The Coalition has again narrowed the gap in this fortnight’s Newspoll, although it remains at a daunting 57-43. Lateline reports that Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is down two points to 46 per cent, with John Howard’s up three points to 39 per cent. The Australian’s report is not online yet, but will be by the time most of you read this. In other developments from the past week:
• Labor’s national executive has acted quickly on the authority it received from the national conference to preselect candidates for 25 New South Wales seats, nominating military lawyer Colonel Mike Kelly to run against Liberal member Gary Nairn in Eden-Monaro. In his role with the coalition provisional authority after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kelly is credited with efforts to blow the whistle on mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and AWB’s payment of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime. David Humphries and Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald assess the state of play elsewhere as follows:
Greg Combet, the ACTU secretary, will be candidate for the Hunter seat of Charlton, replacing Kelly Hoare, who replaced her father, the former minister Bob Brown, in 1998. The right wing will decide replacements for Michael Hatton, who filled Paul Keating’s vacancy in Blaxland in 1996, and Julia Irwin, the MP for Fowler, also in Sydney’s south-west, since 1998. If Mr Rudd got his way, the likely candidate in Blaxland would be the University of NSW constitutional lawyer George Williams. But speculation is that the contest will be between Tania Mihailuk, the Mayor of Bankstown, and Bernie Riordan, the Electrical Trades Union boss. The favourite in Fowler, Warren Mundine, the former ALP president, may be overlooked because of demands to strengthen the number of women candidates.
• Following Senator Amanda Vanstone’s appointment as ambassador to Rome, the South Australian Liberal Party will hold its preselection to replace her on May 25, with nominations to close on Thursday. This is the third South Australian Liberal Senate vacancy in little over a year, following Robert Hill’s departure last March and Jeannie Ferris’s death earlier this month. As was the case with Santo Santoro’s vacancy in Queensland, the party administration has opted for a new ballot rather than promote an existing candidate for the coming federal election. The position would otherwise have gone to Maria Kourtesis, head of the nursing agency Prime Medical Placements. Kourtesis has been preselected for the unwinnable fourth position on the Senate ticket (which she also filled at the 1996 election), behind Cory Bernardi (who replaced Hill), Simon Birmingham (who will replace Ferris) and Grant Chapman, a Senator since 1987. Kourtesis’s defeat at the hands of the long-serving but little-known Chapman caused considerable angst due to the state party’s poor record on female representation. It was also a defeat for the beleagured moderates faction; Vanstone, also a moderate, is among those who have called for the balance to be redressed by having Kourtesis take her spot. Kourtesis will instead face opposition from the Right’s Mary Jo Fisher, workplace relations lawyer and manager at Business SA. The winner will not face election later this year, as Vanstone’s term does not expire until 2011.
• Also in South Australia, Labor has endorsed Nicole Cornes, columnist for the Sunday Mail newspaper and wife of football identity Graham Cornes, to run against Liberal member Andrew Southcott in the Adelaide seat of Boothby. Cornes admits to having voted Liberal in the past, and wrote in her column in 2004 that John Howard had “proved himself to be a fine PM”. In the other normally safe Liberal seat in Adelaide, Sturt, Labor has nominated Mia Handshin – a former Young South Australian of the Year and “founder of inspirational speaking and consultancy group Mana of Speaking” – to run against Christopher Pyne.
• Western Australian Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot announced he would retire from politics on Friday after it became clear he would lose the number three position to Mathias Corman, state party senior vice-president. Corman is linked with fellow WA Senators Chris Ellison and Ian Campbell in a pro-Howard camp opposed by forces aligned with indestructible powerbroker Noel Crichton-Browne. Last year, Lightfoot said he would have “no honourable course” but to quit the Liberal Party and serve out his term as an independent if he was dumped in an “undignified” manner. The Prime Minister reportedly instructed the state party to hold off on its preselection for as long as possible to minimise the effect of such an eventuality. However, despite Lightfoot’s complaint that the party should have chosen someone “more appropriate with respect to family values”, it does not appear that he plans to do so. The other incumbents, Alan Eggleston and David Johnston, have been re-nominated.
