Mumble reports Newspoll has Labor’s lead dropping from 59-41 to 55-45, with primary votes of 44 per cent for Labor, 39 per cent for Coalition, 10 per cent for Greens and 7 per cent others. More to follow.
Meanwhile, Alexander Downer confirms he will quit parliament to take up a job as United Nations special envoy to Cyprus. Mayo by-election to follow.
UPDATE (2/7/07): Today’s Australian provides further figures on standard of living expectations, which have plunged shockingly – “get worse” being up from 18 per cent to 43 per cent since December. While I’m here, a belated link to yesterday’s graphic.
UPDATE (3/7/07): Newspoll has released its quarterly aggregated poll which provides breakdowns by state, gender and age. It suggests the Rudd honeymoon effect has been especially strong in South Australia and in metropolitan areas, is fading quickest in Victoria, and did not further increase support for Labor in the 18-34 age group. Two of these four are consistent with the result of the Gippsland by-election.
631 Comments
No surprises here. About what one would expect with state newspolls being produced in each state last week, most showing a drop in support for Labor.
It gets tougher for the Opposition over the next little while with no parliament sitting, taxcuts coming in from tomorrow, and the focus shifting to the weakness of the environment later this week when the Garnaut Report is released on Friday.
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/domino/Web_Notes/Garnaut/garnautweb.nsf
Pollytrack and its inbred cousin Loess Allpolls have been updated with Newspoll and the latter with the last Morgan F2F
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/the-narrowing-the-narrowing-run-for-the-hills/
It’s the Narrowing!
Women and children first!
Steve,
Yep, the Govt’s response to Garnaut & Emission trading will be interesting. They will end up somewhere between two extreme’s
1) Doing juuuuust enought to wedge the opposition but not sending energy prices souring.
2) Doing enough to actually make a differnece and sending a 50% energy shock through the economy (my own guess based on the european $80/ton price of carbon).
There are plenty of Machiavellian devotees advocating 1) and plenty of idealists advocating 2)
Its unclear to me who will win.
Curious how quiet these threads get when Labor drops four points.
heh!
We are entering the period where the really important stuff begins re Environment. Rudd & Co have been fairly quiet post budget, not defending it to the extent that would be normally expected. Labor relatively quiet Gippsland. It is as if the main game is yet to come. Time seemed to be spent excessively on the fuel issue but perhaps with the main aim of educating the public that fuel was a Global issue.
Rudd out-thought and out-manouevred the “unbeatable” Howard last year in a time of low inflation, high employment against general expectations. The recent interpretation that the Press put on Rudd’s performance does not line up with Rudd’s past performance, and Rudd did not retaliate much to set the record straight. I think the important part is yet to come.
55/45 is still pretty good. PPM is pretty good. We have not got the approval ratings as yet. Brendan is still in a low postion. Opposition will get some false hope with the help of media mates. Money will start to flow into people’s pockets from this week. Ground gained by the Opposition by populist proposals, untested by the Press surely must be short lived.
Because of the Garnaut Report polls will be volatile for awhile as people make up their minds on the Government’s proposals.
We will see what happens.
I think what is surprising William is that we haven’t got the conservative supporters out in force either. They know this is not a great result given the circumstances we find ourselves in. A drop from a previous outlier poll is not all that exciting or significant I would have thought.
I’m not surprised!
These factors are working against Rudd:
1. Petrol prices
2. N.S.W Labor/Iemma/Iguanagate Affair
3. A very biased media, largely dancing to Nelson’s tune! The ABC in particular are hardly covering themselves with glory right now!
Labor needs to stop worrying about Fuel Watch, in fact it might be better to let the thing fall over in the senate. Get the focus off petrol, and don’t leave Nelson any room to play populist, short term politics, which I must confess is working for him right now!
4 “Curious how quiet these threads get when Labor drops four points.”
William, I think they all anticipated it too! There was not the chatter this week that there was before the Newspoll a fortnight ago.
So, in other words, Rudd needs a new script, if I was to criticise him, I’d say he’s been too reactive lately, he has to lead and set the agenda, wedge Nelson!
Actually William, were really all just one sock puppet, and I got scared off by what you did to Honest John…
Or maybe they have seen the results from the Superannuation Funds this year and have slunk into bed depressed before Newspoll came out. The Share Market, Property Market and Superannuation Funds seem to be the only branches of business in Australia that don’t put their prices up willy nilly these days.
Progressive,
Nelson is irrelevant. Garnauts report comes out on Friday. The selling of ETR will decide whether Rudd and Co survive. They have to sell increases in living costs to the average Australian family.
Good luck Mr. Rudd.
I think Doug @ 6 has nailed it. Most of what Rudd has done since being in government is just preparatory groundwork. The main game is yet to start, but will soon.
The Shamaham
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23949828-601,00.html
Right, Possum @ 2: It’s the Narrowing -eight months too late, or two years too early. Milne and Co may kid themselves that Nelson is some kind of political genius who ‘won the petrol wars’ for the Opposition, but most of his front bench is on record repudiating the 5 cents tax policy. And there are a lot of shadow ministers -’aspirational voters’ maybe- who just know they could do a better job than Brendan. If the Coalition does consistently look like they could be a real chance at the next election, just watch for the flashing of the knives -and then the crashing of the polls.
Downer lets fly on the big issues:
Pointing out that he is a cigar smoker, Mr Downer goes on: “It just incenses me and it even encourages me to think about going into state politics - that’s how much it incenses me - to have state governments tell us where we can smoke and where we can’t smoke.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23949822-601,00.html
Forget world peace, the big issue of our time is the threat to our civil liberties caused by stopping people getting cancer.
He also has a go at Nelson:
“They need to build policies around that narrative. It is one thing to start barking on about reducing fuel excise by 5c, but what’s your point?”
“Why would you want to do that? You need a broader narrative. The Liberal Party does not have a story to tell at the moment. Just a bunch of ad hoc comments.”
The way I understood the theory behind the ETS was that the fuel excise would probably go to offset the increased costs, in much the same way as GST replaced sales taxes. No mention of that possibility from Sham - I - am.
Thats almost a balanced acticle from the Shanahan, who has taken his place? He doesnt even have a “the honeymoon is over”
interesting the polls about the ETS, perhaps Australians arent as stupid as the coalition thinks they are
But won’t the ETS offset slowly increase as the cost of carbon increases?
That could mean we have this stupid debate every single year, instead of the price increase making people change their habits.
Well I blame the OZ, for not letting that hilarious Dennis Shanahan do their initial write-ups anymore. This new one is not nearly provocative enough.
Ruddster needs to tread lightly with his punitive pricing model for fixing greenhouse emissions. He may like to play the guy making the tough decisions, but an election platform based on repealing a too tough ETS would be a very easy decision for the Libs to make.
Cosmicjeter,
Cross yourself and chew on garlic right now!
Grouse! That’s Melbournese for you beauty!
Lol, I’m with Possum the narrowing…
20 Showson. See comment 6 here.
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/29/carbon-taxes-and-fuel-prices/#comment-212253
“Greeensborough Growler Says:
Cosmicjeter,
Cross yourself and chew on garlic right now!”
Dont worry you will like this one
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23948536-7583,00.html
Rudd is the next Whitlam! Beware, he is taking away our freedoms
hmmm lower result for Labor = Nelson keeps his job. I fail to see how this is bad for Labor?
Same with the Nationals result in the Hicksland By-election really.
So sad to see Dolly pull the pin.
Yes, it’s much more satisfying sticking the pin in Dolly.
The “honeymoon” is still on me darlings. Shag session 1 is done & getting ready for shag session 2… such longevity!! Love is in the air!!!
Votes by the Queensland Liberals to be taken over by the Queensland Nationals who were taken over by Clive Palmer…are counted today. With the supposed 10 000 members of the National Party turning out to be 40% Sheep, cattle, goats and racehorses, it will be interesting to see what proportion of the alleged 5500 Queensland Liberal Party members have their addresses overseas and forgot to vote.
Well, it has taken 7 months to arrive to near where the polls where just before the November elections. All this while Rudd is doing nothing, working too hard, making the Public Service work to hard, letting a Public Servant take 5 week annual holiday,not doing enough, pushing 42 bills through the Senate,oh as well as the Word wide steep rise in fuel and food.On and on and on it goes. All with the help of the MSM while Nelson gets away scott free to do and say whatever enters his silly head.
Yes it sounds the same as in ‘73-’75 what was done to Whitlam and how he ruined Australia, yet after 8 years of Fraser and Howard the economy was in worse shape by ‘83.
Does anyone have a link to the newspoll pdf? I get a 404-Page not found error on The Australian link.
The tpp looks a bit weird. I will explain when I see the full results.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-1jul.pdf
Thanks JJ.
Thanks James J - I’d been having the same problem as ruawake
Hard to know what to make of this one
The Nats number is higher than usual, you don’t often see it that high outside of election results.
If you discount the last newspoll, and compare this one to May 30, it looks like this poll has overshot the LNP primary a bit,
maybe 56-44 would be more like it
As I thought 4 points of “the narrowing” are from others and the greens the other 2 points are off labor’s primary.
The June 13-15 poll seems to overstate labors lead, this one is basically back in line with all the others.
Some suggest that the latest Newspoll is “the narrowing we had to have”.
Another way of viewing these figures, drawing back on the psephoscope ever so slightly, is that ALP won the last Fed. El. with 52.7% 2PP, so 55/45 is an improvement in their position.
The Nightwatchman in PPM terms has consolidated himself in double figures and threatens to bat on till the luncheon adjournment. A concern for the tory “brainstrust” is that compared to Tin-Tin popularitywise, if the electorate was a Lonely Hearts Club, Brendon would have his photo returned in a plain paper envelope alonside a “with compliments” slip:
“Thank you for your paticipation, Dr. Nelson. We regret that we don’t have any participants on our files who are quite that lonely.”
Of Interest to Many Pollbludgers
Over at Blogocracy Tim Dunlop is running a thread at the moment about bias on the ABC. This being a topic of concern to many ‘bludgers, you might like to take a look and perhaps make a comment.
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/blogocracy/index.php/news/comments/abc_election_coverage/
(Thanks for the space for this ‘announcement’, William)
I is an interesting period, Australian is not europe, most european country does not have coal mines and petroleum explorers, Australia has them, it will be interesting how many jobs (union jobs) the carbon trading scheme will cost Australia.
It will also push up the cost of transport, cost of petrol?, cost of grocery etc, so I do not think the ALP will make the really hard decision
Listening to Turnbull on Lateline last night, he was using the Newspoll to drive his narrative. It seemed a very dangerous thing to do; four weeks ago we were looking at a 57-43 split, then a 59-41 and now a 55-45. If the actual split is something about 56.5-43.5 the last few polls could all be merely noise, in which case Turnbull and Nelson are going to be accused of doing something dramatically wrong over the next two weeks if the next Newspoll bounces back to Labor.
The results of the questions on climate change and petrol are very encouraging and surprising. I would say the government stands a very good show of taking the people with them on this.
Re those polls on the ETS: my suspicion is that in general people lie regarding this issue. There are many things that people could do that would cost them a few more dollars a week but would significantly help the environment if lots of people did them. But the evidence is that people are not doing those things. It is all very well to say to a pollster, ‘Oh, of course I’d be happy to pay a little more and do my bit for the polar bears,’ but when it comes to shelling out the readies there is a different tale to be told.
So, while I think that radical action is needed, radical action will not be taken unless Rudd is thinking of committing political suicide.
Very interesting…(he said stroking his beard)…with three elections still to come this year (yes, I know most bludgers don’t think Council elections are real, but they ARE happening) the latest sets of numbers must be a little worrying for the ALP in Melbourne and Sydney (and potentially on country councils too). While Councils may not have the clout of state or federal govt, they are often a training ground for future pollies, so maybe we’ll see the start of a new tranche of ALP young bloods (where old faces disappear) or will it just be the same old hacks staying place, going nowhere? The Libs must be quietly hoping for some new faces coming through, especially as there will be need to fill potentially winnable seats come Mar 2011 in NSW.
And what of the ACT - any chance of any polling showing anything there prior to October? Stanhope must have been thinking he was on a winner with Rudd, but the gloss seems to have come off and may end up losing him control of the Assembly.
43 Stewart J - all this based on a Newspoll showing Labor would win an election in a landlslide. Hell, I’m glad he’s not trailing.
Stewart J - for the “latest set of numbers concerning Victoria I suggest you look them up here and see that Labor in Victoria is doing very well thankyou. Based on these “latest set of numbers” Labor would increase its majority.
http://www.newspoll.com.au/cgi-bin/polling/display_poll_data.pl
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Farg some people love to slit their wrists over a single poll.
Now I understand why the Galaxy Poll was commissioned. “THE Liberals and Nationals are set to merge in Queensland within a month.”
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23951520-5003402,00.html
Gary Bruce
Ah, but I was considering the series of polls not just this one, and the implications of a falling ALP primary vote. If you consider that most Councils (and the ACT) are elected from multi-member electorates the 2pp has less relevance. Now, while the Libs might think their day in the sun is coming (well, in NSW anyway) a rising Green vote could catch them out. Consider also that certainly in NSW you have optional preferential voting so Councillors can be elected on less than a quote (depending on the wards, whether their is an above the line option and so on). So Greens soaking up ALP votes could deliver split wards and councils.
The ACT is also an interesting case. Stanhope was not travelling that well on his own, but was bouyed by two factors:
1. Howard’s general unpopularity with public servants (prior to the federal election), and
2. Rudd’s general popularity (after the federal election).
As the gloss comes off Rudd the spotlight will fall more on Stanhope’s Govt and its achievements. This isn’t sky is falling stuff, but may point to re-alignments in 2 states (for Councils) and a territory Government. And I personally wouldn’t right off Councils as unimportant - they provide many important services and activities and electors know that. The interference in residential planning by Sartor here in NSW is one of the reasons for the NSW ALP’s fall in popularity.
I am increasingly annoyed by the ‘all spin no substance’ tag that the opposition are running. Now I’m biased in kinds of ways but the Libs tried this (unsuccessfully) against the Gallop Govt in WA which IMHO was almost entirely substance and needed a hell of a lot more spin.
On the other hand, again IMHO the Carpenter Govt spins massively, still has some substance but certainly less than Gallop, and no-one accuses them of spin.
Of course Rudd has some spin, it would be stupid not to be, but I don’t understand why the line ‘all spin no substance’ is used so much when it is obviously a silly line.
We certainly miss Dr Geoff, Jasmine.
Because it’s all they’ve got
47 GB - 85% of the 57% of Liberals who voted means that only 48% of Queensland Liberals supported the merger.
48 Stewart J - local councils mean nothing politically here in Victoria. I couldn’t careless if the conservatives ran everyone of them. I’ll be very surprised if the Libs end up in control in the ACT.
Stewart J I find it hard to imagine Labor will lose government in the ACT. Although I’m sure the people aren’t thrilled to bits with the government the Opposition is at various times completely dysfunctional or completely invisible.
Add to that the fact their leader is Zed Who? and I don’t think I’d bet anything on them winning this year.
ABC Radio news said there were about 3,000 postal votes. So I guess there are only about 5,300 Liberal Party members in Qld. Of these about 2,600 want a merger, 2,700 could not be stuffed voting or are opposed. If the ABC report was accurate.
As for Jasmine, the Rudd Government certainly spins a lot but… so far… a lot less than the Howard Government did. With Howard we got wall to wall adverting (read propoganda) and remarkably little of note after 11 years in Government as far as pure policy is to be concerned. The largest policy moves of the Howard Government, the GST and Work Choices were understandably spun til they could spin no longer.
Then we have a look at migration policies… again mostly spin. You’d get them talking about doing something which would have little effect or that they’d end up doing nothing about.
