None of this actually has anything to do with the budget, but you know how it is …
• The ALP’s national executive, which was empowered by the recent national conference to select candidates for 25 New South Wales seats, announced the candidates for 10 seats on Saturday. In the western Sydney seat of Blaxland, sitting member Michael Hatton has been dumped in favour of another member of the Right, Transurban executive and former Bob Carr staffer Jason Claire. Hatton has held the seat since replacing Paul Keating at a by-election held in the wake of the 1996 election defeat. Others who had designs on Blaxland included constitutional expert George Williams, Bankstown mayor Tania Mihailuk and Electrical Trades Union chief Bernie Riordan. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mihailuk had been “likely” to win, possibly explaining Hatton’s decision to lodge disciplinary charges against her for “failing to properly manage her branch affairs”.
• The national executive has also chosen Penrith mayor David Bradbury (said by Brad Norington of The Australian to have “historical links” to the Transport Workers Union) to make his third successive run against Jackie Kelly in Lindsay. Joe Hildebrand of the Daily Telegraph reports that Bradbury’s win has greatly displeased the National Union of Workers, which had thrown its weight behind 23-year-old school teacher May Hayek. Others to get the nod in Coalition-held seats included human rights lawyer George Newhouse, who will run against Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth (where the redistribution has cut Turnbull’s margin from 5.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent); former ministerial staffer Greg Holland, who will make his second run against Danna Vale in the long-lost seat of Hughes (which fell in 1996, and now has a post-redistribution margin of 8.8 per cent); Belinda Neal, former Senator and wife of state Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca, who will attempt to unseat Jim Lloyd in Robertson (margin now 6.9 per cent); and ambulance officer Tim Arneman, who suffered a 68-vote defeat in Port Stephens at the state election, and now faces Bob Baldwin in Paterson (6.8 per cent).
• Two incumbents have emerged from the national executive process unscathed: Julia Irwin in Fowler and Jennie George in Throsby. A highly fancied bid by former national party president Warren Mundine to unseat Irwin fell foul of the party’s affirmative action targets, after a number of defeats by female candidates in other seats. The irony of an indigenous candidate being squeezed out on affirmative action grounds was widely noted. The Australian Jewish News reports that both Rudd’s office and Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby told the paper to keep quiet about the challenge to Irwin, a vocal critic of Israel, the former saying that “the best way to ensure her survival is for you guys to cover it”. According to Kerry-Anne Walsh of the Sun-Herald, Jennie George’s endorsement followed a “faction deal made between the Left and Right” that would “raise eyebrows”.
• Mark Davis of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that affirmative action supporters in the New South Wales ALP’s Left have revolted against the factional leadership’s decision to deliver the number two Senate position to Doug Cameron, former national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. Seven women have nominated against Cameron for the factional ballot, including management consultant and 2003 state election candidate Imogen Wareing. The first and third positions on the ticket are reserved for the Right; it is anticipated that Ursula Stephens will be demoted from her number one position in 2001 to number three, making way for state party secretary Mark Arbib.
• A factional row has erupted in the New South Wales Liberal Party after its nomination review panel rejected country vice-president Scott McDonald’s Senate preselection nomination. The move safeguarded Left faction member Marise Payne’s third position on the Coalition ticket, behind Helen Coonan and the Nationals’ John Williams (who replaces the retiring Sandy Macdonald). Background to the dispute was provided by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian:
As part of its general reassertion of authority following the years in exile that began under former premier Nick Greiner, the Right has had its eye on the spot occupied by Marise Payne, who hails from the Left faction. Desperate to avoid predictably bad headlines in the Fairfax newspapers and on the ABC about right-wing “extremists” controlling the party, Howard told Heffernan to work the numbers for Payne. Heffernan went at the task the only way he knows: like a bull at a gate. At a fiery meeting last month, he tried to curtail the preselection process entirely and moved that the state executive simply re-endorse the sitting team. When this failed, Heffernan took the fight to the party’s nominations review committee, of which he is one of three members. The committee threw out the nomination of the Right’s challenger to Payne, state vice-president Scott McDonald. Designed to vet candidates on the grounds of character or ethics, or because their candidacy could damage the party, the committee operates as a “black box” and does not give reasons for its decisions. But it is understood the issue was a conflict of interest, McDonald having already spoken against Heffernan’s motion on the executive. The move has upset the NSW Right like nothing else done in the name of its Dear Leader. Meanwhile, the Left, for once, finds itself supporting Howard and Heffernan.
