Labor’s two-party lead from Essential Research is up slightly following last week’s dive, from 55-45 to 56-44. Also featured are questions on the financial state of the companies respondents work for, future spending plans, confidence in the economy, “concern over job situation”, government regulation of the financial sector and whether an election will be justified if the “opposition refuses to pass” emissions tradding scheme legislation. Interestingly, the response to the latter question is 33 per cent yes and 37 per cent no, compared with 41 per cent and 29 per cent in April.
• The talk of the town this week is Section 44 (iii) of the Constitution, which provides that any person who is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives. Such designation could shortly apply to Bob Brown, who has been advised by Forestry Tasmania he faces bankruptcy proceedings if he does not come good on an order to pay $239,368 costs stemming from a failed bid to stop logging in Tasmania’s Wielangta forests. With offers of support flooding in from sources including Dick Smith, one suspects he’ll keep the wolf from the door. Ken Jeffreys of Forestry Tasmania describes Brown’s appeal as a “public holiday, slow-news-day media stunt”, while Bronwyn Bishop queries the Greens’ determination that the matter is Brown’s problem rather than theirs.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that Craig Langdon, the state Labor member for Ivanhoe, faces a preselection challenge from by Labor Unity colleague Anthony Carbines, Banyule councillor, chief-of-staff to Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and son of upper house MP Elaine Carbines. A text message from Langdon to local party members accuses Carbines of disregarding his offer to vacate the seat for him at the election after next. Landeryou blames the episoode on moves the prohibit political staffers from serving as councillors in the wake of the Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank Council, foreseeing further such action from “a tribe of angry, politically very well connected and shafted staffer-councillors who have been told to choose between their day jobs and their passion of politics and community service”.
• The ABC reports Scott Bacon, 32-year-old son of the late former Premier Jim Bacon, is seeking preselection in Denison for next year’s state election. Bacon is an economist and adviser to Energy and Resources Minister David Llewellyn.
• Poll Bludger regular Oz has started a blog devoted to New South Wales state politics, which is the kind of thing we should have more of. Do visit.
1,752 Comments
Bob Brown saved by Dick Smith!
Cheers for the shout out William!
From the previous thread, #1286 – obviously you dont kow my politics. relax, i was just having a bit of fun at the paparazzi.
Bob Brown did last week if you recall.]
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/give-rudd-car-to-charity-greens-leader-20090605-by0e.html
Eh? Let me quote you:
You referred to someone on here. Not Bob Brown. Have you been caught out again trying to slander Green voters?
GG, i would think, somebody can “lend” the money to BB. So as a loan between two individuals. i am sure there is no law against that. The issue is more of a political one rather than taxation or legal.
I seem to recall several Greens supporters defending Senator Brown for making those attacks.
Finns
I am on a Govt. benefit – DSP. I have to, by law, disclose any money I recieve from any source. If someone wants to give me a lazy few grand, it is deemed to be income.
Surely politicians would be treated the same?
Frank, may as well save your breath, Bob1234 has asked that over and over and has been answered over and over and been given that link by me BB GG and now your good self. If it ain’t what they want to hear they pretend it never happened. Talking about skipping posts, that annoying repetitive yapping I will do without
You’ve just shifted the goalposts.
Hmm, A so called ALP supporter who always stands up to the Green Purists with monotonous regularity – so much for you being primarlily an ALP Supporter.
So it is ok for Green Bludger ALP posters, but not the other way aroiund ?
I forgot to include the word Slander.
I’m also on the DSP and yes that is the case.
Finns,
I understand that interpretation. However, it looks extremely dodgy to me that a politician with all his salary, lurks and perks can then use his Parliamentary position to beg for personal donations.
No doubt he’ll be offering special tofu steak knives as an inducement.
But I ask, “Is this what Parliament is for?”
I’m Labor at heart but have become dissolutioned with Labor’s lack of social progressivism (they were always voted out over the economy, not social progressivism), and as such I vote for the viable social progressive third party of the day to remind Labor they can’t chase the right at the expense of the left.
On particular issues, I sometimes support Labor over Green and vice versa.
What I am not is someone that blindly follows a party and its policies. I am a free thinker. I am not a drone.
Exactly, and If I was a Tasmanian Elector, I’d also be asking the same questions. But of course Bob Brown is a special case – woe betide if it was a politican from one of the Major Parties who would be making the same request.
Careful, you’ll be snipped for mentioning the dreaded T word that our Green frikends despise.
And why is it ok for Rudd to receive a free car but Brown can’t receive $240,000 from Dick Smith? Both are/would be declared and both are legal.
And the difference in money is a moot point when the principle is being debated.
For those with an interest, Adele Carles is to be sworn in today at 5pm in WA.
Listen to it live here:
http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/web/newwebparl.nsf/iframewebpages/Legislative+Assembly+-+Live+Broadcast
phil of sydney (1384 previous thread),
couldn’t agree more with you mate
. I’ve found after a few failed attempts that anything I say isn’t going to make the A type personalities on either side of this arguement go away. (i.e I don’t have the magic pill {actually the only one with the magic pill is William who will ban if he gets peeved enough}).
my response of late has been to just gloss over individual posters pending the avatar (which is the first and best clue as to who it is). If my Plan A doesn’t work, i.e I’m annoyed enough I sit down to the keyboard to work up a reply to someone, I use Plan B which is to type it up, it makes me feel better and then I hit “delete” so the whole world doesn’t have to read it. Has been more than once, even today, where I’m bloody glad I did hit that delete button or I’d be in the doghouse of more than one person
Gee that 7% green vote needs to go up a bit if they are going to win all these Labor seats we keep being told about lol
Labor is MORE socially progressive than the Libs in most cases, in deed it would be nice if they were more so – but you do realise that there is a political reality if they DID go in that direction that the Libs would be planting all sort of scary stories about Labor supporting left handed lesbian pedrverts recieveing Welfare, and the gulliable Kath & Kims would lap it up and what would be a small swing to the coalition would turin ito a landslide.
From the latest Essential Report
“Nearly two thirds (63%) of respondents said they expect the economy to start to improve within the next 18 months – 28% think that the
Australian economy will start to improve this year and 35% think that Australia’s economy will start to improve next year.”
I expect Turnbull & Hockey to be further dismayed at this. They are going to sink lower in the gutter and continue the personal attack on Rudd over ute-gate. They have a grubby Liberal tradition to maintain from the days of the Liberal smear campaign of PJK and his piggery.
Social progressivism and economic socialism are two very different things. And again, Labor has never been voted out for being too socially progressive. It’s always about the economy.
But once again you FAIL toy realise that Brown was being a Hypocrite in Criticising Rudd for doing the EXACT think that he is now asking for.
Pure and Simple – but don’t let the facts get in the way of being a part time ALP Hack when it suits you.
And how can one compare Rudd/ozcar to Brown and the payment of his court costs? I’m not saying Rudd’s done wrong, i’m saying one can’t criticise Brown and not Rudd.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/04/2589652.htm
The issue is the allegations of what was done in return for the free car. Not the free car itself.
I never defended Brown for his comments. The only comment I have made on it is the above.
But don’t let that get in the way of your comments.
I got a leaflet in the mail today from my local Lib MP telling me
(I take it you mean disillusioned.) On what issues exactly do you think that Labor lacks social progressivism?
And let’s look at the issue for a second:
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/give-rudd-car-to-charity-greens-leader-20090605-by0e.html
Brown is criticising Rudd for the perceived personal gain in exchange for a perceived car dealership hoping to benefit from a government financing scheme.
Or pray that the Liberal Party don’t stand any candidates in those seats
Rebecca and I listed a stack of issues and you were there reading it. I’m not going back to that debate.
And isn’t Brown going to get a personal gain from the money he’s asking for ?
You mean like a ‘dyed in the wool’ Green supporter?
Bob, stop feeding the trolls. Take a break for an hour or so and they’ll run out of oxygen.
I thought ‘troll’ was banned?
Oh yes, the hypocrisy on that is breathtaking – it is ok to be a dyed in the Wool Greens supporter who supports the party no questions asked – but if it is a ALP supporter who does the same they are a hack and a Dalek.
vera
I just found out Alex Somlyay is alive – Just recieved an invoice for Labor Debt from his office. (Which is now in Fisher – Not Fairfax).
Do I hear Pots & Kettles in that last statement ?
Is Dick Smith going to get personal gain as a result of this?
That is the allegation against Rudd with the car dealership.
I’d have voted Labor in Whitlam’s day, later I voted for the Democrats then Labor 2nd, now I vote Greens then Labor second.
Who is dyed in the wool exactly?
BB needs to explain who DS expects in return. What policies is BB selling ??
who = what
I don’t support all of their statements. I think the Greens take the environment too far. When did I ever say I support the party no questions asked?
No doubt his Buy Australian Made Campaign amongst other things
We have allegations of the Labor government helping the dealership. We have no allegations of Brown helping Dick Smith.
So why are you questioning Brown?
Seems hypocritical to me.
Which were found to be baseless.
Who knows. All related documents need to be tabled if they have nothing to hide
Where’s the allegation?
Rudd’s allegations are well documented in news articles, which is a lot more than Bob Brown has.
Hypocritical.
rua
I used to get all these flash glossy newsletters and leaflets from my MP when Howard was in govt, the leaflet I got today looked like it had been done on a home computer lol
Amazing the difference when you haven’t got control of the nation’s pursestrings.
I’m not saying they aren’t baseless, but the allegations are there, and to my knowledge they haven’t been found to be baseless. Is there a link you can provide for this?
Why not – he is a politican and like those on ALL sides Questions have to be asked ? or is it that Bob Brown is exempt because of who he is ?
Yet – never underestimate the ability of some media outlets to fabricate stuff.
Adam,
Federally, I think the main issues are Industrial Relations (in particlaur the ABCC), refugees (especially under Beasley), fees for tertiary education and support for the Iraq War.
On a State level in WA, I think the main issue is Laura Norder. Especially their support for manadatory sentencing, assets seizure and a general breaking down the protections in the criminal justice system.
Allegations have been leveled against Rudd that who he got his gift from have benefitted from it. No such allegations have been made against Brown.
The allegations have yet to be disproven.
I’m not saying the allegations are true, but its hypocritical in that context to criticise Brown but not Rudd.
Says who? There have been plenty of questions asked of what DS will receive in return in here…
Well the msm and the libs have told australians forcefully for a week or so of the evil and danger of accepting the loan of a 13 year old ute, so $240 k in cold hard cash must the galactically evil and darsteadly…..
Can’t be helped when the only daily newspaper and only commercial Talkback station are on your back on a daily basis it’s called Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t.
Excellent! Thankyou! So there’s no allegations yet, but anti-Green Laborites are already accusing Brown of it when there’s no allegation!
Yet Rudd has had allegations made against him which are yet to be disproven. But we don’t hear a peep on that from the same people.
It’s hypocritical.
And the allegation is…?
But why pass law that you know to be bad just because the media pressured you into it?
O no! It gets worse….. Mr Smith says he and OTHER entrepreneurs will help Senator Brown raise the money
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/09/2593414.htm
Who are these OTHER people…what do they expect in return ???
All documents and tapes of conversations MUST be tabled !
Did any of the money come from China or are any of these OTHER people Chinese !!
Oh how the worm has turned !!
Because if you don’t, you will be precieved as being weak on Law & Order – you do recall Sattler’s Crusade on the Three Strikes legislation now don’t you ?
This is hilarious. Why aren’t you so suspicious of Rudd’s car? He got something so he MUST be giving benefits back to them. Oh, they’re only allegations? They can’t be proven?
Well it’s a shame you can’t apply the same standard of proof to Bob Brown.
Hypocritical.
But Frank, whats the point? If you are not implementing your policy and your beliefs then why do you want to be in power?
There needs be be a senate inquiry into this whole matter.
Nah make that two senate enquiries and a referral to the productivity commission.
Power for power’s sake, and to go “Ner ner Liberals, you’re not in power cause we’re implementing your policies”.
Yes, some Labor supporters can be rather bizarre.
And for those who don’t rember – This is what happened.
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/demons-drivetime/clip2/
I think Dave’s being ironic. At least, I hope he is, because it’s quite funny. If he’s being serious it’s just sad.
It’s so you can be better than the Libs, “on aggregate”.
No it’s called living in a political reality – something the Greens have a hard time getting their heads around – or in Labor’s case ensuring you remain in opposition because you were deemed to be out of touch with MAINSTREAM Australia.
Sounds like the conservatives are saving up their pennies and putting them in a war chest in case of a DD election. No more rivers of gold and largesse from the government benches for them to indulge in.
Of course they have.
Oz, for heavens sake – just taking the mickey about the msm and other reaction to the loaned ute.
Seriously though, BB dishes stuff out – about time he got some back !
Where do you get this dribble?
Every federal Labor government in Australia’s history was booted out over the state of the economy.
I see we still haven’t moved on from the Labor vs Greens “who’s the biggest hypocrite” argument in the last four days.
GG
The Blees book “Prescription for the Planet” arrived. I got an extra copy for the Bludgers who are interested. Do you want me to send you it? I’ll get your address from William.
Watch the clip and educate yourself – It’s just not about the economy alone.
I was responding to Luke’s comment about Luara Norder.
Labor was booted out in 1996 over the economy and Keating’s arrogance. Law and order didn’t come in to it.
Diogs,
Yes please.
Did you see this today in the OO?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25607083-7583,00.html
Bob, I was just askin. I wasn’t insinuating you are a “dyed in the wool” Green supporter. I was asking whether your description of a person who follows the party line and acts like a drone also applies to “dyed in the wool” Green supporters. Yes, no maybe?
Yes.
GG, that’s why i said it’s political. i heard BB said he’s going to talk to his bank manager, obviously for a “loan”. Now, if he can take out a “loan” from a bank, he can gets a “loan” from any source.
At the least, if he gets a “loan” from a bank and somebody else acts as his personal guarantor to his “loan”, then the result is the same.
You see “loan” is a very slippery eel, just ask any “investment banker” or company director.
28,
(original post wasn’t mine but might as well have been so i’m chiming in
)
1. refugee treatment
2. republic, ditch the monarchy already
3. ??
bob1234 what else have I misssed?
Bob Brown will have to amend his pecuniary interest register by the end of the month. All donations over $10,500 will need to be disclosed.
If anyone thinks some media lackey will not be given the job of investigating every contact any donor has ever had with BB, they have rocks in their heads.
Remember these guys can fabricate a “story” from thin air – undisclosed sources etc.
The pain for BB is only just beginning – unfortunately.
Well I just found out my great great grandpa (dads side) was replaced by hoover as manager of the “new sons of gwalia goldmine.”
how history would have changed if my great great granpa hadnt resigned (he ended up going into wa politics!)
anyone else have a couldabeen moment ??
juliem: [bob1234 what else have I misssed? ]
Adam: [On what issues exactly do you think that Labor lacks social progressivism?]
me: [Rebecca and I listed a stack of issues and you (Adam) were there reading it. I’m not going back to that debate.]
I think you’re forgetting something. Proof needs to be given that Brown gave them something in return. Now are the Greens in government? Makes it pretty hard to do things for them if they dont hold the pursestrings
* On IR: We said at the election we would scrap WorkChoices and we have done so. The new system will restore protections for workers, particularly unskilled and low-paid. We are abolishing the ABCC and its functions will be absorbed by FWA. We are retaining a special regime for the construction industry because it is still plagued by criminality and violence. If the CFMEU don’t like this they should clean up their act.
* Refugees: We have abolished the Pacific Solution and TPVs. We take in 13,000 refugees a year. All boat arrivals are promptly processed at Xmas Is and those found to be refugees are admitted.
* Fees for tertiary education: Australia cannot afford to provide a free higher education for everyone. Graduates are required to repay *part* of the cost of their degree through HECS when they reach a certain earning level. This is a form of (retrospective) means testing, which is highly socially progressive measure since it frees up funds to benefit the less advantaged. Free degrees for the upper middle class is just a rort, which Labor rightly abolished.
* Iraq War: Labor opposed the Iraq War from day one.
Bob, would it be unfair to describe Oz as a “dyed in the wool” Green supporter?
ru,
There has to be consequences. What Brown is doing is a perversion of the Australian parliamentary standards of representation. All the caterwauling from the Greens acoltytes here and the good will afforded to Bambi Bob should not prevent the thorough investigation of this highly unusual and i believe dubious approach to combining his personal and political responsibilities.
I don’t know, ask him?
It could be that Dick Smith and others would expect the Greens to consider their views when deciding to ether vote for, or against legislation which would have some sort of impact ether personally and professionally.
Gary,
Depends if the wool came from muletised sheep and whether the dye contains polluting toxins.
Call me whatever you like. It’s unlikely to have any grounding in reality, and funnily enough, I don’t even care! =D
Greensborough
You are King of Hyperbole, why would anyone care what you think?
“What Brown is doing is a perversion of the Australian parliamentary standards of representation. All the caterwauling from the Greens acoltytes here and the good will afforded to Bambi Bob should not prevent the thorough investigation of this highly unusual and i believe dubious approach to combining his personal and political responsibilities.”
Nothing that Bob Brown has done in any way reflects what you are claiming. What you are doing is smearing. Give it a break.
Has this blog become a mouth-piece for Labor party smear campaigns?
It would seem so.
Why would a 63 year old Senator, with 16 years of salary over $100,000 not be able to find $240,000?
It’s cause he’s from the Greens. It’s an ideological argument, not a practical one based in reality.
So in Brown’s case it is smearing, but when the same standards are applied to the Major Parties the Greens declare that it is “in the interests of public accountability” ?
What Double Standards.
He’s already spent $600,000 on the court case in the past few years. Not to mention he has a life which he spends money in. He’s not made of money.
Go find some facts rather than baseless assertions.
Astrobleme,
You seem to care a lot about what I think.
Does anyone else use their Parliamentary standing as a pulpit to beg for money to settle personal debts?
I thought we paid our politicians enough through salary, allowances and super that they should be able to manage quite comfortably. Makes you wonder about the economic credibility of the Greens.
Bob
I could find $240,000 and I have been unable to work for 5 years.
Now if it was Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull in exactly the same situation the rigteous Greens would be jumping up and down and would be asking the same questions as we are here.
I think that should also apply to the Greens.
Frank
I don’t know where you get your logic from but it is exceedingly poor.
I’ll summarise your argument:
“I made up some stuff but it’s not wrong because of something that is not related in anyway to what we are talking about”
You are simply making stuff up. You are making stuff up in an attempt to make Bob Brown look bad. That is smearing.
You are irrelevant to the discussion
Frank,
Take that! Don’t forget to duck that warm lettuce!
Frank
“Now if it was Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull in exactly the same situation the rigteous Greens would be jumping up and down and would be asking the same questions as we are here.”
Making up more stuff! When you’re shown to be wrong you just make up more stuff and pretend that is true instead.
I was right, you are a Labor Party Spambot that just spews out made up stuff in an attempt to smear Bob Brown
Greensborough
Hows your research going?
Did you bother?
IF he takes this HUGE amount of money from DS and these faceless OTHERS (who may or may not be chinese) he is effectively bought and paid for. As the “learned” members of the msm bleated last week – “apperance is everything” in polictics.
And what other money or other consideration has BB accepted that he may wish to now tell people about…where there is samoke there is firree..
mmmmm…velly serious stuff
Frank,
Duck Frank. Here comes the hemp fibre sandal!
Have we not learnt that responding to the likes of Frank is pointless?
Prediction – Frank will accuse me of stifling debate.
Geez, I thought you had a sembl,ence of intgelligence- I was making a HYPOTHETICAL Statement.
Oh so I’m a spambot who smears your precious Bob Brown – - cannot engage in rational argument, so you resort to a personal attack against ANYBODY who dares applies the same standards of Bob Brown as he does against Labor & Liberal Politicians who may be in a similar situation to himself.
Frank,
I just got the “you haven’t done your homework death stare”.
Chris Bowen on 7:30 Report I think.
oh anf BTW not a sausage tonight on the abc about this ??
Why not ? Why don’t all the usual rules apply to BB ??
I don’t need to, yourself and Astroblume are doing it all on your own.
GG, you’re being very silly and petty. It’s not a personal debt, it’s legal costs arising from a case he brought in what he saw as the public interest, to save the spotted nematode or whatever it was. He’s spent a lot of his own money, and now he’s threatened with bankruptcy and expulsion from parliament. He’s not asking for money to put in his own pocket. I think he’s entitled to ask for help and I intend making a donation, despite my well-known non-support for the Greens.
From the 12th edition ofThe Australia Institute’s e-bulletin Between the Lines, 9/7/2009
[MUTUAL OBLIGATION BY ANY OTHER NAME
A few weeks ago, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a 'Compact with Young Australians' on behalf of the Council of Australian Governments. Under the terms of the Compact, COAG will guarantee an education or training place for all people who are under 25 and find themselves out of work. On the other side of the bargain, if young people refuse to participate in training (regardless of whether it is appropriate for them), they will lose welfare benefits.
Calling this initiative a 'compact' is highly misleading. The Macquarie Dictionary defines a compact as 'an agreement between parties; a covenant; a contr act'. Yet COAG, or rather the Rudd Government with the acquiescence of the states, made this decision on its own without consulting any young people. It is an announcement, not an agreement.
Putting aside the spin, of more concern is how closely this initiative resembles the Howard Government's policy of 'mutual obligation', known colloquially as 'work for the dole'. The government is understandably worried about social security expenditure as unemployment rises and wants to contain the national welfare bill. But mutual obligation wasn't only about money; it was also designed to send a message to the electorate.