Then you get the laughable nonsense with the Opposition ridiculing the Government for setting up reviews and committees when:
a) they did this as well (for instance Costello’s ACCC fuel inquiry, now they have a tax review, which you’d think they would’ve thought about while they were in Government rather than in Opposition);
b) The Coalition constantly set up committees and inquiries in the Senate (into bills… and now they have 5 Select Committees); and
c) it must be acknowledged that good policy usually involves a fair degree of research and consideration… this is why firms do market research rather than just making decisions brashly and regretting them… bad policy almost always comes from a lack of consultation (e.g. the $10 billion back-of-the-envelope water plan, the NT intervention etc.).
The problem, I think, with the Rudd spin is that it’s so transparent and far too inflexible when it’s seen for what it is. Rather than adapting their spin to suit what’s being thrown at them they just keep repeating it as if we don’t all see the flaws in the logic.
Dario, thanks for the reply, just wondering if you could be a bit more helpful for poor ol me. Is there anything at all resembling either logic or fact that might support such an obviously flawed assertion?
Obviously flawed? Do you have anything at all resembling either logic or fact that might support that?
re: ABC
two Newspolls ago (ie. 4 weeks ago) which showed a slight improvement in Nelsons pref. PM but a static 2PP for Libs. Oilyman on abc 7pm TV news had the briefest of reports, no graphics, which mentioned the former but nothing on the second. Last Newspoll (ie. 2 weeks ago) which showed an improvement in preferred PM and 2pp for Rudd and Labor recieved NO MENTION AT ALL from Oilyman despite the previous f/night being all about petrol/Fuelwatch and how it spelled electoral doom for R and L. Given this Newspoll has shown an improvement in both PPM and 2pp for Nelson and Libs. heres predicting both will be mentioned complete with graphics.
Gary Bruce Says @ July 1st, 2008 at 2:12 pm: Its just the start. The votes are still coming in I’ve been told.
Oh and its “57 percent of eligible members took part in the ballot” on the merger. Many ineligible members = dead, so it will actually be a larger proportion.
Yeah, and I’m not going to get into whether any of it is good public policy or not, but anyone that has been awake since Rudd won, knows the Government has been working very hard right across the very full and details policy position they took to the last election. You may not like action on climate change, you may not like the fizzypop tax, you may have missed or disliked the budget, you may not be a fan of fuelwatch. You might have missed public servants groaning under the pressure of work. But it would take a pretty narrow focus to say there is no substance at all. Hate the substance by all means, but no need to pretend it isn’t there.
dovif @ 39 -
it will be interesting how many jobs (union jobs) the carbon trading scheme will cost Australia.
Yes, but what about the opportunities?
The above is the type of thinking that prevailed under the former government. While Howard was valiantly holding back the sustainable energy tide for his coal mine owning cronies, the West Germans built a multi billion dollar solar industry using technology developed at the University of Melbourne, providing jobs for over 56,000 Germans.
China’s richest man is also building his fortune on UM solar technology. He used to work there but couldn’t get any seed money from either the Australian government or business to commercialise what he and his colleagues had developed so turned to the Chinese. Interestingly, the amount the Chinese government coughed up was less than what Turnbull authorised for the infamous rain machine!
It will also push up the cost of transport, cost of petrol?, cost of grocery etc, so I do not think the ALP will make the really hard decision
I hope you’re wrong because if we don’t bite the bullet now we’ll pay an even bigger price later. The cost of petrol will go up anyway. The only salvation is turning to alternatives and that won’t happen without encouragement, or the funding gained from taxing carbon.
As for the cost of food, most of the recent increases are due to shortages caused by droughts and other weather disasters, and the diversion of grains to bio fuels. We’ve had what, 5, 6 years of drought in much of the Murray Darling system that produces the bulk of our food and things aren’t looking good for this year’s crops either. In WA annual rainfall has dropped some 60% in the last 30 years and the trend is accelerating. In VIC and NSW rainfall deficits aren’t quite as bad but the same trend is evident.
Australia is the continent that will be most effected by global warming. Unchecked, we’ll be producing very little food within decades. If you think food is expensive now, and frankly, it’s dirt cheap which is why we waste so much of it, wait until we’re competing for it in a world were food is increasingly scarce!
The Bush’s and Howard’s of the world have cost us a decade in solving the problems we humans have inflicted on the world. We probably can’t recover if another decade is lost. The expected melting of the North Pole ice within the next month or two, which was predicted wouldn’t happen for decades, provides stark evidence of how limited our time may be.
Stuart J
the ALP in Victoria hardly ever endorses in council any more therefore most ALP councillors are not identified.
However the greens do endorse and therefore it will be interesting to see how their vote goes
One thing everyone seems to be missing is when carbon trading comes in, what taxes will be abolished?
Could the fuel excise go and be replaces with a carbon tax?
We all know if Australia was to be re federated today the tax system and powers would look completely different
Our current Federal tax system, raises $16 Bill from fule excise, $40 Bill GST, $65 Bill from company tax and acout $120 Bill from PAYG and yet has a surplus of $22 Bill
Can anyone see a system of say abolition of fuel excise and replacement of a carbon tax ie abolish 38 cents per litre fuel excise and replace with an initial 30 cpl of carbon tax, no gst on carbon tax thus another saving and the government wearing some loo of revenue. On top of this tax cuts all round to make up the differance for the excise on other things.
The Liberals seem to talk about carbon tax increases only, and forget that a new tax will be off set with other tax reductions / abolitions, just as they did with the GST
Well, a very intriguing position the Queensland Liberals have got themselves into again. As usual after years of factional fighting and brawling the same old story. Fifty one percent of Queensland Liberals either voted against the merger or abstained. About forty nine percent voted for the merger. Their problem is that the Liberals must have a constitution for the State Division that sets out exactly what percentage is needed to allow constitutional changes . I have serious doubts that that percentage is less than two thirds of the membership if not even more.
MayoFeral
The Divine Miss O is back from the naughty corner at the Oz with a very good article on Dolly, who she kicks very hard.
So, it’s goodbye and farewell to Alexander Downer. He’s off to solve the small crisis that is Cyprus, and there’s just enough time to assure us that he has no regrets, not a one.
But come now, Alex, surely there’s room for a little modesty?
For example: Iraq? It used to be ruled by Saddam Hussein, a man that Downer once described as a “grave and gathering’’ threat to the mighty West.
No, really, lest we forget, Downer once told the Australian public that Saddam’s regime posed a threat to the “security and safety’’ of no, not just Australia, but to the world.
As far as Saddam’s nuclear program went, it was a minute to midnight. Saddam could use them at any time.
That wasn’t quite right, obviously.
Why, it is even possible that Iraq was no threat to the West, ever. A brave soul once put this idea to Downer, who chortled, and said: “Well, they’re no threat anymore!’’
No, indeed. But enough of the jokes. What about the weapons, though? Could it be there never were any?
It took a while for Downer to admit this. A year after the war, he was still saying things like: `There’s been a lot of debate about the intelligence, and whether it was accurate or not ….’’
Actually, there’s no debate. It wasn’t accurate, not that Downer would ever say so. No, he told ABC in 2005: “I think the broad intelligence picture was right.”
Broadly right, except that it was … dead wrong.
He has no regrets - neither should we
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/he_has_no_regrets_neither_should_we/
Steve @ 52. That’s the problem with stats, they can be spun any way you want. By your reckoning, a mere 8% of their members oppose the merger.
Ken, funny that at State Council meetings the two thirds majority rule applies and only members present can vote. Obviously here as everywhere else in the sane world abstaining is counted as effectively a no vote.
State Council may make, by a majority of no less
than two-thirds of members present at a meeting,
Rules consistent with this Constitution including any
Rule adopting a Code of Conduct dealing with the
manner in which party members shall deal with each
other. Rule 159 (a)
http://www.qld.liberal.org.au/pdf/ConstitutionCurrent-13-11-2005.pdf
What has Kevin Rudd got to do with a US election site and look at the loaded question (top left).
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/general-election/
Steve you don’t need to worry to much about the Queensland merger now we need to await the joint constitutional conventions on July 26 and 27 for your so called palmer franchise to become reality. The new look LNP will give the Bligh Labor Government a run for its money.
PN - I await with glee. Indeed, but nobody has nominated the 25 seats they are going to win over and above what they hold now, have they?
I would put significant money on Bligh winning the next state election. It will be with a reduced majority I believe but a loss this time round will be beyond the opposition no matter what form they take.
Qld Labor is not in the same ball park as the NSW mess.
PN and there is a very good reason why the 25 seats have never been nominated. The theory of a Palmer Franchise team win is Pie in the sky when you look at the seats required.
I hear on the grapevine that Fiona Simpson is not a happy camper and that she will challenge for the deputy leadership of the Liberal National Party if the amalgamation goes through.
The Queensland opposition - the gift that just keeps on giving.
ruawake, I’m expecting them to split into more factions than the IRA. We will have the Pineapple Party, the real Liberals, the Western Suburbs Liberals and another faction loosely called ‘the rest’. It will ensure many independents in the next parliament is the most likely result.
Springborg had better watch his back too.
http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003167.html
If anyone’s still interested, I’ve added this to my Kororoit by-election thread:
How many Labor held state seats are within the Gippsland electorate William?
One that they might have hoped to win back. And do you imagine that the lessons of Gippsland end at its boundaries?
There hasn’t been a byelection in the other electorates as yet and the Newspoll for Victoria has been very impressive. Labor had trouble with Gippsland last election, I’d expect it will next time too.
Does anyone think Quentin Bryce will sack Rudd?
Not if she wants to be sacked first. What makes you ask that question Edward? I can’t see the circumstances where that could happen.
Does anyone think Bneal and Della will survive?
ESJ
The DPP will find insufficient evidence to lay any charges and you can go back the reading the Terror and watching ACA.
Brief snippet on the 6.30 news that the Qld Branch of the Liberals may be insolvent!
LOl ruawake,
no doubt thats what they hope too! I do not think they will survive this.
“the Qld Branch of the Liberals may be insolvent!”
How can that be they always said they were good economic managers. It is their main claim to fame.
Diogenes @ 66 -
Yeah, Saddam presented such a grave threat that when Downer was told AWB might be paying Saddam several hundred million dollars in bribes, money that could be used for WMDs, Downer couldn’t even be bothered asking a minion to check it out. Or so he says.
But whether Saddam had or didn’t have WMDs is immaterial. There is a strong prima facie case against Downer (and others in the Howard ministry) for Waging Aggressive War/Crimes Against Peace. A hanging offence. Depending on how much of the material canvassed in the Downing St Memo was known to him, he might also have a case to answer on Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War, also a hanging offence. Most military legal eagles believe the torture and illegal detention of David Hicks constitutes a War Crime, and that Downer may have a case to answer. Again, a potential hanging offence.
However, having seen the aftermath first hand, I believe the strongest condemnation should be reserved for his actions/inactions in the months leading up to the independence vote in East Timor. I’ve already detailed them in a previous post so won’t waste bandwith on it again.
MayoFeral
I know this won’t really come to anything but we can dream…
BTW The commentary underneath is priceless.
Australia’s John Howard’s possible war crimes submitted to the International Criminal Court
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/03/australias-john-howards-possible-war-crimes-submitted-to-the-international-criminal-court/
Selling National driven policies (for the newly formed party) to urban Qld Liberals will be a big ask.
Many Lib party members may think amalgamation is the only way forward but whither the votes of the small L brigade out there who hate the Nats?
Effectively leaving your lifelong constituents with no party to vote for is incredible.
There will, of course, be a rash of (Lib) Independents at the next election trying to take advantage of the vacuum, and with opt pref there will likely be a high exhaustion rate.
Who knows - a future Qld parliament with a number of Ind (Liberal) members may form their own party!!! LOL
Mighty worrying times ahead for the non-Labor side in Qld.
Ruawake,
Seems one can wipe one’s bottom with your instant political analysis
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23954060-2,00.html
Hmmm, also don’t understand the brouhaha about this Newspoll, and very much appreciate the update from William on Kororoit. Rudd, in my view, has been preparing the groundwork, is a very determined pollie, let’s call him the Northern ear wax Wombat, if you like. In my view, he’s going to take climate change adjustment on with the same determination we have seen since he became leader of the then opposition. If the global economy doesn’t tank (see AM Report from BIS), he’s got a truly tremendous amount of money to use, and he’s also got the power recognised by the Fed. Court as to how widely the C’wealth can act under the Corporations Law.
While Nelson et al. mess around with populist shots aimed at whoever will listen to them, for short term gain, the gov’t has been very carefully laying out the future game plan. You just had to listen to Penny Wong on local ABC this am to be taken by how coordinated an approach is being taken.
BTW, loved the loving send offs from the gov’t for Dolly’s new, as yet unconfirmed gig with the U.N and Cyprus. Don’t know how they kept from cracking up, and good luck with that Cyprus.
ABC News tonight reported that Ms Neal has decided to enforce her legal right as an MP and decline to be interviewed by police about the matter of the stat decs. I didn’t know she had such a legal right.
If true then she has confirmed a lack of genuine transperency and has wounded her claims of being victimised. Not a good look.
Ditto for her husband who is doing the same.
It is good to see tthat we are focusing on the big issues.
True sceptic - terrible look one would think in a functioning democracy that would be it for the pair of them.
An introductory primer below:
Belinda has lived in Woy Woy Bay with husband John for over 20 years. Together they have raised their two sons on the Central Coast.
Belinda has experience as a Gosford City Councillor and as a Senator. Her priorities have always been local jobs, roads, services and infrastructure. She has a practical working knowledge of government to offer the electorate of Robertson.
Belinda established and ran a small business in Erina. Belinda knows that viable local businesses and a strong economy mean more local jobs.
She was a Foundation Board member of Central Coast Mariners, and is deeply committed to the Umina United Soccer Club. Belinda has been involved in many local groups including the Community Tenancy Scheme, the Central Coast Women’s Health Centre and Child Abuse Prevention Services.
Belinda was elected as the Member for Robertson at the 2007 election.
Eddie and Sceptic, agree it’s pretty stupid, particularly because I think Rudd will hang them out to dry. I’m quite partial to The Piping Shrike’s views on this affair and recommend you read them. Just wonderfully Macchiavellian, and ring true. There’s nothing like the convoluted machinations of political party’s for good old-fashioned entertainment.
Neal has been savaged in the media and it has been a frenzy. She’s been ripped to pieces without a fair defence and it has been over the top.
But she refuses to talk to police. Why? I’d be fighting them like crazy if it were me.
It doesn’t look good for her if she won’t defend herself.
Who cares?
Meanwhile in Iraq bombings continue, in Zimbabwe people are getting tortured and in the Gaza Strip people are digging tunnels to get essential needs.
But here in Australia we have Belinda terrorising us, better watch out folks she could around the corner waiting.
They’ve both given written statements and I read where 5 of those who provided stat decs refuse to be interviewed.
It ssems Iemma has forced Della Bosca to subit to an interview.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/01/2291434.htm?section=justin
I predict Della and Belinda will have resigned within the next 10 days.
Resigned, in what sense, ESJ?
101 Edward - you maybe right Edward but why not just wait and see. The investigation is still going on.
They would only resign if found guilty by a court of something surely.
He might have meant that they are resigned to begin talking to the police.
Diogenes @ 89 -
I know this won’t really come to anything but we can dream…
Indeed we can, and not totally without hope. The ICC is to rule within a year or so on whether it will try cases based on the Nuremberg Charter. I’m not holding my breath, but even if they duck the issues now there’s always the possibility of a negative ruling being overturned in the future. War crimes don’t have a statue of limitation and many of the main players are relatively young. Let them sweat!
Our Crimes Act also applies. Unfortunately, the AFP can only proceed with authorisation from the A-G, and I doubt that McClelland is interested. I was hoping that Mike Kelly would get the gig because his background suggests he might be. But as a newbie it was always going to be a long shot. Anyway, pollies tend to look after their own.
Neal’s not going to resign her seat. Does she strike you as the type of person to give in to pressure? It is more likely she’ll be booted from the ALP (and the grounds for that might not have to do with any charges directly, but not responding to police inquiries quick enough).
