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May 13th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Video
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Senior Labor and Liberal politicians have condemned ugly rumours concerning Labor minister Bill Shorten.
PM Julia Gillard says federal parliament is like any other workplace when it comes to hurtful gossip.
A debate is needed to clarify the code of conduct for politicians, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.
BOTH sides of Parliament have condemned scurrilous rumours circulating Parliament house, the latest about the marriage of Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten.
While the Coalition stepped up its assault on embattled former Labor MP Craig Thomson today, revelations about an unspecified “smear” directed at Mr Shorten and his wife Chloe threatened to steal the spotlight.
Mr Shorten and his wife Chloe, the daughter of Governor-General Quentin Bryce, spoke about a vicious slur doing the rounds about the couple in the Herald Sun today.
Mrs Shorten said the personal lives and families of politicians should be off limits.
“I understand why people are interested in the personal lives of people in public life … I understand the curiosity, but I think the sorts of things people say can be appalling,” said Mrs Shorten.
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Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Parliament is just like any other workplace when it comes to painful rumours such as the ones circulating about Mr Shorten.
“Like many other workplaces, there’s gossip in Parliament house, it can be hurtful for people and I think Mr Shorten and his wife are making that point today,” she told reporters in Queensland today.
Ms Gillard said she did not have the time or the inclination to listen to the gossip.
Senior labor minister Anthony Albanese said he was concerned about the road Parliament was currently going down and that the Coalition and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott were behind rumours circulating at the moment.
“We’ve seen Bill and Chloe Shorten today have to go out and go to extraordinary lengths to bat back some of the extraordinary things that have been flowing around the Parliament and on the web promoted by the conservatives,” he said.
“It is indeed dangerous ground that the conservatives are going on.”
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said he wouldn’t be surprised if some of the rumours emanated from Mr Shorten’s union rivals.
“You hear about it (rumours) all the time. But, frankly, our families are not the ones in parliament,” Mr Hockey said.
“They should not be subject to this sort of scuttlebutt.”
Allegations involving Mr Thomson and sexual harassment claims against Speaker Peter Slipper reflected on all politicians and were painful for everyone to see, Mr Hockey said.
“It is a very honourable profession, politics.
“Whether you’re Liberal, Labor, Green, whatever, there are a lot of honourable people in politics.
“Frankly, we should be talking about the Australian people and their aspirations and their challenges and not spending so much time on ourselves.”
Even so, Mr Hockey also continued the Coalition attack against Mr Thomson, who is at the centre of damning claims and findings by Fair Work Australia in relation to expenses incurred when he headed the Health Services Union.
Mr Thomson says he was set up and denies misusing union funds on prostitutes and personal and election campaign expenses when he was HSU national secretary.
However, Mr Hockey says he doesn’t believe the explanation that he was set up by others in the union who had access to his credit card details.
“(Union boss) Paul Howes summarised it correctly yesterday when he said ‘it just doesn’t pass the believability test’,” Mr Hockey told the Nine Network today.
Mr Albanese said it was important to maintain the separation of powers between the political and legal systems.
“I don’t know the facts of these matters, I’m not a lawyer, let alone a judge,” Mr Albanese told Network Ten.
The idea that union funds had been abused by anyone was abhorrent to him and the union movement itself, Mr Albanese said.
The Coalition had suspended standing orders 54 times in the last parliament, as part of the “longest dummy spit ever seen” by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott after losing the 2010 election, he said.
“We don’t have a debate about policy anymore, we have a couple of questions up the top leading into a suspension of standing orders every single day.
“Not just about Craig Thomson but about personal issues being dragged up.”
Independent MP Tony Windsor has flagged changing the rules surrounding the conduct of MPs when it comes to civil proceedings in an effort to improve the code of conduct for parliamentarians.
“It could, in fact, require some constitutional change and that could be a question to go to a referendum,” Mr Windsor told Sky News.
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