• New South Wales Labor Senator George Campbell has announced he will retire from politics when his term expires in mid-2008, rather than face an inevitable preselection defeat. Campbell’s seat will go to his successor as national secretary of the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Doug Cameron, who by all accounts had stitched up the numbers to depose the 65-year-old Campbell long before. The other NSW Labor Senator up for re-election, Ursula Stephens, is reportedly at risk of being demoted in favour of the party’s high profile state secretary, Mark Arbib, who it was earlier believed had his eyes on Michael Hatton’s seat of Blaxland.
• The Northern News reports that the Liberal preselection for the safe northern Sydney seat of Mitchell will be held on an “unspecified date in May”. Under-achieving sitting member Alan Cadman, now 69, is apparently set on contesting again, despite having survived a challenge ahead of the 2004 election 58 votes to 55. Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the party’s state vice-president, Nick Campbell, has been “encouraged” by two federal ministers to nominate. Others mentioned as contenders are Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive David Elliott and solicitor Mark Blanche.
• The Poll Bludger has just had to cough up $239 in web hosting fees for the privilege of keeping you all entertained for another year. Contributions are welcome.
Nicole’s mother has just sent me the following plea, which I pass on:
To all the critics of Nicole Cornes for the seat of Boothby, where is the Australian way of giving everyone a fair go? Give me a break. Try to break someone before they start. Boothby people, do you all realize Nicole has been bought up there most of her life, and by a single working mother. We had to stick to a strict budget, no silver spoon. Nicole worked since she was 13 years of age in a nursing home to get money for anything she wanted. And she also helped me and my son to wash laundry bags for them at $7 a bag. That was just the beginning. I could go on if I wanted to. She had various jobs, until becoming receptionist at 5AA, then secretary to general manager David Whiteman. She got that job because she was honest and could be trusted. I’m not sorry that she met Graham, and it hasn’t been easy there either. When they first met and fell in love, they lived in a poky 2 bedroom flat. Graham has got where he is by hard work, and so has Nicole. BOOTHBY, GIVE HER A CHANCE. That’s all. Meet her and talk to her first before you all pass judgement on her. She will be doing the hard yards and walking the streets and working at shopping centres. Give her a fair go. Denese O’Connor. Her mother.
… Maxine McKew, Gary Gray, Peter Tinley, Mark Dreyfus, Michael Kelly and Ross Daniels are all clearly union hacks. I see it now.
# C-Woo Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 am
Bill, isn’t Cornes in Boothby, not Kingston.
Yes she is but many of my workmates live in Boothby as i did many years ago
Hugo Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
Bill, I suspect that you’re in for a bit of disappointment regarding the size of Green vote in the coming election. I think the Rudd factor is mopping up all those disaffected ALP voters who have been flirting with the Greens, and I’d be surprised if the Green vote is much over 4% (obviously it will be much higher in Kingston, where I understand the Greens have a pretty dynamic candidate), with the re-election of a single Senator (Bob Brown).
Thanks for the plug Hugo. On your other comment i feel that when things get closer between the ALP and Libs the minor parties will become very important be it 4% or 8 %. The smart candidates are courting us right at this time the arrogant ones could miss out.
On the letter by Cornes mother. Shes right The media has hounded the poor woman and most of us have bagged her as well. Lets give her a fair go and see how she goes. I have been told to give Rishworth a fair go so maybe people should give Cornes that go too and at least she lives in Boothby and is honest that she voted for Southcott before.
Greetings from Weimar, home of the world´s most unfortunate exercise in constitution-writing – but otherwise a beautiful place. How many cafes and hotels can one small city name after Goethe and Schiller?
What a lot of tosh is being written here about ALP candidates (I pass over all debate about IR and other policy matters, which are not actually the topic of William´s website).
In country seats the personal profile of candidates matters, which is why Mike Kelly is such an excellent choice for Eden-Monaro. If the Libs try to get to the right of Kelly, they will fall off the planet.
But in suburban seats almost no-one either knows or cares who the candidates are. I´m sorry to have to point this out again to my fellow political obsessives, but it is very easy to forget. Most people in Boothby will vote for Howard or Rudd, and Cornes will only be a name on a ballot paper.
This will apply particularly to the floating 20% of voters who will decide who wins the seat. Compulsory voting means that all close elections are decided by the people who know and care least about politics. Those who know enough about Cornes to form an opinion about her will nearly all be committed partisans already.
Obviously it is better to choose good candidates than bad ones, particularly in seats one actually hopes to win, but unless the result is extremely close, in a suburban seat the quality of the candidates is unlikely to be decisive.
