Yesterday, readers asked a few questions. Some answers, then Stephen and Natasha James have a go at Alan Ramsey and Polly Bush reckons Cheryl’s done alright. John Wojdylo and Sean O’Donohue want a certain secret kept, and Cathy Bannister and Roy Reeves reckon it was right to reveal this one.

Peter Woodforde asked: “How many other stolen private e-mails are in the hands of PBL, and to what political/commercial ends will they be put? Were they stolen by members, employees or agents of the Liberal Party or by government officials?”

Margo: My working assumption is that they were stolen by Labor people, but who knows? Assuming they were stolen – ie not leaked by Gareth or Cheryl or with their permission – whoever did it has committed a criminal offence.

Here’s a little piece I did on this today.

“The unauthorised use of emails is a criminal offence, but as nothing is known about who leaked the Evans/Kernot emails and where they were obtained, the Australian Federal Police will investigate only if the matter is referred to them by the ex-lovers or the Parliament.

“The AFP have received no complaint from Ms Kernot or Mr Evans, and federal parliament has not referred the matter because no-one knows whether the emails were obtained from an office or home computer or from a printout.

“Under the federal Crimes Act it is a criminal offence to knowingly give an email to someone other than its recipient without permission, and to use an email to harass another person. Under the NSW Crimes Act it is a criminal offence to access computer data on someone’s personal affairs.

“A spokeswoman for the AFP was not investigating the leaking of the personal emails and would not do so unless asked by Mr Evans, Ms Kernot or the Parliament.

“The Privacy Commissioner, Mr Malcolm Crompton, said he could not launch an investigation without proof that the leaked emails were obtained from a work computer, as emails sent to and received on a home computer using a private ISP were not covered by the Privacy Act.

“Ms Kernot or Mr Evans would need to produce copies of the emails which proved they were sent and/or received on work computers before he could act.

“The Privacy Commissioner cannot force Mr Laurie Oakes to hand over the documents – if he has them – as the Privacy Act exempts journalists from having to do anything which might reveal their sources.”

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Ian MacDougall: I think you are wrong in your statement of today that Cheryl has lost everything (including her super). I read a report after she left Parliament that she had managed to qualify for a backbencher’s package of around 70 grand pa plus perks. Suggest you check this.

Margo: You’re right. I was going on what she did on the defection. She could have sat in the Senate as a Labor person, but she resigned from the Senate after serving for seven years. You have to serve two terms – 12 years – if you leave voluntarily, or 8 years if you’re voted out. So her super was in limbo. But once she won Dickson and stayed for the term, she could claim the parliamentary pension for life. According to Jim Dickins in The Daily Telegraphh on November 12 last year, she was entitled to $62,500 a year.

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Rosemary Cuthbert

Why aren’t people questioning the ethics of Don Randall asking a question in parliament under privilege about someone’s personal life? I’m disgusted at the media hype over this matter.

Margo: In March 1998, WA Liberal Don Randall told Parliament Kernot had “the morals of an alley cat on heat”

“I was a teacher and I can assure you that if I had an affair with somebody ten years younger than me I would have been in trouble. You might then say, does this affection extend to the member for Holt (Evans) we often wonder?”

His ethics were questioned at the time, and John Howard ordered Randall to withdraw the remarks and apologise to Kernot and Evans, which he did in a statement. “As you know, I have never approved of attacks being made on people’s private lives – it has no place in public life in this country,” Howard said. As far as I know, no-one followed up Randall’s innuendo. Gareth denied an affair in Parliament, and that was that.

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Stephen and Natasha James

I read Alan Ramsey, not because his content is much chop but because he does write good, tight prose. I thought his effort on Saturday was a bit sanctimonious. Yes, Oakes was carrying on like an old woman, but then so did Ramsey a year or so ago, on the anniversary of Harold Holt going missing. I haven’t looked it up, but he wrote a column saying words to the effect that Holt was “showing off to a married woman with whom he was having an affair” when he waded into the drink and didn’t return. As Hilary Clinton would say, a hard dog to keep on the porch.

How Black Jack set the Scorpion loose

Byline: ALAN RAMSEY

JOHN McEwen was not known as Black Jack for nothing. After Harold Holt drowned in an unruly surf 33 years ago while showing off in front of the married woman he was bedding, McEwen, the Country Party junior partner in Holt’s government, was sworn in as caretaker prime minister until the Liberals finished haggling over Holt’s successor. We know this as recorded history, however discreet that history might be about Holt’s uninhibited private life. What few of us ever knew is what McEwen did that first day he held the ultimate political power in this country.

