Joel Fitzgibbon best minister in decades, says Defence Association

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Subject: Joel Fitzgibbon best minister in decades, says Defence Association
Volkodav 6/4/2009 5:07:30 AM

June 04, 2009 Article from: Australian Associated Press THE Australia Defence Association has praised Joel Fitzgibbon as a "good" defence minister who outperformed others in recent decades. The Rudd Government now faced the difficult task of getting a new minister up to speed quickly in a complex portfolio, executive director Neil James said, hours after Mr Fitzgibbon was forced to resign. "I am happy to say Fitzgibbon has been a good minister. He has certainly been better than some we have seen in recent decades," Mr James said. He said Mr Fitzgibbon had related well to the soldiers he encountered in trips to operational areas. He'd also been prepared to thump the table to get a better deal from NATO nations in Afghanistan. But Mr James acknowledged the former minister had not always been as tactful as he could have been in his dealings with service chiefs and the defence department's secretary. "On the downside, I think his biggest disadvantage was his political weakness being an ex-Mark Latham protege," he said. Mr James said the process of breaking in a new minister could take up to six months due to the complexity of the defence organisation. He said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had the opportunity to expand the number of ministers and parliamentary secretaries overseeing defence. Mr Fitzgibbon resigned as Defence Minister this afternoon after revelations an army general was instructed to attend meetings with the minister's brother, Mark Fitzgibbon, at which defence health contracting was discussed. Major-General Paul Alexander, who is in charge of defence health services, told a Parliamentary committee that Defence Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon's office had told him to attend the meetings attended by Mark Fitzgibbon, the chief executive of insurer NIB Health.

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Volkodav Good news 6/6/2009 8:58:27 AM

June 06, 2009

Article from: Australian Associated Press

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has elevated Greg Combet and Chris Bowen to federal cabinet positions in a reshuffle annunced today..

Mr Combet becomes Minister for Defence Personnel, Material and Science and Minister Assisting the Minsiter for Climate Change.

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gf0012-aust 6/6/2009 9:09:35 AM

On the new minister - what do you think of Faulkner? Strikes me as the kind of guy that the Defence bureaucracy will struggle with. I get the idea that they like to run the show themselves. If Senate estimates are any guide Faulner is not someone you can get anything by. Might make for a fun few years.

I like him as a choice. and au contraire on the bureaucracy struggling.

faulkner is well regarded.

all labor have of worth is faulkner, ray, combet and tanner. the rest are lightweights IMO. The libs will struggle to lay a glove on faulkner - he's more than capable of going the distance and taking bites along the way.

people have no problem with reform, they objected to having someone who was big on talk and short on nouse. as for james indicating that he was popular, then thats a load of tosh. he was regarded with barely veiled contempt. combet OTOH is highly regarded even though politically he may not appeal to a lot of the uniforms. he's an engineer in profession and thinking and he's demonstrated smarts time and time again.

if we'd had falkner or combet in the first place then we probably would have never seen this side show evolve

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gf0012-aust BF 6/6/2009 9:19:58 AM

on another note, I'm betting snowden had a solid talking to by the boss as well. hence combets elevation without word on the associated impact on snowden.

and at least we don't have to worry about situational leaks coming from the Ministers office anymore

it's a bit ferking rude for the prev incumbent to bitch about leaks when it was his office that made a select cohort of journos swim in scoops....

good riddance.

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Volkodav 6/6/2009 9:21:52 AM

if we'd had falkner or combet in the first place then we probably would have never seen this side show evolve

Agreed, I wonder who the next weakest link is? The opposition probed and prodded a bit before Fitzgibbon left himself open, the seems to be gunning for Swan beofre that.

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Volkodav 6/6/2009 9:24:24 AM

Warren Snowdon becomes Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Services Delivery.

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gf0012-aust 6/6/2009 9:42:32 AM

Agreed, I wonder who the next weakest link is? The opposition probed and prodded a bit before Fitzgibbon left himself open, the seems to be gunning for Swan beofre that.

Roxon, Wong, Garrett. and IMO, Swan has dodged a bullet. If Swan wants to brag about giving away $900 to all and sundry to stimulate the economy, then he needs to start looking at how much of that went into clean spending, or whether people have just gone and increased their existing credit card debt. retailers and credit card institutions had wins.... BFD.

considering the state of our infrastructure, the need to clean up water management systems (cheaper and more efficient than building dams and desal plants) then it was errant symbolism and populism at play - not rigorous hard decisions.

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bigfella 6/6/2009 10:43:05 PM

faulkner is well regarded.

if we'd had falkner or combet in the first place then we probably would have never seen this side show evolve

Fair enough.

Good to see Combet continuing to climb the greasy pole, though I'm not sure he will ultimately end up in Defence. He looks like someone who will be a senior minister in the 2nd term. He is smart enough & combative enough that I suspect Rudd will want him somewhere where he can score more points.

No tears for Snowden. Clown.

Will be curious to see how Bowen goes.

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Aussiegunneragain 6/7/2009 10:33:43 PM

Agreed, I wonder who the next weakest link is? The opposition probed and prodded a bit before Fitzgibbon left himself open, the seems to be gunning for Swan beofre that.

Its interesting to note that Swan has acquired another junior Minister, Craig Emerson, to look after Competition and Consumer Affairs. Sherry goes to being Assistant Treasuerer and will basically look after the Henry Tax Review and therefore tax reform. Bowen will look after Supperannuation and Corporate Law. What does that leave Swan to do? Basically only the budget and Tanner has a lot to do with that, including a lot of media appearances. It looks to me that Swan has basically been emasculated, becoming nothing more than a figurehead.

I don't know how he got to be where he is because prior to the election his only effort of note was being a good campaign manager for Wayne Goss in the early 1990's. That suggests to me that he has strong factional support and will stay where he is. Its actually a pretty happy situation for a Liberal supporter. We get a clutch of semi-competent junior ministers to run the entire Treasury portfolio with Tanner helping out, reducing the risk of a complete f*ck up, but Swan still gets put up on stage to make his party look like a bunch of economic imbeceles. Yay.

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