In any case, Boothby and Sturt are not frontline seats, and the purpose of Cornes and Handshin´s candidacies is obviously to force the Libs to divert resources from Kingston and Makin, and also to help create a “Rudd bandwagon” effect.
This last point is important, and shows how stupid is the criticism of Cornes for saying she is a former Liberal voter. Who exactly is the target group in Boothby, a seat Labor hasn´t won since 1946, if not wavering Liberal voters? I would have thought being a confessed convert is an excellent credential in a middle-class suburban seat.
Finally, I am sick to HERE [indicates back teeth] with criticism that Labor is choosing “celebrity candidates”. For years we have been criticised (with some justice) for putting too many union secretaries and factional hacks in Parliament. Now we are getting rid of some of them, and picking candidates with non-union and non-faction backgrounds, and we are criticised all over again, by the same people! We are we supposed to get our candidates from? At random off the street? From the Melbourne Club? [makes contemptuous gesture]
I don’t think it’s fair Adam to call people’s comments on this page “stupid”. We all have our opinions and however much you might disagree with them, most comments have some degree of merit. So I would ask that you refrain from making unnecessary remarks like that.. it’s simply inappropriate.
Yes, Labor needs to win votes from former Liberal voters but that doesn’t mean Labor should start imitating Liberal voters in order to win them over. I don’t recall Howard ever putting up former openly-supporting Labor supporters in order to woo Labor voters.
Jasmine
Sorry I have to disagree with you
Wages are determined by market forces, it is driven by the supply and demand for employees. And yes over the last few years, China and India had put downward presure on wages. This is taught in Economics to every year 8 and 9 student in our school. A brief explanation can be found here and has been mainstream economic rationale since 1767
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
There are 3 ways to increase wages
Decrease Supply
Price Floor
Increase Demand.
Decrease supply
I am assuming people are not going to start killing other workers to increase their wage, so I won’t go there.
Price Floor
An Union can find it fun to coerce employer to lift wages, or A government can set standard to ensure employee get a high wage. This is the Labor principle. By setting a price floor (minimum wage) the following happens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor
In the long term, the least efficient manufacturer will find the wages too high and exit the market (ie Mitsubishi closing its plants, Telstra taking its call center to India). The people who are unemployed increase the supply of labour and put further downward presure on wages. (again supply and demand)
This is also shown in the US labor market. In the US, there are very powerful Farmers unions, Manufacturing unions (esp car). Therefore wages are high if you belongs in a union, however there are so many unemployed people, minimum wages is low.
Increase demand for labour
If we can increase the demand for labour wages will rise. An excellent example is the mining industry. Since a third of AWA contract is in the mining industry and AWA is supposed to be bad. Why had wages risen 100% over 4 years? This is because if you can raise demand for labour and unemployment is low and employer are looking for people to work, they will be forced to raised wages, this again is simple supply and demand principle.
This leds me to ask this question. If encouraging employer to employ people increase wages (any year 9 student knows this) Why is Dillard and the unions trying to “coerce” and “hurt” employer. If all these scared employer are going to stop hiring people, how is that fair for the unemployed, and if they set price floors, how is that fair for the people losing their job (Mitsubishi plant and Call center)
I totally agree that some stupid employers will see workchoice and reduce the condition of their employees. But they are going get theirs
a. staff morale will be low
b. the better staff will find better job
Media release – 02.05.2007
Socialist Alliance has announced two Gold Coast candidates to stand in
this year’s federal election. Amelia Taylor will be standing for the
Senate in conjunction with Aboriginal activist and university lecturer
Sam Watson. Tim Kirchler will be standing for the seat of Moncrieff,
currently held by Liberal MP Steven Ciobo.
I accept the arguments that celebrity candidates can suck resources away from the other side in relatively safe seats. But celebrity candidates also need to be plausible.
Ms Cornes is not plausible. She appears to be out of her depth and doesn’t appear to be coping with the political hurly burly. That is not knocking her, it’s just that some people are not suited to politics.
Ms Handshin is interesting. I’ve read her biography and she is intelligent, motivated and educated. But she is young and appears to be very much a know all. She’s done this, she’s done that. She wants to rule the world. Ra ra ra. I think she crosses the line from go-getter to downright insufferable. She’ll grate more people than she impresses.
Just my humble opinion.
