletin in January 1982.^[3]:p.232

Combe remained National Secretary until July 1981, at which time he resigned to establish his own lobbying business, David Combe and Associates Pty Ltd. The business reportedly "received a great fillip in March 1983, when the Labor Party was re-elected to office. Business perceived Combe as the most influential lobbyist then working in Canberra".^[4]:p.1

[edit]Combe-Ivanov affair

In 1983, he was accused of compromising Australia's national security in dealings with Soviet diplomat Valery Ivanov.^[4][5][3]

The so-called "Combe-Ivanov affair" developed out of a trip Combe and his wife made to the USSR in 1982, in the course of preparations for which they met and developed a relationship with the First Secretary for the USSR Embassy in Canberra, Valery Ivanov. Soon after the formation of the Hawke government, ASIO raised concerns that Combe, closely aligned to the ALP, might be being compromised by a Soviet citizen with KGB links. Ivanov was expelled from Australia in 1983 by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.^[6]

The highly publicised events were investigated by the Hope Royal Commission into Australia's security and intelligence agencies of 1983-1984, which found that Combe had indeed been targeted by the Soviets. Although targeted, there was no proof of intelligence breaches, nor security threats to the country. There were several cartoons that portray the commission as a kangaroo court.

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After the dismissal of the Whitlam government on 11 November 1975, Withers was appointed to Malcolm Fraser's first (caretaker) ministry, becomingVice-President of the Executive Council as well as briefly holding the portfolios of Special Minister of State, Capital Territory, Media, and Tourism and Recreation during the period leading up to the December election. After the election, Withers became Minister for Administrative Services, and continued as Vice-President of the Executive Council until 7 August 1978.^[3] After being dismissed from Cabinet in 1978 he commented about Fraser that "When the man who’s carried the biggest knife in this country for the last ten years starts giving you a lecture about propriety, integrity and the need to resign, then he’s either making a sick joke or playing you for a mug.”^[4] He left Fraser's ministry in the reshuffle after the 1980 election.

Withers was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1977, and is entitled to be known as "The Rt Hon Reginald Withers" for life. He retired from federal politics at the 1987 double dissolution, and was subsequently elected Lord Mayor of Perth, in which he served from 1991 until the council's dissolution in 1994, and as a monarchist delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention.^[5]