• Controversial Right faction powerbroker Alex Hawke has thrown his hat in the ring to contest Liberal preselection for Mitchell, where incumbent Alan Cadman proposes to run again despite a universal perception he is past his use-by date. Also in the running are Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive officer David Elliot and state party vice-president Nick Campbell, described by Irfan Yusuf at Crikey as “the NSW Right’s main number-cruncher”.
• Western Australian Liberal Senator Ian Campbell, who lost his cabinet position in March on the flimsy basis that he had been at a meeting with Brian Burke, has announced he will quit politics in the coming weeks. The party moved quickly to fill the vacancy with Mathias Cormann, who last week defeated incumbent Ross Lightfoot to take the number three position on the ticket for this year’s election. Since the position filled by Cormann does not expire until 2011, the number three position is again up for grabs. According to Robert Taylor of The West Australian, “party insiders said it made sense to shift Mr Cormann into the Senate immediately and search for a strong number three given that Mr Cormann’s dominant presence in the last preselection discouraged many people from nominating”. Names of potential aspirants have yet to surface in the media; however, Campbell last month dismissed speculation that he might be about to resign as “wishful thinking” from those hoping to fill a vacancy, naming Cormann and Nick Bruining, a financial journalist who ran unsuccessfully for the state upper house in 2001.
• The ABC reports a field of nine candidates will seek preselection for the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate ticket, which will be held “next month in Launceston”. They include two incumbents, John Watson and Richard Colbeck (who were number two and number three in 2001), along with “former state MHA David Fry, former Liberal staffer David Bushby, former political staffer Giulia Jones and Don Morris, the chief of staff to Senate Preisdent Paul Calvert”. The number one candidate from 2001, Senate President Paul Calvert, is retiring.
• In the seat of Newcastle, Labor member Sharon Grierson will face a challenge from David March, president of the party’s Merewether West branch, at a preselection vote to be held on May 26.
• In South Australia, Labor has announced candidates for the Liberal-held seats of Barker (Karen Lock), Grey (Karin Bolton) and Mayo (Mary Brewerton).
did anybody else notice the woman sitting behind Costello’s left shoulder struggling to keep awake during the budget speech?
I think it was Sussan Ley member for Farrer
I don’t think much can be taken from the SMH online readership. About 2 weeks ago Media Watch had a piece on the international marketing of news sites. The people who opened this article may have come from anywhere in the world as search engines would have directed anyone interested in the conjunction of heads and chainsaws to the SMH article.
Media Watch noted that the use of key words match the web articles to one of SMH’s advertisers, often inappropriately. The example given was of an article about child abuse appearing with an ad for a nanny service. Presumably this article appeared with an ad for a chainsaw or perhaps for a neurosurgeon.
Bill have you ever wondered why labor goes so far to the right of centre on so many issues? Might it have anything to do with the amount of fire and criticism from the left driving it there?
I remember in my last year at uni having lunch with a lefty boy who spent the whole lunch highlighting over and over again how much he hated Keating. Even said Howard would be better than Keating. Australia agreed with him – hope he has enjoyed the last 11 years or so as left wing ideas were not just defeated but were marginalised and then reduced to mere ridicule.
I’m sorry I have a lot of sympathy for many of the ideas of the left, and honestly believe that some of the community, compassion and social justice planks would make our community a better place, but the lefts ability to own goal I find quite astounding.
I had not noticed that the ALP had gone far to the right of centre on “so many issues” but some examples might enlighten me assuming, of course, those examples are supported by objective criteria of what is the “centre” in an Australian politcal context.
Sky News is running a poll with the question – “Can Kevin Rudd top the government’s 12th budget?” The question is does he need to?
