Speedbox says: February 17, 2023 at 6:19 pm
The obvious answer is you get what you pay for. Yes, other means of telling the time abound but a good quality utility or diving watch can last decades and withstand all manner of rough treatment. The thing most owners don’t recognise is that utility and diving watches need to be serviced every 5-10 years to maintain seals and replace internal lubricants. Do that and the watch will probably outlast its owner.

Hehe, I’ll take this from the top:

1) RBA governor Philip Lowe can & should use whatever style & price of watch he wants. It is a free country, & if he wants to spend $20,000 bucks to achieve the same result as someone whose watch cost $1.69 on ebay, then who are we to stand in his way?
Likewise who the heck do the j’ismist caste or the Anal govt think they are to make any comment?
The man is paid a salary & merits of that salary aside, he’s harming nobody if he spends way more of that salary than he needs to on a fancy replica of a $2 Seiko.

The money is going to craftsmen, entrepreneurs, & is keeping the wheels of the economy greased, some may say Lowe spending his money on precise timepieces is doing more for the economy than anything he’s ever done at the RBA – I cannot comment on that, it is not for me to say.

2) What RBA governor Philip Lowe should not do is bow to the mob & start using a less expensive watch, one that is say 1/1000 the value of the one he used until yesterday.

Bow to the mob & you’re finished, in every way.

(None of the above is to be taken as commentary on his fitness or suitability as an RBA board member.)

Outback remains to be tested for murdered backpacker Peter Falconio
John Silvester
By John Silvester
February 17, 2023 — 4.00pm

Human remains found in the outback near Alice Springs will be tested to see if they are from Peter Falconio, the British backpacker murdered in 2001.

Northern Territory police remain tight-lipped on the find because the identity of the remains is yet to be established.

Multiple sources have confirmed to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the bones have been discovered and that they will be cross-checked against the Falconio case because of their age and location.

The remains were found this week in a location consistent with an area where Falconio’s body was suspected to have been dumped, within a few hundred kilometres of where he was shot.

Forensic experts will use DNA and dental records to establish an identity.

The man convicted of the murder, Bradley John Murdoch, has refused to say where he left the body.

Northern Territory Police have initiated multiple searches over the years for Falconio’s body, and have always remained hopeful of finding his remains. Several discoveries – in 2003, 2004 and 2007 – were not linked to Falconio.

“We have been down this track before so we are not jumping to any conclusions,” a Territory detective said.

Falconio, 28, was driving with his girlfriend Joanne Lees along the Stuart Highway north of Alice Springs on July 14, 2001, when Murdoch drove up from behind and motioned for them to pull over, indicating their vehicle may have a mechanical problem.

Lees told police that when the men went to check the car she heard a shot and was then tied up by Murdoch. She managed to escape and hid for five hours while Murdoch hunted her. She flagged down a passing truck to escape.

Why is there a waiting list? Most of the big watch brands have got minimal inventory on display in airports?

Not really a waiting list. I don’t think the Authorized Dealers even know what or when they are going to get from the manufacturer. Apparently you haven’t been able to get a steel Rolex for months (not that I’ve tied). The ADs just keep taking whatever they are sent hoping they get something they can move it on. If you are in a real hurry you pay over list from somebody flipping for profit meanwhile the ADs move unloved stuff like solid gold or dual metal onto grey market dealers to discount. All pretty opaque but it’s been done like that forever.

Now sitting near a very chatty expatriate from Melbourne.

m0nster?
Is he stuffing his face with pastizzi?

HISTORY
Letter arrives 105 years after being posted
Jack Blackburn, History Correspondent
Thursday February 16 2023, 5.40pm GMT, The Times
Royal Mail
FINLAY GLEN
Save

How late has your post been recently? A few days? Weeks? Maybe a month? Strike action may be causing significant delays at present, but they are nothing compared to the time taken for one letter to make it from Bath to Crystal Palace which has finally arrived 105 years after it was posted.

It was originally sent by a Christabel Mennell, who seemed to be racked by guilt and wished to make amends with her friend, Katie Marsh. Mennell was on holiday at the time and therefore posted the letter from a house in Bath in February 1916. Sadly, Katie would never receive it.