As Ms Gillard explained, '[W]e are going to say to those young people very clearly and with some force … that if they’re not in work, they must be in training’. The ‘compact’ is nothing more than a tightening of the rules for receiving welfare, dressed up as a helping hand for vulnerable young people. It also exploits public prejudice about do -nothing dole bludgers, who must be forced to comply with someone else’s standards of behaviour.
As the economy slows, new entrants into the labour market in general, and young people in particular, will be the first to suffer. Increased investment in education and training is a step in the right direction but recycling the rhetoric of the Howard years to demonise the young is a big step backwards.]
Youth Compact Announcement:http://www.deewr.gov.au/Ministers/Gillard/Media/Releases/Pages/Article_090430_154925.aspx
If it was Kevin Rudd, the story would be lead item on “their ABC”
And Frank, you’re not being very helpful to the Labor cause. Give the Green-baiting a rest, comrade.
bob1234,
sorry, mate
… have been in and out this afternoon and not read every post as much as I would like to …
Phesphos,
I will not sit and let these so called posters attack me and the ALP. If t’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander I say.
Frank, IF it was rudd it would be the end of civilisation as we know it. The world would have stopped spinning by now.
Geez I love seeing Julia going against the unions.
Anyone has time for a song from Satchmo? before we tear each other miserable mices into pieces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc
psephos,
It’s a personal debt incurred in his political activities otherwise it would not be him that the plaintiff is chasing for the money.
Dress it up, excuse it or talk to it, it is a personal debt.
What you do with your money is no business of mine. My charity is restricted to worthy causes.
Because accusations have been made against Rudd giving the car company financial benefit for the free car. No accusions have been made against Brown for giving Dick Smith anything. And let’s not forget the Greens aren’t in government so makes it pretty hard for them anyway.
Owned.
Now this is a guillotine
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/09/2593248.htm
My sister works for a solar panel company. She said they sent off 27kg worth of applications today. (she said it was easier to weigh them than count them!)
So why have they done it?
Here’s some figures:
Talk about blowing out the budget!
http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/renewable/pv/index.html
How can ity be Owned, as I am my own person who doesn’t have to follow the advice of a fellow ALP Person – it seemsPhesphos is a lone voice amongst the bulk of ALP people posting.
He used to be a Labor staffer and knows more about Labor than any other poster. He’s been a lot higher than any other poster has ever been.
Unless I am mistaken…?
i did advise Herr Doktor to stick to history
109, I’ve learned.
118, I’ve tried that tack several weeks ago. Got the same reply. Now I take the “do not read” approach. Works wonders
I think it’s way past time that you characters desist with your baiting and trolling on this site.
It may seem funny to you but you are hijacking what is generally a site that reasonably intelligent posters outline their opinions and try to inform other posters and people who enjoy reading informative, analytic commentary.
What I have been suffering through over the past few days is bordering on the insufferable and is nothing more than a betrayal of the opportunity given to people by William to express an opinion in an intelligent and civilised manner.
Can we have a bit of decorum here please and leave the personal snipes and trolling for an anticipated response to keep the whole sordid nonsense going on indefinitely to sites such as Bolters and Pied. Please!!!
But that is beside the point, he is stating a contrary point to the other ALP peop[le who post here and proves that we in the ALP can and do tolerate a wide range of views, but generally we are in broad agreement.
Stop muddying the Waters.
Could you inform me what those allegations are please bob? All I remember is innuendo.
There’s only one here that makes things go too far. Frank. The rest of the Labor posters, and the Green posters, do not go too far. Frank does.
Which is pretty much what the accusations against Bob Brown are. We see anti-Green Laborites slamming Bob Brown for accepting a donation, with no accusations by journalists or politicians of improper acts. We have seen accusations by politicians of improper acts when it comes to Rudd/Ozcar. I’m not saying they’re justified, but what I am saying, is how can one slam Bob Brown but not Kevin Rudd?
More accurately he was questioned. He rebutted such question without qualification and rudd was in no position to give the car company financial benefit. You may recall any benefit is decided independently and in any case is in the form of car industry finance, not to car dealers. Got that ?
Questions are being quite righly asked and need to be answered. What has he got to hide ?
Ahh, don’t like the argument, so you go on the personal attack.
How typical and hypocritcal of you – why don’t you lay the SAME accusation against Greensborough Growler, Ruawake, Vera, Zoomster and Gary Bruce who have made exactly the same comments as I have.
And before you accuse me of “T*olling” Look in the mirror yourself.
Kevin Rudd expressed some support for Dr Brown today didn’t he?
Well they released those figures and used that as justification for ending the rebate on June 30.
I don’t get why they moved it forward from June 30 to today with less than a days notice.
Chris Bowen on Red Kerry – first time?
Finns
Herr Doktor is now
Comrade Cosmonaut
Dave,
St Bob is untouchable and Pure – to do so would be subject to you being referred to as a Labor Spambot and Smearer.
Because you go way too far, unlike the others you mention.
Pots & Kettles.
dave and PAAPTSEF – my point is this.
People like Frank have criticised Bob Brown for taking the donation and have called it improper and needs investigation. Did they say the same when they heard Rudd accepted his donation?
No.
Two standards here.
Gus, i see what you mean.
jump, how high, comrade.
Oz
You should learn to read polly speak, the words were the solar rebate would be in place until “before the 30th June”.
bob1234,
Get a grip mate. You have almost single handledly hijacked this blog for your own selfish pleasure in baiting anjd abusing other posters.
I’m out of here. I can’s stand to read such abject nonsense.
Did everyone see Newt Gringrich’s piece of brilliance? I caught it from Paul Krugman’s blog….
Wow. And I keep getting distracted by worldwide recession!
Frank Frank Frank.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-285563
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-285559
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-284525
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/05/25/essential-research-59-41-3/all-comments/#comment-278616
What more proof do you need that you’re the problem?
See my last post #150.
I’ll let William be the judge of it.
Yes, he did in the article that I and others have pasted ad-finitem, but it seems that that article doesn’t fit into your woorld view so you dismiss it out of hand.
THAT is the hypcrisy.
That goes to he heart of the matter. He dishes all sorts of stuff out. If he cannot take a bit back, then stiff shite – Let him go and get a job as a national park ranger or whatever if he is such a delicate petal.
…..Well so be it …One thing guaranteed….. is that I return fire and believe in good old fashion retribution with leverage.
I’d say because it is bleeding money from the budget. It was not meant to be that popular.
I’d say the Dept of Finance made the call.
Frank, is this the smoking gun you’ve been looking for?
http://www.greens-liberal-deal.com.au/gotcha.jpg
Sorry, did you say you questioned Rudd in the same way before any accusations were made?
Or are you saying Labor or Liberal MPs are saying Bob Brown is acting unethically? What favours is he accused of giving Dick Smith?
Please elaborate.
No, Brown questioned Rudd’s deal about the Ute.
Out of the coalition, the Greens, Family First, and Xenophon, which party has voted with the government more than any other?
The Greens.
After allegations were already raised.
Did you raise questions prior to the allegations were made? No. After? No.
Did you raise questions prior to allegations made against Brown? Yes. Has any been made by MPs? No.
For your benefit I will paste the quote from Brown in plain english.
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/give-rudd-car-to-charity-greens-leader-20090605-by0e.html
Senator Brown – Pot, Kettle, Black
Frank, you just said it:
An allegation which was later refuted.
I agree. Some Green supporters have been regurgitating the same crud for weeks. Not for discussion, but as a statement of fact. As if they think they can change the way people on this blog will vote. ( Oz – excepted).
I have endured the “we would be in Govt. if only we had a PR system”. “all we need is a 9% swing and we may win a lower house seat”. etc ect ad nauseum.
We have had discussion on many subjects for many years – but only recently has it become personal. My perception is some Green supporters cannot sustain an argument so they play the man, not the ball.
This perception may be wrong – but its sad.
Evidence?
ruawake that debate has long gone.
There are a number of people here who “go too far” in the sense that all they do is make silly childish personal jibes and name-calling. I do it myself from time to time, but I try not to. Some people here do nothing but, and it has got worse recently. The Labor-Liberal feuding is bad enough, but this recent spate of Labor-Green feuding is much worse, more childish and silly and pointless. Frank, you both deliberately provoke the Greens and let yourself be provoked by them. This is not a good look for you personally and it is not principled behaviour from a Labor point of view. You should argue policies not indulge in silly name-calling.
As for Brown, Rudd and other ministers have expressed concern and support for his position. Labor supporters don’t have to support his views, or support the position he was taking in the court case, to acknowledge that he took his action in what he saw as the public interest, and his debts are in that sense not “personal” – like a gambling debt or a failed investment – but have been incurred as part of his public role, which is, on the whole, a progressive one. All this sniping at his motives and personal integrity is stupid, childish and offensive.
The point is that one cannot be critical of Bob Brown without being critical of Kevin Rudd. I happen to think that neither has done anything wrong. It’s a pity some are calling for Bob Brown’s blood when not a single MP has made an allegation of wrongdoing.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/822737/swan-defends-rudd-over-free-ute
Hear hear Psephos!
*breaks out more popcorn*
I never thought watching Greenies and Comrades fight each other on PB could be soo amusing
Frank, great evidence! So if Milne says that Brown acted in a proper way that will satisfy you?
I already know the answer.
Re Dr Carr @ 167
Amen Adam.
I only respond in kind to those who choose to attack me first. It is hypocritical for the Greens to cry and carry on about MY posts when in the same breath they are doing EXACTLY the same thing without any complaint or censure from william.
Frank, doesn’t the fact that William tells you off and not others tell you something?
Glen, you real mustard. We just love each too much and too deep. the more we hate each other, the more we love
Oh and before you all get excited over Adams Comments, they are his and his alone and are not representative of EVERY Labor poster on this site.
no, it’s called Double Standards. One rule for me and A:P posters and a different rule for our Liberal posters and the Greens.
bob1234
I am breaking my golden rule – but.
Put a sock in it mate.
Exactly the same comment can be made regarding your comments .
Glen
It’s really boring if you are, like me, half way between Labor and Green and hate “barracking” for any Party like a football team.
Speak for yourself mussel muncher
I don’t think you can get a more respected opinion than William and Adam.
And not every other Labor poster is supporting you, only a handful of anti-Green Laborites.
But this really is of no consequence to your lack of behaviour of which William has warned you and you alone of several times.
Diog
I support the Canberra CFMEU Raiders – The Green Machine. No wonder I’m confused.
But my comments have NOT been snipped
But again, playing the man and not the issue – you being oh so precious of a few words.
Oooh poor Bob, gotta hide behind William and Adam
God brown noser trolls get my goat
Also i believe some enthusiastic Liberal Posters have been banned from PB so Frank we do get treatment but nevertheless for repeated offences which William did point out to them.
But im sure William doesnt want this blog to turn into a ALP v Green debate forum
and we Libs are rare as hens teeth on PB i can only think of myself and GP really…
bob all your protests only point to there really being much to hide regarding this HUGE amount of money from faceless people.
The truth has to come out
LOL im getting polled by roy morgan!!!
Finns,
I blame Diogenes for all this sniping. He’s always been a troublemaker. Always has to have the last word. Constantly trolling to make himself relevant in his own mind. The bustard never shuts up or offers informative links. Then, plays goody two shoes to reamain teachers pet.
See it’s no wonder Morgon polls are biased to the Left…
Now, now Amigo, how now Brown cow?
Glen – we agree
on that comment anyway.
Clearly its another green plot. Morgan better be asking who those faceless people with the big bucks are and what they want in return
Finns
Mooooooooo! Mooo! Moo
GG, yes, that goody goody two shoes always comes to no good. he’s forgotten his knowledge tree again.
Diog, Just a reminder:
http://users.tpg.com.au/tjhpnq98//ktree2.jpg
That is the definition of “allowing yourself to be provoked.” It is the logic of the preschool playground: but he threw sand at me first, miss. We should adopt a tone of lofty disdain for such tactics, Frank. Always ask yourself, “What would Kevin do?”
Back! Green #1
Yes because I know all about Bob Brown’s personal affairs!
Give me a break.
What truth? Why must this assistance for Brown be unproper?
Kev would just turn to Trish: “Where’s the petty cash, dear”
GG
I’ve been wondering if I could get the last word on this one.
I can technically detain people under the Mental Health Act. I haven’t done it for about 15 years and then I actually detained a doctor I was working with in Emergency during a shift we were working together. He had just told a lady with a broken leg that her leg didn’t need treatment as it would heal itself if she prayed to God. A sad case.
I’m thinking about sending out a few detention orders and seeing if they can be enforced.
Actually I was going to suggest frank use the force
But I suppose kev will do
No just saying it’s obvious who the troublemaker is based on who gets the warnings – Frank.
Something the BSD faction of the libs would do. Or the howard government ??
Nothing much really changes does it ?
Yet your trolling goes unchallenged.
I have to wonder if William’s tolerence of all things Greens is because one is his local MP ?
Fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate.
Stop playing the victim. William Bowe is fair and balanced.
Why, it’s ok to portray Bob Brown as one ?
And now for something completely different.
Anybody got a new passport?
Just got a new one for myself. It’s beautiful. It’s a piece of great art works. Each page is a beautiful illustration of Oz icons, fauna and flora. too good to be stamped.
With a chip page at the centre. Worth every $201.
Oh and you may have noticed I’ve not oince today referred to the Greens by their nicknames – yet they get all upset cos I dare challenge the honesty and integrity of their leader using the same benchmark as he did towards the Prime Minister and the Ute.
Am I playing the victim? No.
I defend Bob Brown (not myself) when its warranted. There’s a difference. I also defend Kevin Rudd when its warranted.
This is so true. I could not give a fig what party they represent. Apply the same measure as they apply to others.
Is the pope catholic ?
The worst thing is my early comments were pulling your leg.
And I am not allowed to defend myself and question the motives why only MY behaviour is singled out as opposed to the Greens who dish out similar abuse and bile towards me and others and who also post on this site ?
As I said, that smacks of hypocrisy and double standards.
Same benchmark? Oh please.
William Bowe is fair and balanced. Perhaps you should ask him why he singles you out.
If he was “Fair & Balanced”, he would be asking questions of ALL posters who made personal attacks, somehow the Greens posters have been immune from such questioning.
Finns
Have you seen this tree? Not a knowledge one and animal one, Moo.
http://pixdaus.com/pics/1227842591aT8N4CL.jpg
William glazes over the odd personal attack. He focuses on those who consistently personal attack. It’s why he’s only been warning one poster
On Pollbludger, William Bowe is God.
As opposed to also conveying said warning to the above writer.
Finnigans at #207
I just updated my Aussie passport – the only thing un-beautiful in it is the new photo of my phiz…
Boy oh boy where did the last 10 years go??
He is not he Messiah-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqq3e03EBQ
Where have I been warned for bad behaviour by William?
squiggy, know what u mean. i was told not to look too handsome
Hannah’s dad, commenting on cc denialists over at Larvatus Prodeo said
Seems like PB has got a bit like that lately. Worse – the Hannahs are dropping the ball at the feet of other hannahs.
I’ve just come back to the computer from other activities. No way am I going to plow through 5 pages of people behaving like hannah just to find out if anybody said anything interesting about the poll.
amigo, it’s a broken link
You just answered your own question – when yourself and others have attacked myself and other ALP people, William has let them go to the keeper, but if I or other ALP’ers say similar they get warned, or in GG’s and others case, they get snipped.
Capishe ?
Sorry Finns, try this one. It’s an old tree in africa with animal carvings in it
http://www.wdwtourguide.com/wallpaper/AnimalKingdomTreeOfLife3(1280×800).jpg
William seems to be ascribe to Nick Cave’s thoughts in Into My Arms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0-cncMpt8&feature=related
William lets the odd personal attack go through to the keeper. He warns those who repeatedly attack – ie: you.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-285563
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-285559
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/06/05/morgan-58-42-3/all-comments/#comment-284525
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/05/25/essential-research-59-41-3/all-comments/#comment-278616
Capishe?
I don’t even think the poll’s been mentioned yet.
Sad days for PB.
I haven’t seen William warn any others recently either. GG and others do not go to the extremes you do as outlined in the links above.
And I responded as appropriate to William’s concerns each and EVERY Time.
Yet, I have NOT seen William make similar demands of others ?
Bob1234,
Please stop.
The poll: Labor is ahead. Labor has always been ahead. Labor will always be ahead. What more needs to be said?
Classic personal attack. Uncalled for.
amigo, nice tree. probably it’s too stumpy for diog.
And yet such personal attacks aren’t given the same degree of scruitiny as my alleged indiscretions.
Nobody else goes as far.
Adam,
What is your prediction for the next Federal election?
That would be fantastic if it were the case, but I doubt it!
have you had a look in the mirror lately, i think you have a problem, better make an appointment with Dr Diog
Even the resident Liberals on pollbludger admit Rudd Labor will win the next election. It’s a given
Finnigans,
I too am handsome, quite, but I am a bit shocked by the way most of my face is roughly half an inch lower than is was 10 years ago
Nobody else goes as far.]
Oh really, what about these two choice comments directed at me then ?
Yes i’ve been going for gold tonight.
and this is what he saw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulmIyqb6W-8
By how much will the ALP win and what about the Senate?
First, those comments weren’t from me (I know you know this but you didn’t make that clear).
Second, William warned you for the use of particular perjorative phrases, used dozens of times in the same day. If said poster called you a Labor Party Spambot dozens of times in the same day i’m sure William would have given them a warning. But no, William has only given you warnings lately.
How about we drop the discussion now? We seem to have hit a dead end.
and while I’m at it…,
and while everyone else here seems to be blowing smoke up William’s arse,
has anyone noticed that his claim to be 37-years old hasn’t changed for some time?
But they wont be ahead forever i predict the Libs to overtake the ALP at some stage in their second term in opinion polling.
Just watching a replay on Apac of the swearing in of new cabinet members, Therese in front row is looking lovely
Squiggy, yes, we are TOO handsome for the Uglies of PBs
And so they should!
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/the-long-view/
Labor got their first ahead on 2PP polling a year after the Howard government came to power!
I wasn’t 100% who said it but it was an example of the personal attacks as made by Green Supporters.
Which I dropped as soon as he mentioned it. Which you seem to forget, and I have gone to great lengths not to refer to Greens by any nicknames since last night.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a contiunued campaign of personal attacks.
Glen I recall a series of your predictions during the 2007 elections.
But….you are a much, much more mellow glen these days
I have noticed – he’s been 37 since the election.
William will always be younger under an ALP government.
Being as objective as I can, it’s very hard to see any circumstances in which Rudd could lose.
* No first-term federal government has been defeated since 1931, and that was only because the government had fallen apart.
* Rudd is still very popular, liked and trusted by the majority of voters.
* Nelson and Turnbull have gained no traction for any of their attacks on Rudd, and nor would Costello.
* On the big issues of the day (IR, the GFC, CC) the voters give Rudd credit for good intentions and, so far, positive results. (Incidentally, every time the left attack Rudd over IR issues or for not being radical enough, that strengthens Rudd’s position among swining voters.)
* While NSW is probably going to see some Labor losses, all the other states are looking positive.
You used oh so pure Greens today which he’s warned you about.
And onions.
But I added the word Greens, which I wasn’t using before.
Labor should have lost in nsw before now. I still don’t discount that the libs will find a way to lose again some how.
William will always be under the tyranny of Crikey
I was replying to Vera you fool, and she explaned it as such.
But of course you would resort to Verballing me.
Sigh. I’m over it Frank.
William is doing a PhD, so he is effectively marking time. If he has got any older, he probably hasn’t noticed.
I wish you would *both* get over it, and I think everyone else here does too.
Psephos
Krugman has said the US recession will end by September. Things will be looking up in Oz by the next election. Turnbull’s only hope was if things, esp unemployment, kept getting worse.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8ZaruoJGPLM
I can see Lib gains in NSW and VIC…
I’d say Solomon is worth a crack too…
Maybe a couple of loses in WA, couldnt see us doing much worse than last time maybe pick up a few but Rudd and Co have such a big majority it matters for naught.
The only things that could sink Rudd are (a) a complete economic disaster, which as Dio says is not very likely, or (b) a massive scandal of some kind involving Rudd directly, which also seems unlikely (though these things can never be predicted).
Hear hear.
There goes Turnbull’s great white hope:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/09/business-confidence-back-on-the-up-and-up/
I can’t see any likely Labor losses in Vic, Glen. Corangamite, Deakin, Bendigo? I don’t think so. These seats are awash in infrastructure and schools money, which you lot OPPOSED, and Brumby is not on the nose enough to have any effect.
I agree Solomon is never to be taken for granted, and neither are Bass and Braddon (the terrible Tasmanian twins). But against that I think Labor will gain further ground in Qld, where Rudd is still fantastically popular.
And I can see ALP gains in Qld. Then another 3 years of oblivion for the coalition.
Its interesting to consider the rationale behind the elevation of Superannuation to the cabinet in the recent re-schuffle..
I went to the first Nick Sherry speech after Rudd was elected at an IFSA luncheon. He seemed to be very aware of the industry’s issues, but the biggest excitement was that Rudd had provided for the first ever dedicated Minster for Superannuation.
Now Rudd has elevated Superannuation into Cabinet, but the man who did most for the ALP approach to Super sits outside cabinet—-is Senator Nick on the nose in the Rudd camp?
Adam, sent you an email.
Tom.
Secret Labor business inadvertently slipped out?