The Bulletin’s cover has a line which says: ROD EDDINGTON Speaks out on Rudd’s IR mess. Inside, Eddington says, yes, Labor should have consulted business much more before launching the policy. He “bats away efforts to extract his own view” – ‘I’m an advisor, not a commentator’ – “but he gives the distinct impression he is not fully on board with Labor’s argument on AWAs. Using a series of analogies, he says you don’t need to back every policy to support a party. Still, he is committed to helping Labor win and dismisses claims of a souring of relations as ‘complete nonsense.'”
Throughout this article ge is referred to as Eddington – no acknowledgment of Sir Rod. Has the Bully gone Bolshie?
What about Howard’s IR mess?
I’m sorry this left right thing is leading to a whole definition of centre thing that isn’t going to make any sense. I think you, and I am sure Bill will get my main point.
If we could agree to characterise Keating and Hawke as centre, as opposed to right of centre, where leftys put them more than 11 years ago, then think about IR, Rule of Law and Social Justice, Medicine, Education … I’m struggling to think of too many areas at all where Labor hasn’t drifted to the right.
Perhaps you could give me some counter examples where labor is centre or further left than 11 years ago assuming the Hawke / Keating as centre point of reference is accepted, perhaps reattaching dental to medicare, perhaps.
re ALP moving to the right: well, maybe its more a case of they’ve moved towards, not to, the right…but for instance the embrace of economic rationalism/free market ideology by Keating, the move away from state-owned business (sale of assets), co-payments for higher education (HECS) – these are all elements of a rightward movement of the ALP (irrespective of the relative merits of the activities). And of course, there is no real “centre” as such but a moving mix of policy from the various parties – thus Ray’s assertion that the FFP is a centre party not a right party because of its more socially conservative, but economically liberal, policies (of which the same could be said of the Democrats but in reverse).
Personally I think it has less to do with whether a party is necessarily left or right but whether they are actively seeking to be in government by espousing consistent ideological positions or through appeals to populism (ie; generally catering to – and possibly shaping – public opinion, as uninformed as it may be).
As to the ‘left’ bagging the ALP so much – well that’s because the ALP has all too often appealed to its historical connections, while dumping the policies of those connections. However, I do think that people who use the argument that it would be better to put in the Liberal than ALP because the ALP has not been ‘left’ enough quite delusional. I always remember the UK Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) advocating in the UK a vote for Margaret Thatcher in the late 80’s because it would bring the UK closer to revolution (completely ignoring the ‘material condition of the workers’ which they always said they were fighting for…). That sort of self-serving delusional thinking is just plain dangerous.
I don’t disagree with anything there at all, in fact I agree Mr J, Stewart.
And I was wondering if anyone had noticed Morgan’s new Senate poll (http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4161/) – as wonderfully inaccurate as it will be – which shows the ALP winning 18 or 19 seats, the Libs 12-13, the Greens between 3-5, the Nats maybe 1 in Qld (fighting it out with the Greens again…), and the Democrats possibly 1 in SA!
Of course, this is pre-budget, pre-election etc etc etc…and its a Senate poll…
I’m not so sure the ALP has ever been excessively “left wing”, and pretty much every Labor administration since Federation has been accused of “selling out” by those further Left. A Labor government generally has to tread a pretty fine line between being true to its beliefs and not scaring the powers that be too much – history has shown how easily genuinely reformist governments (eg Whitlam, late Chifley) can get the press on their backs.
It’s nothing to do with left or right wing anymore (regarding classification). Both parties have simply accepted the modern consensus: the market economy works–and have directed everything towards that. Little to no difference there.
What to do when there’s general agreement on economic policy? That’s the area the UK’s entering now… “progressive libertarian conservatism”.
Politics will be getting more interesting as the parties become more distinct.
British Labour recognised that it had to change with the times and drop “Scargilism” – unfortunately there are too many on the Australian left that would rather cling to Whitlamism (“We’ll never have it as good as we did in 1972-1975”) and Keatingism (“The only question is how much we can claw back and how soon can we start”).
Can any ALPer on here explain the main differences between the left and right factions? And is a Right wing ALPer similar to a Lib ‘lefty’
Morgan’s Senate polling should be taken with a grain of salt, as it always inflates the vote for the minor parties – the Democrats in particular. The respondents are the very same people Morgan has spoken to for its lower house polling over the past six months, and for whatever reason, people responding to pollsters have a higher tendency to say they will vote differently in the Senate. Witness this effort from Morgan two weeks before the federal election, and my response at the time.
