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).
Hugo
Actually 40% of AWA are in the mining industry, and I know of quite a few common law contracts/AWAs that offers flexible hours, I am on one and I do not think it is a Chimera
As for taking away OT rates, I think both my friend and the people in the mining industry would agree that they prefer the extra day off then working 5 days a week and they are happy to forgo penalty rates
But I do agree a safety net is needed, ie a no disadvantage test. I just disagree that you should get rid of something, when there are multiple use and some of the use are beneficial to both the employer and employee
If the WA Labor government is using AWAs, unless you think they are trying to take away people’s penalty rates and allowance, I think that proves that not all AWA have just 1 purpose.
Dovif, the points you make about AWAs and the mining industry are perhaps fair enough. But it is an industry undergoing an unprecendented boom at the moment, so most employees can largely write their own ticket.
However, my point was that most AWAs are not in fact in the Mining industry (an industry which makes up about 5% of all employment in Australia, and even on your figures, that means that mining AWAs make up 2%) but in hospitality, retail and cleaning, and these people – who were already on pretty low incomes – are being royally shafted.
Adam:
Ah! at Nuremburg – are/have you been to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin? Felt weird remembering Leni Riefenstahl’s L’Olympia and standing there!
Any thoughts on the Land election in Bremen? The polls I’ve seen all suggest the SPD will still get over 40%, still wont have a majority and will have to continue their coalition with the CDU.
Thanks for your thoughts on France. I haven’t caught up with my French friends yet to get their take on it – they’re all Green voters, but were voting for Sego to ensure a ‘Jospin’ didn’t happen again! There’s been reports of rioting, but what’s the euro press making of it?
If anyone needed any further proof that Peter Hendy is nothing but a Liberal Party stooge, check this out:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1920648.htm
Apart from patently ignoring all of Rudd’s and Labor’s pronouncements on this going back several years, I didn’t hear him making a similar observation about Costello’s Budget.
That is hilarious.
Thats like greenpeace saying Rudd didn’t say enough about supporting a whaling industry…
I know the Morgan poll is somewhat scoffed at (probably an understatement) but the latest poll must give Labor hope that the latest BS re IR and business is not going to do it too much damage in the community. People like Hendy can complain as much as they like as far as I’m concerned. The government’s IR is a load of manure and no sweet smelling scent will hide that fact to the average person.
http://www.roymorgan.com.au/
A few years ago I saw a documentary that compared speech delivery techniques.
It found that high quality speeches full of content and numbers, were less popular than speeches full of positive emotive statements, even if you didn’t really say anything.
So to have a winning delivery you just say warm pleasant words that everyone agrees with.
With this in mind I listened to Rudd’s speech:
“Positive statement that everyone agrees with eg Australia is Great ”
*I feel warm emotion*
“Positive statement that everyone agrees with eg Australians are Great”
*I feel warm emotion*
Repeat above 30 times.
Rudd actually used the technique so much and so obviously it got corny, however as Adam points out, no one but us takes notice of these things, and all the public will hear is the plumbing plan.
So my opinion ? To me his speech came across as fake.
He did enough to get away with it and limit poll damage.
They’ll move from 58 to 56 .. nothing to write home about.
btw: why does the Opposition leader give the budget reply ? why not the opposition Treasurer ? I’d like to see Swanny in action!
At least Rudd spoke on policy. Apparently, when opposition leader and before the 1996 election, Howard gave nothing away re policy.
I think tradtion plays a big part here in regard as to who gives the Budget reply speech. I can’t think of one shadow treasurer ever giving that speech.
Howard deliberately didn’t blurt out policy in ’96 as part of his ‘small target strategy’. He didn’t want to alienate anyone and concentrated on Labor’s failings.
Misha Schubert – Canberra Political Correspondent for The Age – alerted us all this morning in a story regarding the impending preselection of Tasmanian senator John Watson to a change in our constitution that we have all missed. Even worse, the political and psephological tragics that inhabit this blogsite missed the lead up and the result of the referendum to change the constitution.
The only hint that something has changed, and we all missed it, is that Senator Watson is sidling up for “another EIGHT-year senate term”.
Where were we, or more to the point, where are the standards of our political journalists and/or sub editors?
And before any of you out there think that I am being petty … it is a fairly basic point about the understanding of our political system.
There’s no way the length of senate terms has changed. She’s just wrong.
oh sorry you were being sarcastic – my bad.
To the Speaker – Your bad what?
