Monday 29th of April 2024
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pete may or may not come back...

costellocapers

The ABC's 7.30 program has found bitter factional in-fighting was triggered by the purported move by Mr Costello, who demanded a young MP step aside to accommodate him.

It is a claim Mr Costello steadfastly denies, but many of his former colleagues believe it, with Victorian MPs privately saying he has become bored and frustrated that Tony Abbott looks headed for the top job.

The dispute has laid bare the deep divisions in the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch, which threaten the Coalition at a time when it believes government is within its grasp.

The claims can be traced back to a conversation purported to have taken place in Melbourne before Christmas between Mr Costello and his old friend, prominent Victorian Liberal Michael Kroger, when the former treasurer raised the possibility of returning to Canberra.

It is understood Mr Kroger has told several federal Liberal MPs that Mr Costello asked him to explore whether Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg might step aside for him.

The Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, and the Member for Aspen, Alan Tudge, are also believed to have been options.

Mr Kroger rebuffed the idea and the pair have not spoken since.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-09/liberal-ructions-emerge-over-costello/4001600?WT.svl=news0

no come back pete...

PETER Costello has lashed out at his one-time political backer and confidant Michael Kroger, accusing him of spreading a false and damaging story alleging the former treasurer had tried to strong-arm his way back into  Parliament.

Mr Costello said last night the allegation  that he had tried to push aside a Victorian Liberal MP to relaunch his political career was "lurid", wrong and never happened.

He accused Mr Kroger of having "briefed this story" because his former wife, Liberal senator Helen Kroger, had been demoted on the party's Senate ticket.

Mr Costello said the demotion of Senator Kroger was  "a democratic decision of the Liberal Party, taken by some 400 delegates who exercised their own judgment free of any influence from so-called power brokers".   He added: "The last thing I would ever do is to give a confidence to Michael Kroger."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/furious-costello-denies-seat-bid-20120509-1yd7v.html#ixzz1uPiHlNYh

a lifetime detention...

"Peter has got to stop criticising Tony Abbott. He is not an economic illiterate. He's a Rhodes scholar, for god's sake.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/costello-kroger-tension-explodes-20120511-1ygjy.html#ixzz1uWd3OhcR

 

Ahem... For once I agree with Peter Costello... Tony Abbott is ignorant and dangerously so... Bob Hawke was a Rhodes scholar too and remains most famous for being the person able to drink the most beer ever there... Abbott is most famous for defending the indefensible... As far as economic and political grades, one can only see the crap that Abbott dished out last night.... Had I been his supervisor, I would have placed him in a lifetime detention...

And, Kroger, god's got nothing to do with the price of fish...

reith and abbott are jokes...

After watching the interview, former Liberal minister Peter Reith told ABC News Breakfast it was hard to take Mr Kroger's comments seriously.

"All this story is is two blokes have lunch, two exes - one an ex-warlord from 20 years ago and a former treasurer five years ago," he said.

"He wants to come back. One of them says, 'Gee you were great, and so was I' ... and one says, 'oh well, you should do something about me becoming prime minister'."

"They're not in it any more. They're out. It's just a joke."

Mr Abbott says he hopes the rift is resolved as quickly as possible.

"They're friends of mine but neither is a member of parliament, neither is part of my team in Canberra," Mr Abbott said.

"I'm not going to get into this. I'm not going to get involved in basically what is a personal disagreement."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-11/kroger-launches-costello-attack/4005234

It's far more than a "personal disagreement", Tony... It's at the core of the crap that you want to dish on decent Australians. 

who needs enemies with friends like these...

http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/one-of-the-greatest-sprays-in-political-history-3288003.html?from=newsbox

a punch up, but why?...

 

 

In the world of politics, lunch is no small thing, a setting that allows deals to be made, information to be shared and even a bit of human bonding to take place.Michael Kroger and Peter Costello's long history as friends and political allies includes a lot of lunches. Sorry, that should have read ''included a lot of lunches''. The lunches between the two are no more.
Kroger today characterised Costello as someone who had become bad luncheon company. He, along with a lot of Costello's ''former friends'' within the Liberal Party, had found lunch with Costello ''an agony, a nightmare'' because of the ex-treasurer's griping and general frustration with his post-political life. That's what Kroger says, anyway.
Fittingly, the end of a relationship that began at a Monash University lecture theatre in 1975 when the two were just 18 crashed at a lunch last October.Kroger says he rebuffed Costello's suggestions of a return to parliament. Costello denies it. Whatever happened, we have Kroger's word that there hasn't been any contact between them since that unhappy encounter at a Melbourne club seven months ago. Nor will there be.
On Wednesday night, Costello said Kroger couldn't be believed and today Kroger returned the favour.

 

 


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/kroger-costello-split-signals-end-of-an-era-20120511-1yh3v.html#ixzz1uYlhEEI9

 

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If one was not so unsarcastic as me, one would say that this pitiful punch up had been concocted to distract us and the media from the real cock up of the Liberal involvement in the Slipper affair and to distract from the other cock up : Tony Abbott's budget reply which was a monstrous farce from a nasty dangerous idiot...

 

And between you and a lamppost, Costello is still way above Kroger in my books... I can tell you why later...