Morgan’s latest polling release covers 955 respondents from last weekend’s face-to-face surveys, and shows Labor’s two-party lead down from 61.5-38.5 to 60.5-39.5. Labor’s primary vote is down a point to 50.5 per cent, and the Coalition’s is up 1.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent. On top of which:
• Silly Steve Fielding joined with the Coalition on Wednesday to vote down government electoral reforms that would tie public funding for election candidates to their electoral expenditure, lower the threshold for disclosure of donations to $1000 from $10,000 (which the Howard government used its Senate majority to jack it up to), ban foreign donations and anonymous donations of over $50, and require parties to disclose donations every six months rather than annually. The sticking point is Fielding’s insistence that the government also arbitrarily cap public funding to political parties at $10 million. The bill was reintroduced to the House yesterday.
• Submissions have been published in response to the federal government’s green paper on donations, funding and expenditure.
• Responding to mounting speculation she will take on Don Randall in Canning at the next federal election, senior Gallop/Carpenter government minister Alannah MacTiernan tells The West Australian: “It’s something that I’d consider but it’s far too early. The election is a long way away and it’s not something a decision can be made on until early next year.”
• The South Australian Liberals have picked a new candidate for the state seat of Mawson to replace former Kingston MHR Kym Richardson, who was charged in December with attempting to pervert the course of justice by impersonating a police officer. Matthew Donovan, described by the local Southern Times Messenger newspaper as a “self-employed importer and property developer”, won preselection ahead of Heidi Harris, adviser to Shadow Transport Minister Duncan McFetridge and unsuccessful candidate for federal preselection in Mayo; Heidi Greaves, public servant, former Onkaparinga councillor and unsuccessful candidate for Elder; and Alana Sparrow, Housing Industry Association lawyer and former media adviser to Richardson.
• The Daily Telegraph reports that NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell “will hire a team of constitutional lawyers to explore recall provisions to end fixed four-year terms for incompetent governments”. This would involve provisions for the Governor to “sack a corrupt or useless government” if called on to do so by public petitions, presumably in a fashion similar to that which brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to power in California. UPDATE: More from a skeptical Imre Salusinszky at The Australian.
• Chris Back this week took his place in the Senate, filling the vacancy created by the departure of Western Australian Liberal Chris Ellison.
1,149 Comments
What exactly is Richardson alleged to have done?
Barry O’Farrell had better be ready for this course of action to rebound sometime in the future when he starts to misfire badly.
Some pretty interesting stuff in there.
1) Wouldn’t Ms MacTiernan need to be pretty brave to try to win Canning?
2) There is absolutely no way O’Farrell’s suggestion could work. It would give the Governor the ability to make a decision completely based on their own personal opinion, perhaps fueled by media beat ups… a really silly idea.
3) Silly Steve Fielding indeed.
I understand he was trying to impersonate a politician.
Usually I dismiss these web polls but this one seems on the money:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/poll/1,,953-5038591-0,00.html
Sorry if already posted.
More on that here, Adam.
LTEP, if the legislation laid out very particularly the circumstances in which the Governor was to act, which I assume is what they have in mind, the measure need not be any worse than what happens in California. I leave it to your own judgement if you consider that a recommendation.
That would indeed by a bad idea, but I think what he’s suggesting is a US-style recall by petition. In effect it would give the people the power to dissolve Parliament if a certain % signed a petition. The % would have to be set fairly high – 50% perhaps – and there would need to be rigorous signature verification procedures.
# 2 A few assumptions in that post, Gary. As you keep reminding everyone, the NSW election is two years away and ‘anything could happen’ (ie. let’s not assume an ALP loss is a ‘given’ or that Barry O’Farrell will be the leader if the Liberal Party does win). The Opposition Leader’s idea is worthy of investigation (to see if it is constitutionally feasible). There will have to be a full and frank debate about it in the general community. And yes, Gary, you are right that any Liberal support for the idea could ‘backfire’ on the party at a future time (remember Nick Greiner and ICAC) but that in itself, does not stop it being a good idea.
I just wonder about the impact of Peter Garrett rocking again on the Gen X & Y. Has he locked them sown up for Labor?
Firstly, David, I only said Barry because he is the leader now. Maybe I should have said the Liberals. Secondly my assumption has been that the Liberals will win the NSW election and has been for sometime now, although ‘anything could happen’. If I were a betting man my money would be fairly and squarely on the Libs though.
I agree with you when you say it could be a good idea. My post did not say otherwise, just that it could rebound because one day their government probably will eventually go bad and everyone will want their scalps. Have they really thought this through?
When did Gen X and Y get the vote? What a bad idea.
Adam, aren’t you one of them?
The real reason it’s a bad idea (recall by petition, I mean) is that it would reinforce short-termism, which is already a serious vice in Australian politics. There are sometimes good reasons why governments need to do things which bring short-term unpopularity for long-term gain. Recall by petition would discourage serious efforts at structural reform and encourage more populist pandering, which we do not need more of.
I though I was a baby-boomer. Aren’t Gen X and Y those people with bolts in their tongues?
Recall eh?
I don’t like the idea. STill think Rees should fall on his sword ie pass a motion of no confidence in himself and force an election before the Fed is due.
GB, it should be a slaughter. Maybe lots of others, but still..
Dont know about Gen X, but Gen Y are those who will not ffff-offf and think home is a 6 star hotel.
That’s not how it was with baby-boomers. Then the progression was:
puberty > grow hair long > become trotskyite / hippy / transvestite / whatever > row with father > leave home.
To put it another way, Gen Y have grown up in an era in which the median house costs nearly 8x the median wage, and rents have shot up around 15% per year for each of the past several years.
trawler, love that poll, I see Bronnie and Ironbar are neck and neck
correction:
row with mother>refuses to leave home
Finnigans 1276 previous thread,
can you provide a URL for the lineup so I can know when others will be on? (besides Pete & co. bringing up the rear)
Thanks
When I left home we rented a four-bedroom house in South Clayton for $25 a week. We paid the rent by doing one night shift each a week at the Wattie-Pict frozen foods factory. That left the rest of the week for trotskyism / hippyism / transvestitism / whateverism.
Juliem, here it is:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/03/13/1236447449177.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
only on the Melb concert. who gives a shirt about the Sydney one.
Just want to see the Oils and my relo, the Finn brothers in Enz. Yes, six months for Turnbull in a leaky boat.
you are lucky. i was working in an iron foundry.
trawler,
The list of pumchees was a bit limited. They should have just cut and pasted the White Pages.
Finnigans, HELLO …… [ only on the Melb concert. who gives a shirt about the Sydney one.
]
a person after my own heart
……. but we will probably listen to both, mind you when we are home though as we will be out midday to early afternoon ….
thanks much
Is this the Gen X/Y thingo?
Is this petition idea of O’farrell’s the only way he thinks he can get into govt? lol. I thought the Libs are supposed to be unbeatable at the next election? Can’t wait 2 yrs then? Are the worried things might start picking up and the much maligned Rees gets re-elected?
So in other words peoples’ democratic right to vote in a Labor govt 2 yrs ago should be overturned if the useless opposition party can’t get itself elected by fair means and instead get their lawyers to say who should be in power. We’ll decide who you vote for!!!! Hmm what party is it again that is full of lawyers?
It was a doddle. I slept most of the night, putting in an occasional appearance with a broom. $50, cash in hand, plus all the frozen food you could steal (quite a lot actually). Enough to live for a week and still have change.
With any luck Frank Sartor will be premier by then. He’d give the Barrel a run for his money.
28 – You make some very good points Vera. I know it’s not the same but it smacks of ‘74 & ‘75 to me.
Adam,
Looxury……..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&feature=related
Hang on, so Kym Richardson looks like being charged, along with having some interesting other skeletons in his closet and it turns out the man Trish Draper rorted travel allowance for was a murder suspect. Both were running for the Libs at the state level.
Don’t the federal Libs have any recently departed federal MPs who aren’t embarrassing they could run. Wait… No. Can’t think of any.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009npc/2009-03/13/content_7576028.htm
The Great Recession with the East is glowing slightly Red. Wen is confident of achieving 8% growth and recovery starts by 2010. If the Chinese can pull this off, it will alter the global geo-political landsacpe. Especially if Obama falters.
8% is slow for China, it has averaged 10% over the last decade.
It is important to understand that China is still going thorugh a period of massive transition, with millions of people moving from peasant lifestyles in the country to paid jobs in the city every year. I saw one estiamte that China’s econmy needs to grow by at least 5% per annum just to soak up this trend (no growth in income for anyone else).
The Chinese already havea stimulus in place of over $500Bn US, which will make a big difference once it kicks in. Expect they will do better in 2010 off the back of more domestic demand. If they succeed, I agree with Finns; the world will be fundamentally different and China and US will be far more level in economic power.
Saw Neil of the Finns last weekend – he’s in fine form.
Remember when there were serious questions about the Howard Government spending taxpayer money to inappropriately promote the Government and some of their dubious causes? Furthermore, remember how there were suspicions that the Libs were fearthering the nest of their assorted cronies and hangers on?
We were right!
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090313-Howard-micro-managing-advertising.html
Definitely Wilson, he would do a decent job of it.
I don’t think so. It will still be an overwhelmingly poor country. GDP per capita in China is estimated to be US$3000, and predicted to be $10,000 in a decade. GDP per capita in the U.S. is US$40,000, which is one reason it is such a powerful country.
LTEP at 3:
Brave-ish. It’s currently about 4% to the Libs, but there’s a few reasons to believe it might be winnable and keepable for Labor (though it’ll probably always be a marginal seat). See the WA thread for further info.
ABC Radio PM’s story on rising unemployment: quotes from Turnbull, no response from ministers. Hmmm.
Don’t worry Adam, Turnbull is seen as a joke anyway. Only the rusted-ons are blaming Labor for the GFC and the job losses.
Absolutely fantastic article by Bernard Keane on Howard’s advertising rort:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090313-Howard-micro-managing-advertising.html
My comment relates to the issue of ABC bias. It was a clearly one-sided story.
Adam, you’re in government and ahead in the polls even if the ABC are biased which they arent would it really make all that difference???
BTW will the QLD results be on ABC2???
Glen as you know I have been sceptical about the allegations of ABC bias here, and I don’t see/hear enough media to make an overall judgement. But a story on unemployment in which the *only* political comment came from Turnbull is cleary a one-sided story.
Adam what about stories where there is only the Government Minister and no rebuttle from the Opposition…these things happen.
But i do think questions in parliament about where are the 75,000 promised new jobs will be difficult for even Gillard to spin.
I wonder how long will it take for criticism to start about Peter Garrett doing the Oils gig while QLD is having the oils pollution. yes, Garrett is responsible for the oils. Oils is oils.
Finns not as badly as the QLD Minister who was drinking wine at Harvey Bay while all this was going on…
LOL really the ALP in QLD have only Bligh the rest are duds…
There is an election on, Hervey Bay is his electorate. What’s he supposed to do, swing out to sea with a sponge?
The answer to that question is simple, after the package has had its effect, the jobs would’ve been created IN AUSTRALIA.
UEFO clearly shows that the first package will have its effect after 1 year of its introduction. So by December this year we can confidently say there will be 75,000 more jobs IN AUSTRALIA compared with if the package hadn’t been adopted by the parliament, with bipartisan support.
And some detergent I guess.
Glen spells rebuttal as rebuttle which stamps it as an ill educated Gen Y or X yob. Which is it, Glen?
ps: you do know there is a spell checker in your browser?
By then, the USA GDP per capita will probably fall to $25K.
$10,000 x 1.3 Billion people = $13 trillion
$25,000 x 300 million people = $7.5 trillion
Who will be the pretty boy then?
He is the Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby would be appalled…
Adam he isnt going to win his seat so why doesnt he do something for his CV and act like a Minister.
Albert if you have something positive to contribute to this blog other than pointing out spelling errors (which we all make from time to time) then i suggest you go elsewhere!
Because like all ALP politicians, Glen, he is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. The oil slick is being dealt with by the people whose job it is to deal with it. It’s the minister’s job to see that the response happening, which he is doing. The fact the shipowners lied to the government about how much oil had been split obviously doesn’t help matters.
I doubt it. it will probably be the same it is now in real terms.
Bob Brown is politicing for all his worth in Qld.
that’s right Bob, Labor caused the cyclone and they own the tanker and just for good measure they chucked the containers overboard and took an axe to the oil tanks,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2516010.htm
There you go, Adam. Now you begin to appreciate what some of us who listen to AM and PM pretty much all the time, and who check ABC News Online, are whinging about. There was also the piece on PM about how the gov’t., and the PM in particular, had promised a response to the 2020 summit by December, and here it was March, and, this time, they’d tried to get a response from the PM’s Dept., and nothing. There was some feeble questions to whomever they had on from the Libs. about the distractions of the Global Financial Fiasco and the bushfires, but the cliched Lib. central talking points response was in no way challenged.
I used to respect the AM and PM programs, particularly, but now wonder what on earth is going on.
Vera, that’s a pretty low blow from Bob Brown. So, in addition to his day job as a Fed. Minister, performing at a number of concerts for the bushfire folk, he should be telling the Q’l'd to rack off and he’ll organise the clean up?
Bob Brown has hit the gutter, I live in Coolum where there is oil on the beach. Bob go back to Tasmania and stop playing slime ball politics.
HSO just goes to show that Brown is not above politics as some like to pretend, nothing like using a disaster to try to swing a few votes your way. If there wasn’t a Qld election next week he wouldn’t even be there.
ABC even choose their open for comment threads to give the Libs a helping hand
HSO, I guess you may be right.
Bob Brown can play cheap populist politics with the best of them when he wants to.
really? where – serious question, I’ve often wished I did have one.
Springborg wants to cut spending by $1 billion:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25182189-601,00.html
Yeah, that will really help the QLD economy grow.
Firefox comes with an American-English spellchecker by default.
Bob Brown always plays this way. The Green’s problem is who replaces him? He is 65.
when will genarational change become an issue for the Greens?
Or will he be replaced by a Green Party Hack?
At every single election the conservatives try to pull this trick. Their leader promises to cut spending and cut taxes, while at the same time their shadow ministers and candidates go around promising to throw money at every problem in every marginal seat. Usually the media are too lazy to pick them up on the dishonesty of these contradictory promises.
Ah, don’t like firefox. Am trying the new safari at the moment. Don’t like it much either! But it does at least have a spell checker.
Damn good point rua. He’s the Michael Hutchence of the Greens. (if you get my drift)
Further to my whinge about the specific ABC programs, Adam, is precisely this sort of so-called “reporting”. Vera’s listing of the topics for open comment is another example of what causes my blood pressure to rise. This is not impartial, and I’ve noticed a steady increase in this sort of behaviour from, as I said, programs I previously regarded as reasonably reliable and impartial.
Colin Barnett slams Rudd over GST revenue for WA:
“The flawed system for calculating GST revenue is responsible for short-changing WA of more than $300 million, Premier Colin Barnett says.”
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25177686-2761,00.html
Rudd wants to save the pork for the Labor-held states, good riddance!
This is the same barnett who is gutting 3% from all departments then bree
My God an Liberal Premier criticising an ALP PM!
Wow, case closed. You got us there. We got nothing to come back with.
Hopefully, Barnett and Springborg will team up at the next COAG and condemn Rudd for cutting funds to the boom states.
Part of that problem is that all of the current Greens Senators represent a minority of The Green vote.
To illustrate – The Greens Senators are from:
2 x WA
SA
2 x Tasmania
The combined Greens vote in those three states was 236,000 at the last election. The Greens vote in NSW alone was 353,000. The total Greens vote was over 1 million.
So 100% of the Greens representation in the Parliament comes from less than 25% of their voter base.
Boom’s over Bree. Unemployment rose 1% in WA. Biggest rise in the country.
Unrepresentative Swill.
Bree, why do you bother here? Try the ABC open for comments thingy. You’ll find all sorts of people to agree with you and offer up equally insightful comments. You’ll have a ball. Really.
All states will have a cut in GST revenue, why? Its a friggin consumption tax. Even before the Grants Commission ruling the QLd Govt. was budgeting for a $150 million cut.
Has the WA Govt. figured out that there is a teeny weeny problem with consumption at the moment?
Which Govt. is spending billions to boost consumption?
It’s part of the Young Liberal training process. They have to go and spend time on a hostile blog. You’ll notice all of last year’s LibBots have gone. They’ve either graduated or flunked out. Bree is obviously a rank beginner, not even in Glen’s class, so I think he/she will be here for a while.
Bob Brown has to be one of the most least effective politicians in National Parliament of all time. Can anyone point to any achievements.
Time now for story of giving from those who can least afford it. Thank you PNG
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2516045.htm?section=justin
At least I found ESJ:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25172066-26103,00.html
Surely Glen is the dux of the class?
Adam the LibBots are either doing post grad degrees or mutual obligation at a Job Network provider. Not much time for blog stirring in either case.
Bottom right corner:
http://www.aria.com.au/pages/images/2004ariaboard_003.jpg
Harray “Snapper” Organs
I got it right I hope!
I think William wants a diversity of opinion, and it does save time skipping over to the Australian to get the rusted on Liberal point of view.
Compulsive viewing: Jim Cramer V Jon Stewart unedited interview:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=221516&title=jim-cramer-interview-outtake (Part 1, the other parts should play automatically).
GG, He was in the Muppet Show, being Green.
Where have the LibBots gone? I see plenty of them responding to ABC News stories. The participation by Liberals is so intense I’m sure it’s an organised campaign.
Finns,
How easy is that?
No way! OPEC set to cut oil production to stabilise the price:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5900258.ece
Our plan of bankrupting Russia doesn’t look like it will work. Apparently most OPEC countries want Russia to join.
What “achievements” can the leader of a Senate corner party have? He has raised the profile of the Greens, he has taken them from one Senator to five, he has driven the Dems to extinction, he has established a reputation (deserved) for integrity and (mostly deserved) for seriousness, he has pushed lost causes like Tibet and Burma as well as “green” issues. He is right about 75% of the time at a rough guess. Not a bad record. His weakest area is economics, where he is an old-fashioned marxist. I can’t see a worthwhile successor in the Senate. Milne is too bossy, Siewert too flaky and angry, Ludlam too low-key, Hanson-Young far too young. I thought the plan was for Andrew Wilkie to succeed Brown in his Senate seat and become leader.
It was great episode ShowsOn. Stewart pretty much played it straight (and pretty angry as well)
Adam,
With great respect, it doesn’t add up to much really. Did he stop Hansonism, did he stop the GST, did he stop privatisation, did he stop the vilification of refugees?
Really, he’s been a bystander wringing his hands as the real issues affecting most Australians have unfolded.
I swear those kids singing the national anthem at the NAB cup final were miming to a backing tape.
How was he supposed to do those things?
Adam:
I sympathise with him on Tibet and Burma but there’s currently no way of actually defeating the moral scum in charge of those places
LibBots lol seriously now, just because we have an alternative view of some political issues to you doesnt mean we are at Party HQ on the internet doing our 1st year University assignments….
I’m just waiting for Howard to be on lateline, hell Keating goes on Lateline every couple of months…
I think Turnbull will last until 2010 at least if not later, i cant see anybody wanting to be the 3rd different leader in a 3 year period, it will scream NOT READY FOR GOVERNMENT for the 2010 election and Rudd will play the steady hand on the tiller and we may pick up a couple of seats and maybe lose others (Status quo). As much as i would like us to win in 2010 i think it is fool hardy to believe in such miracles…
I just want to see Swan tell the people we’re in a recession, i bet they are working out the wording on how to break it to the people lest they get a line that will stick to the Government like Keatings…
Shows On, Grog
For othehr posters, the original Stewart rave is an absolute pearler and adds depth.
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2009/03/11/against-bailouts-well-the-wrong-kind-anyway/
Bob Brown is the conscience of the Senate. He has taken the Greens to their strongest Senate position ever.
I think the thing that lets him down is he has never taken on his own party and won on a major policy, which would help them deal themselves into a major policy win.
Remember when Brown flagged for a couple of days that the Greens would support the sell off of the final lot of Telstra provided ALL the money was spent on environmental projects? After a few days he had to retract that statement, I assume after his office received some angry phone calls.