It finally fell through the letter box of 18 Hamlet Road in 2021, where it was picked up by the present resident, Finlay Glen, 27, a theatre director.
The contents of the letter, sent by a Christabel Mennell, were aimed at making amends with her friend, Katie Marsh

Confronted with a stamp bearing the image of George V, which cost a penny in 1916, Glen swiftly realised that the Bath postmark did not refer to February 6, 2016.

“We were obviously pretty surprised and mystified as to how it could have been sat around for more than 100 years,” Glen told the BBC.

Glen’s mystification was shared by the Royal Mail. “Incidents like this happen very occasionally,” a spokesperson said, “and we are uncertain what happened in this instance.”

The letter’s story has come to light after Glen kept it in a drawer for two years. Despite the legal difficulties of opening someone else’s mail, he felt that a 105-year-old letter was “fair game”.

Its contents seem to reveal an attempt to pour oil on the waters between two friends. Mennell, who was the daughter of a wealthy local tea merchant, writes on headed paper, where her presumably usual address of 31 Park Hill Rise, Croydon, is crossed out.

She writes to Marsh, who, perhaps ironically given this story, was the wife of a local stamp magnate who was often called as an expert witness at stamp fraud trials.

Mennell says she is “quite ashamed of myself after saying what I did”, and spends much of the letter complaining about a terrible cold she is suffering from.

The pair are thought to be extremely middle class, and Stephen Oxford, a local historian, has said that they reflected the changing demographics of the area.

“Crystal Palace generated a huge influx of very wealthy people and so to find out about someone who moved to the area for possibly that very reason is absolutely fascinating,” he said.

On today’s roads, the distance between Bath and southeast London is roughly 121 miles, meaning that the letter travelled at an average speed of 1.15 miles a year. A tortoise walking for eight hours a day would have covered that distance in just over 50 days.

Glen hopes that the letter’s journey is not quite over yet. “It’s an amazing piece of their family history that has turned up,” he said. “If they want to, they can come round.”

More, from the article in the Oz.

In that same email to Brown, the department confirms that “the steps you have taken are appropriate” and then says: “Ultimately any decision as to whether to lodge a police report or pursue any other form of complaint relating to this matter would be a personal choice of the person involved. I note the 1800Respect website recommends the person should have ‘as much control as possible over what to do next’ and that a person ‘may decide not to report to police, or to have a medical or examination … This is their choice and must be respected’. For a referral to be made on her behalf, or without her consent or against her wishes could be harmful to her.”

Reynolds wanted to check on Higgins when she was back in the office on Monday; Brown and Reynolds were concerned that something sexual had happened.

“I came back on the Monday (April 1) and she (Higgins) didn’t make an allegation of rape. I tried to be sympathetic, and I did say to her that there’s AFP in the building, they’re probably better to talk to. They’ve got counsellors available and things if you think you need it.

“If Brittany or anybody else hasn’t made an allegation of rape, then you can’t force them to do anything. But you can be there to support, which as you can see from all those actions, she was,” says Reynolds.

Reynolds also relayed in her formal police statement that during this meeting Higgins was “extremely apologetic”, described her actions as “unprofessional” and said to Reynolds that “she didn’t want to lose her job”.

I ask: Did Higgins tell Reynolds that she was raped that night?

“No,” says Reynolds, “there was never any allegation of rape.”

Did she say she was assaulted in some way?

“No,” says Reynolds.

Did Brown tell Reynolds that Higgins mentioned a rape or assault to her? “No,” says Reynolds.

Higgins confirmed this to journalist Samantha Maiden. “I said (to Brown) that he was on top of me. I think for the longest time I was real­ly weird about actually saying it was rape. I don’t know why. I was very delicate about it. I think from our exchange she understood the inference,’’ Higgins told news.com.au.

‘Lying cow’

Reynolds’ usual polite demeanour fell away as news broke about Higgins’ allegations that she and her chief of staff had not supported her. Reynolds would utter those fateful words – “lying cow” – that would later be splashed across the media when it was first reported by this newspaper.

The wink, wink insinuation was that Reynolds questioned the truth of the rape allegation that Higgins made on television that evening. “That was wrong,” says Reynolds. No one can know what happened that night except the two people involved.

