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Prime Minister John Howard has dumped Human Services Minister Ian Campbell after it was revealed that the senator had met disgraced former West Australian premier Brian Burke.
The minister, who oversaw the nation’s major social-welfare agencies, will soon be making the trip to a queue at his local Centrelink office.
Once therer, Senator Campbell will likely fail his Job Capacity Assessment, which identifies a person’s capacity to work and any barriers or impediments that prevent them from getting a job. Meeting with Brian Burke represents just such a barrier.
Mr Burke has become political poison, with several state and federal parliamentarians, Labor and Liberal, tarnished by their association—however fleeting—with the former premier. Mr Burke was gaoled in the 1990s in the wake of the WA Inc corruption scandal.
Recent scandals involved Mr Burke concealing large bribes in his enormous jowls. Mr Burke is also suspected of stealing fictional detective Dick Tracy’s hat.
