Commenting on the story: Board games: heavyweight backing for new blood at Crows

I am deeply concerned by the apparent lack of interest of Jim Hazel in Grant Kelley as an appropriate Chairman of the Crows.

As a life member of North Adelaide and the lawyer that secured the injunction preventing Port Adelaide in 1990 from joining the AFL competition – which lead to the creation of the Crows – I feel much better qualified than Jim to comment on Grant as an appropriate choice to take over from Rob Chapman.

For too long the Crows have been run by non-football people who simply have squandered the enormous benefits laid before them by Government.

Had I known this in 1990, I would have instead embraced the Bruce Weber model. As hopeless as it was.

That Jim does not know Kelley is a reflection on him, not Grant. I do know Grant and call him a friend.

I, like Grant, invested my own money into making Adelaide United the champions of Australia, in a competition where our opponents were allowed to spend triple what we did to win titles.

Had AUFC been bestowed with the financial largesse Crows and Power have received we would have won more titles, but Government starved us, like they now starve the 36ers, to invest in the AFL.

The inherent weakness of the Crows board is that no one is playing with their own money.

Try investing your own money  and then tell people like Grant, who is a corporate superstar, that he does not qualify for the job. – Greg Griffin

I hope the proposed changes at the Crows reflect a desire to reset the club’s culture, in particular its engagement with supporters (including past players).

I believe any board should uphold the interest of its shareholders and ensure a viable ongoing operation.

In the case of a football club this should translate into board decisions that foster supporter engagement with the club and build upward supporter momentum.

Without supporters, business attraction declines, funding declines and inevitably performance declines.

Resetting club culture may require seeking alternatives to traditional ‘business’ solutions.

Just look at the people who are successful Chairmen and CEO’s of other clubs; they are not necessarily people with business acumen, but they are successful at engaging with their supporter base.

C’mon Crows, heed recent comments of past players and let’s turn this around. – Paul McKinnon

 I had thought that winning two premierships could establish the Crows as a club with a culture other than that it was not Port Adelaide. Clearly it hasn’t. 

The difference between the two sides was on display in the last Showdown. Port Adelaide can draw upon 150 years of history – the fact that this is not acknowledged by the AFL or many Crows supporters only makes it an even more powerful motivation. 

It becomes Port Adelaide against the world. The Eagles, Dockers, Giants and Suns are all manufactured clubs that have to establish a culture that can assist to attract and retain players.

Club history and culture alone will not win matches, but a club with a strong winning culture can use that culture to give it just a little edge and against the opposition. – John Tons

How fickle my fellow Crow supporters are, if you are a real supporters.

You’re not happy when the club gives little detail, then lo and behold, not happy when there is pure honesty spoken.

Keep it up Roo, you have my family’s support. – Ann Mullane

Commenting on the story: Knoll faces Liberal party-room revolt on bus cuts

I would like to pass on my congratulations to Stephan Knoll and the Liberal party for the complete butchering of the bus system that started back when it was privatised.

There is nothing here about improving services; it’s all about cost cutting for the Government and profit for the private operator, resulting in what will be the most expensive, inefficient and unreliable public transport system in Australia.

Even ignoring the total elimination to some areas that will happen, the idiots who came up with these combined long bus routes are making the exact same mistakes Transfield Services did back in 2011-2013.

The combination of long routes either side of the city on major arterial roads without bus lanes are just too long for their concept of headway management to work. It failed then, and it will again.

Be prepared again, Adelaide, for the dreaded “Bus Lotto” we experienced 7-8 years ago: you will not know when a bus will show up, and what  number it will be.

Nothing will come for half an hour to an hour, then 3-4 buses will show up in a conga line. – Ian Hickman

Commenting on the story: SA to manage household solar energy going into grid

We put solar on our roofs – not a small initial cost- to try and be environmentally conscious.

Now we will be penalised, yet again, for doing the right thing.

The electric companies need to lift their game and it is up to them to improve the system, not once again penalise those who were led to believe were being socially responsible. – Lesley Long  

As a person who relies on our solar panels to make our electricity bills manageable, I do not like the idea that the government can turn them off any time they want to. 