The US seems to be becoming a lot less homophobic. The majority of Conservatives (58%), Republicans (58%) and weekly church-goers (60%) support openly gay men and women to serve in the military, which is up by 12%/6%/11% on the figures from 4 years ago.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120764/Conservatives-Shift-Favor-Openly-Gay-Service-Members.aspx
And I should add that Dick Cheney’s recent advocacy of gay marriage hasn’t gone down well with his base.
I think Adam should take over Bob Debus’ seat at the next election.
Sharon Burrow is too left-wing for Labor. Though she has been keeping her criticism of Labor to herself lately. So it’s plausible.
DICK CHENEY now advocates gay marriage? He’s a hardcore conservative!
Ironic that his daughter is homosexual.
Oz, no not really, I just provided Adam with a possible and very tenous link between Macquarie and Burrows. Just the info is a little priviledged.
Tom
why? wishful thinking? they are behind in just about every measure taken.
Actually, it’s more complicated than I said. Here is a list of tracking polls over 20+ years on many gay issues. Here’s the Gallup summary.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108115/Americans-Evenly-Divided-Morality-Homosexuality.aspx
And here’s Cheney’s comment;
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/01/cheney-osame-sex-marriage/
Oh and speaking of former Liberals, Chris Ellison is in a spot of Bother in WA.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/09/2593529.htm
Tom
It’s interesting given our mutual speculation the other day. Also since that discussion about Debus’ intentions I asked about it and got some inside info from mates in the party that there is another succession strategy involving not Ms Burrow but a solid local candidate of the opposite gender. Does that ring an bells?
Which is of course the traditional states-rights conservative view. Conservatives are all for states rights until a state does something they don’t like, then they want the federal government to over-rule the states.
Adam i’d say we’d be a fair crack at Corangamite and Deakin with some good candidates…
Yes, the prospect of spending a generation in opposition is sure to attract good quality Liberal candidates.
It’s Time it was that kind of Hubris that got us chucked out in 2007…keep it up and we’ll be back sooner rather than later
No, a track record of dishonesty and arrogance got your heroes kicked out.
Adam
Any chance Mousavi will beat Ahmedinejad in Iran on Friday? Iran were knocked out of the World Cup by North Korea two days ago which highlighted just how low Iran had sunk. And they’re too poor to get married now.
The world would be a whole lot better with a relative moderate in charge in Iran.
Will Iran’s ‘Marriage Crisis’ Bring Down Ahmadinejad?
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1903420,00.html
What about good policies as well? With workchoices a real possibility and increasing taxes (or cutting services/benefits) to provide more middle class welfare the Libs are as far from regaining office federally as can be.
What like Rudd’s dinner with Brian Burke
???
Oh and Rudd’s outburst on his RAAF jet
???
LOL nice try It’s Time LOL
And Rudd is as popular as ever. LOL. Nice try Glen.
294
what are you on about?
Diogs,
Is it true that insanity is hereditry? I seem to be getting it from my kids.
Diogenes a way back:
Same here… I’m not rusted onto any party. I tend to vote Green (although I’m eating chicken for dinner tonight, as I seem to have run out of t*fu), but used to vote Democrat, I keep an eye out for worthy independents or micro-parties (hello Secular Party), I voted for Allanah MacTiernan recently because I like her work, and if I lived in Pearce (I grew up there), I’d quite happily vote for Judi Moylan because I like her work. If I want to be a one-eyed barracker, I have the mighty all-conquering Fremantle Dockers for that.
Glen a bit less back:
If you lot are chasing Solomon, you can’t use your sometimes-popular former MP – he got elected for an NT seat last year. I can’t see that going back to Libs in 2010. Swan and Cowan will pretty likely be one term wonders, and Canning may go as well if MacTiernan runs there. You’ll also have National interference in both Durack and O’Connor – apart from the Wheatbelt, the Nats also came second in Eyre, Kalgoorlie and Pilbara in last year’s WA election. As for over east, I’d say 2-3 of the Queensland seats that the Libs lost with absurdly large swings will go back; it worked in reverse for Rudd in Griffith. Put your next PM there, because he sure as hell ain’t in parliament yet.
This last page has been a joy to read. I may just go back a re-read it..
Yes, it’s true GG. Both the nature and nurture wings of the debate have demonstrated it in spades unfortunately. However, my recollection is that genes are normally transferred from parent to child but I could be wrong.
On a related topic, I heard today that the youth suicide rate has halved over the last ten years which is fantastic. The drop was mainly in kids from upper and middle class homes and there is still a lot of work to do for kids in families that are doing it tough.
Sadly, the other measures of mental health are getting worse, like substance abuse, suicide attempts, rates of depression etc.
JV @ 286, I haven’t heard anything, but I would agree that Burrows isn’t a good fit up here. She got involved in something up here about 5 years ago and, for somebody in the know, she displayed a lack of competence – just a head on a stick. I do agree that there seems to be a strategy about this. Debus has announced locally that he wishes to spend more time with his family and will dedicate the remaining time to the electorate. I sense (don’t claim to know) that there is something in what he says. The only possible candidate that comes to mind is the ex Bathurst Councillor Kath Knowles that was appointed as Administrator of Council a few years ago. She had links to, I think, Tony Stewart (minister Local Gov) who was a school mate of her fathers.
Tom.
It looks as though the mullahs have decided to ditch I’m-a-Dinner-Jacket as too loony for safety.
*awaits Tom’s email with anticipation*
How much of that is people digging in and not topping themselves?
Sent it to you adam-carr.net address sometime ago…
Tom.
Tom
Landeryou has take on manouevring in Debus seat.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4666/debus-democracy-i-give-my-successor-for-my-outer-suburban-seat-to-my-inner-suburban-mate/
Speaking of emails
thanks for not answering mine Psephos.
Given i raised this issue in the first place, what chance of forwarding it to Mr Bowe for it to be forwarded to me?
And how much is the fact there may have been a substantial reduction in the stigma surrounding depression? I.e. people are more likely to seek medical help?
you = your
Tom.
Moussavi actually seems to believe the Holocaust happened which would be a bonus.
Iran actually has televised electoral debates so they have a better go at the democracy thing than a lot of countries. Dinner Jacket kind of broke protocol to accuse and name a Moussavi backer as corrupt, as well as attacking his wife.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1902921,00.html
Anyway we have to wait for the redistribution. They might turn Macquarie back into a Liberal seat. I hope Debus runs again.
Gus, what have you done to Herr Doktor?
Diogs,
That news on youth suicide is indeed heartening.
A very close friend of mine lost a son this way. Fourteen years old and he decides, out of the blue, to jump off a multi story building. I will never forget the funeral. Probably, the saddest day of my life.
I have to glumly add my agreement with Adam: it is almost impossible to conceive of any remotely plausible scenario in which we Liberals would win the next election.
I think we’ll lose about 10 seats, probably: some in each of WA, SA and Vic, with the possibility that the net losses in Qld (Labor coming off a historically high base) and NSW (the Libs trying to make it a campaign against the State Govt) might be nil or minimal. Though even in those States we will quite possibly lose seats, it’s just that we might get some back too.
I think the second factor, i.e. the reduction in stigma, explains both the reduction in numbers of suicides as well as the increase in numbers presenting for help with depression etc. People like Geoff Gallop, Kennett with beyondblue etc have made a lot of difference.
Although the youth suicide rate has halved over the last ten years (evidently it’s gone down in other countries too), the current rate is still double what it was in the 1960’s.
Well it hasn’t arrived, and I don’t recall getting one from Gusface either. Maybe William is sitting on them.
I was asking for his opine on the best site(s) he would recommend to research some info on the irish parliament. (ie the most impartial)
(specifically the fact that ireland built the first purpose built parliament house in the world and that the dudes deported after the 18C revolution had a pivotal role in late colonial/early federation politics)
I asked WB as well from recollection, but followed up Dr carr with an email, but sob sob no-one replied and now I’m feeling a little bit unloved and a bit dumber
“such is life”
Speaking of Suicide, here is the most unlikely song about the subject. Normally they are of the Heavy Metal variety, but a Middle of the Road song reminicent of Abba ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wngCttY0Kc
Thats the one!
(the other address on your site dont work/is invalid)
Okay, in order to move this forum away from bickering and towards debate I predict:
FED: ALP win
NSW: Tory win
VIC: ALP win
QLD: Ummm, maybe Tory
WA: Tory
SA: ALP
TAS: Hung Parliament
ACT: Hung Parliament
NT: Tory win
Perhaphs one of these areas is worth discussing.
maybe the 12 million prescriptions written last year for tranquilisers had something to do with it.
While you guys are sorting your mail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z54-QHEZN6E
Tony Jones “We’ll decide who comes on this program and the nature in which they come”.
THM
FED: ALP win -till at least mid next deacde
NSW: Tory win- alp to just win /survive green,independents
VIC: ALP win -agree
QLD: Ummm, maybe Tory-see Fed
WA: Tory- toss up
SA: ALP-agree
TAS: Hung Parliament
ACT: Hung Parliament
NT: Tory win-toss up
Hahaha:
Tony Jones: “If you type Mark Arbib Kingmaker into Google you get 179 results”
Can’t agree with you on NSW, Gus. Very hard to see Labor winning in 2011. The depth of contempt for the current Govt is considerable.
and for upper houses Balance of Power:
FED: GRN
NSW: No Idea, probably a total of 5 GRN’s, +2 rednecks and 2GodBotherers
VIC: GRN
WA: Tory Gerrymander (yes I know, the Greens are partially to blaim, what was she thiking? Sigh…)
SA: ALP 8, LIB 7, GRN3, FF2, MrX2 (maybe -1GRN, +1ALP)
TAS: A disproportional number of rednecks compaired to hippies from the polarized world of Tassie.
http://electionsireland.org/
This guy is the Irish equivalent of Possum, William, Antony and me all rolled into one.
I’m amazed that UK Labour has kept Gordon Brown. I think they’ve just had their “APEC week” moment.
National Climate Emergency Rally
Adelaide: Saturday June 13 Victoria Square / Tarndanyangga at 11 am
and then march to Rymill Park for the Climate Festival
http://www.climateemergency.org.au/rally%20page.htm
I think the mentioning of South Australian seats is an interesting one. South Australia has the highest unemployment in the nation i believe at 5.9%. Which would be the two to go if labor lose a couple?
Makin appears to be the most volatile to me even though it has the highest margin(of the marginals)? Kingston has the lowest margin and has tradtionally been volatile so would that one be first? I doubt labor would lose more than one maybe 2 and that much soley due to unemployed people being unhappy campers.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/09/2539576.htm
Agree, but the issue will rest on the indies and greens.
Someone here or at poss’s pointed out that the magnitude of the swing would have to be phenomenal
Now if barry wasnt there it would be game -set -match to the libs
someone like broggers would sweep all before him/her but the libs have little beyond barry.
A minority lab gvt seems the most likely
Nah, NSW wins on 6.9%. Yay.
wow nm lol. Dam im behind the times my bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_-_AFC_Fourth_Round#Group_B
Iran has not been kicked out of the world cup yet, nor has North Korea or Saudi Arabia secured a spot. South Korea is in and the UAE is out though.
adam, is it psephos2006 or Adam at adam-carr dot net? doesn’t matter, I will try the psephos2006 address now.
Tom.
Tom, I have your email now. I agree that such a candidacy doesn’t seem very auspicious, especially for someone who lives in Port Melbourne.
Cheers adam
(a lot of sites are way partisan so I will use this as a launch pad)
NSW is a little easier though i think. Goodbye Robertson
Maybe page maybe dobell. Dam the redistribution lol, getting ahead of myslef again 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourgian_legislative_election,_2009
Same old, Same old in Luxembourgian legislative elections – Unless the Christian Dems change coalition parners. The Greens stayed on 11.7% and the Left electoral alliance increased from 0 to 1 seats out of 60.
The NT will be booming come next election, INPEX will be well on the way and a new suburb well and truly being settled. People will take the economic security for granted. Labor’s problem is perception.
The difficulty the CLP should have, if it gets proper air, is like the Libs they have no policy, no direction and basically no idea. They are a bit of a rabble at the moment and it is the addition of Tollner and Elphrink that have helped cause that.
‘All’ Labor needs is to have some success with one the major issues, probably the hospital.
Oh dear. Gordon Brown called Omaha Beach “Obama Beach” at the D-Day ceremonies. Some people just can’t take a trick. He’s been a terrible disappointment, his time is up and he should resign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gWfMDilvXU
I severley doubt the liberals will win Braddon in the near future btw.
Psephos,
At what stage does naked fear consume Labour Party pollies in marginal seats. They need a circuit breaker and the only one that will satisfy the baying crowd is Brown.
Annoying that the British LaboUr Party make it so hard to launch a challenge. Here everyone prettends they’re loyal till the last minute and then suddenly call a challenge. There, they’re happy to express open doubts about Gordon Brown (always reminds me of that song ‘Golden Brown’) yet can’t muster the ability to challenge. Is that right ,I haven’t really been following much?
I believe Luxembourg is now the richest country in the world by per capita GDP, having overtaken Switzerland. So it’s not surprsing that the left has not won an election there for a long time – I think not since the war.
Brown should resign, and as he won’t, the Labour rebels should have forced a vote. (Hard to believe they couldn’t have gathered the 70-odd signatures required, given that a dozen or more have resigned from his Government in the past few days.)
Meh another win for those tax swindlers in luxembourg. Most dissapointing election since Liechtenstein.
Any chance of the LibDems becoming the new opposition? I suppose the Greens there can only get elected at the local and international levels (councils and EU)? I hope there reforms include PR and/or preferncial voting. Hare-Clark is da’bomb!
I think they want poor unsuspecting Gordon to take the body blows for a few more months so there wont be pressure for an election until the economy imporves at least a little. Then the rebels swoop!
It’s not possible to depose a British Labour Leader by a Caucus vote as it is here. The Leader is elected by an three-part electoral college of the Parliamentary party, the affiliated unions and the constituency parties. All very democratic, but extremely slow and clumsy in practice. The rebels are hoping to shame Brown into resignation so they don’t have to lauch a formal challenge, which would drag on for months. So far he’s being stubborn, and the challengers – Milliband and Johnson – won’t show their hands. Is Britain ready for a Jewish PM, one wonders? They haven’t even had a Catholic yet.
True, good when Lichtenstein had a minority government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_parliamentary_election,_2009
Psephos,
Blair is/was/converted to Catholicism I believe.
Adam there is only one reason Brown hasnt gone yet and probably wont…
If the Labour Party change leaders, they’ll need to call a General Election and they’ll be wiped out…and they know this and the 100 or so MPs + who will lose their seats know this…
They are delaying the inevitable because they’ll be wiped out come next year. But the Tories have a lot of ground to make up…
It doesn’t matter who wins elections in Liechtenstein, firstly because they only have two conservative parties, and secondly because the Prince has all the power anyway. Liechtenstein is the only country in the world to vote by referendum to give up parliamentary government and restore power to a hereditary ruler. It’s a pseudo-country anyway and should be abolished imho.
A 75 member petition is enough to call a spill.
Thomas Paine: I’m not so sure. I think the last election showed that Henderson has some serious image problems, and Mills gained a serious boost to his in proving that he could dig the CLP out of their post-2005 quagmire. Henderson hasn’t been helped by the Scrymgour fiasco, and I can see him going the way of Rees eventually.
Of the others:
Federal: ALP
NSW: Liberal
Vic: ALP
WA: Liberal
SA: ALP
Tas/NT/ACT: Hung parliament
I was watching in the WA parliament today, and dear god Labor’s performance was dismal. I cannot think of an opposition leader on either side of politics in any state or territory in recent times who looked as hopeless as Ripper or his senior ministers did today. He had some winning issues on his side, but got carved up by Barnett, who managed to come off remarkably well considering. It was similar for all of the shadow ministers who spoke. The only Labor person I heard speak who didn’t sound like the carping shadow frontbencher from hell was Ben Wyatt, which was surprising considering I don’t actually like Wyatt…
hehe Psephos that was my point. Well not the prince bit but the first one
It’s not a “spill” for a Caucus vote to decide the leadership, as it would be in the ALP. You will remember the Rudd coup against Beazley – all done at one Caucus meeting. That can’t happen in British Labour. It’s only a vote to start the long and tedious business of electing a new leader. That’s why they hope Brown will go quietly and there will a consensus on a new leader.
Having uploaded 50 CDs to my new iPhone (out of about 200), I am off…
How long would it take 43,000 workers to pay 1.1 Billion in taxes? 1-2 years?
Germany seem determined to win the race to the bottom.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/09/2593697.htm
This is getting awfully like the old Oz Politics blog.
Very dreary and incestuous.
G’night.
http://www.oildepletionprotocol.org/theprotocol
There needs to be a wider discussion of peak oil. It is big doo-doo but is getting overshaddowed by the other major doo-doo’s hitting us at the moment. We’ve got troubles:
1. Climate Change
2. The GFC
3. Peak Oil
4: The proliferation of Nukes
These four perils (four horsemen if you like), probably in more or less this order, have the potential to cause some serious security problems for the world. Then there’s all the natural resource depletion, low fresh water, low fisheries, etc.
Trouble is brewing and its got to be pretty obvious to even the most die-hard Tory that the current course of the West’s development is unsustainable. Status Quo is no longer an option – so what comes next?
1: We know that sooner or later we’ve got to stop relying on fast disapearing oil.
2: We know that we’ve got to stop shoving so much CO2 into the sky.
3: We know we’re using up many of those natural resources that are renewable much faster than they are being renewed.
These three points seem pretty self-evident to me. So why O’ why are we so desperatly clinging on to a status quo situation that science and common sence tells us just isn’t sustainable?
Keynes is back and thats all good but why are we just building infrastructure built for a carbon and oil intentensive economy? (and don’t mention the ETS, it’s a shonk)
Imagine an awesome Australia.
I couldn’t take the deprivation, sorry folks.
The last time I was in Liechtenstein, a rather jolie Liechtenstienienne waxed rapturous about The Prince. He is a Habsburg, is rather interested in art, and is much loved by his people.
She did not offer a view on his reputed belief in alien abductions. He has had a rencontre with Prince Charles. I imagine the conversation may have taken some unusual turns.
Different people see the world through very different eyes. Sometimes its like we’re speaking different languages. I just wished we had used the stimulus package with both ecological and economic sustainable more in mind.
PS even though I mentioned the four horsemen in my previous post I do not believe there will ever be an apocalypse, I just think the world is going to become really really shit – well, even more so.
Quiz Question: Which former PM of a Caribbean Island petitioned the UN to investigate UFO abductions? And which radical young dude replaced him in a bloodless coup?
I’m still on holiday, so apologies for the lax police work of late and for my failure to respond when people have directed their comments at me. I’m also still 37, thanks very much.
William
I was wondering about the standards thingie, so thank you for this message.
Happy holidays. Pleased to hear that you have eternal youth on your side.
362
Let’s see: 43 000 times @ , say, 20 000 = 860 000 000 euros. Payback would occur between year one and year two.
Merkel would be fully aware of that sort of simple equation. So why? The answer is probably that the company was in serious financial strife even before the GFC.
Then again, why should the government use taxes raised from efficient companies and efficient workers to prop up an uncompetitive company and subsidise shareholders who have made a poor investment choice? It might work in the short term but is it medium- and long- term national economic suicide?
5.9% unemployment isn’t exactly a high figure…
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25613298-5006301,00.html
Talk about making mountains out of molehills…
I’m sure there’s some truth to it but it’s hardly the most exciting thing to report. If people can’t work out that his speeches are focus-grouped just by listening to them…
372. Add that to his “Buckleys and none” comment last week on the possibility of Harkins’ preselection. I wonder if Rudd will ever say “Fair suck of the saveloy”? On reflection, it’s doubtful.
Oz,
Yesterday, you said, “I can’t wait for Landeryou’s hyperventilating on this” re the Brown scandal. Well wait no more. He makes some fair points too.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4694/rich-get-richer-millionaire-senator-brown-accepts-cash-gifts-from-the-rich-and-powerful-while-faking-poverty/
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25609944-2682,00.html
How exactly is it not WorkChoices Lite?
To add:
Well…
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/enough-sheilas-cmon-fair-shake-of-the-sauce-bottle/
bob1234, I stand corrected. I doubt he got that from a focus group.
Brissenden this morning on ABC radio, pooh-poohing Rudd’s “Fair shake of the sauce bottle” comment.
“‘Fair shake of the sauce bottle’? I mean… really” (you have to imagine the trademark Brissenden tired old political hack’s cynical laugh here).
Who is Brissenden and why do they pay him money for this tripe?
I like Brissenden…
But he never says anything! His most common comment is, “{SFX: trademark Brissenden tired old political hack’s cynical laugh here… I don’t know…”
Well, I he doesn’t know what’s he parroting on about? Mostly all we get is the standard line about any issue, which can be summarized as, “All politicians are there only as players in my sandpit, especially if they’re Labor politicians.” If you want to know what Brissenden thinks read The Daily Telegraph that morning. The only story he’s ever broken was the one about Costello and the dinner. And he got the dates wrong on that. The man’s useless. He’s just painting by numbers. No imagination. No insight at all.Never had an original thought or if he did, he kept it to himself.
This is the reason I wonder why they pay him a salary.
Isn’t the ACCC being shut down in 2010? Fair suck of the slips cordon mate
ABCC that is
Probably came cheap
Bob-a-job I like it
Is it?
Question:
Who first reported the ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle” thing? I noticed it was in an interview with Spears – was it Sky?