The allegation of her spitting at a staff member is probably worse then yelling and screaming at them. Spitting is frown upon seriously. Just look at the footy leagues, you get the same punishment for spitting as for striking.
Steve et al,
Dont really care about the legalities, the politics means they will both go and soon.
Eddy, no one cares about the unlovely Della Boscas. For once, I agree with Marky iterated, there are more important things to consider, particularly as they play out over time.
Hmm, Rudd Warns Neal to “Co-operate or else”.
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/pm-warns-neal-to-cooperate-with-police-20080701-3007.html
Frank C., I rest my case.
108 I won’t lose a wink of sleep either way, ESJ. I’ve never been a fan of people behaving badly from either side of politics.
Rudd is likely to disendorse Neal sooner or later, probably well before the next election. Kev and Julia will take tough action if they consider Iguanagate is hurting the government.
Iemma on the other hand is as weak as piss, he’s looking for any excuse to reinstate Della Bosca as a minister.
BS Fairman #107
I think this is Neal’s problem. If she didn’t spit or carry on in an inappropriate manner then she would surely be defending her reputation. If she is being victimised then she has been clearly defamed and logic suggets she would be barrelling into the media at a million miles an hour.
I can’t see her wanting to stay as an MP for much longer. Her prospects are now shot so why bother? Nobody is supporting her. And why would she continue to expose herself and her family to the torment of recent weeks. Especially the impact it may be having on her children. Then again politicians are stubborn creatures.
Ironically the ALP may prefer her to stay in parliament and deny the Liberals a certain by-election victory. Mind you this would help Brendan Nelson in his cause to stay on as opposition leader. Every cloud and its silver lining?
Gary Bruce
Regarding Councils - they provide many services that most people are very thankful for - and more than “roads, rates & rubbish”, in many cases providing the programs and activities that state governments don’t or wont. I wont go into the many and various items they do deal with (or how underfunded they have been given what they are expected to do).
However, what I was pointing to was that Councils are a training ground for many local politicians, working through local governance issues (including understanding the basis of government and how to manage large budgets and organisations), working as a public official and dealing with the local electorate, as much as providing a good platform for getting known around your locality. If this training ground is effectively removed for one of the major parties it reduces the pool of talent from which they can draw in the future. While I’m sure that the major parties can find good candidates outside of this realm, I question the wisdom of this approach in terms of local MP’s being in touch with their local electorate - unless you simply ascribe to the notion that an MP is just a cypher for a party and it is irrelevant what their own position is.
William, back at 77, what do you think is the significance? If you’re prepared to say, that is. Might be a getting a bit ahead of myself here, but if you’re willing to say something, we’ll be all ears.
ESJ, why the infatuation with the Neal saga? It’s obvious Joe Public doesn’t give a rats, so why bother? Talk about something that sticks, like the bottom line and petrol prices.
There was this guy I used to know at a local footy club. Let’s call him E.
He’d go up to player A after a game and say something like “I’ve just been talking to B and he’s been saying your a full of BS”. None of this true of course.
He’d then go up to B and say ‘ You should hear what A’s been saying about your wife”. Again totally untrue.
E would let them both stew for a while and then contrive to manoeuvre them close to each other. Then he’d ask B something about his wife.
Of course B would immediately turn on A and it would be on for young an old.
Meanwhile E would step back a safe distance and laugh his malicious head off.
Sound familiar?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23955631-601,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-2jul.pdf
I am still stunned and shocked that according to the twisted world of Queensland conservative politics in Queensland, my abstaining to vote for them in elections is construed as ‘overwhelming support’ for them. That is what the spin from both the National and Liberal Parties implies.
If these clowns think that people abstaining from voting is overwhelming support then God help us if they ever get anywhere near running this state. The truth is that we now have a weak forced merger without overwhelming support from the grassroots of either party. It is an inherent weakness that will haunt the Pineapple Party for ever.
I’m sure that when Queensland voters show their overwhelming support for them by abstaining to vote for them they will consider they have formed a very successful marriage. They are not fit for Opposition, let alone government.
“The overwhelming support for the merger demonstrated by rank and file members of both parties renders any misgivings some powerbrokers may retain as merely academic.”
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23953459-3102,00.html
So lets get this straight. In a room of 100 people, 48 vote for a merger and 52 vote against or abstain. The result according to Brough and the Courier Mail is ‘overwhelming support’. At that rate 8 seats in an 89 seat parliament is far more of a show of ‘overwhelming support’ for the Queensland Liberals by the voting public than I had ever imagined.
115 Stewart J - I’m aware of what councils do and am happy for them to remain. I just don’t care if party polics is involved or not and don’t care who runs them. Interest in politics for me starts at the state level and moves up. I wonder how many of our state and federal reps started at council level. Now, I don’t know and could be proven wrong but I wouldn’t think it is a majority.
Peter Dutton will be live blogging in about 5 mins about petrol prices.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/yoursay/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/what_to_do_about_fuel_prices_live_blog/
122 Gary Bruce
You’d be quite correct that many are not now coming through this way. Instead they are tending to be either high profile candidates of some kind or more worryingly are coming through a party machine. This is the new political class being talked about. The worrying aspect for me is that if there are limited numbers of potential new candidates coming through local Councils, and in increase in “political class” or high flyers, then we face rapidly losing the local representation angle of lower house MP’s, as well as a ‘coal-face’ element that is a requirement of being on Council.
Kingsford Smith as a seat is the perfect case - a number of local Councillors were vying for that seat and Carr’s seat of Maroubra. Maroubra went to one (Michael Daley) but Kingsford Smith has went to Garrett. Now as to whether which would have been better I wont say, but there is a loss of “local” representation, with the member still living in the Southern Highlands and appearing in the area for elections and photo-ops. Daley, although he is clearly not my cup of tea, is local and is more readily able to represent the population of Maroubra.
Daniel 117
I don’t think it is just ESJ who is interested in the Neal/Dellabosca incident. I would describe myself as pro-Labor yet am quite unhappy with it. It was a blatant abuse of power, and if others were coerced into signing false statutory declarations, if proven, that is an offence. Just the fact that they promised to cooperate fully with police and refused to be interviewed is misleading parliament. Under the Westminister system that is grounds for dismissal. If we complain about Howard not enforcing codes of conduct but don’t do it either then Rudd Labor will immediately lose any sense of moral credibility.
I think this has already hurt Labor federally, and it needs to be resolved quickly to end the damage. We are just about to see the budget tax cuts kick in which should improve Labor’s standing in the electorate. If Neal is a distraction from that she is politically a severe liability. And the opposition will keep asking questions until there is a clear resolution. This whole stupid thing is just giving Nelson oxygen, after Rudd and Swan had decisively defeated him in the budget sittings. I agree the original Iguana incident was not that bad, but as usual, the denial is worse than the incident itself.
Socrates, I agree with your first paragraph but think you’re overstating the impact on Labor in the electorate in states other than NSW (you could be right with NSW).
The Neal thing is hardly being reported here in Vic now. You really have to look hard to find it or watch ACA.
mcewen decision at 4.15pm today
Socrates.
Misleading parliament is not grounds for dismissal, it may be grounds for booting a minister to the backbench but not a backbencher.
The only grounds for a member losing their seat is a criminal conviction that has a penalty of greater than 12 months in prison.
They’re lining up for Dolly’s job. And Labor may not even contest it after the Gippsland thrashing.
Labor is yet to decide if it will contest the subsequent by-election after its bruising defeat in Gippsland last weekend and fears it would not improve on its current vote.
Five contenders for Downer’s plum seat of Mayo
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23956253-5006301,00.html
FWIW I think the Neal and della Bosca are a disgrace. They have lied, bullied, abused and cheated while abusing their power. That’s the type of thuggish born-to-rule crap we hated about the Rodent so they should be told to leave the Labor Party. And then resign if the police can charge them.
129 Diogenes - regarding Mayo and Labor I think that is fair enough. Why give the opposition another chance to crow? Labor has no hope of winning anyway.
As far as Neal and JDB is concerned your comments suggest the matter has been decided. IF what you say is true (and it appears to be) then I agree with you but let it all run its course first.
Gary
I doubt the Libs would get a swing in Mayo. Downer bucked the trend for a long time and was quite popular (dunno why). Now that he’s gone, if the Libs don’t get a very high quality candidate they could suffer a decent swing against them. Obviously Labor would also need a good candidate with a profile. Labor certainly won’t win but a swing to them might negate Gippsland.
I gather della Bosca is going to answer questions from the police but he can just sit there and say “Please see my written statement” while fulfilling his commitment to talk to them. It gets back to whether Party members should be judged as individuals who can act in their own best interests (and presumed innocent with no action taken unless they are found guilty) or whether they have a duty to the Party to act in it’s best interests. These things can drag on forever.
ruawake - good post by you on the Dutton blog. He didn’t answer the question though did he? He even asked and answered his own question in his answer. ” Why were pensioners angry after the May budget?”
I see pollbludger made it in to the OO today
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23954848-20261,00.html
Man they can write some utter shit at the former GG
Found this on the Federal Court’s Daily Court lists:
FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
Victoria Registry
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
4:15 PM Judgment
VID123/2008 ROB MITCHELL v FRAN BAILEY & ANOR
http://www.theage.com.au/national/police-called-to-media-clash-with-belinda-neal-20080702-30ew.html
Will this EVER end?
1. There’s no point in Labor wasting money on the Mayo byelection, leave it to the Liberals. Maybe there’s a strong local independent who could be drafted instead?
2. McEwen? I wouldn’t be too optimistic about the decision going against Fran Bailey.
3. Igunagate: Rudd should cut Neal loose!
Agreed- BNeal should be sacked.
As for Mayo - bet Labor doesn’t run. It would be intersting to see how the Greens do though.
Either way it is wonderful news that Downeer is finally going. He is as culpable as Bush and Howard in the bloodshed of Iraq. Hope he rots. And yes Diogs - it will probably never happen, but bring on the War Crimes trials.
And then the executions Jen?
I think there have been enough executions already!
I suspect that Rudd will have to take action against Neal sooner or later. All he can really do though is to get the National Executive to kick her out of the party, ensuring that she doesn’t get preselection for the next election.
In legislative terms, this won’t impact the Government, but electorally……sheesh.
I think that she’s already ensured that Jim Lloyd will return to Parliament if he wants to - nice goin Belinda.
Even if the Iguana story went away tomorrow (not gonna happen), she still has the issue of misleading the Parliament to face over the “demon child” comments she denied making to Sophie Mirabella - that can’t be resolved until after the winter break.
Ultimately, the legalities are only part of the issue - it’s the perception of abuse of power and stubborn arrogance.
This feeds right into the “wall-to-wall Labor will be a nightmare” message that the Libs have pushed.
Both Della Bosca and Neal deserve what they get - the sheer arrogance is breathtaking.
It’s a tragedy Neal actually won in November and better candidates like George Colbran in Herbert missed out!
Optimist - what did she say to Sophie? (not that I approve…).
Neal is a thug and should be sacked. Hate it when politicians think they can act with impunity - reminds me of the whole of the front bench under Howard.
ESJ- don’t support the death penalty -hope they rot in jail though. Guantanamo preferrably.
Jen,
in main committee Neal told Mirabella that “evil thoughts will make your child a demon.”
Kind of amusing I suppose but when Mirabella complained and demanded Neal withdraw the remarks, Neal denied she made them. It was all recorded and she clearly said it - Neal’s denial could be interpreted as misleading (lying to) the Parliament.
Jen,
here you go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_yHCUHC_t0
Iain Evans, who used to be Leader of the SA Lib Opposition, but is now a shadow minister for something obscure, has put his hand up for Mayo. His current electorate includes lots of Mayo. Looks like a brutal preselection. And Rann really doesn’t look too enthused about losing again, given his sliding popularity, so they may well not run a Labor candidate.
Iain Evans joins five contenders for Downer’s seat of Mayo
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23956253-5006301,00.html
Thanks Optimist-
what a charming example of woman-kind these 2 represent.
Makes me proud to have one.
I think that the whole Neal saga again goes to the issue of how candidates are selected for the ALP.
Progressive makes the point that Colbran missed out in Herbert, but Neal got over the line in Robertson - Colbran was exactly the sort of person that should get preselection for Labor, Neal is exactly the sort of person who should be kept out!
A serious, professional political outfit needs to recognis the value of a good hardworking member of the community and the positive impact they can have as a backbencher. Time and again, this idea is jettisoned by the ALP in favour of shoe-horning in a factional favourite against the wishes of local members (precisely what Belinda Neal tried to have happen in 2001, when she was pipped by Trish Moran).
If Labor thinks that preselection process problems are no longer worth worrying about because they’re in Government, then they are being extremely short-sighted and dare i say it, arrogant.
What exactly is the party membership of the South Australian Liberals? Ian Evans to stand for Mayo? The same old family names, over and over again. The Liberals in South Australia should be called the ‘Party of the Living Dead’ because they are like Vampires with a constant stream of the undead with the same old surnames. Does anyone ‘NEW’ ever get a chance and God Forbid if the candidate was a woman! What is even scarier is that Alexander has bred!
I think it’s worth noting that (if I’m not mistaken) Belinda Neal was one of ten NSW ALP candidates at the 2007 election who were chosen exclusively by the National Executive - no input from branch members.
Gotta wonder what the National Executive considers suitable qualities in a candidate.
Neal was playing pedantic games - she didn’t say (word for word) what Mirabella said she did, so she was right to say that.
But it was being too cute by half.
Zoom,
right you are. The fine distinction is probably what will save her on that one, but it all just adds to the story and negtive perception.
Poor old Sophie.
She was perfectly happy to make comments about Neale being a “man hater” but when Neal gives her a serve back she gets full of indignation and goes crying to the media.
Hiya Zoom!
shame to see Labor pollies engaging in the now-Opposition tactics of semantics.
IT’s not so much what she said to Sophie (not very nice I admit), but the pathetic denial. I think most Australians of whichever side of politics are fed up with this kind of behaviour. I hope Rudd shows some gumption and has her sacked.
like I said ruawake-
they’re as delightful as each other.
148
Optimist Says:
I think that the whole Neal saga again goes to the issue of how candidates are selected for the ALP.
Agree with that.
I do not agree with those who think that his has hurt the Rudd government. It hasn’t. At least, not yet. It could, depending on how Rudd handles it from now. But Rudd is correctly not doing too much until the formal legal investigations are completed. Once that is done, I have no doubt he will act swiftly and decisively. He has clearly already put Neal on strong notice about her behaviour. I’ll bet a million bucks that behind closed doors she has been well and truly read the riot act in no uncertain language.
I do not expect Neal or DellaBosca to be preselected again, and Neal is probably going to be thrown out of the party. And I won’t miss either of them.
153
ruawake
Yup, I don’t think anybody is sticking up for Sophie Mirabella. I think just punishment for them both is to be locked in a room together for a week.
149 Brenton
I hadn’t looked at the candidates names but you are right. All six are men. Given that the winner of the seat could ignore his (don’t have to say “or her”) electorate for ever while clambering up the Liberal pole, so to speak, it’s pretty telling that there are no Lib females in the running.
Just Me 156,
Aside from jeopordising Robertson, I don’t think that it has hurt Rudd particularly either, but it’s a bale of hay on the camel, so to speak.
There will need to be plenty more straws before its back breaks, but a strong, disciplined, forward-looking party would always wanna keep that hump as clean as pssible.
Did i just totally mangle that metaphor?
I can’t see what can be done by Rudd or the ALP to save Robertson. I realise that the next election is way off, but perhaps not too far - an early election is quite a possibility, particularly if they wanna get to the polls before an ETS starts to bite.
Belinda Neal is turning into the Damir Dokic of Australian politics.
Optimist 159
I always prefer a clean hump.
Just Me,
I’m not touching that remark.
hehe.
Another mangled metaphor?
go on Optimist - it’s begging for it.
