The latest weekly Morgan face-to-face survey of 883 voters shows Labor’s two-party lead down from 60.5-39.5 to 57-43. Labor’s primary vote is down two points to 48.5 per cent, the Coalition’s is up substantially from 34.5 per cent to 39 per cent, and the Greens are down two to 6 per cent. Between Morgan, Newspoll and Essential Research, there is now significant evidence that some of the gloss has come off the extraordinary spike Labor enjoyed from its response to the global financial crisis.
Elsewhere:
• The Geelong Advertiser reports on the federal Liberal preselection for Corangamite. Prospective nominees: former Kennett government minister Ian Smith, “considering his position”; Graham Harris, head of the party’s Corangamite electorate council; Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay; “Moriac district resident” Rod Nockles; Simon Price, unsuccessful Colac Otway Shire Council candidate and former electorate officer Stewart McArthur who lost the seat in 2007.
• Mark Kenny of The Advertiser reports that “pressure is mounting inside the Liberal Party to dump its candidate for the state seat of Newland, Trish Draper”. Draper was federal member for Makin from 1996 to 2007, when she forestalled what seemed to be very likely defeat by retiring. Draper is seen to have been damaged by reports an ex-boyfriend has been identified as a suspect in a murder investigation, which is currently the subject of a defamation case. A Liberal source quoted by Kenny says Right faction powerbroker Senator Nick Minchin has told Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith to dump her.
• The ABC reports “speculation” that Premier David Bartlett is “planning to visit Tasmania’s Governor on Monday and send Tasmania to the polls as early as April 18”, resulting from the government’s failure to table long-promised legislation to enact fixed four-year terms. Bartlett denies this, and he would have to be pretty silly to ignore the still-accumulating evidence that unnecessary early elections are a bad idea.
• The ABC reports that Labor is courting Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb as a possible state election candidate for Bass.
• An interim report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommends an end to trials of electronic voting for the vision-impaired and overseas defence personnel on the grounds it is too expensive. The report said the 850 votes cast electronically in 2007 cost $2597 each, compared with $8.36 for each non-electronic vote. A dissenting report by Bob Brown argues the government should pursue electronic voting to assist disadvantaged voters, and investigate its use in the Australian Capital Territory and overseas.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published papers on women parliamentarians in Australia and the possibility of dedicated indigenous representation, a la the Maori seats in New Zealand.
556 Comments
will the death of WC have any bearing on tomorrow’s Qld election??
BTW both Morgan and Essential appear to be tracking the same way, settling back from a huge lead to a very large lead for the government
Yes Andrew – 55-45 or 54-46 is my tip for the next newspoll.
regardless of the LNP 2PP I can’t see MT’s preferred PM doing much at all.
No. The Senate change the legislation to increase a small business definition from 15 by head count, to 20 full time equivalents.
Today in the House the Government rejected this amendment, the bill went back to the Senate where the Senate then dropped its support for its own amendment, and instead agreed to the House version of the bill.
Have a drink not just because Workchioces has been held down garrotted but also because Erica and crew will be spewing pure bile.
And, they got killed by a woman. Erica & Peter have been emasculated. Not that Peter gave much indication he had anything to lose.
wow what an exhausting process. Good ol democracy!
Just continuing on from the previous thread…
A few minutes ago Newsradio very briefly swapped to the HOR. When they got there they said that Rudd had just made a short statement before cutting in the HOR audio just in time to hear Jenkins say something like “the house is adjourned until such and such”. The Newsradio host then took us straight back to the Senate.
Ah, we missed te House Adjourn:
So Fielding’s 15 FTE deal isn’t part of the legislation, because they didn’t vote on that. It must be that Gillard said she would interpret the definition as 15 FTE until 2011.
This should be a great “Good News Story” to lead the news bulletins tonight in Qld. Might help with those undecideds.
Looks like Gillard and Labor have outsmarted the Libs on process. I thought Abetz head was going to explode.
Gillard has powers under the act for transitional arrangements, and she has just agreed to a phase in of the 15 by head count definition.
Fielding THINKS he got them to do a review, but if Rudd is still P.M., the Senate will be Labor-Green controlled which makes it a formality.
not necessarily – the caravan of IR may have moved on from workchoices.
Maybe work against labor in that people will feel more comfortable voting LNP as no more Work Choices or maybe work against LNP as people may feel libs inc LNP have not let go of Work Choices,
So don’t know.
Farewell Workchoices. May you rot in hell.
let the burning of the mouse pads begin!
Ten News: “WorkChoices is Dead”
Not based on what just happened, labor will be able to show the libs have never let go of Work Choices, fought to the death to retain it and will try to reintroduced it in anther name or form if they get the chance.
Gees it feels good to hear the death of Workchoices. This from someone who hated working for a boss so preferred to be self employed.
This Senator Mason seems to have been imbibing too much on the Red Cordial.
One last broadside falling harmlessly into the sea. What a bunch of tools.
“Senate Rubs out WorkChoices”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25215678-421,00.html
Finns
The AIG public outrage is getting to a lynch mob level. The execs are being stalked, getting death threats, warnings to keep their kids out of harm’s way and need security guards outside their homes. It’s all good. Democracy works eventually.
Their neighbours are giving those “how does it feel to find out your next door neighbor is a serial killer” kind of interviews.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/nyregion/20siege.html?_r=1&hp
#20
is it me or is the senator foaming at the mouth?
:O
I think that understates what happened. Isn’t it a case of Gillard convincing a Senator to support the bill? The process was very enjoyable to watch – like a stage magician and the “ta-da” moment, but the real work was just old fashioned policy politics. No?
As did I!
And just a few short hours earlier Malcolm Turnbul was accusing Gillard’s arrogance of crashing the “death of WorkChoices” into a brick wall. It seemed like a morality tale on hubris.
I’m still not sure that Mr X did. The media is reporting that Gillard struck a deal on the transitional arrangements with both Fielding and Xenophon. It probably doesn’t matter much anyway.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25215670-601,00.html
Mason must have forgotten to take his Ritalin this morning. Everyone left in the chamber will be giving him a wide berth after he finishes. They will be scared of getting bitten by him and catching Rabies.
wow he is totally mental. Has the nearest Canberra psychiatric ward had an escapee lately?
good grief.
The last bit of Howard’s vileness is thus dead.
Just how angry and ill advised and careless will the Turnbull crew be now.
Let’s say Labor wins the next election, who thinks this means Gillard will drop I.R. and take on a different portfolio (as well as Education) after the election?
If the Government decides to go for a federal take over of hospitals, Gillard could take on Health as well as Education with Roxon taking I.R.
Having said that, Combet or Shorten would be great in I.R.
For a Party that has repeatedly tried to tell us that “Workchoices is Dead”, they seem to be having a lot of trouble accepting the loss of their dear friend. They seem to be doing denial, anger, bargaining and depression simultaneously.
Going by what I have just seen with the nutcase Mason and the earlier antics by Abetz and Turnbull, VERY ANGRY!
The last thing I saw in the telecast was two men in white coats coming into the chamber and heading for Mason.
To the Funny Farm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4
If Springborg wins tomorrow, will he and Barnett follow their Republican State Governor counterparts in refusing to take the stimpac funds? Or are they hypocrites? So far Palin, Sandford and Jindal have a large part of the money offered to them.
They seem to hold a lot of seances.
Hopefully Lateline’s Friday Forum is with M.P.s so that Labor can rub in the good news.
Well, I thought the APH report was interesting. Interesting too that there have even been recommendations in Parliamentary Committee’s but nothing ever comes of it – see the recommendations of the 1v1v committee in WA in 2001:
http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/commit.nsf/(Report+Lookup+by+Com+ID)/22155D7A1F3DC40048256B100031FD84/$file/ln.elm.011124.rpf.008.xx.a.pdf
There was unanimous agreement that they should look at indigenous representation but then managed to ignore that ever since (and will forever more under Barnett & Grylls).
I like the AdelaideNow headline “At Last – WorkChoices is Dead”
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/
sadly worstchoices still beats strongly in the heart of the liberals
NO MENTION on melb ch 7 news- incredible
From Christian Kerr today:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/houserules/index.php/theaustralian/comments/gillard_tries_to_do_a_number_on_coalition/
Reputation quaranteed.
Wonder if she’ll now dump the IR part of her portfolio and focus full time on education??
I don’t think she will do it now, but after an election I think it is a possibility, see #29.
If Labor goes to the election saying Labor will take over public hospitals, then Gillard would be a great Health minister to get that up and running.
WorkChoices death was the 7th story on Seven News Adelaide.
Meanwhile Ch 7 in Perth had the delayed 4.30 Bulletin which was saying the Bill was in danger of being blocked.
And I’ll bet Mark Reilly was spinning it for Turnbull
Note how Kerr thinks the Government needed BOTH crossbenchers?
This is like yesterday where he didn’t know the proper quotas for full and half senate elections.
Mason and Fielding would be good!
No, it showed Gillard saying the Liberals will always be for WorkChoices, it then had some Xenophon asking the government to agree with his amendments, then an interview with a cafe owner asking her if this changes anything.
Diog, can i join? Those custards just dont get it. I agree with that Repug Senator who said they should take deep bow, apologize and then commit Hurrah Kurrah (That’s the Apache’s version of the japanese Hara kiri, i think it was in the movie a Man called Horse, strung up and pulled around by horses). AIG = Arrogant, Insensitive and Greedy.
Nah, Fielding needs time to go for a late night walk.
SO
Gillard is thanking the Greens, X and Fielding for getting rid of Workchoices.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25215769-5006301,00.html
Unless they do a live cross from said walk
My friend Yogi bear just told me that
I am pretty sure it wasn’t mentioned on Channel 9 News Adelaide, but I am not totally sure because I was flicking back and forth between 7 and 9.
Now that would be totally awesome. With him just walking around parliament house wearing a headset.
Nah, radio lapel mic and an earpiece like what Kerry wears if you look carefully.
OMG, Breaking (delayed) News, Labor has struck a deal to pass the Fair Work Bill
Cheers SHowsON – I should know to read previous post (but great minds…!)
I think she’ll dump it at Christmas. My mail is a reshuffle in December.
(btw my mail is me just thinking stuff)
btwe the way I was on Akerman’s blog today (why I don’t know), and apparently he will be on Insiders this week.
Diogenes
Only because of the roundabout way it occurred. They were effectively voting again on the amendment that passed last night, but this time it didn’t get the required majority.
It’s just as well that the Senate rules don’t require a majority to overturn the first vote, but they were probably designed with this kind of situation in mind. The HOR is the government and should have the right to require the Senate to reconsider the amendment from scratch.
All we need now is for Aust to bowl out South Africa for 150. That, my friends, will be a very good day
Finns
The House passed the bill to tax AIG bonuses at 90%.
In other news, the Empire strikes back at the hapless Conroy.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23959/1023/
I still can’t see the death of WorkChoices on the SMH webpage: http://www.smh.com.au/
WOW I the death of workchoices is the FIRST story on SBS News. The first TV news show to cover the story first.
Incredibly, Fair Work was not among the headline stories that opened ABC TV news in Melbourne, and the jailed judge got top billing.
IR didn’t rate a mention in the teaser to tonight’s ABC news in SA. Only racing and the jailed judge.
ABC News has become a joke. We all know that.
ABC took till 7.09 in Melbourne, but they covered it pretty well.
They must think the viewers won’t easily tolerate more politics so soon after alcopops.
Typical Liberal Stooges in Perth Now comments.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/comments/0,21590,25215919-948,00.html
If the ABC is making decisions on whether to run or where to run political stories based on what viewers would tolerate then they have truly lost the plot as the national broadcaster
Alas “Our ABC” are now slaves to the ratings gods, hence the dumbing down across the network
Therein lies the problem. Even ABC online news writes links to suck people in to clicking on them rather then accurately describing the story they link to. It’s pathetic.
workchoices dead, newspoll says 50/50 Anna still in the game. Things starting to look up.
*crosses fingers*
#69
I agree, but that’s the only explanation I can think of. The judge could have waited; that’s only a mid-bulletin worthy item. They trumpeted the alcopops failure the other day. Was that more important than an IR revolution? Blatant political bias is the only other possibility I can see.
Don’t worry – the Bill passed. Substance over spin.
Now what odds Malcolm lasting till the Budget?
I propose that henceforth the death of worstchoices bill be called the emily davison ACT
Emily davison was the suffragette who threw herself under the kings horse at the 1913 derby
Turnbull doesn’t know when to shut up:
So I guess that means if he got back in power he would jack the small business provision back up to 40… 50… 100?
Take your beating and be quiet, and with luck people will forget.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25216235-601,00.html
Zombie, don’t forget Anna will get the lions share and then some of the Greens preferences. Doesn’t matter if it has to go to 2PP to end it because if it comes to that, LNP haven’t got a snowballs chance
They said 50/50 on the Eve of the WA State Election and look what happened – we got Barnett and Laws generated by Talkback and the WA Police Union.
It was the fourth item on ABC in SA. They covered it quite well but it got a low profile. The story itself was fine.
On 9 NSW regional it only got a quick mention by the newsreader about 10 minutes in.
unfortunately (or not) they’re optional preferences in QLD.