If the Greens were more economic literate they would understand that a lot of environmental policies have short term costs, but long term cost saving benefits. If they could just moderate some of their policies to take into account the initial expense of their good ideas, then they would have greater impact on government policy. Often they seem to prefer ideological purity over policy potency.
Having said all that, the Senate will be worse off when Brown leaves, which will probably be at the end of his current term (2014).
38 – GG. That report on Howard advertising was on the ball. No wonder so much money was wasted with that lot sloshing around in the trough. Lets hope the Rudd government stick to some basic morality in funding government advertising for the whole of their term.
77, Springborg has to get there first, you’re into wishful thinking
……
The follow ups are great too:
Tuesday http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=220508
Wednesday http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=220522
Adam,
I suppose it just means that I rate actual achievement over positioning and rhetoric.
Bums on seats means what?
Prior to the emergence of Rudd, Bob Brown was the only politician in Australia to read Howard like a book. If he had been in charge of Labor, or had the Greens been a major force, we wouldn’t have had to put up with Howard for longer than one term
Tom.
Tom,
What does that mean and how is our life better.
Re 99 – Ah ShowsOn, please please please remember that in Perth we don’t get coverage starting for another 45 minutes
…… I’ve sworn off sports channels on the TV all evening so I don’t get any information on the ticker, please keep the details off of PB so you don’t spoil it for me, thanks 
…. [I know I can't get the result I want [both teams to lose 
] but I still want to watch it and see it “as it happens”
I think it’s strange that you expect one Senator from a minor party to achieve what Labor and even what Labor and Liberal combined couldn’t.
I think one thing that’s been understated, because I think we take it for granted now, is the raising of environmental issues to the top of the policy agenda.
If Labor wins the next election, I think it is quite likely that the Greens will hold the balance of power in their own right once the Senate changes over.
If that occurs, Brown will rightly take a lot of credit for that achievement.
I have been critical of CEOs for their uselessness in the past, but what about the Rugby League administrators?
If a team wins, they get the two points. If it’s a draw, they share one point each. NOW, wouldn’t you think that if a team wins in golden point they should get 1.5 for the win or 0.5 for a loss. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
They don’t like half points apparently. Well you make it:
- 4 points for a win (like AFL),
- 3 points for a golden point win,
- 2 points each for a draw,
- 1 point for a golden point loss,
- 0 for a straight out loss.
IDIOTS!
- 3
God help us all if the Greens solely hold the balance of power in the Senate after 2010.
Give me the Democrats any day!
Juliem,
I forgot to tell you today during our get together that the 2 hour time difference was also a factor during the 2004 Federal Poll, what with polling closing at 4pm local time and the election coverage starting at 4.30pm we knew that Howard was killing Latham before the polls closed here.
BTW, did you manage to find that dead tree copy of WA Business News ?
I see Glen still can’t wait for a recession to be announced. Love that recession eh Glen.
Why is a golden point win less valuable than a regular win? It is still a win isn’t it?
I prefer the Roy Slaven system, 1 point for a win, 1 point for a draw, 1 point for a loss. That will “even things right up” as he likes to say.
Of course William wants diversity of opinion, fredn, it’s just that Bree doesn’t offer any.
Gary just because it is inevitable doesnt mean i have to like it and i know Rudd isnt to blame for it but he’s just got to get the courage to admit it!
The game is played over 80 mins. If you win in extra time, especially the way the Mexicans did tonight, there is no way that the value should be the same!
I’m going on the assumption that Labor wins Fielding’s seat in Victoria, Milne wins in Tasmania, and either Labor or Green wins an extra seat in W.A.
Remember, Labor didn’t do as well in W.A. as all the other states last election, I’m expecting them to do better next time round. I don’t think there will be miners worrying about staying on their AWAs, I think they just want to make sure they keep their jobs.
Glen, even Turnbull says we are not in a recession yet. He was asked that during the week.
Why say we are in recession when we are not officially in one just to satisfy people like you.
Hey Bludgers (it may have already been mentioned) did you see what Hewson said about Cossie on Sky News. Somebody should take Cossie behind the dunnies and give him a good belting! LOL
He is a politician though…
ShowsOn from all accounts the good people of WA are happy with the Liberal Party (case in point are Mr Barnett’s rating
) so i doubt there will be many gains there if that is all you are relying upon.
I think it would be silly, and potentially confidence sapping for the P.M. to say “Australia is in recession” before it actually is in recession in technical terms.
Plus, he needs to give the newspapers more time to come up with their inevitable hyperbolic headlines.
So Glen, you’re again gloating about the misery the impact of the Global Financial Fiasco will have on the Australian people, with no, I repeat, no plan to do anything other that balance the budget. Good plan. Try selling that.
ShowsOn i am not asking for Rudd to say it now but he’s got to admit it when it happens which will be soon….
HSO, i never gave you my plan because i dont have one, im not a polly go ask Hockey!
But i sure as hell wouldnt have thrown that much cash at people in the hopes they’d spend it I’d far rather that dough be spent on schools and hospitals.
The Liberals are defending three seats there, I think you’re dreaming if you think they will win 4 (over 57% of the vote).
If right parties get that much senate vote in W.A., without any leaking to Labor or the Greens, then I strongly doubt Rudd will win the election.
Nearly $15 billion is being spent on schools, which is more than the $12 million worth of cash payments. An extra $2 billion is being spent on hospitals as part of last year’s COAG agreement to reduce waiting lists.
Obviously you can’t be criticising the December payments, because the Liberals voted for them.
ShowsOn im talking about us holding, Stirling, Swan and Cowan…if we were to lose any id say Swan and/or Cowan. But i dont think we will lose many seats in WA, Barnett is popular there and the State ALP in WA are a mess just ask Ripper lol!
Vera @ 60 & HSO @ 62, that was a really BAD move by Brown, I’ve totally lost any respect I had for him …. what a first class [insert many descriptive words]!
Pete not doing his job eh? Has Brown forgotten what precipitated the concerts tomorrow?
Falls under the umbrella of caring for the enviroment in my book, Bob x(
Grog @ 44.
Hate to say I told youse so, but way back when (in 2006-7) I had a go at those who were scoffing at the inept WorkChoices campaign for the failure that it was. Why, youse asked, would Howard plough millions (almost a billion) into an advertising campaign that was backfiring so badly and actually costing him votes?
My answer was then (and is now, even more) “Follow the money.”
It wasn’t important that the ad campaign got through. Whather it failed or succeeded was on monumental unimportance to those who stood to profit from it. It wasn’t important that we all learned to stop worrying and hate the unions whilst loving WorkChoices. It was only necessary that the money was spent. Our of our bank account and into theirs.
What was important was that millions of our money were being pi$$ed up against the wall and that the main recipients were Liberal Party mates. Whether the punter in TV Land bought the message was unimportant, perhaps supremely unimportant. What was important was that taxpayers’ money was being laundered out of the public purse and into private, mates’ pockets. That WAS important. From the article linked by Grog and Greensborough G….
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090313-Howard-micro-managing-advertising.html
While all the Lefties wer chortling at the incompetence of the WC campaign, and the Alert Not alarmed campaign and all the rest of it, saying how ineffectual they were, Liberal Party mates were absolutely lining their pockets with OUR cash. Pi$$ed down the Glory Hole, only to resurface as squeaky claean, freshly laundered and pressed dollars, sometime in the future. That is: right about about now.
Who will care when, in a couple of months’ time, some ex-Howard minister takes a private holiday in the South of France? Who will bother to follow him or her as they get off the plane, catch a taxi and then end up on a private yacht moored in Monaco, or the Greek Islands or wherever else it costs a lot-of-money to take a holiday?
Answer: No-one. No tonly will no-one care, but even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to prove it anyway.
For God’s sake, even the most brazen of rorters, the AWB scammers, seem to have gotten away with it abosolutely, positively, totally scot-free.
Why then shouldn’t the media sharks, lurk merchants and snake-oil salespeople get their cut too? And why shouldn’t they pay a bit of this back (when no-one’s looking, or caring, a year or two, or three, from now) to their oh-so-generous pals, the cheque-signers in the ex-Howard government who wrote out blank chits for hundreds of millions of our hard-earned dollars? On the “trickle-down” concept, at least a few tens of millons would have to find its way back to the source, wouldn’t it?
And who could ever tell?
If the AWB smarties could get away with manifest, and most likely literal murder, blessed by Downer’s DFAT, why couldn’t the Masters Of Spin bury the odd mill for a rainy day, a few years down the track? Just to say how grateful they were?
Watch for soon-to-be-retired MPs (you know who they are) to suddenly disappear off to Europe, America… or some other flesh pot or other we probably haven’t ever heard of…. economy class of course (until the chauffeur-driven limo picks them up at the airport) and then wonder why, how could this possibly have ever happened?
While many of us were watching the message and laughing, it was the medium that was turning the tricks. Poor bugger us.
Follow the money
Glen, blossum, they are spending $ on school facilities. If I had my druthers they’d also be spending more $ in my favourite area of mental health, but at least today they announced continuation of funding for headspace = really good service delivery for young people & whole of health approach.
Frank, no, didn’t get the WA business news ….. guess I won’t be reading about their expose on Pete of the Costello variety ….. occupational hazard being in the west, Californians have been dealing with it for years, there is no easy way out of that quandry imho, US can’t do it right either ….. not sure that it can be managed right …..
Glen, for people to keep their jobs, you must have demand for goods and services. The stimulus packages, which have been well targeted, are designed to boost demand. The only ones on the planet who believe they won’t is the hapless Liberal Party.
HSO i am talking about using the cash handouts to pay for infrastructure god!
Then what about tax cuts Centre??
I am sure he has the courage to admit he isn’t to blame for it
Oz @ 112,
Believe it or not, environmentalism was around when Bob Brown was writing death certificates for Jimi Hendrix in London.
Seriouisly, The Greens and Bob Brown are basically cuckoos nesting in the achievements of others.
They have done nothing and taken us nowhere.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2514789.htm
GG the Nuclear Disarmament Party had more coherent policies than the Greens lol!
Glen, you must admit, that if payments are well targeted, more of it is more likely to be spent than tax cuts. Besides, we are going to be in deficit. There is no way that tax cuts are sustainable as oppossed to one-off payments. Proving that Labor are better economic managers lol.
Glen,
Was that before or after they were taken over by the Trots.
For the millionth time, infrastructure can’t be built fast enough to have a fast stimulus effect. You can’t get a FASTER stimulus than just handing people a lump of money.
If you look at Table 2.1 on page 17 of UEFO, it is predicting that most of the infrastructure money won’t be spent until the 09-10 financial year, i.e. from July 1st to July 30 next year. It takes TIME to plan, design, and build infrastructure projects.
If you wanted a 100% infrastructure stimulus, you should’ve called for it at this time last year.
Before lol!
Glen you seem to be mixing up your state elections with federal election. Howard proved they are different. Because Barnett is popular means Jack Shite when it comes to a federal election.
When are you likely to spend more? If you get $35 given to you each fortnight for a year, or if you are given $900 all at once?
According to treasury, a lump sum payment is more likely to be spent, or at least a greater proportion of it spent, rather than the same amount of tax relief spread over a year.
134 BB – the advertising was an absolute disgrace. I doubt Glen would even bother trying to defend the Libs against the ANAO report.
Well you’ll have a well oiled Lib machine over there and the WA ALP are a joke right now so i doubt they’ll capitalize…
PLEASE WA LIBS GET RID OF TUCKEY, yeah he’s funny but god he adds so little to Parliament…
I am tipping yet another stimulus package after this $43b. The Liberals will be dying
Glen, I don’t think you have ever responded to the question of the total cost of a nuKluar facility. For instance, the cost both economic and environmental of extracting and purifying the stuff, transporting the stuff, decommissioning the plants when beyond their use by date, and storing the waste, securely, for 250,000 years.
You can get back to us on that, of course.
It’s so well oiled that the only people allowed to make announcements and comments are Colin Barnett & Christian Porter
I don’t buy the ‘Liberals are in terminal decline and are going to split’ John Pasquereli argument, but seriously, there is a lot wrong with the Liberals, and Tuckey’s presence in parliament a big sign.
Can I ask a hypothetical political puzzle?
After the 2007 election, there are three candidates for the Liberal leadership; A(bbott), B(ishop) and C(ostello). An infallible political genius, let’s call him Adam, tells the Libs that one of their candidates will win the next election but the other two will lose in a landslide.
Adam asks the Libs to choose their candidate and they choose A. Adam says to them “Well what a wonderful choice. I’m going to tell you that B was going to be a complete flop. That leaves your choice A or C. Just to be nice, I’m going to let you swap A for C if you want to. What should the Liberals do?
but not funny ha ha
Grog,
How long before Uncle Howie becomes the party embarrassment with the lampshade on his head?
Might be the chance for the current Libs to dissociate themselves from the past.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2516100.htm
I never thought the whole “We’re in a recession so we don’t need to cut emissions for a few years” line made any sense.
Diogenes,
Pick the one with the biggest boobs.
GG, dont be late. Try SBS right now. Friday night 10-11pm is happy hour on SBS.
Of course there are costs, but Australia exported $10 billion of the stuff last financial year. If we gave that up, we would have to find another industry, or take a hit to our living standards. Most countries with nuclear power charge an excise on the production of nuclear power to fund decommissioning of the plant. Generation III and V plants will be able to operate for much longer 40 – 50 years, which will effectively reduce the decommissioning costs.
Swap. Abbott has no hope.
They’re a long way form that stage yet.
Diogenes, that’s a very funny question. They’ll keep doing just what they’re doing, and provide vast amount of mirth. Except I want the ABC turned upside down, shaken up and told how to report IMPARTIALLY. It’s really getting up my nose.
Glen,
If I remember correctly, the Trots trying to take over the NDP was actually a cathartic moment for Peter Garrett. Him and the Oils were stridently anti nuclear at that time. But, the whole NDP debacle probably helped push him in the direction of mainstream politics.
The place where things are actually done. The rest is history.
Finns,
I’m always happy.
No government will ever change the culture of the ABC. It is impossible. Labor tried with David Hil, the Liberals tried with Donald McDonald, but it makes no difference. They just do what they want.
Personally I’d merge ABC and SBS, but no way would ABC be allowed to show commercials DURING movies the way SBS does.
Malcolm Turnbull – 2008-2012
Peter Dutton – 2012-2015
Mal Brough – Prime Minister (2016-2026)
these polls (one in USA and one in Australia) could maybe point to a drop in green support?
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/four-in-10-americans-think-global-warming-exaggerated-20090313-8xx8.html
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/climate-concerns-fading-as-economy-dives-20090312-8ver.html
I.R. in France – workers hold Sony boss hostage:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25184032-23109,00.html
Dutton is your Latham aye? That sounds about right.
How is the Liberal Party going? Even Glen dosen’t think they can win ’til 2016.
Showing promise does the Young Turk but losing the 2013 handily against Rudd but Brough easily downs Gillard in 2016.
@156
This is an old puzzle.
Answer: Swap.
A – 1 in 3 chance of winning
Not A – 2 in 3 chance of winning
Because A is the choice, “Adam” deliberately keeps him alive as a candidate, dud or not. Instead he eliminates one of the two unchosen candidates, at least one of which is a dud. He eliminates B.
Thus, Not A = C
That means C has a 2 in 3 chance of winning. So if you play the percentages, you gotta choose C.
Shows
pyne is on lateline (btw has his voice finally broken)
BB
The amount of moolah that the Libs have rorted would probably exceed the stimulus pkgs
maybe thats why rudd is giving back to Oz what the libs gave to big business
When I hear him these days he seems to be trying to sound more ocker by extending his vowel sounds: maaaate, ruud, gillaard
David,
Tomorrows Lotto numbers please.
Thanks for the insightful responses.
The correct answer is to swap from A to C because A only has a 1/3 chance of being the winner and C has a 2/3 chance of being the winner. I was trying to make a point about heuristics and the human mind illogically not wanting to change from a likely loser to a likely winner. But it’s pearls before swine again.
Centre,
A couple of things.
Firstly, well done (so far) with your prediction of the other day that the stock market had bottomed out. If it keeps going like this we’ll have to dub you the Oracle of Pollbludger!
Secondly, Oppositions don’t win elections, Govts lose them. It’s extremely difficult to see the Libs getting up in 2010, but the one after that? – who knows.
I think the next Liberal MP will be Greg Hunt, about when he is 56 (after his voice has broken).
Showson
Turnstello?
David
Thank you. You have restored my faith in our bludgers. The interesting thing is why do so many people think it’s a 50:50 guess and choose not to swap.
How does this mesh with 2007? Rudd won that election because he made Howard look 1) old 2) out of ideas 3) out of touch
Do you mean The Government lost that election because they didn’t get rid of Howard themselves?
Shows
Its actually greg hunt on lateline- my mistake
*thats why he didnt sound like pyne*
Not once you eliminate B. Then A and C are 50/50.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?
Have another drink.
ShowsOn:
- PM too old – should have got rid of him
- WorkChoices ridiculous – should never have done it
- Kyoto humbug (but popular humbug) – should have signed it
I’m not disparaging Rudd’s campaign, it was excellent, one of the best ever. But I don’t think it can be denied that the Libs played a huge role in their own downfall.
And look at some other changes of government – far more of them are caused by Govt stuff-ups, than by whatever the Opposition of the time is prattling on about.
Hunt for 2013/2016…it would be nice to have a Victorian as PM again…
dyno,
Most sentient being knew this in advance.
Sounds like you are ready to change sides.
Adam
When you removed B from the three options, you knew it was wrong. Removing B did not change the probability that A was right. It stayed 1/3. It’s called the Monty Hall Problem and even the greatest mathematicians often say it’s 50:50. It’s a famous example of heuristics which straight-jacket our brains into making the wrong choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/swiss-banks-to-drop-secrecy-rules-20090313-8y16.html
Damn, damn, damn, where can you put your money these days. Not in your super, not under your bed, not in the stock market and not even at Fort Knox:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/world-business/china-seeks-assurances-on-us-debt-20090313-8xkz.html
Is Stephen Long dressed up to finally ask Leigh out?
The worst mistakes:
1) Howard not resigning around say December 2006
2) Costello not challenging around say December 2006
3) Howard announcing that he wanted to be re-elected so he could retire!
Adam, I would rarely contradict you, but in this case you are wrong. It’s not 50/50. It’s quite a well-known puzzle, actually.
“Adam” has provided some extra information by choosing to remove B (instead of C). Once he’s done that, it’s not just a random choice anymore.
actually,youngest son has a tooth growing into an existing tooth,major swelling, antibiotics, sleepless night , dental paeditrician blah blah blah and im just completing an assignment for monday.
So Tv has been a background noise, only when i focussed did i realise it was hunt not pyne
I’ll save the drinkies till next week.
Um, maths isn’t my department, but surely if you have to choose from three possibilities, there is a 33.3% chance that your random pick is correct, and if you have to pick from two, there is a 50% chance.
Glen,
Coming (in a few years to you) to a screen near you.
Gillard, Tanner, Shorten, Danby………….
He’s in with a shot! He was a member of the Storeman and Packers union. Our first Liberal unionist P.M.?
Well, GG, if you get the Kafka stuff about the “attack on Therese Rein” going again, I might say I’ve changed sides, just to end the torture!
Yes it is. All you have told me is that B wasn’t the correct answer. There is still a 50% chance that it is A or C.
Lateline had Chris Bowen debating Greg Hunt. Bowen is a serious future leadership contender in my opinion.
Thanks Dyno, There will be some profit taking from here but the overall trend will be up.
But the original post says that ONE of them certainly won’t win.
BOOOOOOOOOOOO!
So these two will be squaring off for the 2016 election?
Yes, and that was B. We have no further information, so our pick between A and C is random.
Most likely with Hunt the victor at 53.5 to 46.5 2PP
The Liberal Party as currently constituted will never elect Hunt leader. He is far too wet.
Adam
If you read that wiki link, you’ll see that many Nobel Prize winning mathematicians agree with you initially, but are wrong. It took Paul Erdos one week to agree that “swap” is the best answer and he was the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century, or close to.
But the really interesting thing is WHY so many people think it’s 50:50.
Ahh Adam who is leader atm??
We elected Turnbull we can elect Hunt.
Because they didn’t want Tony Abbott to be the candidate.
He’s only The Temporary Leader of the Opposition remember.