Other ALP candidates such as the SAS colonel in Eden-Monaro and Ms McKew are clever choices. The Liberals will need their war chest topped up if they are to be re-elected. Another reason why some in the opposition are peeved that Julia Gillard’s IR policy is antagonising business so much.
Will this negative response by business and the papers effect Labor’s standing in the polls over the next couple of weeks? Can Gillard placate big business and the mining sector in particular? I f somehow she does will this have any effect?
I believe that the negative action by business and the media will make Rudds position in the electorate fall. The only way the ALP can placate the mining sector is to go back on its no AWAs policy. Im expecting that announcement anytime now
Gary if the polls don’t shift after the recent publicity about the ALP’s IR policy, especially after the shadow minister’s clumsy analogy between football injuries and business participation in the political IR debate, then you’d have to conclude that the goverment is deep in the poo.
So deep that they won’t have time to extracate themselves. Barring something out of left field (such as a twin towers scenario).
I reckon if the status quo remains until July, the coldest and most miserable month of the year, then it is likely that change is afoot.
I don’t think business will be placated unless it looks like the opposition is going to be elected. Then they will hedge their bets and tone their comments down. But that won’t happen, if at all, until the election is much closer.
Bill the ALP can’t scrap their “no AWA” policy. The unions and the rank and file would go ape droppings and the deputy leader of the opposition would be humiliated beyond belief. Fatally.
I suspect the opposition will accept that AWA’s are unpopular with the punters and that there are net votes in abolishing them. I also suspect that they know that business will never support the ALP before the coalition so why bother. Look at the background of some of the CEO’s from some of the business lobby groups.
Furthermore if Howard smells blood then that will totally rejuvinate the government. Plus I can see the conservative leaning media labelling Rudd weak, spineless, unprincipled etc.
It all comes down to votes.
I must say I’m not sure how this is all going to go down. I think the soft vote will be weeded out over the next fortnight leaving the hard core vote. What that will be I’m not sure. There will be some erosion of the Labor vote but will it be enough to put the government back in the game at this point?
I suspect Gillard will come up with some compromise which will involve the AWA’s with a different name and basic conditions protected, which will get the mining industries off their back at least.
The first indication will be the Morgan Poll.
I don’t think Bill Heffernan did his party anfy favours. That took the heat off Gillard.
Pseph,
What about Nelson, a former ALP member?
Yes, I agree. Should get IR off the pages for a few days and then it’s Budget time. Labor was always going to lose a bit of skin once they announced a policy, and I suspect the worst of it is over. I think the rather hysterical tone by opponents of the policy might be counter-productive. Adam was right to remind us (albeit in a different context) that the 20% of people who change elections probably aren’t switched on like us.
And at any rate, as long as IR is leading the news, it’s a minus for the government – it just reminds those above-mentioned voters that they don’t like these laws, and that Howard sneaked it in on them.
The next two weeks will be seminal – despite all the blather about IR etc, if the government doesn’t get a bounce from giving away lots of cash in the Budget, then they are done for.
its not just Nelson who used to support the ALP, Heffernan has been working for the ALP for years. Anytime the ALP’s in trouble, and he can give a hand, he just opens his mouth and suddenly no one cares what any labor person said
But seriously, this budget is going to be weird because I think it is unusually well understood in the electorate that tax cuts cause inflation which cause interest rate rises.
It would be something if the Liberals lost because they couldn’t give out tax cuts due to the strong economy putting pressure on inflation, it would be unusual for a government to lose for making the economy too strong
The ALP should be ashamed of itself for so thoroughly debasing the entire process of candidate selection in the major parties.
That Cornes woman in Boothby is nothing but a BAM.
The people of Boothby, including the rank and file ALP members in the seat deserve so much better than some peroxide obsessed typist whose only claim to fame is the names Cornes plus a few pathetic ghost written columns in a fifth rate newspaper.
That letter by her mother surely must be a fake. I just love her wailing and lamentations that poor Nicole and her broken down husband had to live in, wait for it, a ‘two bedroom apartment’.
Oh the horror! How ever did they survive such poverty? She IS an inspiration to drag herself from the sewer like world of apartment living!
Just goes to show just how out of touch this prissy little princess (and her clown-like family) really is.
Southcott surely can’t believe his luck. Chloe Fox was worth a thousand Nicole Cornes.
Not dissimilar to own constitution, was it not – give or take the elected president? Nonetheless, point taken.
Goodness Isabella, must be hard to live with all that bile.
