So...this email is DEFINITELY a forgery?
Last night Mr Turnbull refused to comment on reports that Mr Grech had supplied information to the Coalition. "The last thing I would do is ever discuss … anybody that may provide us with information."
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, for whom Mr Grech worked briefly in the Howard government, earlier indicated he had confirmed to Mr Turnbull that Mr Grech was credible.
As the Government yesterday turned up the pressure on him over his contacts with Mr Grech, Mr Turnbull was also forced to defend his aggressive leadership style against criticism in his own ranks that he over-reached in calling for Mr Rudd's resignation " a call that prompted a backlash when the email was exposed as fabricated. ...<cont>
A-ha!! Hockey told Turnbull Grech was credible! I smell leadership spill from the Hockey camp.
) quite recently, too! 
I saw Costello say that his greatest achievement was the GST.
Ah, ya gotta laugh!:
Mr Georgiou is well-known for quietly campaigning behind the scenes against successive government policies on asylum seekers.
In an emotional speech, Mr Georgiou has described the Howard government's immigration detention policies as "cruel and contrary to Australia's best values".
"It's a bill that takes another step towards closing a dark chapter in our history," he said.
Mr Georgiou is retiring at the next election but today he gave an impassioned speech to Parliament indicating he will cross the floor and vote with the Government.
"Do we charge drug dealers? Serial paedophiles? Sadistic murderers? Multiple rapists the cost of their detention?" he asked.
"The charging of people who arrive on our shores seeking protection, the cost of their detention is part of the way in which we have demonised them and presented them as being worse than criminals."
Mr Georgiou pointed out the policies of automatic detention of women and children and billing people for the cost of their detention started under a Labor government.
Fighting back tears
But he said the Howard government toughened the measures with the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas.
And he denounced all of it.
Struggling to hold back tears, Mr Georgiou lamented that MPs endorsed the policies with no resistance.
"It cannot and it should not be denied that we did go along, we all did," he said.
"The votes from the Parliament shows. Going along had its consequences.
"Vulnerable men, women and children were harmed by the legislation we voted for and by the practices and abuses they've spawned."
The quietly spoken MP says detention bills often become another form of torture.
"This dark chapter is about the incarceration of men, women and children behind razor wire in isolated locations," Mr Georgiou said.
"It is about the imprisonment of innocent people for periods longer than criminals convicted of serious felonies.
"It is about the demonisation of people fleeing persecution. It is about the denial of psychiatric attention to sick people to whom the Government owed a duty of care.
"No advanced society should allow on its statutes a law that so degrades and humiliates fellow human beings who are legitimately calling on our protection.
"We have an obligation to our own and to future generations to support this bill. I will support the bill and I commend it to the House."
Detention costs will continue for those found guilty of people smuggling and illegal fishing.
From 2006 to 2008, detainees were billed $54 million but the Commonwealth recovered less than $2 million.
The Opposition's immigration spokeswoman, Sharman Stone, says instead of abolishing debt collection the Government should find better ways of collecting the money.
"There is no doubt that announcing to the region that this Rudd Labor regime is abolishing the 17-year-old policy of recovering detention debt, there's no doubt that would bring great joy to the people smugglers who are once again very active in our waters," she said.
"Abolishing the detention debt principle is going to remove one more deterrent in the way of people smugglers, arguing now that Australia has a wide open back door."
) A pox on the pathetic opportunists in the Liberal party for opposing this bill! As if, fining people for their period of detention in those hell-holes is going to deter anyone desperate for asylum! good grief.
