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A cautionary tale…
Mike Rann is fighting for his life
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SA’s Labor Premier Mike Rann is this afternoon fighting for his political life. Last night, Channel Seven’s Sunday Night broadcast a report in which a former barmaid at Parliament House gave lurid descriptions of a sexual relationship with the Premier. “There was sexual contact and intimacy involved,” barmaid Michelle Chantelois told Channel Seven. “He had me on his desk, his Parliament house desk, in his office … When it was finished it was almost like, ‘OK, I have a meeting now, I have to go’.” Chantelois was married at the time of the affair. At a Labor fundraiser in October, her now-estranged husband allegedly whacked Rann with a rolled-up magazine. Crikey has a statement, received the morning after the fundraiser, quoting witnesses who claim to have heard the husband say to the Premier, “You remember my wife.” Rann was asked by the media the following day if he knew what the husband was talking about. “No,” he replied. This morning, that looks like a lie. Rann’s media machine is now in overdrive. Some reporters reporting this story were guests at Rann’s wedding. One normally invites best friends to a wedding. Over the weekend some reporters wrote unconfirmed, unsubstantiated stories that Seven reputedly paid Chantelois $200,000 for the interview. Seven said this morning it was far less than six figures, but today Rann said he was told she was paid “an enormous” amount. He doesn’t say who told him, but he could have read it in newspapers. Ex-Labor Senator now lobbyist Nick Bolkus repeats it. “Kerry Stokes paid her 200-grand or thereabouts,” Bolkus said. If there’s an implication that the more the pay the more discredited the speaker, consider that MPs get paid more than most people. There’s one question people want answered: “Mr Premier, did you have sex with that woman?” This morning he did not deny it. Can he survive the scandal? Kevin Foley, whose job as treasurer depends on Labor winning the next election, spoke in support. Junior minister Tom Koutsantonis, whose portfolio is allocated by the Premier, spoke in support. Bolkus, whose access to and relationship with Labor is important to his lobbying work — he’s the chief of the ALP’s fund-raising arm — spoke in support. The Liberals said nothing. Silence is the Midas touch. But Labor ministers were already discussing who might replace Rann should he go. Two weeks ago, deputy premier Foley said his personal problems regarding relationships with women — he said he was sad and lonely, a lost and anguished soul with a self-confessed reputation as a bully and a womaniser — were compounded by his clinical depression. If Rann quits, a deal between the Left and the dominant Right factions could see the Left’s Patrick Conlon take the top job. But Labor’s problems are deeper than a lack of heir apparent. For the greater part of Rann’s current term the government has been wracked by allegations and perceptions of corruption relating to political donations, and of Labor nakedly getting into bed with developers who pay for the privilege. The government has introduced new legislation that can send people to jail on secret evidence less credible than was heard last night. (That legislation has already been ruled illegal in the Supreme Court and is now on appeal by the government in the High Court). In Parliament, Labor ministers accused respected Adelaide figures of criminal behaviour without a shred of evidence. The government has broken promises on open space which it sold to developers, on social justice, on workers’ compensation, taxpayer-funded political advertising and the misuse of public money. Yet with just four months to go until the election, Labor has held its own in the opinion polls and until last night looked likely to win in March. The latest scandal is compounded by Rann’s apparent lack of complete honesty when dealing with the accusations when they first surfaced. When asked the day after the assault if he knew his alleged assailant, the Premier said no — he had never met before. He now says he invited Chantelois and her husband to his house and provided her with support during a court case involving her husband. “He was coaching me how to lie and what to say,” Ms Chantelois said of Rann last night. “He organised to have (Rann’s wife) Sasha leave a message and then later on have (my husband) Rick listen to that message to say ‘Hey you know, listen to this Rick, it is just a friendship. Even Sasha knows that we’re friends’.” The husband, Richard Phillips, held his own media conference outside his home this morning, calling on the Premier to resign. The Premier and the rest of cabinet are meeting in the pro-Labor southern suburbs today, and the Premier is expected to make a statement later today. Can Rann survive? This morning, he looked as though he would, like Custer, make a stand. There are greater scandals in SA Labor than sex on the desk. And, dare it possibly be said while everyone’s sharpening the knife, as great a hypocrisy in the electorate as at parliament over matters private. Hendrik Gout is editor of Adelaide’s Independent Weekly. |
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79 Comments
The woman was silent for 5 years, then suddenly her grief and anguish was too much to bear, remembering she was a willing participant and never at any stage said no, in fact in her words encouraged the affair. Suddenly a huge amount of money is flashed before her eyes and the grief and anguish is to be treated with cash and lots of it.
