Talk:John Murphy (Australian politician, born 1950)

Stroganoff affair references

Refs for the whine about the stingy portions of stroganoff served up to his wife ignited derision and disbelief across Sydney ... + apology:

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/annabel-crabb/stroganoff-affair-mp-says-sorry/2008/09/18/1221330977822.html
• http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mps-beef-over-size-of-wifes-stroganoff/2008/09/17/1221330870702.html
• http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24364908-661,00.html
• http://www.theage.com.au/national/beef-stroganoff-mp-says-sorry-20080918-4j11.html

The incident generated short term reactions - need to see if it develops --Matilda ^talk 02:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Merger from Stroganoff affair article

• As per discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics#Australian political scandals - Stroganoff affair? . --Matilda ^talk 06:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

My suggested insertion to cover the redirect is:

In September 2008 Murphy complained to Parliament that his wife received an inadequate portion of beef stroganoff, that she had bought from the parliamentary cafeteria.[cite] Murphy subsequently apologized for the misuse of parliamentary time following concerns raised by the media and fellow parliamentarians.[cite]

• support Noting it will haunt him for a while as per the 6 October article which mentioned it in the context of his support for Australian made pianos per his parliamentary secretary role. --Matilda ^talk 06:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Personal emotions aside (it may haunt him a while!) - this issue was notable enough to attract wide media attention and national outrage on two separate occasions. I'm also sure that this issue will spring up in the future, once Parliament decides on a referendum for permission of trivial complaints at question time. Murphy happens to be the protagonist of the article, however the subject is a completely separate issue: that of the discourse of parliament, and reactions surrounding a particular issue, relating to, the discourse of parliament. The article is well referenced, cited heavily, and adheres to WP:MOS guidelines. There is no valid reason behind this unnecessary redirect. --Flewis^(talk) 06:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Not one source anywhere mentions a referendum. Hence this is completely original research. Orderinchaos 10:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

*Strong Oppose - This issue extends beyond John Murphy to include Parliamentary investigations and referendums (formal resolution barring MPs from raising such trivial complaints in the future). I think these sufficiently negate lack of notability or a need for the merger --Flewis^(talk) 06:48, 21 October 2008 (UTC) !vote subsequently withdrawn, switched to support - see comment bellow --Flewis^(talk) 12:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment - need citations for referendums (formal resolution barring MPs from raising such trivial complaints in the future). - the investigation was trivial - "did you feel full after that meal of stroganoff?" --Matilda ^talk 07:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment - Whether or not you consider the investigation 'trivial', is your personal opinion. As humorous as the situation may be, the investigation was an official one [1][2][3][4] - taking into account the significant media coverage, the public outcry, together with the controversy surrounding the triviality of questions in Parliament, this article easily passes the general notability guideline. --Flewis^(talk) 07:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

      OMG. An official choosing a different menu item for the day in what three of the above sources called "a personal investigation" is NOT an official investigation. It is what one might call "customer service" - someone complained, the person in charge looks into the matter. I have summed up the four sources you provide below.

      • SMH: Mr Murphy asked the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Harry Jenkins, to investigate the matter. Mr Jenkins said he took the matter seriously and the house committee would discuss the matter at its meeting on Monday.
      • News.com.au Alan Thompson, "my personal investigation"... When Senator Fifield expressed concern that such a frivolous issue may have "unduly" occupied the officials' time, Mr Thompson replied: "Only to the extent of ordering a beef stroganoff rather than a salad on the day."
      • ABC: A Federal parliamentary official has confirmed that he checked the size of the portions in the parliamentary canteen after a complaint from a Labor MP. [...] The head of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Alan Thompson, has told Senators at an estimates committee that he tried the stroganoff and was satisfied.
      • News.com.au again: ALAN Thompson, secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services [...] had personally investigated...