Never believe the Democrats numbers in Morgan Senate polls. See the 2004 Morgan senate poll if you want evidence of this.
Ruth Russell in SA ? The Greens will eat her for Breakfast.
Also, get the FFP and Dems columns in every state and swap the numbers (except NSW), maybe add one or two in SA and QLD and you’ll have a much more accurate figure.
At core of ALP beliefs are some fundamental principles, which generally come down to a belief that governments should support the worker over the boss and the poor over the rich, and should do so by actively intervening in relationships between them. Human rights matter greatly to all ALP members. But it’s useful to think of the ALP as a four-cornered beastie with the top half being social values and the bottom half being economic values.
In the top left hand corner you have social progressives who are liberal and individualistic in their social policies. In the bottom left corner you have economic lefties who believe government should intervene in the market and the economy to benefit the workers and the disadvantaged – market interventionists for want of a better word.
On the right hand top corner you have social conservatives – many but not all of whom embrace Catholicism in a literal sense. On the bottom right-hand corner you have strong views about economic deregulation and fostering relationships with business.
So, as a rough guide, right-wingers are socially conservative and economically liberal whereas left-wingers are socially liberal and economically regulatory. Lefties are also big on internal party democracy (because they don’t hold the numbers).
However, within the factions there is considerable diversity of opinion about how tightly those principles of business and personal relationships are held. There are plenty of socially conservative Catholics who are business radicals, and plenty of socially progressive lefties who are totally into high-intervention industry policy. But there are also lefties who are socially conservative, right-wingers who believe in interventionist industry policy, lefties who are economically liberal and right-wingers who believe in the right to abortion and genetic engineering. Ultimately, it comes down to the number of boxes you tick in each corner and up and down each side as to which faction, and for that matter sub-faction, you end up in.
Then of course you have a range of people who are just in a faction because they were backed by it, or who chose a faction because they thought it would advance their career, or because it was the faction that controlled the seat they wanted, or who are in one because all their friends are, or because everyone else thinks they are or because they are on one side or the other of an ancient tribal antipathy that no one even remembers the reasons for any more.
PS: to answer Bill Weller’s question.
PPS: I believe that the Liberals have a similar spectrum of beliefs, but start further to the right and move furtherest.
thank you anonymousie. Very in depth and informative
I should have added that environmental concerns are generally positioned on the left, because it’s one of the things that requires government intervention.
Picked up another book for my library titled Rooted in Secrecy- the clandestine element in Australian politics 1982. by Joan Coxsedge ( ALP Vic MP for Melbourne West 1982 ) Gerry Harant and Ken Coldicutt. Very interesting showing how the media and groups outside Australia shaped the Libs(Menzies, Fraser, Peacock, Howard ) and helped the removal of Whitlam.
Just got this and thought it was topical with the AWAs in the media thread
Herald journalists ordered back to work
May 10, 2007 – 12:26PM
Journalists at the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun Herald have been
ordered back to work today by the Industrial Relations Commission,
less than 24 hours after they walked off the job.
The commission has ordered the journalists to return to work by 1pm today.
More than 250 staff voted to strike yesterday afternoon over Fairfax
Media’s announcement it will cut 35 jobs through a voluntary
redundancy program and introduce a seven-day rostering system for
production staff across the papers.
The industrial action was taken outside an enterprise bargaining
period, meaning journalists faced potential penalties of $6000 each
under Federal industrial laws.
# anonymousie Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I should have added that environmental concerns are generally positioned on the left, because it’s one of the things that requires government intervention.
That explains the Left ALPers in Kingston being full on environmental pushers and are starting to have a Green tinge to themselves
Bill, Anonymousie, another big difference between the Labor Right and Liberal Wets (not many left these days) is some sort of belief in collective bargaining over the rights of employers. This is the primary reason that there wasn’t much dissent about WorkChoices from within the Liberal Party, while Labor is largely united in opposition to it. This is probably the last of the “traditional” Labor values still widely held within the ALP, and the main reason why, for example, NSW (with mostly Labor governments going back to 1941) has a superior IR system to those in other states or in the Federal sphere.