We have no further information about A. It has a 1/3 chance of being right, just as it always did. The rules of the game are such that “Adam” can’t take A off the menu, because A was the one “Glen” first picked.
One the other hand we now know it can’t be B.
Nope. They are sticking with A(bbott) and not swapping to C(ostello) which would be the logical thing.
“On the other hand …”
Perfect 10 for Leigh’s hairstyle tonight.
Glen,
You seem to have a manlove thing going with the MHR for Flinders
Can you tell us if his nickname is “Mike”?
Rudd’s only the temporary PM. And you and I are only temporarily alive.
Greg Hunt called Visy “A great Australian company”. Great Australian companies don’t fix prices, which ultimately rips off consumers.
OK, I give up, it’s far too complicated for me.
O RLY?
GG, I didn’t realise you had one!
Are you claiming to have found the elixir of youth? Or is this some kind of theological statement?
How does it make sense that a $900 hand out equals a $9500 debt for the government? I don’t think Mike can count.
Hunt is much wetter than Turnbull. Furthermore I suspect Hunt actually has principles, which means he must be an unhappy boy at the moment.
Suerely when B is eliminated, the odds on A being correct increase from 1/3 to 1/2?
If the Liberals are so angry with the money going to tax payers and pensioners overseas, why didn’t they propose an amendment in the House or Senate excluding them?
It means “oh really”, it’s a common response when someone states the obvious. Sometimes it comes with a picture of a startled owl, e.g.:
http://m.blog.hu/ho/hogyanfu/image/01/orly.jpeg
LOL! Mike’s favourite novel isn’t a novel.
Diogs, initially the chances of either A, B or C are 1/3.
After B is eliminated the chances of A and C are 1/2.
There is no need to swap A with C.
C’s chances increase from 1/3 to 1/2 (the same as A) after B is eliminated
No because Adam had no choice but to leave A in there. Adam is always polite, he can’t say “Glen your choice of A was stupid so you must change to one of the other two”. He has to say “good choice, now I am telling that B/C is not the right one, do you want to change?”.
So we don’t know any more about A than when the game started.
It’s been fun, but that it’s for me this fine evening. See you.
Yes we do. We know that the chances of it being the correct door have increased from 1/3 to 1/2.
dyno,
One!
I’ve got the bait to get as many as required. I’m a conversationalist afterall.
I have read the Wiki page and I guess I’ll have to accept the majority view. It still makes no sense to me, although I do see the strength of the “suppose there are a million doors” argument. This kind of stuff as always been beyond me, I don’t have the right kind of brain for it obviously.
Adam when did i ever back A?
Gee, GG. I read everything, or maybe not, but it is a little tedious.
What I am interested in is your picture. I want to get a dog, not really sure why, but, yours is a little like the type of the one I am hoping to find.
An African dog or mix. Doesn’t bark. Docile, great runner, affectionate and other qualities.
Talking Heads featured John Wood last week or so; his dog looked similar.
Any clues about your dog and where to try to get one?
GG,
Boom boom.
Glen I think our names were being used hypothetically.
Glen, you just seemed the obvious PB “character” to be selecting a Liberal leader in our little mathematical game, that’s all.
Glen,
Did you get the drugs you are using tonight from Terry Clark?
He and his girlfriend Dorothy Smith from the Toorak Young Liberals have been enjoying several alcopops.
Definitely a famous mathematical problem, I learnt about it in a statistics course.
crikey,
With William’s indulgence, I will post some quality contacts in the next day or so.
Our experience is to find a dog with a personality to fit the family. Being dogmatic (sorry) can be time consuming and time wasting.
I failed Year 10 maths, so it’s obviously a pointless and stupid activity.
*departs*
The only way in the world that C’s chances become greater than A’s is if it is stated that A’s probability is fixed (at 1//3) after B is eliminated. Am I wrong?
ShowsOn leave Dorothy out of this.
Personally i think that Costello will hang around to see the end of Rudd then he’ll retire.
Fair enough, she’s your Therese!
Here’s a reason to be positive from Megalogenis. Businesses are so profitable now that they can afford to keep staff on for longer compared to previous recessions.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php/theaustralian/comments/profit_buffer_keeps_staff_safe_for_now/
Thanks, GG.
My brother had a dog of the type I describe, and we all loved her. Sadly, she died and the bro does not want to do another dog. Hence my interest in the type.
Looked at all the white fluffies etc, but, no, not really. My first and only dog was an Irish Setter, who despite horrid stories of the breed, was smart (or am I dumb) loyal, brave and adventurous. I have described certain of her exploits in posts past.
Look forward to your info.
I am a bit confused about whether I am at the mafs address or the crikey whitey address. Hope William knows.
Apart from all else, I am less than thrilled, politically and water wise. Have noted your comments since the election. So, apart from what I do say, just don’t want to give the bottom trawlers ammo.
Not as if they have a clue.
For those who are struggling with the counterintuitive nature of the puzzle, I’ll cjange the scenario. Imagine there are 1,000,000 people in the Lib Party and only one will win the next election and 999,999 will lose it. Adam lets Glen choose one person. Glen has a 1/1,000,000 chance of choosing the “winner”.
Then Adam starts throwing out all the losers one by one until he’s thrown out 999,998 sure-fire losers and only two candidates are left. Adam has gone to quite a lot of trouble to chuck out only losers. The argument that the two left are 50:50 of being the winner now looks silly because Adam has almost certainly left the winner and Glen almost certainly has the loser.
Think of it as having 1,000,000 marbles in a bag, 999,999 being black and one white. Glen reaches in and pulls one out but isn’t allowed to look at it. Adam than starts throwing all the black marbles out and only leaves one in the bag. Obviously Glen should swap his marble (which he hasn’t seen) for the one left in the bag.
Personally, of course, I don’t read this blog for the psephology.
I only come here to watch people stuff up mathematics.
(If there were x-1 pollbludgers, and by some non-existant, non-real-world process, we then eliminated x, etc)
(So thanks all. Riveting).
But re Lateline: isn’t Greg a complete Hunt?
And – fearless prediction – Mal Brough will never again be an elected representative. But dear Liberals: please keep getting excited about last weeks/years/decades model. Just makes it simpler, really.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/alarm-at-weak-greenhouse-targets-20090313-8xup.html
Good thing Rudd has the “balance” right.
Diogenes, Glen’s original choice has a 1/1m chance of winning and according to your scenario at 249 that probability remains fixed. Therefore Glen’s choice has no hope. Besides, Glen’s choice would have had no hope regardless
The answer is 42.
Now what was the question?
Is this guy suggesting asset deflation in order to provide cheap inputs for supply side economics?
It seems he is suggesting a fire sale of assets of stuffed companies thus being cheap purchases for some to thus make goods at a cheaper price?
If they were to follow that path just how long would it take to get up and running? And I guess it is demand for these cheaper goods that eventually creates jobs (low paid) and pushes up prices thus profits thus eventually wages. If it did work like that it seems it would take for eons to soak up the millions of unemployed.
This is the build it and they will come solution…but to build it cheap enough give us cheap assets and tax breaks. Meanwhile…poverty. I would have thought people with needs and money in the pocket (stimulus) would create demand faster and more directly feed into business stability and growth. And people with jobs and money to spend from infrastructure projects would do the same more directly … and lead to growth faster than supply side economics.
Not that I know that much about it. It just sounds weird in this environment for this to be espoused.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/03/its_time_to_stimulate_supply_n.html
Having watched Jon Stewart, he is an ace journalist. There should be more like that. And not the Jime Cramer genre. Be interesting to see if Cramer changes his style now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/arts/television/14watc.html?_r=1&hp
Apparently this is a story:
Wow what a shock in the economic world the US, Japan, France Germany and Japan are considered more important than us.
How will we ever recover from this shame. Oh wait, maybe by rememberign it have always been thus.
Pathetic news.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25184490-601,00.html
Tony Wright gets it right:
Oh sorry the link:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/a-smirk-waiting-in-the-wings-20090313-8xxs.html?page=-1
It must be because Rudd and Swan are so boring, no one wants to converse with them.
Aside from Bush visiting his hump poodle, when or how often do we get visits from the leaders of those nations, including the UK.
glad to see commentators like Grattan and Wright (finally) point out the poll numbers in their pieces. If you listened to/read some of the MSM commentators you could be fooled into believing the government is in trouble
Tony Wright is a very good journalist. No, I’m not related to him but have e-mailed him in regard to his articles and he has admitted errors of judgement, unlike others I’ve dealt with.
hasn’t rained this hard in melb for a year. feel sorry for the fire concert
isnt the ANAO report a MAJOR story- corruption in the Howard government? Yet not mention other than that article in Crikey. A much bigger story, perhaps, that Australian being a second tier country at the summit.
isnt it suprising that after children overboard, AWB, the rural rorts, Haneef, Hicks etc that most if not many in the general public seem to not regard the previous government as inherently corrupt?? (havent seen any polling but thats just my sense)
centaur
I’m really annoyed that the Fire concert isn’t being telecast, at least in SA. Everyone should be able to get in the spirit and donate money while it’s on. JJJ have it on radio though.
dont worry about the fire concert. Friend’s wedding today- horrible weather!!
Violence in South Africa is such a disgrace that it’s place as a civilised nation must be in jeopardy. And FIFA are holding that next World Cup there.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25185264-5005962,00.html
The UK does listen to Rudd.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/britain-backs-rudd-plan-20090313-8xxo.html
Shaun Carney looks at the Liberal’s IR woes. A good read.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/chasing-their-tails-20090313-8xx7.html
Great quote from the Carney article;
Brilliant!
Tom
MY sister rang me up this morning outraged. She had heard ABC Sydney TV News last night say the following (slight paraphrase):
… referring to his singing gig with the Oils.
I don’t ned to remind youse, but it is not a job. It is for free. All proceeds are being donated to those who suffered from the fires. This, along with the new currency (at least on the ABC) of the phrases “Toxic Bore” and “Rudd Recession” and their insistence in ignoring every serious economic commentator, business person and retail groups’ thumbs-up to the StiPac in favour of whateveritis that Malcolm turnbull says, makes me ever slightly suspicious that the ABC are running an agenda of some kind.
Yeah, but Carney’s slant is always how regretful it is that the Libs are losing. Don’t be fooled by Carney. He’s a Lib-sympathiser. As soon as things look a bit up for his pals on the Opposition benches he’ll revert to his old tricks.
BB, the ABC seems to just get worse and worse. All the lead stories on the web and on the radio are from the oppositions point of view- it’s unbelievable. Anything from the govt perspective is “defends” or “denies”. How long can this go on??
Andrew and it always opposition “accuses” “slams” “demands” etc.
The ABC will be beside themselves today what with the Liberal Conference in Sydney, should be good for at least a dozen Main Story headlines and enough photos to keep their website looking like the Libs homepage for the next 6 months
case in point: GG Africa trip ‘political agenda’ on front page, and under fire for political agenda in the main story
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2515987.htm
watching QT on A-Pac I continue to be amazed by the rabble that is the opposition, taking their lead from the OO/ shock jock talking points of the day. the international reciprocal social security arrangements that have been in place long term and always bipartisan (by which Australians get more money from overseas than we send there anyway) are now not supported by the opposition due the story about stimulus payments going overseas. Do they even THINK THROUGH these things or just make it up as they go along?? Astonishing
So long as it means the ALP is in power, for as long as possible.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25183156-7583,00.html
That explains why the Liberals voted against the electoral fund raising reform bill in the Senate this week.
And that explains why Family First Fielding voted against it.
It SHOULD be.
Apart from Keane’s excellent article all I could find was :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/05/2508296.htm
and
http://business.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/puppeteers-behind-the-howard-ad-campaigns-20090311-8v9u.html
The abc stroy is pathetic. The Brisbane Times one, much better:
Sydney 2 Melbourne 0, so far
What are you talking about Finns?
Diogs the Bushfire Concerts are being televised on Foxtel.
GG and Finns
I’m listening on JJJ. Coldplay are on. Of course, Mrs D has started whinging that one of her friends flew over to the Coldplay concert in Melbourne with her husband and why didn’t I take her? I asked how many Coldplay albums she could name and I was told to stop being so difficult.
A bit of postuuring rhetoric for the faithful but Malcolm seems to be signalling that he wants to play in the ETS debate.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/14/2516293.htm
Diogenes, is JJJ doing the Sydney or Melbourne concert? I’m listening right now and it’s Jet.
Michael Brissenden yesterday on the stiPac payments going overseas:
Does this man have a brain? Millions of payments going out, billions of dollars, reciprocal arrangements to be met, and all he can do is declare – without one scintilla of supporting evidence that the possibility of some of the money finding its way overseas wasn’t fully taken into account – that the overseas payments were “a big stuff-up”.
HE JUST BLOODY-WELL MADE THAT UP.
As he does with most of his intonations. The man is a true lightweight. Most of his answers on morning radio are, “I dunno,” couched to seem like he means “I dunno how they could be so stupid”, but actually my feeling is that he really doesn’t know.
BB,
I believe Australia is a nett winner from agreements about overseas payments of pensioners (more comes in than goes out). Also, the current arrangements were negotiated by a well known “stuffer upper”, Christopher Pyne.
Apparently, the adminstration cost to not pay overseas recipients would be more than the cost of paying too.
Oz
They’re doing both, probably going to what one’s the best at the time.
BB @ 273
How could Carney be a Lib sympathiser?
He’s a good working class boy from Frankston.
Diogs,
They seem to be swapping between completed sets. It’s like a humugus tag team wrestling event. (Keeps the action rolling while the roadies are setting up).
Carney wrote a biography on Costello back in the 90s. They may also have been acquaintances from Uni days.
Unlike Bolt and his ilk Carney gives it to all sides and that’s all I ask of any journalist really. I’m not after another ‘Bolt’ type spruiking for Labor.
Yes, Carney would have been a Monash around the same time as Costello.
The biography was unauthorised and I don’t think we should assume anything about his political leanings from the fact that he wrote a book about Costello – after all he was a political journalist specialising in IR issues.
I think Turnbull is playing the ETS wrong. Voting against it and wanting it delayed just mirrors the Libs inaction under Howard. Joe public wont get the nuances, all they will see is the blocking
GB youre right. The libs have ackerman, bolt, albrectsen, jones etc to spruik the party line without any semblence of balance. Labor doesnt have that, I wouldnt want that either
Philip Adams? Bob Ellis? The Age editorial board? In Adelaide, Peter Goers?
Well, those people don’t actually spout the Labor party line, they usually attack Labor for not being left wing enough.
Turnbull:
According to Turnbull, the greatest opportunity for abbatment is biochar.
The Garnaut review suggested excluding agriculture from an ETS initially, because there is a lot of debate regarding how to best measure, monitor, and enforce emissions from that sector oft he economy. When there are better ways of doing those things, then it can be included in the Government’s ETS.
Turnbull is talking about this, because he knows he can’t win a debate over the short, medium and long term targets with his backbench. So he is trying to differentiate the Liberal position from the Government’s in a way that doesn’t upset the climate change deniers in his own party.
Two of Douglas Wood’s Iraqi rescuers given permanent refugee status:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25185474-601,00.html
The astonishing thing about Labor’s success over the past 20 years is that it’s been done in the face of total media hostility. There is no pro-Labor media at all. 80% of the media (the Murdoch press and virtually all the commercial electronic media) attacks Labor from the right, and the other 20% (the Fairfax press and most of the ABC) attacks Labor from the left. The ABC now seems to have a foot in both camps. But there is NO-ONE who does for Labor the kind of job that Bolt, Albrechtsen, Alan Jones, Neil Mitchell, Shanahan, Milne, etc etc, do for the Libs. And yet WE GO ON WINNING.
Ok Philip Adams, but agreed – he never gets treated the same in the Oz as do Abrehctsen, Milne, Shanahan etc.
Janet is treated like a fricken journo ffs. And Milne and Shanahan’s pieces merge between reportage and opinion so much there is no splitting them…
Diog, now
Sydney 2 (Weather, Coldplay/Farhnsey) Melbourne 1 (Paul Kelly)
Well, Adam, you’d have to admit that very few Government’s think kindly of the media (Howard suggesting the ABC was somehow a lefty-pinko-commie conspiracy in its entirety), and there are journo’s who have been highly critical mainly of the LNP and their ilk – David Marr springs to mind. Perhaps the issue is that conservative journo’s/opinion writers tend to attack non-conservative politician’s while completely glossing over any shortcomings in their own side – although in the case of the above mentioned Bolt, Albrechtsen, Akerman et al I’d suggest not conservative, just plain foaming-at-the-mouth rabid. Lefty journo’s seem afflicted with a need to be critical per se, so attack what ever they perceive to be wrong, hypocritical or dangerous (John Pilger comes to mind…), irrespective of who is saying it – and are perhaps especially hard on non-conservative political parties and MP’s because their is an assumption they should somehow know better.
The Labor position is usually the centrist position, to get that you need to read Megalogenis, Steketee, Grattan.
Howard loved talkback radio. So you can’t say government’s hate all media, it is after all the cheapest way for them to get their message out to the most people possible. Far more useful in that regard than parliament.
Of course Philip Adams, David Marr, Ken Davidson, Alan Ramsay and some others are anti-Liberal. But they are not pro-Labor in the way that Bolt or Jones are pro-Liberal. They are genuinely independent left-wing commentators. They are frequently critical of Labor from the left (sometimes correctly, sometimes not). There is NO-ONE of any importance in the media who sees it as their job to SUPPORT Labor, day in and day out, the way a whole phalanx of media scribes and talking heads are dedicated to supporting the Libs.
Oh, forgot to say, perhaps this means that the Australian electorate is not as gullible as those writers (Bolt etc) seem to think they are…OR…it is a preference shaping exercise that has conditioned the Australian electorate to believe only certain policy and political outcomes are reasonable, thus shifting the centre of Australian politics rightwards – so that what were once hard-right viewpoints now seem centrist, and what was reasonable before is now extreme (the universality of benefit payments or socialised medicine – and company bailouts can’t possibly be seen as in anyway smacking of nationalisation…).
I think Labor keeps winning because it keeps re-learning the lesson of on-the-ground campaigning. We might not need to get-out-the-vote but if all the electorate see is glossy adverts they may come to switch off the message. The Conservatives do well now as they spent 11 years conditioning the public to accept free market policies as the ONLY policy proscription – in both economic and social settings – but will need to watch out they don’t lose the ground game (John Major anyone – the hollowed-out party problem of 1997).
I agree that Megalogenis, Steketee, Grattan and also Laura Tingle appear to have views fairly close to the moderate centre where the ALP now lives. But they are also independent commentators, not Labor partisans. Michelle Grattan would cut of her right hand rather than write a partisan word.
Part of the problem is that journalistic partisans of the left have STANDARDS and SCRUPLES. They don’t want to be committed supporters of the ALP, they want to be independent commentators, who call it as they see it. Well, good for them. But their counterparts on the right have no such scruples. They are happy to be shameless shills for the Liberals. So we get this wild imbalance in the media.
nope as ShowsOn points out for any measured view of the ALP you have to find the centrist journos like George M.
To be honest I’m glad there aren’t any pro-ALP journos like Bolt.
#301,
But what about US, US, US!!!!!!!! We are more important than those FWs (Bolt, Albrechtsen, Alan Jones, Neil Mitchell, Shanahan, Milne,). We are the true voice.
In this new order, those FWs are simply voice in the wilderness.
Just like the new order that is emerging after the GFC and TGR.
ShowsOn – yes Howard liked talkback but that didn’t stop his government complaining about media bias (especially the ABC) when it suited them. The point is that the media is able to ferret out government shortcomings and no government actually wants this to happen – so they don’t like. All perfectly natural, but Adam is correct that there isn’t an Australian media cheer-squad for the ALP like there is for the Coalition. Howard could go on Alan Jones, have a grand old time chatting about, and being congratulated on, Coalition policy, cricket, policy, the latest dreadful ALP mistake and so on. Everyone else trod lightly around him…
Yes, Finns I agree, and a good thing too. (TGR?)
The Great Recession?
Albrechtsen attacked Turnbull for pushing regulation of CEO pay. But articles of this sort from her are pretty rare:
“Right’s crazy class war on CEOs”
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/rights_crazy_class_war_on_ceos/
They have sensible conservative commentators, like David Brooks whose articles in the New York Times always contain 1) An argument 2) evidence to back up that argument.