As I see it, Julia Gillard and her leader need to revamp the ALP’s workplace relations policy, and accept AWAs with a no disadvantage test. Collective bargaining is not “the alpha and omega” of a sound and fair workplace relations policy. If the revamping does not happen, and Mr Rudd and his colleagues form the next Federal Government (a real likelihood), then we are at risk of having “a load of manure” replaced with an even stinkier load. Peter Hendy might be an extremist on one side of politics but so also is Dean Mighell on the other side. We must have a policy that strikes a balance between extremes and finds the middle ground of Ausralian politics.
blackburn pseph,
“My bad” is modspeak for “I’m Sorry”, like “Wasup?” means “How are you?” and “going out together” means “staying in the same part of the school yard together” and definitely does not mean actually going out.
What a week! (or technically, 13 days!)
A great number of Labor hopefuls obviously on this blog and a few Howard diehards to boot.
Kevin Rudd has shown himself a popular leader and, I think, a more formidable opponent than Howard has ever had (even within his own party!). His handling of Julia Gillard from December has been GOLD (but not of the Medicare variety). It is obvious that he owes a LOT of people a LOT of favours for getting him to the leadership. So I think he was happy enough to give Julia her IR baby and let him present it at conference. Of course, it got mauled. Australia is sick of unions, Julia.
However, Kevin managed to:
a) Not pander to the unions. He just doesn’t like them. Never has.
b) Let Julia take a mauling by press and business (I think he remembers the “Gillard Gold” of 2004 as well)
c) Agree to tone the baby down, saying to unions “sorry guys, we tried!” and to the Australian public “Don’t worry, I won’t let those nasty unions scare you”
d) Shows himself to be an effective mediator
e) Shrugs off any further suggestion that if the pitch for the Lodge is unsuccessful that Gillard is a suitable replacement
This level of politics is worthy of Howard. I commend him. Genuinely. He is a politician for goodness sake.
Herein lies the problem. Australia has grown politically conservative. They will take Kevin but not the anchor of the left on his coat-tails. In addition, his team pales in comparison in terms of ability. One guy can manage to barely keep a state afloat (Beattie anyone?) but a whole country is another story. If you take Rudd, he will need to pay back all debts that got him there. That’s a LOT of left that you didn’t vote for. If you don’t believe me, look up Hawke in 1983.
Howard, on the other hand, may well lose his senate and, if Maxine is cute enough, even his seat. He will face a tough challenge in this one to get over the line.
Ironically, a wild card might well be Family First, the minor party on the rise. With votes against Refugee detention in Nauru, against the sale of Qantas and decidedly against workchoices, since apparently 2005, it is no darling of the coalition.
Moreover, policies on IR have been about as centrist as the Australian landscape has been for a LONG while. IN: Penalty rates, meal breaks, public holidays and redundancy, OUT: unfair dismissal. So average Aussie and small business are both happy. Sounds alright to me.
Importantly, no other minor party can match their ability to gain preferences from both sides. Their policies have significant elements that appeal to both coalition and labor. There is also very little chance of “bleed” like there is for fringe green voters to Labor or ONP/NATS to Libs.
They seem to have shrugged off their poorly tarred “religious right” image and are putting forth policies that actually might appeal to mainstream Australia.
At the very least, with more of them in the senate, they might just fulfil the role the Dems began with in the 1970s.. keeping the bastards honest, in the Senate.
This will be one verrrrry interesting election.
You can tell Chris is a schoolteacher at times like this!
Anyway yes sorry blackburnpseph – I took your post seriously.
At least with Dean Mighell he is not pretending to be unbiased. Hendy tries to pass himself off as being neutral politically. With Mighell, a person I personally have little time for I might add, what you see is what you get. With Hendy what he wants you to see is not what you are getting. I’m sure he would be appalled at being described as “an extremist on one side of politics” but we know he is don’t we?
dovif If i made be so bold to ask what nationality are you
The problem with selling of penalty rates etc. even with a no disadvantage test is that it is a short term gain for a long term pain.
I know of a company that offered to pay their staff quite a handsome sum as a flat exchange for overtime. The staff jumped at the opportunity as it put immediate guaranteed cash in their pocket. The problem was that overtime the market leveled that salary to the point that they were not being paid anymore than similar employees from other companies who did not sell off their penalty rates.
If we are going to construct a society that values a healthy work/family balance then get the market working for us, and place a premium on the family time and weekends etc.
Lets make the market work for us, not vice versa. The market exists as a tool to deliver the right social outcomes.
Generic Oracle Says:
However, Kevin managed to:
a) Not pander to the unions. He just doesn’t like them. Never has.