Both of the major parties have to straddle a wide body of opinion over a variety of issues, which is the major reason they command around 80% of the primary vote in most elections. The Greens, One Nation, Family First and other minor parties only have to appeal to a small segment of society, which is why they tend to attract more “true believers” while the major parties tend to be more pragmatic.
It would be interesting what faction Richardson comes from in the Libs
I suspect that Richo filled a role a bit like Heffernan in that he was a bit of a party headkicker, and as such something of a faction all on his own.
Most of the media entrepeneurs are up in arms about Labor scraping AWA’S and why because they have employed their staff on them.. and this attack upon Labor will continue because of it .. nonetheless i don’t believe labor should change policy just for the most dangerous individual in the world Rupert Murdoch.. and he is because of the influence his newspapers have on people’s thinking and what politicians do …
Moreover i thought Labors response to the budget so far has been feeble.. Rudd has been okay but Wayne Swan please is this guy hopeless or what .. fair dinkum and he may well be Treasurer next year.. God help us… It is a dawn shame that Labor has not got few more Gillards in its ranks who actually say what they believe.. Swan he just sits their and agrees with everything the government does and then has not the courage to speak his mind…
Also if this government was so concerned about Climate Change why hasn’t it done something about Road Funding and the massive amounts we spend on roads and pittance on public transport.. and why not offer subsidies for businesses to buy water tanks.. soon south eastern Australian will have no water and just think of the massive probs it will cause.. regarding jobs, power supplies… we must realise that Carbon Dioxide sits in the atmosphere not for five minutes but one hundred years so if we climate change will dissappear with a flick of initiaitives it won’t, god i feel sorry for the next generation .. because they will fry and be thirsty at the same time…
Isn’t PT something more associated with state govts? Most of the funding for roads goes towards the federal road and rail systems–not those in the actual cities.
Yes and no, the Federal Government provides money to the States for roads and also transport for additional projects, this budget provides 340 million for projects over four years and 14 billion for roads YEP 14 BILLION and of the 340 million, 169 million is for the Brisbane and Melbourne rail link.
I agree that the States have to come to the party VIctoria is a case in point.. with its recent budget providing tax breaks for people to buy new cars between 30,000 and 45,000 (?), further encouraging this emissions frenzy.. when will any government get it… this planet is frying… islands in the pacific are being submerged and please don’t deny it evidence is their and the arctic and antaractic well don’t get me going..
And Australia is the worst country on a per capita basis for carbon emission
use and we are still making excuses…
How do people think Rudd went in the Budget Reply tonight? I thought he struck the right note, not trying to out-bid the Libs, whose more free-spending effort offered Labor the chance look like the economically responsible ones. Having said that, it’s been a pretty good week for the government and that was probably all Labor could do.
Rudd can say what ever he likes because he is not in power yet. It will be a different case if he make it because there is always the old saying that there wasn’t enough money or he can find some excuse that things can’t be done. Rudd maybe OK but he has some dudds in his team. Wayne Swan didn’t perform real well on the 7.30 report and old skin head Midnight Oil Garett, is very two faced as he says something about global warming etc then agrees with the ALP. You can’t sit on the fence
Bill,
My take on ALP factions is that they are now tribes. I know of candidates who have swapped factions in order to win pre-selection because the seat they wanted or the seat they were told they could have “belongs†to the faction they join. The left-right divide arose from attitudes to communism: the right recognised it as a totalitarian threat; the left either did not or actually sympathised with it. In Victoria, there are Labor Unity (the Right), the SDA (who are aligned with the Right), the (Socialist?) Left, the Pledge (or Tomato) Left, the Non-aligned Faction (who are aligned with the Left), the Ferguson Left (who are aligned with the Right), the Dean Mighell Left (who are aligned with the Right) and perhaps some sub-sub factions that I have never heard of.
I know this is hard for you to accept, but I do not see the ALP Left as particularly progressive at all.
