Not being in the media I’m not sure why they hate him, but maybe up close he’s a complete pain in the arse. Its possible that up close he’s a driven megalomanic completely obsessed with power and holding onto it, dominating his cabinet colleagues and stifling party debate (sounds familiar doesn’t it).

Part of his popularity is also because the unions don’t seem to like him much (worked for Steve Bracks in Vic by being labour, but not too close to the unions), he has a very publicised work-ethic including pushing the public service hard and people feel like they know him because of his time of sunrise.

Regardless he will remain personally popular enough with the public to stay in power unless he has a gradually string of incidents that come across poorly or he gets tired and moves on.

Keating, in contrast, decided for himself what a prime minister should be like – bold, brash and aggressive – and generated a large backlash. Of course, Howard also made large efforts to mould his political persona but the ‘traditional’ symbols he attached himself to became threadbare with over-use and he lacked a crucial connection to modernity and progress. Rudd’s achievement is to seem both safe and modern.

The only odd-seeming element is Rudd’s attachment to the word ‘revolution’. Perhaps the word has become so debased from over-use that it now means little more than safe, moderately progressive modernity.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/proceed-with-calm-20090710-dfzp.html

(Although he needs to remember to reference people)

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

Had to google it!!

Well, yes, but I learnt something, and it’s a handy set of figures to know – not the first time this argument has arisen, and there’ll be people out there who don’t understand what’s wrong with it.

You don’t do these things to convince the troll who raised it, but for the other people reading who might believe it because they don’t understand how it all works.

And I learnt something. And then you posted your modern jive and I learnt something else.

Two things in 24 hours!!

If you think unemployment should be defined to = (total unemployed)/(total population)
you are either demanding children, the aged, the sick, the disabled and full-time parents should be working, or you think that some % of unemployment is fine, so what %age unemployment are you happy with???

The definition the ABS uses is sensible – the numerator is people who don’t have any work but would like some and have done something to try to get work
the denominator is those people plus everyone who has work. Thus the rate is the percentage of eligible people (the labour force) actually out of work.

The ABS also provides all the raw figures
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6202.0Main+Features1Jun%202009?OpenDocument
if you’d like to make up your own definition
of unemployment, so next time you want to argue about numbers, do a little maths!

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

tHEN WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU DOING PASSING YOURSELF OFF AS A jOURNO?