I feel like i’m going crazy. How the hell is the biggest story in this country about that? We can’t do better?
It’s being absorbed into the Building and Construction Division of Fair Work Australia. But the law providing a separate legal regime for the construction industry will remain. The Wilcox review of this issue said: “I am satisfied
there is still such a level of industrial unlawfulness in the building and construction industry, especially
in Victoria and Western Australia, that it would be inadvisable not to empower the BCD to undertake
compulsory interrogation. The reality is that, without such a power, some types of contravention would be
almost impossible to prove.”
Wilcox recommended additional safeguards be put in place and I believe this will happen.
let’s have a bit of balance to even up Bob’s daily trawling for negative labor stories
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2593951.htm?section=justin
WorkChoices Lite.
Surely he’s justified in pleading for a fair go (or, “fair shake of the sauce bottle”, if you must) from the biased Sky ‘News’.
An easy slogan. It’s precisely what was promised at the election, no more and no less. Tell us exactly what you think Rudd *ought* to do, and we can debate that.
Snore
Yes its so laughable it is very very sad.
Please cut out the personal attacks.
Revert to Keating style IR.
And i’m not saying Rudd isn’t doing what he promised. Doesn’t mean it’s the morally right thing to do.
But I do give you praise and kudos for attacking my argument as opposed to attacking me. Some of the posts after yours could take a leaf out of your book.
I’m not making a personal attack, and I suggest you ignore others who do so. I’m asking you to tell me what you want to do with IR law that he has not done, and why he should go beyond the mandate he was given at the election.
Please cut out the personal attacks.
I’d rather the Government listen to independent and, as far as possible, impartial advice rather than just pursue an ideological position.
I didn’t say you were.
What I suggest is that Rudd shouldn’t have promised at the election to keep Howard’s ABCC reforms which means that unionists can be jailed for not attending hearings that investigate union activity, and if he can’t/won’t go back on that promise, he should roll them back after this coming election, but all indications give the impression he won’t, as you’ve already said.
I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the 70’s, and the thugs in the building industry wishing for it doesn’t mean it should happen.
It’s the behavior in the 70’s that made unions so unpopular, that created the boogy man that was used to successfully beat Labor over the heads for two decades. I am not surprised Labor doesn’t want to go back there either. Not all unions are controlled by thugs.
Psephis question is a good one, what changes to the IR laws are still required? Clearly if there is something that should to be done it needs to be articulated by some group other than those that caused the trouble in years gone by.
Bushfire
I think the ABC 702 mornings program is coming the raw prawn regarding rudds ozism’s
I mean there thoughts processes are as empty as a dead dingoes arse
God they must hate having to eat shit sandwiches every day since their man howie has shot thru like a bondi tram.
Bob1234 take your own advice about the personal attacks. I think you are wearing thin with a lot of PBs, your hatred of Labor is showing up big time lately, with you confronting and trying to bully anyone who doesn’t agree with your drivel.
A pity that you have been allowed to take over but hey them’s the breaks. I’ve got better things to do.
Adios Amigos:D
\
90s. Keating maintained a good balance of pragmatism and not going too far to the right.
“Is Britain ready for a Jewish PM, one wonders? ”
Does Disraeli count?
Maybe not… he did convert to Anglicanism.
The fact that it was an election promise doesn’t mean it’s automatically good policy and not, in fact, a part retention of WorkChoices.
vera, time to give it a rest. It’s not bob’s problem if you can’t handle even the slightest criticism of the ALP without getting nasty.
I’m guessing most people here railed against Howard’s workplace reforms, suggesting they didn’t think there was anything wrong with Keating’s. Why can’t be go back to that? Protecting the rights of workers and employers and creating the economic context that set up Australia’s boom.
Absolutely.
Bob1234
Keating definitely did most of the work, but it did take Howard to finally bring the docks under control, and Rudd is right, the building industry could easily fall apart again.
The complaint doesn’t seem to be against the IR laws but about the body charged with keeping things under control in one industry., which probable won’t be stable until a few people die of old age.
I’m guessing that they’d also have supported Rudd if he did propose rolling back to Keating IR. Which they should be because it was a good balance. But it seems whatever Rudd wants, is best. Rudd the allmighty always knows best apparently.
Quite possibly there could be some middle ground?
The end does not justify the means.
Productivity skyrocketed under Keating. Keating found a good balance.
Rudd could not very well radically re-write IR. Radicalism is political insanity in a place like Australia. Witness Howard.
Rudd has taken some of the extreme edges off SerfChoices, and given the steady-as-she-goes inclination of the electorate, that’s sadly about the most we could hope for at this point of proceedings.
Nothing will ever be perfect, and any move to “balance” will always generate critics, from both sides.
Unfortunately it seems that “balance” these days always involves shifting further right-wards, which I don’t really accept as being what the electorate wants.
When people voted for Rudd they heard “We will tear up WorkChoices” not the policy detail, which was for the benefit of business, that resulted in “taking the extreme edges off it”.
But Cuppa, that’s taking into account political realities and as we know some here don’t believe in those. Like the ETS, it’s all or nothing and Rudd is a mongrel if he doesn’t do all. How dare he take notice of what the Australian public want and try and stay in power at the same time. Bastard.
Keating veered to the right. Too right it is what the electorate wants. We are basically a conservative society that needs to be gradually shifted to the left, not heaved in one big push. The horses are easily frightened. Why do you think we’ve mainly had conservative governments over the years? Why do you think those governments have been able to successfully scare people away from Labor?
Oz, I agree the “balance” is considerably to the right of where it was a decade or more ago. Howard moved it there, and he paid the price for his radcial interference. Surely you do not deny that Rudd has tilted the seesaw gently back in the ethical direction. (Note: I don’t mean a complete shift, but a moderate one, in tune with an electorate with a distaste for immoderate changes.
Another desperate Rudd stunt as he tries to claw his way back from the edge of the political abyss:
How fortunate Abbott must be to belong to a confident Opposition that is so sure of its position in Australian politics, in contrast to the demented psycho chook who masquerades as Prime Minister, pathetically going the strine to try to improve his disastrous poll ratings.
Meanwhile at The Australian:
Starting to sound like Mission (well, at least the first one) Accomplished.
Bad news for the Libs.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/consumer-confidence-jumps-127-index-20090610-c2xn.html
Yeah he has, in a number of areas. And as you pointed out regarding IR, he’s taken the extreme edges off WorkChoices.
My suggestion is that the electorate didn’t vote for Labor because it promised to “take the extreme edges off WorkChoices but keep discriminatory laws in place” but because Beazley, then Rudd, were pretty equivocal about “tearing it up”. And when you talk about negotiations and balance after that, you’re talking about negotiating with businesses and unions, not with the electorate.
That ignores the policy Rudd went to the electorate with at the last election. Gillard made it loud and clear what that policy was and it was covered extensively by the MSM.
Having said that, we really don’t know what the voting public knew. You don’t know and I don’t know so it comes down to what we want to believe.
I also think that left-wing unions and Labor MP’s, as well as other left-wing political parties play an important role in policy development in Australia, even if their policies not necessarily become law. Calls by the likes of Paul Kelly in today’s Australian suggesting they’re “irrelevant” is more wishful thinking than anything else.
If Rudd’s position became the default left-wing view then we’d be a lot worse off than we are without the pressure coming from the left, even though it’s not that great.
http://www.rightsonsite.org.au/
kukuru @ 406: Britain was ready for a Jewish PM when Disraeli got the job.
No, we don’t know.
But I think you’re kidding yourself if you think more people read the policy detail over slogans like “I’ll kill WorkChoices”, “I’ll throw it in the bin”, “I’ll rip it up”.
We wish political discourse in Australia was at that level, but it’s certainly not.
Of course this was the brilliance of Rudd’s politics. Develop a policy in conjunction with the BCA and AIG that’s not radically different to the hated WorkChoices but gets rid of the absolute worse and well known bits like AWA’s. Of course, that’s not as easy to sell as claiming you’re going to tear it up and throw it in the bin, so that anyway.
The end result – an IR policy that is “on aggregate” better than the Liberals. High standards.
Keating’s IR was already center-right. Labor would not have suffered politically if they went back to Keating’s IR.
Remember, productivity skyrocketed after Keating’s IR.
Gary @ 425
I spent almost 2 years involved in the yraw campaign in Deakin and helped to doorknock the electorate, spent countles hours on stalls at shopping centres, etc. *My* perception was that voters *did* believe that Labor would ‘tear up’ Workchoices in its entirety. This belief was also what motivated the other grassroot campaigners. I was not so naive as to believe that this would occur.
Possibly but I state again the policy was aired widely and extensively by the MSM at the time. Rudd even copped a lot of criticism for it when released from both sides. So we really don’t know what people knew.
Apart from the union concerned I don’t hear loud cries from most sectors of the population. That must tell us something.
I don’t think Rudd ever used the slogan “Rip up WorkChoices”. Words to that effect, definitely, but I’m of the theory he avoided using those exact words because, for whatever reason, he wished for that epithet to be associated with Beazley (who did say it so well!) not himself.
Be that as it may, Kevin and Julia were, I thought, up front with the electorate about what they intended to do. I recall seeing many interviews with JG in which she elucidated the changes they would make.
And while we here may mock the concept of “balance” for it not being taken far enough in the direction we’d like, it’s a heck of a lot easier to philosophise about balance than to put itt into actual living practice, given, as Gary Bruce said, we’ve got horses in the electorate who are readily frightened. And a Coalition whose meal ticket has for decades been the politics of fear.
Oz
your use of feint praise is starkly agin reality
1.Gillard methodically(via debates etc) outlined the stages (note that word well) that the gvt would take to ‘dismantle’ Worstchoices.
2.the “electorate” was well aware that said stages would happen. (I was at terrigal when bomber said “we will wind back workchoices”)
3.the unions ’signed on” to rudd implicit in the knowledge that said stages would happen OVER time
I respectfully suggest you do some more research
There has been a lot of ranting, but very little detail of what needs to be changed.
I actually attended one of the “set up” meetings, I think in Nunawading. I may have seen you there. What a great campaign. Tremendous planning and execution. Congratulations on that.
Eh, now we’re back to the boring Frank-esque argument that Labor should always do what the MSM says otherwise the Libs will run a scare campaign.
I don’t buy it, but Labor is obviously quite scared and they do.
If you have a problem with the description, take it up with Lindsay Tanner. It was his.
Oh
and political realist that you are, perhaps you could enlighten us how the changes you suggest would get past the senate.???
That’s a myth perpetrated by the coalition. Take things too far either direction and of course they will. But Keating IR wouls not “frighten the horses in the electorate”.
gus,
As psephos said, The Government is doing “precisely what was promised at the election, no more and no less”.
Perhaps the Greens don’t understand this concept of fulfilling one’s election promises because the chance that they will ever be in a situation where they have to deliver is zero.
As always, the Greens and their fellow travellers can prattle on about more extremist and publically unacceptable solutions safe in the warmth of their irrelevance to the debate.
Now that’s a strawman argument.
I just love your use context Oz.
grabbing a sound bite and amending it to your post is disingeneous
Rudd and Gillard were upfront about retaining the ABCC until 2010 and this message got out into the electorate prior to the 2007 election. They also made it clear that they would ‘get rid of WorkChoices’. The MSM works on soundbites which are too short to get across the actual detail of a policy. ‘Getting rid of WorkChoices’ is what people would have heard and this soundbite implied ‘getting rid of WorkChoices in its entirety’. Politically engaged people like PB’ers seek out more info, listen to extended interviews, read analytical articles. The average ‘person in the street’ does not.
Hooray – Telstra has finally fixed the line properly (only took 5 days!!)
Oz – I attended a RAW meeting up here prior to the election. Fantastic work by all concerned but I distinctly heard Rudd and Gillard say they would not get rid of the Commission until 2010. Heard it over and over and over again.
Who wants all that lousy behaviour by a building union – none of us really.
Bob – Keating had good productivity only because we came out of a goddamn awful recession. Of course productivity would go up. He did all the hard work and then Howard/Costello virtually coasted on it after the first 2 years.
That trumped up shockjock Price was also on about Kev’s Ozisms yesterday. The MSM are like a flock of sheep. They can only play follow the leader.
No wonder they are irrelevant to most of us nowdays. Still, they’re good for a laugh I suppose.
Did he win or lose the election in 1996?
There’s two separate issues here.
1) What Labor implicitly and explicitly stated about their policy.
2) What an ideal policy should contain.
The two aren’t really related. On the first, I still believe that the vast majority of public perception was filtered through the slogans that WorkChoices would be killed, torn up and thrown in the bin. Not via dry interviews with Gillard explaining the ’stages’. No one watches that stuff except tragics like us. But I also accept that it’s hard to quantify either way, and is essentially a pointless debate.
The second is completely unrelated to what Rudd did or didn’t say and is about what people think should be in a good IR policy. I personally disagree with aspects of Rudd’s policy including the limitations on the right to strike, discriminatory laws, the amalgamation of awards and the abolition of unfair dismissals for small businesses.
I think these keep some of the worst aspects of WorkChoices for no reason other than lobbying by business and take away the rights that workers have fought and gained over decades.
I readily accept the staged phaseout of the ABCC, but even when it’s gone the separate laws will still exist. But again, this is about what I want in an IR policy, not really about what Rudd said.
Medicare rebate?
=)
Oz
with a compliant Senate, all manner of IR manna would descend from heaven
approx 400 or so laws and regulations directly or indirectly need amendment/revocation/enactment
you do the math
Thanks, Gary. I did recognise your name but can’t put a face to it
The campaign was a very empowering and rewarding, albeit exhausting, experience.
Oz,
The Medicare rebate decision can be legitimately criticised. The Government has given its reasons why they have taken this step. It is up to the voters to decide whether they mark down the Government because of this decision.
I believe it’s more like reality than a myth.
Labor has opponents highly experienced, though decades of application, in the dark art of the politics of fear. Scare campaigning is synonymous (in my mind at least) with the Liberal Party. If there are horses to be frightened, the Liberals will find them … and frighten them.
The same way we’ll get the ETS past the Senate. Threats of a DD.
Swinging voters don’t listen to the Liberals any more than Labor. Extremes on either side will frighten them however. WorkChoices did it. Keating IR would not.
Gusface, I don’t think every discussion should be restricted by what’s currently feasible in the Australian senate. It makes for rather boring debate. People were asking what I would like Rudd to do different and I answered. It’s unlikely that some of the things I suggested would get through the Senate (though not impossible) but it’s not as though they aren’t something to aim towards.
Unfortunately, the things like getting rid of unfair dismissals are restricting the right to strike were Labor policy prior to the election so the Senate argument doesn’t really wash there. You can argue what’s good and bad but don’t fool yourself into thinking Rudd wanted to go much further.
The 1996 election was not lost on IR, nor was his IR implemented in that term of government.
This apply to any post-election policy change. Give up.
The Liberals won four elections on the trot, arguably on the back of swinging voters.
Of course it is. But even though the Libs ran the mother of all scare campaigns in 2007 on unions and terrorism we still won.
I think it’s weak locking yourself into poor policy simply because you’re scared of the Libs.
Didn’t the Greens vote for the new IR laws in the Senate?
But would they have got it through the Senate?
No, but if you want to have a realistic discussion then it has to be
The Greens voted for the new IR laws because they are better than workchoices but the Greens want better IR laws.
462 & 463
DD
In an ideal world Oz we wouldn’t need any of the workplace laws we now have but that ain’t gonna happen so Rudd has to work around what he can actually deliver.
If the Senate is better next time around (e.g. more Greens) and Rudd is re-elected then they probably can work on a few more issues but the money all comes from the blokes who do the employing. Get them right offside and Labor won’t get back in for a long time no matter how much we want them to.
The Libs have been in power for most of my lifetime – I’m not happy for that to happen to my kids and grandkids.
Labor may not be perfect but they’re a lot better for most of us than the other mob.
Oz,
Give up! Not likely. There’s are good reasons why Labor is in Government and your group of motley whingeing Greens misfits are not. Mouthing simplistic solutions to complex problems is one of them.
Enjoy your irrelevance!
And Labor won 5 before that…
Yeah, after some kind of negotiation. I would have voted for them as well, because like Tom said, they’re better than WorkChoices. That doesn’t mean I can’t advocate going further.
Yes they did and I agree with that decision. Doesn’t mean I disagree with the small change made in the laws. Better little than nothing.
Sure
lets have a DD (pls ref A Green’s site re the intricacies )
what if we collectively lose outright control
ie 3+ coalition senators
or
lets build,brick by brick, a new framework.
enlighten the electorate and allow business etc to absorb the changes step by step
then when control of the senate is assured increase the momentum of change
political pragmatic is option 2
option 1 (a DD) is a roll of the dice or in kevvie speak ” a dogs breakfast”
Why do you think there will be any kind of “momentum of change”?
Rudd said what he wanted before the election and he got it.
Exactly. Lack of Senate support hasn’t stopped the ETS…
Blessed are the poor:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2593892.htm
Makes me wonder what the catholic church has lost in the GFC? Of course, being focused on the spiritual, mere physical losses will not bother them.
As a matter of interest Bob do you advocate this approach when it comes to the ETS?
Yes, and if we are to continue backtracking, how many did the Liberals win on the trot before Whitlam?
Dislike them but never underestimate their propensity to scare voters into submission.
I’m not speaking for Bob, but the difference between the ETS and IR is pretty stark in a number of areas. There are some aspects of the ETS that are, for a number of reasons, worse than doing nothing. I can’t think of any parallels with IR.
470
The Coalition gain 3 seats when the current Senate includes 2004 which was the Coalitions best half-Senate since the Fraser years and their polling is ven worse than the defete they sufferd at the last election.
Unlikely to say the least.
A more left friendly Senate is a near certainty in case of a DD in the next year or so and also a half Senate after that.
Yes and I think the ETS should be passed. I think the Greens are creating a lot of bluster in advocating a stricter position. I don’t agree with how far the Greens want to take their ETS. But I do think that in the end, they would vote for the ETS. The problem with the ETS I think, will be with Fielding, and possibly to a lesser extent Xenophon.
From the timbre and volume of commentary coming from the red corner, the green corner has got the wind up them for some reason. What might that be?
The Coalition are such a poor Opposition, that on Pollbludger the Greens have now taken on the burden?
Singha,
Must be the cabbage burger they ate for lunch.
Labor was very very different when you compare Hawke/Keating/Rudd to pre-Whitlam days. You can’t even make the comparison. You have to compare similar ideologies. It’s only worth comparing the two parties from 1983 onward.
Give us a break Possum there are only 2 of us and a dozen + Greens…
Glen, I’m surprised you haven’t overdosed on popcorn!
or choaked on it…
But considering the Greenies are doing their bit myself and GP can take a break.
Sounds like Fremantle! Stuff the ideology, as long as Labor are on the backfoot!
You’ve gotta luv the conservative MSM. When they can’t get Rudd on policy they revert to playing the man. Very predictable.
I think I prefer to take on the Greenies. They’re more of a challenge.
They just need to be a little more realistic in some things GB. Bob Brown deep down realises that but Christine Milne – it’s too much about self promotion unfortunately.
Even our Greenie son isn’t wrapped about Christine Milne taking over so things may be difficult for Bob who obviously is almost ready to retire.
Milne will be a serious liability IMO. When Bob departs the Greens will be in for a tough time.
I agree Dario – the young Green pollies are still ‘green around the ears’ and Christine seems to put a lot of blokes off with her heavy line.
GB – its Thursday, coming up to the weekend of the Newspoll. Of course, the MSM are going to play up all Kev’s foibles for the next couple of days. It is ritualistic every second week.
Especially when their policy positions are both hypocritical and non-sensical
Ummm
Continue to think that,if you feel beeter for it,but I feel that Rudd is committed to on-going change.
It was used as the basis of a hypothetical
the Senate is still its own separate beast to the HoR and 3+ plus to the coalition is not impossible
What are you saying here? Is this meant as a cheap sexist unsubstantiated comment? Do you think women voters think differently?
I often do find her delivery hard to take but I prefer to ignore any prejudices I might have and listen to the substance of what she has to say.
Glen
How many times do I have to tell you,its your side that has policies that are
Thats why you were voted out!!
You are kidding right? Do you seriously think women and men think the same?
Hey, I’m a female Pegasus. I’ve been listening to the blokes in this area and, altho, they like Bob Brown they won’t have a bar of Christine Milne and some of these blokes are Greenies themselves.
Brown listens, or appears to be listening, but Christine is very dogmatic. I hope they find a better alternative because I think we need the Greens more than we need the Libs in this country.
I find what she says to be very hard edged and to me, unrealisic. They WAY she says things almost guarantees many electors switch off.
If she ever becomes leader, the greens will take a very similar road as the dems.
Lets hope she takes over
Onya christine…. 
Ah BH, thanks for the clarification
One of the limitations of an anonymous online medium 
I agree with what you are saying here about BB and CM. She does comes across as very intense. I had a ‘rush of blood to the head’ as double standards are, imo, applied to female politicians, and this is the context in which I interpreted your initial comment.
Cheers
Unfortunately, this is the political reality.
Let’s put it this way Milne wont attract many new voters to the Green cause.
No worries Pegasus – I don’t take offence easily. Too old for that. In fact, it is very liberating being older – you must try it one day.
I do think it’s sad that CM is so hardheaded tho. I am thoroughly enjoying the Labor women who, I think, are showing that they have as much talent as the blokes.
