Richard Ackland on Hatzistergos

A million thank-yous to Richard Ackland! He has had the guts to tell it like it is about John Hatzistergos' war against Nicholas Cowdery and the DPP. Ackland spells out the truth about the alleged wasted funds by the prosecutors who attended a conference in Brisbane. He points out how the numbers of prosecutors are down, how junior solicitors are carrying grunt work (when they should not), and that the District Courts are in a mess because of fewer employees. All of this reflects on John Hatzistergos and Laurie Glanfield -- it is not good policy or good administration at all. The NSW Attorney General's Department is in a mess and these two men are in charge.

Ackland describes Hatzistergos and his media effort to discredit Cowdery as the thorn-in-the-flesh:

"Hatzistergos represents a haunted, closed, suspicious, micro-managing sort of politics. And to leak against your public servants is, frankly, the pits."

Time both Hatzistergos and Glanfield resigned.

A Deficit for the DPP

Nicholas Cowdery has indicated that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is (once more) short of cash to the tune of at least $3 million, and the staffing levels are likewise a bother.
Meanwhile Mr John Hatzistergos the NSW Attorney General deflects the matter by saying something like "it's that time of year" concerning budget allocations. Yes it probably is! And we all know that the purse strings of Treasury are locked tight because the state is broke. We also know that the Attorney General's Department is in a state of acute crisis in all its sections and it agencies. They keep raiding coin-jars to prop up a system that is dead.

Greg Smith Defends NSW DPP

Some of the codswallop presented in yesterday's Sun Herald about Nicholas Cowdery and the DPP has been rebutted by the Shadow Attorney General Mr Greg Smith. In the Sydney Morning Herald Smith sees the recent joust about the DPP as part of a systematic vendetta campaign to remove Mr Cowdery from office.

Smith quite rightly says that Mr Hatzistergos has failed to publicly praise the Crown Prosecutors at the DPP, and that his negative remarks in public merely undermines staff morale. How true! Employees right across the NSW Attorney General's Department and its agencies seem to be enduring much.

Methinks Mr Glanfield will warble a different tune when he has Mr Smith as his next boss in 2011 or better still he could be gone from the department before then.