I must be careful not to unleash my inner Benny Hill.
Progressive writes: “2. McEwen? I wouldn’t be too optimistic about the decision going against Fran Bailey.”
Mmm, before the result is announced I’ll get in my own guess.
I tend to agree with Mackerass on Crikey. Most likely result is a by-election and the least likely is Bailey being given the all clear, with Mitchell being re-instated somewhere in between. But a by-election would be the short priced favourite, I reckon.
Rod
At least the journo had a sense of humour.
In a statement today, the Labor MP has confirmed she called in the police after she was confronted by Channel 9 reporter Ben Fordham who mockingly shouted, “Don’t you know who I am” in reference to her earlier clash with Iguanas restaurant staff.
Fordham chased me, says Neal
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23957463-12377,00.html
Diogenes,
I agree about the sense of humour, but calling an ACA creature a journo is a bit of a stretch isn’t it?
Belinda Neal aka Damir Dokic… good work Optimist
I agree with Bolt on this one:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_would_this_queue_think_of_rudds_plan/
Belinda Neal aka Damir Dokic… good work Optimist
I agree with Bolt on this one:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_would_this_queue_think_of_rudds_plan/
John of Melbourne,
cheers.
I was gonna go with a Helen Demidenko, “Hand that Signed the Stat Dec” thing, but thought it was getting a bit obscure.
170
John of Melbourne Says:
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
…. I agree with Bolt on this one…
Hey John. You’d agree with Bolt on most things wouldn’t you?
Is that the “Bolt” who has written Rudd off as a one term wonder? I just can’t take that bloke seriously on anything.
165
Optimist Says:
I must be careful not to unleash my inner Benny Hill.
LOL
I think Bolt even goes as far as to saying Costello could win it for the Libs next election (from what I’ve been told anyway). LOL
Bolt is an idiot. Any references to his articles to ‘prove something’ only prove that the person referencing them is also an idiot.
A life changing choice to make:
If you are sitting on a table and the staffs start to remove all the tables to create a dance floor, so people can dance, do you?
a. Go sit in the corner, where staff direct you;
b. Ignore them and have people dancing around you; or
c. Ask them “Do you know who I am!”
Sometimes taking the path less taken is not that smart
d. Don’t go for dinner at a place that turns into a disco at 9pm.
Yeah true I do agree with Bolt on most things. I must say though that I can’t see Rudd being a one term wonder but stranger things have happened.
Fran Bailey wins her seat:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/fran-bailey-wins-mcewen–finally-20080702-30k0.html
That’s true John (179), you never say never in a two horse race but it is unlikely. A realistic conservative supporter, we should have him stuffed! LOL
180 JoM it was becoming apparent after the April 22 decision that a Bailey win was the most likely outcome but you never can be sure till the last vote is counted.
I actually think Labor is quite relieved Bailey hung on to McEwen. After the Gippsland shenanigans the last thing want right now is another by-election and another potential rebuff…
Labor not contesting McEwen would not have been an option? Can you imagine it? Labor challenges the McEwen vote to the Court of Disputed Returns to seek a re-election, only to not contest the election. Ha!
The McEwen Federal Court Judgment is here.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2008/692.html
New post up on McEwen.
Bad behaviour is not the perogative of the major parties or indeed of politicians. By all means criticise individuals within parties (and I actively work to get rid of pollies who I don’t think are up to it, and indeed am doing so at the present time) but don’t draw the longer bow of condemning whole parties or the profession as a whole. (Was going to insert lawyer joke here and realised it would tar me with the same brush!)
As for Ms Mirabella, she is well known for her own bullying tactics - not only referring to members of her own party as ‘terrorists’ but using parliamentary priviledge to attack people such as Andrew Demetriou. During the last election campaign, she responded to a question from her Labor opponent on a local issue by calling her ‘weak and gutless’ and accusing her of using ‘weasel words’. (I note also she has gone to the absolutely pointless effort of a speech in Parliament since the election to attack her Labor opponent further!)
Years ago, there was a report in the Financial Review and on crikey that Ms Mirabella bit a fellow MP at a Canberra nightclub. Seems to have mysteriously vanished from the ether.
zoom- couldn’t happen to a more deserving pollie than Sophie, but denying she said it made Neal look like a clumsy fool. Happiness will be mine the day they are both gone from public office.
btw- who did sophie bite?? hope they had a tetanus shot.
I thought I made it clear I thought Neal was being too smart by half.
As I said, can’t find the details of bitegate. I know there was some altercation between two male MPs; I believe Soph intervened and one of them made a grab for her handbag so she bit him. I actually thought that was quite feisty of her.
BUT she denied it in Parliament and the denial is now the only reference I can find. It doesn’t give details, just refers to an altercation and where it was reported.
Anyway, her bullying of her opposite number is well and truly on the record. I notice that Brendan Nelson is opposed to ‘the ugly face of bullying’ and particularly when it applies to wives and mothers, so I expect the ALP candidate to receive an apology for Sophie’s slur any day now…not.
zoom
‘I actually thought that was quite feisty of her.’
well that’s one way of looking at it.
Chances are the chancers will attend interviews and refuse to answer certain questions. Certain to run on …
GB @ 132
“Peter do you agree with Brian Loughnane that Labor, in fact, said very little about petrol and grocery prices in the election campaign? ”
Duttons reply - for those who have the sense to avoid the terror.
“Thanks for your comments. What Mr Rudd did at the last election was to raise expectations in relation to petrol, grocery prices, housing affordability and general costs of living not just for families but also pensioners. Why were pensioners angry after the May budget? - because they had been led to believe Mr Rudd was going to make their lives much easier, and he basically delivered nothing new. Mr Rudd knew exactly what he was doing in lifting expectation, and in politics that can be a dangerous thing, especially if he had no intention or capacity to deliver. Thanks Peter
Peter Dutton”
Er ahem Peter that was not the question.
I then asked Mr Dutton do you agree with John Howard’s comment “that working families have never been better off” ?
Er oops again - this one went through to the keeper.
Now the Queensland Libs are trying to get Brough up as Big Chief Pineapple:
THE selection of former federal Liberal minister Mal Brough as president of a new Queensland conservative party will be the next test of the state’s Nationals and Liberal merger.
Liberals are divided over the party to be established in Queensland, despite party members voting overwhelmingly in favour of the merger to create the Liberal National Party of Queensland.
Former state Liberal president Bob Carroll said yesterday the party’s ratifying convention could dump the merger if the Nationals rejected Mr Brough.
In a postal ballot, 86 per cent of 3000 Liberals voted for the merger, although 43 per cent of members failed to vote. Nationals members voted heavily in favour of the merger in a ballot in May.
Modelled on similar lines to the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party, the new party will become the second-biggest conservative party federally, with more MPs than the Nationals.
As dissident Liberals warned of a possible court challenge against the Queensland move, the Nationals were set to take over both the organisational and parliamentary wings of the new party.
The Nationals will outnumber the Liberals by a 2-1 margin at ajoint party convention, giving Nationals president Bruce McIver the numbers against Mr Brough.
Mr Carroll said the Nationals would dominate the party, making it more conservative and alienating voters the Coalition needed to woo to defeat Labor in southeast Queensland. “I can’t see us now winning seats in and around Brisbane,” he said.
“These people are more likely to vote for the Greens than a party that lurches to the Right.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23955586-5006786,00.html
i must admit i had my first slight twinge of sympathy for Neal today–please note i said slight, i’ve been on the recieving end of that sort of intrusive hounding by the media in the past, to the extent of being chased into the ladies toilets by one over eager cameraman at an inquest, i could tell so many stories of having journos inviting themselves into my home via the backdoor and giving me sht when i’ve told them to get packing, my son turned the hose on one lot once.
after being ordered to leave, one lot stuck stickers all over the cars in the driveway as they went, the stickers lifted the paint when they were peeled off, a journo pal who was having coffee with us at the time can attest to it–his car copped it too, some journo’s are like a school of pirahnas in a blood frenzy.
As far as I know journalists are even further towards the scum on the bottom of the pond than politicians.
Expect Neal’s public relations stocks to rise to dizzying heights after this miserable episode.
Judy
I agree, we have a judicial process that must be followed in all cases, just because the media thinks it is a good story that will sell newspapers or advertising does not mean people are not due the scrutiny of our judicial system.
Take the case of Dennis Ferguson who has had his court case stayed because “a judge ruled he could not get a fair trial in Queensland”. The media have now traced him to his new home - further lessening any chance of conviction.
That Ben Fordham character from ACA is lower than low. He just slipped lower than Neal as far as I’m concerned, not by much, but lower.
Onya Gary you can always be relied on for the one-eyed view
Gary,
as opposed to the rest of the gang at ACA?
A reasonably good, although far too flattering article on the life and times of Alexander Downer today in the freeby edition of Crikey.
most journos are a bunch of leeches who would cut their grandmother’s throat for a good story–and what the hell if it’s maybe not the truth, as long as it’s dramatic and sensational enough, trial by media is alive and well, if it wasnt using up William’s bandwidth i could tell you some curlers. A.C.A. was a dammed good respectable program once upon a time, how the mighty have fallen!
Judy,
you are soooooo right.
Having said that, it makes me treasure the work of the few good ones.
hey Optimist, i’ve been very open about how Bob Whitington {senior Advertiser journo, dec.} became a trusted loyal friend of mine, he was my other dad and even now a couple of journos are good pals, they’ve proven over the years they would never abuse that friendship, i think they know more about my family and myself than anyone– well maybe other than major crime, others in the past have tried to insinuate themselves, our reaction is –well yeah right! i dont think it’s a coincidence that the couple we trust are also trusted to a large degree by SAPOL.
The Sniggering Troll, i thought that take on lord lunchalot in Crikey today was hilarious.
dissecting the candidates for Mayo and their chances is going to give us hours of fun for the weeks ahead lol, should we start a betting list??
perhaps by the time its over the tip will bow out and the fun can begin again.
Judy #203,
I don’t know your background and so can’t really put most of that into context. I do, however have a good understanding of how loathsome most journos are when they prize a scoop or a sensational distortion over integrity, honesty and sensitivity to human suffering and the complexities of real life..
I wonder how many coulda-been great journos have fallen into silent obscurity because they had the integrity to reject the leading principles of modern “journalism” - the ones who didn’t destroy people for a front page, who search for the truth rather than a plausible, publishable distortion of fact.
I better slow down, this is getting my blood up.
Did anyone see Hugh Mackay on teh 7.30 report tonight? I thought he was very good - outlined the risks and opportunities Rudd faced now on both climate change adn peak oil in a realistic and balanced way. He used the response to the SEQ drought to illustrate that governments can introduce tough measures against a crisis with success, provided people see that it is a genuine solution to a genuine problem.
He implied that this Friday’s Garnaut Report draft will be quite critical. It is an issue peopel who voted for Rudd expct him to act on. Labor shouldn’t worry that some people will say its too tough - those people will never vote Labor anyway. But far more people who changed vote in 2007 will be wanting Labor to act. It should be interesting.
Optomist, i hope this link works for you, it tells a little of the background.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/adelaide/murders_3.html
So Edward you’ve taken on a new role, sniping. I actually thought you were better than that. My mistake.
206 Socrates - it was good. He was fair and reasonable.
Judy,
I can only try to imagine - i don’t really know what else to say.
Harry “Snapper” Organs @ 32 (Fran’s our man thread) -
The LNP’s playing of populist politics is just playing with death of many species, maybe our own. The planet will survive, probably, but we may not.
I long ago concluded that we humans lack the humanity to save ourselves by undoing the damage we inflict on the living planet. That in the end avarice/greed, ignorance and sheer bloody minded stupidity will win out.
Increasingly I’m coming to believe this will be a good thing.
I’ve never been much troubled by the certainty of my eventual demise, just disappointed I’d never know how the human story pans out. Seems I just might live long enough to find out after all.
O.K. takes deep breath and thanks again to Mayoferal for pointing out I was making an edjeet of myself, very kindly, on the other thread.
Seriously, I’d suggest reading the articles by Brian at Larvartus Prodeo. I’ve needed to go back to them a number of times to really get my head around what’s happening, because it’s so very, very bad. I hadn’t realised just how bad it is. I mean I knew it was bad. Just not that bad.
We can take the path of deciding we’re a rotten species, as Mayoferal is suggesting. And it’s very tempting to do so, given the appalling series of deaths that have occurred over the past few weeks, Kreist, toddlers weighing the same as newborns, starved to death in a house where neither their mother or father notices at all?
MayoFeral @ H.S.O., call it fanciful if you will but i’ve a great belief in the law of karma, the human race has uncaringly gone full out to just about destroy our beautiful planet and i believe we have to back pedal and reverse quick smart to try and undo some of our vandalism, we have a very slim chance to correct things and heal the earth, i listen to the coalition take their anti climate change stance in despair,it’s pure populism and they dont seem to realise just what they’re doing–or care, all for a handful of votes that still won’t get them into government, anything to play spoiler against the government policies, a bit like fiddling while Rome burns,i fear for my grandies and their future or lack of it, the scales have to balance and we have to answer for what wer’e doing.
Hello Judy, do please go and have a look at what Brian has taken a good deal of time and effort to compile. It will take some time to get your head around it. It certainly did mine.
If any of the human species are to survive, it’s going to be nasty.
It’s why I put forward the idea that perhaps global climate change may be beyond the usual ideas about the political divides.
Quarterly Newspoll
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-3jul.pdf
Thanks James - I’ve added an update to this post.
Oh Dear, now floor crossing Barnaby will be able to vote in the Liberal Leadership votes as well. What a circus this Pineapple Party will become!
Mr Truss insisted the federal Coalition arrangements would change little with the new party, as Liberal and Nationals MPs from Queensland would continue to sit in their partyrooms, and not as a separate party.
“What will happen is that the party will be the state wing of the federal parties,” Mr Truss said.
“Not much will be changing in Canberra.”
However, Queensland Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said the new entity would be constitutionally a division of the federal Liberal Party at the same time it was affiliated with the federal Nationals. “There’s nothing to stop me going into the Liberal partyroom and voting on who is going to be the Liberal leader,” Senator Joyce said.
“Under the party constitution, MPs can choose whichever partyroom they want to sit in. People could chop and change between partyrooms.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23960612-5006786,00.html
The Newspoll quarterly figures for SA (61-39 tpp) make it look cetain, in my view, that Labor will contest Mayo.
They could not bring themselves to put this on the frontpage of The Australian online.
Labor retains huge Newspoll lead over Coalition.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23960599-5013871,00.html
same old, same old bumbling Downer, i dont know whether to just sit back and watch his expected egotistical stuff up in Cyprus or feel sorry for whoever nominated him, i know Rudd endorsed the man but what else could he do without it looking like a bit of political spite?, all we can do is pray he doesnt start another civil war over there, hmmm they’ll have to gag him if this new consultency is to survive–but then again he learnt french in one easy lesson {so he says} so i guess he’ll be able to spout his condescending platitudes in ten different languages by the end of the year for them.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23960619-5013871,00.html
The Fiberals Greg Hunt in full flight and showing his newfound economic credentials again.
http://economics.com.au/?p=1609
Steve, i doubt ANY of the coalition know just what stance to take on anything, from Nelson down they’re running around like a gaggle of headless chooks, we have to check each morning to find out just what the policy of the day is, it’d be good though if they’d check with each other first so at least they sing in unison.
each morning Nelson sticks a pin in the willwe/wontwe graph on his desk, Turnbull cant drag himself from his mirror {telling himself how wonderful he is} Costello tosses a coin each morning to see if he’ll go or stay today –and whether the weather is right for the odd game of golf, Bishop obviously layers the warpaint on thick and practises the bitchy smile and hypnotic stare, Abbott is on his knees wearing his hair shirt and asking the pope why his prayers to save them all hav’nt been answered, saying that though, to give this unsavoury mob their due, Downer has finally come clean on the worse kept secret in parliament and is bowing out, Howard certainly made sure with his egotistical hubris that when he left “his party” would find it hard to survive without him, but then again, after each dictater gets dethroned the place is in turmoil till water finds it’s own level so i guess they may come good—eventually!!
