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Of cabbages, kings and a meeting of Blog war protagonists
Leon Bertrand and I have a face to face meet up with Scott Bridges planned for today which should be quite interesting to say the least, because how often do you get a chance to meet up with your online “enemy ” after a decade long blog war?
Hold on comrades this could be an interesting ride
National Security Statement 2015
Very good speech form Tony Abbott
recommended viewing Comrades
Its On
Despite my concerns I am actually happy that this matter as been resolved so promptly and in many ways quite decisively, its also nice for our PM to take the time out fo his busy day to reassure me personally via email.
As most people will now know the spill motion is on. I’m a little sad about this but if this means that the current government can improve its standings with the public. One thing that we can expect if there is a change of leader is that we won’t see the sort of bad grace that Rudd bought to his party.
You can bet that the Liberal Party phones will be in meltdown in Canberra over the weekend
Cheers Comrades
in the leadership change game the trick is not to make an arse of oneself
At last after seven years of madness the country can draw a line under the Asylum seeker disarray created by Kevin Rudd
I must say that waking up to the news that the government has finally manged to secure the passage of a bill to reintroduce TPVs has really brightened my day.
“The crossbench shouldn’t have been put in this position, but we have,” the Motoring Enthusiast party senator said.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon also wrestled with the decision, but like Muir believed the amendments would give hope to thousands of refugees stuck in detention.
In return for their support – and that of the Palmer United party – the government agreed to quickly process the claims of 30,000 asylum seekers languishing in detention centres across Australia.
PUP leader Clive Palmer said that backing the legislation meant 1,500 asylum seekers – including 468 children – would soon be leaving Christmas Island.
But Labor and the Greens accused the government of using those children as a bargaining chip, arguing that the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, could release them at any time, if he wished.
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie – who opposed the legislation – attacked the government for keeping children detained for so long.
“These kids have been sitting there for 15 months, and you want a pat on the back? You’ve got to be kidding yourselves,” she said.
Particular concerns were raised about the return of TPVs, a Howard-era policy condemned by refugee advocates and repealed by the previous Labor government.
The government also agreed to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake of refugees and to give those on bridging visas the right to work.
Now the government can virtually clear the legacy backlog of mendicants that we can thank the Labor party for creating way back at the beginning of the Rudd regime. Long time readers may remember when I correctly predicted the subsequent flood of boats Further despite voting against the bill in the Senate I very much doubt that any future Labor government will be rushing to repeal the legislation because they will not want to endure being thrashed for their stupid position of the issue for another seven years. Any one who looks back on the this part of our political history must surely recognize that the whole problem is a consequence of the Labor party making a bad call and then being political cowards unwilling to undo their mistake or even admit that it was a mistake. All because the Labor party have been trying to court the very loopy left who support the Greens position on the Asylum seeker issues. That sort of thinking from the ALP is of course rather mad because there is no way that a sensible ALP person can possibly sink deep enough into the slime of Green political idea without alienating their center.
The thing that we should always remember is that the measure of the ALP’s position on any issue where it is at odds with the current government is not the posturings of Electricity Bill Shorten and his motley crew but their answer to being asked “will you repeal it if you win office?” and my guess is that The ALP answer will almost without exception fudge it and make excuses and prevaricate because the last thing that they want to do is commit themselves to giving the public a very spiky stick to beat them with for the next seven years.
Fortunately the Rudd asylum seeker dance is now, finally ending
The Campaign Outrage Headed To An Election Near You
Why on earth are the ambos and fireies allowed to use work vehicles for such activities is what I want to know along with the abuses you cite in your . as usually comprehensive article there is the other part of the tactic namely create a pretext for industrial action in the lead up to the election and then sing loud and long that the evil Tories can’t or won’t fix the problem.
Its enough to make anyone hot under the collar Comrade Yale
Great Southern State of Victoria puts the Coalition of Crap in its place – in Opposition
(by Ray Dixon ~ a proud Vic)
“See ya later Denis”
I have to admit that in the last week leading up to Saturday’s Victorian State election I had this nagging and worrying feeling that Labor would fall at the last hurdle and fail in its bid at history to out a Coalition Government after just one term in office.