This affair has been knowledge around Adelaide for yonks, yet the poor soul managed to get by UNTIL $$$$$$$$$ would be the great healer and would also put the boot into Rann, a woman scorned? I dont think so. A woman with the twinkle of riches in her alluring eyes more like it.
If Rann made a move, this venus fly trap
should have had the sense to say no, she was not a teenage infatuated virgin. She was a woman knowing the consequences of her actions. Her expectations would hardly have been to run off into the sunset arm in arm with her new found lover and live happily ever after. Sorry ladies if you find me taking a typical male point of view but this jezebel was a married woman when she said yes to whatever Rann proposed.
Crocodile tears? I think so, gold digger? I think so.To be taken seriously? Who would know except the Premiere. Rann was out of order but folks it happens and will keep happening as long as there are male and female, male and male, female and female.
Afraid I have little sympathy for her now. Had she told her story without the fee it may be different. Too late now.
What a lot of bollocks is this story!!!! Why should I be interested in whether some bloke wants to have sex on a desk? Why are you? Cummon
crikey, I dont pay good money for you people to act like hacks from News Ltd.
Its deplorable if Rann has lied about this, but on the other hand, I tend to agree with RaymondChurch. It was reported today that she didn’t do the interview for the money, she did it so her husband would know the truth - what, can’t she pick up the phone and tell him? Write him a letter? Email him?
Sounds like both parties are ‘spinning’ this one for all its worth and gee, isn’t it becoming tiresome!
Well the city of churches has discovered that their premier had sex before he got married. The wicked man - shock horror - had sex with a married consenting woman.
The question that should be asked by Hendrik Gout is “Mr Premier, when you were a horny unmarried premier did you have sex with that married woman?” It appears the answer is that Rann did have sex and we assume he wasn’t wearing pink shorts.
“If there’s an implication that the more the pay the more discredited the speaker, consider that MPs get paid more than most people.”
Yes and next time a pollie is paid specifically to reveal details of his/her sex life I promise I won’t watch that episode of Sunday Night either.
“Cummon”
We don’t know that much about what went on yet. He might’ve Cummin for all we know.
As Hendrik says: “There are greater scandals in SA Labor than sex on the desk.” In fact, this is not a scandal at all, just a gutter media beat-up over a non-issue - a politician’s sex life. It’s about time we stopped going down the American road of thinking that the private lives of politicians are a legitimate matter of public interest. They are not. And this is the one area in which it is perfectly proper for politicians to lie - if they are asked improper questions about whether they had sex with a particular person who is not their spouse or acknowledged partner. A politician is under no moral or other obligation to give a truthful answer to an improper question from the gutter media. There may be other issues, of legitimate public interest such as relations with developers, over which Rann should be fighting for his political life but this Chantelois affair is not one of them.
The sex is irrelevant, but lying about it may cost him.
Recently Crikey quite rightly berated Glen Milne for trawling through gutters for news. The principle was to do with private lives being private. I’m no fan of Rann but why should anyone listen to Chantelois? By her own account she lied to and coculded her husband even though she knew it was wrong (by her own standards).
It’s very difficult for me to see the link between a story about government and two grown ups sex lives. In fact the way this piece skips from the sex allegations to government behaviour is just unreasonable as are some of the accusations levelled at Rann’s government. In particular the defense of ‘respected Adelaide figures’. How do you, Hendrik, know with certainty that parliamentarians accused people ‘without a shred of evidence’ ? There’s a reason for parliamentary privilege and it would not be the first time that such allegations that would get you or me sued, have led to impropriety and criminality being uncovered.