Instead we have people like Gerard Henderson who accuse people like Kerry O’Brien of anti-Liberal bias on the grounds that he was a staffer for Gough Whitlam over 30 years ago (he forgot to attack Barry Cassidy for being a Bob Hawke staffer over 25 years ago).
Well Rudd did ok on Sunrise…
It’s raining in Canberra. Hooray!
I think The Fins meant “us” as in we bloggers, not the USA.
But they of course have the entire fox network…
It’s bucketting down on the parched brown paddocks of the Monaro. Send er down Huei!
My recollection is that Howard ONLY ever called the ABC TV and radio biased, he didn’t accuse Channel 9 or Alan Jones of spreading pro-Liberal bias, which they constantly did. Howard’s claims of bias were biased, and thus could be comfortably ignored.
I don’t think Channel 9 is biased anymore, it seems that Packer had a personal hatred of Keating because he didn’t deregulate media ownership laws. This turned into a marriage of convenience with Howard, but has dissipated since Packer Jr, Jr sold the station.
And the left has MSNBC, which is just the opposite of Fox. I mean the lead anchor Chris Matthews is probably going to run for the Senate as a Democrat at the mid-term elections!
At least Australian journos resign when word goes around that they are going to run for a party at the next election.
The question of media bias extended to newsprint as well as electronic media – so newspapers could be biased (as well as the whole lefty-pinko-commie ABC).
Bet you watched John Farnham earlier didn’t you, he sang that song
Crikey US means We, not US the effing great satan. yes, TGR = The Great Recession
The old media are dying, TVs, Prints, Radio etc. their business models are collapsing and cannot be sustained.
the new media are emerging like the web, bloggin’, twittin’ and the biggest of them all, the mobile media.
It’s only the beginning with the new media. Nobody can and will control the new media and their technologies, not like the old media. it’s true democracy at work.
Nothing like blowing your own trumpet i suppose (no one else will)
http://news.smh.com.au/national
Fellow bludgers, for those interested, I posted a run down of Kevin Rudd’s approval ratings since he became leader of the ALP more than two years ago.
You’ll find the number 64 comes up quite a lot. It’s quite extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it.
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=5189
For comparison, here’s John Howard’s equivalent period:
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=5190
And for the nostalgic:
Some data on Gough Whitlam in ‘71 & ‘72.
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=5191
cheers vera:
Well at least he understands the part where it means it’ll keep Australia from going in to a prolonged recession.
high interest rates? lower levels of govt service? gee never had any of that over the 11 years of Howard.
there’s a reason you haven’t… there never has been anything like it.
(and too be honest I don’t understand it either!)
Between the popularity of Rudd and Obama one pleasing thing is that it is no longer fashionable (at least not in the media) to be stupid. That is a pleasant change from recent years.
Just started raining in Sydney as well. Rainy days all round.
I don’t think Bush and Howard were stupid (politically they were very smart), they were just ignorant.
You mean in a political sense, or in a numerological sense? Does “64″ have some significance in the Kabbalah?
Dunno, but the Nintendo 64 was pretty awesome.
I think I just saw Kate Lundy on TV at the WNBL game in Canberra.
‘When I’m 64′ was a good song.
It is because the Liberal Party are people poison. And they can’t change their ways it seems, just like their drag sisters in the US, the Republicans.
They had a decade of clear air, none else to blame for the state of the world, no skirts to hide behind. This is a Republican, Howard liberal, neo liberal.
The behaviour of anger and denial of the Republicans in the US after the election after the election mirrored that of the Liberals and it was a display of all the things that people hate about them, as if they were trying to confirm the electorates choice.
Liberals having lost displayed a bunch of unpleasant characteristics and tactics that simply confirmed for people that they had made the right decision. And they are still doing that.
That Turnbull speech sounds like a call to arms to support Workchoices and delay the ETS.
Just heard on radio news Turnbull declare he will vote against the harsh parts of Fair Work to make it less bad. hich means that Workchoices is better than Fair Work for Australians.
Commoder 64?
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20071210/Commodore_64_540×359.JPG
Have take issue with you there GB. The nadir of the Beatles. McCartney at his worst.
But the Commodore 64 was even better!
hich = Which
8 is a very lucky number for the chinese.
64 is special as it is 8 lots of very special luck.
May also be how many more years until we see the next lib PM.
Raining in Sydney? Try downpour in Kenso – enough for the sirens to be sounded (sirens??).
Ah, the C64, tape drive and all…
Adam dont forget we also have Derryn Hinch
Perhaps fortunately, the laws of defamation and good taste prevent me commenting on Derryn Hinch. Suffice to say, you are welcome to him.
Bucketing down in Alexandria as well. My streets turned into a river.
Oh and Alan Jones… the list just keeps getting bigger an bigger lol!
64 refers to Rudd’s special connection with China.
1. There are 64 hexagrams in the I Ching.
2. In China, the “64 Incident” refers to the Tiananmen Square Massacre as it happened on June 4, 1989.
Rudd’s coming was foretold in the I Ching.
ShowsOn 336
I agree Howard and Bush were not in fact stupid; Keating would have said that Howard had a PhD in deceit. But they both liked to sound stupid to appeal to the “battler”, whom they almost glorified for not being able to understand the world. I don’t pretend that intelligent people are always god, but stupidity or ignorance is not a virtue.
Whereas Rudd (and Obama) tries to explain things clearly, then base policy on that understanding. I find the change an improvement, and its refreshing.
I meant “good” when I said “god” in 351. what an appalling typo for an atheist!
Regarding Rudd and his consistently high ratings: the lesson here is that it doesn’t matter what is done to Rudd by others, it’s what he does that people judge. That’s what’s important.
Basically everything else is irrelevant.
Many insiders in Canberra have a hard time understanding that.
In 1964, Rudd was 7 years old. 7 being the luckiest number in the world.
Of course, there are also 64 squares on a chess board. The Ruddster is currently laying waste to the “black” players chess pieces. He’s taken a Bishop, a Queen and a few pawns so far.
The Finn Brother on stage in Melb. the Finnigans of the world unite!!!
seems appropriate with Obi and Kev in charge
I cheated and googled
http://www.virtuescience.com/64.html
8 in Chinese means “expand or develop”
Double 8 = 64 = ultimate expansion
BB @ 273,
Yeah, I wish people would bloody leave Pete alone already, its just gotten crazier in that regard the last few days! ……. There is NO one NO one that has done more for charities and reliefs and all number of causes for years and years ….. I was railing against Bob Brown for his complaints last night, I know right where you are coming from …. Don’t miss their set in Melbourne tonight, hope you can stay up for it, don’t know where you live but pretty sure it isn’t Perth where I am these days, …. Cheers
The Oils will be on at 9:50pm
http://www.soundrelief.com.au/melb/lineup.html
geez the crowd at the MCG is huge
Juliem but they have a point how he sold out some of his beliefs getting into bed with the ALP
Bullshit Glen, he just decided to actually join a party where he could do more than snipe from the sidelines
Glen, you mean he grew up. You should try it some time.
On page nine of the Courier Mail today, under a picture of an attractive and well endowed barmaid, is the line- “Bust drives boom in applicants”. The story is actually about there having been 1100 applicants for two bar positions.
Who agrees with everything they thought in their youth?
By your definition Glen, Costello sold out his beliefs when he joined the Liberal Party.
Mike Steketee talks perspective:
wow 6% better. Good thing we stopped and gathered some context…
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25183159-7583,00.html
The Labor brand has been enhanced 100 folds by having a struttin’ and rockin’ MP and Minister. Garrett has locked and sown up the 18-35 demographics for Labor.
Glen, your side is looking very outdated and just jealous you dont have someone like Garrett.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” (Emerson)
They have Normie Rowe.
Just read this on the Jack the Insider blog who are the 2 odd ALP men (women) out?
Adam,
Ooh La La!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQvA0xxT5g
Roger Price and Bob Debus.
That is the nature of the murdoch and conservative media in Australia. ‘Some’ of them are full of spite and malice no matter. If somebody on the non-conservative does something selfless and good, these guys will spit spite at them, trivialise it or otherwise denigrate and run them down. In effect they have the moral purity of the Howard government, that traded on racism, xenophobia, fear, lies, corruption….
But as the statistics seem to indicate people watch what Rudd does, not what people say about what he does. They can say Rudd doesn’t have a moral compass (aka Piss Pearson) and that Turnbull does; but the people seem to know he is talking out of an orifice, and assess Rudd more correctly.
Well so far people have been able to see past the wall of dishonesty sometimes errected.
GG, i forgive Normie on Oh La la, because he got a decent version of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ml3N2Lmuww
but he cant strut and rock like Garrett.
Kim Beazley likes to relate the story of the first time Labor conducted market research on Peter Garrett, which had them eagerly anticipating a bonanza from this very demographic. As I could have told them, it turned out none of them had ever heard of him. Garrett’s constituency, along with that of 1980s rock music in general, is middle-aged.
Agreed William. I am no longer in that demographic…
Is Normie Rowe a Lib supporter? Why on earth would he be? It was a disgraceful Liberal Govt that ripped him from fame and threw him into Vietnam.
William, that was when a rock star turned MP. now is an MP turns rock star.
My recollection is of Rowe defending the Vietnam War and conscription, but I am searching around and I can’t find anything, except his punch-up with Ron Casey on TV over the republic, so possibly I am wrong.
Same here Adam – I tried to find something – he does come across as ‘conservative’, but mostly when he defends Vietnam Vets.
Then again my Dad gets quite forthright about defending Vietnam Vets as well, and it’ll be a long cold day in hell before he votes for the party that sent him to war.
William,
I find those results quite strange. Garrett is regarded as being influential in winning Melbourne for the ALP at the last Victorian State Election. The result looked fairly grim until Garrett was scheduled to appear. He was enormously popular, especially with the younger crowd.
There is also a huge amont of anticipation about Garrett’s appearance tonight. My exclusive survey of about 25 teenagers and young adults who have camped in my living room reveals that they all know Garrett is a politician in the Government and they see him as being “cool”.
An interesting question this: is there anyone prominent in the arts and entertainment in Australia who has publically identified as a Liberal or as a conservative generally? I can only think of a few scribblers in the Quadrant clique, like Les Murray and Barry Humphries, and Joan Sutherland – none of them exactly in the groove, as it were.
Their Government has put us as the “B” List of country. Why do we need two B List Royals to “address” us. FFFF-offf.
Athol Guy?
GG, my point exactly.
Regular headline writer at ABC on-line must be taking a sickie.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/14/2516361.htm?section=justin
Athol Guy – who could forget his stellar political career?
a few of the country singers would probably be more to the right?
Guy Sebastian and Lee Kernaghan probably.
found this from google (not Australian songs):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/arts/music/25brockweb.html?_r=1
Hmm would take issue with afew of those…
Then there was this blog:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2006/05/50-more-conservative-rock-songs.html
Here’s his motto:
Anyway he has 50 more songs. the fact that he lists Born in the USA as number1 shows he has no fricken idea.
362, thanks much for speaking up for Pete
Glen, do you even own any MO albums or have downloaded any? Curious minds want to know if a Lib can separate his music library from his political library
……
Sir Richard Jagger is indeed a Tory now, but he wasn’t when he recorded Sympathy for the Devil. That article is a load of tosh. The Sex Pistols were anarchists. “God Save the Queen / It’s a fascist regime.” – Very Tory lyrics
HAHAH, they have The Clash as being conservative. Gold.
I well remember the day I heard “Born to be Wild” as elevator Muzak.
JJJ just replayed Your the Voice by Farham and Coldplay; I thought it sounded like a stupid idea, but it sounded surprisingly good. The audience sing-a-long made it.
no worries juliem!
The fact that the national review had to twist any lyric it could find to make a song sound “conservative” demonstrate pretty well that most artists are more lefty than not: eg
which neglects the lines:
So I guess having a go at both Heath and Wilson means it’s a conservative anthem???
What was Howard’s comment about liking Bob Dylan’s MUSIC, but not the lyrics!?
Yep I don’t think “Street Fightin’ Man” off the same album would get a high rotation down the Young Lib HQ
He probably read Playboy for the articles too.
Reading the blog from the conservative guys top 50 songs:
errr… I mean… just speechless.
Must be a joke, Grog.
Howard said his favourite Oils song was “Beds are Burning”.
Grog dont forget that famous 60s song the “Ballad of the Green Berets” by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler the only pro-Vietnam War song ever made
Some respect at last! The article is dismal though.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-hegedus/jon-youre-wrong-it-is-a-g_b_174712.html
[but I especially love this celebration of gun ownership.[
Happiness is a warm gun (bang, bang, shoot, shoot)?
Oh wait! Just got that Jon Swift is a satire (duh!!)
geez I’m slow sometimes!
I’m pretty sure Damir Dokic would be a Liberal.
He was in some wacko nationalist party.
Ah yes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH4-tOqLH94
Jon Swift has also come up with a top 25 conservative movies (apparently the Nat review had done the same) The ugy is quite funny (damn I hate it when I don’t get satire!)
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2009/03/10-best-conservative-movies.html
Happiness is a warm gun (bang, bang, shoot, shoot)?
Think about it.
John Farnham? I remember a few years back when all the musos were going to Canberra to protest against Howard policy on something to do with aussie CDs and he pulled out and was asked if his Liberal masters told him he couldn’t go
It seems that Turnbull wants to be in a reformed WHAM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25186298-601,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Your_Man_(song)
Mark Seymour ROCKS !!! MO is great but I’m glad I’ve had a chance to day to see live some of the music I didn’t get a chance to grow up with in America
I meant anyone who is prominent in the arts or entertainment NOW, not a bunch of 1960s fossils.
Trying to interpret Beatles lyrics just leads to brain explosions. (Oh, and endless arguments about which songs are actually covert criticism by Lennon of McCartney or vice versa)
I think it was over parallel CD imports. His manager / convicted tax evader Glen Wheatly tried to win Liberal pre-selection for Higgins before Costello won it.
Ok, Glen, asking again, you own any MO stuff at all?
……
(we’re watching on the big screen TV so its dash in and dash out from the computer room)
lol poor old Pete doesn’t get many invites does he.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/14/2516361.htm?section=justin
John Howard was a bull$41t artist, does that count?
I recall Kamahl being at like every Liberal victory dinner.
Thanks showson that would have been it
Kamahl… I rest my case, m’lud.
Nicole Kidman would be, although she supported John Kerry.
And she endorsed Keating in 1996. She likes to back losers it seems.
Last bit form Jon Swift:
His predictions for 2009:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2009/01/jon-swifts-predictions-for-2009.html
What about Russell Crowe?
You startled me a little there, ShowsOn, before I noted the missing Y. Your charge would be better levelled at Renee Geyer, who sang the Liberals 1975 campaign song – which you can listen to here if you have QuickTime or RealPlayer or whatever it is.
He ain’t Australian.
Turnbull’s buzz words ‘Jobs Jobs Jobs’. That is what we are going to hear from now on.
Adam has way too much influence in the direction this blog takes.
Muskiemp, I think the only job MT ought to be worried about is his own
…..
Muskiemp – Weird, that’s what Jenny Brocky from Insight just said.
I’m really liking the fact I don’t have RealPlayer on my computer right now.
But Fraser won! Geyer backed a winner.
You should be watching Five Easy Pieces on ABC2, one of the best films of the 1970s.
My recollection is that Renee Geyer hotly denied she was a Liberal at the time. She said it was a professional engagement, like a dog food commercial, and that she would have done the Labor campaign song too if they’d asked her. Anyway that only brings us forward from the 60s to the mid 70s. Renee Geyer is only five days younger than me, which makes her really really old
I just missed the sex scene, damn. Back to Iron Chef.
Best scene coming up.
Adam, you’re a Virgo eh?
The chicken salad sandwich scene is the most memorable.
After the debacle of last night’s Monty Hall problem, I bring this up with some trepidation.
Kurt Godel was the most famous logician of the 20th C. He showed that when using a set of axioms to describe a system, there are propositions that cannot be proved using those axions, ie our knowledge has to be incomplete.
When he was sitting for his citizenship exam in the US, he read the US Constitution and found that there were loopholes in it that could be used to turn the US into a dictatorship without breaking any part of the Constitution. Needless to say, he tried to point this out at his citizenship interview when told that he was lucky to be a citizen of a country which would always be a democracy. Fortunately for him, Einstein was with him and cut him off.
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/jerry_dworkin_p.html
Hold it between your legs Shows On
That’s what I was talking about.
I went away and thought about the Monty Hall problem last night, and I thought of a better way of explaining why the correct answer is to swap. When you make your initial pick, there is a 1/3 chance that the car is within a circle drawn around the door you picked, and a 2/3 chance that it is within a circle drawn around the other two doors. That remains true even if a cross is drawn over one of the two doors within the second circle. There is still a 1/3 chance that the car is within the first circle and a 2/3 chance that it is within the second circle. Since one of the doors in the second circle has been crossed out, there must be a 2/3 chance that the car is behind the door that is not crossed out. You can see why the only part of maths I was any good at was geometry, because it involves visual images rather than mental abstractions like algebra.
The Oils are about to start… geez the “vjs” on the V Channel are vacuous.
Adam,
well done. best explanation yet.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned this:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/03/11/60481_tasmania-news.html
Adam
Very elegant.
I think it was aired in the Senate during the week, but I was only half listening.
Adam @ 443, spot on.
Wow he is doing Beds are Burning. Would have thought it a bit awkward given the nature of the concert.
Expect the News Ltd. tabloids to have a field day with this tomorrow.
Man the Oils are tearing it up…
Agree Oz – but really anyone with any sense knows the lyrics have nothing to do with bushfires.
Yeah they sound awesome.
Yeah, but those people will just pretend they don’t have any sense if it means they can score a cheap political point.
Pete and the boys are not holding back are they?
It’s going to be on JJJ radio in a few minutes.
I think we all know based on this what Garrett’s true vocation is (just being cheeky …)
I liked it when Peter Costello made fun of Garret’s stupid dance moves in Question Time that footage is gold
I find that funny, because Glen’s implying both he and Costello are better dancers than Garrett.
The fact Hawker allowed that means you can’t complain about anything that happens in Q.T.
It just showed Costello to be a contemptuous, conceited fool.
I find it remarkable how well the Oils are coming together with bugger all practice. Shows how tight they were I guess.
Adam, i hardly think Garret’s can be described as an accomplished dancer a singer yes but god he is all over the place as a dancer and that is why Costello was hilarious in performing some of Peter’s moves in QT lol!
+1000
Poor Glen. How crap would it be not to be able to enjoy the Oils ripping up the stage?
Grog that is your opinion because i dont like that type of music, i prefer things much different to that but to each his own
I really enjoyed that!
I don’t care whether Garrett can dance or not. He doesn’t try to do so in Parliament. Costello’s buffoonery was not only disrespectful to Garrett (who has done more for Australia than Costello will do in his whole life), but more importantly disrespectful to Parliament. A Speaker with any spine at all would have sat him down at the very least.
From the Sunday Times:
Union Poserbroker Joe bullock: ‘Get Alan Carpenter back’ (sic)
What the hell does this have to do with the future prosperity of the nation?
Obviously Costello had nothing interesting to say, so he had to figure out a way to filibuster.
Perhaps Jenkins should have done the same thing to Gillard for her disgraceful attack on Christopher Pyne???
rock music?
I love the ambiguity in the phrase “Get Alan Carpenter back”.
Grog some rock is ok but i am very selective with modern music.
Jenkins did intervene, he told Gillard to come back to the question.
I’ve listened to JJJ more today than the last few years combined. The iPod made JJJ unnecessary.
I agree with Glen, Garrett can’t dance to save his life, but, he is by far a better dancer than Costello was a treasurer.
Tom.
Tom – Solid Gold
Each to their own, but I don’t know if there is any music I not bothered with purely for political reasons.
I’m betting the DVD sales of the concert today will set a few records
No, the correct answer is not to necessarily swap.
Let’s say you have 3 keys; a red key, a blue key and a green key. One of those keys is really a magical golden key which will allow you entry into heaven. Each key has a probability of 1/3 of being the magical golden key. Let’s say Adam, Glen and Diogenes are given the choice of choosing a key. Adam goes first and chooses the red key. Followed by Glen who chooses the blue key. And Diogenes is given the green key. Then it is revealed that Glen’s blue key is not the golden key. It does NOT matter who chooses first. The probability of the red key and the green key become 1/2 and are both exactly the same.