Hugo,
I was a bit worried at the start, but I thought Kevin Rudd gave a very good budget reply. He was optimistic, energetic and initiatory. He unveiled a new chapter in his education revolution – technical facilities in every secondary school in the country, catching the government out again. He did not do the long negative moan we often get from oppositions (which I freely admit would have been hard to do with this budget). He did not offer tax indexation, but I think he will. In fact, I think the Labor Party’s tax policy will be a killer when it is released.
We should run a competition on tomorrow’s headlines in The Australian: Rudd fails to match government, Howard endowed with victory, Rudd revolution runs out of steam, Rudd fails to ditch IR albatross, Rudd allows unions to eat children, Labor still not Liberal enough.
There has been talk of a bounce in the polls resulting from the budget. It is just as likely to be a bounce Labor’s way – within the margin of error, as most poll swings are.
Hugo,
(addressing your 2.54 p.m. post, not your current one).
I can remember when Whitlam was seen as a dangerous backslider by the Labor left, especially in Victoria. Some people may know that Whitlam narrowly escaped being expelled from the Party for supporting aid to non-Government schools (ca 1965), and narrowly held on to the leadership, when he called a vote in Caucus and was challenged by Jim Cairns (1968, iirc).
There are two additional factors which influence “left” parties when they come into Government. One is they are smacked by reality, and forced to back and fill on policy to maintain reasonable levels of support – between elections, so that they are in the contest when the election comes around. After 1984, Hawke (and then Keating) was in danger of losing each subsequent election. This forced more conservatism on the Party (which of course suited the leadership nicely).
However, even if the Government were to remain unusally principled in its behaviour in comparison with its stated intentions prior to being elected (Whitlam’s foolhardy/courageous commitment to the “program”), the very fact of its having to prioritise particular actions and areas of spending will antagonise particular supporters. Those who invested (psychologically) in the Party in expectation of assumed priorities which receive less urgent attention by key decision-makers – the leadership group, formal and informal – are turned off.
Rudd did quite well tonight! Struck all the right notes, and it was interesting there was a lot of emphasis on business, and not so much on Work Choices. I doubt though all that many people watched it, but Costello also got mediocre ratings for his budget speech on Tuesday night.
While the Government goes all “LOOK AT ME!”
Rudd is steering an understated course.. for now… polices with smaller dollars etc.
The previous election Budget never got a bounce….it was just a slow decline after…
I thought that was a very good performance by Rudd. You could see that he was a bit too acutely aware of the importance of the speech at times. He got himself a bit tongue-tied in those moments but didn’t lose it. The speech was well crafted, if somewhat nervously delivered, whatever one’s political view.
Agree with Evan regarding the business pitch. Previous Labor leaders might have been foolish enough to treat the budget reply as an opportunity to further bang the workchoices drum, awb or the war of terror. If you know what I mean.
The themes that stood out to me were
* the Rudd = Future thinking , Howard = Past thinking message throughout
* the high school trade training initiative and the need for it
* the emphasis on longer term economic planning
* the re-engagement with Asia through language learning etc
* the treatment of the climate issue as serious
* the interest on late government payments to small business / contractors. That one really grabbed my attention, I can tell you.
This is the most important speech that Rudd has had to give since his initial election as Labor leader and the polls have made the stakes much higher now. My overall impression is that he made the right decision and treated it as such.
The thing that differentiates Rudd from other recent Labor leaders for me is that he appears to be working to a definite plan. And you can bet the government interest on late payments to suppliers will be discussed around the odd bbq over the next few months. I think that he is a very serious threat to Howard now. Wonder how long he spent in the dunny before went into the “chamber”?
Someone a long way up the tree asked my view on the French elections. Since I have in Germany for most of the time my views are no better informed than anyone else´s here (although I have been forcing myself to battle through the front page of Le Monde when I can find it). But for what it´s worth my view is that after 12 year of Chirac French voters badly wanted a change, from complacency, intertia and corruption. Sarkozy was clever enough to package himself as the candidate of change, while at the same making a coded pitch to Le Pen´s xenophobe base. This combination worked very well, leaving Royal looking like the candidate of conervatism. She wasn´t quick enough on her feet to match Sarkozy on this, instead shackling herself to old PS platitudes – she was a French Beazley, if you will. Royal carried only two age demographics – the under 25s (who dislike Sarkozy´s xenophobia) and the 50-60s (those who were young and left in the 60s). The over 60s voted solidly for Sarkozy, which is expected, but so did the 25-50s, which is a big long-term worry for the PS. The French left purports to depise Le Blairism, but unless they find a French Blair they will stay in L´Opposition perpetuellement.