Maybe Rann’s a liar maybe not but how cocked up is the world where allegations of corruption and bad government are less important than this titillation.
I didn’t watch last night’s revelations about the private life of South Australian Premier Mike Rann. I could say who cares but we should care about this kind of reporting. Perhaps it’s time that others started publishing the sex lives of journalists. Then we might hear some real debate about privacy and ethics.
Paid, published and damned!
Meski has it right. It’s not the sex that’s the problem, it’s the lie. And @SBH, I fail to see why mentions of the other stenches emanating from the Rann government are ‘unreasonable’. On the contrary, they are exactly the sort of thing that Crikey should have been looking at long before now.
Well it seems Channel 7 and New Idea are in deep doo doo. Their major claim was that no charges were laid against the husband, but he was charged on 2 October with aggravated assault and bailed to appear in December.
End of any relevance to the yarn.
You say that there’s one question people want answered: “Mr Premier, did you have sex with that woman?”.
The issue is whether the public have any kind of right to know the answer to that question, and whether a Premier (or President for that matter) should resign if the answer to the question is ‘Yes’.
No-one’s career should hang on the answer to that question, which is prompted by everyone’s prurient curiosity, and doesn’t have any obvious bearing on Rann’s fitness to be Premier.
How he handles it is relevant, and the extent to which he has been honest with us. But we ought not to be pursuing people in public life and demanding answers to questions about who they slept with unless there are wider issues involved.
Suzanne
Mike Rann was not married………………she was.
She is not claiming that he raped her…………………..so it was consential.
It was 5 years ago for heavns sake……………………get over it.
As for the rest of us…………………we are agog with indefference.
Thankyou ShepherdMarilyn for the info, I hope 7 and New Idea get what they deserve big time. Gutter incomptent media, wonder how many skeletons are rattling in Stokes closet?
This is boring nonsense - I don’t even care if Rann lied about the matter - its just not interesting or newsworthy or relevant to how he does his job.
If he’d said yes, I wouldn’t have seen any problem. But he didn’t, and then he tried to cover it up and suppress the story. That isn’t a good look.
Mark Duffet, it is unreasonable because the trellis of this story is about private lives. There’s no reason (hence it’s unreasonable) to link government behaviour with private sexual behaviour. You might as well write a story about the appearance of parliamentarians stools and link that to their performance.
If there is a story about how bad Rann’s government is, tell that story and leave the rest alone. PC has it in one.
His *wife* might have seen a problem, but that’s none of our business.
I’d go say far as to say that Mike Rann owes us no obligation what so ever to tell us anything truth or lie about who he did or did not f*ck. What right do we have to know?
Then “No comment” would be the appropriate response. Not denying it.
I agree that this is rubbish journalism, we should not judge people on their private lives…
I’m not sure what all the fuss is about polititians lying? Surely everyone knows by now they all lie all the time and will promise or do anything to get elected…
The trick is not to get caught out….
Mike Rann has a voice designed by the people at South Park..I can’t help hearing him saying to Michelle…’OK, I have a meeting now, I have to go’ (cos I’ve just come)”…Sth Australian Don Juan material…love it,better than South Park…and that little purple patch under his eye from the ex..surely 7 could have milked it for a series.
Blast from the past.
It is just that our media confuse the Parliament with Hollywood, and it is a bit too far fetched to confuse Rann with Sarkozy. Our Premier should be judged on his political performance as a politician and not as an alleged lover-passe. He was single at the time anyway, so I do not understand what is the fuss all about. As for the loving and caring husband? At least 5 years too late to express lack of acceptance of a supposedly illicit relationship.
Not long after receiving a whack to his face from her ex, Rann posed for a newspaper or magazine in the garden with his picture perfect family, complete with pet, all looking shiny and happy, the fine upstanding morally admirable nuclear family. Complete propaganda. It was designed to make the public and any magistrate or jury see him as the innocent victim and the man who punched him as a madman who got the wrong end of the stick re Rann and his wife.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the ex or his defence lawyer encouraged the ‘confession’ by Chantelois to get a magistrate/jury to see that the ‘victim’ was not so innocent and that the ex had good reason to whack him. The media, as usual, don’t care whether they are being manipulated by lies on both sides, as long as they sell papers and attract advertising.