After all, despite the opinion polls showing Labor still in winning territory at 52-48 two-party preferred, the fact is the gap had narrowed from 56-44 just a few weeks ago and any further narrowing would see an anything result.
There’s also the fact that Governments, be they State or Federal, be they dysfunctional, incompetent, disunited, changing leaders, do-nothing, semi-corrupt and obnoxious (i.e. be they just like the Victorian Coalition Govt of Ted ‘Bailed Out’ Baillieu & Denis ‘The loud mouth Vet’ Napthine), are usually given a second term just to see if they can finally get their act together. It’s almost – or was – an Australian tradition to give a ‘Fair Go’ to the incumbent and not throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak.
Making matters worse (for Labor supporters like me) it was Denis Napthine who stole all the thunder and limelight in the last week of campaigning, aggressively ramming home his message that if Labor tears up the contract for the East-West tunnel project, as they had promised to, Victorians would not only lose the $3 billion in infrastructure spending promised by Federal PM Tony Abbott, they would also have to pay a compensation bill of $1.1 billion to the appointed contractor (due to a ‘side deal’ Napthine had secretly signed).
Meanwhile, Labor leader Daniel Andrews remained at the one-pace, not ramping up his campaign or attack on the Government one little bit (it’s noticeable that throughout the campaign, Andrews actually steered away from any such negative tactics and, instead, focused on what he would do rather than what Napthine was doing or not doing).
Instead, Andrews simply stuck to his guns: the East-West tunnel would not be built; the so-called contract was “invalid” and “not worth the paper it was written on”; no compensation would be paid and what Victorians needed more was improvements to outer areas, removal of level crossings and a much improved public transport system. Andrews gambled on the wider electorate not really seeing yet another freeway link as an important election issue. And won.
He focused his efforts on those outer areas particularly the so-called ‘Sandbelt’ areas from Bentleigh in the south east all the way down the Frankston railway line to, well, to Frankston itself. Those were the seats that cost John Brumby office in 2010 when he was surprisingly voted out having focused his efforts primarily on protecting 4 inner-city seats from the Greens. He held those seats but lost the ‘burbs … because he ignored them … which saw Ted Baillieu become the accidental Premier, a job he never seemed to expect or want, and one that he eventually walked away from at the first hint of dissatisfaction from his party, thereby handing Denis (the forgotten man) Napthine the premiership by default.
No, Andrews totally ignored the Greens and let the inner-city latte set have ‘em if they wanted them. The Greens actually took the seat of Melbourne from Labor and may end up with one or two more, but that didn’t matter because Labor won enough seats back from the Liberals in those outer suburbs to form Government in their own right. Sure, the Greens can claim ‘history’ in getting their first MP(s) elected to the lower house but it’s a totally hollow victory as Labor can (and will) govern without them.
Andrews’ script was copybook. He gambled (correctly) that Napthine’s aggressiveness and threats over the $3 billion Federal funding and $1.1 billion compensation package would not wash with an electorate that clearly did not like Napthine’s stance and tone that amounted to an effective attempt at blackmailing them into voting for a return of the Coalition, in order to save $4 billion. He let Napthine rattle on and, as it turned out, gave him enough rope to hang himself.
Make no mistake, in the last week the election was still there for the taking by the Coalition. It was still up for grabs. If only Napthine had not chosen to emphasise how he was using the East-West tunnel funding as a sort of booby trap to ward off people from voting Labor. If only he hadn’t underestimated the voters’ intelligence. And if only if he’d had the balls to tell Tony Abbott NOT to announce in that last week that the threat of withdrawing that funding if Labor won was very real.
Much to my delight, Victorian voters reacted quite angrily to being treated like second class idiots and the polls did not shift one little bit. Well, actually they did shift marginally … to Labor. The final result on a two-party preferred being Labor 52.5, Coalition 47.5, a remarkable result to actually not only halt the trend back to the Coalition but to even turn the tide back in their favour.
All thanks to 3 people being (in order):
Daniel Andrews for sticking to his guns in the face of a full on Coalition onslaught throughout the final week.
Denis Napthine for going over-the-top in aggressively threatening voters would be ‘punished’ (by both him and Abbott) if they dared to vote Labor.
Tony Abbott for publicly endorsing Napthine’s gun-at-the-head approach.