Old School Newspoll quarterly breakdown is up. The nostalgia brings a tear to me eye it does… (sniff)
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/newspoll-quarterly-breakdown-2008-1st-edition/
Possum
you’re not wishing us back to pre the last election are you???
Steve- you are in the wrong place. The Kumbaya crowd are we Obama supporters over on the US election thread.
Maybe Rudd will do like he did with Gippsland, a long campaign offering plenty of opportunity for Call me Brenda to squander funds?
Re Andrew Bolt, he is not honest: one instance I saw he changed the text of a blog, initially he said “Spin: Rudd promises no Chinese will guard the torch. Fact: Olympic official . . . Chinese will guard the torch” This later got changed when what Rudd said was shown to be fact not spin!
Here’s a classic example of the misleading & blatantly false guff that Bolt continues to come out with.
If a trend line is drawn through the graphs that Bolt uses to make his point, then the complete opposite emerges. There is a easily identified warming trend over the past 20 years.
http://blogs.news.com.au/couriermail/andrewbolt/
Hilarious!
How stupid can the Daily Telegraph go? From today’s on-line edition:
Bushfire Bill,
did the Tele reveal what sort of testing was employed to determine the non-demon status of baby Mirabella?
Did Sophie call the baby “Damian”?
“Did the Tele reveal what sort of testing was employed to determine the non-demon status of baby Mirabella?”
Now that you mention it, no they didn’t.
That quote should have read,
Seeing as Benny is coming soon, could we perhaps get him to cast a Papal eye over said child and settle this once and for all?
On another odious page of the Tele, Pies has this to say:
As I recall, Murphy was acquitted on appeal, Lawrence was charged and acquitted of perjury, and Belinda Neal and Della Bosca have merely exercised their right not to be formally interviewed by police, a right which is absolute and cannot have any implications deduced from it in any legal sense. That’s three instances, THREE in 25 years, all of which have not involved one iota of proven criminal conduct, two of them failing to prove criminal conduct. Yet Pies dismisses all of this by writiing “Whaty is it with Labor politicians and the law?” and putting more onus on politicians to just cave in and admit guilt (even, it seems, if there is none) with the lazy sentence, “It’s part of the deal.”
I also remember one certain Alexander Downer forgetting umpteen occasions on which he failed to perform his duty as foreign Minister by forgetting clear advice he had received that AWB was rorting the OFF scheme.
What about Lexy, Pies? Didn’t he do exactly the same thing you’re accusing Neal and Della Bosca (as well as Murphy and Lawrence) of doing?
Pies really is a low act, sure porky Lionel Murphy QC died of untreatable cancer to avoid your forensic scrutiny.
“Lionel Murphy is one of the few judges of the High Court of Australia who has left his mark on the history of the country. He has argued with immense learning and great passion for trial by jury, the rights of the Aborigines, the liberties of the individual against the State, the Corporations and the Churches, and the rights of the Commonwealth against the States. Lionel Murphy is a child of the Enlightenment. He has devoted his public life to the abolition of ignorance, superstition and tyranny. He belongs to the great tradition of those who believe human beings had the capacity to abolish every form of domination, of class over class, parent over child, man over woman, woman over man, of race over race, and spiritual bully over sceptics and agnostics. All his life he has had an eye for the humbugs and the moralisers. Perhaps that is why the conservatives have never felt comfortable with him. He is one of those human beings who want all human beings to have not only life, liberty and the opportunity to pursue happiness: he wants all human beings to have life and have it more abundantly. These judgments are a testimony to his faith and his courage. The victims and the oppressed will read them as the words of a man who gave them hope.”
Prof. Manning Clark AC
I feel sorry for that baby having Sophie Mirabella as a mother!
Bushfire Bill @ 230 -
Seeing as Benny is coming soon, could we perhaps get him to cast a Papal eye over said child and settle this once and for all?
Yes please! I want at least a Cardinal to certify the child’s state before I believe it isn’t spiritually tainted by the bile from its mother’s tongue. And an independent chief godbotherer at that.
Mind you it’s probably all a moot point. What little I know of Mirabella I gained here. Even if only half is true then the child is unlikely to turn out to be the well rounded, caring individual most parents would wish for. I suspect that is what Neal was getting out, rather than forecasting possession from the netherworld.
One of Sophie’s gems.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/liberal-mp-attacks-frothing-fraser/2008/01/05/1198950131148.html
was it born at 6pm and did it weigh 6.6lb?
Heard from Belinda Neal’s police interview
Belinda Neal: Do you know who I am!!
Police 1: Yeap, inmate 94621 of cell 4
Glen Milne at the Walkley Awards - Please anyone Do you know who I am.
I’m Brendan Nelson - “Can anyone tell me who I am?”
I’m the glorious cane toad “can anyone tell me WHAT i am”.
Actually Sophie had a Girl.
Well 3×6 does equal 9, plus the extra 6 ounces is rather ominous :-0)
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=495232
If Kevin Rudd wants to do something tough, populist, and economically responsible all at the same time, he could do worse than withdraw federal clearance of Gunns pulp mill. Gunns still haven’t got finance approved. See
http://news.smh.com.au/business/gunns-negotiating-bank-syndicate-on-mill-20080703-30yu.html
This story is just silly. Gunns have asked for and been granted a six month extension to arrange finance. No names of potential financiers are given. ANZ withdrew in May, and obviously nobody has agreed terms since. The finance market is very tight now (heard of the “credit crunch”?) and so there must be real doubt they will get the money. Normally these deals are done behind closed doors, so that people don’t give their bargaining positions away. Gunns must be desperate to make this sort of announcement, which telegraphs to any potential investor that they have them over a barrell and can charge Gunns as high an interest rate as they like.
As I have said before on previous posts, serious economists like Peter Brain have concluded that this thing is a net loser for the Tasmanian economy. It will destroy more jobs in the wine, tourism and fishing industries than it is likely to create. Killing this turkey now will mean less pain and cash wasted in the long run. If we must pork barrell in Tasmania, give them some wind farms.
#241 Did you say caesarean section? FFS she qualifies for the baby bonus - geeeeez I wonder if it was delayed?
I meant “increased baby bonus”
ruawake @ 238 -
Glen Milne at the Walkley Awards - Please anyone Do you know who I am
Yes, waiter, get me another beer and don’t have one yourself. You’re pi**ed enough already!
…and it had to be CUT out of her! IT WAS A DEMON!!!!
Maybe Sophie will be happy for Alexandra to wear a head scarf to hide the little demon horns.
Sorry William.
Has anyone had a look at Possum’s update on the quarterly Newspoll? Possum asks the question why the female demographic might be a bit soft for Labor. I couldn’t think of any particular reason, can anyone else?
Lionel Murphy is one of the few judges of the High Court of Australia who has left his mark on the history of the country. He has argued with immense learning and great passion for… the liberties of the individual against the State,
Ya think Piers would be grateful for that at least. Guess he just doesn’t have the generosity in him to acknowledge an opponent’s good work.
•••••••••••••••••••
And, folks, I loathe Sophie Mirabella as much as anybody on this site, but can we leave her child and mothering out of it? Your comments on this subject are just plain ugly and do you no credit.
Ruawake,
Yes Manning Clark hardly an objective source. Murphy was such a great man that the records had to be sealed for 50 years by special legislation.
ESJ
I think you will find that the relevant documents are in the hands of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate. Don’t believe everything Pies says as gospel.
“Don’t believe everything Pies says as gospel. ”
Amen to that.
Nah, don’t believe ANYthing Pies says as gospel.
Yeah, OK… ANYthing.
Pies listed all those Labor dodgers, avoiding the law, stringing things out to the bitter end, snd so on and so forth.
The only thing he forgot to mention was that all the people he mentioned were acquitted as a result of their insisting that due process was followed.
What did he expect them to do? Fess up, put their wrists out for the handcuffs and say, “You got me g’vner. I done it. Bang to rights.”?
Scorpio @ 226. The usual noise of varying season’s does not support your hypothesis either. After the peak in 1998 we have had slightly cooler weather over the following decade. With increased ice in the Antartic and decreasing ice in the Artic, again it is hard to draw conclusions.
As Dr Roy Spencer from NASA says “Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world - possibly none - have a sufficiently thorough, “big picture” understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem”
Yes let’s talk about all the Labor matyrs - how pathetic
ESJ, they’re not Labor martyrs. They’re innocent people. They’ve availed themselves of the the full gamut of the legal system and been found not guilty.
Pray tell, what’s your problem with that?
ESJ,
Landeryou is running some good stuff on Jamie Briggs one of the contenders for Downer’s seat of Mayo. The interesting stuff is about how Workchoices came to be. It’s good background how the Libs did themselves out of office.
I remember during the campaign you were sceptical of the impact of Workchoices. This will remove all doubt about it’s importance in seeing Howard and co consigned to the dustbin of history.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2008/07/briggs-role-in-howard-downfall.html
Why am i not surprised that GG is a Slanderyou fan?
GG,
Yes I was wrong.
EStJ
Um BB,
Defo laws prevent more comment on that one but suffice to say the phrases “money” and “senior labor identity” are not strangers.
Last refuge of the scounderl, ESJ. The old “I know certain things but can’t say them” scam.
PATHETIC.
You can argue your points fairly well when you want to. Why do you resort to this crap, mate?
Put up or shut up.
Oh I do not mind an argument BB but to take up your challenge would be unfair to WB.
Edward, your becoming the master of sniping. Not a good look.
Gawd almighty, what has happened to everyone here? I asked a question back at 248 about whether or not anyone had any ideas about a particular question. Response, rubbish from both LNP and Labor supporters.
I ask you how long the person known to his mother as William, might want to up with it put?
Q&A was good viewing again tonight! I like Joe Hockey, he seems a decent sort of bloke who was given the shit job last year of selling Work Choices.
Nicola Roxon was the revelation of the election campaign for me, and she’s kept on doing a good job as Health Minister.
Hockey and Roxon seem to like each other, that’s obvious LOL!
The only thing that peed me off tonight was Tony Jones, continually running the line that the government is in trouble!
Optimist,
I think you will find William (who art in moderation) regularly uses Landeryou as a source for his editorials and information. Therefore, your point is?
Well lets be honest here - I think all of you are listless because there is not much to talk about to be frank.
There appears to be an emerging narrative that Rudd is running a do nothing government. No doubt that is frustrating for those who expected a neo Whitlamite restoration. Further it appears the big idea to seize the agenda is emissions trading.
Truly anyone who thinks the government is going to get emissions trading right has rocks in their head. It will be about as right as the GST.
GG,
I think the point is optimist thinks you have committed thoughtcrime.
Straight out of the Milne playbook. Why were the opposition complaining about so many bills being sent through parliament then? Can’t have it both ways…
“The only thing that peed me off tonight was Tony Jones, continually running the line that the government is in trouble!” And that the “honeymoon” is over. A member of the audeience disputed this and the audience applauded him.
“There appears to be an emerging narrative that Rudd is running a do nothing government.” Which cannot be substantiated.
What has he (Rudd) actually done?
ESJ,
I agree with Gary.
There is a media driven narrative that Rudd…..
The reality on the ground is that people I talk to are quite happy with Rudd and Labor atm.
Oh fergodsake, progressive. How lovely is Joe Hockey? Go check out his actual record on industrial relations. This is the man who said that the then gov’t.’t. ministers, did not understand that workers would be worse off, but passed it anyway.
fair enough GG, newspoll would seem to confirm that view.
Eddie, I refer you to Possum’s site for a bit of reality. You guys.
Better stiil Edward, in the 6 months he has been in government what would you expect Rudd would have done by now?
I blame Howard and Andrews for Work Choices, Hockey was just the bloke called in to plug the hole in the dyke!
I thought the budget was p.ssweak actually GB.
If you were truly committed to a fair society you might have:
a) Wound back the 50% CGT discount;
b) abolished the tax free super payouts; AND
c) increased funding (substantially) for homeless services
Correct me if I am wrong GB but that might actually look like a real honest to goodness Labor program.
Harry,
Agree. The latest post has some real insight over time as to what has been happening.
Very valuable contributions in the comments section too!
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/newspoll-quarterly-breakdown-2008-1st-edition/#comment-11527
248
Harry “Snapper” Organs Says:
Why the soft support from women?
My own view is women where more offended by tampa, locking innocent people and children up and the war in Iraq than men. They blame Howard and they are now slowly getting over it.
What I also find interesting is the vote in the west, it is still neck and neck, I would have the thought the antics of the local liberals would have put an end to that.
ESJ: All your lot have got going for them is a scare campaign on petrol prices, aided and abetted by the MSM! I grant you that is effective in political terms, but it’s a very short term thing! Where are the opposition’s long term plans and policies?
Progressive, GB asked me a question and I think I gave a fair answer. Criticism of Labor does not necessarily imply support of the alternative.
Come on Edward, that is just debating the budget. You may not think he’s gone far enough in the budget in certain areas, and that’s fair enough, but he has done things, things you just don’t like. By the way, had he done what you suggested Labor would last just under 3 years in office.
What would you have expected Rudd to have ACHIEVED in 6 months of government. The budget sets out the next year of spending etc.
ESJ,
You are a tough taskmaster and I cannot disagree with the policy notions described.
However, Rudd and Co. were effectively locked in to delivering the tax cuts et al the Howard set up. Otherwise they would not have wonethe election. It was either almost match or die.
Rudd has spent a lot of time on addresseing the spiritual side of things e.g. Sorry and ratifying Kyoto and telling the Chinese off about Tibet.
However, there is considerable work being done on Water, Aboriginal Affairs and Tecnology (rolling out highspeed broadband). Look, results will appear soon.
Besides, most people don’t expect much from Government. They just want to see them getting on with it.
Labor are doing that
To be fair to Edward I don’t think it is accurate to lump him in with conservative supporters. I seem to recall him telling me he admired the way Keating did things. Correct me if I’m wrong Edward.
LOL GB, I am fine with the symbolics - apology, kyoto etc.
Actually I do not see the budget as sort of a good housekeeping guide, it allows you to re-order your spending and taxation priorities too!
Yeah GB - I do not believe we will see the likes of PJK for a long long time. He still rocks in my view.
Fair point GG - The COAG stuff may produce results but I am not holding my breath, after all it took us 86 years to agree on uniform food standards in this country.
What about Hockey Joe! He was asked on Q&A if he wants to lead the liberal party? He replied with the usual script of how good Brenda is and how she should be given more time.
The truth is Schrek would love lead the fiberals. Joe, you are on a hiding to nothing. The current PM is one of the best we have ever seen. By the way EStJ knows it. He should switch to state politics to become the next Premiere of NSW for certain.
Hockey was also asked what the fibs stand for? His reply - RHETORIC! They can’t articulate what they stand for because they don’t even know what they stand for.
So that’s it is it? That’s all you expected that Labor would have achieved in the first 6 months of office, bringing down a budget that would take effect over the NEXT 12 months. Somehow I don’t think that is what the “this government has done nothing” people are referring to.
I would still like to see what E.S.J would have to say if he actually went and read the articles at Larvatus Prodeo by Brian. I doubt he has the stomach for it.
When is Rudd going to appear on Insiders?
Harry and Charles
Interested in your comments on Possum’s excelent analysis. I don’t know why the women’s vote might have chnaged, however I would make another observation - the Labor young vote (18-34) has trended down. I can’t help thinking that the perception that Labor would act cautiously on climate change might hurt here. If as reported Garnaut recommends serius action on Friday and Rudd accepts that it will eb interesting to see if Labor gets a bounce here. I happen to think Labor now has an opportunity to win back voters if they act on climate change, since this is surely one issue that at least some voters chose them on at the last election. Greg Hunt’s sily statement that the coalition might prefer to wait (i.e keep doing nothing) on emissions trading will surely dissillusion the progressive voters.