Just got an email from my token Tory mate. Earlier today he was crowing, telling me that he was more confident about the election that he had been for 6 months. Only for Heff to blow it. Isn’t it great how all that low political muck-raking that the Libs have perfected (to their benefit, you’d have to say) is finally biting them on their collective (even though they don’t like that word) posteriors?
He’s not untouchable, jasmine_Anadyr. Do you usually put the boot in when someone you’ve criticised admits you have a point?
And if you’ll read my comments, you’ll see I’ve said not one word about Ms Cornes.
Fact is, I’ve never heard of Mr Henry up till you just mentioned him, but I have heard of Ms Handshin, given that I grew up in SA where she has been a quite shallow newspaper columnist for years now.
Since I’ve made very few other comments about anyone or anything here, you don’t have enough data to draw conclusions about my patterns of criticism, especially I as just subjected Mr Combet to just as harsh, IMO, criticism as Ms Handshin.
Now, to Mr Henry:
In his maiden speech, I note that he proudly admits that he hopes to help in the destruction of the TAFE system, to the profit of businessmen like himself:
In the same speech, Mr Henry also indulges in typical right-wing idealisation of small business:
Which completely ignores those people who want to or have to work for a boss for a living – a boss who will have Mr Henry’s enthusiastic support, as we can see from what he said about the laughably-named “Workplace Relations Amendment (Small Business Employment Protection Bill)” of 2004:
Ignoring the fact that this means that two classes of employee are thus created in Australia – people working for small businesses have less rights
than those who don’t.
Spoken like the bosses representative that he is:
Pity about the people who work for them who get less right to redundancy. But I guess they should be greatful to have jobs.
Possibly true, but ignores the fact that the business community donates huge amounts of money to the Liberal Party.
In Mr Stewart’s speech on the Workchoices bill, he comes close to outright deception:
There are two main things wrong with this.
1) How do you prove that people have been dismissed for those reasons? All an employer has to do is claim ‘operational reasons’ and it’s all nice and legal.
2) Many other protections against unfair dismissal were removed with the Workchoices law.
And then there is the Big Lie of Workchoices:
No, it isn’t. The idea that an individual worker has the power to negotiate this sort of thing with an unwilling boss is laughable. And no matter how many times it is repeated, Australian workers see right through it.
Really? Businesses don’t want to increase their profits? Yeah, whatever, Mr Stewart.
Mr Stewart also enthusiastically supported the Government’s Bill that made it compulsory for universities to employ people under the Government’s terms.
It is clear that Mr Stewart is a firm and happy supporter of the right-wing agenda of cutting pay and benefits to workers. Apparently, as long as we all have a job – no matter how awful – things will be OK.
I note that Hugo chose not to actually refute or deny anything I said about Mr Combet, but merely seems to think he is beyond criticism. Even if Mr Combet does not run for Parliament, but remains ACTU Secretary, he will remain part of the team of right-wingers who are deliberately holding down workers’ pay and conditions – he is already doing that job.
There is no reason at all to think he would act any differently if he stands for, and is elected to, Parliament.
Hugo praised jasmine_Anadyr’s criticism of my criticism of Ms Handshin, and said that ‘as always the girls get considerably closer scrutiny than the boys.’ Yet, when I begin to scrutinise Mr Combet, he complains. Perhaps he thinks the ACTU Secretary is irrelevant to the labour movement?
I’d also be wary of accepting Snow’s contention that physical attractiveness has a great impact on how people vote. Parliament does not seem to contain many more greatly attractive people than the country at large – there are plenty of MPs and Senators, male and female, who I doubt would be rated as attractive by Australians.
Heffernan has alienated a large number of women at least I’m sure. The fact that he is close friends with Howard will not help Howard’s cause.
Heffernan’s continued presence as a Liberal Senator and the PM’s close adviser is perplexing.
In the Liberal Party’s NSW branch the PM uses Heffernan as his internal party henchman to deal with dissenters, silence those that might be seeking an answer, etc.
How can the PM have any credibility within the NSW Liberal Party while he continues to use Heffernan as his spokesman and representative?
Adam.
It’s because she is an idiot.
Thanks dovif … my economics prize was at a higher level than 8 or 9 and your reverting to year 8 and 9 economics of little interest to me so i’m taking Hugo’s offtopic advice and leaving you to your textbook, without conceding you are making any sense at all even by year 8 and 9 standards.
