CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The recent Channel 9 report regarding the cooperation between Australian government agencies in quickly processing Chinese aristocrats and underworld figures at Melbourne airport appears to have received a brief flutter of headlines across the country this week.
So much so that even some Murdoch newspapers have skirted near the red hot news that the Department of Home Affairs confirmed it has “stakeholder arrangements” with a number of large international organisations for the quick processing of short stay visas.
However the story is yet to really become a kitchen table conversation around Australia, possibly due to the amount of high-ranking current and former Liberal politicians involved in the scandal.
As far as the hype around ‘gangs infiltrating Melbourne’ – it is currently sitting at around a 5 out of ten – just two points below that time all the Italians and Albanians were shooting each other at AusKick, before the Victorian police ended up blackmailing their lawyer into giving evidence against them.
Media analysts say it would take a lot more racial profiling and class warfare for this story to reach ‘9’ on the gangs-in-Melbourne-hysteria-metre.
The last known ‘9’ is believed to be the African teenagers who sometimes hangout at St Kilda beach leading into a state election, or federal bi-election in the suburbs.
The gangster Chinese high-rollers are yet to be even commented on by the Minister For Home Affairs, unlike the African gangs that Peter Dutton made-up this time last year when trying to boost his profile as a fear-mongering fixer – before failing to oust Malcolm Turnbull as the leader of the Liberal Party.
Commonwealth authorities and Crown Casino will face an integrity investigation amid allegations about efforts to lure Chinese gamblers to Australia.
But, due to the fact that their is no corruption commission at a Federal level, it looks like there will be just as much done about this as there has been done about the highly-corrupt environmental vandalism of the Murray-Darling – as exposed by ABC’s Four Corners.
Peter Dutton’s office was asked for comment about his department’s role as Crown casino tour guides, but we were told to stop being such triggered snowflakes.
MORE TO COME.