      There is also a WP:WEASEL issue - by saying there was an official investigation, you are implying Murphy was investigated. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that contention. Claims of "referendums" are even more ridiculous. As for your image headline "The instigator. . .tasty, but has the power to bring down Parliament" [5] and your creation of the wife's name as a redirect, it's pretty clear what your views are on the matter and I would suggest that you need to leave your partisan feelings at the door, as all of us have had to do, and edit encyclopaedically in line with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. We have had major problems on this project before because of editors failing to do so.

      I would also remind you of [6], which states: Administrators are authorized to use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Wikipedia article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy. Administrators may use the page protection and deletion tools as they believe to be reasonably necessary to effect compliance. Administrators should counsel editors that fail to comply with BLP policy on specific steps that they can take to improve their editing in the area, and should ensure that such editors are warned of the consequences of failing to comply with this policy. Where editors fail to comply with BLP policy after being counseled and warned, administrators may impose sanctions on them, including restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors, bans from editing any BLP or BLP-related page or set of pages, blocks of up to one year in length, or any other measures which may be considered necessary.

      Consider yourself warned. Orderinchaos 09:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support I believe Matilda's proposal is an acceptable compromise which balances BLP concerns appropriately. The above claims by Flewis are completely absurd - if his basis was accepted, we would have literally hundreds of potential articles on random, flash-in-the-pan "affairs" and "scandals", and I'm not actually sure he'd be politically comfortable with some of them. Orderinchaos 08:57, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Certainly doesn't require its own article. --Surturz (talk) 10:07, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I'm loving the amount of support this idea is receiving, looks like it will happen ;-) Timeshift (talk) 11:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I did previously support retention, but this is a much better idea. Moondyne 12:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support (shifted from Strong Oppose)- This whole issue together with the subsequent discussion was a one big joke, and is taking up more time than is really necessary. Enough hyperbole - Support merging this with John Murphy, provided that that the issue gets a mention in the article: Beef Stroganoff. There's another article down, 6,908,134 to go -- Well done! -- Flewis^(talk) 12:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

As there seems to be no opposition now to the compromise proposal, I've gone ahead and done it. Orderinchaos 13:52, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

What else has this pollie done?

Surely this guy must have achieved more than complain about food. What has Murphy achieved while in office? --Surturz (talk) 11:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm actually looking into that atm, but illness has somewhat limited me temporarily. If anyone else has the time or a nearby library, look up Who's Who in 2007, that's an amazingly good source for turning out basic factual articles. Orderinchaos 12:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Just recently - [7] --Flewis^(talk) 12:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Surturz wanted to know what he's done, not yet more ways to defame the guy. A factual basis from somewhere like Who's Who would be a good start. Look at Terry Mills for an example of what you can do with that sort of a source. Orderinchaos 12:58, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Start to collect sources

Unfortunately the stroganoff affair dominates google searches. Who's Who is sort of OK but you do realise it is in effect an autobiography - the subject submits his own material and there is no verification! For my mind it can only ever be a starting point and never a reliable source - not even as to which school somebody went to.

• http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/media_laws_pass_shakeup_looms_121444 : Media laws - he was against amendments that did pass Labor backbencher John Murphy told parliament the laws would lead to a stranglehold on media ownership and give the Packer family everything the late media mogul Kerry Packer had ever wanted.
  • http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/fielding-cops-a-flogging/2006/10/18/1160850997060.html THE Labor MP John Murphy would have been equally comfortable behind a pulpit yesterday as he castigated the Family First senator Steve Fielding for supporting the media laws in the Senate last week.
    Both Murphy, from the Sydney seat of Lowe, and Fielding, are religious men. However, Murphy hates the media laws to the extent that last week he called for the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Minister for Communications, Helen Coonan, to be flogged.