Julia G has rounded off some of the hard edges and she is an inspiration to a lot of young women – they really can achieve and be respected if they have want to.
Sarah H-Young looks as tho she may have talent for the Greens if she just learns to listen a little before she speaks.
“Let’s put it this way Milne wont attract many new voters to the Green cause.”
Glen she won’t have to. Increasing manifestations of Climate Change will.
So much for ending the blame game, guess that was a non-core policy by Rudd.
‘Howard to blame’ for hospital waiting lists
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2594406.htm
Until recently, and for a while, I’ve been out of touch with the shenanigans of the Murdoch Press.
So I ask the question. What’s happened to Dennis Shanahan? I can’t find any recent article, comment or opinion piece from him anywhere.
Has he been sacked or moved into administration?
I hope nothing worse has happened to him.
Glen
The hospital stats are from the 2007-2008 financial year, i.e. year of July 2007 up until June 2008.
It was unlikely that “ending the blame game” was intended to mean that the new PM will take responsibility for patients who were waiting when Howard was still PM (as some of those stats will be).
Non-core was invented by Howard.
503
“Increasing manifestations of climate change will attract new voters to the Greens”.
I don’t believe this will happen. Dealing with trying to avert the worst of climate change and coping with the effects already here, are increasingly mainstream government occupations.
There is also some argument that when the population starts to see that novel and perhaps threatening changes to ways of living are needed, then they will choose to be led by the least enthusiastic proponents of the changes.
Fulvio, I did a double take when I read that. What’s he on about? Then I realised it said ‘recent’ not ‘decent’ as I’d mis-read it.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25615460-5005962,00.html
So how will Laborites deride Xenophon? He’s not a member of any party…
Nor is he a towering intellect.
It’s not that I particularly look out for him, Polyquat, it’s just that when I read headlines such as “Rudd Murders Babies” or “Labor Bans Motherhood” in the Oz, I look for his name alongside as a matter of course, and these days it’s authored by some other cretin.
He’s as smart as your average Senator.
Glen, you are a pussy cat, meow, meow, meow.
There was the time when the 3 Amigos (
) Vs the 300 Spartans.
Those were the days.
On the subject of who would replace Bob Brown as Greens Leader.
Brown will probably be leader until he retires from the Senate (the logging debt looks being solved) and if he retires at an election then that is not until at least 2014 (at least 2015 if there is a DD). In that time the Greens may get a Member of the House of Representatives who would then be a candidate for leader.
Now that the Greens are a parliamentary party in the Commonwealth and Western Australian Parliaments they have a better argument to get into televised election debates on the ABC (and other channels too) like in Tasmania (although the need for the inclusion of the Greens caused the Lib and the Lab to pull out).
511 and 513
Senator X is smarter than Fielding.
Arent they a parliamentary party in Tas too?
Yes but they have been one in Tasmania for 7 years continuously and were previously (1989-1996?). My point is that in Tasmania the were entitled to be part of the debate on the ABC in 2006 because they are a parliamentary party there.
Still not much of a comparision. Particularly with their potential balance of power positions on so many issues. But they play with fire – as meg less & the dems found out.
519
Senator X has balance of power experience from the SALC and he can`t infight with himself.
Of the current senators, I think Rachel Siewart is the best one to replace Bob. But its pretty much a forgone conclusion that it will be Christine. Bob wants it to be her, the Tassie and Qld branches want her.
However, with Ian Cohen? in NSW a good chance of getting in, he might make leader.
The Greens wont go with a first term leader. As in three years. So Scott and Sarah are theoretically possible.
No in the sense of voters getting a gutful of him and fielding carrying on and obstructing on so many issues.
Regarding dems – backlash over what some voters saw as betrayal over the GST deal with howard.
The new Pacific Solution. Howie strikes again. i believe the USA is paying Palau something like $200M “aid money”. The Ruddster can sleep in peace again.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_388412.html
510 I wonder what Xenophon meant by “the Winter Precess”? Is that when politicians start wandering around in circles even more than they usually do?
524
Headline in a years time “Ex-Guantanamo Bay Chinese disappear from remote pacific island is mysterious circumstances” and then one of them will return and say only “I saw Holt”.
It’s an astronomical term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession_of_the_equinox
God knows what he throught he was talking about. He’s a strange one.
Psephos,
What do you think the chances of the Greens leader (Bob Brown) getting a lectern at the debate at the next federal election now they are a parliamentary party in the Commonwealth Parliament?
Tom the Greens shouldnt because they hold no lower house seats and dont poll more than 10% Federally, plus they’ll never win government one day and are essentially a single issue party.
Fielding and Xenophon were validly elected and as such have the right to vote in the Senate any way they see fit. If the Government can’t convince them of the sense in their proposals then they’re as much to blame as any independent senators.
Seems Turnbull has a few fans. And that Annabel has a fan.
Or is Peter Martin just trying to be funny?
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2009/06/most-careful-assessment-of-malcolm.html
Tom, well the Democrats never did and they had (I think) eight Senators at one time. Both major parties would oppose it strenuously.
The Greens would be in with an increased chance of getting HoR seats and over 10% if they were in the debate. The Greens estimate that they loose 2% to the majors in the advertising deluge in the final weeks of a campaign due to lack of money to pay for TV ad campaigns.
They might but I fail to see why a House of Representatives member would be necessarily a better choice for leader.
Especially considering that any seat they are likely to have in the future will be considered marginal.
Julia Gillard on Skynooooows auditioning as the next PM. Go Julia, go.
In form, a general election is an election for 150 MHRs and 40 Senators (or 76 at a DD), but in reality it’s a decision by the electorate on who will govern Australia for the next three years. The debate is therefore a debate between the two contenders for the leadership of the government. While of course it’s possible in theory for a party to go from zero seats to 76 seats in one leap, it’s not very likely. Brown is not therefore a serious contender for leadership of the government (and as a Senator he’s not even trying to become one), so there’s no good reason why he should take part in the leaders’ debate.
As for the Greens’ lack of money, they get public funding at the rate of $2.10 per vote, which at a rough guess was about $2 million in 2007, and beyond that they have to rattle the tin like everyone else. It’s not the fault of the Labor or Liberal parties that the Greens don’t have as much public support that they do. The Greens are always boasting about how much grassroots support they have, so if they can’t raise enough money to pay for campaigning that’s no-one’s fault but their own.
Well this isn’t clear. There’s no reason (ignoring convention) a senator couldn’t be PM and I expect he’d make this argument.
The rest of what you say, of course, makes sense. In any event it doesn’t serve either major party to allow a minor party leader the coverage of entering the debate.
In other words they don’t put their money where tgheir mouth is and support the party by either becoming members, nor donating. Oh and I note a lot of the Senators donate to the other state’s branches as well, you’d think that their money would be better spent in their home state ?
That’s not the issue. It’s whether it is realistic at a particular election or not.
Malcolm, say bye bye to 2010.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25614805-643,00.html
yep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgDrJ5Z2rKw
And is it the Major Parties fault for the Greens being unable to fund their TV ads ? Aren’t there any Green friendly businesses who can sponsor said ads ?
Disagree. The Greens as of 2007 gained party status with five members of parliament, thus they should be represented at a debate of party leaders.
Just because they can’t form government isn’t the point.
But do you see the Leader of the Nationals being involved in a debate though, and they’ve got Party Status.
So at the next election should Warren Truss – or possibly Barnaby Joyce also take part in the TV debate?
Frank
Snap.
Yes please. That would result in much hilarity.
According to a certain poster here, ANY leader who leads a political party should be involved in the TV Debate – then we would have a debate which would last 3 hours – rivetting Television – NOT.
Except that its not a debate of party leaders, it’s a debate of prospective Prime Ministers
It’s entirely the point
So bob in 2001 Pauline Hanson should have been at the leaders debate???
If a party has party status in a parliament then they should be at the leader’s debate. Hanson was the only MP in Australian parliament, so no she should not have been. If they had five MPs then yes she/they should have.
Senator the Hon George Brandis SC, cannot even figure out which party he is in. He said this morning it is up to the Federal Commitees of the Liberal and National Parties.
The Democrats never really aimed for government and were there only to keep the other politicians honest. The Greens aim to be in government one day.
Tasmania`s lack of 2006 debate is an example of the big party opposition to the Greens getting a proper voice. Why should there not be a debate between all the parliamentary parties? Why should only the big two be there?
I think that it will become an issue in future campaigns until the Greens get a permanent lecturn at the debate. And it will be an issue at more and more state elections as the Greens achieve party status in those states.
The Greens get a fraction (I think I saw a figure of 50cents compared to $2.50 somewhere) of the amount donation PER VOTE because of the big parties taking corporate donations and the shear volume of union donations to the ALP. I believe only voters should be able to donate to political parties.
There should be free political broadcasts for all parliamentary parties during election campaigns and a ban on paid ads from those who receive free broadcasts. Like in much of Europe.
The Nationals are in coalition with the Liberals so that one is up for debate. I personally would like to see the National and Liberal leaders debating along with Labor and the Greens leaders.
SNIP: See article 3 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
Please debate rather than write comments like that.
When the Nationals are not in coalition with the Liberals they certainly should be offered a lectern and probably when they are in coalition too. Hanson was a lone MP in the 1996-1998 parliament so no. But one nation should have had the a spot in the QLD debate in 2001.
Who says that debates should only involve who some undefined being decides who can form government?
In Canada leadership debates are between the leaders of a number of parties, some of whom don’t even have seats. I don’t know if we should do that, and the “party-status” decider seems to make sense (at least it’s not arbitrary). I don’t see any point in restricting the discussion to two opinions.
If you think your policies are good then you should be able to defend them against anyone.
Agree.
Those who want to give the Greens as little oxygen as possible.
Actually there ARE free Party Broadcasts o the ABC which are dtermined on how much of the vote each party gets. THe Fact sheet can be read here.
http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/election_campaigns.pdf
SNIP: Yet another boring comment deleted – The Management.
There should be such broadcasts on SBS and the commercial stations too.
Huffo confirms it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/09/obama-admin-in-talks-with_n_213497.html
That’s about US$12M per Uighur. At least, Obama is more generous than Howie. Naura processed about 1300 asylum seekers and was paid about AUD$1B over 5 years, that about $750K per person.
With that sort of money, each Uighur will get a house each with ocean view, a hula hula companion and weekly fishing trip. That beats the Gobi Desert anytime.
To be fair, the US has more cash to play with.
Usually the ABC Party Broadcasts are normally produced by the Parties themselves, except for the extended 5 minute broadcasts which are produced by the ABC.
Oz
In theory the 2013 debate would have Labor, Liberal, National, Liberal National and Green members.
There will still only be two of these who will become Prime Minister.
There may be a case for the portfolio debates to include a Green point of view, but they are going to be very busy little vegemites and may regret the invitation.
Oh and these are the Party Broadcasts for the WA State Election.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/wa/2008/partyannouncements/
Frank also consider that the Greens would have to buy carbon offsets to cover all their TV ads lol!
566
What relevance does that statement have to the section of my post you have quoted? (none)
In fact during the 2008 State Election, because of time restraints the ALP’s Party Broadcast wasn’t presented by Alan Carpenter, but by Mark McGowan who told me the reason was that the ABC wanted half a day to produce said broadcast, and that Carpenter was actually doing some campaigning.
so much for global warming…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2594598.htm
South-east corner shivers in cold snap
567
Many of the election debates have had only one of the participants go on to be PM or Premier.
I was pointing out some background information on how the ABC broadcast Party Broadcasts and what format they use.
Glen, it is also snowing down at the South Pole.
573
It still had practically no relevance to my comment that such broadcasts should appear on SBS and the commercial stations.
Personally I’d like to see it mandated that we have 3 debates 2 in capital cities and one in a regional centre all televised.
Just one debate isnt enough for us politics buffs…
Also why cant we have more party political broadcasts like they do in the UK and they make much more of a song and dance about their Party Conferences than we do here.
574
We will have to send Glen to check that.
It did so, I was explaining the ABC’s policy and why such free broadcasts wouldn’t probably not be shown by SBS and the Commersicals.
Stop being so pedantic.
577
It should be legislated that such broadcasts have to appear on SBS and the commercial stations. They tried in 1991/2 but gave up too easily when the high court found a small part of the act unconstitutional.
It’s not global warming. It’s climate change. More variations in weather patterns. Learn the issue please.
And?
The sole purpose of parliament is not to elect the Prime Minister. In fact, we don’t even elect the prime minister.
Not very convincing.
bob climate change has been happening for centuries and it will continue to happen for centuries, warm periods and cold periods…
Sorry, Tom the 1st, but sometimes you say the silliest things:
The Greens get the same amount per primary vote as anybody else does – so they get the full $2.50 (or whatever it is). You appear to be confusing donations with the AEC payment, different things entirely.
My information is that the Greens rely almost entirely on AEC funding and thus (like Pauline Hanson) are keen to be involved in as many elections as possible. It’s also a motivation to claw primaries from Labor (and I have heard Greens candidates spruik for votes on the basis that voting Green is like having two votes, ‘cos you get to vote Greens but your vote ends up with the ALP).
I would say that this is the case whenever you have two people going for one position.
Further, who gets to decide when a party “has a chance of forming government” and what’s the basis for doing so?
I still dispute that “who can form government” should be the yardstick for determining who can participate in debates. Not only is it quite circular logic, even parties that have little chance of forming government, or even getting lower house seats, play an important role in direction the country takes.
That’s the debate. But saying a cold snap is proof that “global warming” doesn’t exist is dumbening the debate.
580
If that was the reason then the could have a separate debate specially for the Governor(-General).
I never said that warming doesnt occur what my argument is based on what is responsible for that warming…
SNIP: Abusive comment deleted – The Management.
So much for the Greens being a tolerant bunch, the enviro-extremists are out in force
I cry for my country: the entire ten minutes of the Canberra Report this afternoon on ABC Sydney Drive Radio was about… “fair shake of the sauce bottle”.
Momentous things are happening, near-miracles are occurring (the GDP figures, Consumer Confidence up) and all Annabelle Crabbe wants to talk about is girlish gossip as to why Rudd is not being grave and disciplined… like John Howard wused to be.
She’s a one-woman force of triviality.
You said:
Saying that a cold snap is proof that “global warming” doesn’t exist is dumbening the debate. It’s not about global warming. It’s about climate change and variations in temperatures.
587
The portion of 586 that you quoted is true but there is anthropomorphic climate change due to carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses.
Oz. This is a statement of fact.
The issue is about the effect humans are having on that change, which I agree is substantial. To call someone an idiot for stating the bleedin obvious is a bit rich.
BB, that is why i call her the Crabby Annabel. She should stick to experimenting with her hair.
I made a comment on Ms Crabb a while back, if she wants to be a stand up comic fair enough, but she trivialises every “panel” she is on.
You will have to forgive Crabbe, BB lol. She’s been a trifle orgasmic of late over Mr Turnbull.
Now with Peter Martin joining the unabashed fan club I’m left wondering whether they really think Turnbull does not need scruples to be a Prime Minister.
It seems that Kev using Oz slang too much is a worse crime than overseeing something like HIH/FIA, a cloud seeding fiasco, threatening to kill Kerry Packer and lying constantly about what the Govt. is saying.
Heard him again on A-pac this arvo talking to Small Business – again said that Rudd has declared “mission accomplished’. Can anyone point me to that line from anyone in the Govt.
Why is Turnbull not pulled up on it. Beats me.
She is not the worst panellist on insiders though.
She did tell Pies to “let me finish”.
595
Turnbull must be really annoyed with Thatcher for cancelling the sale of an aircraft carrier to Australia because of the Falklands War.
no David Marr takes that cake Tom
599
David Marr is one of the best panellists on insiders.
Bullbutter!
Is there anything Marr doesnt whine about, god he is a pain.
david marr and lenore taylor are equal worst IMHO.
Apologies if this has been posted already:
Rudd rules out early election
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2594544.htm
They are ALL bad, they all use the show to show how clever they are. Imagine what the ABC could really do with a once a week political chat show.
No Rudd did not rule out an election. He just said that he absolutely did not want one. It is part of the Governments campaign to make the Libs back down or be seen as the cause of a DD.
Bule
Its all about Malcolm saying “please let me be leader next year – if you don’t that nasty Rudd will call an election and we will all be rooned”.
I’m not usually a fan of the tabloids, but this is wonderful stuff.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2472570/BNP-leader-shell-shocked-by-egg-attack.html
Mark Twain that reflects poorly on the people who threw that at him.
If they were going to throw eggs at anybody why not Gordon Brown after all it is the British Labour Party that let the BNP win seats in Europe.
Got 150 in the egg game, 22 misses.
On come on, you knew the implication. He was fishing, and I fell for the bait.
Because Nick Griffin is a racist and a neo-fascist and Gordon Brown is not. And because Griffin was also just about to crow – boom tish – about winning seats in the EU Parliament when his party platform is to oppose the very existence of the EU, and therefore he’s an idiot.
And I like the execrable puns in the story. Thought it was a hoot.
Rudd didn’t rule out an early election, nor is going too. It would be stupid to do so.
I missed two eggs, ruawake. I was giggling too much.
607
Correct Glen. The Labor party focussing on the marginals and ignoring safe seats has lead to support for the BNP. The closed list system chosen, by the Blair “New Labour” government, for the EU elections in Brittan instead of STV (like Hare-Clark) as used for EU elections in Northern Ireland (and Ireland and Malta) has also helped because the BNP would not get many preferences and many voters would add extra preferences just to keep the BNP out.
Glen,
This is how Labour deals with such larrikins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GLHsq_8KU
It wasnt Tory votes that leaked to the BNP But Labor voters who voted BNP…
Gordon Brown helped the BNP win 2 seats IMHO.
Oz,
You haven’t thanked me for the Landeryou post.
Has Bob Brown demonstrated that he really is in danger of bankruptcy. Anyone seen a statement of his assets and liabilities.
612
The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (a rather ironic party) also won seats in the EU election (it out polled Labour). The BNP also wins council seats but ironically UKIP only wins seats in elections it seeks to abolish.
I haven’t read Landeryou’s post, nor do I plan too. He’s so predictable that I can almost guarantee what he’s going to say.
Nah, he’s actually really rich and he’s defrauding the community out of thousands of dollars. OOPS, you got him.
No, the BNP polled less votes this election than in 2004.
It was supporters of the mainstream parties staying at home that got the BNP in.
But Oz who were those mainstream parties???
the Labor Party were the biggest no shows
In fact it is snowing *more* at the South Pole these days, *because of global warming.*
Glen, you’re not going to force to call you an idiot again, are you? It pains me every time I have to do it, you being a Dees fan and all. But really…
Oz,
Curling up in a bundle with your fingers in your ear. Nothing like considering all points of view. How very Greens.
Give up!
618
Landeryou is not a sensible person. His only possible value (possible not definite) is as a source of things that a non-bankrupt person might be sued for, politicians are too afraid of and don`t come up in court. The article said that Senator Brown entered the Senate in 1989 when he actually entered in 1996. He was in the HAT (my brilliant acronym for the House of Assembly of Tasmania) 1983-1993. Landeryou also gave a figure for the Browns parliamentary superannuation. Unless I am mistaken this a a theoretical calculation of super that cannot be accessed as a lump sum because he was elected before 2004 he gets a pension for life after retirement.
The point is, that if Bob Brown wanted to, he would have no problem obtaining an unsecured loan for $240,000.
My view is he should not have to do this, every person who donated to his fund to mount the court case should also be liable for the costs incurred.
Herr Doktor, please allow me: “Glen, you are an idiot”
Tom,
Landeryou is a reliable reference constantly cited by mainstream and blog media. If you don’t believe that, then check in William’s introduction to this and many posts.
All true about Rudd, too quick in my use of words.
I like this November talk.
Landeryou is extremely well-informed in many things, particularly the internal affairs of the Labor and Liberal parties. You can read his blog for the gossip, which is usually pretty accurate, and you can take or leave his opinions.
And if he had set up an appropriate Trust Fund to handle the donations etc, then he wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.
628
Landeryou is a bankrupt who is therefore not worth suing for money. He does occasionally get quoted in the mainstream media and by this blog because he has some politically newsworthy stories and he is a bit famous and has some connections.
630
His gossip is sometimes useful but his some opinions are quite loopy (like blaming the drop in Labor primary vote in Brunswick on Carli being left wing).
Psephos
What do you think of my proposal (discussed at length in the previous thread) to change Batman and Wills from North-South axis to East-West axis?
Tom, I wasn’t around for that discussion. Why would you want to do that?
Hasta la vista, baby. I’ll be back:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/images/photos2009/nb20090610a1b.jpg
The humans cannot fix the Japanese economy and i am sure the robots can. Also the robots are the natural way for the Japanese to replace their declining human population.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20090610a1.html
SNIP: See article 3 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
So the Greens stand a chance of running second?
365
So that instead of two safe as houses Labor seats there is one safe as houses Labor seats and one safe for now Labor seat. Demographic arguments being the reason used to persuade the redistributors.
637
You just said Landeryou is a Green space cadet.
I think Batman and Wills will be two safe Labor seats however you configure them. My memory is that Labor polled over 60% of the 2PV in every booth in Batman.
638
So the Greens probably run second with a chance of coming first in a few election time.
On the subject of Insiders I couldn’t help but wonder last Sunday if Piers Ackerman had had some botox work done.
The Southern of the two would be a Labor versus Green seat like the Brunswick and Northcote state seats which would be most of the area it covers. The TCP margin would be probably be under 10% (again like the state seats).