The Morgan senate vote trend analysis is interesting. http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4161/
Only if you believe Morgan polls, and only if you believe that there is such a thing as a “Senate poll”. All this is reflecting (apart from Gary Morgan´s whims) is the current high level of support for Labor, which I think we already know about. Let´s see what the next couple of Newspolls tell us. I said in February that if Labor was still well ahead at the end of May I would start to get excited, and that is still my view.
Today I stood on the fuhrer rostrum at the Nuremberg Rally parade grounds site. The temptation to do a John Cleese / Adolf impersonation was *almost* irresistable. People (mainly drunken Poms apparently) still get arrested for that here, and quite rightly so. The Nuremberg Trials courthouse is a big disappointment. None of the original fittings remain, and the room is just an ordinary German courtroom, half the size it was in 1945. Tmorrow: Hitler´s favourite cakeshop in Munich.
Re Rudd’s reply. Bill Leak’s cartoon nails it.
Chris Curtis has a point, but there are genuine believers in the factions, and where they exist, that’s usually where their beliefs separate.
Collective bargaining is definitely a core belief of all ALP members.
Bill/Hugo
Full fee student pay a higher amount then HECS student, meaning they subsidise the degree of HECS student and increase the University’s budget, if there are less full fee paying student, HECS will go up and everyone will have to spend more on their degree, it is already ridiculous that some students are $20k in debt before finishing University. (that is why a american style benovelent system will help the poor student)
Beside, Foreign student are allowed to pay for their degree, so why should we ban local student from doing the same, they are also queue jumpers, but they are an excellent revenue source for all universities
another point I would like to make is, Medicine’s TER is about 99.
If a person who gets a TER of 80 and really want to become a doctor and is willing to pay for it. Is there any evidence to suggest that they won’t make a better doctor than a person who has a TER of 99?
Mark
Re Road funding, most roads are the domains of the state government and Federal Government have no jurisdiction to allocate resources to them, the only jurisdiction the Federal Government has is the Federal highways.
AWA are needed in certain industry, for example in Mining, it takes some miners 3 to 4 hours to get from their family to the mines, therefore some of them prefer to work 5 days for 12 hours and have 5 days off, this allow them to spend more time with their family. If the employer is forced to pay overtime on 4 hours, they might force their employee to work a normal working week, this would be bad for both the mining company and the employee.
Likewise, one of my friends lives in Wollongong and travel up to Sydney to work, he work 10.5 hours each day and have 3 day weekends every weeks, he is happy to do it. If the employer is forced to pay overtime rates, he will have to go back to working 5 days a week. While there are some employers who will abuse the systems, there are some employees who are benefiting from a contract system.
The French unions reaction to Sarkozy’s victory remind me of the worst excesses of Scargil et al – nothing good there.
Dovif, on your example about medicine. A full fee place for medicine wouldn’t let someone with a TER of 80 in; instead of 99 you might get in with 97. The differences are small; they only tend to widen on less popular courses at second tier institutions.
Dovif, your post contains several common misconceptions about AWAs and the mining industry. Firstly, most of the mining industry are not on AWAs (about 16%), but on negotiated collective agreements or on common law contracts (indeed, it’s more than possible that that’s what your friends are on, rather than an AWA). AWAs are used largely for political reasons (ie, to exclude the Union from the bargaining process). Given that the industry is currently booming, that’s probably of little consequence at the moment, though it probably will be when the boom ends. However, there’s nothing to stop working arrangement being settled with a common law contract rather than an AWA – CLCs allow flexibility “up”, but not down, so your friends could still work those crazy hours and get paid well over the odds for it.
However, the mining industy is but a small part of the scope of AWAs. They have been used far more in retail and hospitality, where they have done nothing but take away people’s penalty rates and shift allowances with little or no recompense. This is the sole purpose of AWAs – this argument about “flexibility” is a chimera, and designed purely to appease lazy employers who think they that ordinary community standards don’t apply to them.