The dirty deeds of AFP and News Corp, corrupt NSW and is Albanese’s honeymoon really over?

The Australian Federal Police is in the news again, and this time it’s through a newspaper interview with the former Defence Minister, Senator Linda Reynolds – and this relates to the allegations of a rape that occurred in Parliament House in 2019, just a few weeks before the federal election was announced.<br /><br />And, somehow, the personal diaries of Brittany Higgins were leaked to News Corporation and formed a large part of the story about Linda Reynolds – the diaries were provided to the federal police to assist with the Bruce Luhrmann court trial – but here they are being published in a News Corporation newspaper.<br /><br />There’s currently an ACT government investigation into the behaviour of the police and the trial of Bruce Luhrmann – a trial that was aborted – but the leaking of this private material to News Corporation is another issue that needs to be investigated, as is the role of the Australian Federal Police.<br /><br />There is an election coming up in NSW next month, and there’s been a raft of resignations in recent times and this follows on from other resignations over the past year – Gladys Berijiklian as well – and there’s other ministers who won’t be contesting at the next election. This is the sorry sight of politics in NSW – it doesn’t really matter who’s in office, corruption and mismanagement is always close by – and this really has the feeling of the last days of a dying government in NSW. <br /><br />Sometimes a political culture grows from bad beginnings – NSW was founded as an illegal settlement all the way back in 1788, and then there was the Rum Corp that ran for about 30 years or so – and once a poor political culture becomes established, it’s very hard to shake off, even after 235 years.<br />There’s also been a batch of recent opinion polls and all of them are suggesting a dip in support for the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and a slight improvement of support for the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton – and as a result, we’ve had the predictable headlines of ‘the end of th