Well GB, if you cant do the big things in your first year …..
HSO - So? Rudd will win re-election, hardly surprising or painful to me..
Oh for goodness sake, John of Melbourne, that is of no consequence at all. What I want to know is whether or not you have read the articles I have referred to repeatedly on climate change?
John, who cares and why go on a program that is watched by a small politically interested, biased (either way) audience. Other ministers go on representing the government. It is unimportant. He wouldn’t be the first PM to stay away from a program for his own reasons.
Why just the first year Edward? Why not over the first 3 years? Better still let’s really plan carefully for the next 10 years. Now there’s a novel idea. Careful planning instead of, say, deciding to spend 10 billion on a non existent water plan, without cabinet consideration and without treasury input.
HSO I did have a quick read of a couple of pages, thank you.
I ‘m yet to be convinced on climate change. I have read on Andrew Bolt’s site that the climate stopped warming in 1998. What are your thoughts?
Kevin Rudd is still adjusting to being in government. He will recover; he will recapture the momentum; and he will win the next election with an increased majority. The “do nothing tag” has been applied to the Victorian Labor Government for eight years - with the result of two landslide election victories. Why, I just take the dog for a walk if I want to see what Labor has done for my town. If that isn’t enough, I get in the car and drive to the next town. I could even go back to the last school I taught in and look at the new science labs (part of the $1.4 billion capital expenditure on schools in Labor’s first two terms), but I really don’t want to go back there.
HSO according to Wikipedia, global warming predictions 2070 - 2100 there may be a 3 degrees centigrade rise if no action is taken on global warming, however on the global climate model page it reports, “… errors in model-mean surface air temperature rarely exceed 1 °C over the oceans and 5 °C over the continents” considering the greatest temperature increase is supposed to be over the continents its a pretty big margin of error.
CC,
Not to mention the opening of the East Link last weekend. Folks, in Melbourne you get queues to line up for a road opening. Two weeks ago 100,000 turned up for an open day on the new freeway.
Project is delivered six months before schedule.
The media reports whingeing from a few recalcitrants.
WTF.
oops forgot the links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Climate_models
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model
East Link should have been toll free! Bracks lied.
John of Melbourne,
Eastlink should have been toll-free, but the Liberals promised to do something about it, then promised to have half-tolls, then dumped Robert Doyle and then said they couldn’t do anything about it. Thus, the Eastern suburbs which could have cost Labor 10-12 seats in 2006 couldn’t be bothered doing anything about it. I have never paid a CityLink toll, and I never will, but I look forward to driving on it for free in c30 years. I’ll take a few free trips on Eastlink and then boycott it for the next 3o+ years. If everyone did the same on both roads, tolls would go, as they did on the Westgate donkey’s years ago.
CC good plan but nobody will do it.
GG,
I love the way Liberal supporters are predicting the end of civilisation as we know it just as they did in 1999. That’s why I am confident of two more electoral victories for Kevin Rudd.
Logging off now… good night all
JoM,
You are right there, which is why I am relaxed about so many issues that others get stirred up about.
And good night to you.
CC,
The toll on the Westgate was about 20 cents when they abandoned it. Hardly worth collecting.
John of Melbourne. If you’ve got one curious bone in your body, you will go beyond what Bolt tells you. Unfortunately, he is a clever fool.
And as I’ve said earlier,, you need to read all of it, and go back to read it again, because the information is very dense, and you need to have a mind attuned to scientific information. This may not be something you can do. And that’s not something I would put you down for. Some brains are just wired differently.
So, If you like, and can deal with the oral and visual media, Robyn Williams Science Show and the Philosophers Zone on RN on Saturdays on RN from 12.00 pm are good.
Did you say you’ve moved to the Northern Regions of Melbourne Metro? It’s rather fab. don’t you think?
Concerning comments on Piers Akerman’s one- eyed view of “rogues” in the Labor Party:
Every party has people who behave badly and that is just human nature. Conservatives have had their problems too. Piers may have “forgotten” the Fitzgerald Inquiry that brought the Joh Bjelke Petersen Gov’t under scrutiny in the early 90’s. Two of the ministers of that gov’t were jailed. Joh himself was charged but due to a deadlocked jury there was no verdict. It is fair to say the NP in Qld have never really recovered and have never been able to totally wind back the negative momentum set up at that stage.
Concerning the decline in optimism by people in the last 6 months:
There has been a marked decline in the last 7 months. But rather than been “shocking” news I think it is really the Gov’t getting through to the people that there are some long term issues. If you wait until you have absolute proof that Climate Change is happening then it will be too late for the planet. You will never get absolute proof until then. There are many things in life you must do without the final proof and so it makes sense that some of the really big things will also fall into that category.
On the eve of the Garnaut Report being made public, Rudd is in an excellent position at 55- 45. The dust is settling on the budget, the MSM and Opposition have had their go and only harped on the trivialities. The Gov’t has lost a little, but not much. It is time now for the really difficult issue. The people will decide their future and their children’s future in the nature of their reaction to whatever the Gov’t proposes.
Don’t expect to ever drive on CityLink without paying a toll. The government is happy enough to keep extending Transurbans’ contract, as long as Transurban agree to keep paying for roadworks. The tunnels are going to need major work on them in 30 years, if not sooner, this means a long contract extension once that work is done. Same goes for EastLink, these roads will always require maintenance which the operators will be happy to pay for in exchange for contract extensions.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23965899-5001021,00.html
BELINDA Neal’s political career is over, with the Labor Party refusing to preselect her for the 2010 federal election.
Chiefs at Labor’s Sussex St headquarters have resolved to ensure Ms Neal is blocked from candidacy on the Central Coast seat of Robertson in the wake of the Iguanas-gate scandal.
The New South Wales branch of the Labor Party has denied a newspaper report that it has resolved to block federal MP Belinda Neal from standing again for her seat of Robertson on the state’s central coast.
Mr Bitar says there will be no formal decision about federal preselections until after a boundary redistribution due to take place some time next year.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/04/2294116.htm
So as usual the Terror is wrong.
Speaking of redistributions, the final Queensland decision on the redistribution should be released by the Electoral commission of Queensland today.
There is a white elephant in the Global Warming debate
The cause of Global Warming is over population, apart from using resources, we breath oxygen in and CO2 comes out.
Therefor even if we do not use coal or oil of any sort, CO2 level will continue to climb, so the white elephant question for all the “environmentalist” is, who do we shot first?
TurningWorm @ 314
Don’t expect to ever drive on CityLink without paying a toll.
It’s beyond my understanding how voters anywhere would allow governments to con them into paying to use roads that they’ve already paid through the nose for many times over.
With the amount of money that’s ripped of taxes, excises and duties not only should the roads be free to use, they ought be paved in gold bars!
Fortunately, the one time it was seriously proposed here the government was put back in its box real quick, but it’s a right bugger avoiding toll roads whenever I visit Melbourne.
Neal is toast, if Rudd has anything to do with it!
dovif @ 318 -
so the white elephant question for all the “environmentalist” is, who do we shot first?
Those that ask stupid questions would be high on my list!
dovif
Well I’d go for all the denialist that can’t read scientific papers. But a mile in a car is worth about one human life, so I suggest we get rid of the cars first.
Dovif @ 318; John Howard - TWICE!
Good ‘ol Malcolm up and about making rash statements again this morning re climate change.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23967294-5003402,00.html
The Pineapple Party is going to have a dearth of new talent for years because preselection has been scrubbed to preserve the current members. Brenda doesn’t like change.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23959330-3102,00.html
Dovif
The CO2 breathed out by all life on the planet is greatly exceeded by emissiosn from burning fossil fuels and land clearing. Of course, in an indirect way you are right - more people means more energy use, and that has the main impact. So we do need to stop population growth in the long term. For a clear explanation of CC science, I recommend the downloads at the British Meteorlogical Office:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/
If I might shoot down one more furphy about climate science, it really is quite accurate now. Predicting weather from day to day is uncertain, hence the error rates in the models JOM quoted. But in terms of long term averages it is pretty accurate. They are much more accurate than economic models for example
Also, thanks to all the research in the past ten years, the climate models are now more accurate even for day to day weather forecasts. The three day forecasts now are as reliable as teh daily forecasts in the past. Predicting storm cells (thunderstorms) is still difficult, but your typical 24 hr forecast of maximum/minimum temperature and whether it will rain is accurate within 2 degrees more than 90% of the time.
The hard bit in climate modelling is predicting the future because that also depends on human beings any changes to future human behaviour, because human activity now causes about 70% of net emissions.
Now for something different:
“FACTIONAL warfare within the Liberal Party has erupted over the presidency of the new conservative party to be established in Queensland.
Tensions between Liberal factions mounted as Queensland’s Nationals president Bruce McIver came under pressure to back away from plans to contest the presidency of the new party.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23966380-5006786,00.html
Fancy factional warfare breaking out by Friday when Monday we were told by the Liberal Party bosses that the merger had ‘overwhelming support’.
Will Barnaby, Ron, Paul, Bruce and Warren vote for Brendan as leader? Probably if Malcolm is the alternative.
Another cunning plan Baldrick.
ruawake, can’t wait for the Pineapple Party disease to spread nationally where Clive Palmer will determine who is the PM.
HSO all good I am a mechanical engineer and am accustomed to scientific examination and modelling.
Check this out: http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC_review_updated_analysis.pdf
Will voters in South East QLD vote for Lawrence Springborg? I think not!
I agree emition from car when used is higher than people, but there are 100x more people than cars, and cars stop emitting when resting and people do not.
It would be interesting to see how much people’s respiration contribute to a % of CO2 into the atmosphere.
People will never be carbon nuetral, maybe all the Greenies can hold their breath, they would be
dovif
With the exception of flatulence people do not breath out CO2. They breathe in air - oxygen is absorbed - then they breathe out the same air less the oxygen.
Progressive, if you looked at the courier mail blog whenever the Pineapple Party get a favourable soft story the hacks cheer in unison. None can name the seats they are going to win but hey, never let facts stand in the way of organised propaganda.
What the National Press Gallery haven’t realised is that if the Queensland Liberals don’t implode at their two days of constitutional conventions on the 26 and 27 July, then the changes begin to sweep through Canberra from the next sittings. All backed and signed off by the Federal Liberals.
Rauwake are you being funny?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiration_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_waste
334 Don’t be prepared to die in a ditch defending that theory, ruawake.
HCO3 look it up
Although I do see your point, it is no sillier than climate change denialists denying obvious truth.
Ruakwake I looked it up and I don’t get it.
Steve the world hasn’t warmed since 1998
John
90% of CO2 in the body is in the form of bicarbonate - this is excreted through the kidneys not lungs.
340 Steve the world hasn’t warmed since 1998
I won’t be dying in a ditch defending that either. There are obviously more problems with air pollution than warming anyway.
I don’t understand the rush for an emissions trading scheme.
Assume we have a tank that is leaking alleged global warming gases. The tank has 100 holes and each hole represents 1% now Australia emits approximately 1% of alleged global warming gasses and is therefore responsible for one hole in the tank, the rest of the world the other 99 holes. Now Kevin Rudd wants to bring our emissions down 60% so effectively he wants to plug up 60% of the one hole in the tank. Now to do this we all have to suffer alot of pain and ruin our economy yet no matter what we do the other 99 holes in our tank will continue to leak alleged global warming gases. Can someone please explain where is the benefit?
Thanks Ruawake.
John
“Now to do this we all have to suffer alot of pain and ruin our economy…” is not accurate.
Consider a guy who used to make wooden buckets - put out of business by the guy who made metal buckets - who was also put out of business by the guy who makes plastic buckets.
Should we prop up the wood guy, the metal guy or the plastic guy?
“The world hasn’t warmed since 1998″
Bet you get that from Dolt’s blog too. As it happens, it is wrong. Greenland icesheet melting, Arctic melting retreat of glaciers etc wouldn’t be happening at increasing rates if it was true: just a matter of wrong ocean temperature measurements.
What do people think re the MD agreement at COAG yesterday? Looks like Rudd let Brumby gut the agreement of all real effect
Coalition against lifting cap on water trading: yup, more important to save a couple one horse towns than the river system watering our most important food growing areas! Sheesh, that sort of thinking makes me despair of Australia at times!
Re humans breathing out CO2. Sure they do. But that carbon came, ultimately, from plants which use the CO2 to grow and make oxygen. That is part of the natural cycle. The same for methane emissions from cows, these will eventually be fixed by plants.
It is the burning of fossil fuel, and destroying forests which act as carbon sinks, that causes global warming (and freezing if the ‘Atlantic conveyer’ ever stops running.
The Electoral Commission of Queensland has published a list of Public Objections to the propsed distribution.
http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/asp/index.asp?pgid=392
as Jovial said, I guess Antarctica and Greenland are just one-offs are they? Hasn’t warmed my ass
349 Dario just a couple of bad air days according to the Boltettes.
And last year the same mob were getting all excited about nuclear power being needed to solve the problem.
Ruawake I do see your point but INHO solar, wind etc are backward means of producing energies. True an electron is an electron is an electron but it’s the amount of energy one gets from something that counts.
Was iot not reported last month that the North Pole and Greenland have been completely snowed in? I believe it was.
Steve it would appear that some on Labors side are finally catching up to nuclear i.e. Mr Car and the Union guy.
Snow is not ice! Greenland ice covers a smaller extent and is much thinner than even 20 years ago!
John of Melbourne Says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
People like you really don’t matter anymore, Greenland is sliding into the sea, you and Andrew Bolts inability to understand the science isn’t going to change the situation. Climate change is on, mild concern is going to change to panic as everyone including you and Andrew Bolt are forced to face reality, the sea level seen over the last 1000 years is not a god given height.
There was a land bridge between Australia and Tasmania 40 thousand years ago. When the evidence that the planets sea levels changes quite regularly and by large amounts why this inability to accept it’s going to move again?
We know the sea level depends on the level of carbon dioxide in the air, we know ice ages end when volcanoes put more of the stuff up there, we know humans have added more, what exactly is your problem, we are not talking quantum mechanics here, the science is pretty dam simple.
Charles I agree change is constant and inevitable. Can you tell me please if the level of carbon dioxide has a linear relationship to global warming.
12.30PM: Garnut releases his report. You can hear it live on News Radio.
This looks very ominous to me. From your link about Brough being dumped.
I don’t know how many Nationals Members and Senators from Queensland there are but if they all park themselves in the Liberal Party party room, what then?
Steve there are two. Barnabty Joyce and good old Ronald Boswell.
LTEP, as ruawake said earlier, “Barnaby, Ron, Paul, Bruce and Warren” can all park themselves in the Liberal Party room in Canberra now and there is nothing anybody will be able to do to stop them, if the Pineapple Party is formed.
John of Melbourne Says:
July 4th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
My view.
The reality of life, very few complex systems are linear and our science really hasn’t got past linear modeling. When the melt is on, the melts is on and it’s started big time.
I think it is all over, we have forced the system into a new mode and the changes in the next 10 years are going to cause panic. Two more summers to the next election, five to the next, eight to the next. Each summer is going to highlight just how non linear the system is.
Have a look at the second picture here.
Thats an iceberg going down the drain, an iceberg that is several thousand feet thick.
Apologies if it has already been linked.
Peter Hartcher eviscerates Dolly Downer….
http://www.smh.com.au/news/peter-hartcher/empire-ends-for-alexander-the-notsogreat/2008/07/03/1214950947565.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
John I also don’t think it isn’t going to be the end of the world. Change is good for an economy, there are levies to be built, irrigation system to be moved and hurricanes to recover from.
And just perhaps we as a species will conclude that forcing the system is not a good idea and there will be alternate energy sources to develop.
Optimist 361
I read Hartcher first thing this morning and what a great way to start the day. I was surprised how unashamedly damming he is of Downer!
Are we expecting a Morgan this afternoon? Roy has become somewhat unpredictable.