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Polly Bush in Melbourne

In the last few days I’ve been wondering how stupid the woman is. The thing is, she’s not stupid, she’s a seasoned media player who’s written a book on suffering the wrath of the media. If anyone could expect a media backlash for omitting a big chunk of the story it should be Cheryl! It just all seems a little too convenient that the affair’s out without her having to do the dirty work of revealing it. The media have blown the lid on the story and Cheryl can back up her book claims that she’s been unfairly done by and is the victim in all this. Sweet.

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People with Ugly Face

By John Wojdylo

There was this kid at our school – we called him “Spaceman” – who was such a f…ing ween that we used to get him behind the toilet block and pummel his face in until the little shit stopped being so arrogant and began to look as pathetic as he really was. But what really pissed us off was when he used to go to the headmistress and make himself out to be real special and whinge, whinge, whinge: “I’ve got rights, too!” Sob. Pathetic shit.

He used to say “I’m telling the truth,” but we knew he was lying, because he was a faggot.

He made up all these crap excuses why he couldn’t join in our peer group and be one of US, but we knew he was bullshitting because his mother was a Kalgoorlie prostitute and his father tried to f… my mate Peter’s mother.

He said he bombed out in maths because we made him feel bad – I mean, what sort of crap excuse is that? Like, he makes ME feel bad because pathetic shits like him exist. And they’re a menace to society, especially when they get into positions of power. They don’t know what they want and then they end up having the morals of an alley cat on heat.

The headmaster called us in one day and asked us why don’t we show any mercy. We said, because “God helps those who help themselves and Spaceman has forgotten how to do just that. Our advice to SPACEMAN would be to forget the whole thing and get on with real life. Life is not unlimited and there’s no sense in spending the time SPACEMAN has left on this earth with this kind of nonsense. SPACEMAN should surround himself with trusted friends and family and just get on with the FUTURE. The mercy factor with SPACEMAN is zero. He has brought EVERYTHING upon himself.”

It’s a bloody miracle he passed and got into uni at all. We all wonder how the f… he did it. Well, we all know now, don’t we. And don’t you believe a word of what he says because we know his face is ugly and he’s a liar – either that or he’s too pathetic to know anything for himself.

Now Spaceman’s written a book, basically trying to justify his existence – giving his “considered” reasons for doing the things he did, and telling about the years of special coaching he got from university lecturers that he paid for himself by working late nights at McDonalds. But he’s left out the bit about how his father was f…ing the headmistress for about 5 years.

The loser put out his jaw to have it punched by writing that book, and, you know, it’s SPACEMAN all over: It is just the saddest, saddest thing.

The fact of this matter is – SPACEMAN – a tragic figure, really – has chosen to write a tell-all book, titled “BLAH bloody BLAH”, and has not disclosed something that is clearly of enormous relevance.

Of course Fat F… has done the right thing. There is absolutely no doubt that if Spaceman writes a book laughably entitled “BLAH bloody BLAH” and leaves out the central aspect of his saga, then he deserves to be exposed for what he is. How can you understand the whole story unless you know this?

Spaceman had a right to privacy but he forfeited it when he wrote the book. Like most people, I believe in the general rule that private lives should remain private. But this is clearly different, hey. Exceptions to the general rule should be made only in rare circumstances and this is one of them. What goes around comes around.

PS: Thank Christ the new headmaster is coming down hard on those lying Arab “asylum-seekers”. They’ll tell you anything – and do anything – to get your sympathy.

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Sean O’Donohue

I cannot agree with you or Mr Oakes on the revelation of the Evans-Kernot affair. If the test is public interest I fail to see where the public’s interest in Oakes’ tardy – way tardy – revelation is. Perhaps 5, 8 or however many years ago when the potential for a personal relationship to influence political outcome was a real issue.

But now? Several years after both have fallen from prominence? Surely not. Neither Kernot or Evans are tub-thumping, family-values types whose exposure might unmask hypocrisy or reveal some hidden canker in their characters. Instead, the exposure of their affair revelation reduces them and in the process us.

Kernot has now completed her journey from sensible voice above the fray to shrill and tarnished prima donna – a truly tragic trajectory. And I agree with you – Evans too now has that ‘damaged goods’ tag politically as well as morally, leaving any future Labour government that does appoint him to a generous sinecure condemned to be labelled brave or foolish.