When I lived in QLD I liked not having to number every box.
Had to pop back to celebrate the fantastic result for Julia and Labor on this outcome. Julia has probably taken over my estimation of Paul Keating as a killer, consumate, master politician. My Invisible Friend, she’s gooood!
I realise from having an earlier look at the Crikey live thingy that tomorrow’s Q’L'D election is very iffy, in terms of outcome. However, what do others think would be the impact on the Fed./ State dynamic, if some one as stupid as The Borg was Premier? Wo
WTF? Turnbull is trying to claim credit for the execution of workchoices.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25216235-601,00.html
Absolute disaster! The whole bunch of them are incompetent.
If Turnbull really helped kill it off, the House and Senate wouldn’t of had to sit today.
There would be a mass exodus over the border to NSW, all of them voting for Mr Rees in the next NSW election
Watch out for the ABC,s main story, it’ll be something like
‘Hero of the people Turnbull saves the day by killing off Workchoices’
We had a power blackout at 5.15 p.m. and we lost APAC. What did Mason do? The last thing I saw was Erica raving on about Julia.
Skynoos had Shadow IR bloke – is it Keeton? He and Turnbull must be spinning he same yarn. Said that they had framed the bill to make it better!!
Does Xenophon really believe talkback radio callers – he must be a bit naive. What small business has got the time to ring up looney shockjocks.
?
Fielding deal ‘kills WorkChoices forever’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/20/2522077.htm
Hey, Socs, have you been posting material on the ABC site somewhat different to what you normally post here?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/20/2522077.htm
Showson @ 89 I was being sarcastic
Ignore him – he’ll soon go away…
The other side of the Danish Muhammad cartoons fiasco:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25216959-23109,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25216959-23109,00.html
scorpio @ 84, it’s pretty much what I was thinking. If the Borg doesn’t believe there’s a Global Financial Fiasco and that global warming is caused by volcanic activity, and he thinks that slashing jobs is a good idea while being unable to explain how he’ll fund his election promises, the next COAG may be interesting as everyone present, including Barnett, leaps over the table to throttle him, or implodes from trying to resist the urge to do so.
My goodness, could this be true?
Howard’s Work Choices lies exposed
Some time later….
Brace yourselves bludgers. It is going to be very close.
The late momentum is with the LNP. The LNP has firmed from 2.80 to 2.20. The ALP has eased from 1.50 to 1.67.
QLD may have a new Premier tomorrow night???
Ticking the boxes:
Trash Howard Government….tick
Trash Howard…………………tick
Trash WorkChoices…………..tick
Trash Peter Costello………..WIP
Dario, I’m over whomever’s ABC, on the whole, in relation to political reporting and analysis. The corruption of language used to describe events being a big reason. If I had the time and resources, there’s a nifty audio analysis research tool you could use to demonstrate distortion away from impartiality. If I ever win Tatts, I’ll go back to Uni., and do such research. And porcine creatures might take to the air.
If the QLD voters have the lack of brains to vote the LNP in, then they deserve what they get , God help them.
Only one comment on the QLD election here – if they elect Springborg then they are simply nuts, voting for change for its own sake without paying attention to what Borg is saying. The Hoover of Qld.
Thomas Paine, what is WIP?
At the end of the day it is probably X who did over the Libs. He stayed with them and the Libs (wrongly) assumed that was enough.
In the meantime Fielding was being duchessed by Gillard and team.
Because of the way the motion is processed, the Libs needed both the independants to win.
They were out thunk fair and square.
William, what is your preferred thread for the QLD election chatter tomorrow? I gather you would prefer we not do it here?
101 –
wip = work in progress
Noooo, Centre. Are you basing that on the bookies?
Ta, juliem
HSO – I’ll have a bit more time in the next couple of months and I thought I might, daily, keep track of the headlines on ABC Online. Then I’ll do an Erica Betz and send it in to Complaints. It worked for him.
Usually they put the Opp. point of view first and then at the bottom the Govts. How many people stop reading after the first couple of paragraphs, I wonder.
Exiting combat in Iraq…….tick
Ending mandatory detention……..tick
Apology to stolen generation……..tick
Address climate change………not so much
Fix the Murray………not at all
There is one women with the ABC who is extremely jealous of Gillard’s high abilities, possessing all the great qualities that ABC woman does not.
H’S'O @ 105
Yes
Dio, in my book I can tick everything excepting the Republic ….. that one will be hanging around for awhile …..
It is not hard to see how they got Fielding over. Offer him the chance of standing up in the Senate and saying that HE is going to execute Workchoices. Great moment for him and he is looking to increase his popularity desperately. Also offering him the mirage of doing something over the number 15. Fielding was mightily impressed with Gillard which suggest she is a good negotiator.
BH, if you can keep a track of the stories, even archive them, it then would give a researcher the material to analyse.
GG
I still can’t work out what X did. He seems to have voted with the Libs in the final vote but Gillard etc are thanking him for helping get rid of SerfChoices. If he managed that, he’s up there with Gillard as a political operator and that’s very, very high.
Nooooooooooooo!!!
Address Climate Change…..might be a ‘was’ wait and see judgement.
As for the Murray…..I think they could buy up all the water rights in the Murray and still be perplexed on how come there seems to be nothing extra coming down to SA.
Diogenes, what about things like the Global Financial Fiasco diverting a bit of attention away from the MDB and climate change, though I’ve got to admit I’m with Boerwar and the Pine Bark Beetles on the ETS. Just think maybe a bit of slack could be cut, particularly in relation to the MDB, as it’s been years and years in the making.
The betting pool for the QLD election would be pretty small, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It will be close though.
Were I neutral I wouldn’t bet on the ALP – never bet on odds on chances.
Stay tuned polyquats and HSO, I will make a post at 9.30am tomorrow with the winner.
TP
The more I think about it, the more Gillard looks like a puppet-master behind the drama. There’s still something more to how this all panned out that hasn’t come out. Gillard really killed the Libs on this.
HSO – I will do it. Who would be best to pass it on to. Hope you are getting more rest now that things are settling a bit and people are able to get back to see their properties.
Heard Helen Coonan on ABC2 the other a.m. complimenting La Trioli on her negotiating skills. lol. Anyone else noticed how Trioli positively ‘beams’ with pleasure when news is against the Govt.
Gillard praised them in working together on amendments then went on to say that none of the Coalition amendments got up and that the coalition was left on the side line. There being no point in attacking X after the event (even if it failed).
Gillard is very sensible here. She knows her target is only the coalition and there is nothing to be gained in attacking the independents. OTH Erica got stuck into Fielding which may not bode well into the future for the Liberals. Bad tactics from them.
X voted for Workchoices so he says because people were ringing talk back radio saying they were going to sack people to get under 15. (which is silly because you could say the same for whatever number). It is simple x was in favour of Liberal Party’s law on unfair dismissal. A very bad error of judgment.
X did nothing apart from be polite and drink cups of tea. The Libs mistakenly believed that by keeping him on side, then they would win the day, dropped their guard and have now been run over by the Gillard express.
Sometimes you can stuff up something you don’t support by being as helpful as possible.
The Liberals once again fell into the trap and made themselves irrelevant, Julia has them worked out! Abetz’s sour grapes and hissy fit in the senate this afternoon were hilarious!
I think the labor tacticians have done a marvelous job. With the malpops tax getting voted down and Fielding becoming our very own Snidely Whiplash
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snidely_Whiplash)
Julia threw him a lifeline to save his reputation, a chance for him to make a hero of himself.
Well done to the cool heads in the cabinet, especially JG. They’ve turned the disappointment of Wednesday into a massive victory today.
Yes Grog, pretty small alright, there is no pool betting on elections.
Being a state election, the larger, more important bets would be placed in the last 24 hours before booths open.
Absolutely. But to be honest, this was the big test for her. IR was her baby, her issue, her deal to make or break.
She absolutely nailed it.
Probably will be her high point in politics, unless she becomes leader…
Well, if the Borg gets up tomorrow in the very strange state I grew up in, I reckon all bets are off for a while about the next Fed. election. What with the MSM reporting Turnbull as the true saviour in relation to Serfchoices (gag), alternatively, Fielding (gag), and this trend downwards, well, a bit, in the polls, I wonder about the effect of the unrelenting negativity, carping and misinformation emanating from the MSM. I really do.
He’s always said he didn’t agree with the unfair dismissal laws, even before he was in Federal parliament.
GG
Did the Liberals stuff up so badly? They must have a few smart operators like Minchin, who could have connected the dots. There’s something screwy going on here.
The MSM have been predicting the end of Rudd since well before November 24, 2007!
They will always favour the conservatives!
So what did Mason do in the Senate that caused a few comments earlier.
Dio – perhaps X thinks that his constituency is small business in SA. My brother in law who is not the least bit interested in politics says that X is the only bloke he considers worthwhile. But other SA friends tell me that he was a right dill on many things in the SA Parliament.
GG, You are giving X credit which he does not deserve. If he thought the number 20 was too high he should not have supported the amendment in the first place.
BH, hang on to it because someone doing a political science Ph.D. would be willing to be your slave forever, if you had such material. Useful in older years, I reckon. You’d simply let the various political science departments at the various unis. know you had such material. However, if I win Tatts this weekend, you can have half of it.
Diogs,
The anger and frustration from Abetz and Mason did not sound confected. They have been done over big time.
Steve K ,
See 123.
Yeah, I know evan 14, but it still gives me heartburn. Night all.
I’m a bit disappointed with this poll actually. It should have been something like 59.5 / 40.5.
The MSM are throwing so much mud, and Turnbull is being given so much oxygen talking crap, that some of it may be starting to stick. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people in the electorate believe that the stimulus is a waste of money!
I disagree Harry, Rudd has had the carping and negativity since he became leader of the opposition. Hasnt hurt his popularity yet…
BH
Mr X fills the “swinging voter” demographic in SA. Hard-core Labor and Liberal supporters hate him. People who are sceptical of both parties are his core.
Turnbull’s attack on JG mid afternoon was full blooded as he thought he’d scored a victory. He’s got egg all over his face tonight (I’m sure Hockey can lick it off) so you can be sure the Libs were completely out maneuvered.
In the corner of a dark cold room somewhere, there is a sad creature mindlessly whispering… ‘precious, my precious….not my precious’ JWH
I took that to mean the X was a willing decoy in the Gillard trap. If you meant something else then I missed it altogether.
Will the election coverage be on ABC2 damn i wish i had APAC right now
Centre – Political Sword had a bit about Turnbull sounding so superior in tone and constantly carping about Rudd & Swan’s incompetency, egocentricity, etc. – he thinks Turnbull may end up flopping heavily.
I think that he is appealing to the Lib heartland and some of them are going back to him.
Had to pull one of my kids into line (DINK) when he told me that he wasn’t getting anything from Rudd. His father just about jumped down his throat and told him that someone with his income and security in job shouldn’t even be looking for more.
So if our kid, a Labor voter, thought he should get something then how many others in the same situation are complaining about it.
Voting in Borg would be the worlds largest case of mass euthanasia.
self euthanasia
Glen
Sky are covering it.
Re Qld election, all week everyone in the media has been negative about Labor’s chances and practically calling Borg the next Premier so is it any wonder the mug punters are putting their money on LNP?
Dio – thanks. BinLaw swings either independent or Greens so that would be why he likes X.
Still, I think he is a bit naive to think that talkback callers are worth using in Parliament. The shockjocks only put to air the calls they want – and of course they would use the lot who say they will get rid of employees.
My daughter & husband are a small business and are actually going to put on staff and let’s hope they can keep surviving and retain them.
Will Qld Voters be seeking a Seasons of Change ?:-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NSou4PrpfU
Steve K,
My comments are always speculative. But, I reckon that X was a passive assassin in the end.
Have mange to add APAC to my digital TV channel list, and it works.
Now I don’t have to surf the net etc.
BH, after everything was wound up in the Senate this afternoon and the Motion to adjourn had been moved, Mason claimed a right to a 20 minutes indulgence speech.
Virtually everyone had left except the President and the two Senate clerks and he cut loose. It was one of the funniest sights I have ever seen by a politician. I hope someone has the foresight to put it on u-tube as it is almost compulsory viewing.
I bet those people who had to wait until he finished when everyone else was either on their way home or at the pub, would like to bury him.
Yes BH @ 144. It’s not really about how much money Rudd is giving you. The stimulus is designed to boost demand in the economy, and it needs to be done quickly. And, no, not by tax cuts or by cutting payroll tax.
The higher income earners should realise that if we boost demand and soften the impact of a recession, more jobs will be secure, property prices may be maintained and the stock market will eventually recover more quickly.
Yeah, it’s a bit like people calling online polls credible
People can watch APAC while they surf the net. It’s on now.
http://www.a-pac.tv/
Re 154,
That same demographic, if they haven’t figured it out already, after today ought to also realize that the Coaltion gravy train they enjoyed under JH is dead in its tracks.
Borg has a good chance of winning Bligh is contemptuous by going to the polls early i hope she is thrown out.
Plus the LNP winning will show the other States that a united party helps in getting back to power.