Runawake
You might want to redo your science and biology classes
See we eat Carbohydrates, sugar etc, which are forms of Hydrocarbons H (Hydrogen) and Cs (Carbon)
To create energy, we uses the Hydrocarbon stored in our system, and they are burned by the Oxygen we breath in
CHs + O2 give H20 and C02, otherwise know as water and piss, and Carbon Dioxide.
Runawake
a. when we breath out, there is normally 5% more CO2 and 5% less O2 than the air we breath in
Do you know what happened to CO2 when it pass out with urine …… you guess it, it goes into the atmosphere
According to the web site http://www.treepeople.org/, in one year an acre of trees can provide enough oxygen for 18 people.
Would there be more trees in the world than people? I would guess there would be.
Oldtimer -
Hartcher was just brilliant. I guess he was saving this for when Downer was on the way out. Would have preferred to see it written years ago, but better late than never eh?
Here’s a short extract from the Ganuat Report at Peter Martin’s blog.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/07/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-read.html
From the Hartcher article:
“He [Downer] holds the record for the most unpopular opposition leader in 36 years,” the life of Australia’s longest-running political poll, the Nielsen poll,…
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. And the rest of the article is a nice and long overdue skewering of that pompous pretentious popinjay.
dovif
I will not waste William’s bandwidth any more after this but I was addressing your original statement.
“It would be interesting to see how much people’s respiration contribute to a % of CO2 ”
The answer is very very very little.
If you had omitted respiration I would have not been a pedant.
Ruawake
Time for biology class again, your intelligence astonishes me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiration
JOM and others
You need to distinguish between air temperature and heat in the earth. Yes 1998 was the hottest year on record in terms of average air temperatures. Nevertheless the long term trend has clearly been up, and most of the years since 1998 have been higher than the years before it.
However that is heat in the air. Overall, as a fellow engineer would understand, there is far more heat stored in the oceans than in the atmosphere, since water is denser and stores much more heat energy than air. The oceans are getting hotter; especially at the surface, but also down to a depth of 3000 meters by now. That will drive the world’s cliamte (hotter) for decades to come, and is the key to the lag effects climate scientists talk about. That is why it is true that the earth is getting hotter (since 1998) even though 1998 happens to be the hottest year on record in terms of average air temperatures at recorded sites. So Bolt is wrong to say that the earth hasn’t gotten hotter since 1998; it definitely has.
Listing to Ganuat at the Press Club the most striking point he made was that if the world does nothing about greenhouse then agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin is doomed, with a worst case scenario (10% probability) that every river in the basis becomes a permanently dry ditch.
And for those who think we can continue to feed ourselves by moving farming to the north, well that will be just as dry.
We might be able to desalinate enough sea water to give everyone a drink, and maybe a shower, but producing enough to water our crops is another matter.
As he says, if we can’t address this problem now when we are as prosperous as we’ve ever been - apparently on a per capita basis we’re again richer than Americans for the first time in 70 years (big thanks to Keating), then when can we?
dovif
I admit it has been 30 years since I worked at The Research School of Biological Sciences - ANU.
But the point is that 90% of carbon that humans excrete is in the form of stuff like baking soda.
So says ru B.appSci B.Sci hons
Sorry William - end of my pedantry.
Channel 7 introduced the segment on the Ganuat Report by saying all of us will experience massive increases in petrol and electricity. Of course they maybe right but how they came up with that from this report is beyond me. No figures were given by Ganuat.
TT on 7 is now saying Rudd is “finally” doing something for seniors. H can’t win. damned if he doesn’t, damned if he does.
Ruawake and Dovif,
Yes…. you are the smartest people in the room now move on.
Back to the debate I am enjoying the CO2 admissions
In fact Anna said they had an exclusive. All she did was interview Rudd and he explained what was in the budget for seniors. That was their exclusive, as though they hadn’t heard this information before.
And for those who think we can continue to feed ourselves by moving farming to the north, well that will be just as dry.
That prediction is hard to generalise. Given the clear trends of the last 37 years (since 1970, about the time global warming started kicking in), all of northern WA, and some of the north of the NT will get wetter, but the rest of the NT and all of Queensland will get drier.
http://tinyurl.com/6ehdyf
You also need to remember that the northern areas of Oz (being in the monsoons tropics) are coming off a high baseline to start with, much higher than southern Oz (maybe with one or two exceptions). For example, the average annual rainfall for Darwin is about 1700 mm, with a minimum of about 900 mm, and a maximum of about 2500 mm.
Though the rain up here is seasonal, with almost all of it falling from Dec-Apr, so it needs to be captured and stored.
I hope the Govt. can separate the ETS from the Climate Change debate. The ETS is good policy that can move us into a sustainable future.
If it gets bogged down in an argument about spurious claims on climate change (which the opponents of an ETS will attempt to do) it will end up in a farce.
Garnaut should stick to economics and not try to be a meterologist. There are no proven models available that can accurately forecast weather 1 year or 10 years ahead. I am gobsmacked that the media and many here have sucked in what I would describe as dodgy assumptions.
What is even more annoying is the assumptions made about possible temp rises based on increases in CO2. So far we have seen temps rise by 0.1C every 10 years. There has been no evidence of accelerated temps if the el nino of 1998 is stripped out of the data.
What is even more astonishing is the prediction that the Barrier Reef will not exist by the end of the century. Memo to Garnaut, travel to the Red Sea or the Phillipines where water temps are already 4C warmer than the the temps off Mackay or Townsville and corals and fish survive just fine.
Thanks to Charles @ 360 for the link to the latest of Brian’s articles at Larvatus Prodeo that I thought JoM should have a squizz at. However, Charles, a lot of
science these days is non-linear, e.g., computer, weather and brain. Positive and negative feedback loops, for instance. Quantum physics sure ain’t linear\.
On cue Zedder proves my point.
Just Me @ 380 -
That comment was based on Ganaut saying in his Press Club speech that the Kakadu wetland would cease to exist under current predictions.
If Kakadu turns dry then I assume most of the rest of the north will too.
Zedder, go have a look at the articles Charles to which has posted the link. Read all of them, then come back for a discussion.
Zedder, you are confusing weather with climate.
Weather is short term and therefore more difficult to predict; climate is long term and less variable.
I’ve been told that Queensland is sunny. If I visit tomorrow and it’s raining, do I decide I’ve been lied to? Or that I simply was there on a rainy day?
The statement “Queensland is sunny” is a statement about Queensland’s climate. It’s not disproved by one day.
The rainy day is not ‘climate’ it is ‘weather’.
When we are talking about ‘climate change’ we are not talking about the weather.
I have read charles comments and they don’t stack up against the facts. There has been decreases in artic ice and increases in Antartic ice. The data in particular is being massaged to suit certain points of view and it is disapointing that concensus science is being promoted when the data does not support this view.
Then we have Ruawake’s pedantic and condescending definitions, the assumption being that any variation with the concensus view is utterly wrong. Maybe some of you would like to join us on weatherzone where we explore this issue with more meaty science.
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=007014
I don’t care if climate change is real or not - it is irrelevant. We have a finite resource in fossil fuels, the sooner we wean ourselves off of them the better.
I see Turnbull has said Rudd is “so collosally vain and never admits that he’s wrong”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23968191-601,00.html
I think we can safely say that is the winner of the pot calling the kettle black competition for 2008.
Bizarre that Turnbull and Nelson are running the line that last year they were told they couldn’t do anything until 2012. Given they didn’t commission Garnaut; they didn’t do anything, and really had no desire to do anything of course 2012 would have been the deadline for them. (pushing deadlines is the easiest thing in govt).
Seriously if the govt can slap that arguement down then they might as well give up trying to sell this thing. What a pity there’s no question time for another 9 weeks.
Obviously the Libs have decided that they want to run the “we want to do something; but we are the only ones who will do it right” line. And Nelson is still essentially running the “we want a trading system” so long as everyone can drive cars and use electricity for the same price they can now. God I wish PJK was around to humiliate these guys.
I would agree Ruawake, I am more convinced about peak oil than I will ever be about AGW. I am in full support of less pollution being pumped into the atmosphere. It is sad that the residents of China rarely ever see a blue sky because of the particulate pollution blocking out the sunlight.
Whilst many may deride the man it is worthwhile listening to Professor Bob Carter’s arguments about AGW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
Listen to the lectures and it may inspire some to delve further into the theory and better inform themselves better about the issues.
Funny story on the ABC news tonight that Brough tried to write himself in as Big Chief Pineapple. The Nats were aghast and wouldn’t allow it.
It does not matter, in Australian economic terms, how much stuff China pumps into the atmosphere.
What is needed is to enable our economy to move to an era past fossil fuels. Because one thing is certain - they will run out, it may take 10 or 400 years but so what, the facts remain the same.
If we fail to do this, either by lack of will by the Govt. or by pressure from lobby groups we will be condemned by future generations.
It matters immensely what China pumps into the atmosphere. Eventually Chinese citizens will be impowered to stop this pollution and may no longer want Australian coal. I find the tokenism with a ETS so evident when Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal. The weening of the Australian economy off income generating fossil fuels will not happen in my life time.
Grog @ 390 -
Bizarre that Turnbull and Nelson are running the line that last year they were told they couldn’t do anything until 2012
Not bizarre at all Grog. They’re Liberals. It takes them that ages just to tie their shoe laces. They were in government federally for nearly 13 years and what did they do? Bought in a GST, tortured some refugees at great expense, and wasted bucket loads of our money, oh, and started an illegal war. That is pretty much the sum total of their achievement.
There are no proven models available that can accurately forecast weather 1 year or 10 years ahead. I am gobsmacked that the media and many here have sucked in what I would describe as dodgy assumptions.
And I am still gobsmacked by those who persistently and wilfully make fools of themselves by failing to acknowledge the important difference between day to day weather, and long term climate. If you toss a (fair) coin, you cannot reliably predict what the outcome of each toss will be, but you can very reliably predict the general outcome of 10 000 tosses. Does the failure to be able to reliably predict the next toss invalidate the statistical prediction of the outcome of a large number of tosses? Of course not.
You do not know what the maximum temp will be on any given day in mid summer, but you can reliably bet they will be substantially higher than mid winter. You cannot reliably predict which individual will get lung cancer, but you can reliably predict that many, many more smokers will than non-smokers.
Learn some basic stats.
What is even more annoying is the assumptions made about possible temp rises based on increases in CO2. So far we have seen temps rise by 0.1C every 10 years. There has been no evidence of accelerated temps if the el nino of 1998 is stripped out of the data.
What is your point? With the 1998 El Nino (a statistical outlier) in or out of the data, the long term temp trend is still rising.
There has been decreases in artic ice and increases in Antartic ice.
Wrong about the Antarctic.
“The Antarctic Peninsula has experienced some of the fastest warming on Earth, nearly 3°C over the last half-century. Eighty-seven percent of its glaciers have been retreating during this period and now we see these glaciers are also speeding up.”
Source: http://tinyurl.com/5ld4nw
GRACE [satellite] observations have found that between April 2002 and August 2005 the Antarctic ice sheet shrank by 150 cubic kilometres annually. (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1123785).
Increases in ice cover are a localised phenomenon. The East Antarctic is gaining ice, due to increased precipitation, but the West is losing more of it. Overall the Antartic is losing ice. It is true that it is losing ice proportionally slower than the Arctic, but that is because the Antarctic is far more isolated than the Arctic from climatic effects from the rest of the globe.
The data in particular is being massaged to suit certain points of view and it is disapointing that concensus science is being promoted when the data does not support this view.
So your right, and the vast majority of the world’s professional climate scientists are wrong. Hell of a claim, dude. No, the chances are overwhelming that you’re completely and utterly wrong.
And if Bob Carter is the best source of climate scepticism you got, then frankly you haven’t got much.
zedder, if you are right then we may all end up being a little poorer, though there is a very good chance that we’ll all come out ahead.
OTOH, if you are wrong and we’ve done nothing because we believed you then we’ll all be dead.
I’d rather risk some of my grandkids’ inheritance than their lives!
Oh dear “Just Me”, you play the man, not the facts. Stick with the argument rather than besmirching a person’s motivations. This is science, not politics.
The trouble with all arguments is the data sets. They are massaged to prove a point. Scales are distorted, the data is not like for like.
You provide a interesting point about glacier destruction. Yet I can provide evidence about increased sea ice formation.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
When I hear you say “So your right, and the vast majority of the world’s professional climate scientists are wrong. Hell of a claim, dude. No, the chances are overwhelming that you’re completely and utterly wrong.” I am reminded of Colin Powell talking about the naysayers who didn’t believe that Iraq had weapon’s of mass destruction. I don’t mind being a sceptic. Sometimes I can be right.
The latest sat sensing data BTW is showing a diversion from the mean less than 0.5C either way depending on the satellite. As always what is the mean? Averages from the last 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years. Most are using temp data for the relevent sat history since launch.
Err..you’re going to have to interpret that data for us, zedder. The site appears to be saying that sea ice is on the decline. (Remember it’s trends which matter, not fluctuations - we’re all experts at reading trend lines here).
Scepticism is fine - it’s good. But it’s not being sceptical to quibble around the edges of the science and ignore the basic thrust. That’s simply being foolish.
Anyone can sift through all the data and arguments, come up with one or two points which look like anomalies and jump up and down about them. (to paraphrase ‘The diary of Brendan Nelson’ - “I’m going to ignore the facts and concentrate on the bits I don’t understand”).
There are people out there, zedder, who are still ’sceptics’ about evolution, and probably are just as proud about being so as you are about climate change. It doesn’t mean they’re right, either.
399
zedder Says:
Oh dear “Just Me”, you play the man, not the facts. Stick with the argument rather than besmirching a person’s motivations. This is science, not politics.
Pathetic.
Zoom - we were talking about Antartic sea ice, there is a upward trend. Artic sea ice OTOH is showing a decline. Seemed obvious to most people.
“Just Me” does not deserve any response with the last post.
Plenty of data at a glance for those who want to drill into the data here.
http://tinyurl.com/55b6qd
zedder
In this modern age it really isn’t hard to use the internet, find data, think and work out for yourself that the denialist are full of it.
Some links:
First off you need to understand the difference between temperature and heat, you need to understand that to realize that when a large body of ice starts melting heat is sucked out of the system stopping the temperature rise if the heat input is constant, but once the ice melt it will rise again.
Second a little research into
short term and long term trends, the denialist seem to get all worked up over what would be seen as a single poll result on this site. It’s knowledge that helps you out in many ways, the link is to an article dealing with stock trading.
Now here is the temperature change, antarctic (nasa image) end. The winds are circulating faster and it’s colder in the center, but the ice is melting at a respectable rate because the ice is melting on the edges ( where there is a temperature rise). Now you might be in the set that believe nasa didn’t put people on the moon, and the melting ice caps aren’t melting, in which case, don’t worry about the link.
But that is not where the action is, Greenland has enough ice on it to raise the sea level about 5 meters and it’s ice is slipping into the sea.
I don’t know why the denialists bother. It’s all happening, and the happening is accelerating, as it progresses they are just going to look sillier and sillier. Nature isn’t going to stop because of bullshit typed into denialist web pages.
The temperature stability over the last 9000 years has been the exception not the rule, it’s over.
Of cause you may believe the earth is flat and held up by elephants or that we came from the heavens 5000 years ago and god controls the outcome, or some other pre science myth, in which case your not going to believe science is our best chance of describing what is happening and that science is be best hope of creating rational public policy.
Zedder
Sea ice doesn’t alter water levels one way or the other, its the ice on the land slipping into the sea that matters.
Take an ice cube put it in a glass of water, mark the level, let the ice melt and see if the level has changed.
As there seems to be a bit of confusion on this issue here is a link
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resources/ipy07/sci/ess/watcyc/icesimulate/index.html
I’m not much interested in hosting another of these brawls about climate science. Can we move on please, or at least direct the discussion back to domestic political matters.