Yes, of course he will survive. This particular journalist is channeling the mentality of Glenn Milne and that can’t be good for anybody.
Have i missed something? The only persont o have betrayed anyone is the woman her husband & marriage vows. Rann was single.
The only question is did he LIE? Twould appear so (pending threatened defamation action) but it was an invalid question, nowt to do with his political role.
Interesting it also took the ex husband 5 yrs to confront Rann. Coincidence he comes out of the shadows weeks before his ‘former wife’ goes public and gets paid huge money to look all sad and hurt on camera, claiming “my man done me wrong boo hoo” Whats the former husbands cut of the 200,000 to play his part. Its all to damn stupid and the stupid woman should take the cash and shoot through before someone digs a little deeper into her arrangement with 7 and New Idea. I smells a rat, and it stinks.
After watching the fall out of a similar scenario I think the public do have a right to know if Rann had sex with ‘that’ woman. As State Premier - bachelor or not - years of indiscreet bonking-on-the-job inevitably tests staff loyalties like it or not. Rann himself agrees his role as a parliamentary leader is to avoid distractions and not cause through friendship, anguish or distress. Feigned surprise over who clouted him at the $600 a head fundraiser last month and long-term reticence to deal maturely with very obvious issues arising from a cuckolded husband leaves the 56-year-old Premier looking like a sneaky, naïve wimp.
I couldn’t care less who Rann bonks but this story just doesn’t gel. I’ve been to Adelaide many times and it’s a small town, everybody knows just about eveybody else. Why would the Premier, for goodness sake, get some woman to meet him outside the casino, drive to a parking spot, have sex in the car and then drive him back to the entrance to Parlaiment House? You would have be very daring or completely insane. This poor woman is separated, probably broke and facing a bleak future. she has been conned into making these claims probably just for money. Unfortunately, she will be the victim at the end.
Fortunately, Chris Johnson, your private life is incredibly, and incredibly boringly, totally immaculate. Nobody could be bothered to call you a “sneaky, naive wimp”.
Rann should take the Clinton defence:
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”
…we could all get a jolly good laugh, and move on from (yet another) tawdry attempt by the media to whip us up into voyeurism most puerile.
Surely there’s a matter or two of importance in South Australia that warrants more attention than this rubbish?
You’re a dope David Sanderson. It’s not my private life under scrutiny its Premier Mike Rann’s past and present. And by the way, as a former Bolkus staffer Hendrik’s no doubt as biased as the rest of those on his Independent Weekly. As a former Labor staffer I’m sticking with middle ground.
Oh FFS is there absolutely nothing of import in Oz happening or worthy of reporting but that we have to suffer the deranged ravings of an entirely irrelevant piece of media fluff?
I expect better from Crikey, please concentrate on issues that actually have some relevance to the lives of people in this country.
For anyone thinking that the problem is not the act, but the fact that Rann has ‘lied to the South Australian people’, please remove your heads from the sand! Do you really expect that after the original assault, instead of denying he knew the man, that he would have said ‘yeah I know that bloke, I used to pork his missus’. Of course he wouldn’t, and of couse he’d take some pre-emtive steps to lay the case that he’s a good family man.
The reason pollitcians behave like this is because of the way the media treats politics, and by extension how most people want the media to treat it. We critize politicians for ‘not answering the question’ and for being obessed with spin, but at the same time any politican who speaks their mind is labelled as ‘prone to gaffs’ and anyone not spinning with the party line is clearly formenting disunity, possibly due to leadership aspirations.
The only course of action Rann has is to lie and deny. To tell the truth would cause a much greater media circus and be the end of him; “Premier admits to affair”. If instead he can win a defamation case (possibly, since there is probably not a lot of hard evidence, it will be one word against another) he will look like a sneaky politician sure, but we’re used to them because that’s what we force them to be.
I wonder why we like gossip and other people’s misfortune. I am now over Channel 7. The reputation built up by Koch and Mel has now been destroyed forme by the attempt to destroy a decent hard working man for publicity and ratings. No wonder we have so few quality politicians. I don’t care what went on and hope this episode trashes Channel 7’s reputation. It has for me.
This poor woman should have tried her luck five years ago.
Now it looks like we are going to have election soon. I would have thought that there would be some more serious issues to fight Rann on.
Well now, what interesting responses.. Surely Crikey isn’t the domain of the intellectually superior?? I thought we came here to get away from spin!
And is Crikey soooo superior that we can’t touch on the matter of our sad abused widdle Premy, from that besom! that witch queen!
Thanks Hendrik Gout. Nice piece of writing, and not ‘beneath’ Crikey in any way.
I’ll fess up now;-it will take surgery to get this arrogant ‘man who would be king’ out of office so am I a wee tad biased? Perhaps.
Of course it was tabloid!,-an appetiser served up on Friday to whet the appetite for Sunday,-with a promise of more to come (I bliddy well hope so-or C7 and NI are well in the pooey).
But I care little about how long it took to come out, or how much Chantelois was paid ( she went up against our sacred cow,-his SA Progressive mob has business connections all over town;-that bodes well for her career prospects. Not).
The timing for this, I suspect directly links to Court matters on 7th December. I’m not in the least surprised that it has come out now. And equally not in the least surprised that she took some dosh for it!
I disagree with you: it is entirely relevant. Specifically to this Premier who instigated a ‘Code of Conduct’ charter when he came into office.
These of course are now completely denied allegations. I have to admit I’m looking forward to Rann’s court action. I plan to attend. Should be interesting.
Oh- and adjacent to the NA golf course in the dead of night with the car lights off is very, very, private, my dears…..let me assure you! (Damn! I wish I’d kept my eyes peeled, but I was otherwise occupied..).
it is time for media mike to hit the road anyway… hopefully this was the push he needed. Media Mike is just a poorer version of 24/7 Kevin.
However, regardless of the story, how many times have politicians denied stories of a similar ilk but only to be proven that they are truthful? uggghhhhhh.
As a passionate South Australian living abroad, it is about time we got some new blood as leader, I am by no means saying this should be Kevin Foley either, he has his own issues. Jay Weatherill? Alexander Downer perhaps?? someone else, please.
A once proud state is now a conservative backwater with about as much influence as Darwin. Through poor leadership we have missed every concievable economic opportunity over the past 10 years, we certainly missed the mining boom notwithstanding we hold some of the biggest Uranium deposits in the world.
If anyone needs a progressive leader, it is South Australia. If that happens we may start enticing some talent that moves (like me although, I am not talented!) interstate to progress their careers!
THE DUKE - Oh please no! Don’t wish Downer on the people of SA - they had enough of him during the Howard years. I’m waiting for him to give evidence re the AWB disgrace!
As for the nonsense about Rann. First, it’s nobody’s damned business, whether he was single, married or whatever. Politicians should be entitled to a private life; a sex life, with whoever they please, as long as there is consent. I’m amazed at the time delay? has the woman been in a coma? Out of the country?
What if this is a set up because there’s an election next year? As someone else said, why did the husband wait 4+ years, and why did the woman go to the media now - 5 years after the event? Very smelly I think! Has she left the marriage? Was she kicked out? Maybe she needs the money? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but apart from the money they’re paying her, why now???Of course, nobody will ask both of them that question will they? What else would you expect from Channel 7 - their Today Tonight show is beyond a joke. As for New Idea - I’ve just been reminded why I very rarely buy any of these rags!
We all know the routine:
First comes the denial.
Next the cover up.
Finally the sack, not for the original “offence” but for lying to all and sundry about it.
For my money the guy is lying through his teeth.
well, he used to be quite popular in SA and he comes from a very influential family. I didn’t mind him to be honest, don’t know much about the AWB issue. I think he is a partner in some quasi consultancy / M&A business now.
It all smells a bit fishy to me but anything to remove him will do me well. Ahhh the election is coming up is it? that might explain all the new projects that have been recently announced!!!!!
today tonight is trash tv and the advertiser and herald sun are trash papers!!
THE DUKE - Do you mean you didn’t mind Downer? I can’t stand him. I reckon he and Howard were not telling the truth about AWB. No less than 65 different forms of communication, and they didn’t know? I have fairies living at the bottom of my garden too. His grandfather, who was a Lord or whatever was not the nicest bloke in the world either. I read a speech made by a labor (federal)bloke that alleged, that his grandfather was in to bumping off aboriginals for sport???????????The aristocracy give me the s***s! Can’t stand them - they believe that they have a divine ‘right to rule’?
“anything to remove him will do me well”? That doesn’t sound very democratic to me?? Just as well you’re not living here. You’d be snapped up by ASIO under our version of the PATRIOT Act??????
I usually avoid commercial TV, particularly their so-called current affairs program - they’re garbage as you said!
well Adelaide is a small place and I profess to knowing their family a bit better than most, I am biased I guess. But to answer your question, yes I like him. He is actually a really nice guy, politics aside. I’d take that speech with a grain of salt - don’t forget we were a free colony!! haha
But as I said, anything is better than Media Mike!!
so the premier bonks a waitress … so what .. does he leave a tip ?
So mike rann had sex with a woman. he wasnt married. she wasnt gang raped. how is this news, really?
@Stevie: Only if he has leprosy.
Interesting that the people who really matter in this sad scenario - this woman’s young children - are the ones being the least discussed.
I don’t give a toss about Rann, Chantelois, Rann’s wife or Chantelois’ estranged husband. I do care about the children; they have the potential to be the most severely damaged by this whole situation.
First they have to endure the embarrassment of their father being arrested and seeing his face on the news and in the papers for weeks on end, describing how he allegedly attacked the Premier of the State with a rolled-up newspaper.
Then just when they are at the point of being able to put it behind them, one of the children overhears their mother telling one of her friends about her affair with Mike Rann. Classy, and top-notch parenting, too, to speak about such things so indiscreetly when your children are within earshot.
Then - and this is where it gets totally bizarre - she says is so worried about her children being ashamed of and thinking badly of her she decides to go on national TV/talk to a women’s magazine, giving explicit and salacious detail of the affair, and thereby ensuring that all their school friends know about it as well. I wonder if they have gone to school so far this week and, if so, how much taunting they have had to endure?
And because both TV programme and magazine are national, if they decide they don’t like attention after all, there won’t be many places they can go and anonymously get on with their lives.
I’m glad she got paid lots for this interview. She’ll need it given how much years of therapy for the children will cost. I can’t for the life of me see how it can have been worth it.
Perhaps then, Chris Johnson, it would be be better if you refrained from sanctimonious waffling about the private lives of others.
48 - the number of posts til someone said “Won’t someone please think of the children!!!”
LYING IS NOT IMMORAL.
There, I’ve said it. It is not immoral to lie about your private life if you are faced with intrusive, irrelevant and invasive questioning from acquaintances and strangers. You would do it and he is entitled to do it as well.
All the mindless piranhas in the media and elsewhere should lay off and try to train their minds to think about more worthwhile topics.
@David: He was being interviewed as Premier of SA for a public broadcast, not as an individual. Different rules apply.
I’m not normally a Herald Sun reader but there is a good article today from Susie O’Brien where she points out its the lying that’s the issue not the sex. Rann wasn’t “single” at the time of the alleged affair - he was living with the woman who is now his wife. Plus he claims to have not known the man who assaulted him at the time of the assault but later came out and claimed everyone was friends with everyone.
“In March 2002 The Advertiser, Adelaide’s daily paper, called Carruozzo his “current closest friend”. In December 2003 she was his “girlfriend of two years”. In March 2004 she was his “long-term partner” and the couple bought a house together.
Now does this sound like the situation of a single man?
The relationship hit the headlines when Chantelois’s estranged husband, Rick Phillips, hit the Premier with a rolled-up magazine at a function last month.
At the time, Rann said he didn’t know his attacker. It’s difficult to know why he would say this. In defending his relationship with Chantelois, the Premier’s camp has said Rann was friends with both her and her husband, even inviting them for dinner.
As I say, it’s not the allegations of sex, but the possibility of lies that are the problem.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/vital-issue-is-truth-not-sex/story-e6frfhqf-1225802684209
No, they don’t - different rules do not apply.
It is absurd to suppose that a single politician is not able to engage in relationships with other adults and maintain a reasonable amount of privacy. If that privacy is wilfully and maliciously intruded upon by others then he is entitled to lie in order to stem the intrusion.
David, the problem with your logic is you are really saying that when it is in your best interest to lie, it is ok to do so. Funny about that. Sorry, but a lie is a lie and by definition he appears to be a liar.
No, Jon, I am not saying that. I am saying that lying to protect your privacy is the much lesser ‘sin’ compared to allowing that breach of privacy to go unchecked until all privacy has been destroyed.
Can you honestly say that you would not lie to protect your privacy from rancorous outsiders?
If the answer is “yes” then you are a hypocrite. If the answer is “no” the you are either a liar or a fool.
I’m with you David S. There are a minority of bloggers here who obviously just love a dollop of gossip, some scandal and would be avid readers and watchers of the media outlets concerned. Trouble is these types who like to mind everyones business but their own, have nothing better to do, so they get their kicks goggling over the private lives of others. Frankly the mods here should end this absurd thread, and move on.Crikey is becoming no better than New Idea and 7.
Best strategy might be to say that my private relationships are a private matter and I’m not going to take any questions on them.
Whether the media would let you get away with that is another matter.
@David: So according to you, if Mike Rann had been asked this question in parliament, and had answered the same way, that would be ok? (leave aside the issue that the speaker would probably have disallowed the question) I’m saying answering “no comment” is an answer that meets your needs for privacy.
David, well yes I suppose you are right in some ways, the problem is that he was foolish enough to lie when the truth will in all probably be revealed, at which point you will kind of look silly, and a liar. If you are going to lie, make sure you do it when no-one can never know that you are!
Yes, “no comment” would have been a wiser but less satisfying answer.
“No comment” does not maintain privacy because it is taken to be an admission of ‘guilt’. As you rightly point out parliamentary rules protect the privacy of parliamentarians so the question about whether he should lie to parliament does not arise. And that is as it should be.
Well done Jenny you have completely backed up my earlier remarks about gossips. There you are, “I’m not usually a Herald Sun reader”…. but read it when you want something juicy, then you scan the media, backdated over 7 years, looking for juicy bits of tittle tattle to fuel your burning desire to keep the gossip going. To repeat the majority of contributors who gives a friggin sows ear about this pathetic media beat up. Get on with life, Rann will be there tomorrow, next week, next year despite this storm in a tea cup, where Stokes will add to his millions and New Idea will sell countless xtra copies, thats what it is all about, nothing to do with a woman defiles, or bonked and defending her honour, 7 and New Idea couldn’t give a stuff about her. Jeez its a small minded world we live in.
As for Jenny’s discussion as to whether Rann was truly single or not, its most noteworthy feature was its heedless assumption that she is entitled to publicly speculate about the private life of another adult. The sanctimonious assumption that she is entitled to make judgements about his personal choices is another revolting feature.
Rann is entitled to fend off such appalling gossip-mongers and if lies are necessary to fend them off then that is an entirely permissible tactic.
But they haven’t fended off appalling gossip-mongers.
Because people will still think he is lying.
It’s so Monty Python! A State Premier gets whacked over the head at a public function for his role in a domestic that’s been unravelling for years. Security goes on high alert (public purse starts ticking) and doctors treat the leader before he’s carted off early. Identification of the assailant gets muddled by said Premier who’s never seen the attacker until the media refreshes his past. It turns out the Premier’s had a flirty, fun relationship with the guy’s wife for years and she’s a terrific person, great mother and good friend well known to his wife. So the good friend spills just how flirty and fun their relationship was from her perspective but that’s not what the Premier recalls. As it gets aired across the world the moral of the story is don’t drag a seedy past into public office and if you’re already there don’t flirt with danger. I mean walking around parliament and officiating at functions with a face full of ruptured blood vessels isn’t a good look.
Goodness me! What a bunch of pretentious Wally’s!!
Raymondchurch if the ‘new tabloid Crikey’ is so on the nose,…well sod off! I mean I know us little gossipchompers are dragging it downwards an’ all, but..well, fair’s fair. You’ve had a good innings-give us great unwashed a wee go won’t youse?
David Sanderson: another condescending twot! As I sit here with my Chico roll and flagonagrog, watching the toenails floating gently around the life givin’ fluid, I am trying so hard to earn my Crikeycred.
Alas! I fail.
Once you of the elite upper echelons decide what is Crikiable and what is not, then we is well in the ol’ troubling watters!!
I DO want a modicum of decency from my Prem (I addressed him thus once-,he bristled.., another wretentious pranker!!). I DO want to know if he mucks up my life, and those of others. I DON’T see that lying is OK (though Mr Sanderson, you have a friend in wotsaface who wrote his wee booky that lying is the OS of the polytishun).
This wheesty little matter is of interest to many who of course can never achieve the masterly heights of the intellectual ether,-BUT who are perfectly content to have the matter aired on Crikey, who quite frankly would be subject to even greater criticism, if they had thought themselves so morally superior as to ignore it!
Now;- don’t you fret yerselves. Just congregate in the areas of Crikey that meet with your superior thought processes, and leave us plebs languishing down ‘ere in the baser regions of the Crikey Family.
Now I can’t say fairer than that can I?
Sad those would be comedians, such as Elan, have the ability to be as boring as the subject it/she/he spend their insignificant existance gossiping over.
Elan has opinions and desires but he doesn’t have an argument. Apparently he feels that his desire to delve into other people’s private lives is his right simply because he feels like doing it. My dog has similar “thought processes” and she too will stick her nose where it is not wanted but I don’t think any person should emulate her.
Elan can stick to his doggy ways if he chooses but he shouldn’t be surprised if he is sneered at by “the upper echelons”.
Now, now genkumen, don’t go gettin’ yer pure silk undies in a twist!
I am not sure that Media Mike will survive this, it atleast gives Kevin Foley the impetus to make a leadership challenge which if you believe the rumours, has been in the background for a while.
SA will be better off without Rann now anyway. After being Don Dunstans golden child he started off quite well but is now just a powder puff, a poor mans Kevin Rudd.
Notwithstanding this lay who has obviously been motivated by money, why not I say, what if the claims she has made are true? having a bonk on the desk, between meetings etc etc
SA needs a leader with some grunt so we are not simply a backwater.
people seem to be overlooking the problem here. Nobody really cares who Media Mike bonked whilst he was a single man. Obviously it is an integrity issue if it was someones wife or, a lady of the night.
The problem is, and he should go if it is true, that he allegedly conducted his business on his office desk and between meetings, not sure if he would be so dumb, arrogant yes, but dumb? If George Costanza can get fired for having relations with the office cleaner on his desk, so can Media Mike.
Media Mike invited a number of journalists to his wedding so it will be interesting to see how the press covers this story. Media Mike is a powder puff that has put his own profile ahead of the good of the state.
We were once a very proud state. The number of people I meet on my travels that have travelled extensively through Australia but never to Adelaide, is quite sad. We have so much going for our state. The wine capital of Australia, great beaches, great restaurants, national parks, pubs, architecture etc etc.
Grrrrrr yes, I am frustrated!
Perhaps you could relieve your frustration by experiencing first-hand some of the bonking you are so interested in. So obvious really.
But perhaps you prefer the second hand.
Mrs Palmer and her 5 daughters need not come around tonight.
however, anything to turf Rann the d**k from his West Terrace office, I’ll do.
Duke, you forgot to mention the sh*ty water and serial killers
Raymond “happy healthy 4 kids Teetotaler” Church: Here in this thread too shouting down your dissenters!!!
You remind me of a fellow in Germany about 70 years back who didn’t like people who didn’t share his opinion.
Raymond Church, methinks you protest too much on this.
I’d have expected somebody who thought the topic irrelevant would have either ignored it, or said so and exited. Instead you dwell in it haranguing posters that have options different from your own.
(^ for “options” read “opinions”)