Austrailia Report

4 May 2012

Greetings brethren and friends,

The lengths to which those in power will go to cling to power should surprise no one. Take the Australian government. After the last election the two main parties were virtually locked in numbers of seats won – incumbent Labor 72, Conservative Opposition 72 with six "independents". Wikipedia put it this way:

Labor and the Coalition each won 72 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, four short of the requirement for majority government, resulting in the first hung parliament since the 1940 election. Sixcrossbenchers held the balance of power.Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent MPs Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor declared their support for Labor on confidence and supply. Independent MP Bob Katter and National Party of Western Australia MP Tony Crook declared their support for the Coalition on confidence and supply. The resulting 76–74 margin entitled Labor to form a minority government.

The independents Wilkie, Windsor and Oakshott all did deals, a kind of pork barrelling bargain with hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for their electorates in exchange for their support for Gillard and her  government . Wilkie's big issue is poker machine law reform – perhaps laudable but unworkable. Gillard over promised Wilkie and thought better of it (in the face of voter revolt) late last year engineering removal of the Labor Speaker of the House in favour of  a turncoat Opposition member, Mr. Slipper, becoming Speaker that allowed he to jettison Wilkie and his support and still maintain her numbers. The Opposition had been in the course of dumping Slipper from his seat in Parliament because of his behaviour over years of rorting his travel and other entitlements.  That had finally got too much for the Opposition Liberal Party to tolerate and was possible because the power of the power brokers in Queensland who had protected Slipper for years had waned making his dumping possible. All facts well known to Gillard at the time.

Gillard went ahead anyway and made Slipper the Speaker thinking to gain a vote and sideline Wilkie and his poker machine reform. A few weeks ago a male staffer went public with a law suit claiming sexual harassment by Slipper. He also alleged potentially criminal fraud by Slipper in the misuse of cab charge dockets. Gillard and Co. gave qualified support to Slipper – now their man. However, finally Gillard had to insist Slipper step aside form the Speakership until all matters were resolved. This week, after extraordinary detail emerged about Slippers use of taxi cabs and the "fares" he paid the Federal Police got interested enough to launch a full investigation. It's safe to say Slipper won't be returning to the Chair – not on the facts to emerge so far. Who knows, he may even find a new chair – in gaol.

The second person of doubtful repute that has kept this government in office is a Craig Thompson. He of the union credit card spent on prostitutes, fine dining, flash hotels and $100,000 in unexplained cash withdrawals. Throughout the four years of this saga Gillard has in public and in Parliament expressed her unreserved confidence in the man. Here is another one who may find a new home in gaol before all this is over. This week the New South Wales police finally executed a warrant on Thompson's old union. It all involves more than Thompson. The current Federal president of the said union along with Thompson is said to have received tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in kick backs from "supplier" companies. Other business arrangements seems to have netted millions of dollars on union member funds to a small cabal. On the morning of the warrant raid the Federal president was found in an underground car park by police in possession of a large volume of union documents. Criminal charges may follow of obstruction – before we get to fraud. 

This week the polls put the Gillard Labour government at 27% primary support (who are these people?). The Opposition at 51% primary support. An election held now would leave Federal Labour with perhaps 10 of those 72 seats they now hold. With the possible exception of Wilkie and one other , the rest of the independents will cling to Labour to prop them up because they will all be swept away at an election. Hence despite the outrage of the electorate at large at the Slipper and Thompson fiascos, both facing  possible gaol time if found guilty of criminal conduct but both stoutly supported by Gillard up till now (this week a little light seemed to come on for her as she deftly moved back from them half a step), an inept government and inept leader nonetheless cling to power. An election must be held by August 2013. The sooner the better. There may not be too much of the silverware left to salvage by that time.

Enough of that. 

As most will know last Sunday was our last on Prime 7. The program offered "Europe and America in Prophecy" book. We have had 30 requests for material for the week with 15 new contacts. This Sunday will be a program offering the booklet "The Long Tradition of Insight and Accuracy in Prophecy".

During the week I had thought to take steps to include our Australian web address on the 10 second promo ad that runs several times during the airing of the GTA program on both TVS (Digital 44)(Sydney) and 31 Digital (Brisbane). Telephoning TVS to discuss an edit of the ad the Program Manager answered the phone. That allowed me to (half jokingly) raise the matter of whether any better time might be available for the program. It's a question I've asked more than a few times. Hence, out of the blue,  I was pleased to be offered 7.00am on Sundays to start by the end of May. That is, or should be, a better time than 6.00am.

The edit of the ad has also been done and should appear on TVS this Sunday and on 31 Digital the week after.

Naturally going off Prime we can expect the weekly response to drop. However, the later 7.00am time on TVS may redress that situation over the coming weeks. The figures for the website are encouraging as well. We have especially had a good response to the website Blog and a couple of articles in particular. Mark Armstrong's weekly update will appear on the Blog site on a regular basis along with other articles.

Another addition to the GTAEA- Australia website (www.gtaaustralia.org.au) is a video of selected weekly services from Tyler. This feature is on the "Our Church" page. The current featured service has a recent Mike Garret sermon. We'll have no more than two services up at any time and replace the older one when a selected new Sabbath service video becomes available. 

Hopefully the additional promotion of the website on the TV promo ad will result in more usage of the site. There is certainly a wealth of GTA programs and sermons there already with another added tonight  - "Lexington Campaign 1999".

That’s it for now. Have a great Sabbath.

Till next week.

Murray Allatt
Sydney