Sorry William, but I think you have a problem, domestic politics is going to be about climate change. Right up to and including the next federal election.
Charles, it’s late. I just logged in. I agree with William in not getting too bogged down with science.
But surely it can’t be right that if you add an ice cube to a glass of water the water level does not rise when the ice cube melts?
x + y cannot equal x regardless of the quantity of x and y.
But surely it can’t be right that if you add an ice cube to a glass of water the water level does not rise when the ice cube melts?
x + y cannot equal x regardless of the quantity of x and y.
Well, here’s your chance to do some easy but real basic science, and test your hypothesis.
1. Take one glass of room temperature water and some ice cubes.
2. Put ice cubes in glass of water and mark on the side of glass the level where the water comes up to.
3. Wait till ice cubes melt, then see if water level has moved.
4. Figure out why it didn’t.
George Megalogenis looks at the political impications .
“MEASURED in dollars and common sense, the task of implementing an emissions trading scheme as part of Australia’s effort in addressing climate change is no different to the GST.
It begins with a circular transaction of revenue coming in and tax cuts going out. Canberra collects billions in revenue from the carbon permits it auctions to businesses; businesses pass on the cost of those permits to consumers; but before consumers turn into government-dumping voters, the revenue Canberra collects is given back as tax cuts or other compensation. In other words, a short-term bribe to secure a long-term change in the way the economy operates.
The obvious job for Kevin Rudd and his merry band of ministers is to make voters feel they are doing their bit to save the planet, while also leaving their wallets fat enough to help pay for the transition costs and keep a lid on inflationary expectations. The GST did all of the above when it mattered most for the Coalition between 1998 and 2001. ”
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_gst_shows_the_way/
Joshua Gans has written a piece for The Age on Innovation Policy. It looks like Universities and New low emissions Technology businesses will be the big winners. He claims that Universities are going to have to change what courses they are offering to cater for the new economic and scientific era that is about to be ushered in.
“If, as Garnaut projects, the world fund for research in low-emissions technologies needs to be about $100 billion a year, then, proportionate to its GDP share, Australia’s contribution would have to be about 3% of this. Over all research, our share is now less than half that.
What Garnaut is doing is saying emissions caps are only part of our international commitment. We need to commit to spending on the other public good - knowledge - in the same way. And, fortunately, the revenue from emissions permits will more than cover such a commitment. This is a critical change in philosophy on innovation policy. I endorse it wholeheartedly.”
http://economics.com.au/?p=1618
1. Glass of water
2. Add block of ice to glass => Water level rises from step 1
3. Ice melts => Water level stays the same as at step 2
Part 2 is the bit we need to worry about… when land-borne ice such as in Greenland melts INTO the sea, it will raise water levels no matter what we do.
The other interesting thing is that there was a huge drop off in Students at school studying Sceince and Maths during the Howard era and this will have to be reversed now very quickly.
Yes Steve
I believe this is one of the nuggets of policy shit Possum talked about: boosting elite private schools probably meant more went into business/law then science & engineering.
Charles I misinterpreted what you said at 404, you are right. Maginificently articulated Dario.
I am predicting that Rudd is going to wedge Brenda, Straightbull, Hockey, Cossie and Julie so far on petrol and climate change that they are going to be hangin’ from the ceiling of parliament house by their undies.
Pain for the liberals, especially Hockey ouch LOL.
414 Centre, John Quiggin fires a nice old warning shot to the Opposition too.
“Whether or not the government ultimately follows Garnaut’s proposed model, there’s no doubt that the Review has shifted the terms of debate substantially. Those (like the Federal Opposition) who are tempted to play the issue for short-term political gain will pay a big price in the end if they succumb to that temptation.”
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/07/04/garnaut-draft-report-released/
413 “I believe this is one of the nuggets of policy shit Possum talked about: boosting elite private schools probably meant more went into business/law then science & engineering.”
Jovial Monk, dare we say that we can now see the need for an ‘Education Revolution’?
Centre at 414. Like all things political, it depends how the MSM plays it. Don’t depend on them to necessarily support efforts to combat the effect of climate change.
Absolutely, I could not give a shit how much it costs to get those computers into public/low fee private schools. You are shit w/o computer skills these days.
Hope to see lots more money on education
“Costello, man of the future”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23968715-7583,00.html
What planet is Pearson living on?
“What the Coalition most needs is a consummate parliamentary performer to highlight Rudd’s weakness in that forum and to cut his economic ministers down to size. ”
He believes that Tip is that person - poor deranged fool.
Great quote from the LP comments thread.
To obtain government the Coalition must have a credible alternative CC policy, and notwithstanding the leadership and team required to enact if elected, such a low-notch policy would be flying in the face of where the action is at. At that point in the future, such action will be much more than mere meetings and public awareness - there will be examples in place where sectors of the community have already made sacrifices and taken the steps towards their own positive contribution and these would form a formidable voice against a populist, opportunist policy.
They’re buggered. The Coalition has nowhere to go on this. How can they possibly catapult ahead of the Labor Party, with limited media, carrying weight, on an issue requiring leadership and team. (And that weight is not only CC heavy, but includes the focus on ‘the individual’ bleeding through its veins).
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/07/04/open-garnaut-report-thread/#comment-483977
ruawake at 419. After reading that article by Christopher Pearson, there is absolutely no doubt (if there ever was one) that he is nothing but a coalition hack. What else can you expect from a former speech writer for the rodent?
It looks like Malcolm may be in court during the next election.
“THE Liberal Party frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull could be contesting the next federal election at the same time as contesting a damages suit relating to the nation’s largest corporate collapse, HIH Insurance.
The Supreme Court heard yesterday that a longstanding claim by the HIH liquidator, a McGrath Nicol partner Tony McGrath, is likely to come to trial in February 2010.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/turnbull-faces-poll-during-court-case/2008/07/03/1214950951548.html
Maybe Tony Abbott is in with a chance after all.
Just Me @ 380 -
I’ve still only begun working my way through the Garnaut report, but it seems I misunderstood what Garnaut was saying about Kakadu. Instead of it drying out the problem is going to be it will have too much water as it becomes inundated by the ocean.
But that presents another problem because Google Earth data indicates much of the northern fridge of the continent is at a/below similar levels, including all of Darwin.
.
Centre @ 414 -
I am predicting that Rudd is going to wedge Brenda, Straightbull, Hockey, Cossie and Julie so far on petrol and climate change that they are going to be hangin’ from the ceiling of parliament house by their undies.
Populism is okay when there is nothing much at stake, but in times of crisis people turn to strong leaders and the one thing the Opposition has demonstrated daily since the election is that not one of their front bench has any ticker. If people do accept that we are in deep poop on CC then the current lot are toast.
Greens to contest Mayo by-election
“The Greens have announced they will field a candidate for the federal by-election in the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo later this year.
Lynton Vonow says he can improve on his performance against Alexander Downer last year, when he attracted nearly 10,000 votes.”
Sometimes there’s some credible reporting - Headline “Cut the spin”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23970173-7583,00.html
cille
I detect that the media is slowly catching on, the Government can do more than one thing at a time.
But it seems it is the Govt’s. fault for not letting us know. Oh thats right the media does not inform - it just spins and comments.
If it was a Labor Opposition the media would be screaming at them to release their alternative policies by now. It is only the biggest restructure of the economy ever undertaken. But I suppose there is no need for this opposition to have a substantive policy on Climate Change because they don’t believe it exists.
Maybe their game is to challenge the Queensland Opposition for it’s unchallenged title of the ‘best resourced and laziest opposition ever’.
Short term the govt will cop some heat. Long term the Opposition will become irrelevant.
“Costello, man of the future”??? (C Pearson)
Says it all, really. The future never comes…
And, by implication, he sure weren’t no man of the present or the past.
Christopher Pearson is particularly venomous in his comments.
He wrote, “a great many state teachers and their appalling unions have preyed like parasites on the long-suffering proletariat” (“Our forsaken schools”, 3-4/3/2007).
He also wrote that parents believe state schools are “run primarily for the benefit of otherwise unemployable teachers” (“Howard’s cultural agenda”, 22-23/5/2004), a turn of phrase that so overjoyed him that he repeated its essence in another of his diatribes (“An education in reform”, 16-17/10/2004).
He also wrote, “The French have a phrase to cover betrayals of this order. They call it le trahison des clercs, the treason of the clerical classes. Implicit in it is the notion of conscious delinquency, of knowing better and still behaving irresponsibly. That is the charge that the subliterate young, here as well as in America, are entitled to level at many of their teachers, lecturers and the vast armies of education bureaucrats.” (“The betrayal of education”14/1/2006)
Mr Pearson will have as much success as Piers Ackerman in stopping Labor. I still expect Kevin Rudd to win the next election – with an increased majority. He just has to get back to the grand narrative and abandon the daily news cycle.
Dario why would the Government cop short term heat over something they promised before the election and that people have been waiting for them to get on with?
ruawake - I’ve got a feeling that Lenore is positioning herself for the onslaught/positioning over the garnaut report - journos are just as political in their own territory as the one’s elected in Canberra. The media I don’t trust.
Because the media are making sure of it. They won’t be able to keep it up though.
I think the media and the opposition are not too sure what to make of ETS. The Govt has a process, started in opposition.
Garnaut, then the green paper, then the final Garnaut, then the white paper all the time keeping control of the issue.
Poor Brenda will be fighting shadows.
Newspoll certainly doesn’t show it as unpopular and with younger people ETS introduction is supported by about 73%.
On the other hand polls can’t test the opposition policy because there is none.
You know, if Rudd can just stop the constant spin or reduce the over abundance of substance or if he can just work out how to get a message across, he could become a popular leader. Oh wait, he is.
If Rudd is supposedly following the 24 hr news cycle how come it is Nelson & his mate Turnball who are getting their story in the News first without the Gov’t’s balancing comment? And saying the most outrageous and character assassination things? It is the Opposition that seems to me to be obsessed with the short term news cycle. They do not seem to have anything substantial to say about anything of importance.
This Gov’t have a lot of big things going on at once. It is the media that cannot keep up - perhaps the intellectually challenged reporters can only do one thing at a time. There is plenty of “narrative” if they will only look without their Howardesque glasses.
Is the Gov’t partly to blame for the distorted messages or is it soley the media?
The a-holes at Bolt’s blog who wished Whitlam ill will spew over this.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gough-whitlam-released-from-hospital/2008/07/05/1214951102520.html
William, with all due respect, I think Charles is on the money. Domestic politics is now about climate change and how we deal with it, as well as shifting global power, and how we deal with it. And not to put too fine a point on it, we’re buggered if we don’t.
I think domestic political discourse has just undergone a seismic shift.
All right, let’s have a big long argument about ice core samples then.
HSO I think William was more concerned with the quality of the debate than the topic. Even Peter Martin’s blog got some juvenile comments which is unusual.
Doug,
The government is partly responsible because it sets the hares flying; e.g., the Asia-Pacific Union. Kevin Rudd would do better to focus on a few key issues and use his position to build the support he needs for the detailed changes he intends to make. He has the support in principle, but he has to take a large majority with him on implementation.
Let’s learn from Victoria. Before the 1999 election, no matter what the question, Steve Bracks seemed to answer with more police, more nurses and more teachers. Once in office, that is what he delivered. The Victorian Government spent $1.4 billion in capital expenditure on schools in its first two terms. In this term, it is scheduled to spend $1.9 billion. In its next term it will spend, I estimate, $1.6 billion to complete its program to rebuild every school in the state. But you don’t see John Brumby on the TV every day talking about this and the thousand other things his government is doing. However, the voters see the new and rebuilt schools when they drop their children off or go to parent-teacher nights. The facts are on the ground and they work to Labor’s advantage.
Kevin Rudd has a similar task. He has taken on climate change, tax reform, reform of the federation and an education revolution (which still has a few parts missing). That is the most ambitious agenda of any government I have experienced. He intends to set Australia up for a long-term, prosperous, just and sustainable future. Yet he gets bogged down in the idiocies of Belinda Neal, while the government was paralysed for three (?) days on the carer’s bonus before the budget.
These thoughts are a little rambling. But I think you will get my point: the government needs to focus on a few big picture items and not be diverted. It certainly should not be throwing extra issues into the mix.
Just a few comments on the Trading Scheme debate.
The economic trigger of the trading system has been dealt with in many ways by the increasing cost of energy,
One of the things that seems to have been lost here is what are we trying to do , we are trying to lessen the amount of carbon that we are putting into the AIR. We are not trying to give the shallow libs a great electoral advantage. If the issue is going to be dealt with properly then we need a bypartisan approach. If Rudd said that he is only going to legislate if the Libs supported it in a bi partisan way it would put a lot more pressure back on the Libs, if they didn’t support it then he can just point at them and say, its there fault, (A little bit of reality here, is the Vic senator for family first going to horse trade petrol when its been his biggest issue, no I don’t think so.)
Back to the politics of the issue, where did the ortodoxy of the trading scheme come from, some free market imbeciles who are now laughing like hyenas. We don’t have a tax for the defence department, we don’t link tabacco tax to hospitals, its a great mistake to make this important issue a easy target for the lobbyists of the big polluters, they have sucked in the conservation movement into thinking that the carbon trading is the answer, if only it was that easy.
Break the link, spend some of the infrastructure future fund on alternative energy and research and development (a real investment $5b PA) and put the libs in the cross hairs of the decision making process, the conservative media will run and run on the scare campaign until they have done as much damage as possible.
One last thing, there is no rule book that says that the Libs should be ‘fair or true’ and before we get cranky with the the “I don’t want 5 cents more on my petrol” battlers, they are telling us now how they are going to react, if Rudd and the ALP walk into this one they are not going to last as long as they should.
Whats the look for MAYO?
Cheers.
William. I’m not suggesting a tedious exploration of the science of climate change, with or without ice cores, There are other places where people can do that. What I’m suggesting is that having to deal with both climate change and a shift in global politics, has now become the stuff of domestic politics.
As others have noted, Kevin Rudd has taken on probably the most ambitious mix of policy formulation, any of us have ever seen or know about from history. It’s global in reach, it’s also domestic as it will be played out. He may well choke on it.
Personally, I hope he doesn’t, as the Opposition haven’t a clue what is confronting us both at the domestic as well as international level, and clearly are going to play populist politics, at every turn.
steve, I’m fairly sure William can speak for himself.
Follow the Preferences, the biggest problem with the bipartisan theory is that Nelson has already decided that the Liberals will be unlikely to support the proposals.
http://news.smh.com.au/national/libs-unlikely-to-back-emissions-scheme-20080629-2ymk.html
I have no problem with discussion of climate change issues if they relate to Australian politics. The argument between 382 to 404 did not do so.
I reckon Rudd will be able to get the voters who matter on side with this. The majority of people understand that we must act on climate change and of course low to middle income earners will be compensated.
How ironic!
- Labor to introduce an ETS with compensations to middle to low income earners, whereas the conservatives introduced a GST with the majority of tax cuts to the rich.
- Liberal wedged Labor with Tampa, and now Labor to get their wedge revenge with CC.
As they say, “what goes around, comes around”.
Damn we just can’t beat Collingwood.
By the way, The PM is on Insiders tomorrow morning. They should get Bolt to interview him?
#440 fuck you make me laugh sometimes, sitting at your desk, going through the comments and then, bang - whaaaaa
I’m one step away from doing a Bryan Palmer at the moment.
Don’t worry William I’m over it ( arguing climate change science that is). I was curious as to how robust the climate denialists arguments were, found a site where you can argue with a whole church of them at one time. If they could mount a convincing argument it could derail Rudds agenda, nature will only provide two mores summers of evidence before the election.
In my view Rudds safe, it’s like arguing with creationists, might work in the US, but generally science wins in Australia. What I can’t work out is why they bother, oh well.
Breaking news: Rudd is appearing on INSIDERS tomorrow morning, for the first time in quite a while! I wonder what sort of treatment he’ll get from Cassidy & co?