Reynolds says she was reacting to allegations, aired in the media the first time, that she and Brown had treated Higgins poorly, that they brought Higgins into Reynolds’ office knowing that Higgins claimed a rape had taken place on the sofa in that office, and was forced to choose between reporting a rape to the police or keeping her job. “It [her outburst] was about the alleged lack of support that Fiona and I offered her.”

Reynolds maintains she did everything she could to support Higgins. Why then did Reynolds pay a sum of money to Higgins after the “lying cow” outburst? She says, after what would unfold in the next few days and weeks, “I just didn’t have the strength to fight it.” Many saw the payment as go-away money given it could not have been defamatory for Reynolds to contest Higgins’ claims that she was unsupported by her and Brown.

Did Reynolds ever imply that Higgins’ job was on the line if she made a police complaint?

“No. Never,” says Reynolds.

In fact, when an election was called just over 10 days later, on April 11, 2019, Reynolds and Brown discussed various options with Higgins: work at campaign headquarters, or campaign with Reynolds in Perth, or work from her home in Brisbane during the campaign.

“She chose to come to Perth and, as far as I knew, I don’t see every one of my staff every day – there were seven or eight staying in Perth for the campaign – she was out campaigning every day. As far as I knew, she was still pursuing the matter with the police,” Reynolds tells me.

There are tweets from Higgins during this period praising Reynolds and a photo of a campaign dinner where Higgins is smiling, seated next to Reynolds, in a white dress.

This photo would become trial evidence to contest Higgins’ claim that after wearing this same dress on the night of the alleged rape, she kept it “under my bed in a plastic bag for a good six months, untouched, uncleaned”.

After the Higgins allegations exploded on the national stage two years ago, Reynolds recounts that she requested a private meeting with Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins on February 23, 2021, to discuss the issue. In late September, Reynolds met Jenkins again for an extended interview for her report that was precipitated by the Higgins scandal. “She (Jenkins) was unable to advise me what more I could have done.”

On the ABC’s Insiders program in March 2021, Jenkins confirmed that a victim-centric approach means respecting the agency of women as to whether they wish to make a police complaint. Jenkins alluded to the “very wicked problem” that ministers face when confronted with these issues.

Reynolds was attacked day in, day out for her handling of this matter, including for not informing prime minister Scott Morrison. But she maintains she was respecting Higgins’ agency.

“Was I going to tell the prime minister? No,” she insists. “If you were a staff member in BHP, if you were thinking about whether you were going to make a complaint, if you were talking to police and counsellors, would you want someone else to tell the CEO? Doing so without their permission is a violation of their agency.”

‘Everyone has a breaking point’

Reynolds describes how Labor wanted her scalp, and after days and weeks of attacks they found her breaking point.

“One of the bigger issues now, on reflection, two years later, is who do we want to be as senators and as parliamentarians representing the nation? I’ve had to think a lot about that … whether I could physically and mentally stay. Because what this showed me is that even the strongest people have a breaking point and Labor found mine. It was calculated, it was deliberate.

“I tried to be unfailingly polite and answer the questions as much as I could, respecting her (Higgins’) agency, as I said time and time again. But ultimately, it was like crows pecking on the carcass until it’s gone, they just kept at me, every day, they just kept diminishing me.” After giving her statement to the Senate, and becoming emotional during question time, Reynolds broke down after being asked an unrelated question about Home Affairs.

‘I just was sobbing uncontrollably’

Reynolds describes it quietly: “I could hardly speak. I just said I need you to take this on notice. I sat down and one of my colleagues helped me out, Senator (Paul) Scarr. He’s a beautiful man. And then I was out in the anteroom and I just was sobbing uncontrollably and you know, chest pains. I was literally inconsolable.”

This wasn’t performance art. Here was a strong, successful, determined woman – a woman with an important portfolio, the first woman to reach the rank of army brigadier in the Army Reserves, the first female to hold the position of adjutant-general of army, the first female deputy federal director of the Liberal Party – in a state of utter collapse. Far from the public eye.

“Someone had sent a message to Scott (Morrison) and it was towards the end of his question time, but he came straight over,” she recalls. “I went into the whip’s office and (Morrison) sat with me. I don’t know how long it was for. Just the two of us. It still sort of makes me a little emotional, but he was just so wonderful. I was still sobbing and speaking through tears.

