Sorry Saga - Why do we fight?

There may have been some of that but threat of added sanctions to the club was the main reason.

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He was also constrained by EFC Board decisions, in circumstances where the AFL had the mendicant and Eddie’s club lined up like ducks in the exercise of their voting powers - some would call it AFL blackmail.
I think it was recorded in Chip’s book that he told Hird that if he would not settle with the AFL, the Club would need to sack him.
And when the mediator in that process-Wylie - was PBF of Fitzpatrick, the one who told Corcoran that his mate would not get a job back in this town,

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Why am I not surprised? He is a very slippery character Stephen Dank.

He obviously has no amount of hidey holes and plays with a forked hand.

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And he was right, Hirdy has not worked again in footy and why on earth would he want to?

The Bucks and Hirdy show - a winner. Good mates and played junior footy together.

Would be better than the buffoons in the visual footy media these days.

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What, so he just dumps Crawf for the new shiny thing that’s become available?

(What’s happened to Crawf 'n Hirdy anyway, is it still a thing?)

I don’t mind Crawf. Those 3 would be better than anything on footy TV at the moment.

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Crawl and Hirdy was only a short term thing. Crawl was the main one who had other commitments that made it just too difficult to commit to a regular schedule. As Crawf and Hirdy got busier with their outside footy commitments, it just became too challenging.

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Mr Bruce Francis is amazing in his search for the truth. Tenacious and indefatigable.

Deserves a medal.

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Yes, Bruce does not take any prisoners and does not suffer fools easily.

At his most recently completed case before the AAT in Brisbane Bruce was confronted by a couple of low level ASADA officials who had not been at ASADA during the Essendon investigation. Under questioning they admitted not being aware of the case details, let alone not able to answer direct questions. Anyway Bruce got what he wanted and costs were awarded against ASADA to the tune of around $68,000. This was an over budget expense from ASADA that was questioned before Senate Estimates.

His current case, which has been delayed/postponed many times already this year, has asked that a number of AFL/ASADA officals be subpoenaed. This request has been vigorously defended to the degree that, it appears, that the AFL and ASADA have engaged a team of lawyers to represent them.
Has had no impact on Bruce’s attitude and commitment.

I, for one, will be keeping a very close eye on the costs involved in this case where it seems ASADA (SIA) have employed a legal company to protect them (at some considerable cost I expect).

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Surely at some point they need to actually justify the cost of defending against his FOI etc. requests.

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I’m out of touch, but government agencies used to have capacity to draw on the legal resources of Attorney General/ Solicitor General free of charge.
There was a big push to outsource legal services to the private sector, with some agencies having a panel of private providers for domestic legal cases.
ASADA got a one off Budget supplement to cover legal costs during the Saga. It is one of those statutory agencies that is required to generate revenue to supplement its budget appropriation .
ASADA could wear down some challengers by forcing them into legal proceedings with high legal costs, but as Bruce is representing himself, it’s not working this time.

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AGS and others now bill the requesting department.

There is still some outsourcing as well.

Any in-house legal stuff is usually costed back to the originating cost code.

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The legal costs should be raised at next estimates.

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why doesn’t someone talk to Bruce, frame the question, and find a compliant senator to ask it?

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That is the aim. It seems Bruce’s current case before the AAT will belayed until December, maybe. It appears that the SIA and probably the AFL’s legal team are dragging this out for as long as possible. Maybe they just think Bruce will go away.

Even if SIA are being represented by the Government Solicitor’s Office I understand that they will still bill SIA for their services and so would be recorded as an expense. Those Estimates Senators like those over budget scenarios. It would be worth finding through a senator how many hours have been logged against the case by the government lawyers. One could then assume the AFL are spending a similar sum on their defence. I would suggest the AFL legal team would be racking up the $s. ching, ching

As Mick Warner’s book states, nobody in the AFL Executive wants to sit in the witness box and be questioned under oath.

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They would probably lie anyway.

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Yes, they probably would. But the very thought of compelling them to appear and be questioned by Bruce, who has an encyclopedia of facts and questions, and be able to prove, beyond reasonable doubt (just to make it more certain), that they have a history of not telling the truth, is worthy of the effort.

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Or have selective amnesia……. we have seen this before.

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