You’d have to say you’d rather be the Borg right now than Anna she probably wont get any sleep but the Borg will be snug in his rug tonight.
vera, mug punters don’t influence betting prices.
Btw, commiserations Souths 8 – Parra 14
I’m backing Penrith, Roosters and Manly this weekend.
Ah Thomas, so true.
Come on I need to know if ABC will be broadcasting the count to make my dinner plans.
Bizarre the smh still doens’t have the IR story. The only link it does have is underneath a story from Swan about “Jobs forecast too low” and the link is titled: IR Bill Hitch.
Gotta love up to date news sites
Doubt it – he knows this is his last chance too.
Glen,
As I told you during the WA Elevtion, don’t count your chickens just yet – you may find that the result won’t be known for at least a week, and you you might find the leaders doing a deal with an independent or the Greens.
Glen,
Bad news for you again. The late swing is to Labor according to Newspoll.
My post on that is in moderation, but basically outside of Queensland the only source of coverage is ABC online – unless Newsradio decide to cover it.
The Age on the other han does have the story:
WorkChoices will disappear on January 1 after the Senate passed Labor’s Fair Work bill following two days of wrangling between the Government and crossbench senators.
…
The Opposition had dealt themselves out of the negotiations by sticking to its definition of 25 full-time staff while independent senator Nick Xenophon kept to his preference for 20.]
http://www.theage.com.au/national/parliament-approves-fair-work-bill-20090320-94aq.html
GG the same thing happened in WA and look what happened Colin Barnett won.
Also GG look what happened when Newspoll predicted 50-50 on election day 2004 and Howie won big time!
The Borg has been consistently ahead and is more likely to pick up the undecideds on election day.
Queenslanders like a bit of balance they’ve got Kev as PM but they dont need Labor running the State.
Well done Parra
Thanks Scorpio – if it comes on youtube let me know. Have dialup so it takes ages to download but sounds like it is worth a laugh. I am still in awe of Julia G’s nerve – no wonder the Oppn. are spiteful about her.
You are right Centre – kid eventually realised he was a mug for complaining. I think he’d been listening to the mob he works with.
Thanks Centre sad about the Bunnies but we who support them aren’t greedy, we are used to settling for 2 or 3 wins a year
How could you bet on the Roosters after Sts and Souths have given them floggings scoring 50+ points against them in the past few weeks?
Glen, obviously you kinda like Diog, you were also never told when you were young that pain would lead to pleasure.
Your side has been beaten to pulp fiction today by St. Gillard, and yet you come here like Oliver and asking: “can i have more, Sir?”.
Glen,
You asked a question, I gave an answer.
All the analysis I’ve seen says that the LNP needs 51+ to win. If , as reported the late swing is to Labor then Bligh will win.
OK, we’ve got St Kevin, St Gillard and I think we ought to have St Burke. He has been doing Malcopop beautifully in QT lately.
Finns
Saw one of your symbols (SMH)today in an ad for telstra.
Speaking of the SMH
great letter today
“its great to see the liberal party standing up for values it believes in-
No child should live without cheap alcohol in 2009″
vera, if a week is long time in politics, it is even longer in Rugby League.
Speaking of Oliver:-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4WxEQHiCE
Gus, coffee next week?
Grog, this is all the SMH had re Workchoices I think
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/new-workplace-laws-get-mixed-reaction-20090320-94d9.html
Dammit.
Talk about missing the political point.
Oz, it will be on ABC in Qld at least starting at 6.30 with Red Kerry and Antony keeping track of proceedings.
They both think that it will be late in the night before a trend will be evident.
Thanks, Scorpio but I don’t live in QLD and I was wondering if ABC would broadcast the coverage on ABC2 as they did with the WA election.
According to Frank, the answer is no.
Finns I have sent you an email.
Surely the ABC will stream it???
Sadly no coverage on ABC2 tomorrow night, but it’ll be on Newsradio.
Thank goodness for the internet, you can have your own private election night, without the pundits.
Obama addressing the Iranian people and leaders, with even an Arabic phrase at the end.
A brand new approach. Wonder how effective it will be.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/19/obama-addresses-iran-dire_n_177202.html
What! Obama is talking to the terrorists -aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh help – we are all doomed!
Oz, if you’ve the capacity to blog away from home (via your mobile for example) [?] wouldn’t you be able to catch William’s election live feed and keep up with it that way?
This is how sad and irresponsible the Republicans are. You turn down a gift which you can spend on your people, to improve their lives and, help the economy in the process.
Consevative politicians have become are a selfish and vile breed over the last 8 years.
Glen: a bad week for your lot, you now represent the party of Work Choices and binge drinkers! So you’re now relying on that hick Springborg to salvage the sinking ship known as conservatism?
Good idea juliem, but I was going to have some people over to watch the results on TV. Not quite the same thing as huddling around a computer or a mobile.
Looks like I’ll have to do that then. The last out of state broadcast must not have rated very highly.
191 – yes
Relying on a Nats man to provide some joy. That’s gotta hurt Glen.
They arent NATS they are LNPers!
If Springborg loses tomorrow, who will be the new opposition leader? Surely they won’t give him another go? He has been in parliament since 1989 from memory.
Will the Nat part of the Lib-Nats let an old Lib be leader? Or will the parties most likely de-merge?
Turnbull and Senator Mason were trying to give Springborg a leg-up today in Parliament but I think this poster put it in the best light and with the most honesty.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/jacktheinsider/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_borg_spells_danger_danger_for_bligh/
If Springborg wins, he’ll be a one termer, watch for an LNP govt to completely bankrupt the state.
Sure they are.
Shows On,
If history is any guide, they unite and demerge plus remain as a singularly plural force for Conservative politics.
Just be sure not to cry tomorrow if you lose another State to the Tories
We’ve got the Fed, that’s the main game.
The ALP is my party, and I’ll cry if I want to!
Ah Glen, but we killed off your beloved Work Choices, suck on that!
Glen should be happy it is over. The opposition’s argument that you enhance job security during an economic downturn by making it easier to sack people defies all logic.
As with WA Glen it makes no difference to me here in Vic, or to you for that matter.
And a warning – Piers is on Insiders on Sunday so don’t bother getting up early, unless you want to hear tales of conspiracy in QLD…
I think this is a rather extreme call.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/workplace-laws-get-mixed-reaction-20090320-94cf.html
One gets the idea that the Employer Associations are not exactly happy with the result. Probably even less happy with Turnbull for letting it happen.
I should have included this also.
If Mr Knott was out arguing that WorkChoices was unfair and didn’t give Unions enough of an influence on I.R., then I would take his judgment on the new system seriously.
Unfortunately, for some Employer Associations the unions having any semblance of power is too much for them. Bugger them I say.
Doesn’t sound like a good idea.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/20/2522356.htm?section=justin
To be fair, Turnbull was irrelevant in the process.
Don’t you realise you only employ people so that you can sack them whenever you want…
And c’mon – 6 months is a good amount of time to work out if someone is any good. Do you really think there are a plethora of people out there who work really well until the 6 months are up, and then they think – cool now I can slack off? Please.
A lot of jobs have a 3 month probation period anyway.
Exactly. They aren’t interested in a fair system, they simply want one with built in advantages for them.
Agreed Oz. Dumb move.
The Greens want to restore union power to the level it was before the (British) Winter of Discontent
I hope the Government reverses this. They are employing another 500 at Centrelink to deal with the increased unemployment, and the stimulus package gave Treasury another $50 million to deal with all the additional economic modeling that will be required over the downturn to figure out what parts of the economy are suffering the most.
I agree. The system shouldn’t be biased for or against unions. WorkChoices was complex legislation because it was designed to be biased against unions, even though most businesses employ people via union negotiated Enterprise Bargaining Agreements.
I thought The Greens managed to get a few million more in funding for the ABS as part of the stimulus package?
Labor’s Tim Gartrell taking on Tom Switzer on Lateline!
Who is going to be on Lateline’s Friday Forum? I hope it is M.P.s
Leigh is dressed to kill. After Lateline, it will be Latenight for her.
This was a very toxic group before the election, they give you the feeling of a minerals mafia.
Where are you taking her Finn?
Actually, Tom Switzer makes me pretty ill.
She is trying to get Stephen Long to ask her out. There is great anticipation every Friday, but it doesn’t happen.
I imagine a lot of Labor MPs, their staffers, and people at the ACTU are having a celebration tonight.
Leigh is really overrated you guys, i am so seriously.
What happened to Tony Jones does he only do QANDA now?
BTW if Kerry quit today who would take over 730 Brissenden??
Well deserved too. cheers all. I’m off.
“BTW if Kerry quit today who would take over 730 Brissenden??”
Possum.
Incorrect.
He hosts Lateline on Mondays and Tuesdays.
No, Leigh Sayles would take over.
Antony Green on Lateline!
#223, GB,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgPqmRNjoTE
Who does Green predict will win tomorrow?
Heathen!
I reckon they go out every Friday night after Lateline.
dario,remember glen thinks bishop is hot
Too close to call, Glen.
Oh comeon you guys seriously, just because it is female and is up late discussing politics doesnt make her hot.
BTW i bet you she votes ALP
such a turn off for me lol hahahah
Sexy Maxy, then nobody can accuse her of being biased because she will be biased!!
Yes, it all makes sense
It looks that way:
http://www.mumble.com.au/queensland/newspoll200309.pdf
Ahh yes. The real reason comes out!
[[dario,remember glen thinks bishop is hot
Yes, it all makes sense }
Dario,I was referring to Bronwyn BTW
LOL
you mean Bronwyn Bishop? This confirm that for Glen, pain really leads to pleasure.
nothing like slumming it out with the lower classes Glen, but don’t expect whips spurs or electric leads.
I feel ill…
Of course Glen’s girlfriend Dorothy Smith is a fully paid up member of the Toorak Young Liberals.
Tom Switzer for PM!
Was going to bed, and now am, but just gotta say, leave off Leigh Sayles or she’ll do you. Anyone want to volunteer to be vetted by Leigh?
ShowsOn but if i were to compare id say Maxy is far better looking than Leigh.
YES PLEASE!
Give Leigh a few years, and she’ll be a Labor parliamentary secretary too.
I’d consent to a full body search
No wait i strike my last comment.
Ali Moore is better looking than Leigh.
Does anyone esle think switzer has trouble swallowing his …. sandwich
Dont let the door smack you on the ass on the way out switzer
Leigh looks like a school girl in this photo:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200403/r16780_41285.jpg
I thought he would prefer Angela Bishop, who was a TV star in Broonie’s Womb when Bishop Snr was playing a lawyer* in Divorce Court
*Well she is a lawyer, but the show involved actors acting out real divorce cases with the lawyers playing themselves.
ShowsOn, you’re so predictable when it comes to the lovely Leigh. She is gorgeous and as smart as a whip. I’d like to propose Leigh Sayles for head of political reporting across both TV and radio on the ABC; she’d sort them out. Then we might be getting somewhere. Night again, and this time I really mean it.
What’s the odds on her finding anything?
Sure you do, HSO, you will be back
Glen, Leigh Sayles is a honey. Btw I prefer Julie Collins as a Brunette.
For those interested in some real goss,
“Glenn Milne, the pugnacious former TV journalist turned Peter Costello cheer-leader, has been making a unique fashion statement according to Canberra gallery observers. In addition to rather startling red-framed spectacles, Milne was seen this week sporting an eclectic ensemble of suit pants, olive jacket and white shirt with navy stripes. Some thought it was laundry day and he was just wearing what hadn’t been irredeemably soiled. But when he wore the same garb two days running, it led some unkind souls to speculate that there might be trouble at home leading him to a cheap motel with limited laundry service. Developing…”
http://www.vexnews.com/news/3423/fashion-police-canberra-informants-troubled-by-glenn-milne/
I said the exact same thing on the other thread! Great minds etc.
Should have done a focus group first, Julie.
Good taste as well Oz.
I bet now she goes back to being a brunette as word gets out that the pollbludger experts prefer her that way.
On an aside from the celebrations after Parliament today
and the looming QLD election, has anyone read anywhere what is happening or not happening with bailouts of the automakers in the US? Its not good folks in the Motor City and doesn’t look like getting good any time soon 
and this is ONLY in Detroit proper. Doesn’t show surrounding suburbs nor does it show Flint which is probably worse
.
Answered my own question …..
Glen,
alas no ABC2 coverage
The joys of international banking meltdowns. I was rung today from someone in a call centre with an Indian accent, asking me to confirm my personal identification details. Obviously I didn’t, but they said that Citibank had recently taken over Visa transactions for my financial institution (true) and had my name, bank and work phone number! I started to wonder how many newly broke banking executives might be peddling data to finance their change in career… If this is an example of Citibank security no wonder they are insolvent. I might need to change bank.
Could Glen Milne possibly become any more embarrassing?
i think workchoices is in the never ever basket not dead
Agreed. They’ll try it again for sure… under a different Orwellian name of course
so its 50-50. 43-40 lnp lab
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/labor-lnp-set-for-photofinish/2009/03/20/1237526319755.html
http://www.mumble.com.au/queensland/newspoll200309.pdf
Labor’s primary is 41.7 to the LNP’s 42.1
Surely the seat by seat breakdowns are more important?