Victorians (well, Aussies in general) don’t take kindly to that sort of political bullying. Denis Napthine certainly shot himself in the foot with his semi-blackmail tactics, aided and abetted by Tony Abbott.
BUT, does this result mean anything Federally? According to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten it does:
“They said this couldn’t happen. They said that a first term government couldn’t lose… (this is) history in the making … Victorians have made a clear choice that will be heard all across the nation.”
I think Bill might be getting a bit carried away. I mean, it’s not like Abbott is on a knife-edge majority like Napthine was. It’s not like the ALP only has to pick up 4 or 5 seats in 2016 to defeat Tony Abbott. No, they actually need to win at least 20 seats to do that.
This result makes it clear that Abbott is on the nose in Victoria at least and will suffer some kind of reduced numbers next time around. But I hardly think Tony Abbott is losing much sleep over it. Let’s face it, Victoria doesn’t really figure on his radar. Does he even know where it is? Does he even care? I doubt it.
Anyway, it’s well done to Daniel Andrews. At 42 years of age he should easily be Premier for at least 8 years – i.e. two terms – because I seriously doubt Victorians will turn back to the Coalition again anytime soon, having seen how unready they were to resume Govt in 2010 after 11 years in Opposition. And having seen how little they’d learnt.
On the other hand, Labor is back in its right place in the great southern State of Victoria while the Coalition of Crap is in disarray with both Napthine and Ryan (the Nats leader) stepping down.
It just shows you that doing favours for your big construction company mates and property developers – as the Coalition in Victoria is renowned for – is a real voter turn off. I doubt they’ll ever change. Not down here.
You people up north in NSW & Queensland probably don’t understand that, in Victoria, the Liberals are not so much about governing the State as they are about carving up public property for developers and doing big favours for their big mates. It’s been that way since Kennett won office in 1992. They won’t (and can’t) change. And that’s why Vics can’t stomach them.
Victorian Labor, on the other hand, is actually about responsible and conservative Government, exemplified in such conservative stalwarts as Steve Bracks, John Brumby and (now) Daniel Andrews. They hold all the important and relevant political ground from moderate left to centre to moderate right, whereas the Libs down here actually seem to operate outside the political sphere in some kind of corporate and secret deals la-la land.
Good riddance to them. And well done to my fellow Victorians for having the good sense (and guts) to call the Coalition on their phony projects, side deals, hollow threats, bluffs and outright bullying. It’s certainly a better State today. Sanity has been restored.
Brendan O’Neill on the new totalitarians, now policing even our private thoughts and word games
Hat tip to Andrew Bolt on this one:
Brendan O’Neill on the new totalitarians, now policing even our private thoughts and word games:
WHY is it bad to hack and expose photographs of a woman’s naked body but apparently OK to steal and make public the contents of a man’s soul?
This is the question that should burn in our minds in the wake of the Barry Spurr scandal.
For just a few weeks ago, when a hacker invaded the iCloud accounts of female celebs and rifled through their intimate snaps, there was global outrage… To peer into a woman’s most intimate moments was a “sexual violation”, said a writer for Guardian Australia…
Fast forward to last week, and some of the same people whose jaws hit the floor at the audacity of those who leaked these women’s private, unguarded pics were cheering the hacking of Spurr’s private, unguarded words.
Spurr, a professor of poetry at the University of Sydney, has had his private emails pored over and published by pseudo-radical, eco-miserabilist website New Matilda. In some of his emails, in what he has since claimed was a cheeky competition between him and his friends to see who could be the least PC, Spurr used words that would no doubt cause pinot gris to be spilled if they were uttered at a dinner party.
He described Tony Abbott as an “Abo lover”, referred to a woman as a “harlot”, called Nelson Mandela a “darky”, and used “Mussies” for Muslims and “chinky-poos” for Chinese. He now has been suspended by the university.
Many people will wince on reading those words. Just as we will have winced if we happened upon those photos of well-known women doing porno poses or engaging in shocking sex talk in videos shot by their boyfriends.
And that’s because these behaviours, both Spurr’s knowingly outrageous banter and the actresses’ knowingly sluttish poses, share something important in common: they were private acts, not intended for public consumption. They were things done or said between intimates, far from the eyes and ears of respectable society. Yet where right-on commentators and tweeters stood up for the right of famous women not to have their private nakedness splashed across the internet, they have relished in the exposure of Spurr’s soul to the panting, outraged mob.