“And, you know, I will never forget his kindness.”

The PM’s apology

The day before her breakdown, Morrison had very publicly rebuked Reynolds, describing it as unacceptable that she had not told him or his office about the alleged rape in her office.

Reynolds tells me that Morrison expressed regret to her in private the next day when Reynolds was escorted, in a state of collapse, from the Senate chamber into the Senate anteroom, and then into Dean Smith’s office.

“He was clearly sorry for what had happened to me. And I explained to him why I couldn’t and didn’t tell him, and he understood,” she says.

“While she never said the rape word, we had sort of thought she may have had some concerns, something had happened. But it was never my story to tell anyone.”

I ask why she thinks he apologised to her. “He realised that it was never my position to tell anybody about Brittany Higgins’ story,” Reynolds says.

Though Reynolds says she has “mixed feelings” about how some on her own side treated her during this time, she says she is very grateful to her “guardian angels” – Anne Ruston, Jane Hume and Marise Payne – who supported her and protected her. “They were like lionesses when I couldn’t protect myself from Labor, from the PMO, from the media, and other attack dogs. Those running the prime minister’s office distanced themselves from me in exactly the way that the Higgins camp intended. It was lonely,” she recalls. She says her partner, Robert, saved her life with his love and support.

Reynolds is hazy about the exact day – the days and weeks, she says, ran into each other – when she describes another morning in her office after days of relentless, unfair attacks on her. It was before Senate questions.

“I was in the bathroom. I was on the floor. I was just broken. I was sobbing. I was inconsolable. Anne (Ruston) – my saving angel – bolted in from across the corridor … and she just immediately took charge. I think she contacted Simon Birmingham, the (Senate) leader. It was so bad. I literally cannot remember whether I did actually get up for question time that day or I didn’t. She (Ruston) took charge of my staff and she just made sure that I had a space to calm down.”

‘I could have died’

I ask Reynolds about the extent of the collateral damage done to her, attacked in the Senate, in the media, hung out to dry by her own side. “I could have died,” she says simply.

Reynolds ended up in hospital on the eve of a National Press Club address. She recalls former health minister Greg Hunt telling her after question time: “Linda, you look grey”, and arranging for a doctor to see her. She describes the spasms around her heart, her heart rate spiralling up. “It was just awful.”

She ended up waiting outside Canberra Hospital, but finally saw a cardiologist late that night in his rooms. “I had the most horrific night. I didn’t get any sleep, and I was in pain. Robert, Anne (Ruston) and Jane (Hume) were incredibly worried.”

The following day she was still planning to give her NPC address. She spoke with the specialist who, she says, said “don’t be stupid, just come straight down to the hospital. And I did. And I was admitted.”

Last installment, from the Oz

‘I feel sorry for Brittany’

Few people outside her inner circle understand that, despite the betrayal, the damage, the emotional and physical toll on her, Reynolds has no residual anger. Unusually, especially for a politician, there is little sign of bitterness or a thirst for revenge. Just setting the record straight will do for Reynolds. Part of that is explaining her feelings for Higgins.

“There are no winners from this,” she says more than once to me.

“I feel very sorry for Brittany Higgins because her personal circumstances should always have been played out in the privacy of the justice system – she was terribly exploited by proponents of the #MeToo movement, by opponents of the government.

“The allegation that she made to Lisa Wilkinson first, and then to the police, was an allegation of rape. It should never have been played out in the Senate. It should never have been played out in the media.

“And it became all about what happened afterwards, not about that night. And that is fundamentally wrong.

“I have no doubt that this was a highly orchestrated political campaign, a political hit job on myself as defence minister, to get my scalp, to hurt Scott Morrison and the government of the day.”

‘What was The Project thinking?’

“They exploited Brittany Higgins and her story,” says Reynolds. “This should only ever have been in the jurisdiction of law enforcement and the judicial system.”

Reynolds says that if there was an allegation of rape in any other workplace, it would be horrifying if it played out in public, let alone right across that workplace.

“I mean, it just wouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. But yet it was OK for politicians and journalists to do it?