The MoE on the regional breakdowns would be pretty high, but if you combine Galaxy and Newspoll you’re seeing significant swings away from the government in Brisbane and much smaller swings everywhere else.
But you can’t call anything from this poll. It just reiterates that this election is probably going to be very close.
Exactly, this is an exact replay of the WA State poll last September – I predict Labor will lose seats where the local ALP member has retired and/or new seats being contested for the first time.
yes very similar to WA…its spooky
one diff though. no where near as many ‘open seats’ with no sitting member as was the case in WA. Then again QLD has optional prefs.
Yep, and if the LNP DO get up, they’ll have the equivalent of Brendon Gryls, but without the intelligence or streetsmarts
It looks like this is what I was phone polled on 2 nights ago:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/pdfs/statepolitics18mar2009.pdf
That country vote looks completely wrong, apparently it was 58/42 in favour of the Liberals last time, that is a gigantic turn around!
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25219155-5006301,00.html
They probably have their weighting all screwed up.
This could be his first and last game.
Dear Dorothy Dixers
I may have missed something or misunderstood something, but does anyone know whether the drafting of the child of Work Choices Act excludes specifically the accessing to Commonwealth, State and Territory Government organisations and departmental employers to check the books? If it does not specifically exclude it, does it mean that union delegates will automatically have access to the books? Are the ‘books’ a subset of the whole ‘books’? Or am I barking up the wrong tree completely?
Signed
perplexed.
HSO
Welcome back!
The Pine Bark Beetles are hot on Borg.
Does anyone have a reference to the suggestion/claim that he believes volcanoes cause climate change?
The Australian Brown Paper Bag Manufacturer’s Association today denied that it was looking forward to any particular government in Queensland. The Association’s press spokesperson stated that the issue was an ‘irrelevant because these days all that sort of stuff gets done electronically.’
It is truly sad that the USA is trying so hard to destroy itself. On the brink of economic extinction they have a President who has a logical plan to at least do something in a systematic way that will at least pull the country away from the abyss.
Yet you have a load of toxic media and Republicans doing their hardest to bring down or mutilate his strategy and, leave the country with what? If they are successful what is the result? The great depression. The probably consequences don’t seem to bother the Republicans or papers like the Wall Street Journal, as long as a Democrat is not successful.
The US is fighting a huge fight for its existence and yet part of the US is trying to make their Champion ineffective and for the country to lose the fight.
We see the same thing with Turnbull and the Australian media, but not as bad as the USA willingness to suicide out of spite. Some of the Murdoch media and the Liberal party dearly wish for a recession and would help it along if they could (by blocking bills, undermining confidence etc) for the sake of maybe wining an election.
It is truly disgusting. This is a culmination and revelation of the character of the Republicanism and Howardism of the past 8 years. We get to see what they are really like underneath and it is awful to behold.
No wonder you see Obama and Rudd trying to find ways to talk to the Australian media directly, over the heads of MSM.
Ever noticed that since the introduction of computers and printers into the workforce the use and waste of paper has probably gone up 1000%
Back in the days of typewriters and carbon paper nobody had the time to go through so much paper.
…talk to the Australian media …
talk to the Australian people……
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25094907-5018787,00.html
A dead give away that he didn’t until recently.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25169390-5018775,00.html
Why the hell they picked an ageing spinner to make his debut now I cannot work out. He turns 37 next week ffs!!!
What a weird Election Eve Editorial from the Curious Snail endorsing nor mentioning any of the parties by name.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25217672-13360,00.html
TP @ 286
Thank you for the links. Culled from the two links, Borg:
1. Asserts that climate change exists.
2. Asserts that it can change very quickly up and down.
3. Asserts that volcanoes cause it.
4. Asserts that Bligh has done nothing to mitigate climate change by ignoring food security and allowing building to occur in those coastal bits of Queensland that might get wet.
5. Asserts that something should be done about emissions because they are bad for your health.
6. Asserts that it is too soon to do anything about it because it will cost jobs.
Yep, all that should just about stop global warming in its tracks.
By the way as nobody has said it yet…
Thank you Julia Gillard for all your effort from beginning to end. A wonderful effort that must earn the highest praise.
Congratulations Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party, the Greens, Senator Fielding and especially the Australian people for exercising democracy to remove a very nasty stain from our history.
Hail Julia Gillard!
What do these two people have in common (apart looking like they attend the same school of arrogant sneers)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Image-Howard2003upr.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Stanleybruce.jpg
They were both PMs who implemented controversial IR legislation, and lost the next election as well as their own parliamentary seat?
Yes. Watching turnbull mouth off in the HOR feeling so victorious just note how smiley Julia was and staring him. Gillard knew then that he was the loser. JG has won a huge psychological over turnbull.
I think I have made my view on Senator Conroy little effort to censor the net.
Here is a link to Getups campain:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet&id=576
Here is a link the the current black list, don’t worry William Australia has reached the standard of Chine, it’s been blocked. But do let us know if you feel you have to snip is anyway.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Australian_government_secret_ACMA_internet_censorship_blacklist%2C_6_Aug_2008#The_ACMA_blacklist
At least things aren’t as bad as the anti terrorist laws where you couldn’t even talk about the abuse of power.
Oh they have been busy, the image has gone from here
http://www.twine.com/item/123s3sb0q-282/threat-level-wired-blogs
Vera et. al.,
TP @ 283 & 290,
EXACTLY on both scores!
…… That is one big reason why (1) I am NOT in America and (2) why I’m an Australian citizen. {I’m a dual citizen US by birth}
Julia is great, Kevin is great, the whole country is great and yeah, we’ve got the right wing rabble too (Libs vs. Republicans) but in Oz, the country is on the right track. Not in the US and with the Reps. making up a proportional amount of 280 million or so (?) their noise is much louder on a day to day basis than the Libs here. Don’t know if it will ever be figured out and put back onto the right track …..
Glen et. al.,
The week in parliament from a teenager’s view point
….
Please God NO ……. (article intimates that Hanson could be the Grylls balance of power equivelent)
Juliem @ 297
I can see your point about why you are pleased to be in Oz as compared to the US.
The way the right wing media over there (eg FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc) are rabildly mobilising is quite scary.
Socrates at @66:
The same thing has happened to me with both Amex and Citibank. Amex were far more aggressive than Citi though.
I explained to “Kevin from Amex, Bombay” (the name he gave) that I had just received a letter from Amex telling me not to give my details out to anybody at all. Kevin was obsequious at first and patiently told em that of course Amex didn’t mean “Don’t give your name out to Amex”. I was patient with the poor fella, but firm. Then he turned nasty.
Turned out he really was from Amex and had reported me as a “recalcitrant” customer because i wouldn’t give him my mother’s maiden name etc. etc.. Seeing as my payment was late I was also “delinquent”. I guess that meat I was a “racalcitrant delinquent”. The “recalcitrant” bit was an entry on their secret database, and I was later told by a senior Amex exec in Sydney (after complaining about this treatment) that the entry would stay on their books for 2 years, and that even he (very senior) couldn’t remove the “stain” off my record.
So I paid out my card (a trifling amount, under $100), cut it up and cancelled the account.
Had a good chortle when another Bombay type rang me to “see if anything was wrong?”.
“Nothing that cancelling my account with Amex couldn’t fix,” I replied and hung up.
Last night I said I would make a post at 9.30am about the QLD election. Running a bit late, but better late than never.
The SENSATIONAL news is that all the corporate bookmakers have gone CHICKEN, ruled off their books and have ceased betting.
It is going to be close bludgers, VERY CLOSE. But the mail is:-……………………………………………………………………………………..
that Anna Bligh will hang on!!!
I too have been through the Amex experience. He seemed genuinely perplexed that I wouldn’t give him personal information to confirm that I was the person *he* had rung.
Crazy.
Juiem another thing about Australia is that our religious nutjob parties are probably pretty harmless compared to those in the USA. Ours have a spat and then want to build a wall down the middle of their office so they don’t have to look at each other
And to think our Mayor was on their Upper house ticket last election
http://www.smh.com.au/national/off-the-wall–odd-bother-ignites-an-unholy-row-20090320-94fh.html
Vera, gordon moyes sometimes appears at MIL’s church.
a decent chap who is surprisingly quite liberal in his thinking.
having chatted to him a couple of times, I feel that his is a centrist position as opposed to fred’s extremism.
that said he is facing some real oppn because he is not radical enough for the parties ruling clique.
Gusface i got that impression myself when I read what Moyes said about Nile, he might be better off becoming an Independent.
I think Moyes is trying to be a concilliator and make the CDP more moderate.
That said he is a billion times more intelligent than fred,but unfortunately,like howie had, fred has ‘ownership’ of the party.
Fred must be getting a bit long in the tooth, any chance he will retire soon, or is he like Howie and will stay put as long as he can?
And there is the rub
I think fred is clearing the path so that his values live on long after he has shuffled off.
ps Gordon aint a spring chicken either!!
Surely the C.D.P.’s biggest challenge over the next decade will come from Family First. Moyes is right that they need to adopt a more moderate stance.
Shows
I think it would be easier for voters if the Christian parties were more upfront
ie We are fairly moderate and dont want to shove christian values down your throat
acceptance, tolerance those sort of things
OR
we believe unbelievers should be burnt at the stake and sod the rest of you cos we have the ‘word of god’
The problem is that CDP FF etc is full of both groups and
There should be a truth in political advertising law
TP & Juliem – were talking about the problems the US have.
Interesting take on Obamanomics here :
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Obama-vs-Reagan-$pd20090319-QA7CN?OpenDocument&src=sph
Laurie Oakes telling it like it is
….
For Gusface at #312
Here is an interesting non answer by Fielding to the question of whether or not Family First supports the teaching of creationism in schools.
Bear in mind that the single largest contributor [as far as can be ascertained] to Family First in Victoria at the last election was a director of the pro-creationist City Life church that Fielding attends.
http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/family_first_origins.htm
The link I accidentally omitted above.
BB302
Interesting. They were quite pushy with me too, saying I “had to give them details”. I contacted my bak this morning and they confirmed they had had a number of complaints. They agreed it shouldn’t have happened and were investigating. I am with BOQ and up to now have been happy with their service. Apparently they changed their card services to Citi two weeks ago (lack of funds I presume…) If I don’t get a satisfactory answer I’ll be cutting up my card like you. Its a pitty because I think its good if smaller banks can provide competition in the sector, and have had no problems with BOQ up to now, even though I live in Adelaide. They only have one branch in the city, but plenty of ATMs. If this is any indication though, Citi suck from top to bottom, not just the cowboy traders who ran up their debt.
LNP distributing fake vote cards – absolutely typical of the breed.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25220046-2,00.html
Tom
re Moyes & Nile split – this has been brewing for a while. Nile ALWAYS votes with the ALP Govt, even though he says all sorts of things about them, preferences against them etc. Moyes on the other hand votes isue by issue. They often end up voting on opposite sides of the chamber, like when the ALP, to get Shooters Party votes on planning reform, gave them their watered down gun legislation. Nile voted with the Govt, Moyes against, calling it an unChristian Bill that could not be supported. What he was saying about Fred is fairly obvious. But at some point Nile will just get too old to go on and wil relinquish the party to unknowns – Moyes at least has a small profile even if not at the Nile level.
For those outside of Qld, ABC are streaming live video of the coverage.
http://www.abc.net.au/streaming/abc-video2.asx
lol@Antony Green – “I Think The govt is Back”
ABC Video stream
From the Australian on Fielding’s election in 2007, he will NOT hang around next election, early or not. He will make a hasty exit, these numbers are bad, didn’t realize that they were this low ….
gawd!!!! Springborg’s speech is a never ending story.
it’s not Springborg’s campaign that didnt get him over the line it was labors dirty tricks and smear campaign that stopped him becoming premier, i thought it was his party that was caught out handing out dodgy how to vote tickets.
Turnbull probably doesn’t realise but this is an amazing admission that WorkChoices actually does destroy lots of jobs and, that it was a bad law.
Wonder if Labor picked up on this?
I can’t keep it in any longer:
squeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Wanna see how spiteful, irresponsible and how little Republicans care about the USA?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/20/sanford-rejects-700-milli_n_177491.html
When do these Governors have to go to the vote?
But on a more important note..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/19/brazilian-waxes-may-be-ba_n_176824.html
The member for Dickson has been betting on Labor it seems:
” A KEY member of the shadow front bench was investing heavily in Australian banks at the very time Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull was attacking the Government’s banking guarantee for promoting “risky behaviour”.
Shadow health minister Peter Dutton – who served as assistant treasurer in the previous Howard government and then as shadow finance minister last year – apparently did not think the “risky behaviour” referred to by Mr Turnbull would have a detrimental effect on the share price of the big four.
Mr Dutton began buying bank stocks just weeks after the guarantee was announced as parliamentary debate over the decision was ramping up.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/liberal-invests-in-big-four-banks-20090321-94yy.html
Could this be construed as Insider Trading and result in the Member for Dutton facing criminal charges ?
No. He simply has to declare the shares on the public register of M.P. interests.
It just looks bad politically.
A shrewd investment though.