But what of the real issues? What of executive pay? Of Aboriginal health? Of the politicisation of the public service? Of the absence of vision for our country? Lost in the tawdry embers of a long-dead romantic flame. More of the bread and circuses?

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Cathy Bannister

It’s impossible to cast unambiguous hero or villain in the Kernot/Evans saga. I believe Kernot is correct in noting she has borne an inordinate amount of media scrutiny, particularly from Laurie Oakes. It’s obviously too cheap a shot to pre-guess why she in particular offends Oakes, but clearly he deeply disapproved of the defection, almost personally so. This comes across in his questioning – he’s been at the woman for ages.

If you are a woman in the public eye, you have to break stereotype, never show emotion, never show weakness, and preferably, never be attractive, because as soon as any of these female traits becomes obvious it is extremely difficult to ever regain credibility. Dowdy and masculine woman fare far better.

While it’s important to question the effect of her affair on Kernot’s performance, it is also necessary to factor in the effect of the media hounding. Over the last seven years Cheryl has appeared increasingly silly and vulnerable in the public gaze, but then this is how she has been painted.

That said, this particular disclosure was necessary to correct the public record. The screamingly obvious question to come out of the whole Gareth/Cheryl disclosure is this: What on earth was a senior minister doing in courting the leader (no less) of another party?

While we Australians in general are deeply of the opinion that private lives are sacrosanct, there are limits. Take the medical professions, where relationships between certain parties is absolutely verboten. The power dynamic between psychiatrists, gynaecologists and their clientele is such that a relationship between practitioner and patient is completely out of the question.

So it should be with senior parliamentarians of different parties. Thus far all the emphasis has been on the ethics of Cheryl, the leaving of the Democrats being seen as an appalling betrayal. Gareth, apart from some muffled complaint over his misleading parliament, has remained largely blame free on this count. Why? Possibly because Ms Kernot has been fitted with (or fitted up with) the cultural archetype of the “scarlet woman”. Both were guilty of a clear conflict of interest and both should shoulder the scorn.

Here there is a clear disparity in the treatment of people of different genders. The media is not happy merely to disclose the affair, but it must pretty much destroy poor Cheryl into the bargain.

I believe she was right to defect, for two reasons. Firstly, if nothing else, Kernot’s defection solved the conflict of interest caused by her affair with Gareth Evans. If the relationship was serious and strong, and she wished to remain a voice in Australian politics, then she had no other ethical choice.

Secondly, the reason she cited at the time is compelling, that she was never going to have real power in the Democrats. While the balance is said to be a very powerful position, all that can ever be done is to take the edges from what is considered bad policy.

Meg Lee’s GST deal, which seemed oh so sweet at the time, is a prime example. What has happened to the $400 million to be spent on the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program? Well, firstly the Australian Greenhouse Office (who administered the program), didn’t approve funding of most proposed projects during the first year, on the (ludicrous) grounds that only projects that are not commercially viable were eligible. (Naturally, those that were not commercially viable tended to be dogs, thereby being also ineligible for funding. Catch 22.)

And this year, the whole $400 million kitty has been swallowed back up in defence and border protection. So poor Meg’s brilliant deal was for nothing.

So if Kernot really wanted to make a difference to the way policy was shaped, she would need to be in a major party. She would also need to have been accepted as a member of the party, and in this she failed spectacularly.

She needed to shut up, take a back seat and quietly earn the respect of her colleagues, rather than come straight in from a rival party and expect to be able to get a plumb leadership position. If you look at the performance of Kernot prior to her defection, and the performance of the Labor afterwards, it’s no less than a tragedy that she couldn’t have made the transition smoothly.

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Rob Reeves in Brisbane

I do feel that many members of the public, including your correspondents, have misunderstood the significance of the Kernot-Evans affair. They believe it is about sex between two public figures, and as such is part of their private lives, and should be out of bounds to the press.

However, the affair is about two public figures of significant power and influence creating a clandestine coalition in which self interest and public interest, and the interests of their respective parties, became blurred and confused. The sex part of it is secondary, what is important is that they established and acted upon a hidden agenda – potentially betraying their parties and the public’s trust.

Whether that trust was betrayed is the motivation for the story. The prurient interest in the sex no doubt titillates many, but most of the reporting has, quite rightly, focussed on the political implications, not the prurient details.