It WILL NOT make any difference if you swapped the red key with the green key. It must be expressed after the red key is chosen that its probability remains fixed at 1/3 for the green key to have a better chance than the red key.
Congratulations Diogenes. “Diog you are wrong, again”. It is now folklore. You are the only one who has managed to disprove a famous mathematician – by being WRONG!
Tom put Swan there instead of Costello and you are then spot on!
His political songs have got nothing to do with why i dont like his music Grog.
Sorry – I made and arse out of u and umption.
466, thanks Glen for answering my question in a round about way, now I know you have no MO stuff ….. btw, in case you didn’t catch the between songs dialogue, Pete barracks for the Bombers, @ the only thing the two Petes will have in common
Well Costello might go bald eventually?
Grog 480, we are hanging out for that here at our house too …..
AND ….. for those who listened on the radio and didn’t see the TV coverage, the Max channel (as opposed to V) is having a MO weekend next weekend, the A – Z of MO and it kicks off at high noon Saturday east coast time. You can catch details on the Max website and/or program promos during the week …….
His brother has
If the person offering to swap KNOWS what is behind the doors, then it is best to swap. If the person offering to swap doesn’t know, and chooses to open a door at random, then it is best to stay with the initial choice.
The bass playing during Power & the Passion was awesome.
486 – Hearing and seeing Rob Hurst on drums was the highlight for me.
There was this Midnight Oil documentary where Hirst talked how he would lose 10 KG over the course of a long tour, irrespective of how much he ate.
Centre
You really need to look at the wiki site. Or at Adam’s very elegant solution, which is the most succinct I’ve seen.
On another matter, the SAJC report did recommend that the CEO and all the SAJC Board be sacked, as you had said. And the Sunday Mail for tomorrow has a front page “SAJC BOMBSHELL” and some naughty person has leaked the report to them. There is no link yet but there will be tomorrow. I’m reliably informed there are serious allegations of the misuse of funds and criminal charges will be following soon.
Now, imagine if you had 3 football teams that everybody knew absolutely nothing about. Teams A, B and C. Let’s say you are given a choice of a team to go into the grand final, and you choose A. Then C beats B to play into the grand final.
SWAP C with A because you know that it’s record is 1 for 1 whereas you know nothing about A.
That’s game, set and match!
The wiki site is wrong!
But that explanation only makes sense depending on how the question is worded, does the person offering the switch know who the winner is? Is it compulsory for them to offer a switch, even if the person chooses the correct door at the initial selection?
Mr. Bowe, the 18-35 demographics will know about Mr. Peter Garrett, the rocking MP by now.
If only the other pollies, from both sides, have the power and passion like Mr. Garrett, the Parliament will be better for it.
SO
True. The person offering the swap has to know which door has the car behind it so he can open a door he knows doesn’t have a car behind it.
I really hope we don’t get into Godel’s incompleteness theorem. That’s about 1000 times as ugly.
ShowsOn,
Yes and yes are the answers to your two questions.
Diog, you are wrong, again. It’s time for you to go stand under the Knowledge Tree and recite, 10,000 times, “what kind a fool am I?”.
Finns
The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing.
Good point Shows On @ 494.
Adam’s example basically merges the probabilty of B and C which effectively FIXES the prbability of A at 1/3.
Good news there sacking the board of the SAJC.
There are different versions of the puzzle is my point, and the best answer depends on the way it is worded.
Godel starved himself to death, because of his obsessive fear of being poisoned.
Which (for no particular reason) leads me to the question: if we were told we could rename any (already known) condition or disease “Pollbludger syndrome”, which one would we pick?
Centre
If I can’t convince you with maths, try playing the game yourself here. You will soon find that you only get the car 1/3 times if you don’t swap. Keep a running total.
http://math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/Monty/monty.html
ShowsOn, but that’s the way this puzzle (as first posed by Dio last night) is set up. Change that and we’re talking about a different puzzle.
Peter Garrett was not dancing, he was struttin’
Diog, did you audition for a remake of Hogan’s Heroes?
Fina @ 498. I am having trouble typing this with laughter
ShowsOn
A – why the heck are you talking about with probabilities?
B – who cares.
C – i wonder who will be on Insiders/Laurie/Meet the Press and Sunrise tomorrow?
… or Fawlty Towers?
Finns
Actually that was Socrates.
Dio i picked 1 and stayed with 1 and i picked the car WHOOO!
It’s only when you postulate the game being played with a trillion doors, and being played say 1000 times, that you see the inevitability of the counter-intuitive answer being correct. If there are a trillion doors, and you play the game 1000 times, the chances of you picking, 1000 times in a row, a door which has a 50% chance of being the right one are so impossibly remote as to be beyond my ability to express them. Yet that is what the intuitive solution requires you to do.
dyno
His wife has to taste his food before he would eat it. When she died he lost his food taster and perished.
Play the version where Monty doesn’t know the answer.
Did anybody see that girl Taylor Swift in the Sydney show? First time for me.
Boy, can she sing and only 19 and a stunner. you wish your sweet bird of youth has not flown away.
Perhaps we should move on to the liar paradox:
If I say “this sentence is false” is that sentence true or false?
It’s starting!
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25185829-5006301,00.html
ShowsOn i won again that is 3 in a row
You know the answer, so why don’t you just tell us, and BE HONEST this time.
dyno
A few are coming to me at the moment but I’ll keep them to myself.
I think it’s fair to say that they come out of DSM IV though.
OK Diogs,
I have had a look at it. With the example on the link you provided at 503, there are two seperate contingencies.
First choice in contingency one = 1/3
Second choice in contingency two = only the probability of C increases to 2/3
Basically a trick scenario.
Rubbish! You got Dorothy to tell you the answer cos she’s smarter.
dyno
It’s neither true nor false. Statements don’t have to fall into a true or false category. Some can be neither.
Bull Butter!
It was pot luck…
Me thinks Malcolm Turnbull will be on in the morning after all it is the Federal Council but who else??
QT next week. First question to the PM by the Opp. Leader:
“Mr. PM, will you sack the Min. for the Environment for singing the song Beds are burning?”
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (There is a correct answer and I can demonstrate its truth).
Go on then, Adam.
Juliem if you can’t wait for the DVD Youtube has allready got 2 MO videos from tonight up on their site to tide you over
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clOiwCBc7K0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31mbwgTavZk
neither
Something that was an evolutionary precursor to a chicken.
Ouch. Cruel but fair.
Theres still a 66% chance you picked a loser but now there is only one other choice.
and why did Garrett give that up to do battle with The Goons
“how do we sleep while the beds are burning?” — hmmm i know it is their famous song but it isnt really tasteful i know of other bands who didnt play particular songs…
Just wait for Andrew Bolt on insiders tomorrow
BTW has there ever been an Insiders with Ackers and Bolt??
The egg came first. The evolutionary precursor, as ShowsOn put it, laid the egg which would hatch into the first chicken.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25185901-5007146,00.html
Laurie Oakes with some food for thought.
Yeah, he usually goes out of his way to be shocked and offended by things.
Correct. All birds lay eggs, but only some birds are chickens, strictly defined.
WOW Next Saturday ABC2 is playing The King of Marvin Gardens, which is even better than his film Five Easy Pieces.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25188255-12377,00.html
The old media, my part in their downfall. Didn’t I posted about this earlier? yes, i did.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/03/13/morgan-605-395-4/all-comments/#comment-249840
“Barry can i just say this….” – Andrew Bolt on Insiders
just you wait….
Garrett said yesteday they were going to sing Beds Are Burning
I’m relieved the senate didn’t pass a disallowance motion on Midnight Oil set lists.
Vera 527, thanks much and will check it out
……
Glen
Only Lib wowsers like you will try that shit on and you’ll find yourselves on 20% 2PP if you keep it up. Jealousy’s a curse ain’t it. I’m sure you and the other 3 Libs losers that watch Insiders will have a lovely time LOL
I think Beds are Burning is about Aboriginals being disposessed, losing their homes? a very relevant song I would have thought.
Obviously Garrett will have consulted the bushfire victims’ group or whatever they’re called about singing Beds Are Burning. The lyrics
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning
are perfectly appropriate. It’s a song against complacency, which is a very timely message. Anyone who complains about this because of the word “burning” is just playing cheap and nasty politics.
Only the most spiteful in the media would ignore the whole purpose of all this to try and attack Garrett, deliberately and dishonestly ignoring the message of the song.
Surely even the murdoch media wouldn’t stoop that low.
vera 543, you go girl
…..
seriously, though, on the Beds song being played tonight? I think Pete might cop flak in the media for it but not in Parliament. I think that his time at the dispatch box in QT next week will be due to the QLD oil spill …….
Not for the faint hearted
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25188254-5001021,00.html
I know who’s side the public will be on if the media try it on, 100,000 screaming fans can make a hell of a lot of noise
Watch the Miserable Liberals try and make something out of it.
… and the wicked culpability of the Bligh government for causing a cyclone and then causing a tanker to have an oil spill. Shame! Resign! Rhubarb!
AA poll results so far show that the media aren’t making any headway with this ….
Poll Results
Thanks for voting, here are the results so far:
Was it appropriate for Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil to perform Beds Are Burning at the bushfire benefit concert?
Yes 72% (54 votes) No 28% (21 votes) Total votes Total of 75 votes
I don’t think they’ll try to score political points, but instead we will get to hear Wilson Tuckey reminisce about his days playing washboard in a jug band.
Shh Juliem, now you’ll have all the Young Fibs to action stations
The Liberals would be very silly to touch this one. Will only make them look small minded and totally obsessed with their own advantage. Only the sickest in the media would try to turn it into something.
Nah don’t think so …. Pyne has them trained well enough, if they were going to head that way, we would have seen the evidence already. The only thing they can turn out for is political stuff
…. unlike Glen, they know good music when they hear
…
it
TP the Libs wont touch this one too much, the media will though they love a good story!
551 – I thought that too. Amazing.
Yeah, Pyne gets kicked out of the House because he knows his training means he doesn’t need to be there.
Glen I’ll go for Milne on Insiders tomorrow? Bolt was there last week.
TP @ 555, we shall see I guess … [ The Liberals would be very silly to touch this one. ] They (the Libs) have moved “looking silly” to a new art form this sitting period and have one more week to take their good work to even higher heights
Courtesy of the fearless truth-seekers at the Daily Telegraph: Pauline Hanson nude, kind of. Don’t get too excited (if that’s the right word) by the graphic content warning.
I’m betting on Ackers…
“Look Barry, Look Barry…” LOL
I wanna see an insiders with Ackers, Bolt and Milne lol.
Also id like to see one with Crab, Mega and Taylor the Rudd huggers.
I think the media may well make a fuss about Garrett, purely because they have to write about *something*.
I don’t think the Liberal Party will do so, though one could never be sure what Tuckey or one or two others might do. Tuckey’s hardly representative of the entire Liberal Party though.
William,
That’s the kind of journalism that made the DT what it is today!
Obviously Glen classifies anyone that doesn’t criticise Rudd 100% of the time, like Akerman, as a Rudd hugger. Juvenile thinking Glen.
I think the Libs and their media cheer squad would be disappointed because the Oils HAVE DONE these songs, they were probably hoping all the talk during the past week about how he wouldn’t be able to the controversal type songs would make him wimp out and then they could say he was guttless and his comeback was a flop etc.
and come out struttin’ (as Fins would say) and wowed the crowd and stolen the show,
But Pete has shoved it right up ‘em
Libs will hate it, just look at glen’s comments lol
Kylie Minogue’s version of I Still Call Australia Home brought some people to tears…………………..everytime I hear her “sing” my ears bleed!
Actually I would like to see Piers, Milne and Bolt ask Gillard questions on Insiders. Julia would take them to the cleaners.
It must be about time they had Malcolm ‘I’m ready to rule the world’ Turnbull on again
These things always backfire on the Liberal party or their media supporters. They rely on the population being totally narrow minded. Like Rudd’s Score’s night out. When the actions or allegation don’t match the known character the story is rejected or not taken too seriously.
In the end all they might achieve is letting everyone know Garrett was an iconic rock star who has still got ‘it’. Pretty neat really.
You’re getting a bit carried away, Vera.
This Lib loved it.
I see Redwombat had scooped me on Pauline Hanson at 548. I also see that her belly button’s an outie. She’s lost my vote.
Ask S.A. Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith a question:
http://blogs.news.com.au/adelaidenow/guestblogger/index.php/adelaidenow/comments/liberals_will_listen_and_learn/
good on you dyno
Come on Glen, as M.H.S. a question, get your Dorothy Dixer skills up. You too one day could be like Andrew Southcott.
I asked MHS if he knows his niece Dorothy is going out with a Pollbludger named Glen.
Cheers Vera. Goodnight all.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E5DD1738F933A25757C0A962948260
Nearly 7 foot? I thought he was exactly 2 metres, i.e. 6′7″?
He’s not bald, he shaves his head. There’s a difference.
*Departs on a high as always*
For the Hilliary fans
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/13/hillary-clintons-hair-the_n_174856.html
Garratt on his choice of setlist.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25189004-5005361,00.html
Sesame Street explains Madof…and executes appropriate punishment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/13/sesame-street-explains-th_n_174551.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25187390-5006010,00.html
Pat Farmer, the Liberal non-politician MP, tells it as it is.
Y’cant condemn him for being honest. The Liberal Party is full of hacks who crack open the champagne every time figures are released showing the economy is getting worse. They don’t care about Australia, they just care about getting back in to government.
548, 562.
Fush and Chup Biaaatch from Ipswich – Nasty!
Even at that young age, one can see the rotten core of her soul through the eyes.
The Liberal Party should not be allowed anywhere near government whilst they still harbour desire for their old Howardian policies.
If they cant see that Workchoices was a disgrace then they should be kept out until they do understand why.
If they cant understand that trading on racism, xenophobia, using the defence forces as an election tool and possibly bringing about the death of 300 by drowning… is wrong then they should be left out in the cold at 70/30.
They need to clear out all that immoral filth from the beliefs and practices. That means there are a number of senior members in the Liberal Party that should be given the chop, including Minchin and Costello.
It is amazing how much events in the USA are mirroring events here. The USA is now fighting over a Union bill. And the Republicans are behaving the way the Liberals did after the election.
If Howard had won the last election then don’t bank on freedom of speech and, this GFC would have been excuse to totally remove powers from individual Australians in any number of areas. Howard would have turned Australia into a 18th century junk yard ruled by a big business aristocracy.
Swan at the G20
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/14/xin_2020306142048609299434.jpg
Gee even a close up Swan
G20 finance ministers, bankers meet in Britain for talks on financial crisis
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/14/content_11008986.htm
I think any picture of Pauline Hanson is graphical content, just quietly. Don’t let the kids near her…
Dyno last page, etc:
“Yields falsehood preceded by its quotation” yields falsehood preceded by its quotation.
If you can make head or tail of the book I plagiarised that from (Godel Escher Bach), give yourself a gold star.
I’m so glad i’m gay.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/gallery/0,22056,5033713-5010140-14,00.html
What question did she ask, and what did Howard respond with?
And speaking of Sesame Street, here is an ultra rare ode to the show by Stevie Wonder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q-GX2hOlNk
I note that today’s topic revolved about Conservative Rock and Pop performers, mainly Australian. As well as Sir Michael Jagger, another unlikely Conservative artiste is none other than the Prince of Darkness himself Ozzy Osbourne – and here he is performing his most famous song Paranoid at Betty Windsor’s 80th Birthday bash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuzuWlUeMwo
My mistake, it was actually in honour of Her Maj’s Golden Jubilee Year.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2516010.htm
If Bob Brown is not careful, he might turn out to be the Pauline Hanson of the Green Party. I just hope there aren’t any nude photos of BB out there hanging about. Not pretty.
After a sensational day and night of music yesterday and waking up to a beautiful sunday with the sun sifting thru’ the leaves. You gotta love this country.
A very peaceful sunday to all bludgers. yeah, peace like a river.
Finnigans 596, he just crossed that bridge this weekend imho X(
maybe the West Australians didnt do the right thing by changing governments, looks like they may live to regret it.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25186044-5017962,00.html
And so it starts ……..
Sounds like a one term government coming up Judith, well that’s the argument used against the Rudd government and the WA crowd are sitting on a wafer thin majority. I wonder if Carpenter will be tempted to make a comeback if they Labor has a real chance of being elected next election in WA.
The DT is going hard at MT this weekend
Gary, the Govt. here aren’t sitting on a wafer thin “majority” at all, its worse than that. They (Libs) are in the minority (less elected than the Labor party) and governing ONLY with the support of the Nationals. Governing in the minority is a trick regularly used by the conservatives in Canada and it generally doesn’t go over well (quite frequent elections there) when your position is held up only by your ability to keep your campaign promises.
The house of cards is very shaky
Re. Milne’s article.
I’d be faintly impressed – faintly – at this waffle, if it was a one-off about the Lib leadership contenders.
But this must be article #3,967 by Milne, about Costello, concerning Costello’s inevitable rise to leadership,,, of what? The morally and politically bankrupt Liberal Party, so far on the other side of the universe away from returning to government that they’d need The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy to find their way back (and a barrel-load of Babel Fish to make sense to anyone who – an unlikely even – was trying to understand them).
Milne has been pushing this barrow about Costello taking over for three years now, ever since he broke the Walletgate story in 2006.
Both men, Costello and Milne have nothing better going for them than the legends about themselves that they have written out on table napkins and little pieces of paper during their own boring, pompous lunchtimes.
Meanwhile, on Insiders, Gerard Henderson is still waxing lyrical about Work Choices. His basic point is “People of Australia, you were wrong.”
Are people really shocked about Hanson’s topless photos?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25181284-952,00.html
That Gerard Henderson is pathetic. He shows total disdain for his two female colleagues on the Insiders.
Ah Gerard, may the LIbs take your suggestions seriously thus showing the public that they still haven’t learned their lesson. What makes these people think that in a time of rising unemployment workers will want to embrace a system that makes it easier to fire someone and with less compensation? Nice one Gerard
Interesting the panel was all Fairfax journos. They usually have a balance.
I think the line is that if it’s easier to fire workers the “Business” is more likely not to.
Funny, isn’t it? How the Libs’ line was that in a boom it WC was needed to get even more people into work. Labor cautioned against what would happen in a bust. Well, we have the bust and look at the Libs: proving Labor was 100% spot-on the money. Yet the Libs continue to spruik WCs.
Who are the geniuses running the Libs?
In good times and in bad, the Liberals’ “answer” is always WorkChoices. They’re WorkChoices addicts, the Liberal WorkChoices Party of Australia.
Low wages + removed job security = low consumer confidence and spending. The last thing the domestic economy needs, in good times and especially in bad.
Seems the Liberals would happily trash the domestic economy in the cause of their anti-worker, anti-union fixation. They are economically-irrelevant.
BB 603
regarding the Libs, you left out financially bankrupt, in Qld at least
I wonder if they could be pursued for trading while insolvent? After all, they are cerainly in the business of selling something, as opposed to creating something.
In the current climate Labor should just smile any time Henderson or any other Liberal is stupid enough to open their mouth about Workchoices. And yes they are proving the union campaign right – it was all about lowering wages as soon as the labour market turned.
The way the debate is going, the next election will be about the economy and WorkChoices. It’s a debate the Liberals cannot win: voters didn’t want SerfChoices during the boom, and they will want it even less during the bust. Keep it up, Henderson and Costello!
Workchoices is the Liberal approach to a recession: if you can’t make yourself richer, then at least make sure the workers are poorer than you, so you can still feel good about yourself.
Quite true,
Howards policies were all geared to wealth enhancement for the well off,
decreasing capital gains tax,
increasing depreciation and other tax breaks,
decreasing taxes on super,
decreasing high end personal income tax,
decreasing company tax.
Decreasing eligibilty requirements for the pension, health care card and other welfare benefits so the rich could access them.
It increased the gap between the rich and poor which pleased many of his followers.