GOOD! why doesnt he come honestly and tell the YR@W and the ACTU that he doesnt need them. Oh thats right he does. The work my Union with other lefty Unions could remove Howard due to the IR policy.
Family First is the AOG and thats what the voters need to know. Speaking in tounges as a sign of being ‘saved’. Healing by ‘God’ of the same parishioners everyday. Strangely my disabled daughter goes to a AOG youth group and because she has a mental disability they don’t even try to heal her. I suggest anyone who thinks they are a good party to visit a AOG meeting and see for yourself
The whole idea of AWAs and workchoices as a whole is to make us competitive with Asia. The only way to do that is lower wages end of story. When you get enough workers on AWAs and out of the Union then the next AWAs will be of lower quality. The problem is that many workers see the first AWA as an improvement not looking to the future. Any Unionist who looks deeper than what the ACTU or some union bosses say about Rudd as the new ALP God will see that Howard is the devil we know. If the ALP wins government watch for a more underhanded attack on unions. Rudd would want us to all be as weak as the SDA.
We do not need an extreme religious party that believes God will help those who believe so why bother with Global Warming or the poor or health. In fact their beliefs would have them not need to get into politics as God will look after them. How do i know? I was a member of an AOG church for several years
Generic Oracle Says:
At the very least, with more of them in the senate, they might just fulfil the role the Dems began with in the 1970s.. keeping the bastards honest, in the Senate.
Strange that ministers of the AOG and like churches are the ones continually surrounded by scandal all over the world. No honest there.
If Newspoll slips from its 57-43 Labor lead to 55-45, The Australian will headline it as “Budget fatal blow to Ruddâ€; if it slips to 56-44, “Liberals on a winnerâ€; if it remains 57-43, “Liberals stop Rudd momentumâ€; if it increases to 58-42, “Rudd advance slowedâ€; if it increases to 59-41, “Rudd fails to reach earlier highsâ€; if it increases to 60-40, “Rudd consistently fails to get above winning marginâ€; if it increases to 61-39, “Greens vote dropsâ€.
Mr. Weller, it is very disappointing that Christianity has had to be ‘modern’ to survive in the modern world. It should have stayed traditional; AOG churches aren’t fundamental at all, they are radical!
And bravo to Mr. Curtis on the Australian. I did think it was giving Rudd a nice ride for a brief moment, but it seems to have slipped back to usual.
Bill… I often enjoy your contribution, but this time I believe that you have gone a bridge too far with your criticism of the AOG and its links with FFP.
Yes.. their founder was an ex AOG minister, but neither Dennis Hood or Steve Fielding are members of an AOG church. The party has moved on well beyond that to embrace a social conservative platform based on traditional family values, blended with a heart for social justice and equality that is not driven by economic rationalism.
I believe this is a more accurate reflection of true Christian philosophy. After all the Cross is both verticle and horizontal.
Checkout Southside AOG down your way (now known as The Edge). They often organise for refurbishments to local shcools and hospitals, all donated, and have a vibrant social arm.
Pity FF has no support from traditional Christians. I would bet most members of FF belong to a Pentecostal church of some description
With Labor friends like Rod Cameron who needs enemies.
There has been a recent change in the attitude of the Fairfax press to the ALP and Kevin Rudd
– In todays SMH (online edition) there are 2 stories on the Kelly Hoare affair and the preselection of Belinda Neal for Robertson. Neither are complimentary to the ALP culture.
– Michelle Grattan in The Age has been reasonably complimentary about the budget, uncomplimentary about Ruddy’s response (or non response as the case may be), and made the point during the week that Ruddy has boxed himself in between party, unions, business, etc and that being all things to all people can’t hang together much longer.
After being easy on the ALP for a while, a more doubting viewpoint from Fairfax may start to bite and plant the seeds of doubt.
The management of the economy may also come into play the closer we get to the election. In this mornings Age, they did a post budget vox pop at Eastland Shopping centre – geographic centre (and probably spritually as well – ugh!) of Deakin. Handling of the economy did come up as an issue several times and there is some doubt over the ALP ability to handle it. This echoes a conversation I had with Mrs Pseph last night where she (rusted on ALP voter until Mark Latham was just too much for her!) made the point that she trusted the Libs with the economy much more than she could trust the ALP – her usual association of John Howard is with the words vile, bastard and horrible! – she is too rusted on not to vote Labor – but there are others out there no doubt who may have been wavering and who will return to the libs as the party of economic management.
My feeling is that the tide is turning and that the Libs are starting to look better. It is also possible that a whole lot of sleaze in the NSW ALP over the Kelly Hoare affair, and the handling of the Paul Gibson issue, and the backflips that have already happened may work against the ALP in that state.