C-Woo, my point is that even if she (I assume you mean Cornes) is an idiot (which I don´t accept), it won´t make much difference because the people who will actually decide who wins Boothby are the people least likely to be paying any attention to politics. To them Cornes and Southcott will just be names on a ballot paper – they will be voting for or against Howard and Rudd, and they will only start registering there is an election on at all two weeks before polling day. That´s why all this frenzy of candidate-analysis among the cogniscenti such as everyone here is completely pointless.
Isabella, I would have thought the reason Howard keeps Heffernan on is obvious – Heffernan says what Howard thinks, but can´t say for himself. Every time he makes one of his revolting comments he sends a signal to Alan-Jones-land that the PM is still One of Them even if his present position prevents him from saying so.
William, I don´t there is much of a parallel between the Weimar constitution and ours. The fatal flaw of the Weimar constitution was the power it gave to the President to rule by decree. This was put in the constitution as a safeguard against the possibility (which seemed very real in 1919) of a violent revolutionary attempt – the President was seen as the final bulwark of constitutional rule. Unfortunately, when in 1930 the Nazis and Communists between them won a majority of seats in the Reichstag, thus making parliamentary government impossible, Bruning took to advising the President to issue decrees, thus paving the way for Hitler. The real failure of the Weimar Republic was political, not constitutional. When the majority of voters support anti-democratic parties, there is no constitutional way out of the impasse.
Isabella, I can assure you that Denese O’Connor wrote that letter about her daughter from her heart. Nicole may be a bit politically naive at this stage but she’s not a fool and she has inner toughness.
Yes Isabella again you do not have an argument.
ps you should read more carefully, ie I said that it is mainstream economic argument taught to anyone who had study econmics.
You can ask any economist that
I agree that a “bounce” from the budget would be welcomed by JWH but I do not agree that he is “done for” if such “bounce” does not register in the opinion polling conducted after the budget, whatever those who “wear their hearts on their sleeves” may opine.
dovif earlier raised an interesting question:
>Decrease supply
>I am assuming people are not going to start killing other workers to increase >their wage, so I won’t go there.
In fact there is another option, where indeed the Left seem never to want to go.
IIRC, only a few days ago, Bracks called for an increase in immigration. In other words, increase labour supply.
If demand is unchanged, the price of labour drops. Economics 101.
The fact that the Lunar Right are huge enthusiasts of immigration might tell you something. But apparently no.
I could go on. But I have to go out now and buy a bag of rice to pay my Filipino maid.
“I don’t recall Howard ever putting up former openly-supporting Labor supporters in order to woo Labor voters.”
If you are talking about individual personalities, Pseph, perhaps. But didn’t Andrew Robb coin the phrase that Howard was winning over The Battlers and was really The Battlers’ Friend? Wonder how many still feel that way after Workchoices.
I know nothing of Mia Handshin (but what a name, for starters) other than what I’ve read here. But from that it seems that she’s much like a younger version of that delightful marriage celebrant character that Marg Downey created in “Kath and Kim”.
Jasmine’s right. She and Cornes are getting a lot of attention for people standing in ‘long shot’ seats. There are plenty of male berks around occupying safe seats and endorsements. Anyone remember Mal Colston who had been discovered rorting perks about a decade before he was finally exposed? Probably only publicised even then because he walked out on the party in return for Howard’s promise of perks.
I’ll be visiting my closest friends in Malvern SA in the next few weeks, and will try and get some local info on Cornes’ chances. They are ex-Labor, resigning membership after Labor’s cave-in on Tampa and ‘Border Protection’.
They were pretty disappointed after writing to the State Secretary resigning their membership after 40+ years along with their reasons, to get merely a standard reply acknowledging the resignation.
I assume Labor’s improved a bit in SA since then.
David Charles – Make of this what you will but as one who puts forward the contention you disagree with I object to being referred to as one of those who “wear their hearts on their sleevesâ€. Disagree all you like and make a case for it but give the name calling a miss thanks. It’s in the realms of being called a “Howard Hater” – designed as a put down and an opinion stopper.
Tell me David, what is your political bias? If I’m going to be grouped under the heading of those who “wear their hearts on their sleeves†I would like to know if you wear your heart on your sleeve for another party.
I will quite proudly be known as a “bleeding heart”. It’s a sign of the moral bankruptcy of the Right that they can make being compassionate a fault.