Lest anyone think calls to reregulate the finance sector are the ravings of a few socialists, here is a call for more regulation of banks and hedge funds from Lord Turner (head of British FSO) in The Times: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5908336.ece
Also the Swiss government has promised to join financial disclosure systems (though they are probably just stalling). If and when this comes to pass it will be interesting to see how many Australians avoid tax using Swiss banks. Given that even former Senator Graham Richardson was one of the clients of Alan Bond’s swiss banker, it will be interesting to see if we get “ahead of the curve” on this one. I won’t hold my breath.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/13/switzerland-slow-retreat-tax-surrender
In the US the wages of middle and low income earners haven’t risen to adjust for inflation, but the US richest have enjoyed huge bonuses as well as salaries that more that kept up with inflation.
Trevor Cook @ Crikey highlighted a piece written about the US UNION’s and it’s need to become more involved because they would help low to middle income earners negotiate wage contracts with powerful employers.
In Australia the low and middles income has kept up with inflation in most cases, thanx’s to the Industrial Relations Commission and EBA’s, so when bad times come, most, hopefully have a buffer.
In the US, they have to pay very freakin high health costs, and what the employers health insurance doesn’t cover, comes out of the wages that hasn’t rise with inflation in the last 10yrs. The average low income is around $25000.
So here we have Howard trying to get Australia to mirror the US IR policies, but the US may be turning to the Australian template.
Ha! When Costello was speaking in parliament this week, he was quoting from his own memoirs. Sales must be REALLY bad when you have to use the House of Reps as a forum to plug your own book.
It seems the Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is channeling Julie Bishop.
Martin says:
Michael Keenan MP, the Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.
Mr KEENAN (Stirling) (3.55 pm)—Since 1 January
this year, 80,000 Australians have lost their jobs.
That is well over 1,200 jobs lost per day.
Anything wrong with that statement?
Employment has grown slightly, not fallen, since the beginning of the year.
Perhaps the employment spokesman didn’t read the employment figures…
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2009/03/julie-bishop-lives-on.html
P.S. Has the numbers next to the comments disappeared for anybody else?
Not one Tory on any channel this morning, if i was to take your left wing precedent i would attack that fact but no there is nothing wrong with that happening perhaps there will be all Tories next week.
Ah! I just realised why Gerard Henderson doesn’t accuse (former Labor staffer) Barry Cassidy of bias even though he does so against former Labor Staffer Kerry O’Brien. Henderson regularly appears on Cassidy’s show!
if Gerard were consistent then he’d accuse himself of being biased because he worked as a speechwriter for Fraser.
Doesn’t Gerard run a Liberal Party advertising business in Sydney somewhere, called the Australian Institute of Howard Worship, or some such pretentious nonsense?
He’s been spouting and creating Young Lib talking points for years.
I see someone posted here that he was talking over the female panel members on Insiders this morning. My impression was that he was abnormally subdued and inert, like a rabbit in a spotlight, not knowing whether his loyalties lay with Turnbull or Costello.
A bit like the rest of the Liberal party I suppose.
I’m sick of this crap about leadership issues going on and on and on and on God how i miss the Howard Years
After 12 years you’ll be inured to it, Glen.
Glen, once again you’re re-write history. I remember clearly you complaining because there were no conservatives being interviewed one Sunday morning. I had that arguement with you. I pointed out that there was one and wrote that one off for some reason that escapes me now. So don’t come here slinging off at the so called lefties for something you’ve done yourself.
I wasnt complaining about that fact Gary.
622 – I hope people never forget them. We know what they thought of Howard in the end.
While Costello is in the background those leadership tensions will be here to stay. Long may he be here I say.
Glen,
1987? 2007? 1983?
These are my favourite Howard years.
Re an earlier discussion: my WA sources tell me it will be a very cold day indeed in Hell before the WA ALP would contemplate a Carpenter comeback. He is saddled with most of the blame for losing the election. The general view is that he should stick to his original plan and disappear. (He might I suppose consider a tilt at Swan, but I’m told there is a long queue for that gig.)
It is strange to me that Christine Milne
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/15/2516487.htm?section=justin
is welcoming Turnbull’s supposed plan to vote against the ETS
as a channce to have yet more discussion about the ETS
rather than getting it going as soon as possible.
It is particularly strange since she says she wants to talk more about actual targets which from my understanding of the draft legislation are not part of it. Targets, and gateways seem to be rough long term ambitions which are announced 10 to 40 years ahead and only guide the minister as she sets the actual emission caps 5 years ahead.
(By the way, I notice that the legislation required to minister to also be guided by the extent of voluntary action by Australians when she sets caps).
Let us hope that the Greens and FFX get themselves sorted out soon to stop talking and get this ETS set up. Then we make sure that the pressure is on Wong from us and the International community in Copenhagen for her to announce a good cap for 2015 and a really low plans for one for 2021.
What the hell is wrong with Abbott! He fell asleep during Turnbull’s speech at the Liberal conference. He is ALWAYS falling asleep ever since he lost government.
Why does Malcolm have to constantly remind his Party and followers that he is a Liberal?
Seeking funds from multi millionaire panel beaters?
John Dillinger (the infamous US bank robber from the 1930’s who used slightly less spectacular techniques than the modern counterparts on Wall St.) was asked why he robbed banks. “Because that is where the money is”, he replied.
Have the Lib fundraisers got a clue?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-protests-hes-truly-liberal-20090314-8yec.html
Your tears sustain me Glen!
GG
That’s a red card. You’re banned for 24 hours.
The bank robber who answered “Because that is where the money is” was Willie Sutton.
Diogs,
Our beloved Lord Mayor must have spent a year in Adelaide one day.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/shut-adelaide-down-says-our-lord-mayor-of-100-days-20090315-8ymf.html
How fortunate we are that Doyle did not become Premier. He’s a decent chap as Liberals go, but obviously somewhat lacking in nous.
The gift that keeps on giving. Poor Glen. It’s never going to go away until Cossie takes over.
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2009/03/15/Support_for_Costello_grows
GG
I tend to agree with your Lord Mayor.
With Turnbull indicating that the Libs are going to block Labor’s IR legislation, it’s going to be a nerve wracking week. Nick X and the Greens will probably support the Government but Senator Fielding will probably support the opposition and the bill will be defeated. I simply can not understand how a politician who supposedly supports families first can even consider such an action, even more so given he was such a vocal opponent of WC before the last federal election.
Doyle is a wanker.
Bring it on!
So that means it is in the Government’s interests not to negotiate with Fielding, encourage him to block the bill, then blame it all on Turnbull by saying he wants to bring back WorkChoices.
Bob Brown has said the Greens will pass the bill in it’s current form but if Gillard has to weaken workers rights to appease the cross-benchers, he would reserve the right to change that position.
Gillard and Rudd have been meeting with Fielding last week. Mr X seems to be a Yes, but he can be unpredictable.
I can’t believe that Turnbull could tell his senators to block the entire bill on the grounds that he thinks a small business has 20 people instead of 15.
Sometimes oppositions just have to cut their loses so that the political debate imoves on to an issue they have a better chance of winning.
Why should the government compromise on something on which it has such a clear mandate? A double dissolution on Fair Work would get rid of Fielding and produce a Senate with an ALP-Greens majority, or at worst one with Xenophon holding the balance. The we would not only pass Fair Work, but also get a better climate change bill up as well.
Exactly, ShowsOn @ 640! It surely is not in the Government’s interest not to negotiate with Fielding. Regardless of how Fielding votes Labor can always declare that Turnbull and his party want to bring back WC. Everything must be done to ensure the passage of the IR bill NOW! Given the GFC, Labor’s amendments need to be incorporated into legislation asap to ameliorate the worst effects of the existing WC legislation on working people and their dependants.
Adam
Gillard said the same thing. She said any changes would be minimal, like increasing the fine for a union breaching privacy.
IR or CC would be decent DD triggers. Both are important enough to warrant one.
AiC, I agree with what you are saying but, assuming a double dissolution takes place, how much time would elapse for that to happen and a new Senate installed after an election?
I couldn’t see Fielding opposing the Bill eventually.
The important thing here IMO is to completely IGNORE the Coalition. Turnbull doesn’t know if he is Malcolm or Mellisa on IR.
Maybe Malcolm believes that he is unlikely to survive till the end of next year as leader of the Opposition. To be PM he has to win an election. Therefore, he needs/wants a DD election asap.
WOW, it is a really slow Sunday at AAP:
Why stop at 10%? It is just as valid to say “Jobless rate could push 76.5 per cent. THE Federal Government says it won’t speculate on whether unemployment could reach as high as 76.5 per cent by Christmas.”
We have some very lazy journalists in our country.
@ 607 GG adjudicates
>>Interesting the panel was all Fairfax journos. They usually have a balance
News Ltd doesn’t employ any journalists only mouthpieces and hacks.
If the Senate rejects the FW bill this week, it can be brought back in June. If it is rejected then, a DD election could be held in July. The new Senate’s term would be backdated to 1 July and the new Senators would take their seats immediately. If the new Senate rejects the bills which were the DD trigger, a joint sitting can then be held, as in 1974.
Why would the Federal Parliamentary Party think Costello, the souper, is electable? He is a fundamentalist Christian anti-worker tory who doesn’t believe in evolution.
How good is your mail on that, AiC?
I know you are not a punter but the odds of a very early DD would be?
On Meet The Press this morning, the difference between the quality of questioning asked by Grattan and Milne were lightyears. Milne truly is a dropkick. Honestly, I thought Tony Bourke was going to eventually call him an idiot.
After Milne asked his last question, Bourke, who was in form, answered it by saying both Turnbull and Costello stood for workchoices, then I had the impression that Milne made some snide remark. Did anybody else notice that?
I have no knowledge about Rudd’s thinking on this. I assume he and others are calculating the risks as we speak. A clearer picture will emerge tomorrow when Parliament resumes for the showdown. But if Rudd accepts the defeat or emasculation of the FW bill, he might as well resign. Besides which, every clause of the FW bill has been torturously negotiated with business and unions, and if the Senate starts picking it apart it will open an enormous can of worms.
There are two precedents which Rudd will be aware of: Scullin in 1930 lacked the nerve to call a DD, and his government was destroyed. Whitlam in 1974 went straight to a DD when the Senate threatened the budget (he already had triggers), and won.
An early double dissolution would be about $9.
Consider also that all the cross-bench Senators a strong interest in a DD. The Greens would have a good show of a seat in every state and two in Tas; Xenophon would probably get two quotas in SA, and Fielding would have a slight chance of re-election as opposed to none at a half-Senate election.
The Fair Work bill need not rejected. It could just be passed with amendments the House of Representatives will not agree to and laid aside (similar to what happened with the Safe Work Australia Bill); and then the Government could retry in June.
The ‘fails to pass’ provision is also interesting, if you look at the 1951 double dissolution in which the Government claimed that merely referring bills to a committee or filibustering debate was cause enough for a double dissolution. I find it hard to imagine the current GG would accept such reasoning though.
More evidence that Pat Farmer will be retiring at the next election:
I wonder what his other reasons for eating alone are? So people can’t see he gets double servings of stroganoff?
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25187390-5006010,00.html
The Constitution quite deliberately says “failure to pass,” because it was recognised that a bill can be killed by failing to bring it to a vote just as effectively as by rejecting it. In 1951 there was not a regular Senate committee system, so the reference of the banking bill to a committee was taken as a delaying tactic and the GG accepted Menzies’s contention that this was “failure to pass.” That would not be accepted today, but an endless filibuster probably would. So of course would unacceptable amendments, which is probably what is most likely to happen this week. The Coalition + Fielding will probably raise the threshhold for small business unfair dismissals and remove the right of enrty and right to inspect records sections. These amendments will be totally unacceptable to the unions and Rudd will be in big trouble with his base if he accepts them.
Whatever scenario results in a joint sitting I’ll be happy with.
hello bludgers, I m still trying to get over how good the Oils were last night
But today’s another day and isn’t it nice to see Obama is giving our Kev some praise before he meets him in person in 10 days time.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/obama-singles-out-australia-on-economy-20090315-8ys2.html
vera, I wonder what Turnbull and Costello think about Obama singling out Australia as taking appropriate action confronting the GFC.
Maybe our good mates Milne, Akerman and Bolt might want to ask them?
Adam:
What would happen to the IR laws if, post-next election, the Greens hold the balance of power?
You’ve said in the past that you worry about the Greens trying to drag Labor away from the centre
A WA union boss wants Carps to lead Labor at the next state election:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/comments/0,21590,25187034-2761,00.html
I reckon Barnett would call a snap election as soon as Carps becomes opposition leader. A total wipeout of Labor.
Centre I reckon those 3 desperados you mentioned would rather harp back to the good old days when those great mates John & George rocked their world lol
Go back a few pages.
Whig, if the current FW bill is a DD trigger, then after the election (assuming Rudd is re-elected) it will be put to the Senate again. If the Senate rejects or unacceptably amends it again, there will be a joint sitting. If Labor has a majority at the joint sitting, the bill will be passed. If not, it will have to be negotiated with the cross-benches. You’d have to assume that if Labor wins a DD election, it will probably have a majority at a joint sitting. If a joint sitting were held now, the numbers would be ALP 115, Coalition 101, Greens 5, others 5. I would expect both Labor and the Greens to improve their overall position at a DD.
What is the matter with these greedy FWs. What is it that they do not understand. It is really beyond words.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15AIG.html?hp
What is the matter with these greedy FWs. What is it that they do not understand. It is really beyond words. and this:
This is pissweak, why cant the Obama Admin just say “sue me” to those FWs.
Finns
Because they’d lose and just have to pay lots of legal fees.
If they want to get back at AIG execs, they need to explore the option of a civil suit or get them for racketeering under RICO for running a sham business.
Or they could withdraw the bailout and let them go broke, which is probably what they should do anyway, with AIG, BoA, Citi and GM.
Or get Congress to legislate to override the employment contracts (if necessary in concert with the British Govt – some of the execs are probably in London on contracts made under UK law).
I don’t normally approve of that sort of thing, but I’d make an exception in this instance.
In some ways AIG is the most problematic of those, Adam, as it operates in so many countries (and is a really major player in lots of Asian insurance markets).
Letting it go broke might not be a good way for Obama to impress lots of the countries he needs on side at the moment.
GM operates in a lot of markets too, but it’s nearly as big a deal (apart from the employment aspect) if a car company goes broke as if an insurance company goes broke.
Then they should nationalise it, and sack all the execs. (Does the US Constituition permit outright nationalisation?)
Because, you know, that didn’t backfire at all on Carpenter when he did one.
I wouldn’t necessarily be anti them nationalising it. In concept I think it’s fair. It does raise some practical questions though. And it would be a very courageous decision to get rid of all the execs at once – you’d want to keep some of the ones who knew important stuff, or you’d make it even worse.
Great journalism case # 1,264,257
Yep the headline is about Swan not speculating.
Costello sees straws, decides, yep, I’ll clutch ‘em:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-protests-hes-truly-liberal-20090314-8yec.html
Yes, that’s right, Malcolm, Rudd is a secret communist, you got it.
Imagine the uproar if the story had Rudd “calling Mr Turnbull a “genteel” version of the European rightist leaders Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.”
Hey, I’m a christian (not a fundamentalist though) and I will not be likened to him! Don’t fall for the posturing of people like Peter Costello. Even fundamentalist christians spoke against Serfchoices. The ilks of Howard and Costello etc are no more christian than Ghengis Khan.It is only a show to attract votes. Any real christian would prefer to be judged on their actions, not their rhetoric.
Tom
Spot on Adam.
Though a genteel version of Bernie Madoff would probably be a worse slur in the current climate!
Diog, i really hate to have to beat you up everyday
But you are wRONg, again,
But there is a thing called “Principle” here. I want to know on what basis these FWs justify “bonus”, for doing what?
If you want a question answered, answer it yourself. The Fifth Amendment says, among other things: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” So a company cannot be nationalised without “just compensation” to its shareholders. What would that be, for a company teetering on the brink of bankruptcy? T
I am (pleasantly) surprised by the sugegstion that Fielding would be stupid enough to oppose FW. It is hard to think of an issue they would be less likely to win on.
I can almost understand the greens wanting to provoke a DD on current polling, but why would Fielding? Has his standing improved much since he got in on 2%? Surely it would be suicidal.
Fielding isnt going to win in 2010 so why should he just do whatever the Government wants??? He loses either way.
BTW Adam Hitler was a national ’socialist’…..
Adam
The answer is yes, they just have to pay market price. That is very little now. Several economists have complained already that it would have been cheaper for the taxpayer to buy Citi AIG and others outright (nationalsie) than give them the assistance they have already received because their share price is so low.
Glen,
There’s a rule around here about using Hitler and the Nazis.
If you persist, it might destroy your credibility.
I wasnt using Hitler for anything other than naming his political organisation’s ideology to correct a previous post.
Good grief, Glen, that comment about the name of Hitler’s party is about at the level of stupid I’d expect from Bree, and that’s saying something.
Glen,
OK, your reputation is the same as it has ever been.
If you want my opinion you’ll find many things similar when it comes to Nazism and Communism.
Sigh, do you know anything at all about the rise of fascism, Glen?
HSO,
He knows a lot about playing battleships in the bath.
Yes HSO i do, probably a lot more than yourself!
Socrates, I think it has been reasonably well established that Fielding is a dill when it comes to economics, and I suggest, he’s also a dill when it comes to politics. He’s an accidental politician.
No need to get stroppy, Glen, and that statement about you probably knowing more than I do about the rise of fascism is just silly.
That made me laugh, GG.
vera @ 663,
“Mr Obama mentioned Australia along with the economic heavy-hitters of China, the UK and the US”.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25189676-5005961,00.html
Blow away little Liberals, blow away.
HSO, sorry to hurt your ego but i do know more on the subject of the rise of fascism in Germany…
GG, I saw Wayne Swan on Insiders this morning while I was doing the ironing (this is a cunning plan to distract myself from just what is making me so cross), and I thought his responses to Barrie Cassidy were well constructed and communicated, particularly about supposedly being on the B list. It just seems so obvious, why would the Rudd government need some lobby group to talk to the Brown government? Silly, really.
Oh great, we’ve reached the point of arguing over who knows the most about the rise of Hitler.
Think I’ll just go read my copy of Shirer’s Rise and Fall till this blows over…
Oh Glen, give it a rest. How would you know exactly? And my ego is functioning fine thanks as I’ve no problem saying when I don’t know things, perfectly comfortable being a fallible human being.
Whew – troubles all over for Turnbull:
Andrew Robb comes out with this corker:
Yeah stop pointing out our failings. it’s not fair.
Agree, Grog, it’s just silly and I won’t continue it any further and will go read instead.
So now an early election for political opportunism is OK? It wasn’t when Carpenter went to an early election. What a hypocrite Bree.
Then you will know, Glen, that Hilter was always violently opposed to socialism in the sense of a movement by the working class to take political and economic power from the capitalist class. You will know that when the Strasser brothers tried to re-orient the NSDAP in a more socialist direction in 1928, he had them expelled from the party. You will know that Hitler destroyed the German trade unions and all other forms of autonomous working-class organisation. You will know that when, after the NSDAP came to power, Roehm and others began to demand that the regime follow an anti-capitalist policy, Hitler had them all murdered in the Night of the Long Knives. You will know that Hitler’s version of “socialism” was in fact no more that populist racism and xenophobia, particularly aimed at the Jews, whom Hitler believed were responsible for both capitalism and communism.
You’re getting greedy, Bree. No need to reel in so many.
AIC,
Well done!
You never tell us what you know or what you feel. You’re such an introvert.
Howard was a ‘Liberal’…
No, no, Fulvio, Bree is a beacon of insightful observation and a repository of political wisdom and understanding unsurpassed in the modern era.
You mean like Workchoices was intended to do?
Bull butter, Hitler gave the Unions the May Day holiday and then made all Unions illegal the next day…Howard would never have done that.
Centre, at those odds, I would give up 2 cups of coffee and put $10 on it
. I can make instant at home to make up for the two flat whites I would miss from the shops and the potential tradeoff would make a damn nice meal for two if it comes off 
Glen, the Communist regime in China has given the Chinese people their dignity, freedom from hunger and national pride. Before they came to power, the Chinese people who treated like sub-human by their own feudal society, the Japanese and the West. For all of its imperfections, the Communist regime has at least given the chinese people their right to exist as human beings.
Tell me, what had the Nazi regime given to the people of Germany?
Albeit achieved in millions of cases by starving them to death.
The aqueduct?