While the ethics of Dutton’s action is another question, I don’t see how it could be construed as insider trading, or even a form of conflict of interest. He didn’t have any influence over the decision. Of course, it does show he didn’t believe a word of what he himself said in criticising the bank guarantees
Also, this information was disclosed a few weeks ago, so it is a bit stupid for the SMH to go over it again.
But hey, that’s what most papers seem to do in their Sunday editions.
Gee the Pope is spoiling the party for dead Peruvian babies as well.
http://journalperu.com/?p=935
WHAT!? My understanding was that the Catholic church abolished limbo in 1993, they said they stuffed up and that it didn’t actually exist.
Are they now saying THAT was wrong!? Are they EVER right about ANYTHING?
Don’t answer that…
This thread is to the Pineapple Party Thread as the Senate is to the House of Reps: considered, on a higher intellectual and philosophical plane and far more gentlemanly and considered in tone. Let the riff raff have their instablogging and their short one-liners, all those ka-ching sound effects and not one, not two but three pundits running the show. In short, give me Poll Bludger rather than Pineapple Blogging anyday.
Anyway, I had this to say: I reckon yesterdays fulfilling of the Work Choices election promise in Federal Parliament was a stark to the voting public in Queensland that Labor stood for something, and can push through a cause by reason, not just numbers. They showed good faith with the voting public and sophistication in dealing with the problem at hand.
I’m just wondering whether yesterday’s victory in Canberra didn’t swing a few votes back to Labor in Queensland. How the Libs thought they could get away with advertising increasing the ability of bosses to sack workers as “good for jobs” I haven’t got the foggiest. Perhaps the Queenslanders woke up just in time?
My mistake, limbo was abolished in 2007. Damn, it only lasted 2 years.
http://www.slate.com/id/2164834/
Well it certainly showed Labor as being successful on a major issue. It may have had the effect of distracting the attention of some and that is often what it takes to break a chain of thought and cause a rethink.
I listened to Ebetz talking to the motion in the Senate and he was fairly riled and made a number of personal attacks on Gillard. What I didn’t see or realise was that Gillard was there in the Senate with Combet watching the death of WorkChoices. I think Ebetz’s reaction would have made Julia feel just that much better.
What a great moment it must have been for them both, especially Julia who carried this huge weight on her shoulders to the end. And Combet of course because also held Hardies to account when governments were letting them off.
I feel so proud of Gillard. She had do so much negotiating, fighting, suffering attacks all the way. But she carried it off with dignity, humor, wit, strength and class and great deal of intelligence and guile.
The real Thomas Paine would have enjoyed her victory as well.
To add to my earlier comment, not only do I think the Work Choices repeal helped, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Springborg boasting he would sack thousands of public servants wouldn’t have gone over too well in the current climate, either. It was a terrible, cliched campaign promise, so typical of conservatives.
The CLP lost the NT election because they said they were going to reduce some public servant numbers. Labor immediately came out and said they were going to increase them!
It was just 200? votes in one seat that would have won the CLP the election, Fannie Bay I think it was. Darwin has a large portion of public servants since it has to administer the entire NT. When Clair Martin first won for Labor she made a promise that she would not touch public servants…a very smart move.
There is no doubt that Springborgs economic plan cost him votes.
The Pine Bark Beetles are very sorry that Borg has announced that he will not run again. Sooner or later Labor will really wear out and the Beetles were very curious to know what Borg was going to do to all those volcanoes that cause climate change.
Nevertheless, the Pine Bark Beetles are pleased that only 12% of Queenslanders put Climate Change as the number 1 election issue. This is an excellent outcome.
The celebrate, the International Bark Beetle Collective has announced that it is awarding the Gold Kyoto Award to the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae).
These ‘have already destroyed huge swathes of Canadian forest (and) are on pace to release 270 megatons of carbon dioxide (C02) into the atmosphere by 2020, says a study released Wednesday.
That is the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions that Canada is committed to reducing by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, and would effectively doom that effort to failure, the study says.’
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Beetles_may_doom_Canadas_carbon_reduction_target_study_999.html
Cf Qld, hearty congratulations to the winners and their helpers. I do regret a little bit that Fielding was not joined by Hanson as a BOP arbiter at state level. What fun it would have been!
Also thanks to William et al (inc Anthony G) for an information-rich election run up and election evening.
Much upon which to ruminate.
Boerwar, fwiw, the sole remaining One Nation MP, Rosa Lee Long, lost.
bob1234
One Nation dead but not buried;
subsumed by Howard, the hate lives on,
coursing through the veins of the flag thugs,
and clotting the heart’s blood
of the once-decent liberals.
That was the defining issue in the campaign BB. Formal membership of a union might not be as strong as it once was but common decency and compassion hasn’t deserted us altogether. The Libs and Nats don’t understand that.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/imbalance-of-power-20090321-950o.html?page=-1
Let me repeat again. Two pygmies who think they are giant. It’s time the Govt calls the bluff with these two pygmies. After the QLD election, in the right context, an early election is no longer an issue. Next time these two pygmies try to do a peacock again, bring on the DD.
Not to mention she gave at least a couple of people hugs as they left the chamber. Hence all the jeering and catcalling from ‘those opposite’.
Regardless of the exact combination of reasons voters decided on in Qld, I can’t see any good news for Turnbull coming out of it:
- Rudd was heavily involved in the campaign and is still clearly a campaigning asset in Qld at least
- Polls had moved in Bligh’s favour in the last week since Springborg fluffing an answer on job losses (12000) due to the reduction in debt of $1 billion. Clearly, given a choice between less debt and more jobs, they prefer more jobs. This undermines Turnbulls whole attack on the stimulus.
- Even given polls a week out, there was a further shift to Bligh since Workchoices was killed
- the old style politics conservative leader (Springborg) gained no traction with voters
This time the LNP ran a united and error free campaign, though uninspiring. They were in front two weeks out. The fact that they still clearly lost is a direct repudiation of their leader, candidates and policies.
Barnaby Joyce on Meet the Press giving his usual garbled rant, i liked him much better when he was himself instead of peddling the party line, at least then he believed in what he was saying and it showed.
The Pauline Hanson Apology from the Telegraph. The most insulting piece of egregious balderdash I’ve ever read. They blame the “photographer”.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25220679-5001030,00.html
But this takes the cake:
I hope she takes them to the cleaners.
The ALP and Australia is blessed with 2 great women in Australian politics in J Gillard and Anna Bligh.
Turnbull looks like he has just seen the ghost. He looks awful.
Allbull & Toad been sucking lemons since 9:30 last night ! Allbush to me must be saying to himself – why am I putting myself through this….
Allbull certainly toshed bile around in his interview with cassidy. Does the goose think ppl will believe him or vote for him. He is a dead man walking when it comes to continuing as fib leader.
Turnbull is setting up a huge “straw man” argument. Any increase in unemployment will be blamed on the new IR laws. He’s really pathetic. Now he’s just dishonest.
I decided not to watch the Insiders but it was still great to tune in at first and see the look on Gerard Henderson’s face when asked about the result. He eventually started to invent some spin about future risks for Bligh but in those first few seconds he just sat there and looked grim. He didn’t even try to suggest Federal implications because he knows they are all aweful.
Gerard Henderson wasn’t on Insiders.
Sorry it was Piers – got my nutbars mixed up.
Well they credited WorkChoices with making unemployment fall, so they are just taking that argument to its illogical conclusion.
Turnbull on Insiders accused Xenophon of switching his vote so the Fair Work Bill could pass, it was actually Fielding who switched his vote.
Its curious that aside from the social issues on economics Turnbull is now reading very much from the right wing neo-lib script, despite it being quite discredited. There are a heap of potential wedge questions here. What would Turnbull do to rein in executive salaries – leave it to the market?
Yeah, right ….. how many different colour spots can one chameleon have anyways?
Thought Cassidy was very soft on Malcolm’s response re alcopops: that it was all Roxon’s fault, it was up to her to persuade the cross benches to vote for it, it was nothing to do with the Libs as they had always made it clear they would vote against it.
So Cassidy’s original premise was right – the failure of the legislation was the Liberal’s determination to vote against it, regardless – but he didn’t follow through.
This will be used in the leadup to the next election to portray Turnbull and the Libs as hell bent on re-introducing WorkChoices.
Probably also Turnbull on radio saying “Just to clarify, Brendan Nelson actually said WorkChoices was dead”
Zoomster, Turnbull was right on a couple of things though. The Government could’ve introduced the legislation MUCH sooner and given themselves enough time to successfully negotiate its passage if they’d wanted to. To only allow a couple of days for consideration in the Senate is just not good enough.
Additionally, they could have introduced and passed legislation allowing them to keep the revenue raised over the past year, then tried again next year to keep collecting it from then on.
Turnbull and the Libs said they would not support the Alcopops legislation full stop. A bit rich to be implying the Government were inflexible.
Yeah, loved that. When the government sticks to its gun it’s “inflexible”. When the Libs do it obstructively they’re “principled”.
The deal was done with the Australian people, who voted the Libs and their Great Helmsman right out. That is when the conditions of the bargain were set. a deal’s a deal: when you shake hands on a deal it’s not with a view to further negotiations down the track, certainly not renegotiations with a third party to that deal who was against it from the start, aka the Liberal Party.
TP, Vera and BK;
The situation in America at present can best be summed up by Green Day’s Song “American Idiot”. Link provided to lyrics here (not putting them into this post as it would cause William’s spam filter to have a stroke) Yes, GB is gone BUT the problems in America, cultural and societal wise, stem all the way back to Reagan and 1980 so are deep seated and just getting a Dem into the White House isn’t enough to get rid of them. As I noted earlier this weekend, don’t know when it will go.
No they didn’t. They said they’d allow the Government to keep the revenue they’d already raised. Then it would’ve been open to the Government to try again in the next financial year to continue collecting it.
The Government chose not to worry about it for whatever reason.
Was it just me or did someone else notice that Cassidy jumped in quickly this am to shut Akerman up every time he opened his mouth.
Poor Malcolm – he looked as though the knives were imbedded in his back more deeply this morning.
I am so sick of hearing his puerile name calling of the Rudd, Gillard & Co. It sounds so childish. I think he called Kev a “dumb banker” among other things.
BB was right – Kev must have been reading him because the Govt. is picking up on all the different positions Turnbull takes according to the time of day, month, whatever.
Juliem this verse from your song could almost apply to Australia and did when Howie ran the show.
Well that’d be right
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/two-new-leaders-two-issues-20090321-94zl.html
It was pretty apparent that Roxon is a light-weight compared to Gillard in getting legislation through. She should have accepted the offer to keep the $300M raised in alcopops so far, instead of spitting the dummy and turning it down. That was just childish.
Diogenes
re: the Senate:
The most exclusive club in Australia is jealous of its’ prerogatives and the Government will face trouble ‘a plenty if they try to bully or manipulate the Senate
Diogenes,
Once again you go the personal sledge based on sketchy reasoning and absolutely no personal knowledge other than what you read on the blogs.
Roxon is playing a longer game here.
Might be better to see how this unfolds.
Labor have done the right thing in not accepting the $300m. Why should they? The legislation was rejected therefore it would’ve simply not been right for them to keep it. If the Liberals wanted the government to keep the $300m, they should have voted for the policy. The Liberals are dead meat if the consumption of alcopops rises again before the next election!
If you ever want to see how a real beaten favourite looks – look no further than as soon as they crossed to Turnbull on Insiders this morning – priceless. Poor Turnbull, all that material he had prepared to throw at Rudd if Bligh had lost, down the tubes.
Btw, in my opinion, I reckon that was Pauline’s face in those photos, but NOT her body.
The forensic guys reckon it wasn’t her face.
GG
She may have a “grand plan” but on the face of it, turning down the offer of the Government keeping the $300M rather than giving it to an alcohol industry front organisation looks like a bad decision.
If i were to do a Fielding, i would say the Libs are caught between two devils and a deep blue sea.
Centre, the first figures out after the excise on the current stock is lifted “WILL” show a dramatic increase in alcopop sales. Let the party begin! You read it here first.
She would have to had dramatic plastic surgery in between in that case. Experts have done facial analysis and concur that there are substantial but supple differences in the two faces.
The most obvious one is the nose. In the photos, the nose protrubes. PH’s nose, even in the earliest photos I have seen of her are convex with a bump on the end. Totally different.
The face was different. The photos were genuine but were of someone with an uncanny resemblance to Hanson, who incidentally must still be out there and know who she is. I’m guessing her identity will be discovered some day. She’s not necessarily even Australian. She might be anywhere in the world and the guy saw an opportunity.
There have been a few suggestions that the Pauline lookalike could be Russian
Surely you don’t think that such a significant decision was left solely to the minister. That decision would have been debated long and hard in the tactics committee.
On Alcopops, there are two ways to damn the Libs. If consumption of Alcopops rises then they are caught. But there is also the question of overall alcohol consumption. Normally in a recession you would expect it to fall. But if it rises or even stays flat, then the Libs are again guilty. (Alcohol consumption per capita has been falling overall in the long term; we used to drink a lot more beer. So its the change in trend that will be the clincher.)