A most worthy argument from one of the lefties I truly respect.
Cheers Comrades
Brendan O’Neill
On “Abbott Was A Wrecker In Opposition; Who’s Surprised He’s A Wrecker In Office?” at New Matilda
The thing that so many on the fringes of the political spectrum for get is that politics in this country is a game with a well defined rule book and no matter which side (speaking of the ALP/LNP ) you are part of the way to convince the public to give your side the treasury benches at a general election is by being far better at the day to day battles in the parliament and in the court of public opinion. The simple truth is that Abbott succeeded in opposition and at the last general election not because he was “a wrecker” As Chris Graham insists in his article but because he was a far more effective playing at the game of politics than Rudd/Gillard/Rudd. He would not have had a chance of success however had the ALP government not been so deeply flawed.
In the first instance Rudd was deeply flawed insofar as he was really good at capturing the imagination of the polity during 2006 and he made all of the right noises to convince the voters that he would be “Howard lite” he insisted to those of us concerned that a Labor government would be mad spenders were wrong to worry because he was “an economic conservative”. To the left he promised to be a champion for their environmental bet Noir of climate change and to do something about the then non problem of asylum seekers.
The history of the ALP’s last been much written about by its (cough!) stars (12 books and counting!) but one thing is clear and that the they were the wreckers, making changes that made no improvement to the country, Things like Rudd’s abandoning of the successful suite of policies dealing with boat people and the sorry story of “the greatest moral challenge of our generation” which when it came to the crunch he lacked that cahones to take to a DD election(which most pundits thought he could have won)
Rudd was a wrecker not because of his flawed ideologies but because of his flaws as a leader. A good leader of men is able to delegate and trust those to whom he delegates his authority to. Rudd was almost pathologically incapable of doing this. As an egomaniac and a control freak he managed to destroy the belief and trust of the public servants in his administration wasting both their good will and much of their work effort in his unreasonable demands and a bullying style to both his staff and parliamentary colleagues. Gillard was likewise a wrecker. First and foremost she was tainted with the dripping blood of the plotter’s knife but worse than that she was a political whore willing to say one thing to win office only to change like the wind when she needed the support of the Greens in the hung Parliament. The betrayal of her infamous “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” broken promise wrecked the remaining credibility of the ALP. The sad truth is that had she stood up to the Greens &’indies” and told them she would only agree to a carbon tax after the subsequent election Abbott would not have had his most powerful campaigning slogan.
In government the LNP under Abbott have not been perfect but they have been scrupulous in their determination to be true to their election commitments Against all of the predictions to the contrary the Abbott government has been able “stop the boats” and although this has upset the usual suspects, (hi Marilyn ;o) ) now that there is not the eternal new arrivals into the system the problem can be solved. There is still a large legacy of Rudd’s wrecking in the detention centers but that is being addressed.
Much has been made in this piece about the deployment of ADF people and planes to the fight against ISIS in Iraq but really what is the alternative? Can we really just look the other way and do nothing? Can we, as part of the civilized world ignore the slaughter of Shia people or the treatment of women and girls as prizes of war? Surely even the left must realize that destroying the Islamo-Fascists of ISIL is a moral and justified cause? Sadly too many seem unable to let go of their hatred of the United states for long enough to realize that they are all that stands between the world and the rise of a totalitarian Caliphate with global ambitions.
That said the problem that our own Muslim minority feels somewhat besieged by the tide of events is clearly not of the magnitude that many of the left claim it to be. In fact the number of anti-Muslim incidents has been very small and the panic from Islam apologists has been of far greater magnitude than any criticism of Islam in this country. Even the recent concerns about the Burqa in our parliamentary precincts has not created the sort of anti-Muslim hysteria that so many of the left invoke when ever there is an issue with ISLAM. On this Issue Abbott has been both calm and truthful He was honest about how confronting it is to have people who hide their faces in public yet accepting that we are not a society that wishes to prohibit those who want to do this.
To insist that Abbott Was A Wrecker In Opposition; Who’s Surprised He’s A Wrecker In Office? is to misread both the politics of the period of the last Labor government and to misunderstand the nature of a soundly administered government.
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 