HAHAHHAHAHA Freedom from hunger, dont you know that Mao’s Great Leap Forward cost an estimated 36million lives!
The Nazis gave the German people work, bread and their national pride back that they had lost with the Treaty of Versailles, that is until they went to War and destroyed the country.
I don’t think suggesting that one totalitarian regime was better than another is a very productive exercise.
And what actually freed the Chinese people from hunger was the restoration of capitalism by Deng Xiaoping.
A DD over work-choices has to be a Labor operatives dream. To have the Liberals put the issue front and center second time around, what more could they want, but I can’t see it happening, the Liberal party would have to hold a consistent position for six months. Voted down tomorrow, passed in 6 months, unless the Liberals become competitive, sorry Glen, not going to happen.
Glad to see Swan pointing out that the CC legislation is about setting us up for the economy of the future, now all we need is Tanner filling in the details.
Given time
Thanks, AIC, I asked the question of Glen because he seems to have little grasp of why totalitarian regimes resemble each other, but that the history of their evolution are not the same, neccessarily.
They gave SOME German people these things. They even forced some to work for no money. Which people like me call slavery.
HSO i never disputed your last point.
BTW, does anyone know whether the Auditor General can refer the report on the Howard government’s subversion of the rules in granting the $120 million odd to their mates, as reported by Crikey, and no one else?
ShowsOn i am not disputing that there were losers in the Nazi regime far from it but they happened to take over just as the economy was picking up (very lucky of them)…
I would say the vast majority of ordinary Germans were not happy with the ToV not just the bigots in the NSDAP.
Mr. historian, i thought the PRC is still a communist regime. cant have it both ways.
Mr. Bowe, the Japanese killed 37 million Chinese. what do you say to that?
“I would say the vast majority of ordinary Germans were not happy with the ToV not just the bigots in the NSDAP.”
Yes it can b e very easily argued that France was responsible for the second world war. Revenge is not always sweet.
Well, Glen, perhaps you’ll think twice about saying something to Adam, or indeed any one else, about whether he knew the name of the party Hitler led, as some sort of gotcha thing. As I said previously, it’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Bree, the repository of political wit and wisdom. Ha. Not.
It isn’t, because Communism implies the implementation of Socialism.
Essentially the Chinese Communist Party was willing to give up Socialism in order to stay in power. However, that means it can no longer be considered an actual Marxist-Leninist or even Maoist Communist party.
I am on principle opposed to the killing of 37 million Chinese. Why do you ask, two dogs?
I dont think Bree is serious on pollbludger HSO the only ones who do make an effort for my side are myself and GP.
Yes the play on words thing wasnt really necessary i can admit my failings.
The way i like to discribe the Treaty of Versailles is this, if you get yourself into a fight with someone you dont slap them on the face because they will beat the crap out of you that’s what the ToV was it was painful enough to make the Germans pissed off but not enough to completely destroy them like breaking up the German nation into 3 separate countries which was an option on the table in 1918.
They should either have done nothing or very little to them after WW1 (ie no war guilt, minor reparations and minor territorial concessions and allowing them to keep their military) or destroyed Germany as a nation and split it up into different entities.
Mr. Bowe, how much do you know about the history of China and the Chinese people?
Finns, I think all societies, and the political organisations which are a part of those societies, must necessarily be in some form of change, otherwise they’re dead. The questions are around what sort of change, and in what directions. I thought Kevin Rudd’s article in “The Monthly” was interesting because of this. He clearly has in sight a different direction, and flagged it well before the election in an interview with Kerry O’Brien. It’s also clear that Malcolm Turnbull is trying to drag the Liberals in a different direction, but being stymied by both the presence of Peter Costello and the twin voter base delineated by Possum. Rudd has the advantage that no matter what garbage is thrown at him by the MSM, the polls would indicate the population isn’t buying it.
He was just pointing out the irrefutable fact that Mao’s policies killed a lot of innocent people. It wasn’t designed to be an all encompassing dissertation on Chinese history.
I don’t claim to be an authority on the subject. If there’s some piece of information I’m missing which explains why it makes sense to respond to my initial observation about starvation under the Communist regime by reciting the Chinese death toll from WW2, I’d be interested to learn what it is.
Mao was just one of the many many many Chinese emperors, he was no better or worse.
and that the Nazis delivered the aqueduct… not mention made it safe to walk the streets at night… and the roads (though they go without saying).
China is a country in which a party calling itself a communist party, and ruling by the traditional authoritarian methods of all communist regimes (in a relatively mild version, I agree), is presiding over an economy which, if not a fmarketised (because much of it is still state owned or controlled), is nevertheless marketised enough to have produced a massive increase in stanards of living for the bulk of the population since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began in 1979. In an economy which was 80% agricultural, the dissolution of the communes, the restoration of the land to the peasants, and the establishment of a free market in grain was enough to produce a huge spurt of growth, generating surpluses which the state was able to invest in industry and infrastructure. We are coming to the end of that phase now, and China’s capitalist/communist hybrid is coming to the end of its usefulness. Unless China now completes the transition to a full market economy – which includes such details as the rule of law – it may well now fall back, and be overtaken by genuine market economies such as India.
Finns
I think when some eat whitebread, they see the world through strached eyes.
strached = starched
That’s part of the story. The other part is the massive keynesian stimulus the Nazis gave to the German economy by their crash rearmament program. Drafting all the unemployed into the Army or munitions factories restored the purchasing power of the working class, thus reviving demand and stimulating emolyment of all kinds. That’s why by about 1937 Germany had the highest standard of living of all the major European countries, after nearly starving in 1932. No wonder the NSDAP regime was popular! But that was the peak, because after 1938 all domestic production was stopped in favour of armaments, and domestic consumption was strangled by rationing, shortages and compulsory saving. Living standards then began to fall again, although during the war they were maintained at a reasonable level by looting the occupied countries, particularly France.
The chinese communist regime is just one of the many many many chinese dynasties. it is no better or worse. Like the tide, they come and go.
Mr. Historian, tell me one regime in the Chinese history from the year dot that has not been “traditional authoritarian”.
Glen @ 733, I think that the people who came up with the Treaty of Versailles were not thinking clearly about how to respond to the end of WW1. That it had consequences downstream, I would think few would dispute. I’d probably argue for those politicians who can stay calm and respond with common sense as the best sort of politicians. Malcolm Turnbull is not one of them; Kevin Rudd is. Both have got egos+++, but Malcolm’s is over-weening, and Rudd knows how to respond effectively, e.g., the Victorian bushfires, he was here on the Sunday after the worst had happened, and out in the communities. You’ve no idea how that was received. People knew he was there with them and both listening to what was needed and providing it. You guys need to get your heads around a fairly important principle. Politicians are there to serve us, to implement policy we have voted for, not to feather the nests of advertising buddies.
HSO i seem to remember Howard being adept at the same thing but we must remember that Malcolm Turnbull isnt the PM and him going there immediately would have been used against him politically after all what help can he offer but a shoulder to cry on Rudd is the PM and he had the power to do something about it.
It’s obviously true that incumbent governments have an enormous advantage over oppositions at times of national crisis, because they can give people what they want, while oppositions can only remain silent or say “me too.” Recall Howard’s (very commendable) response to the Port Arthur shootings and the Bali bombings. Well now Rudd is in the same position. That isn’t Turnbull’s fault and I don’t think there’s any point sniping at him about it. IT’S JUST A PITY HE DOESN’T SEE THE GFC IN THE SAME LIGHT.
Adam
That theory doesn’t seem to be working in Qld. The GFC, the floods, the oil spill and the hurricanes are putting the LNP ahead.
All the polls so far have had the parties statistically tied.
The polls point to a 6% swing to the LNP which they only need a couple more points and they’ve got a chance at forming a government…
We could have 2 states by the weekend
SO
Actually a 51-49 result is not a statistical tie but it is within the margin of error. Anyway two consecutive 51-49 results actually make it beyond the MOE. And there has been a big swing to the LNP. Whether it’s enough is another matter.
I don’t pretend to know what’s happening in Qld. The early election was clearly not a good idea, as SHOULD HAVE BEEN BLOODY OBVIOUS after WA. They have been in for 11 years and are asking for a fifth term, which is usually a big ask. Maybe there’s a covert anti-sheila vote as well. I really don’t see how Bligh can be blamed for floods and cyclones, but Qld is a funny place…
I would be surprised if they win again the ALP after all they’ve been in power for 98% of the last 20 years that is a fair effort…the it’s time factor may bring Bligh down.
She shouldnt have gone early if she loses no incumbent will go early for some time.
Adam the anti-sheila vote will make some inroads but i think the it’s time factor is going to hurt the ALP the most.
A Bradleyette effect?
And the fact they will no longer benefit from One Nation and three corner contests?
I wonder if the one newspaper state would also be a factor, as illustrated by The West’s actions during the WA Poll (though the Murdoch owned Sunday Times, while not as toxic wasn’t much better.
Glen, if you want Springborg in charge of Queensland, and if indeed he is elected, you deserve everything coming, like mass unemployment. The man hasn’t got a clue.
That’s what everyone said after WA and NT.
The Bradleyette effect wouldn’t account for the “poor” polling now, but if Labor get thumped I think the Bradleyette effect will be discussed for ages. As will the fact that no woman has actually been elected Premier in any state.
Frank
The Sunday Courier Mail in Qld endorsed Bligh. William’s gonna tell us off soon for posting on the wrong thread.
If the attitude of the press determined elections, Labor would never win anywhere.
Julie @ 715.
I will accept your bet provided that damn nice meal for yourself includes me
I recall the papers in WA not endorsing anybody…
At least HSO COAG meetings will be more interesting with the tag team of the Borg and Colin.
In that case, it must be a reverse-Bradleyette effect in operation.
Yeah, it was unnecessary cos it was just completely obvious who they supported. They decided to save ink instead.
715,
Meal in cyberspace?
[ I'm in Perth ] …… Were you serious on the 9$ odds? And if so, were to get them? Was it a website or a TAB outlet or what? We’ve got a bit banked up on one site left over from the federal election, shall have to ask my husband what site that was on. We’ve kind of rolled things over from one bet to the next over the last year and a bit. Not big bets on any one thing but just having
……
fun
765, I meant 761 and was talking to you Centre, my wires are a little crossed tonight sorry
Interesting is certainly a word to be applied to future Federal and State negotiations, Glen. Whether you’d want it to be so is another thing.
Dont worry HSO, you’ll still have VIC, TAS, NT, ACT, SA and NSW (until 2011)….
Julie I made up the odds. I don’t think anybody is betting on a DD at the moment!
Borg saying he reserved the right to withdraw from the COAG MBD deal looked particularly grim.
Actually, both WA papers supported Labor. Unlike Frank, I wasn’t particularly surprised that the Sunday Times did so. The West Australian editorial on the other hand was the clumsiest piece of arse-covering I’ve ever seen. I well remember the 6PR election night commentators, Matt Birney included, having a big laugh about it.
The states are totally dependent on the Cwlth for everything they do, so COAG won’t be any different. Look at the way Barnett is eating out of Rudd’s hand over the stimpac money. In fact Rudd probably finds non-Labor premiers easier to deal with since he doesn’t have to pretend to like them.
I wouldnt bet on VIC for 2010 for we Victorian Libs are a disgrace and a shambles down here but we could get a minority govt in TAS and who knows if MHS can pull off an upset in SA (unlikely as it sounds)….
found that awful turnbull interview on the lib website- isnt up on laurie oakes one yet
dont why the libs would want anyone reading this. it’s pretty bad. and FYI I didnt actually go looking on the lib website (heaven forbid!!), i found it via google
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=2704
Well, Bludgers, am really going to exit stage left to read. Might I recommend “The Age of Wonder” by Richard Holmes. If you’re interested in science (and who isn’t?), it’s a wonderful account of a pivotal age and the people who made a difference.
Turnbull’s gone.
Qld is going to be the state hardest hit by the GFC. Coal exports down, tourism down = Qld in deep ordure, because past populist premiers Bjelke-Petersen and Beatty gutted the state revenue base by cutting taxes to lure business away from the other states. Now they have nothing to fall back on. So if Springborg is premier he will be in no position to defy Rudd over anything. He will have to grovel to Canberra just like all the other premiers. For starters he will be begging Rudd to take over the state hospitals.
Oz whenever a Deputy leader is asked to say whether the leaders job is secure and they say the leader is doing an excellent job you know that there is trouble…
But why would the Libs be so stupid to have 3 leaders in so many years in fact 4 if you include Howard, jees we probably should have just stayed with Brendo.
Article was here btw:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/15/2516646.htm
Speaking of The West, they’ve appointed former Sunday Times Editor Brett McCarthey as the new editor.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=130144
The Ruddster won’t fall for that one. We need a referendum for that to happen, don’t we.
BTW when is Rudd going to do that, wasnt it one of his policies?
I agree Oz @776.
If I was Turnbull, and thank god I’m not (although I wouldn’t mind his cash),
I would call a partyroom meeting asap and demand that Costello challenge OR LEAVE as it is impossible for anybody to do the job as leader with him hanging round like flys at a barbeque.
Cossie must challenge, or he is seen as weak as pi$$. Cossie then loses the next election and Turnbull can resume the leadership claiming that he was never given a real chance before with that loser on the backbenches.
But what about the front bench??
If we changed leaders Cossie would change it, but he wouldnt have much room given the lack of talent on our backbenches…
So, I wonder how long Turnbull’s got. Media reports saying he’s “got the full support of the party” are usually a sign of impending doom. If the gutless Costello lives up to his reputation and refuses to challenge, that will leave the lame duck Turnbull thrashing about in despair, not quite supported by the party, not quite challenged by the heir apparent. That means inertia, to my estimation.
Glen, I told you before Labor won the election that your mob would go through so many leaders that if Julie was Deputy she would go through more partners than Debbie did in Dallas LOL.
To be decided after two years in office IIRC
Glen is too honest to be a Liberal.
They could exhume Menzies, and get Andrew Southcott to prop him up at the dispatch box.
Why not Bishop at least we could have the novelty of having a female federal leader?
Then Turnbull or Cossie could take over after a drubbing in 2010.
Blancmange by minr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blancmange
Menzies was cremated, unfortunately, so there’s nothing to exhume. Dame Pattie kept the ashes in an urn on her mantelpiece until she died, then they were buried together. I’m not sure if that’s touching or creepy.
Or create an animatronic model of him and get Impressionist Keith Scott (How Green Was My Cactus) to voice him, or even use Menzies actual voice grabs digitised and re-edited to suit the occasion
You need good policies Glen. You can “me too” you know. If Labor’s policies are good, then support them. Your mob are like a team who wants to score a try every time they touch the ball. They are pathetic at the moment, and Cossie supporting workchoices again spells more misery for the Liberals.
Why not a cardboard cutout of Turnbull, with a speaker mounted behind the head region, with a laptop running some a text-to-voice software.
http://www.nch.com.au/verbose/index.html
My Question is to the Prime Minister, will he ban the communist party, to save this great nation of forgotten people from Rudd’s Red Recession?
Diogenes: No referendum needed. I think s51 (xxxi) would cover it. Qld can sell its hospitals to the Cwlth on “just terms,” which could be $1 if that’s what they agree on. Also Qld can refer its power over hospitals to the Cwlth under s51 (xxxviii). At a pinch the land on which the hospitals stand can be ceded to the Cwlth (s111 – betcha didn’t know that!).
Centre at least Costello has policies that are clear unlike Mal’s…
Even as ashes Menzies has more of a backbone than Cossie
True Glen. Shows what a lightweight in politics Turnbull turned out to be!
Come to think of it even Nelson had clear policies like his petrol tax relief (although not necessarily a good idea)…
Even if unemployment reaches 10%, there will still be far more people in work than out of work. Those people that remain employed are unlikely to support a policy that would make it easier for them to be sacked.
Costello has no policies apart from delaying the ETS. Other than that he stuck in the previous era.
There is no reason for Costello to want to be leader since a loss at the election is highly likely and he would surely want to avoid that for psychological reasons, as well as avoiding a further denting of his loser reputation.
He might challenge only if it looked pretty reasonable that the L&NP were going to win, but in that scenario the party wouldn’t change its leader in any case.
But I am of the opinion that Costello doesn’t really want to be leader, that he is scared of the prospect of actually being PM. He has never tried very hard for the role and the only time he made noises about it was more about having a go at Howard because he didn’t like him and not because he wanted to be PM.
And keeping WorkChoices.
It appears the next election will be:
Rudd, Gillard, Swan .v. Cossie, Bishop, Hockey
Nite guys.
He never said that Oz he said that he backed parts of it not all of it.
It would be better for Australia if Turnbull was successful in moving the party away from the likes of Minchin and Costello. We should be wishing the moderates some success.
Yep that is where Workchoices belongs.
Thomas he has brought a lot of moderates onto his front bench…
Pyne
Keenan
Morrison
Coonan got promoted as did Hockey
So we are becoming more moderate in some regard.
BTW is Parliament sitting this week??
Yes.
Last week before the budget in May.
I think Thomas 803 has a point about Costello wanting to avoid defeat for psychological reasons. Losing in 2007 seems to have sent him into a 15 month+ tailspin, from which he hasn’t recovered even now. And he was only treasurer at the time of defeat. Imagine if he were leader and lost. The disappointment etc would crush him. Perhaps that’s why he’s never had the bottle to be leader: defeat and blame would rest squarely on his soft shoulders.
I wonder if Cossie isn’t getting the million dollar private jobs because he keeps flunking the psych tests.
I think that’s a safe bet.
I’m pretty sure the Ruddster said something about going to the people if the State’s continues to stuff up Health (which is a given from what I can tell about Qld, NSW and SA at the least) and asking to take over Health federally. I wasn’t clear if he meant a referendum, a plebiscite, making it an election issue or using public consultation.
Say what you will about the Libs but at least we arent the Confederate Action Party of Australia…
I think I have entered a parallel universe: Janet Albrechtsen is praising Kevin Rudd in her latest blog!
As I recall the Ruddster promised a referendum for the commonwealth to acquire responsibility for the hospitals if the states didn’t shape up by a certain set time.
Glen,
If the CAP doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
Cuppa
That’s what I thought too. It seemed like the perfect way to make sure he never had to do it. It’s bad enough being the State Minister for Health. Imagine being the Federal Minister and having to read every front page in every state with shaking hands at the next stuff-up. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
I’m sure you’ve all been waiting to know the elections results from Antigua and Barbuda, and here they are!
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/
And guess what, Glen, the ALP lost! But the Antiguan ALP is a corrupt right-wing party and they were beaten by the progressive party, so that’s all good.
Looking forward to this week with great anticipation. Turnbull has two choices: (a) pass FW (humiliating climbdown), (b) block FW (political suicide). Quelle de drôle!
*departs to sleep the sleep of the righteous*
I knew the Jamaican Labour Party was right-wing. Antigua too eh? Is this a Carribean wide phenomenon?
Chris Curtis, where can I find this extraordinary outpouring from Rasputin’s favourite granddaughter?
Poms are beating themselves up already
….
Adam,
In the results St Mary’s North shows as an ALP gain. But on the map it’s coloured blue.
(Aside: both candidates named Joseph. Are they related?)
fulvio,chris
actually I think she is trying to be a smartass
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_sensible_side_to_kevin/desc#commentsmore
It must be hard for Albrechtsten living in a world where people can only be capitalists or socialists, and nothing in between.
Send her some links to irving berlin, and whilst listening to some classics , she could read some stuff by the other berlin, and then she could soff to berlin,never to return.
The Republicans need to hear the truth from their own…. and this is some of it.
And also so the religious right.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html
And at the end of that video he really sticks the boot in to the ‘crass’ Repbulicans.. his audience happens to be fundy christians as well.
There is no way that France and Germany should be allowed to sit back and suck in the benefits of stimulus spending of other countries.
Might I suggest China decline to do business with those industrialised countries that opt out of stimulus and move that business to those willing to share the cost. I am sure that they will all be falling over themselves to secure business with China.
No Clear Accord on Stimulus by Top 20 Nations
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15global.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/resurrection-of-dead-man-talking-20090315-8yv1.html?page=1
Gee and we missed the opportunity to vote him in as PM. But we later ended up with something far worse, John Howard. Must admit Costello would have been a 100% better than Howard. At least he wouldn’t have blown $300+ billion trying to buy elections, nor would have Costello used and abused the military…no Tampas and children over boards. And even Costello may have cared about the country… but… not Australians unfortunately….