And one to Bill – what are you getting at by asking what nationality Dovif is?
If he / she (not knowing Dovif’s gender) votes, Dovif must be eligible to have a blue passport with an emu and a kangaroo on the front – in that case his nationality must be … Australian!!!
Chris you are spot on… the murdoch papers will try to even things up so that Labor does not do so well in the election or even has a chance of getting control of the Senate… Murdoch and the right wing cronies run this country and he is the most dangerous man in the world
blackburnpseph – the problem with your theory is that you believe the average person gives a damn about the internal workings of political parties. They don’t and never have. They don’t understand the workings and certainly won’t bother reading about it. What effect do you think Crean’s fight has had on the polls of recent times. Did I here you say none, because you are absolutely correct if you did. The NSW machine has long been associated with such activities and they are one of the most successful machines, politically, going. Preselections are important to two types of people – those involved and those who take a big interest in politics, and within this group (I include myself here) there are those who wouldn’t read one article on these topics.
Another flaw in your argument is this – you believe the media influences the way people vote. The Daily Telegraph in Sydney ran a very big campaign against Iemma last election. I don’t need to tell you how successful they were.
Finally, the polls have been very strong towards Labor for months and this with the economy going gang busters. Do you seriously believe people need to be reminded of this? Do you seriously believe they don’t see IR as a part of their economic future? IE a safe secure job with safe secure conditions equals economic security for them and their family?
Labor has also been shouting their IR intentions all this time (get rid of AWA’s – re – estabish enterprise bargaining etc). So now that they have put meat on those bones people will all of a sudden go “We didn’t know this was going to happen”? Give me a break. It defies logic that the polls will swing because of LABOR’s IR policy and certainly not because business doesn’t like it. If business likes it what does that tell the average worker? Howard’s recent changes? What does that tell the average worker also? His policy enabled what he is now trying to supposedly stop.
We’ll see what the polls will do but I’m tipping little movement over the next few weeks for the reasons above.
its not as if the rod cameron comments were planned or anything…
notice Rudd talking up balance, not being bullied by unions or captains of industry..
maybe im being too clever…
Blacklight – you’re possibly right but “The Australian” helping Labor? I think that is stretching credibility isn’t it?
Gary Bruce – I couldn’t agree more. I, too, would be very surprised if the polls move that much over the next month or so. I actually think that Howard’s popularity has always been over-stated, and that people have been looking for a reason to vote him out since about 2003 – Latham’s stellar poll ratings in the first half of 2004 seem to bear this out, though as he turned out to be madder than Mad Jock McMad, winner of the Mr Mad competition (one for the Blackadder fans) people shied away from him come election time.
But Rudd is not mad, and the government’s desperate attempts to smear him over the last few months haven’t laid a mark on him. I agree that a booming economy will always play in the government’s favour, but Labor doesn’t need to “win” this debate, it just needs to appear competent. In that light, it wasn’t such a terrible week for the ALP.
Your point about WorkChoices is well made too. I don’t understand why this issue is played down so much (both by the MSM and in the blogoshere). This is a policy that is hurting (or at raises the feeling that it will hurt) the apolitical swinging voter more than any other. Most people don’t care that much about Iraq or even climate change, but they do care about their pay packets, and WorkChoices is widely seen as a serious threat to that.
blackburnpseph Says:
And one to Bill – what are you getting at by asking what nationality Dovif is?
If he / she (not knowing Dovif’s gender) votes, Dovif must be eligible to have a blue passport with an emu and a kangaroo on the front – in that case his nationality must be … Australian!!!
I was meaning their original nationality. Its just that most Eastern Europeans due to their old life under Communist dictatorships have a more pro Liberal party stance and see any pull back from that ( ALP? ) as moving towards communism. So no im not asking to see if hes eligible to vote etc.
Reading the Australian today you would think Howards the one leading in the Polls
Hugo, you’re right about Howard’s popularity. The biggest danger signal for the coalition was the degree the polls changed (in unison) after Rudd became leader. We are not talking about a small percentage change here and we haven’t experienced bad economic times for a long time. For those who have doubts about the degree of dissatisfaction and anger over the Libs IR policy in voter land ask yourselves this question. If IR is not the problem and we agree the economy is not the problem, what is? What could possibly be causing this remarkable change in the polls? And of course the evidence is for all to see that in fact it is bothering the government. Mr Howard himself has supplied us with that hasn’t he?
