The talented Mr Kelly

CairnsBlog contributing writer Sid Walker ponders about what might become of the talented Mike Kelly...

On Friday the Melbourne Age reported that Mike Kelly, recently elected Member for Eden Monaro, is related by marriage to the Israeli Prime Minister.

• “Mr Olmert, who called the Prime Minister at home, was particularly interested to inquire about the success of the new Labor MP for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly, who is married to a cousin of Mr Olmert.”

When Kevin Rudd announced his cabinet in late November, he mentioned that “Ex-soldier Mike Kelly will also be a parliamentary secretary to the minister for defence in a special and as yet unrevealed role.”

As far as I’m aware, there has been no subsequent announcement.

A family connection with the leader of another nation need not necessarily be a bar to office.

Nevertheless, it’s important that Prime Minister Rudd's new Ministry is above reproach in every respect.

To his great credit, Kevin Rudd is clearly keen on high Ministerial standards.

In no area of government are high standards more crucial than the highly sensitive Defence portfolio. Where national security is involved, there must be no bias – or perception of bias - towards partisan foreign interests.

Perhaps another important job could be found for the talented Mr Kelly? Here's one possibility...

Eden-Monaro still has a significant wood chipping industry, despite an election promise by then NSW Premier Bob Carr in 1995 that wood chipping would cease by 2000.

It might take an ex-military type like Mike Kelly to arrange for the closure of this atrocious stain on Australia’s environmental reputation.

Grahame Richardson had the guts to do it in Ravenshoe – and lived to tell the tale.

Mike Kelly might well be up to a similar task down at Eden?

He may need all his military skills to deal with any recurrence of the 1995 Parliament House blockade and face down heavy machinery operators whose bullying use of brute force and mechanised power cracked the Keating Government’s nerve in the mid-1990s.


UPDATE / FOOTNOTE:
The key point is that Australia’s national defense should be not compromised by other national and sectarian interests - in response to ‘Conspiracies Everywhere’ loaded question.

It’s also true that Olmert – and Israel – are highly controversial connections.

Olmert has been the subject of a series of criminal investigations while in power.

Last year Olmert pitched his nation into a bloody attack on a neighbouring nation, killing more than 1,000 people and strewing cluster bombs and other ordinance around on Lebanese soil.

The suffering of Gazans under Olmert’s brutal suppression beggars imagination.

So yes, in my opinion, Israel is an especially controversial connection.

But IMO the same would apply if Mike Kelly was related to the a leading politician in power in the USA, Britain, France, Russia, China - or any other foreign State with:

(a) significant and quite distinct national interests
(b) a large military which includes weapons of mass destruction,
(c) significant commercial interests in the military and ‘security’ sectors
(d) international ‘intelligence’ operations.


If Mr Kelly's family connection was with the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Iceland or Burkina Faso, a case might be made that the Defence portfolio would not be compromised by such an appointment.

In this case, there’s really no argument. This doesn’t preclude Mr Kelly from holding elected office or a Ministerial post - but it should be in a suitable policy area.

In my article, I made one suggestion that would help Mr Kelly’s Eden Monaro constituency cut its greenhouse emissions faster than Israeli policy in Gaza.