Workchoices proves Costello thinks nothing of Australians. He thinks we are trash, farm animals for use by big business.
No 831
Rubbish, and you very well know it.
That aside, an excellent article by Cato regarding the similarities between Bush and Obama: who would have thought?
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb_0311_55.pdf
Ahh Malcolm, you idiot.
Pretending that biochar can cut Australia’s emissions by 20% when the CSIRO says it can only do 2%.
It’s not often you quote SMH GP!
He lost all remaining credibility right here.
Only two terms? Seems a huge call to make only a year and a half in to his PMship…
Welcome to being in opposition in Australia.
This is a bit rich…
Milne on the Liberal Party Conference in Sydney at the weekend:
Cheap shot? Moi?
This is the person who told us (incorrectly) that Rudd had been thrown out of the strip club in New York for rowdy behavior, and who never retracted it, even when it was proved he literally made it up. He is also the person who continually brought up the PM’s wife’s business affairs. This is the man who, over the past few years, has told us that his latest “story” in one or other of the Murdoch rags would be the death knell of the Rudd juggernaut: Long Tan, Rudd’s childhood, you name it, it got a guernsey in his nasty little poison pen rumour mongering pieces. It’s the same guy who, telegraphing his punches, told us that “it wasn’t the act, it was the coverup” that counted and then trawled through Rudd’s emails trying to pin him – unsuccessfully and wrongly – on a visit to Perth for a funeral which he claimed was cover for really sneaking a visit to Brian Burke. Glenn, Woodstein you ain’t.
Now, suddenly we see the sensitive side of Glenn Milne: a few TV cameras show that hardly anyone turned up to the Lib bash over the weekend and he gets an attack of humanity.
We know it won’t last more than the time it takes for him to hear about and dutifully peddle the next rumour about Rudd, or Rudd’s wife, or Julia Gillard.
So why does he bother in the first place?
Stop being thick, Virginia.
Obviously The Greens target of 40% is their negotiating base, but Brown is hardly going to say “Oh we’re never gonna get, it’s just a better position to negotiate from”.
David
Thanks for spotting the error in my Antigua map, now corrected.
The Antigua Labour Party is a corrupt clique run by and for the Bird family. Since Lester Bird has now returned, they don’t seem to have learned the lesson of their heavy defeat in 2004. The Jamaica Labour Party under Edward Seaga became a conservative party based on skilled workers, while the PNP under Michael Manley became the party of the urban and rural poor. Labour parties are still dominant in Barbados, St Kitts, St Vincent and Dominica. Barbados has two labour parties, the radical BLP and the conservative DLP. Trinidad doesn’t have a labour party because its politics are racially polarised between the Indian UNC and the Black PNM. The same is true in Guyana. Grenada’s labour party (GULP) was led by Eric Gairy and didn’t survive the coup that overthrew him in 1979.
All these parties date back to the 1930s and were originally based on urban skilled workers, tending to ignore the rural poor. Some have adapted, some have not.
830
Now that the private sector has 20 years of hindsight and has seen the damage that Ex libs are capable of, after having been Leader of the Opposition, you could hardly blame them for thinking what damage only an ex Treasurer could do and therefore not wanting his services.
This is a US story but raises an issue I hope Australian tax officials are watching closely. In the US AIG is still paying millions in bonuses ($250 million to top 400 executives) despite its massive losses. The CEO says they are legally obliged to pay them:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/16/2516759.htm
The obvious point is that if they are legally obliged to pay them when the performance was so poor they needed federal aid to avoid bankruptcy, then they will always be paid. In that case, they are not a bonus for exceptional performance, but expected income. That means they should be taxed as income. This raises another issue about executive compensation that has not been adequately addressed – tax avoidance. The bonus system is not used to encourage performance that benefits shareholders, but to disguise large incomes to avoid tax.
There may also be an enforcement opportunity here. If it is difficult to legally limit the incomes, we can use tax law to pursue the individuals who haven’t paid tax on the full income as income. Directors too, might be guilty of assisting executives to hide income and avoid taxes, by agreeing to the deals.
Oz
Yes biochar is not a bad thing, but massively overhyped. I don’t think people uderstand the scale of carbon fuel burning compared to agriculture. The previous fad was biofuels. If all Australia’s food production was converted to biofuel crops (including livestock feed), we would have no food but still only produce 1/3 of our fuel oil. Same with biochar – its too small. The coal industry is burning the carbon stored from millions of years of forest growth; we can’t expect any natural process to put the same amount of carbon underground again in a few years.
Socrates, yes I heard that story on AM this morning and I thought: “How can a company be *legally obliged* to pay a bonus? Surely a bonus is a voluntary payment to reward good performance?” The bizarre thing is the government now owns 85% of AIG yet apparently cannot stop them doing this.
Adam
Yes a contract is still a contract. But the point is the terms of the contract. If your contract says your income is X, but you get paid 3X for 100% of the time thanks to bonuses, your taxable income should be 3X. I hope our ATO is chasing this hard. It would be both politically popular and economically sensible.
I find it bizarre Pauline Hanson’s campaign manager says she/they don’t care about the release of the photos, but then she comes out a day later to say it isn’t her and she’ll be sueing…
Pauline can smell money, which is what it’s all been about for her ever since she lost her seat.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/16/2516881.htm
… lol
Who do you think ALP will put up against Costello in Higgins? A high flyer? A local activist? An unknown?
Tim?
Could you imagine that Musrum?
Never happen
It seems that we could sell the Harbour Bridge to Turnbull. After the Rainmaking Machine, Biochar, Australian Republic of the Howard kind. It’s all possible according to Turnbull.
Another kiss of death for the Coalition’s election chances in 2010.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-failed-to-consult-on-ir-tuckey-20090316-8z9n.html
Socrates
If the exec bonuses don’t count as salary and aren’t therefore subject to taxation, I’m assuming that the company can’t count them as a tax deduction either. Otherwise, everyone would never pay a wage and just pay bonuses.
The Liberal Party, the party of WorkChoices.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25192564-5005962,00.html
I can’t imagine that the Qld election would have too many repercussions Federally, but the OO is building it up as Bligh losing the unloseable election with kevin’s help in his home state.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25191630-601,00.html
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/hanson-photo-scandal-paper-strikes-back/2009/03/16/1237054687512.html
More and more it smells like Hanson is trying to use this to her political advantage.
I don’t believe a word that woman says. She’s dumber than Sarah Palin, and that’s seemingly impossible.
I think Labor may sneak in in queensland. people won’t be able to bring themselves to vote for springbok.
Xenophon says the ETS has no hope of passing the Senate in its current form:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25192813-601,00.html
Bring on the D.D.!
Look at this Daily Telegraph piece:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25192329-5006003,00.html
It is a shorter plagiarised version of this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1161977/Putins-poster-girl-Pin-politician-hates-West–loves-Thatcher.html
Chrissy Pyne is a hopeless joke, his speech on the campaign finance reform bill is essentially paraphrasing Senator Ronaldson’s speech that was on Order in the House last night.
I guess Pyne set his TIVO, and transcribed the recording when he woke up.
The Telegraph are sticking by the photos being real. This could get interesting.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/hanson-photo-scandal-paper-strikes-back/2009/03/16/1237054687512.html
Yeah, because it certainly didn’t start interesting.
This says Mr X and Fielding are expected to pass the IR bill, with a change in the definition of a small business from 15 being lifted to 20. Turnbull wanted 25. 20 seems a pretty harmless change. The number is arbitrary anyway.
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/turnbull-under-pressure-over-work-bill-20090315-8yyz.html
Scott Morrison is a moron. He is saying that changing the donations disclosure from $10,000 (adjusted for inflation) down to $1000 is “partisan”. That must mean when the Howard government increased the donation disclosure from $1000 to $10,000 that THAT was partisan.
The Liberals really have a problem with consistency and fairness in the parliament, let alone in the workplace.
Daryl Melham just gave Steve Fielding a bit of a serve in the House over his voting against the election donations bill. First he compared him to Albert Field (pretty flimsily though) and then he read out the numbers that got him elected to claim that he doesn’t have any kind of mandate to frustrate the ALP. Of course, under our preferential system that argument is nonsense. I’ve noticed that Rudd and Gillard have been careful not to say nasty things about Fielding, but Melham is not so shy.
I bet Feilding is getting a lot of not so nice emails after his voting down Alchopops and the political donation changes and threatening to block FW and the ETS
He will be walking the streets at midnight unable to sleep again like he did when he voted down the stimulus the first time.
Must be about due for him to give another hysterical speech lol
Sid Sidebottom attacking the Exclusive Brethren was better.
Hanson does have a point, Oldfield came out and said she was married at the time and questioned her morals.
Hanson does campaign on her values so could see it as damaging to her especially if the alleged photos have been photo shopped.
The thing that is most damaging to Pauline Hanson is Pauline Hanson.
The Coalition’s argument against this electoral reform bill seems to be “we won’t support it, because you raise more money than us. Your ability to raise more money than the coalition parties is an unfair advantage, so we need a donation system that makes it harder for you to raise money and easier for us to raise money.”
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard “cherry picking” today too. They claim to be voting no just because more can be done.
Pauline Hanson trying to win back the affections of William Bowe?
“Pauline Hanson has offered to show her belly button to the nation’s media in an effort to prove nude pictures published in newspapers yesterday are not of her”.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/please-explain-tit-for-tat-over-hanson-photos-20090316-8ze9.html
SNIP: Offensive comment deleted – The Management.
Well aren’t you a charming little miscreant Mr Nash.
Crikey Media youtube of SkyNoos reporting Ms Hanson’s Media Conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr8WOVEkuXo
GG, like the Member for Curtain, she also has many “friends”, including our Bilbo?
btw: i cannot see any of her belly button. at Wollstonecraft?
http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/images/John_Howard_washes_his_hands_of_Pauline_Hanson_(Apologies_to_Manet)1.jpg
you might have to cut & paste this URL in your browser:
http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/images/John_Howard_washes_his_hands_of_Pauline_Hanson_(Apologies_to_Manet)1.jpg
question time is on- no comments ?
I have a comment. Each opposition question is just inviting the government to give them another kick on WorkChoices.
The member for Sturt is warned!
Nicola Roxon is always good value. She doesn’t get enough questions.
Peter G, ripped them up Saturday and now in parliament
The “Oils” were terrific in Canberra on Friday. Haven’t seen them play in 15 years but they were just as good as I remembered.
Chrissy Pyne just got kicked out again.
yawn, the poodle has just been chucked out again, does he get paid for the time he spends in the naughty corner?
touche lol.
the opposition’s all having a whinge about who said what when and why.
Pyne kicked out AGAIN? He should get out of the shadow ministry if he is unable to live up to the standards of parliament. Typical bloody Liberal.
Looking forward to sitting back watching repeat on A-PAC tonight
The leader of the Nationals advocating tariff reduction to 0%. Former National leaders would be turning in their graves.
Even the ones like Ian Sinclair and Tim Fischer who aren’t dead? Are you suggesting they should dig a grave and roll around in it?
The Country / National parties should’ve always supported 0% tariffs, because Australia is a net exporter of agricultural commodities. It is in Australia’s interests for their to be no tarrifs on food world-wide.
Ian Sinclair definately should do what you suggest he was lazy incompetent man who for his intransigence in 1987 has cost the National Party dearly.
HAHA Senator Boswell called Ronan Lee a “Labor rat” in the Senate just now. Brown’s upset.
Brown – Point of order: “He should be ashamed of himself”.
Deputy President: “That’s not a point of order”.
Seriously one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
You don’t remember Keating?
A whole bunch of clips of him on youtube.
Dear Oz, if Bob Brown taking a point of order in the Senate is one of the funniest things you’ve ever seen, I am truly sorry for you.
Here is my offering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0
Essential Research: 58-42, down from 60-40 last week and 62-38 the week before. Also featured: millions of questions on the GFC, and one on Peter Costello.
It was the drama of it all.
And I’ll be damned if I’m made fun of for getting a kick out of the Senate by the posters on this site.
Q. Peter Costello has recently been making high-profile media appearances and policy commentary – which do you most agree with:
He is making a valuable contribution to political debate 17%
He is undermining Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull 20%
He is preparing to challenge Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership 32%
Don’t know 31%
Aren’t these questions extremely similar?
If you want to see real live media bias, look at this piece of garbage from Macquarie News.
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2009/03/16/No_evidence_alcopop_tax_works_Inquiry
The headline is the exact opposite of the truth, as is half-conceded in the last few paragraphs. In fact there is plenty of evidence that alcopops sales have fallen.
None of the questions are exclusive either.
He can be contributing to the debate, undermining Turnbull and preparing to challenge all at once.
889 Benji, was out all day shopping and so forth, missed the lot today. But because it is Monday, won’t watch QT replays tonight. Underbelly takes precedence in this house
(will have to content myself with the posts here although I admit they are a bit thin today and any news articles that come up. Sometimes you can count on the journos to write some nice stuff the next day if QT was juicy or sometimes that afternoon/evening
Juliem, 99% of Australians lead rich and fulfilling lives without ever seeing QT at all, or even knowing what it is.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hGie4J3CTKwCjZEk7jxBc_4BACjQD96UEHH80
Yeah, and they wear these t-shirts:
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/moredetails.aspx?showBleed=false&ProductNo=364052963&colorNo=29&pr=F
Looks like Telstra’s Sol Trujillo has been well instructed by his US brethren in the structures that big business executives use to look after their mates.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25190944-643,00.html
And it just gets murkier and murkier.
Sol and his mates must have thought that Christmas had arrived after he was appointed to the Telstra position. They probably also couldn’t believe just how niave and incompetent the then Australian Government and regulators were. A tree full of ripe fruit just waiting to be picked. WOW!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25190944-643,00.html
I blame Bill Bowe for this:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25191035-5007133,00.html
My guess is she used some of the campaign finance money to have plastic surgery.
With sales of non-alcopops alcohol rising?
Yes, but even accounting for that, over all less standard drinks worth of alcohol has been sold.
Now that may be a result of the tax, or the $20 million advertising campaign against binge drinking, or maybe there are more broader economic factors such as people spending less because they are worried about being sacked.
But you can’t dispute the fact less alcohol in total has been sold since the tax was introduced than before.
Pyne Shock Horror Photos: Christopher Pyne has just admitted on ABC Local Radio 702 Sydney to running down the street outside his house naked. His family apparently have images of the event carefully put away – only bringing them out when they want to tease him.
Pyne was 3 when the photos were taken.
It is not known if the SA Police or the AFP will take steps to seize the images.
Was he chasing the family poodle?
No, another man.
What sort of belly button has he got?
Innie, though many think he should be an outtie…
Speaking of being outied, perhaps Pyne needs to tell us all his dark secret……..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGaDjSXhB8s
Scorpio, i said it before, Mr Trujillo is giving the 3 Amigo a bad name.
The ABC cancer has spread to JJJ.
Two pro-Liberal stories in a row!!! I can barely remember one except for when Barnaby Joyce saved someone from drowning.
First we had a very negative story about the oil spill in Qld. Kate valiantly attacked the LNP Environment Minister but it didn’t help much. The Government’s initial story of twelve people with rakes fixing it all sounded awful.
And then Peter Garrett copped it for being a great singer but a lame politician. Greg Hunt really went to town on him.
Don’t be such a baby, Diogenes. Triple J will always be a bastion of radical leftism.
SBS News says some asylum seekers are being sent to Christmas Island. Didn’t the government shut down the offshore detention centres?
Isn’t that Hunt’s job to such things?
Anyway, what’s with all the oldies (no offence, I actually have no clue how old you are) listening to the Jay’s these days. My dad can’t get enough of it. He watches JTV as well.
The “on the attack Turnbull” photo is back on rotation on the ABC site:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/16/2517536.htm
Oz
I hope so. I almost threw up in my car today though I was so upset.
Finns
One of your Marxist rebel mates got over the line in El Salvador.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7944899.stm
Long way to go with the IR leg
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25194996-601,00.html
Christmas Island is part of Australia, therefore not deemed off shore as I understand it.
Total nonsense, I know.
The party is a formr marxist rebel party. Funes is actually quite the moderate. He refutes suggestions he’ll follow in the footsteps of people like Chavez.
I don’t like the FMLN one bit, but I think having them win an election will be the best way to bring them into the political mainstream.
They shut down Nauru. That Christmas Island is part of Asutralia is a big difference.
Everyone’s coming out swinging, I was just asking for clarification.
Grog
Would changing the definition from 15 to 20 be such a big deal? Gillard would hardly chuck the FW bill over such a minor point. Fielding is the real problem.
No, but the government doesn’t want to give in too easily either, otherwise it will make future negotiations too difficult
The great White Hope, of many, is not such a great White Hope after all. A new economic order must and will emerge after this GFC and TGR.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7941382.stm
And now for something completely different.
Ah, the real irony of life. John Robertson, NSW Corrective or Police Minister, ex NSW Union boss, is defending the privatisation of a jail near Newcastle and under attack from the Jail Officer Union. the same John Robertson was the main architect and spearhead that defeated the privatisation of NSW power industry and caused the demise of Morris Iema.
Haha 7:30 Report had a hilarious montage.
Rudd/Gillard/Turnbull all decrying executive payouts and then Bob Brown saying he’s the only one who’s tried to do something, like empowering shareholders and capping payouts at $5 million all of which have been voted down by both major parties.
Nice free kick.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25194996-601,00.html
Wonder what Rudd will do now – a Scullin or a Whitlam?
Fielding wants to exclude businesses with 20 or less employees from collective bargaining and exempt them from unions right of entry.
Sounds like the rights and exemptions the exclusive brethren got for their businesses from Howard.
904, once I had my first fix, I was hooked. QT is an addicting drug and I might add that A-Pac being on the horizon now makes getting that fix much easier
…..
ShowsOn 906, that is a classic
…. thanks for posting 
921,
Hmm ….. Hunt should make sure he’s doing a AAAA++++ job as a pollie before he runs around claiming anyone, LET ALONE Pete, is a “lame politician” …… x(
Xenophon still on the fence regarding Alcopops.
It’s all in the eye of the beholder. I think that pic is very unflattering. It shows Turnbull to be a smart arse. What was in the political leaning of the ABC employee who chose that particular image for the article? On the evidence presented it’s impossible to say.
Grog
Exactly my point. JJJ knew Hunt would say that Garrett has no control over his portfolio, was a lost soul, and had sold out his principles to have them churned out as mediocre, “balanced” policy. Something about Garrett being in Labor just to win the youth vote and sit quietly in the corner. And they still let him on!!! It’s the thin end of the wedge.
If I want to hear the Liberal Talking Points Memo, I’ll look at the ABC news online site.
Next JJJ will have an announcer from the Right. (Shudder).
X and Fielding should be taken to a business that employs 16 or so people and then be required to report on why those individuals should be exposed to the current unfair dismissal laws. I have in mind a panel beating operation where there is overtime worked during peak periods but reduced hours (less that a standard working week) during lows. Why is that fair when a business of 30 people is subjected to a whole set of different requirements? I think the minimum number should be lower rather than increased. A total of 3 to 4 employees would be about right IMO.
I wonder if Rudd will threaten a DD after all his two major policies Fair Work Australia and the ETS will not be passed.
Thanks Mr X and Mr F
I hope he does Glen. After all as you infer he was given a mandate to bring on significant change in both areas.
a very thin edge though…
sorry Oz – didn’t mean to come out swinging!
I don’t think so, and she should bend on it – or at least say, ok 15 full time equivalent. She should do whatever it takes to get the Bill passed and to have the LNP vote against it.
Glen, please explain why you are happy about the prospect of a DD election on the horizon? Unless I’m missing a piece of the puzzle somewhere, the earlier an election is held ahead of the NLT date the worse it is for the Libs given their disarray at the present time.
those chickens have hatched have they Glen?
So his default postion then?
Because if Rudd wants to go to an election with 2 policies that will cost jobs when we will most likely be in recession i hardly think he’ll do as well as he thinks, plus all the nut jobs that will get into the Senate is going to make life even harder for him there too.
And even if Rudd did win, the Liberals would keep blocking the government’s policies anyway. That’s all they know how to do at the moment – say NO to everything.