You can believe what you like. I don’t believe or disbelieve either.
Maybe I am biased, as I think all ABC reporters and journos have no principles, at least every one that has crossed my path has done their best to create a story and ly and cheat.
You reckon Foley is guilty, and maybe he is, but your response is just the conditioned response of all current such matters.
You clearly don’t believe her and you do believe him as you take cheaps shots at her. It is spiteful.
You are wrong. Both of us have no idea what is true. You are just taking sides.
I don’t like Foley but dislike ABC journos much more, but makes no difference to the facts. Foley will probably end up on SkyChannel as well.
We’ll all end up on the Sky Channel, and Little Andy Bolt will be St Peter at the boomgate.
I’m trying to put together a scenario in which Foley is telling the truth, and I’m having trouble.
Scenario 1 - alcohol. Both the journo and her witness were plastered and imagined the whole thing (each of them seemingly recalling the same imaginary event clearly enough two years later). Neither of them seem to have had any of the ‘did that really happen?’ doubts that sometimes affects people after a big night.
Scenario 2 - mistaken identity. Someone else assaulted the journo and she mistakenly thought it was Foley. To believe this, we have to believe that two journalists whose entire job was covering state politics BOTH mistook someone else for the opposition leader when that someone else came up to them and spoke to them. Riiiight.
Scenario 3 - the magical invisible grope ninja. Foley said goodnight to the journalist as described in her statement, but unseen to any of the three people present (Foley and the two journalists), a fourth person snuck up behind the journo and stuck his hand down her pants. The second journo somehow was looking in the right direction (because according to the statement he saw and recognised that the assault happened), but failed to see this fourth person entirely and thought it was foley who was the offender (how?)
Scenario 4 - deliberate deception. Nothing like this ever happened and the journalists are telling deliberate lies. The two journalists make up this story between them (why?) at some point at least a year ago. The ‘witness’ journo agrees to back up his colleague’s lies about what happened. In 2017 another journalist heard the story (presumably our two ABC masterminds had been spreading the rumour, so that when it came out it’d look like they weren’t involved in going public). Then they go to ABC management and report their rumour as fact, and specifically ask the ABC not to go public (why?) Then somehow the journalists arrange for the story to reach a Lib minister, who raises the allegations under parliamentary privilege. They STILL don’t speak up (why not?) until some time later. Their nefarious plan successful, they then proceed to … seek no publicity and do no interviews? If this is a plot, it’s a really bewildering one that doesn’t seem to have a purpose.
Or else Foley just did it.
The Shaggy defence. It wasn’t me!
Which I’m guessing, his audience is his family/wife not the public or the reporter.
But why are you doing this ?
Are you just like another, who wants to justify your decision to not believe Foley and believe a journo.
I could pick similar holes in her story, but why bother. We will know the truth if it gets to court, and if Foley does not follow through with the court threat then we will probably know the truth.
I just don’t get anyone being assaulted and not going to the cops and I don’t get a male colleague watching it and not assaulting Foley, but then everyone is not an angry prikk like me.
Partially it’s to do with being an angry prick, and partially it’s a lack of empathy.
Like IT, I had issues with the Kav thing.
I don’t have issues with this.
This just rings true, and I don’t see the benefit in lying.
But back to the main point, if you can’t see how a professional political journalist has nothing to gain and everything to lose by reporting this, then I invite you to think harder.
Told you that I am biased against all journos especially ABC. They go through a degree in journalism and are force fed on ethics and the principles of good journalism. They get a job and as soon as they get their first byline, it becomes a drug.
And whatever the truth, Foley is ruined. The Journo will get credit for bringing down a Leader, and the better paying job that will come with it.
I do have empathy for her suffering through an assault, if it happened, but not how she handled it or wrote about it.
Again, I don’t think you appreciate how much a journalist has to lose against a political party in this sort of scenario.
Or had.
Up until about a year ago.
My wife was a journo.
And if any prominent politician groped her back in the day…well, I’d have advised her to let it go.
I think I still would.
We have a daughter, she has a career, and I would rather put my bits in a mincer than go alone against a big two political party.
Edit: I think it’s worth mentioning at this point that I know a guy who had his family’s health threatened by a political party over something that really didn’t matter very much.
Is a FFS too much, … or willl a 
do?
And I could tell you about Politicians who careers have been destroyed and families hurt by journos " just doing their job".
I recall that James Hird and his family were not that well treated by journos.
And Wim, it is not Political Parties that threaten anyone, it is thugs acting in their own or with equally thuggish colleagues.
Who does Tracey Holmes work for again?
In any case, the saga is a massive distraction.
We’re talking about why a female journalist and a witness would decide not to go up against a political party on something like this.
I can only explain it to you.
I can’t understand it for you.
Edit: Oh, and ■■■■ the ■■■■ ■■■■■■■ off with the last bit you edited in.
You didn’t come down in the last shower.
No, I’ve seen how nasty political parties can get when they want a certain message put out.
Thankfully they get turned over regularly.
Dude, she didn’t report the story. She actively avoided reporting the story. She warned the ABC that someone else was trying to report the story and then asked the ABC to not report the story for her sake. She seems to have absolutely bent over backwards to avoid this getting out, and now some Lib who got wind of it blabbed it all in parliament against her will, you’re grumbling about ‘bylines being like a drug’ and Foley being ruined and how she’ll be looking forward to a better paying job now?
And if you want to know why she didn’t report it immediately, as she explained right there in her statement, cast your eyes around the career and lifestyle progression of women who’ve accused politically powerful men of sexual misconduct. I believe Christine Blasey Ford just moved to family to their fourth undisclosed location since testifying about Kavanaugh, the death threats just keep on rolling, and she has no serious prospect of going back to her job ever. Monica Lewinsky once had ambitions of a career in politics, otherwise she wouldn’t have become a Whitehouse intern - how’s that going for her? Or the Nat woman who accused Barnaby Joyce of groping, did she see her complaint investigated thoroughly and impartially?
political parties are a cesspit of incestuous societal leeches.
You come across like you are drunk. A holier than thou drunk at that. Goodbye forever twerp.
And you come across like a dikkhead. Sooner we build that ditch the better.
Anyway. Changing tack.
Here’s and oldie but a goodie
Dig it
The sooner these heartless, souless, blights on our country are removed from office the better.
Foodbank chief executive says she can’t understand the move, which she says will harm drought affected families relying on the charity
Foodbank helps provide rice, flour, cereal and canned goods to more than 710,000 Australians. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/PA
Australia’s largest food charity has called out the government for slashing its funding for a key program by almost half just six weeks from Christmas, a situation it says “beggars belief”.
Foodbank helps provide pantry essentials to more than 710,000 Australians impacted by natural disasters or economic hardships through its Key Staples program, which sees the organisation work with manufacturers, suppliers and transporters to provide rice, flour, cereals and canned goods to 2,600 charities and 1,750 schools around the country.
But in the third cut to its federal funding since 2014, Foodbank chief executive Brianna Casey said the government was now asking the organisation to absorb another cut, which would leave it with less than $430,000 a year. Three years ago, the organisation received $1.5m a year to do the same job.
The latest cut, which works out to about $323,000 a year, comes into effect from January 2019, impacting contracts and arrangements the organisation already had in place.
“I just cannot fathom why this is happening at all, let alone at one of the most challenging times of year for vulnerable Australians and our drought affected communities,” Casey said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the social services minister Paul Fletcher announced$4.5m would be allocated to three organisations – Foodbank, Secondbite and Ozharvest – as part of a $204.5m emergency support funding package.
“This funding enables community organisations to get food supplies to many Australians impacted by crisis, including those currently doing it tough in the bush, Fletcher said.
“And we can pay for these vital grants by keeping our economy strong and the federal budget on the path to surplus.”
Guardian Australia understands the $4.5m had originally been budgeted over three years for two organisations, and the government is now spreading it across three, hence the sudden cut to Foodbank’s allocation.
Foodbank works by utilising relationships with suppliers, who either subsidise or donate stores, which is then sent to manufacturers who produce and package the goods using spare production capacity.
“The federal government funding is essential to glue these productions arrangements together,” Casey said.
“… In our pre-budget submission we made a compelling case for why it is critical that this funding be increased to address the hunger crisis we are currently facing with 4 million Australians exposed to food insecurity every year. Instead, our flagship program is now at risk and our ability to deliver emergency drought relief in times of natural disaster will be compromised. We call on the prime minister to correct this short-sighted decision.”
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has picked up the organisation’s case, writing to Scott Morrison in an effort to reverse the decision.
“Foodbank uses this modest amount to secure more than $8m worth of essential food for hungry Australians. All of this is now at risk,” he writes, in the letter seen by Guardian Australia.
“Your government’s cut will have a major impact on Foodbank’s supplies, and risks compromising their ability to distribute emergency food relief during natural disasters.
“I am genuinely surprised by this mean and foolish decision.”
The situation is similar to the situation charity founder Father Chris Riley found his Youth Off the Streets organisation in last month, after a change in funding instruments left the education arm of his charity with a $630,000 debt.
Less than a day after his story went public, education minister Dan Tehan stepped in to wipe the debt, while promising to find a long term solution to the “unique” issue the funding formula change had created for Riley’s program.