I think that’s called gerrymandering, Tom
Tom are you suggesting the electoral commission should change boundaries to benefit a particular party?
Which the WA Greens did to the Upper House in an attempt to ensure a winnable Greens seat and it backfired on them spectacularly
Amanda Duthie head of ABC Comedy to Mark Scott MD of the ABC
Duthie: Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Bang!
Scott: It’s a gun.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/06/10/1244313182297.html
645
Single member systems are all gerrymandering. Gerrymanders tend to favour the government. What is there now is a pro-government gerrymander and if we can`t have a not have a gerrymander then it should be a fairer gerrymander that does not split up areas of support for a party so they have no chance of winning from those areas of support.
646
The boundaries should be set so as not unfairly disadvantage particular parties by splitting their support.
647
The WA decision was malaportionment (different sized electorates) not gerrymandering malaportionmant is wrong. It was only one of the Greens who insisted on it to get 1 vote, 1 value through. It was a the worst decision made by a Green.
Ruawake at 726.
There are words to describe encouraging other people to engage in civil litigation for the purpose of obtaining some benefit from the outcome. It’s called maintenance and champetry, and it’s illegal.
Ergo, all those who donated to BB’s litigation fighting fund, perceiving the result would be beneficial for them, should have been prosecuted.
In Queensland we have more important things to lead the news with – thugby players have the flu!!!!
169 in the egg game. 10 misses.
?????
Tom
You seem to be fixated on how to change the existing system so a Green may be elected to the HoR.
Its not going to happen, my suggestion is the best way for the Greens to get their cadidates elected is to have policies people want to vote for.
Rubbish and more rubbish. Gerrymandering, as you say yourself, is deliberate rigging of boundaries to favour a particular party, as they do in the US. There’s nothing inherent in single-member seats that can be called gerrymandering. What you mean, I think, is that such systems don’t produce proportional results. And that’s usually true, since they’re not designed to do so.
Correct, and I’m glad you disapprove of what the WA Greens did. I hope Rebecca doesn’t see what you said, however.
170 and 10 misses, bam.
Sorry, Ru, I meant @ 626.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25616404-12377,00.html
I think Rebecca’s on record as saying it was a fairly dumb idea as well.
It was a big disappointment for Frank. He was all fired up and ready to let loose but he couldn’t find anyone to defend such a bad idea.
I want a screen shot for proof, Oz!!!
I didn’t understand this yesterday and still don’t understand it today! Must be getting old.
Oz
bit of a pathetic comeback really.
the issue is not whether he is rich
BUT
The fact he cried poor and caused many people concern over stuff all
from now on bob will forever be ‘wolfboy’
as in cried one too many times
such a fall from grace- so very sad
You guys are all getting a bit precious about Annabel Crabbe. She writes well (as in she knows how to use a metaphor, or a verb; unlike say Christian Kerr who struggles with such things). And she wrties enough things in the article that show Turnbull for what he is. For eg, I love this passage:
http://www.quarterlyessay.com/qe/currentissue/
I only missed two. You blokes s#ck. How hard is it to hit a fascist?
Umm, stop putting words in my mouth – I’ve always said it was a stupid idea and ensured that the Liberal/Nationals got the Balance of Power.
SNIP: See article 3 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
Fulvio
Unlucky for Bob that Tassie has not repealed champerty and maintenance like NSW and Vic.
I agree that it was a terrible decision, nay the worst decision I have seen made by the Greens anywhere.
However, at the risk of reigniting a past debate, the decision was motiviated by stupidity rather than a desire to manufacture a winnable seat for Margetts.
Oh come along now. They just had a random fit of stupidity and did this for no political reason at all? There was not the teensiest bit of calculation of electoral self-interest in it at all? They just said, hey, let’s hand the Legislative Council over to the Liberals and Nationals forever, so that when we get into government, we won’t actually be able to do anything? Even for Greens, that seems to be stretching the bounds of believable stupidity.
The worst decision I have heard locally is the Green decision to oppose the duplication of the sunshine motorway between Maroochydore and Noosa because of “Threatened Melaleuca Forests”.
Despite the fact that this particular paperbark is declared a noxious plant in many parts of the world, it is in no way threatened. Thats why there is a friggin national park from Coolum to Noosa.
I guess that is why they will never win a lower house seat it Qld.
Sorry, the worst decision by a Greens Parliamentarian.
Unfortunately there was not. There were a number of models for the LC being considered that, in addition to introducing 1v1v in the Upper House, would almost have guaranteed the Greens BOP for ever that were rejected on the basis that Margetts had to remain “true” to her electorate.
Opposing windfarms on the grounds that they spoil the views of Green-voting hobby-farmers is also pretty dumb. Renewable energy, anyone?
In particular 4 x 9.
And they wonder why they are incapable of appealing to Middle Australia when they send mixed messages like that.
Who?
Great article by Possum Comitatus
A Warning on Tomorrow’s Unemployment Figures June 10, 2009
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/06/10/a-warning-on-tomorrows-unemployment-figures/#more-4967
I wasn’t aware that the Greens operated on the principle of primitive matriarchy, where the Great Earth Mother Dee can over-rule everyone else.
Dont take the piss Adam.
You know every vote was needed and in the end it came down to accepting 1v1v in the LA while there was a malapportionment in the LC as opposed to malapporitonment in both.
It’s a real pity that the Late Show’s sketch which involve Dee Margetts and Christabel Chamarett answering every question with the word “Block It” isn’t online, as it illustrates that the myth perpetuated by some posters that the Greens are sympathetic to passing the majority of Labor’slegislation in the Senate wasn’t the case during the Hawke/Keating Years.
Why don’t we ask SENATOR Fielding about stupid decisions motivated by self interest made by the ALP?
That was your boss, Senator Feeney, that made that decison wasn’t it Adam?
Did you have any input into that stroke of genius?
AHHHH de ja vu.
Do we have to do this all over again?
Can people talk about the Iranian election instead? Is the reformist (i’ve forgotten his name) got a chance?
Ahhhh…. “has” the reformist got a chance
No it wasn’t. As I’ve said here about 15 times already, the State Secretary at the time was Erik Locke, of the Socialist Left.
No I didn’t. I was working for Michael Danby at that time. But if I had have had, I would have supported the preference swap, and if I thought it was the best way to win three Senate seats in 2010, I would support it again.
Alls I am saying is that no-one is immune from stupidity.
Luke, thanks for acknowledging your factual errors and unfounded personal innuendo.
The Family First preference deal was not “stupidity,” it was a calculated risk, which didn’t come off. The Senate election system forces all parties, including the Democrats and Greens, to do preference deals. In 2004 both the Dems and Labor did preference swaps with FF, calculating that this was the best way to maximise their chances. Because of Latham, however, Labor’s primary vote dropped to the point where Fielding was able to get first Dem preferences and then ALP preferences to win the last seat. These things happen. If the ALP vote had been 2% higher, we would have won three seats and everyone would have said how clever young Erik was.
It does not force you to do deals with fundamentialist right wing parties though.
Adam: Correct, and I’m glad you disapprove of what the WA Greens did. I hope Rebecca doesn’t see what you said, however.
As Oz said, you won’t find me defending this one. I’m not a big fan of Dee Margetts to begin with, and I think this one came down to her own political self-interest at the expense of the party, common sense, and electoral fairness.
Luke: Unfortunately there was not. There were a number of models for the LC being considered that, in addition to introducing 1v1v in the Upper House, would almost have guaranteed the Greens BOP for ever that were rejected on the basis that Margetts had to remain “true” to her electorate.
This would have been sensible if the party were acting either in its own self-interest or basic democratic principle, as opposed to Margetts acting to keep her political career alive. Claiming that she needed to do it to remain “true” to her electorate is bollocks; it wouldn’t have been all that hard to defend it as taking a stand on basic democratic principle.
I’d be more impressed if people bagged the greens for these random acts of stupidity, rather than just bagging them because they want to win seats.
Oh and I’d be impressed if the greens got rid of those bloody ads on SBS blaming the cows for global warming, can’t decide if they are put on by vegetarians or the coal industry trying to belittle the problem.
Sometimes it does.
The Family First preference deal was not “stupidity,” it was a calculated risk, which didn’t come off. The Senate election system forces all parties, including the Democrats and Greens, to do preference deals. In 2004 both the Dems and Labor did preference swaps with FF, calculating that this was the best way to maximise their chances. Because of Latham, however, Labor’s primary vote dropped to the point where Fielding was able to get first Dem preferences and then ALP preferences to win the last seat. These things happen. If the ALP vote had been 2% higher, we would have won three seats and everyone would have said how clever young Erik was.
I dare say that the same eventuality would have occurred if Labor had not preferenced Family First and had increased their vote, since I really doubt Family First are ever going to preference the Greens first.
Labor tried to be too clever by half and elected a dropkick who stands in the way of their legislative agenda instead of someone who would be a mostly reliable vote for it. To paraphrase Andrew Landeryou, I think that’s what you get for listening to Erik Locke…
No it doesn’t.
I think Labor has learnt a lesson from the 2004 Senate deals. In the same way the Greens learnt from the 2001 NSW Senate election when instead of Senator Kerry Nettle being elected on right wing preferences, we almost got a little known right-winger. The Greens have never done a preference deal like that since. Neither has Labor since 2004. Though as long as we have the distorting group ticket voting system, parties will always be tempted to trade preferences to improve the chances of their own party electing an extra Senator. Let’s hope some change to the system is in the government’s paper looking at changes to the electoral system.
The tiny island nation of Palau has graciously accepted 17 Uighurs and their President is “honoured”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2594718.htm
Makes you ashamed that a country as big and wealthy as this gets itself worked up in a pathetic frenzy when it comes to allowing a couple dozen people live here.
Under the CPRS legislation, cows who voluntarily agree to reduce their emissions by 10% will get a carbon credit, which they can present at the abattoir. They get a week’s extension of life for each credit.
Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
The USA didnt offer us 200million in aid to take them Oz
You think the government is likely to implement a change that removes power from political parties?
The graciousness is valued at $200M. for that money, i’ll be gracious to anyone
Dear God, I hope not!
Because we’re a filthy rich country, not a broke atoll.
Palau is one of the few countries that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. I think you’ll find that this is a back-door way of resettling the Uighurs in Taiwan, after a decent interval.
Some theory!
They may well do. There is general consensus that no one wants to see a party again get a Senator from 2% of the vote. The Greens have proposed the NSW Legislative Council system where voters can select parties above the line on the ballot paper, with the use of optional preferential voting. The major parties are interested. The only parties with any say over preferences under the NSW system are those that distribute enough how-to-vote cards to attract a significant primary vote. Parties hoping to sneak in by harvesting preferences from other little parties are dead under the NSW system.
Taiwan is not that stupid. It is in a pally pally embrace at the moment with the Mainland. Especially not for 17 misguided Uighurs .
Is there a link with submissions to the government’s paper?
I’d favour a quarter-quota rule. After the preferences from the elected Senators are distributed, all candidates who don’t have 25% of a quota would be eliminated and their preferences distributed.
Oz the nation who looks worst out of all of this is the USA.
They arrested these people, put them in Cuba for half a decade and then says they arent guilty and then off loads them to an island in the pacific because Obama cant hack the political consequences of his past rhetoric….
The USA should never have offered them to us in the first place. Their mistake, their mess, their responsibility to fix it…
BTW is it just me or is Stephen Smith our weakest Foriegn Affairs Minister since Tony Street???
They weren’t “arrested”, Glen, they were captured in Aghanistan, where they were being trained by ETIM, an Islamist terrorist group. That’s why they were in Guantanamo. This is the arrangement that YOUR Howard government defended all those years. Do I really have to explain YOUR OWN policies to you?
No. Downer by a country mile.
Downer and howard would have taken the Uighurs if bush had asked and tugged forlocks, doffed caps without missing a beat.
Evidently Oz and Germany have large Uighur populations which is why they are being asked to take Uighurs. Germany has said they will not take any if the US refuses to take any which is fair enough IMHO.
I never said i didnt agree with the policy of detaining suspected terrorists…
Adam if that was the case then how come the US cannot charge them with anything??
And if they are guilty why on earth did they try and send them our way.
Psephos, I appeared before the JSCEM in 2001 suggesting the quarter quota idea and was castigated by John Faulkner for putting forward an ‘arbitrary’ threshold. If the reform paper he has championed puts forward that idea, I still have the Hansard.
Because international law has not caught up with the reality of non-state transnational terrorist organisations. The people in Gmo are not civilian defendants, they are not POWs. They are “illegal combatants,” a category invented by the Bush Administration, with the FULL SUPPORT of the Howard Government, as we saw with Hicks and Habib. In the case of these people, the US has now decided they are no longer a threat so they can be released. They cannot be “charged with anything” because they are not within the jurisdiction of the US courts. They can only be put before a Military Commission, which will either release them (as with Hicks) or rule that they be kept in Gmo.
No, that was my own idea. GMTA.
Obama has been left with this legal and political mess because of decisions made and supported by YOUR SIDE OF POLITICS, Glen, so don’t think you can just walk away from it by making sneering remarks about Obama.
Adam if that is the case then I hardly see why Oz gets all upset about us rejecting these people.
Adam what is you opinion about having electorates with 70,000 electors than 90-100,000???
I dont see how a single person can represent 90-100,000 people IMHO…
Members of the Indian Lok Sabha represent over a million voters, members of the US House half a million. There is not the slightest possibility of the federal Parliament being enlarged so this is a pointless discussion.
Well, Glen, because of the legal and political mess created by the Bush Administration, with the FULL SUPPORT OF THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT, there are only two things that can happen to the Gmo people. Either they stay in Gmo until they die, or they are resettled in third countries. They can’t be admitted to the US, because then they would have access to the courts and would sue the US government, for probably billions of dollars, since their detention and treatment has unquestionably been illegal under US law.
So everybody wins…
Obama doesnt have them settled in the USA.
They dont rot in Gitmo.
They get to live in the Pacific islands.
Pulau gets 200m.
“The world’s first up-front political party representing climate sceptics”.
Whatever that means.
http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/OurPolicies.html
Glen, it sounds like you’re in favour of a parliamentary scheme first put forward by a Professor Marriott.
Yes, but these are the easy cases. They seem to have been misled Uighur peasants who thought they could liberate Uighuristan or whatever it is from China. It’s unlikely they will cause any more trouble. What about the real villains, the Arabs and Afghanis and assorted other bad guys, who no-one wants to take, and who might well rejoin the Taliban or al-Qaeda if they get the chance? It’s unlikely that their years in Gmo have turned them into Young Rotarians.
Ron Boswell will sue them for breach of copyright!
722 Oz – that is weird stuff. From their “About us” page:
err… good. Glad you cleared that one up.
The US, India, the EU, China are all super jurisdictions that, to have the sort of representation ratios that that Canada (308 for about 30 million) the UK (650 for 60 million), etc has, would have a multi-thousand chamber when a few hundred is the upper limit for a functional chamber. For medium sized nations (in the ten of millions) we have an under sized lower house.
As the current government gets older it is going to run into trouble with the Senate of having a Senate half-full (enough to block laws) with the Coalition because of the even number of Senators in each state and territory requiring only about 43% and 33% respectively to hold half. The solution would be to expand parliament to 14 Senators a state which would mean a bigger house and 50%+1 in half the states and territories to get the half needed to block.
Therefore the current government may end up expanding the Parliament.
Not respecting the Constitution wouldn’t get you very far as a parliamentarian.
Psephos
I wonder if the Gitmo detainees will be capable of doing much at all. The US methods of interrogation were based on Ewen Cameron’s work at McGill Uni in Montreal. The use of sensory deprivation then sudden sensory overload has a tendency to make people… Subdued? I can’t think of the right word. In any case certainly not Rotarians.
The numbers are highly unlikely to be any worse than what they are now.
This is the best one:
Yep because those who accept Climate Change are just totally against good manners.
Well they are against good manners to those who disagree with them on climate change
That Climate sceptics page is a joke, surely.
Assuming there is no DD, Labor will pick up 2 and probably 3 seats from the Coalition+FF in 2010 (Vic, Qld, Tas, in that order of likelihood. This will produce a Labor-Green Senate that will give Rudd most of what he wants after a bit of Green-appeasing. So I don’t see this arising.
If there’s no proble, there’s no need for a solution.
This would trigger a massive “no more politicians” backlash from the populist press, which the Libs would of course jump onto. The minimum enlargement constitutionally possible is 36 (12 Senators and 24 MHRs), and this would cost many millions per year. There is no way in all the world in space that Rudd would buy into such a media frenzy when he doesn’t need to.
What a disgraceful bunch of hypocrites! They describe themselves as “sceptics” and then proceed to say they “believe” AGW is junk science. They are non-believers or denialists but they are not sceptics.
Here’s the director of the party – Leon Ashby:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leon_Ashby
Diogs,
Hallelujah Brother.
Love this:
As Jeannie Ferris would say, dry that one out and you could fertilise the lawn.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200906/s2594168.htm
Grog
Yet another IPA/Exxon/Heartland Institute front.
Dio – sigh yes.
Let’s hope they also come out as cigarette and cancer sceptics…
730
In a close election the opposition is likely to get at least 43% in every state (except maybe SA when Senator X is up for re-election) and 33% in every territory. This will get them 38 seats out of 76 (half) if repeated two elections in a row. This would allow them to block legislation by themselves. This is bad for the government. If the was an odd number then most of the time this would have Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT and I think the NT electing a left majority with QLD, WA and I think SA electing coalition. This would mean the NSW usually deciding the Senate majority and I believe that the majority of the NSW TPP is usually with the government who wins the election so there would be a coalition majority or a Labor+Green majority depending usually on who was in government and less Senate problems for a government. The Democrats prevented this gridlock happening for a couple of decades and now they are go so it is on its way.
Grog
All we need to do is ask them if passive smoking causes lung cancer. I’ll do that right now.
734
I did not say that this would happen next time but that it would probably happen down the line to this government. The PM may have changed.
Well, Tom, if that happens, we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Maybe we’ll have a DD every second election. But whatever happens I can assure you that Rudd will not be increasing the size of the Parliament. It’s just a total non-starter. If the Senate numbers become an insuperable problem, I imagine he would rather reverse the 1984 enlargement and go back to a 64 member Senate and a 125 member House. That would save millions and be very popular.
So much for climate change skeptics – the arctic is headed for another near record melt this northern summer:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
But the South-east corner shivers in cold snap!
I blame the Canadians..
Musrum,
Me too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYSYipouABI
And if the earth isn’t really flat then how come maps are on flat sheets of paper?
Tom.
*Smacks head as a light bulb goes off*
Tom you’ve got me there. Those round earthers have swindled us for too long!!!!
I demand justice!! Retribution!!! Vengence shall be mine sayeth Grog
Can you also get to work on that whole moon landing fraud thingy??
Bolt loves that graph… though somehow I doubt it’ll get a run this time.
If i hear one more time “we are not out of the wood yet”, i’m going to jump into the wood, find the big bad wolf and stay there.
The Rudd Recovery continues:
http://business.theage.com.au/business/markets/shares-close-on-a-high-20090610-c2j9.html
THis is not trivial – as confidence improves and share prices recover it will have a significant impact on the valuation of superannuation funds at the end of the financial year, just in time to greatly reduce losses. A lot of retirees will be better off.
There are more reasons for consumer confidence to remain high. On July 1 the new tax scales kick in. Personally I think the cuts are undesirable, and the stimulus was better targetted. Still, it will put more money in people’s pockets, and give spending another boost in qtr 3. By qtr 4 the first infrastructure projects will be going into construction too, which should start turning around job figures.
The Rudd Recovery is turning out to be better than anyoe ever expected, but nobody will be able to blame Malcolm Turnbull or the Liberals for it. They opposed it.
Grog, Science – Bah humbug!!
What’s most frightening about these GW denialist groups is, as well as the professionals spreading deliberate disinformation, there are those that actually believe what they say including many of the American “religous right” or “Moral majority”. And I can say that with some authority, I am a Church Warden myself, just not in the vein of Fielding and his ilk.
Tom.
Tom,
Love your work!
Christians Rock!
Still more Rudd Recovery – more Chinese investment in Australian mining planned in the wake of Rio’s rejection of the Chinalco deal:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aqq.tkhsn3RA
We might still go into recession in the second half of the year but we might not either – I think its 50/50. If the States get moving on their projects it may not happen.
The attacks on Rudd continue. Queensland Academic, Ross Fitzgerald is having his shot in the OZ.
I wonder though if anyone can decipher this for me? For a supposedly intelligent person, this looks like nothing more than crud to me. Much like the rest of the article.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25612503-7583,00.html
That paragraph makes no sense.
From that paragraph why would anyone bother. Maybe we’ve found where Shananigans has disappeared to?
Here’s the package I would favour (but it would require a constitutional amendment, which I recognise is a problem–maybe too big a hurdle to jump, but still, I can dream, can’t I?).
1. Eliminate the constitutional link between the size of the two chambers.
2. Reduce the Senate to its original size of six Senators per State ,and fix it there permanently, taking away Parliament’s power to vary it.
3. Fix the size of the House permanently as well, using a population quota based on the entitlement of the smallest Original State to five members (so, divide the population of the smallest Original State–in practice, Tasmania–by four point something (not five, in order to make the quota larger and thus the number of MPs smaller) to give the quota, and determine the entitlement of other States by dividing their populations by the quota).
While we’re at it, we might as well deal with the Territories as well for maximum clarity:
4. Leave the power with Parliament, as now, to grant Territories representation in the House, but limit that representation, if granted, by the same formula as applies to the States.