Probably only one way to be certain, and that is to compare photos of Pauline when she was around the same age. But like that entertainer in Afghanistan, Hanson should get stacks over it by suing.
You guys cannot be serious about Rudd keeping that $300m alcopops money? Fair dinkum, you blokes have watched too many episodes of the Brady Bunch! It’s HUSH money.
Only on the face of it.
The contrary indications are…
1. Could you imagine the kinds of ad the alcohol industry would run in an “anti-alcohol” campaign, centered on one of their most profitable products? It’s a preposterous thought. The government is the government of this country, not the Libs, not Fielding and certainly not the Alcohol Industry. Every time an ad went on telly – and you know they would be smarmy, back-pedalling, not at all hard-hitting – for “young gels” to quit drinking alcopops, it would be a reminder that the government wasn’t tough or principled enough.
2. When excess numbers of kids start wrapping themselves and a carload of their friends around light poles again, it will be the Opposition’s and Fielding’s fault. There is no doubt about this at all. The Labor spin people will make sure of that, that’s if the angry parents, police, medical bodies etc. don’t knock them out of the way first. You can just see the headlines…. “The Day a Town Died”. It will be ugly.
3. It’s not the government’s to keep. It was collected under a regulation that was not ratified. They must give it back. The Turnbull alternative is far too ad hoc and is not good government.
4. If they had given in on alcopops, if they’d compromised, do you think they’d have gotten the repeal of Work Choices through?
Bushfire, Goodness the Libs are lucky it’s not you they are debating on QANDA and the 7.30 Report etc. You’ve presented a very pervasive argument – not that I needed convincing.
1. That’s probably already going to happen. The $300M is going to be donated to an alcohol industry front called DrinkWise “to promote responsible drinking”. Given that just over 50% of it’s board members are I’m a bit sceptical about what they will do with it. I think that the government could have used that $300M better than DrinkWise will do.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/alcopop-refunds-to-be-donated-20090319-93fw.html
2. I agree that from now onwards, every alcobinge death and rape will eat at Fielding and the Libs. But that would have happened if they agreed to keep the $300M they had already raised (although I concede they wouldn’t quite have the moral high ground as much).
3. That’s where DrinkWise comes in.
4. True but $300M could buy a lot of favour from the Greens, X and Fielding.
Short term benefit to make Fielding a softer target to JG’s negotiations.
It could be that NOT giving it back underlines the ‘it’s not about the money, it’s about health’ argument.
If it’s a revenue thing only, then of course the government would like to keep the money.
By giving the money back (which legally they need to do), it emphasises that the tax was to do with harm minimisation.
Of course, what Roxon should now do is (as part of the Budget) come forward with a package which is even more clearly aimed at addressing the health problems caused by alcohol.
I thought the same thing. Once Fielding found himself to be a pariah over the Malpops vote he was desperate to redeem himself. Julia played him like a violin.
I agree. It’s a very smart move.
Some time ago, maybe a week or more? a handful of people were wondering about the percentage of rusted on Greens? One of my girl friends is just that and I’ve asked her that question. Got an answer back today as she always hands out HTV for the Greens candidate when they run here in WA in her area. She says those that take the HTV from her said they were going to vote Greens anyway but just take the HTV for putting the prefs. in. She estimates perhaps up to 80% of Greens are rusted on in her opinion. Just tossing in that .02 worth for those who wanted to know …..
Fielding was a pariah over Malcopops whether they gave back the money or not. His effort to say FF had broken the stranglehold the alcohol industry had over Australia was perhaps the most deluded thing I’ve heard all year, although Turnbull claiming credit for getting rid of WorkChoices came a close second.
You can do a lot of good with $300M….
Chris Uhlman actually said something I agreed with this morning, which was similar to Krugman’s comments here. Obama doesn’t seem to want to reform the banking system, he just wants to bail it out. We don’t have the same problem here but I gather Rudd is going to bring this up with Obama next week.
Unfortunately, if the US just puts more sand on it’s collapsed system without reforming it, they’ve still got a sand castle (which can fall down in us).
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/despair-over-financial-policy/?scp=1&sq=The%20Geithner%20plan%20has%20now%20been%20leaked%20in%20detail.&st=cse
Oh, but it is “about the money”, at least as much as about the “Harm minimisation” thing.
The original justification – world-wide – for taxing alcopops lower than other similarly potent drinks was that they were, technically, beer. That is, “unhopped beer”. Clear, devoid of bitter taste, with a hint of fizz: beer, without the hops added to make it taste like beer.
We have to remember the chemistry here. The active ingredient in beer, wine, scotch, vodka, fermented yak’s milk and whatever other drink you care to mention is ethanol. If you refine yak’s milk to the nth degree you end up with the same active ingredient – a clear, colorless, tasteless, intoxicating liquid – as you do if you refine sugar, wheat, barley or yes, hops…. It’s called ethanol. How you get to your final, distilled ethanol is a matter of culture and tradition. I hear potato peels were a favourite in the prison camps of WW-2.
“Beer: the “Workingman’s Drink”, the “Workingman’s Ethanol”.
So, if you brew a beer (note, no quote marks, it’s real beer) without the traditional flavour then add fruit juice you have a product that’s technically exempt from the excise on other forms of flavoured ethanol. Because it’s beer.
If you obtain pure alcohol – ethanol – from any other source, say sugar cane, or wheat (Howard’s mates at Manildra’s favourite), then fizz it up a bit, then add the flavour you get an exact equivalent of an alcopop, indistinguishable in every way… except it ain’t beer, so it’s taxed at the higher rate, and it’s a lot cheaper to make in industrial quantities. Why do youse think that when they make large amounts of ethanol for methylated spirits or other industrial uses they don’t brew it like they brew beer? Because ethanol from sugar cane or wheat grain is cheaper to make by the tonne.
The way around this conundrum – being able to make a cheaper intoxicating liquor that tastes exactly the same as an unhopped beer so the kiddies will drink it – is to bribe the government into recognizing that if the final result is the same, then why bother with all the palaver involved in brewing, when you can simply distill much cheaper? A large, ongoing donation to he party will get you your tax exemption.
All Labor did was to rectify this tax or excise anomaly. So it was “about the money”, but it was not a “tax grab”.
It was justice.
The mistake the government made was not to point this out. Instead they went for the heartstrings and put up young kids, particularly girls, as the victims. They made it into solely a health issue, when it was both a health issue and a matter of clear excise justice.
The Libs won this one because the government was too clever by half.
Bushfire
I kinda agree, but surely the answer is to tax the ethanol in the grog you buy? If you like light beer less excise.
But the wine industry would scream blue murder, because they are primary producers and the tax would destroy regions and jobs.
(Despite the winery I saw close to cessnock bottling Southern Comfort).
Bite the bullet Rudd. x amount of ethanol = x amount of excise.
Would an alcohol tax really make that much difference to the wine industry? Couldn’t you remove the Wine Equaisation tax (WET) at the same time to keep the effect fairly price neutral? Putting a price penalty on large volume wine flagons is precisely the objective from a public health POV. Saying it will harm some parts of the industry is the same argument the tobacco industry uses to survive – true but beside the point; the damage they cause is greater than their value.
You can do a lot more with 1.3B over three years. I have no doubt whatsoever that Labor will get it’s tax measure passed. To have accepted the 300M would have taken the heat off the independents and the opposition. Let them simmer for a while and turn the heat up to 10.
I reckon Fielding will be asking the Govt to reintroduce Malpops in the senate before the year is out and he won’t insist on his amendment. He’ll simply be out to clear his conscience.
Turnbull misplayed alcopops badly, as he did IR, as he did the stimulus package, for the same reason – he simply announced he was going to oppose and expected the government to come crawling to him to ask him to negotiate.
In doing this, he dealt himself out of the game entirely.
Imagine if –
with alcopops, Turnbull had negotiated a range of health measures…
with IR, Turnbull had negotiated a range of ’small business friendly’ amendments…
with the stimulus package, he had voted against the cash pay outs but supported the schools package, defence spending, insulation, etc…
He would now be looking a reasonable Opposition leader who had cleverly used his powers to amend legislation in a responsible manner, rather than a sulky boy who didn’t want to play and then whinged because he didn’t get to bat.
On QLD, does anyone have any idea how many seats Labor holds on account of Green preferences, or does the preference information not become available until later on?
The weird definitions used resulted in one of the funniest episodes of the alcopops saga which was the introduction of “malternatives”, exactly as BB described. You have to give the alcohol industry full marks for ingenuity.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/beerbased-alcopop-launched/2008/09/15/1221330777809.html
Whats the betting the definition is tightened in this year budget to make malcopop excise rise again OR some other device.
I really doubt the issue has just disappeared
zoomster
Turnbull was saying that he did exactly that on Insiders this morning. I just assumed he was lying. Does anyone know if there was any truth to it? This is what he said this morning.
AFAIK, none of the Opposition’s amendments passed. Turnbull is full of it.
There were something like 230 (more?) amendments that the government accepted, negotiated by the cross benches and the Libs in the Senate, but the way Turnbull’s played the politics, noone’s going to give him credit for them.
I suppose that’s what I’m pointing to – the perception that he’s created, which is (of course) more powerful than the reality.
Boerwar @ 404,
There would be some limited analysis available but a fully accurate assesment of preference flows would only be available after the declaration of the poll. There is a snippet here.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/greens-preferences-crucial-for-labor/2009/03/21/1237526403199.html
Bushfire Bill
Posted Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 8:58 am | Permalink
I despise the women, but I couldn’t agree more, even if they were real they having nothing to do with her politics and should not have been published.
This comment by John Fairfax could only have been directed at one person. A brownie point for the first person who guesses who he is referring to!
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/quality-in-journalism-20090320-949c.html
Doesn’t matter what their nationality, a conservative only comes with one set of colours! Clueless and hopeless! (MT et. al. have been singing some of these tunes recently as you all know)
+1
Was listening to the BBC earlier and heard that health experts were complain that Alcopops was the most common drink among binge drinkers.
Some earlier year revealing stories. Alcopops have been seen as big headache for quite some time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7282308.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5383504.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/derbyshire/7145849.stm
Scorpio
Thanks
Thomas Paine @ 416,
Strangely enough, TP, we never saw any of this information surface during the twelve months that Labor were trying to push this issue and the Coalition and their MSM cohorts made sure that we didn’t.
Should send that to X and F.
Trying to find news articles tonight on Rudd’s trip to Washington this week and didn’t find anything worthwhile in my Google search excepting this
http://tinyurl.com/cc6nnq
TP, an interesting analysis of Fielding’s stance here!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25218292-5013871,00.html
BEST episode of ORDER IN THE HOUSE ever!
Piers and co won’t like this. The article is about bad bosses underpaying workers in Vic being caught by Ombudsman inspectors and it contrasts them with St Therese who is loved by her Pommy employees.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25225465-2862,00.html
Somebody should youtube it then.
AS fun as this?
Gillard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkNnZz15cbI
TP @ 426
Oh the hilarity! If there is one thing that Julia Gillard can do well, it’s rubbing salt in the wounds of the Liberal Party… and with such razor wit too!
How appropriate!
That’s hilarious! Surely they will realise the date and reschedule???
The new LNP leader will be chosen this Wednesday. It will most likely be Tim Nicholls (a Liberal).
Johnson hit Steyn for 6 to bring up his ton! you beauuuty
FFS the USA is morally and ethically bankrupt. It will be a wonder if they ever recover.
This is just as bad as AIG bonuses and more troubling.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/190363
Obama will be having to dodge thousands of little sh+t piles on the street to navigate through this term and try and achieve anything. The stench in Washington must be overwhelming.
The way they throw billions and trillions around in the US Kev should ask for a lazy $50bn, they wont notice it.
Will the Rudd, the Global Warming Piker, get away with his dud 5% ETS?
I trust that Turnbull and the Greens will be successful in knocking it off in the Senate: better nothing at all than a bit of flimflam designed to lull the punters into a false sense of security.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/state-emission-cuts-futile-and-would-aid-polluters-20090322-95oc.html?page=2
Of course, if the ETS is knocked off then Rudd gets two things: He is off the hook of his dud ETS and he has a beautiful wedge to use against Turnbull.
But the other thing he will have earned is an abiding suspicion that we are seeing the consolidation of the HowRudd Convergence Princple:
‘Power is everything; everything else is nothing.’
Good to see the truth come out, coming soon to an internet site near you …
Juliem
If you get a chance a really good read is The Commission
Mrs G and i both read it, and i can tell you a lot of “stuff” was never revealed and the “asscovering” was incredible
Condi does not come out of it nicely at all!!
Boerwar
So there will be less investment and subsidies to the renewable energy industry as a result. The Labor apparatchics have said this wouldn’t happen. And now we have a ministerial brief, from a Labor Government, showing that it will.
Gus, what is that? I googled what you’ve mentioned and got no likely suspects? Book, website, magazine? Cheers
(oh, if you haven’t yet, read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” [book]. It discusses a reasonable amount about how Iraq was dealt with.)
Another problem Australia faces from it’s “balanced” ETS is that other countries will impose green protectionism tariffs on us because our targets are so pitiful. Watch us shed jobs when we start losing our export markets.
