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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Macklin / Tony dishes out black eye to Triggs

CHILDREN were much in the news beginning with PM Tony Abbott’s attack on the Human Rights Commission report, “The Forgotten Children”.

Robert-MacklinTelling the Parliament it was “blatantly partisan” and “a transparent stitch-up”, he rubbished their call for a Royal Commission into children in detention.

Commission president Gillian Triggs seemed taken aback by the ferocity of the former Oxford boxing blue’s fusillade. She wasn’t the only one since Labor’s policy was equally under the Commission’s gun. Perhaps the PM was overly sensitive after his near-death experience in the Liberal Party Room.

CERTAINLY the NSW police over-reacted disgracefully by shooting dead young Courtney Topic, an Asberger sufferer, after she was reported waving a kitchen knife while drinking a smoothie outside her local Hungry Jack’s.

Her father is reported to be “struggling” to come to terms with her violent death. Some of us are struggling to understand why there’s not a judicial inquiry into repeated shootings by NSW coppers and, indeed, into the entire State police force. Its top cops are at each other’s throats publicly; and the TV specials on the Lindt Café siege revealed their appalling incompetence. Next time the SAS or the Commando Regiment should do the job they’ve trained for.

IT’S hard to know what to make of the huge kerfuffle surrounding the Education Minister Joy Burch whose son Lloyd gave talks to schoolkids on the perils of drugs without first securing the appropriate official clearance.

At the time he was on bail for aggravated robbery and was motivated to show he’d reformed before the judge decided his sentence. No one has complained about the content of his talks, and Ms Burch says she did nothing to “facilitate” the school visits.

But she should have ensured that he complied with all the regulations – another black mark after her $50 pokie blunder. However, for Lib Leader Jeremy Hanson to call into question “the safety of our children” in allowing “a convicted criminal to interact with them” was a bit rich.

WHAT a ripper! The proposed convention centre would be a terrific asset to Canberra. Not only would it exploit our strengths in attracting conventioneers to the seat of power, it would really put us on the architectural map. And the economic benefits would flow through the whole community.

In fact, if you had to choose between investing in it or the light rail project, the centre would win every time. And news that 400,000 fewer Canberrans are using ACTION buses than expected this year is further bad news for light rail projections.

SO, the poor old Weather Bureau workers are starved for funds and complain they are “stretched beyond capacity”. Union claims that “lives could be lost to summer cyclones or bushfires” are just so much hot air.

Radar now tells the weather story and anyone with a computer can read it instantly.

ON A happier note, there was a great review in the “New York Times” for the American version of that terrific ABC TV series “The Slap”. And there’s special mention of the Aussie actress Melissa George who appeared in both as “particularly beguiling…absurd, infuriating, sad and very funny”. Nice one.

robert@robertmacklin.com

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Robert Macklin

Robert Macklin

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