5. Leave the power with Parliament, as now, to grant Territories representation in the Senate, but limit that representation, if granted, to no more than two Senators per Territory.
The effects would be:
A. An immediate reduction in the total size of Parliament (the House would in fact get bigger, but this would be more than offset by the reduction in the Senate)
B. Permanent elimination of the power of the politicians to increase the size of Parliament (which should be a selling point)
C. Reduction in the chances of an evenly deadlocked Senate
D. Massive reduction in the chances of tiny groups like Family First getting Senate representation which their genuine support bases don’t justify (people like Harradine and Xenophon, with real support bases, would still have a chance)
I would call the proposal Constitution Alteration (Reduction in the Size of the Parliament and Elimination of the Power to Increase It) Bill.
Sigh, Henry Reynolds is the smart one. I never understood how Ross Reynolds became an academic, although his first history of the ALP wasn’t bad.
First home buyer finacne approvals up too:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/firsthome-buyers-rush-in-20090610-c2y0.html
This is good because its a lead indicator: finance approvals now means more building activity in Qtr 3 and Qtr 4 = less unemployment.
Oz,
I’m still tryimg to interpret “Nights in White Satin” . Can you help?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYSYipouABI
744
To cut the size of parliament would need a majority in the Senate (or a DD and joint sitting). The Greens and Nationals would never vote for it because it increases the Senate quotas (The Greens even have a Senator who was turfed out of a state political career by a cut to 5 per seat) and, particularly in the case of the Nationals, it expands the number of voters per seat. The Libs would have several reasons to oppose it. For one, it gives them more of the Senate when they are out of power and it also would cut the number of Liberal Senators and MPs.
Gordon Ramsay proves himself an expert in turning a negative into a positive.
Australian politicians could learn a lot from him.
His $1000 a head dinner in Perth was undersubscribed to blazes and was looking to be an overpriced disaster. Then his Grimshaw moment occured. And now he’s cancelled his Perth visit as an act of contrition at his mother’s instigation.
Brilliant. Avoid embarrasment, cut losses, be a dutiful son, and appear to be penitent all in one go.
Socceroos beat Bahrain 2-0
http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/soccer/socceroos-beat-bahrain-20/2009/06/10/1244313184683.html
I understand what Ross Fitzgerald is saying. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I have no difficulty translating it (even though the second sentence is, technically, mispunctuated).
‘… Rudd’s emphasis on control is a … response to … the Twitter age’: Twitter stands for the whole range of modern communications technology which make impressions spread very quickly. The more quickly impressions spread, the more hinges (for a public figure) on constantly exerting control over them (as much as possible). Rudd can never shift focus from the public impression he creates because a lapse for one moment can so rapidly become impossible to correct.
‘… website named, with complete lack of gravitas, KevinPM …’: ‘gravitas’ is the quality of being grave, serious, dignified. KevinPM is not a dignified name because it is too colloquial.
‘… Tony Blair pioneered …’: the style represented by the KevinPM website is not original to Rudd but follows the example of Blair
‘… seek to directly engage the people and co-opt them to the cause’: this is what Ross Fitzgerald thinks the KevinPM website is for
Wow! What economy of language! And there we were thinking he was an incoherent twit.
762
My guess would be the KKK (posibly the knights thereof).
JD,
How about this bit!
769
Blair`s idea of a renewable energy source.
Socrates @761
The article was by Ross Fitzgerald, an emeritus professor of history and politics with a PhD in political theory. Among his publications are several books on subjects from labour history but no history of the ALP as such (or none that I know of). Ross McMullin is a different historian who wrote the official centenary history of the ALP. Ross Reynolds (so Wikipedia tells me) was a Major League Baseball pitcher.
Just to give you enough time, I’ll check back in the morning.
Night all!
scorpio @770
That’s what I meant by ‘elaborate wordy further comment on the website’s lack of the dignity that PMs of earlier times would have aimed for’. I should have said ‘cliched’ as well as ‘wordy’. (Please, never refer to people turning in their graves.)
(I buggered up the tags, though; I didn’t intend that bit to be shown as a quote–maybe that’s why you missed it.)
isnt it a song about condoms???
Problems for Labor in Victoria.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/heat-on-to-fix-branch-stacking-20090610-c3n7.html
Oz: Doesn’t really look like “problems” for Labor, as such.
Andrew Landeryou’s written quite a bit over the last couple of months about how there’s fairly significant forces within the ALP who want to get rid of George Seitz in Keilor. I am a touch cynical that mysterious leaks to the press with evidence supporting what was pretty much commonly understood anyway (that Seitz is about as good a branch stacker as there ever was) are unrelated to this.
I doubt it’s life threatening but evidence of possibly fraudulent memberships, or the perception of such, is not good news.
I’m sure Brumby just wants the Brimbank saga and all it’s roll on effects to go away.
Oh gawd. Now he’s spouting Bolt’s favourite line…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/senator-blows-hot-and-cold-on-science-20090610-c3ox.html
The Grand Hypocrisy…
After giving Latham and Gillard a pasting in 2004 on class warfare against private schools, the OZ today tells us that Rudd is giving too much to those same schools.
Sometimes you can’t take a trick.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25618520-601,00.html
Found this clip of ATV 0 Melbourne from the day of the Dismissal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NenQWqVnH9k
Perth Now has a similar online story, complete with link to the DEWER pdf file which actually shows that a fair few Govt Schools also got funding.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25618786-2761,00.html
link to pdf file:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/BuildingTheEducationRevolution/Documents/Rd2P21Results/WAP21Rd2Schools.pdf
A few pages ago somebody (in a Greens-baiting mood
) reckoned the WA govt should’ve gone with a 4×9 model for the upper house – I’m guessing the 4th electorate was non-metro, SW+AG+MP. I put a heap of stuff into Excel, and used the preference tickets from this site. Here’s the way that would’ve panned out at last year’s election, assuming everyone followed the ticket (so it’s rough):
East Metro: ALP 4, Lib 3, Grn 1, FF 1.
North Metro: Lib 5, ALP 3, Grn 1.
South Metro: ALP 4, Lib 4, Grn 1.
Non-metro: Lib 3, ALP 2, Nat 2, Grn 1, FF 1.
Total: Lib 15, ALP 13, Grn 4, Nat 2, FF 2.
More generally: left 17, right 17, christian 2.
Family First get the balance of power by preference harvesting like you wouldn’t believe. (Their seats would come from 0.31 quotas in East Metro and 0.35 quotas in non-metro.) I’m kinda happier with the current model, myself.
What? Whereby the government has a majority in its own right and doesn’t have to negotiate at all?
I can see the sense in that!
This left/right dichotomy is silly as well because it ignores the fact that the Greens will sometimes vote with Liberal and FF sometimes with the ALP.
Could there be more eggs in the face of the “experts”? they are predicting the Unemployment number to go up from 5.4% to 5.7%.
We all know last time they were predicting the GDP to come in at -05% and had more eggs on their face than the British Nazi Leader when GDP came in at +0.4%.
There will always be more surprises under Labor.
The sacking of the head of comedy at the ABC over the Chaser skit for failing to “refer the skit up the chain for approval” continues the HowaRudd convergence as Boerwar calls it.
It is plain censorship, those at the ABC now will play it safe rather than risk their jobs.
Was the skit more offensive than the one showing a disabled jew in an extermination camp or the lost bushwalker calling 000. But it did target an institution founded by a priest a week after a skit offered free boys to the vatican and one mum complaining about the skit had got her wish with her kid flown to be blessed by the pappa.
The attempted censorship continued with Bob Brown, as he said those donating were more concerned about his efforts to save the forests than the politics and as OZ pointed out the reason he incurred the debt was because the law was changed during the legal process.
Will David Marr write a follow up to his “careful he might hear you” article.
Another “expert” opinion from News that Rupe wants us to pay.
Facts:
* Aust Vs Bahrain 2-0.
* Last night Japan Vs Qatar in 1-1 and Japan was at home, and I believe Japan’s goal was an own goal by Qatar. * Bahrain was 2 points above Qatar on the table.
* There’s more, Aust drew 0-0 with Qatar at Qatar last week.
Where did Rupe find this kind of expert from and wants us to pay to read their expert opinion.
There will always be more goals from the Socceroos under Labor.
What do you mean? Is there evidence that the decision was politically motivated from Rudd or Conroy?
I would’ve imagined it would have been the ABC’s decision.
*shrugs* They can do that in the lower house, eh. (At the moment, pick any two from four quite different people.) Family First aren’t quite as objectionable as the CDP, but I still don’t want disaffected Liberals or Steve Fielding lookalikes anywhere near my nice secular government.
Of course it was, silly me, the ABC is an independent body not subject to any political bias or influence, always has been always will be, was not influenced by Kevs remarks, not in the least.
JD 772
Sorry I got Reynold’s mixed up wih Ross McMullen; I liked McMullen’s book. I have heaard Reynold’s speak though in Brisbane, and found him rather polemic and he didn’t really seem to offer any earth shattering insights into politics IMO. There is politics within universities just as anywhere else and it can affect people’s advancement jus as much as their research quality.
Maybe the Socceros result will be good for business confidence
All jokes aside I saw one study that showed one of the best correlations with business confidence in Australian economics was with the success of football teams. Its silly but just goes to show how subjective it is. Still, its a self-fulfilling prophecy. When businesses feel more confident they tend to invest more and presto, the recession is over (before it started!).
Sorry, but what attempted censorship?
Did I miss something?
If I didn’t, how is asking legitimate questions about BB’s dealings censorship?
Seems to have pissed quite a few off that Bob Brown gets to stay in parliament
I’m sure those people wouldn’t apply the same standards and suspicions to other parliamentarians………
I don’t see why the ABC would be influenced by public comment from the PM and yes, the ABC in the past has been fiercely independent (or some people would say here biased AGAINST the Government). The ABC is quite open to making decisions on staffing by itself. In this case I think they got it wrong but I don’t see evidence of political tampering.
Do you have any evidence the PM ordered the ABC what to do in relation to staffing?
This is pretty amazing. Roxon really seems to have no idea. Whoever is running the extremely expensive PBS needs an ABC-type review of their suitability.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25618225-5006301,00.html
Dio
Doesn’t that mean that whoever is running the PBS should be replaced? I thought there was a board that oversaw it and negotiated the prices? Of course, if this is true then someone should be replaced. It almost implies a degree of conflict of interest, depending on who is on the board, as it shouldn’t be hard to find out the real price.
I read a study a few years ago that suggested we got quite good prices out of the PBS, so this is a significant decline in the performance of its administrators. So the solution is to fix the administration, not dump the scheme.
Yesterday, Psephos wrote:
Assuming the objective is to increase the number of Senators per state, the actual minimum enlargement constitutionally possible is 18, even though it would cause the two classes of Senators to be of different sizes.
I agree that the minimum practical enlargement is 36.
/pedant-mode-off
Socrates
I’m definitely not saying to get rid of the PBS, just who’s in charge. If it’s true.
My guess is that it’s costing us at least $100M a year extra due to incompetency. Would Roxon be sacked for $100M of incompetency a year. We’ll have to see how much it comes to and if it’s of that order whether Rudd would still back her.
There are 6M scripts for simvastatin a year. A $6 loss on each is $36M a year. That would be the highest amout but there are 200 drugs they mention. It looks really bad to me.
Well, I went to the soccer last night and I was most unimpressed. There only seemed to be three players who knew what they were doing ,Harry Kewell , Mark Schwartz and McDonald (who looked lethally enthusiastic). The rest of them just passed the ball to each other and after a few goes lost it to the opposition. The Socceroos have never looked dangerous to me, not like most of the South Americans or some of the European teams.
The old Yugoslavian bloke next to us kept on shouting, “Kick the bloody ball! The goal’s that way!”.
Good summary, actually.
Saw Bill Shorten with Tony Abbott on Sky Agenda this a.m. Shorten was terrific. Some of his comments left Abbott and Spiers looked a bit like lost sheep for a few minutes.
Shorten hits the spot without being nastily derogative about the Opposition whereas Abbott loves to get his ‘I hate Kevin” moments in as often as possible.
Castle – I am very broadminded and tolerant but was left stunned by the Chasers bit on the kids. But I didn’t send off a complaint to the ABC but, having lunch with friends yesterday, I found that 11 out of the 14 people there did complain to the ABC. They were from all sides of the political divide.
It really hit home and I, for one, am happy that they have been made aware that satire needs to satirical. They have lost their edge this year and not really worth getting excited about on Wed. nights.
S13 says “As soon as may be after the Senate first meets, and after each first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution thereof, the Senate shall divide the senators chosen for each State into two classes, as nearly equal in number as practicable; and the places of the senators of the first class shall become vacant at the expiration of (the third year) three years, and the places of those of the second class at the expiration of (the sixth year) six years, from the beginning of their term of service and afterwards the places of senators shall be vacant at the expiration of six years from the beginning of their term of service.”
“two classes, as nearly equal in number as practicable” does seem to admit the possibility of the two classes being of different sizes, although in 1901 they were of the same size and always have been subsequently. So I guess Flaneur is technically right, although of course politically this is not a possibility. In fact, politically, no change to the size of the Parliament, in either direction, is remotely likely.
I agree there is a problem with the current state of affairs, where we elect six Senators at half-Senate elections, thus making a 38/38 left-right split very likely. In the 25 years since the 1984 enlargement this has never actually happened because until 2007 we had the Democrats as a centre party holding the ring. Now we only have Fielding and Xenophon, and Fielding will be gone in 2011. But governments will just have to live with this, either compromising on legislation or resorting to the DD to break deadlocks. We had four DDs between 1974 and 1987, and we may be heading back to that situation.
Emphatically agree. There is something quite unsavoury about changing the system to engineer an outcome.
If the electorate doesn’t like the makeup of a Senate, it is in their power to change it.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25619423-5005962,00.html
Idiot.
Why are you giving Roxon such a hard time? I would have thought PBS has been a basket case for many years, not just since November 07.
The Libs and their followers have been trying the ‘Gillard is better’ tactic for some time now. It isn’t working.
I’d rather face Gillard in an election than Rudd.
I hope Bob Brown pays back that money given to him by the public…
Why would he? I’m sure the members of the public made the donations with no expectation of receiving anything back.
Is it a conflict of interest to use your position as a pollie to call for donations to pay your legal costs?
I’m still having a fight with myself about this one because I admire Bob Brown.
But can he, in future, query other pollies about taking donations or freebies.
His argument would be that the donations would be really being made in support of the cause he was representing (Tasmanian forests) rather than himself.
I agree it sets a weird standard that Brown now has to hold himself too.
Even if they were for himself, as a political candidate or whatever, how is it different to any other MP or minister using their position to raise funds for themselves or their political party? In terms of conflict of interest, not what Brown has said about freebies in the past.
Well he’d argue they weren’t for him. They were to pay costs incurred on behalf of the anti-logging movement (which he was representing).
I’m not saying I’m convinced on this, just what I imagine his argument would be.
Oz
The political lesson out of all this is that Bob Brown is first and foremost a politician and people,like myself, will apply a “filter” to every pronouncement he makes.
If anything he has done harm to the his image,the greens and by implication CC.
I await the attcks from righties who will draw this into the wider debate on CC and the veracity or otherwise of Bobs remarks
That and the fact he has lost credibilty, in my eyes at least, are the “collateral” damage of this sad sorry tale.
What Brown did was distinctly sub-optimal. I don’t dispute the sincerity of his convictions about the forests, or his right to fight the case(s). Nor do I dispute that Howard and Lennon played hardball (but since when have the Greens not played hardball themselves?)
But it’s pretty hard to understand why Brown waited until he got the demand from the Court, having been in negotiations for a year (in the process ensuring that he would have to pay an extra $40k above what the other side had offered) and then put out a rather bogus story about impending bankruptcy and consequent expulsion from Parliament. As if there was the slightest chance that would ever happen …
Too clever by half.
Still I agree it’s good he hasn’t been expelled. Both on principle (he was elected, he should be there) and on pragmatism (imagine the tedious “St Bob the Martyr” story being played over and over for twenty years if he’d been kicked out).
Well Bob Brown got what he wanted in the end. He didnt have to pay the legal fees the public has. Well done BB
Glen, that is the most obvious interpretation of what has happened. Brown left it to the last minute, then confected a panic attack about possible bankruptcy and expulsion, precisely so that other people would be alarmed and would impulsively bail him out.
A tawdry, self-interested politician, just like so many of them. Not so much “St Bob the Martyr” as “St Bob the Manipulative”.
Exactly, never before has there been such an obvious attempt to squeeze cash out of the public whilst attempting to give the appearance that you’re doing no such thing.
I’m glad it is sorted out but it will be interesting watching how he will react to things like ‘give the ute away, Kev’. Will be difficult for BB for him and I can’t see the Libs letting him get away with anything.
If they do, they will also have to allow Labor to be treated the same way. Very interesting.
Couldn’t any MP use this argument in relation to any donation? “The money/ute/free motel was donated in support of my beliefs.”
As much as I like Bob Brown -and loathe Bronwyn Bishop- I have to agree with her that he was silly to expose himself personally to the potential of such a huge legal bill without having first established a fund to cover it. No doubt, if the result of the case had been in his favour, he would have accepted all the kudos himself.
Yes, of course. Not only could the pollie claim it’s true, but in most cases it probably is true.
This still doesn’t mean the money need not be entered into the Register as a donation. A donation is a donation.
But Bob Brown isn’t doing them any favours in return. It’s even hard for him to considering he’s not even in government and has no ability to open government pursestrings for them.
Unemployment rate is 5.7%
Completely irrelevant. Bob Brown himself argued that there should be more scrutiny of donations to backbenchers. Remember his claims about a company that tried to buy his vote in the Senate through a large donation?
Unemployment 5.7%
Unemployment back to 5.7%.
I lose.
Can someone tell me what the unemployment ratevis?
The increase was mainly down to the participation rate. Only 1,700 job losses overall.
read all about it:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0?opendocument?utm_id=LN
Amazingly good figures given the situation
Seems like last month’s unemployment was revised to 5.5%?
ABC had bloke this a.m. saying 30,000 job losses would be the go. How was it only 1700
Monthly variations aside, this is the unfortunate state of the economy:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/a866861f12e106e0ca256a38002791fa/f756c48f25016833ca25753e00135fd9/Body/0.2660!OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif
Because they are all guessing
When the ABS says unemployment figures are “seasonaly adjusted”, does that mean they prune them in winter?
Google News is showing an article from the OO saying that job losses were 35,400 and of course the article played on the miserable side whereas 5.7 is much better than expected.
BH
More people were applying for jobs last month that were otherwise not registered before for unemployment. Also the full time unemployment rate is around 49000 but part time employment increased ie. more people employed on a part time basis and that, is were the 1700 figure comes from.
I think that if there is a deadlock then an increase then would have some attraction to the government. Changing the system to prevent deadlocks is not a bad thing as it is in the interests of the voters.
Thanks Dogma – I’m not a whiz with stats.
Socrates @ 791
It’s not very surprising if a Major League Baseball pitcher doesn’t have any insights into politics. But why was he speaking in Brisbane, and why did you go to hear him?
So does 5.7% unemployment indicate a slower than expected increase which would augur well for a Rudd Recovery?
How so?
821
Ozy,
A fund was started. But people stopped giving when Bob won. Of course, when they found out that Howard and Lennon had changed the rules and that Bob didn’t have the money, they started donating again.
818
Dyno,
Bob wasn’t the one who announced it. It was announced by the media.
SMH
I saw the 49000 some where, but it’s obviously wrong.
You can’t be serious! How did the media learn about it then?
Flaneur @ 803
Why? What other reason could there possibly be to change a system?
I have no idea why my comments a going to moderation, but 24500 part time jobs created and 26200 full time lost. Some say that the businesses are moving people from full time to part time.
Then they are lying
They have been saying that every second month. Then the other month the figures are reversed and they go very quiet. It’s all BS.
We’d better check to see what Possum is saying – he’ll have the right take on it all as usual.
Not in the interests of those voters who want legislation blocked.
Parliament consists of two Houses and the Constitution specifically provides a mechanism for resolving deadlocks.
Your desire to increase the number of Senators per state has merit, but the argument “it’d advantage our side of politics” doesn’t (have merit).
They are using the unemployed persons number. The number of employed persons only fell by 1700, so only 1700 lost their jobs last month. Liars.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25619639-462,00.html
Ozymandias @ 837
If you average the monthly unemployment rate over a very long period of time, you find that the average for some months is higher than the average for other months. The main reason is that the unemployment rate is nearly certain to go up when school-leavers hit the job market. You could run exactly the same story about unemployment rates going up at that time of year every year, but it would be misleading. So the ABS calculates a ’seasonal adjustment’. I don’t know what time period they use as a base, but the idea is approximately to average the unemployment rate for a particular month (say June) over ten or twenty or however many years, and then compare that to the average for all months over the same number of years. If the June average exceeds the all-months average by X, then you do your seasonal adjustment by subtracting X from this year’s June figure; if the June average falls short of the all-months average by X, then you do your seasonal adjustment by adding X to this year’s June figure.
Stephen Long: “Shock horror. For once the economists got it right.” LOL
Then…
“BUT… what we are seeing is a downward trend in employment.”
Then…
“No great shock.”
Considering that under Howard unemployment was 5.7% just a few years ago, I’d say it was pretty good.
Heh.
My statement obviously makes little sense once taken out of the context it was happilly ensconced in.