• http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/11/1052591675517.html in 2003 he was Mr Crean's parliamentary secretary and one of eight MPs in the 15-member NSW Right group loyal to Mr Crean
  • http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/27/1059244485900.html supporting Crean on Badgery's creek airport issue

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/therapeutic-cloning-bill/2006/12/07/1165081069973.html he voted against the Therapeutic cloning bill in December 2006
  • http://www.smh.com.au/news/Gerard-Henderson/Terminating-debate-snubs-democracy/2005/02/07/1107625131318.html Last week interest was raised about a meeting of religious leaders - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus - in Sydney. The discussion was attended by some federal politicians - Senator Ron Boswell (National), Alan Cadman (Liberal), senator-elect Steve Fielding (Family First) and Senator Brian Harradine (independent). Labor's John Murphy was to attend but was ill. The religious leaders found common ground in calling for more information about abortions and for restrictions on late-term abortions.
  • http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/25/1032734210094.html in 2002 Labor today threatened to create gridlock in parliament unless the government gagged a small handful of MPs blocking laws allowing stem cell research on IVF embryos. As debate on the bill passed 35 hours, Labor frontbencher and tactician Wayne Swan accused the small number of MPs voicing opposition to the bill of filibustering. Chief among the villains, he said, were Liberal backbenchers Chris Pyne (LP, SA) and Alan Cadman (LP, NSW), who were dragging out debate on a number of amendments which faced certain defeat in a vote.... But Attorney-General Daryl Williams agreed debate was being stymied by only a small number of MPs. "The Member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman) has spoken 10 times, the Member for Lowe (John Murphy) has spoken 17 times, the Member for Perth (Stephen Smith) has spoken six times, I've spoken eight times," he said.
  • http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/why-the-money-was-on-the-obscene/2006/02/17/1140151809831.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2 various bills including abortion pill debate - Only five Labor MPs, all men, were among the losers on all three votes. They were: Tony Burke, Chris Hayes and John Murphy from NSW; and Victoria's Gavin O'Connor and Anthony Byrne. ... The Liberals' Ian Macfarlane, a Howard minister from Brisbane, put the winning argument simplest: "This is not a vote for or against abortion. It is a vote about choice; about a medically approved option, not a political response. Why are we thinking about leaving a complex medical decision to a politician or a parliament? This is a matter for a woman, her family and her doctor." The Parliament agreed overwhelmingly.

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gillard-supports-the-big-man-with-a-big-heart/2005/09/16/1126750129176.html In 2005 The MP for Lowe, John Murphy, said the former Right faction powerbroker Robert Ray had alluded to the existence of a dirt file on Mr Latham in 2003.
  • http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/beazley-exploiting-daughters-latham/2005/09/19/1126981974825.html and a follow up from Latham
  • http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/06/1070625578172.html - Though in 2003 he was presumably singing a different tune - Labor's John Murphy won it last time with a close primary vote of 45 per cent to 42 per cent. Mr Latham's instant appeal to voters is revealed in the 46 per cent primary vote for Labor in the seat, compared to the Liberals' 35 per cent.
  • http://www.smh.com.au/news/Sauce/Ashton-circus-row-over-house-facelift/2004/12/03/1101923332307.html not sure I get the peice under Barbecue Stopper that refers to Murphy and Latham and journalists from The Australian

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/MP-says-Sydney-airport-security-in-chaos/2006/04/06/1143916604589.html - views on Corby case vis a vis Sydney airport security

• http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/07/1097089482540.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/star-spanking-manor/2007/10/24/1192941158483.html - local election issues don't help the article in my view

• http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rudd-gives-his-reasons-why/2007/11/29/1196037047516.html?page=fullpage named as parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Trade in November 2007.

• http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/07/1065292577171.html?from=storyrhs accused of distributing misinformation by Abbott

--Matilda ^talk 20:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

With reference to positions held in the Government since 2007, I have been of the opinion for a while that only official sources should be used - that is, things such as the Hansard Index and the Gazette. This Government Gazette, published on 3 December 2007, was the one legitimising the Government and lists Murphy as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade (that being Simon Crean). The Commonwealth gazette is very hard to use online, but I have managed to determine there are no subsequent notices to June 2008. It should be noted the media have a very poor understanding of executive officers to Parliament, so the Gazette should trump them every time (i.e. if it says he's the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary, one would have to note Anthony Byrne already fills that role.) Orderinchaos 14:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)