Hugo said
Your point about WorkChoices is well made too. I don’t understand why this issue is played down so much (both by the MSM and in the blogoshere). This is a policy that is hurting (or at raises the feeling that it will hurt) the apolitical swinging voter more than any other. Most people don’t care that much about Iraq or even climate change, but they do care about their pay packets, and WorkChoices is widely seen as a serious threat to that.
Thats the one thing most people i know are interested in when it comes to elections is money. IR negative for the Government and also with Rudd as he slowly seems to be back peddling on this issue. Budget huge positive with people Rudds reply was ho hum as there was no money. As I have predicted before that as Rudd and the ALP machine move more to a conservative economic platform and the barriers between the two major parties dissolves then Howard will win the election unless Iraq and Global warming become interesting for swinging voters.
Tell us bill weller could you explain where Labor has “back peddled” on IR? He is copping a pasting in the press because he hasn’t. Strange about that.
mark latham mad? have you read his book.. fantastic, a true reflection of the society we now encounter.. a peeping tom world, a country run by the media who hunted him down for at least standing up to them, and you call him loony (you have been listening to the media to long) and a Labor Party full of dingbats.. Lathams’ chronology of his efforts to stitch together a policy regarding Tassie Forests shows how incompetent many people in tassie labor party are and how the unions work, look after their own patchs and not the overall picture.. the M.C.G rally showed this with unions spread around the ground in their own little groups… This is why they are dying they are a self interested bunch of people who care little for working people.
Marks’ comments about how people can be so two faced thus say one thing and do another also shows how terrible this world has become… and the Iraq war well anyone who wishes to go and kill another has to be extremely sick… it is just a pity Mark did not win .. we would have a leader who had some honesty, some vision and some compassion…
On Doug camerons’ assessment in that pathetic paper.. well it is half right but many people today who work under fairly poor working conditions.. weekends and in casual work of these many of them have never worked under anything else.. had a holiday or sick pay and so many of these people see Labors’ ideas as an attack upon the conditions they work under. Casual work should be outlawed.. and part time work maore accepted in its place… Moreover people today are working harder, longer due to the debt they are in and due to this commericially competitive driven world we live which keeps telling us to have this and much more
and to better than our fellow person. Materialism has become a form of status and when eventually the economy implodes this country will enter a deep and nasty depression due to so much private debt…
Additionally isn’t it always interesting that someone like Cameron can tell us about the type of world we should live when they have made their money from a previous world under justified working conditions.. and they tell todays’ world should live under harsher conditions.. i love these gutless individuals..
Bill Weller can you tell Rod Cameron Labor has made the changes you say he is making?
“he” being Rudd of course.
I have to agree with Mr. Mark about Latham. After reading Latham’s book I was impressed by his ideas and insight. I’m not on his side of the political fence, but nonetheless there was a mind there that never should have been driven from the political scene.
Mark – is the Mark Latham that you refer to the same one who was paid to go through uni by the ALP, who then fast-tracked him into politics? “Hypocrite” was what came to mind when I read his thoughts, wriiten well after the fact. Having said that, I too liked Latham at the time – the mad ones (eg Keating, Whitlam) were always the better ones, or at least the more interesting ones.
However, it seems pretty clear that Australian voters don’t like their PMs to be too unhinged.
Incidentally, does anyone know what the scourge of taxi drivers is up to these days? Does he have a job, or is he living off that generous pollie super that he railed against?
Hugo fair point.. i am not lauding him as totally perfect.. but at least he had something not like todays’ crop who look in the mirror everyday and ask no i can’t say that.. and remember it was mark who actually downsized super schemes, of which dud Beazley reinstated.. Mark would have at least shook the place up… and your right we like our leaders to be conservative nothings but remember it was the media who actually tell us how we should vote .. Can’t remember to many elections that they have not gone after someone they don’t want… perhaps 1993 (fed) and 1999 Victorian election are contrary to this…
Their constant articles and coverage can ruin a politician and they did this to Mark, Kirner and Gough… if you want to be elected these days you have to go and pay Rupert a visit and gets his vote of confidence…
maybe that is where Mark went wrong..
Hugo we do leaders who actually have a vision for a better world that is why i love Dunstan, Cain and Gough they wanted a better world and did not attack the lower classes to achieve their aims…
I was speaking to a friend the other day who recommended Latham’s book to me. This person is closer to the conservative side of politics than the Labor side and says that Latham made a lot of sense. Why wasn’t this brought out at the time? I think we all know why. Mind you I still think Latham had many faults and has been proven to be somewhat unstable since. As with all people he is capable of both “good” and “bad” I suppose.