Perhaps I should have used “There is something quite unsavoury about rorting the voting system to ensure one’s oppenent loses any advantage they have under the current system.”
Long’s summary: “We can take some heart.”
Not exactly fullsome praise, but a welcome move away from his usualy line of misery.
Then… nothing. No more news on employment.
Not if the opponent’s advantage was itself the product of a rort.
What rort?
Tom you seem to live in a world where politics do not exist. Increasing the size of Parliament would cost many millions of dollars, when you take into account the pay and entitlements of an MP, their electorate office, their four staff, their travel, phones, postage etc etc. (I will try to find the exact cost of maintaining an MP.) There is a strong anti-politician sentiment in the community, and any government that proposed doing this would be met by a huge populist “no more politicians” campaign, which the Opposition would of course join in on. There is no way in the world this government or any government would bring that campaign down on its head when there is no pressing reason to do so. The government will deal with the issue of a Senate deadlock when and if it arises. Parliament will NOT be enlarged, full stop.
Pity. I think we should have 200 MHRs and 100 Senators, or thereabouts.
843 Vote1Maxine: “So does 5.7% unemployment indicate a slower than expected increase which would augur well for a Rudd Recovery?”
Westpac’s chief economist was interviewed by O’Brien last night on 7:30 Report, explaining how Rudd Government’s prompt and significant intervention has given us a milder downturn than other countries. All the same, he gave some credit to Howard/Costello government for us having a subtantial surplus when the global recession kicked in, so perhaps your “Rudd Recovery” terminology is unlikely to be granted universal acceptance.
850 Dario: Anecdotal “research” further to your point, I’ve met a heckuva lot of people this year who’ve been shifted from full-time to part-time (mainly in retail sector), and nearly all of them say that they’ve been told to expect a return to full-time when their employers’ workload rebounds to previous levels.
As the estimable Marsupial Comitatus Pollytics has stated that only the revised figures for previous months are NOT BS , that’s good enough for me.
Hmm J-D, possibly, or even probably. Do you think the current number of Senators is a rort?
PS: apologies, for my previous blathering (856), to all those who, quite rightly, care about the written word. Back to the spell checker for me.
Anecdotal evidence means f-all. Have a look at the ABS figures for the last six months.
Well, dave, that certainly isn’t consistent with the way BB’s press release was worded on Monday:
http://bob-brown.greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/forestry-tasmania-threatens-brown-with-bankruptcy%E2%80%AC%E2%80%AA
The Rudd Recovery continues. An exceptionally good result for unemployment. Some swith from full time to part time work but overall a very modest fall (1700 jobs lost out of 10.793 million). The main change was that unemployment went up because the participation rate (people looking for work) went up. Don’t take my word for it:
“Michael Blythe, chief economist at Commonwealth Bank, said the latest jobless figures underscore the strength of the economy.
“Another very good result…this is a very positive development,” Mr Blythe said.
”You put it together with…GDP numbers stronger than expected, (a) rebound in consumer confidence, housing up, a lot of things seem to be heading in the right direction for the Australian economy right at the moment,” he said. ”It means the Reserve Bank (of Australia) keeps sitting on the sidelines”.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/jobless-rate-hits-57-20090611-c49g.html
The current number of Senators is certainly a bad idea, for the reasons discussed above. I gather Mick Young, the responsible minister at the time, was warned about the deadlock problem but decided that an increase to 14 Senators per state, which would have meant 7 elected at a half-Senate election and thus no deadlocks, was too many for the public to accept. It would have meant an increase of 72 new politicians (24 Senators and 48 MHRs) at one hit.
bob1234 @ 859
At 858 I was talking hypothetically about a general principle, not about application to a particular case.
Flaneur @ 864
A good question, but hard to answer. How does one decide what is an appropriate number of Senators? I do think that the current Constitutional provision linking the size of the Senate and the size of the House is a bad idea, but I don’t know whether it constitutes a ‘rort’.
Dario @ 865
Always a pleasure to get some feedback from you. I have been looking at those figures and totally concur with your comment, which is why I employed inverted commas. Nevertheless, point taken, and no such further transgression into anecdotal “research” will be forthcoming.
Although many people criticise our election processes, it seems to have delivered stable Government which is something we should all be grateful for.
Personally, I’d reduce the number of Senators back to 10 per State and change the nexus clause to 3 instead of 2.
Of course, this would have to be done by Referendum so is unlikely to happen.
Hahaha, sorry jj… misread your post. Needless to say, your research is always welcome, but the banes of my existence are anecdotes and online polls
No, worries, Dario.
My partner watches “Skynews” during breakkie, which has made me abhor, despise, and detest online/text polls.
I’m not sure I follow this. If the House were allowed to be greatly larger than the Senate couldn’t an opportunistic Government greatly increase House numbers, have a DD and then ram leg more easily through in a joint sitting?
To illustrate how good the unemployment numbers are, consider that the average rate in the OECD was 7.8% in April, adn trending up:
“OECD Unemployment Rate Hits 15-Year High In April
LONDON (Dow Jones)–The unemployment rate for the 29-member countries of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperation and Development rose to its highest level for 15 years in April as recession weighed on labor markets across the world.
The jobless rate across the OECD area rose to 7.8% in April from 7.7% in March, matching a level last seen in April 1994, the Paris-based think tank said Tuesday. The rate, which has risen 2.2 percentage points since April 2008, was just one percentage point short of the highest level since comparable records began in 1988, it said.
The jobless rate in the Group of Seven leading industrial nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., U.S. and Japan – rose to 7.7% from 7.5% in March, the highest rate since records began on that figure in 1992 and also 2.2 percentage points higher than April last year.
The 16 countries that use the euro saw their unemployment rate increase to 9.2% from 8.9% in March, a 1.9 percentage point increase over the previous 12 months. European Union statistics agency Eurostat said earlier this month that 9.2% was the highest rate since September 1999.
The highest unemployment rate across the OECD countries was registered by Spain, where it soared to 18.1% in April from 17.3% the previous month. A collapse in the country’s construction sector led to Spain’s biggest economic contraction since records began in 1970 during the first quarter.
In joint second place, Ireland and the Slovak Republic both saw their unemployment rates rise to 11.1% from 10.6% in March.
At the other end of the scale, the Netherlands posted the lowest unemployment rate among the OECD countries at 3.0%, followed by South Korea with 3.8% and Austria at 4.2%. ”
http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=4e9df340-0f22-4178-8853-49f10ed1a370
Also see the excellent graph here:
http://community.cengage.com/GECResource/blogs/gec_blog/archive/2009/05/27/comparing-unemployment-rates-us-vs-oecd-nations.aspx
Australia is fifth lowest on this list, and in some ways even that is unfairly harsh. Different countries have different definitions of unemployment, and some don’t count all those looking for full time work as unemployed. Some like South Korea have lower unemployment benefits, making people accept almost any low paid work. The USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are now all higher than Australia for unemployment.
Ha! If we got to play that game, I’d have 14 Senators per State and change the nexus to 1.5.
As a result, it’d *reduce* the number of politicians!
The Constitution was written by a Queenslander, Sam Griffith, and a Tasmanian, Andrew Inglis Clark. They were determined that the rights of the states, and particularly the small states, would be permanently safeguarded. The mechanisms which secure this are a Senate in which all the states are equally represented; the almost equal powers of the Senate (including the power to block supply); the nexus clause, which ensures that the House of Reps cannot “swamp” the Senate at a joint sitting; and the double majority at referendums, which ensures that the Constitution cannot be amended without the consent of four states. They did their work very well, and we are stick with these arrangements, probably forever.
ltep @ 874
If you win the election at a double dissolution (which is not, after all, guaranteed), you’re supposed to be able to pass your legislation at a joint sitting. What would be the point otherwise? If you’re talking about using the joint sitting to pass a lot of new legislative proposals, that can’t be done–only the Bills that were twice passed and twice rejected to enable the double dissolution can be considered at the subsequent joint sitting.
Note also that plenty of countries seem to manage perfectly well with a unicameral system and don’t worry at all about our bicameralist concerns.
For what it’s worth, however, here’s what I posted back at 760 (but nobody seemed to read):
Here’s the package I would favour (but it would require a constitutional amendment, which I recognise is a problem–maybe too big a hurdle to jump, but still, I can dream, can’t I?).
1. Eliminate the constitutional link between the size of the two chambers.
2. Reduce the Senate to its original size of six Senators per State, and fix it there permanently, taking away Parliament’s power to vary it.
3. Fix the size of the House permanently as well, using a population quota based on the entitlement of the smallest Original State to five members (so, divide the population of the smallest Original State–in practice, Tasmania–by four point something (not five, in order to make the quota larger and thus the number of MPs smaller) to give the quota, and determine the entitlement of other States by dividing their populations by the quota).
While we’re at it, we might as well deal with the Territories as well for maximum clarity:
4. Leave the power with Parliament, as now, to grant Territories representation in the House, but limit that representation, if granted, by the same formula as applies to the States.
5. Leave the power with Parliament, as now, to grant Territories representation in the Senate, but limit that representation, if granted, to no more than two Senators per Territory.
The effects would be:
A. An immediate reduction in the total size of Parliament (the House would in fact get bigger, but this would be more than offset by the reduction in the Senate)
B. Permanent elimination of the power of the politicians to increase the size of Parliament (which should be a selling point)
C. Reduction in the chances of an evenly deadlocked Senate
D. Massive reduction in the chances of tiny groups like Family First getting Senate representation which their genuine support bases don’t justify (people like Harradine and Xenophon, with real support bases, would still have a chance)
I would call the proposal Constitution Alteration (Reduction in the Size of the Parliament and Elimination of the Power to Increase It) Bill.
It still amazes me how many of them get a mention here on PB
This line from Pascoe in SMH on todays employment numbers caught my eye
http://business.smh.com.au/business/great-news–employment-remains-strong-20090611-c4cs.html
Meanwhile back at point piper that nice little purdy cat no doubt got a size 10 boot or two right up his freckle.
The libs born to rule ? Clearly their own employment situation is a major worry for them. Long may it be so
Yes Dave I just read Pascoe’s piece too and he makes some good points. In particular, that employment is at the same level now as it was a year ago. Only population increase, participation rate and immigration has caused the unemployment rate to increase overall.
Remember too that it is a lag indicator. The Liberals will be praying to Mammon (or whatever god they worship) that it goes up. But I think the figures could easily improve in the end of the year. If the economy has stabilised and with the funded infrastructure projects in the stimulus package due to start generating jobs, unemployment could even trend down by . At that point there is no recession her by anyone’s definiton.
For unemployment to start heading down, GDP growth will have to start pushing 2.5-3% annual.
Interesting… the other day Stephen Long used exactly the same phrase, except his punchline was that the GDP figures made things look better than they seemed to be.
We certainly seem to be in a state of flux, balanced on a razor’s edge if you like. I get the feeling things could go either way with the gentlest of pushes. The Coalition’s negativity, talking the economy down, is not helping at all. The bank economists have told their clients to sell short, so they have a vested interst in the numbers (and the ASX as a result) going as low as possible. They therefore chime in with big qualifiers to any positive news. The likes of Long claim a franchise on misery. In short there are major reputations on the line (and merchant bankers’ bonuses) if the economy recovers. So we get a great resistance to what seems like good news.
The punters, all of them from the most humble individual to the smartest buzoid mostly just go off what they read in the papers and see on the tele. A few kid themselves that “quality” shows like Sky Business and Inside Business give them greater insight, which is piffle. Everyone’s floundering around in the dark. Hardly anyone (including me) has gone to the sources and looked at the original figures, and even if they did they’d still be confused. The cocky statements we see that such-and-such is definitely going to happen are uninformed baloney, based in turn on baloney from the media, usually colored by political persuasion. Truth is: No-one knows. Everyone wants to be seen to be informed… they are not.
Which is where confidence comes in. Confidence can tip the scales from making a purchase, holding onto (or even hiring) staff, investing in machinery, to deferring any of these. I really am amazed the Coalition continues to be so negative.
852
Increasing the Senate to 14 a state would benefit the party in government not any one side of politics.
860
There was an enlargement in `84 and that did not kick the government out at that election.
871
The minor party/parties of the day (except maybe the Nats) will always oppose the abolition of the nexus clause while the House of Reps is single member. The best thing the DLP did was oppose the 1967 nexus referendum, which helped the defeat of said referendum.
Dead right Socs. I think many punters, even those not as interested in such matters as us tragics have pretty well worked out that turnbull and his crowd are the ones who made wildy wrong calls on the economy, for their own benefit.
As rudd said last week any claim the libs had regarding economic management is now nonsense. Such comment is also appropriate to many in the msm. They called long and hard, called wrong and have come a gutser.
Very true BB, constant negative speaking is quite harmful. There are lots of studies to show that positive sentiment can in itself lead to economic and employment growth.
There are some tactics by which Turnbull can be brought to task on his negativity. The share market is also subject ot such sentiment, whoch means he is effctively talking down the retirement savings of the mostly older Australiasn that vote for him. A lot of super fund managers will soon be focused on end of year valuation figures, and will not thank Turnbull or anyone else for talking down their figures, which at the moment are still minus for the year.
I can imagine Malcolm’s line “we’ve had five minutes of economic darkness, and now Labour is bringing it to an end already, when the opposition has not even begun to enjoy it.”
And will it would have to do this for a few quarters. The downside to the fact that businesses having mostly absorbed the labour downturn is that most of the first wave of future growth will be supported by simply dialling up the hours of the existing workforce.
That’s true, because the winning party would tend to win the last Senate seat in each state, unless there was a minor party strong enough to win it.
No, but it wasn’t popular. And anti-politician populism, whipped along by the Murdoch gutter press, has gotten much worse since then.
That’s true, since they have a vested interest in a powerful Senate.
Just wait until the Murdoch gutter press goes out of business.
Diog
Simvastatin should not even be on the PBS – it is available in the UK over the counter.
And it will be replaced by another media group with the same agenda – like Mark Reilly on Seven always runnig those “Snouts In The Trough” stories involving pollies perks etc, and of course there are the radio shock jocks as well.
I would not go so far as to say that the winning party will win the last Senator in each state. Tasmania would be 3-3-1 almost every time. Victoria would also usually be 3-3-1. Queensland, and WA could quite often be 4-3 or 4-2-1 while there is a Labor government. If the territories were 3 each then the ACT would be 1-1-1 and the NT probably would be 2-1 with the party of government.
I was mostly joking. No pain, no gain.
Musrum
I would say two quarters of growth above 2.5% will start reducing unemployment. Remember these figures include a historically high labour participation rate. It can’t go much higher for demograhic reasons. We shouldn’t forget that a large cohort of baby boomers are at or close to retirement age. Super fund returns only have to recover modestly and many of them will leave the workforce again.
I didn’t say they would. I said “the winning party would tend to win the last Senate seat in each state.”
And if wishes were horses then beggars would ride, which seems to be the philosophy behind a lot of your posts.
You could increase to numbers of politicians without an electoral backlash if you apply an over-all salary cap for federal politician’s salary and entitlements.
But then you would have to convince the politician’s to vote for an effective pay cut.
apologies for the apostrophe entropy
If the States were lifted to 7 a time to decrease the chances of opposition ability to block then it would be sensible to increase the Territories to 3 a time for the same reason.
The modern ALP (as is British Labour) is to scarred of the Murdoch press.
You would have to reduce politicians’ pay and entitlements to the extent ncessary to ensure that the increase in size of the Parliament led to no overall increase in the cost of running it. That would be quite a substantial cut, I would imagine. The chances of that are, to quote our great leader, Buckley’s and none.
Psephos @ 877:
Your prediction about the nexus being here to stay is as near a thing to a certainty as we’re likely to experience.
Paradoxically, I’d think if the nexus were broken and number of Reps were to increase significantly, the status of the Senators would rise (scarcity value). While there are significant differences in the two systems between Australia and the US, one reason for the greater standing of Senators is their number 100 cfd. 435 Reps.
Although the point about joint sittings allowing a swamping of Senators by larger number of Reps is mathematically valid, the fact that we’ve had a single joint sitting in 109 years means that it scarcely matters.
Regarding various contributions about parties’ seeking advantage through amendments to electoral law, that’s what parties do, if they can get away with it. Quite frequently the partisan hopes of the proponents of a change are confounded by the law of unintended consequences.
The introduction of above-the-line voting was intended to reduce intending Labor voters’ inadvertent informal votes. In practice, it meant that Labor lost a small proportion of Democrat preferences, as the Dems submitted split tickets. The effect was that Labor typically secured 50% of Dems’ preferences rather than 55-60% where those were directed by the voter. ATL was how Senator Fielding won his seat, as too-clever-by-half decisions about preferencing by Labor and the Democrats would have been irrelevant without it.
Iirc Arthur Calwell presided over the introduction of PR for Senate elections and the lengthening of Senators’ terms prior to the 1949 elections – confident that this would shore up Labor numbers. The Labor split in 1954 meant that this rebounded, both because it gave the DLP an opening, and it virtually ensured that Labor would never achieve a Senate majority, in its own right.
I’m not buying into the merits of PR in principle with this comment.
Just to illustrate how much the unemploymet figure was infuenced by changes to participation rate, consider the numbers:
Total employment = 10,793,000
Net Loss in jobs = 1,700 = 0.00016% that is 0.016 of one percent!
Change in unemployment rate = 5.6% to 5.7% = +0.1%
Hence the change in unemployment is almost entirely due to changes in the participation rate.
Australia’s workforce participation rate is 65.5% of the entire 15 to 64 population, one of the highest rates in the OECD. See:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0
And here for international comparisons (only 2008 data but the pattern is clear):
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LFS_SEXAGE_I_R
* Unemployment is almost steady at 5.7%. In fact, at one time, 5% was considered as full employment
* ASX hits 4000 and has risen almost 30% since Jan09.
* GDP at +0.4% last Qtr.
* Confidence Index has the biggest rise in 22 years and the first time the index has been in triple figures since December 2007.
* Home loans hit a 14-month high in April.
* New owner-occupied housing loans rose 0.9 per cent in April to 60,395, the seventh monthly rise in a row.
* rate of inflation was only 2.3% in May
* OZ dollar hits 81c. Hello world, here i come.
* Turnbull and Hockey have been speechless in the last few days
Recession? What recession. this is the recession that we had to not have.
The recession will always be beaten under Julia Gillard
To give a one sentence summary of my previous diatribes, 2% of the unemployment rate increase was due to people losing jobs (1700 out of 10 million) and 98% was due to changes in the participation rate.
It could be partially due to the nexus that there have and will be few joint sittings. The lack of use of something is no reason to ignore it.
894
Sorry I meant to say would tend in 891. Do you disagree with any of my state assessments of the likelihood of a government-side (left or right) victory in each state?
You may be right. Especially if it starts to move significantly above 2.5%. That could very well be the case. We should get a final stimpac from the rest of the world when they start to move back into the black.
899
It indeed was the combination of PR and the DLP and the succession of minor parties that attract votes from otherwise ALP supporters that mean that the ALP has not had a Senate majority scince the `51 DD.
That wasn’t foreseeable in 1901. That’s the reason it was put in the Constitution.
Tom, who might win what in a 7-seat half-senate election is very hypothetical. The quota would be 12.5%, so the Greens would have a fair chance in most states. It would depend on preference deals between the parties.
Delegated legislation and the Hawks governments lack of an exemption from Senate veto, for the Australia Card act (or what ever the actual name was), in the legislation that caused the DD. If Calwell had won in `61 then we may have had one or two jiont sittings in the `60`s.
Assuming a minor party polls more than 1/2 a quota and the majors preference said minor ahead of each other the minor party would expect to win the seventh seat most times.
I know that the Greens would be a good chance in every state with 7. A Senate cut that might be supported by the the Greens if the half-Senate system was scrapped and the Senate cut to 11 a state but the Coalition have a history of opposing the end of the half-Senate system.
rough calc: 1-(150+76)/(150+76+24+12)=0.14
A 14% pay-cut is not an unreasonable sacrifice for the benefit of the country.
With a 12.5% quota the Greens would poll a quota by themselves in Tasmania and possibly Victoria and WA without much trouble.
Musrum, you’re forgetting the additional travel and office costs that would be incurred.
Do we think that all states should have the same number of Senators, regardless of population? I realise the historical reasons but since we’re talking change, it’s a valid point.
The number of seats per state doesn’t need to be a linear relationship, you could have a system of declining proportionality like in the EU. It doesn’t full abolish the malapportionment (I doubt anyone could) but it at least recognises that Tasmania with the a population of 500,000 is not the same as NSW with a population of 6 million.
This may not be a popular statement but i do not think politicians are paid enough at both a state and federal level for the level of work and sacrifice expected of them.
In particular, Federal pollies are expected to spend half their lives away from their families, to have precarious employment that may be wiped away with a small swing against them and to be at the beck and call of every crazy that walks thru their door.
And then, if they have the temerity to buy a house in Canberra so they don’t have to live in a suitcase, the media jumps all over them.
Bugger that.
13.7404580152671755725190839694656488549618320610687022900763358778625954198473282442748091603053435114503816793893%
To be a bit more accurate.
But equally irrelevent.
Yes.
I agree luke. Politics is a really hard job, and the pay’s not that exciting compared to the private sector. I wouldn’t want to see them get a pay cut.
All MPs and Senators have electorate offices and Parliament House offices (some country members have two EOs), they all have four staff, they all have phone, postage, internet, printing and travel budgets, they all ride around in ComCars. It all adds up, you know.