‘being compasionate a fault’
A very very very telling observation.
jasmine_Anadyr – Could you expand on that observation? I’m not sure what you are getting at there?
My apologies Gary it was a clumsy attempt to underline the insightful comments of Hugo.
In the context that Australia it is generally accepted that mainstream politics in Australia is now Right and far Right a realisation that being compasionate is a fault right across the broad mainstream political spectrum is very troubling.
Bad enough that human rights, and compassion are being thrown overboard (historical pun and reference intended) but for ‘compassion’ to actually become a fault in what was once a country of a fair go is very interesting observation.
I agree there can be an element of moral bankruptcy on the Right but I do not know about those on the Left being compassionate. I do not apologise for urging caution in making assessments of the likely outcome of an election six months before the event nor do I resile from my distaste for extreme positions on either side of the political spectrum (yes, that means the Right as well as the Left). Gary (thought you were a political observer whose opinions were worthy of due consideration!): last time I looked we had a secret ballot, but since you have taken an interest, I have supported both of the major parties in past federal elections sometimes splitting my support for them between the House and the Senate. I have not decided how I will cast my vote in either the House or the Senate at the next Federal poll and I don’t expect I will do so until much closer to election day. I can say that Mr Rudd (although not his deputy) is doing somewhat better than you are in persuading me to vote for the Australian Labor Party and that might influence how I answer a question like “to which party are you leaning?” should I share your recent experience of being interviewed by an opinion polling agency.
Clearly us ALP types should shut up and let K-Rudd weave his magic on the David Charles of the world! Don’t suppose you live in a marginal seat, David?
Is Bennelong marginal?
David Charles – thankyou for answering my question in such detail and so honestly. I am an observer, and to be honest, am not trying to convince anyone of voting any which way. I too have voted for both main parties but I have come to the conclusion Howard has to go. IMHO when parties stay in power too long and have unfetted power the extemes start ruling the roost and it is time for them to go.
I enjoy reasoned debate and respect others opinions, I just reject being labelled in a negative fashion. It is unnecessary and it does nothing to enhance an argument. I also think just rejecting an opinion without putting up a reasoned case against it is basically a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother? The “fun” in debating is talking over the “facts of the case”.
As a matter of interest what is your objection to Julia Gillard?
jasmine_Anadyr – thanks for that, I tend to agree with you.
I have no personal objection to Julia Gillard but I have to say that I am disappointed with the way she has steered the direction of workplace relations policy. In my opinion, AWAs should be retained for those on higher incomes (say, over $90K) or at least, there should be AWAs with a “no disadvantage test”, thereby checking the propensity of AWAs to undercut awards. I also believe she (or her more “centrist” sensitive leader) should ditch the proposed minimum employment standard which directs employers to tell staff how to join a union and where to sign up.
Why is there such a fear of unions? It’s not like they are that powerful these days. I’d have thought that the condition of “directing people to the union” could be covered with a sign on a noticeboard. That should ensure that the clearly over-stimulated sensitivities of some could be allowed for. It would still be a free country under Labor, and people would free to join or not, but they would at least be aware that a) a union covered their workplace, and b) that their boss wasn’t some rabid anti-union crusader.
A report in the Newcastle Herald today indicates that Jim Arneman, who narrowly lost Port Stephens in the NSW election in March, is favoured to be the ALP candidate for Paterson.
He has a big job up against Bob Baldwin, but even though he lost Port Stephens it was only by 68 votes and there was an unfavourable redistribution against him. Also the marine park in Port Stephens was a major issue in the state election, which will not be the case for the Federal. I believe the ALP were surprised they did not suffer a larger swing.
Labor should do well in the new areas of Metford, East Maitland, and Tenambit, but I dont think they will be able to pull back the margin of over 6% in 2007.
The fact is I worked at the time of the Hawke/Keating governments and was not once directed to join a union and for most part I didn’t. I had a free choice.
What’s this “minimum employment standard”? Does that force people to join a union?
“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” -Ronald Reagan during a 1984 presidential debate with WALTER MONDALE.
“I could probably borrow that famous line of Ronald Reagan’s about JIMMY CARTER: ‘If you don’t talk about my age, I won’t talk about your inexperience.” – John Howard, answering Labor claims that he is old and tired.
That employment standard should be excised from ALP policy because it is unnecessary. Unions are quite capable of making themselves known to those employees who need their assistance without that kind of regulation.