Of course, we would lose badly because we aren’t actually doing anything and other countries recognise that.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25213629-11949,00.html
Julie sorry, it’s a book
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, by Philip Shenon (the Twelve – Jan. 2008), ISBN 0466580755
” Philip Shenon’s book chronicles the human frailty and folly that went … The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission. By Philip Shenon ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/books/04thom.html
Gus, thanks much, will see if I can turn it up …..
Yep, let’s just do nothing, not get into the game at all. That will show ‘em. Great strategy that. Oh and what message will that send to the rest of the world, given that we’re supposed to have this great power over how other countries will react to global warming.
“If I can’t have it my way well just bugger it, noone can have it.” Sooo grown up.
Gary
A bit like Gillard’s attitude to passing FairWork and Fielding’s attitude to alcopops, eh?
Except that Gillard had an election mandate on her side and Fielding didn’t know what he was doing.
I can see what Turnbull and the libs stratergy will be from now on. They will say that the death of WC have caused business to sack people and Labor have said that they will support jobs – that the stimulus package was too big (How’d that work for the borg). It’s not rocket science, you can already see them getting their messaging out in small grab bites now.
Whether they will be able to sell this in the middle of a Global Recession is a big ask. What they will be trying to do is ask the Australia community to forget about the Global Recession and blame the death of WC on jobs being lost. Again like Qld’s LNP they tried to do the same thing and blame the GLOBAL Recession on the Qld Labor Gov and people thought Springborg was crazy. I think that if Turnbull and the Libs are going to treat people like their stupid, then they will be very disappointed come election time.
445 – I was about to respond the same way and while we’re at it I think the government also had a mandate to introduce an ETS didn’t it?
Anytime Turnbull critcises Rudd’s IR policy the question will come up, well what will you change? That will be the bit that will be hard to sell.
It looks to me like a case of them reaching out to their conservative base: the stupid, fearful and inward-obsessed. After all, what other mindset would possibly fall for Malcopop’s nonsense of a “Rudd Recession”?
zoomster
I think the Greens can argue a similar thing on CC.
I don’t recall the Greens winning government.
How can you have a mandate for an ETS with no targets and no mechanism? That’s not a policy. Rudd went into the election with policy of addressing CC which was the “most important moral dilemma of our time”. That’s what he has a mandate for, not to replicate what Howard would have done. He’s rolled over and having his tummy tickled by the carbon lobby.
Yes but the Greens won a certain number of seats/votes within the Parliament and have a responsibility to those who gave them those seats/votes.
Cuppa, Labor have a great deal of arguments to come back at Turbull’s silliness.
1. Like you (cuppa) said the $1.6B whole in budget because they failed to vote for alcopops tax.
2. Global Recession. What part of GLOBAL Recession don’t you (MT) understand.
3. If people were being sacked under WC in boom times, what makes you think that businesses wouldn’t do it in a Recession.
4. The Libs are all over the place, first they were behind the stimulus, then Bishop came out and said wait and see, then Turnbull was against the stimulus, siteing the Repugs arguments of leaving our children with debt, then Turnbull came out and said he would have a stimulus plan with $20b, with a second stimulus down the track, WITH permanent tax cuts (Putting a extra burden on the budget) to the value of over $180b.
so on and so on
Dogma, it’s more than silliness to call it a “Rudd Recession”. It’s fundamentally dishonest, as everyone on earth practically knows it’s a worldwide thing. I’m coming to the regrettable conclusion that mendacity and the Liberal Party are like hand-in-glove.
Interesting comments by NSW police defending their response time to the brawl and murder at Sydney airport yesterday. There were 14 officers on duty at the airport at the time. The first responded about 4 minutes after the attack. International security protocols demand about 45 second response. Apparently they have now doubled the size of the police (bikie) gang squad from 75 to 150. I wonder which section they transferred those 75 police from – airport security?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/gang-squad-doubled-after-15-minutes-of-airport-mayhem-20090323-96ed.html?page=-1
They should be embarrassed, not alarmed.
I suppose at least this proves we don’t really have a terrorist problem in Australia. If we did, they could attack and safely leave the scene in taxis.
Seriously, why do we all bother going through interminable security checks if they can’t stop someone getting beaten to death at the front door? They are too busy collecting revenue from fining people who park and overstay.
Diog
personally, I’d be overjoyed if the Greens negotiated a better package on ETS.
I tend to think that the ALP is counting on that happening (mainly because I prefer to think that Wong is clever rather than stupid) – then they can tell business that they tried, but couldn’t get the smaller target.
Indeed she did. Gillard also had the option of going with what the Senate dished up and then wait to win the next election with a better Senate and then change to what they wanted. She also had the option of resubmitting the legislation in 3 months time with the added threat of a DD. And it would be a valid trigger and one they could win an election on.
As for the ETS the Govt could go for a higher target now but that is guaranteed to fail the Senate and so it is pointless, even the 5-15% range will have trouble getting past both independents. A higher target ETS will probably not pass the Senate now or in the future and would likely give the Opposition the better ‘fear’ ground to argue on if they used it as a DD trigger, in fact the Liberals would be praying for such a scenario as their best chance at being elected.
The only way the govt is going to get an ETS in this term is if they go with the lower target with range. It has presented the best possible bill that is likely to get through but also allows for an increase to 15%. And as much as every one will hate it, in the midst of a deepening recession a lot of people are going to stop caring about it and be more concerned with keeping their job safe. That is the way it is.
People want the govt to fall on its sword for what reason? So the liberals can manipulate the whole process as a means to helping mates make billions in a nuclear industry but also sidelining any sort of CPRS, as we know the skeptics still dominate the party.
zoomster
Wong is reputed to be clever in SA. The rumour is she was rolled in Cabinet but didn’t push her case very hard. Who knows what the truth is? In the end, she is the Minister responsible so she wears the consequences if it all goes pear-shaped.
I’m going to be interested to see if she tries to get the ETS through via the Green/X/FF route or the Turnbull route. Both look frought with problems.
I also think the subsidising the renewable industries and hybrid cars and so forth are still a great idea even if they in themselves don’t actually do much good. What it does do is change a mind set, way of thinking. It reeducates people and their habits. If renewables become part of everyday life in everyday things then they will become better and more efficient and actually do what they are meant to better.
TP
Of course, Labor could have a political and scientific visionary genius like Turnbull develop their CC strategy. Then they would have a much higher carbon reduction target AND create new jobs AND keep everyone happy. His policy is going to do all those things but it’s so clever he won’t tell us what is in it. Perhaps he is putting a patent on it so he wins the next Nobel Prize.
Diogenes, are you suffering saddle soreness?
You do get that, trying to sit on both sides of the fence at once.
Fulvio
On the ETS, I’m probably closest to the Greens (although I don’t think a 40% reduction is sensible if you refuse to consider nuclear). Neither of the major parties are worth supporting on this issue. I’m sitting in a corner with the scientists. We’re pretty lonely.
Ah, I see, your discomfort arises out of adopting a variant of the Green’s position, a stylitistic stance which carries with it it’s own sedentary issues ….
Before the election I was against Nuclear, but after reading more about nuclear and because of CC and the GFC, I think that building nuclear stations would be one way to produce less emissions as well as build a new industry. This would create more jobs for the maintenance and running, not to mention the jobs it would produce in the construction of the stations. Just one thing, I don’t want one in cooee of my home. If they can build them outside of suburban areas, and also use new technology, and have less waste. Then I’m for it.
Like Bob Dylan ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C339On5ie24
Dear me, I come back after three days away and the first thing I see is a DOUBLE apostrophe catastrophe.
And nor does anyone else, which is one good reason why no nuclear power stations will be built so long as Australia remains a democracy. The lead times are in any case too long for nuclear to be of any help to us in the current emergency. It’s either coal or renewables, folks, and if renewables can’t generate enough power in the necessary time-frame, then we’ll just have to use less of it.
#448 GB
He gave the impression on Insiders yesterday that he’s going to blame Fair Work for every job loss, but every time he does he’ll be implying that working conditions and job security need to be wound back. Hasn’t he figured out how Gillard will respond to that?
Given Malcolm’s variant of the Bolt theme – name just one job that has been saved by the stimulus package – can’t we ask him to (i) name the job/s that he’s saved through his amendments and (ii) specify which particular job was lost because of the rest of the package?
Shouldn’t be hard, not for a man with his ego – whoops, I meant ‘intellect’.
[And nor does anyone else, which is one good reason why no nuclear power stations will be built so long as Australia remains a democracy. The lead times are in any case too long for nuclear to be of any help to us in the current emergency].
I’m a glass half full kind of person. If it would take 10yrs to build and start running, then I still think that it would be important to CC. It would also cut the use of coalmining for Australia’s electricity, but be replaced with Uranium mining which boost the mining sectors jobs, which could be offset by the trading scheme. With the proximity to suburbs, surely they can find or buy out land that is fairly isolated in which to build these stations. Shrug, you never say never.
I think it would take nearer 20 years – there would be years of litigation.
dogma
Ziggy said it was more like 15 years. Politically it would take at least 5 years unless things go really sour on the global warming front. I really can’t see how Rudd is going to reach the 60% reduction by 2050 he signed up to in Kyoto if we only reduce by 5% in 2020 and he refuses to consider nuclear. He’s not putting enough into renewables to get anywhere near that reduction and if “clean coal” flops, we aren’t even close.
Consider my hand well slapped, Adam.
This weeks Rove “Kevin Rudd PM” is good for a giggle
Just click on Kevin Rudd PM in the right hand column and Eps 6 should start
warning nude Ruddy photo
http://www.rovedaily.com.au/video.htm
Want to read more?
http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20090323-The-truth-about-Hanson-and-the-Sunday-Tele-Apologetic-Not.html
There is no doubt in my mind that the editor had no care at all about the degree of ‘truth’ when they went to town. I was all about sensationalism with the aim of sell papers. A better story (if a story had to be published on the subject of the photos at all) would have been the fact that there was a person who was trying to sell fake photos of Hanson and the PMs wife.
I’m very pleased that Hanson failed in her latest bid to reenter the world of politics but I hope she is successful in suing the Sunday Telegraph out of existence.
I think Hanson arranged the whole thing herself as a publicity stunt.
If she doesn’t sue then it really is the only conclusion.
Adam, Where is the smiley?
Steve K
I don’t think she’ll get much in damages for a few reasons. One is the poll that showed 90% of people didn’t care if it was her or not. Secondly, she still managed a respectable 22% of the vote. Thirdly, she hasn’t suffered much of a permanent loss as no-one believes it was her now. It’s different to saying politician X is a crook and watches kiddie porn when the mud will stick a bit more.
Her best shot would be if she can demonstrate that she would have won the election if it weren’t for the photos. Then she could demonstrate a possible lifetime loss of income which would be VERY expensive.
I expect the punitive damages will be pretty high though, given the appalling standard of responsibility shown by the Tele.
Is there a Newspoll due out tonight?
Nope if your read the crikey article it’s pretty clear Pauline has a good chance of doing very well out of this.
How could anyone damage Hanson’s reputation? It is in the gutter as is.
Diogenes, in the assessment of legal damages opinion polls and such would be largely irrelevant. I’d personally be surprised if she didn’t win substantial damages.
And they would take into account any income from her appearance on dancing with The Stars, Book sales and any income from her electoral payments in determining what damages are paid.
Forget the election, this about personal humiliation. With Littlemore on her side she’ll make a packet.
Australian Story did story on Jamie Fawcett who was the paparazzi link in this. Something about Nicole Kidman. The guy lived in the gutter and looked up at the stars. Even the other paparazzi didn’t have a nice word to say for him.
lol Oh I sorry but you’ve got to read this
The model portrayed as Pauline Hanson in a bogus newspaper expose possibly appeared in a Danish adult magazine 27 years ago, the Australian Sex Party claims.
The party says the Eros Foundation has released photos of the woman who could be the Pauline Hanson lookalike, and who starred alongside the world famous black adult actor – known as Long Dong Silver – in a 1982 adult magazine.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/hanson-lookalike-in-sex-mag-27-years-ago-20090323-96yv.html
Long Dong Silver LOL
Pretty close, but no cigar I think.
http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/press-releases/145-sex-party-finds-possible-source-of-hanson-lookalike-photos
OK, confess. How many of you googled Mr. Silver?
That’s not a cigar – that’s a garden hose!
Newspoll tonight?
Theoretically yes as the last poll came out a fortnight ago. But they skip a week every now and then.
Just thinking about Qld and the impact of the first elected female premier.
Does that mean flo’s scones had a secret ingredient???
Given no parliament for 6 weeks, there probably isn’t much point in a newspoll this week…
Gotta say, 20 years ago, QLD would’ve been long odds to be the first.
Grog
yeah
thats why I am still a bit confounded in a way
I thought vic or nsw would have had the honour
Gary Bruce @ 443
You seem to be implying that out of some personal spite or disappointment that I am spitting the dummy on the 5% ETS and going for a ‘ so let’s do nothing then’ line.
Not at all. You would know pretty well that I have a strong interest in Australia doing something very positive about global warming because I think it is the single most important issue facing us. It is, for example, far more important than the Global Financial Crisis. I also believe that Rudd was elected, inter alia, because people thought that unlike Howard, he would do something strongly positive about Global Warming.