“What was The Project thinking? Putting a woman as distressed as Brittany Higgins was on national TV before she’d even talked to the police again. Putting her outside Parliament House in front of thousands of people. I mean, how is that not exploitation?”

‘Dinner + Drinks with Lucy and Malcolm’

The Weekend Australian has seen copies of two pages from Higgins’ 2021 Kikki.K gold spiral-bound diary for the week from March 8 to March 14 – the week before the March4Justice where Higgins would speak.

There are handwritten entries across the two pages. Under Tuesday, March 9, blue handwriting says: “Laura Tingle dinner” and “Katharine Murphy”.

On Monday, March 8, there are notes to the side about “4Corners Porter/Kate” and “J-Bish interview”. Under Wednesday, March 10, there are notes about “4 Corners Chat” and “Lunch w Sam Maiden.” Under Thursday, March 11: “wrote speech for women’s march.” Under Saturday, March 13, there is larger blue handwriting: “Dinner + Drinks with Lucy and Malcolm.” With an arrow in black pointing to “Lisa and Pete dinner”. Under Sunday, March 14, there are notes about: “Fly to CBR”, and “Newspoll ALP 51 Lead” with “51” circled.

Among the many media and political mentions in Higgins’ diary is a notation under March 12 – “AFP visit and more statement”.

There’s nothing wrong with Higgins dining with journalists, with Wilkinson, FitzSimons, and the Turnbulls. It is an insight, though, into the confluence of forces that transformed an untested allegation of rape into an unstoppable juggernaut.

During the trial, an extract from an audio recording was played where Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, said they wanted the rape allegation to be exposed at the start of the parliamentary sitting week because he had a “friend” on the Labor side – now known to be Finance Minister Katy Gallagher – who would “probe and continue it”.

The trial also revealed that Sharaz, with Higgins’ consent, distributed an extensive information dossier to sections of the media to help them. In the witness box, Higgins described how journalists jockeyed over her story: “It became not even about me or my story, it became about them.”

Reynolds agrees.

“I think it was a terrible abuse of Brittany Higgins’ circumstances. She was clearly, in my mind, exploited for overtly political purposes, by Labor, and also a number of prominent journalists and female advocates who, in the #MeToo zeitgeist, had found their perfect vehicle to elevate the movement but also to bring down a senior minister to hurt the Morrison government.

“This became a political hit job, less about an alleged rape, and almost exclusively about bringing down a cabinet minister, to damage the prime minister and bring down the Morrison government.”

Reynolds has been the subject of so many wicked claims and innuendo, including that her office was steam cleaned as part of a political conspiracy to get rid of evidence of a rape.

“I had no knowledge of or involvement in the decision to clean my office,” she says. Reynolds says the Department of Parliamentary Services arranged a cleaner on Saturday, after hearing of a drunken incident – three days before her office was told about a security breach. She and her office were accused of withholding CCTV footage from Higgins. Also not true. Reynolds says she had not seen the CCTV footage when that claim was first made. It was the property of DPS.

During the trial, Reynolds was accused, in the words of Drumgold, of “coaching” the defence by texting Lehrmann’s lawyer Steve Whybrow SC during his cross-examination of Higgins. This was pure theatre from the DPP. No witness is the property of either defence or prosecution. In any case, Reynolds’ texts were disclosed to Drumgold.

In hindsight, Reynolds says it was a mistake that her partner Robert sat in court before she gave evidence, and for her to ask for transcripts. When she was told this was not appropriate, she accepted that. She says she had never been through a trial. Nothing hung on these misjudgments, yet Drumgold singled her out for criticism when he also rebuked the AFP, after announcing there would be no retrial of Lehrmann.

When we meet, there is a relaxed aura about Reynolds. Her smile is gentle, she laughs easily, though her eyes still give away the pain of the trap that ensnared her. Finally, telling her side, “it’s cathartic”, she says.

We talk about why conservative women are treated so differently by the media, and in politics.

“We are expendable,” she says. “Our story is ignored, diminished, derided. As conservative women and particularly conservative politicians, we’re invisible to the feminist movement. And they really don’t understand us. They don’t want to understand us. We’re expendable. I was expendable. My chief staff was expendable.”

We agree that is for another day.
Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist