“Let The Gravy Train Shine”
The former Queenland attorney general Kerry Shine of Shine and Co lawyers, was caught red-handed appointing close friends as judges and magistrates. Nothing new here as most judges and magistrates have close political connections and thats how they are appointed in the first place, not because of their ability, ethics or integrity.
The Kerry Shine story did not get much national attention although it should have. The Courier Mail seemed to be the only print news that picked up on it.
On the 15th September 2009 Patrick Lion from The Courier Mail wrote:
The Courier-Mail has learnt Mr Shine <http://www.qld.alp.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=399> quietly handed former lawyer Damian Carroll the $262,000-a-year role, despite Mr Carroll being a long-time friend whom Mr Shine lauded alongside his brothers and sisters in parliamentary speeches.
Mr Carroll is the latest judicial figure to emerge with intimate links to Labor, including Premier Anna Blighs friend and campaign helper, Caloundra magistrate Di Fingleton, and Mr Shines friend and appointee, Cairns judge William Everson. Then on the 25th September Patrick Lion wrote in the Courier Mail:
FORMER attorney-general Kerry Shine is facing more questions over his judicial appointments after handing a $300,000-a-year post to the sister of a close friend who helped him get elected.
Mr Shine has already admitted <http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26071898-3102,00.html> appointing two other friends and campaign workers to lucrative jobs for life within the judiciary.
It was the same speech in which Mr Shine also praised two other close friends and campaign workers, Damian Carroll and Bill Everson, both of whom he later appointed as a Toowoomba magistrate and Cairns district court judge respectively. Patrick Lion followed-up the above two articles with a story titled Push to stop politicians favouring mates on the 9th of October 2009. (Click here to read the full story)
In the first paragraph he wrote Queensland is falling behind the rest of the country in making judicial appointments more transparent as a former judge calls for an overhaul of selection processes to stamp out cronyism claims.
Well this is not actually true. What should have been written is that Queensland is falling behind the other states in setting up a bullshit smoke and mirrors situation to fool the public into believing that the judicial appointments are unbiased and not corrupt. contributed