This smacks of an attempt by the government to collect more revenue by raising our electricity bills, because if they turn off our panels then we will have to pay for our electricity whilst our panels lay dormant.

The complaint they had before was that we did not generate enough electricity in SA (hence the connector to Victoria which cost many millions) but now that many households are generating electricity they claim we have too much! 

If we truly have too much at any time then there are many ways to use that excess which would be for the good of, SA but raising our electricity bill is not one of those ways! – Geoff Grant

Commenting on the Sponsored story, Unmaking of a murder: Legal campaigners continue to fight

Mr Atkinson, former Attorney-General of South Australia, stated that an article published by InDaily last November was misleading.

It was about our work on a new right of appeal. Atkinson complained it did not mention some facts which he thinks to be important.

The article said that Mr Bromley, convicted of murder, was still in prison some 13 years after the expiry of his non-parole period. Atkinson said that Bromley’s appeal had been rejected – ‘Why omit this relevant fact’?

Maybe because the decision of the appeal court was irrelevant to the injustice of a person being refused parole after the completion of their non-parole period. Guilty people are usually granted parole at that stage.

In addition, Bromley is preparing an application for leave to appeal to the High Court. On 2 April 2008 Atkinson stated forcefully in a media briefing that it would be quite wrong to discuss publicly a matter which was still subject to appeal.

Atkinson noted the article correctly mentioned that Henry Keogh had been ‘jailed erroneously’. This was something he had strenuously denied whilst Attorney-General. He said the article should have mentioned the appeal court had directed a retrial. He noted the reason for not proceeding was that the key witness had dementia.

‘The witness’ in question was Dr Manock – the state’s chief forensic pathologist from 1968-1995. If the issue of the retrial had been raised in the article, that would have required mention of additional facts relating to it:

1975 – the Supreme Court was told by the head of the forensic science centre that Manock was not qualified to certify cause of death and had no expert qualifications. That clearly would have ruled him out as an expert witness at any trial or retrial.

1981 – the High Court said Manock’s evidence was ‘not fit to be taken into consideration’ – the Crown should use experts who are ‘substantially’, not just ‘nominally’, experts in their field.

1995 – the Coroner (in the ‘baby deaths’ inquiry) found Manock claimed to have seen signs of illness which did not exist; he failed to interpret the significance of horrific injuries; some of his answers to questions on oath were ‘spurious’ (‘not genuine’ ‘not true’).

2014 – the Keogh appeal judgment stated Manock’s evidence was ‘fundamentally flawed’; he had ‘materially misled’ the prosecution, the defence, the trial judge and the jury; his theory of homicidal drowning had ‘no proper basis’ to it – it was ‘speculation’; his autopsy was ‘inadequate in material respects’; he ‘inappropriately concluded’ that accidental drowning could be dismissed; it was a ‘misconception’ to assert it was an assisted drowning.

2018 – the current Attorney-General stated on ABC radio, in relation to the Keogh case, ‘Dr Manock’s evidence as an expert was relied upon. It was completely unreliable, in fact manifestly so, for the purposes of making it simply unsustainable to have a conviction be maintained.’

Atkinson had the statutory responsibility for not referring Keogh’s case to the appeal court whilst Attorney-General. The appeal was allowed, in part, on the basis of evidence which he had during that time, but according to the Keogh appeal judgment, ‘not disclosed’.

The November article expressed support for the university academics who worked on the new right of appeal – the first substantive change to the appeal rights in Australia in 100 years. It has now been implemented in Tasmania, Victoria and underway in WA. Michael Kirby, former High Court justice congratulated Flinders University for this achievement and has called upon all Attorney-Generals in Australia to ensure its adoption in other states.

Without this unique achievement, it is most likely that Henry Keogh would have spent the rest of his life in prison. The ‘undisclosed report’ would never have been revealed.

With his conviction set aside, Mr Keogh is “presumed to be innocent”. There never was any prospect of a further prosecution. The payment of significant compensation to him by the state is an acknowledgment of the wrong done to him. – Dr Robert Moles, Adjunct Principal Researcher, Flinders University

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