A defeat of the dud 5% ETS in the Senate would inevitably build pressure around the next question, which would be: ‘Now what are we going to do?’
My main argument is that seeming to do something while actually doing nothing is bad because it takes the pressure off. This is because ‘the seeming’ fools people into thinking that Rudd is actually doing something. Unfortunately, the real problem with Global Warming is that no amount of ’seeming’ is going to make a skerrick of difference to the impacts. They will all be 100% real.
Beyond that, if Rudd persists with the dud 5% ETS, then there is a reasonable interpretation that he is more interested in the politics of personal power than in the future of the planet, hence my line on the HowRudd convergence. If the latter really is the case, I believe most of the posters on this blog would be both disappointed and worried; disappointed because we expected better from Rudd, worried because global warming will spare no-one.
A personal anecdote may interest you. I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a chap whose job it was to help mayors of Alpine villages in Europe address the impacts of climate chage. These include increasingly chancy snow seasons, increased risks of avalanches as the permafrost melt at higher and higher altitudes, and increased risk of extreme climate events such as high winds and flooding. I asked how it was going. It was tricky, he said. At first all they want to do is talk about ways of ensuring that nothing affects property values.
In a bizarre sort of way it was sort of comforting to know that humans are the same the whole world over.
Oh, and another thing. Turbull’s line that the ETS is no good because it is going to cost jobs shows a very disturbing bit of double talk. Turnbull knows perfectly well that the job losses will grow to hundreds of millions as Global Warming sets in.
True – perhaps the ALP boys club is tighter down south?
Are there any others in line? (I really should pay more attention to state politics) And women on the LNP state side of things?
Hey, we had a woman premier in Victoria 18 years ago, remember? It’s not our fault the peasants wouldn’t elect her. (Actually it was her fault, but we won’t go into that.)
I’m not sure how anyone can seriously argue that either of the major parties have more credibility on the issue of climate change than The Greens. This is because The Greens have been banging the drum for years, before it was “chic”, and the major parties only got on board out of political necessity. Now if they only did it to win votes, why would you pretend they are seriously going to address it with more credibility then those who stuck by it and actually helped put on the political agenda. The other credibility gap is that Labor’s policy is based on some kind of nonsensical rejection of the science, Garnaut horsetrading in the cabinet room. The Liberals don’t have a policy. The Greens policy has always been to follow the science.
That The Greens 40% target seems ludicrous is a reflection of Labor’s clever politicking on their own target. Abysmally small, so to make any cuts that are actually needed to keep CO2 levels at a safe level look ridiculous. Having said that, I don’t think The Greens are going to say “We want 40% or nothing”. It’s their upper end negotiating base.
Ah yes, Bolt’s favourite line “Selected, not elected”. Odd though that he didn’t say it about Palin…
Carmel Tebutt in NSW has reportedly been approached a number of times but to no avail.
Personally, I think she would have been a better “experiment” than Rees, as she has had high profile cabinet experience and her personality would counteract the whole Tripodi/Obeid issue NSW Labor has.
Same in WA, but her own boofhead Brother (Bevan Lawrence) put paid to that idea as well.
Kerry O’Brien is wearing a LNP tie!
498 Boerwar – I believe the only thing it will do is ensure the government will put it off until both major parties are ready to vote for it in the Senate. Neither is going to go all out and adopt the Green’s policy, nor will the independents IMHO.
Besides, I’ve heard that it maybe too late already. If this is the case why would a government put itself in electoral jeopardy for a lost cause? Either it is a lost cause or it isn’t, which is it?
If this is the case, why would anyone bother doing anything?
So we can slow the process down somewhat, and thus have one more decade to figure out how to decamp to Mars?
As Woody Allen said:
“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
If it’s true that we have screwed this planet beyond repair, I doubt we deserve another one.
Hilarious. Good luck with that.
Swan starts laying the foundations for the budget… am thinking this might be a budget with hardly any surprises…
nice little dig at the hammock:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25229988-601,00.html
Gary
That’s the third Monbiot Stage of CC Denial.
1. The science isn’t true. It’s not getting warmer.
2. Even if it’s getting warmer, we shouldn’t make a big effort and jeopardise our lifestyle to reduce carbon emissions a bit.
3. It’s too late now so there’s no point even trying.
Adam Said
Ya, she was left carrying the can, the fact that you want to blame her for the result says a lot about you and probable the rest of the Victorian Labor party.
Either that or we need to start eating Soylent Green
There are two good reasons to deal with global warming.
1) It makes dam good economic sense as the resultant activity will stimulate the economy.
2) The cities will be a lot nicer to live in.
Stopping the oceans rising is a side benefit that may or may not occur; no one knows what it will take to push the system back, or if we still have time to stop it moving into a new state.
In politics someone always is left with it. Usually it’s the leader. She knew what she was getting into. (She was good on The Late Show singing I Love Rock’n'Roll though
)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGyD2hn7d3Y
Oh yes she knew, but to blame her for the outcome is seriously disingenuous.
That was a mildly flippant remark. I forgot to add a smiley.
What really led to the rout of 1992 was that (a) the Cain government had run out of steam after ten years, (b) the 1987 crash had exposed the over-borrowing of the states and the reckless behaviour of the people running the state banks following deregulation, and (c) neither Cain nor Kirner was able to impose the necessary discipline on the ALP factions and the unions they represented. (tram strike, nurses strike) The Victorian ALP has learned the lessons of that time, hence the far greater discipline and success of the Bracks-Brumby government.
Now I agree with you.
Ah good all friends again
I note the Queensland premier is putting another nail in the fractional coffin. Once you lose the power to hire and fire you can only influence the selecti0on by putting up good candidates, it must serve the Labor party well in the end.
The ALP factions are dying a slow death, and a good thing too.
Agreed.
I recall back in the early 90s when I joined Young Labor in SA. They cared more about fighting each other than the Libs (that and trying to get a job working for a Senator). I decided that path was not for me.
Bob Brown could have put cc up front and centre years ago – instead, he kept doing deals for preferences on the basis of what was happening to the Tasmanian forests.
After the deal with Latham, as someone who was agitating madly for a more serious approach to cc within the ALP, I did a lot of ’straw polls’ of Green voters. I asked them what the most serious environmental problem was facing Australia.
They always said Tassie forests and (when questioned further) said because BB allocated his preferences that way.
I’ve found it hard to take him seriously as an environmental campaigner since.
Oh, and on the J Kirner thing – don’t forget Jeff had control of the Upper House. There were several attempts (by both Cain and Kirner) to put through measures to address Victoria’s problems through Parliament at the time, which the Libs blocked.
Joan was still preferred Premier a year or so after her loss, however.
No one has noticed Possum has posted the latest Essential Report, Labor up 1 point on primary, 2 on 2PP?
So Tata in India is about to release the world’s cheapest car – The Nano. A 4-cylinder car with a top speed of 105km/h for $3000.
Indians are pretty excited, but there’s apprehension in the rest of the world regarding the environmental impacts of the Nano. While it’s undeniable that it’ll lead to an increase in GHG emissions, I don’t think we have any legitimate complaint. We can’t say “Hey Indians, you guys have to keep piling your families onto motorcycles and aren’t allowed to drive small, fuel-efficient (apparently) cars, but we’re allowed to own as many cars as we like and drive 4WD’s in the city”.
This is related to the issue of Australia’s international credibility on tackling environmental issues. No one will take anything we say about “Developing countries tackling climate change” seriously until we demonstrate that we, as a very wealthy country, can ourselves.
Who was the other “prominent female Australian” that Jack Johnson claimed he had photos of?
Zoomster, to be fair, no-one thought climate change was a front-rank issue until about five years ago.
Dolly???
I can remember being taught about the Green House effect while in primary school in 1992.
Zoomster, Bob Brown isn’t a magician. Who, prior to say 2006, out of the ALP or the Coalition were willing to talk about climate change in public, let alone negotiate preference deals based on their respective policies?
People expect so much from The Greens and often forget that their resources are a minuscule fraction of those of major parties. And then when they achieve something, the complaint is “Why didn’t you do it earlier?”
Sure, it’s Bob Browns fault that the ALP until recently had no policy on climate change.
Zoomster is right about how the politics have played out. While I take the view that even if you could get all major governments on board to make meaningful changes, it probably is too late given the length of time CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere, the resulting devastation will probably reduce the population very significantly, and probably in very nasty ways, but that learning to live differently might be of some benefit for those that survive.
My first thought was Gillard, my second thought was Bryce.
Therese Rein.
Not a joke.
Oh dear, that makes the editor of the Sunday Telegraph even stupider (if that is possible).
There’s no evidence that it’s too late, though it’s close.
But not too late.
If I haven’t come in a bit late, the other “prominent female Australian” was supposedly Kevin’s better half (unless there was a third).
Gusface, it was supposed to be Therese Rein in lingerie (unspecified!) and glass of wine. I don’t know how these people have jobs as journos.
HSO, it was News Coporation after all!
And I read about it in Gordon Rattray Taylor’s “The Doomsday Book” in 1970. The fact that the theory was about didn’t make it a “front-rank issue”. Was it an issue in the 1996 US election? The 2000 election? The 1998 Australian election? The 2001 election? The 2004 election?
Has everybody sent off their Liberal pre-selection applications? Glen, G.P., Bree?
http://www.vexnews.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/liberalad.jpg
This is what the grub said about Therese
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/red-faces-over-wronged-redhead/2009/03/22/1237656809725.html
Couple of interesting questions from Essential this week.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/files/2009/03/2emcissues.png
Quite a lot of “No difference” between Labor and Liberal on the environment, climate change, water, housing affordability and secutiy.
The lingerie gives it away
It was Dolly, I tells ya’s
Where do you think GP’s been, ShowsOn? Out rustling support of course.
Oz, I’m feeling a bit gloomy about the human species ATM, so you know. I don’t think any of us really know just where we’re at in terms of the critical tipping points, but from all I’ve been able to glean, the rapidly accelerating processes, the interaction between feedback loops, the long lasting nature of CO2 in the atmosphere, and governments trying to deal with the Global Financial Fiasco, which really, when you think about it is just another symptom of a species out of control.
1. I was agitating within the Labor party re cc well before 2006 (and it gets a decent mention in Labor’s Federal platform for that election)….and I don’t claim to be as environmentally aware as BB.
2. BB had written books well before 2006 advocating action on climate change.
Yes, it’s too late to stop climate change, and very likely (even with no carbon emissions from tomorrow onwards) that we’ve bought into the 2 degree temperature rise and all its associated effects regardless. However, this is neither cause for despair or for inaction. CC will have benefits as well as problems, but we need to act now to ensure that we capitalise on the former and minimise the later.
The big problem with the cc debate is that we’re ignoring the need to adapt – people seem quite happy to talk about drastic cuts in their lifestyles if they can hold on to the idea that the climate will stabilise. Tell them it’s about drastic changes to their lifestyle AND adaption to a new climate and they go all peculiar.
Not just my experience, one of my friends is a leading climatologist and she reports the same reaction – everyone’s quite happy to talk about mitigation but start talking about the need to adapt and they become hostile.
No, but it should’ve been.
Adam! That’s exactly my point – if Brown had made it a preference deal breaker in 2006, climate change would have been a front ranking issue.
Remember at the time the media was full of pictures of BB taking Latham tree hugging.
BB was aware of the issue at the time, it’s just (to him) the trees were more important – he was being self indulgent.
Four QLD Ministers dumped:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25232538-29277,00.html
Any idea which factions these ministers are from?
Is Bligh trying to give the Left more ministries?
AiC, I think it’s taken some time for the science to actually capture what is happening in a system that’s very difficult to map and track changes. That our political systems have lagged grasping, understanding and comprehending how to respond to this, is hardly surprising. While on one hand, I get why Rudd would try and get the current ETS proposal through, on the other, I get why people, including me, say do more, even if it is too late for this civilisation. For whomever survives the message must be, you can’t live beyond your means. The Malcolm Fraser look alikes on Easter Island will thank us.
Newspoll 56 / 44
Rudd now 45% ahead on prefered P.M. (65 – 20)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25232508-601,00.html
Not too bad from Newspoll. What a shame for Turnbull.
Adam 529
I think you are rewriting history there unless by “No one”, you mean no-one in right wing ALP politics. It has been a big scientific issue for 30 years, though not proven IMO at first. The CSIRO was hosting conferences on it in the mid 80s at least. I first read conference proceedings on it in 1988; at the time the hole in the Ozone layer was the biger threat, but that was taken care of by the Montreal protocol. There were UN conferences since the late 80s. It was a significant Australian political issue in the runup to Kyoto in the mid 90s, and that is over 10 years ago now.
I was a skeptic on it at first but was convinced after the Russian ice cores from Vostok in 1992 – that pretty much proved it. After that it was a debate about how fast it would act and how much damage it woudl do, plus what we would do to respond. I don’t recall much denialism until after IPCC2 and the coal and oil industries realised the solution was a threat to them. They did their dishonest work well, and obviously have mining unions in tow too now.
New thread.