• Recent form suggests Roy Morgan has moved from weekly to fortnightly, and it seems the West Australian either didn’t conduct or didn’t publish its normal monthly Westpoll survey of state voting intention.
• George Megalogenis of The Australian wrote yesterday of “special analysis” of Newspoll showing that since the May budget the Prime Minister has suffered “double-digit falls in his popularity among higher-income earners, full-time workers and people aged 35-49”. We are also told the PM “didn’t do as badly among households with children – they trimmed his rating by 7.7 percentage points to 60.9 per cent, while those without children cut it by 10.7 points to 56.8 per cent”; and also that his approval rating among Coalition voters dropped from 40.9 per cent to 28.5 per cent.
• A survey conducted last month by Essential Research shows “93 per cent had either not heard of the emissions trading scheme, had heard about it but didn’t know what it was or knew just a little about it”. However, Chris Johnson of The West Australian reports that “once the concept was explained, respondents overwhelmingly thought it was a good idea. Seventy-two per cent strongly supported the introduction of an ETS and 78 per cent thought transport and petrol should be included.” I see the principals behind Essential Media (the company behind Essential Research) include Ben Oquist, former adviser to Bob Brown and one-time Greens Senate candidate.
• Labor continues to dither over whether to contest the Mayo by-election. No doubt their decision will be soundly based on research, but if I were them I’d go for it: the electorate that almost put John Schumann in parliament seems an unlikely candidate for an emissions trading scheme backlash, and a relatively good result would help shake the Gippsland monkey off the government’s back.
• In the absence of Westpoll we will have to make do with more “unpublished Newspoll figures” provided by Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times, showing “41.9 per cent of 418 Liberals polled preferred Mr Carpenter as Premier, instead of their own man (33.5 per cent)”.
• Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt will resign from parliament and has handed the leadership baton to Franklin MP Nick McKim. A recount for Putt’s Denison seat will almost certainly deliver it to Cassy O’Connor, who once worked as an adviser to local federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr. This outcome was anticipated at the time of the March 2006 state election by Greg Barns.
• Antony Green and Possum Comitatus have been blogging prolifically of late. Do go and look.
• In the interests of promoting Aussie talent, the Poll Bludger presents a 1993 Rock Classic from the Cruel Sea.
Oh Dear, it doesn’t get any better than this. Brough has written to the Nats demanding to be named ‘Big Chief Pineapple’ by today or he will scuttle the Pineapple Party.
On a morning when people are waking up with the carping, whinging tones of John Howard ringing in their ears coutesy of the ABC’s AM program, here we have another Howeird former Minister behaving like a spoilted juvenile. Just a week after they tried to run the propaganda line that the Pineapple Party had ‘overwhelming support. Too funny for words really.
One thing that is for certain is that the voters of Longman and Bennelong got it right at the 2007 election in dumping this pair out of office.
[AMBITIOUS Queensland Liberal president Mal Brough risks scuttling a planned merger with the Nationals – or potentially losing his own job – by demanding that he take control of the new organisation.
In an extraordinary move, the former Howard government indigenous affairs minister is staking his future on the support of the Liberal Party state council, hoping it wants his leadership more than a merger.
After weeks of tension, Mr Brough yesterday wrote an unsigned letter to Queensland Nationals president Bruce McIver, demanding to be gifted the presidency of the merged organisation today or the Liberal state council would be reconvened in a bid to cancel the merger convention.
Both parties have called conventions at the end of the month and were expected to agree to become a single party.
Mr Brough will need 75 per cent support on the state council to succeed.
He will try to overcome rumblings of concern over his presidency by arguing that he has the support of federal party president Alan Stockdale.
Mr Brough refused to comment on the letter last night, but it was circulated to senior members of both parties yesterday afternoon.]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23991768-2702,00.html
Wonder if they’ll call Dolly in from the Med?
‘Four years after filing a closure report in the wheat import case, the CBI on Tuesday said it had reopened investigations, conducted searches at the residences of former State Trading Corporation chairman S M Dewan and agent H R Sardana and arrested them…
CBI officials said that the hundreds of pages recovered during the searches go beyond what the Australian inquiry uncovered. The documents recovered include internal correspondence on the deal to import two million tonnes of wheat between then STC chairman Dewan and agent Sardana and the opening of the bank account in Cayman Islands where the commissions were paid.’
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/333125.html
Costello supporters are warning him not to dump on Howard in his coming ‘memoirs’. Even as little as a few paragraphs will end his chance of being leader . (I doubt he has any such ambitions now if indeed he ever really did). Touchy lot!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/backers-warn-costello-not-to-tip-bucket-on-howard/2008/07/08/1215282835451.html
Rx @ 103 –
Wonder which phone box the Cossie-for-PM supporters met in?
What’s he going to write about if he can’t dump on Howard? How he lay back in the hammock ignoring inflation, the joys of dropkicking the Dollar Sweet employees, or how he was too stupid to realise many workers would be worse off under WorkChoices? I doubt Fairfax would think that was worth the reported “substantially less than $50,000” for the book.
Harry, chin up mate, the big C is a bastard of a thing, the one thing that gets me through the tough times is the thought that this too will pass–and it will– then you’ll be able to laugh and remember the good times together, i just wanted you to know i’m thinking of you.
Re rainfall paterns returning to normal,
This is the whole point, firstly its wrong, secondly there is a disconnect in the debate, one side is dealing with scientific evidence that we are headed into unknown and extremely dangerous area. This could result in huge dislocation, a speeding of species extinction,(Currently 10 per day) and massive economic ruin.
The broader issue here is how do we make decisions. Andrew Bolt and his mates think that arguments should be made to fit and that if you shout louder than other you win. Really its a great opportunity for peoples intellectual rigour to be tested. Lets start a list of those who think the planet is flat, that washing your hands before surgery is unnecessary and that climate change is not real and from now on discount them from all debate. They simply do not deserve to be included.
As for the greenies issue, Oh how that hurts these people. Its not that the Greens were right, its that the Greens tend to base there decision making on scientific evidence. Look at the drug debate, after years conservative policy the drugs are still running amok, yet they still shout at any move to treating the debate in any other way than a law and order debate. Unfortunately the mass media are still in the game pushing the debate. Disgraceful, if it wasn’t so serious it would be a hoot.
There is a greatt opportunity for a study to see at what point these people change their minds, I can’t wait to hear Andrew Bolt to fess up. OK I was wrong, if he lives for another 40 years its going to have to happen.?
I may surprise some here , but not all liberal party members are complete idiots, climate change may be the issue that finally splits it.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23991632-2702,00.html
My money is however still on it happening in the months after the next election.
Steve: the QLD Liberals couldn’t organise a chook raffle, let alone a merger with the Nationals! Hilarious!
Yes, I noted the ABC is still falling over themselves to worship at the altar of John Howard!
There’s more Howard atavism going on than just the push to stop Costello singing like a canary.
In today’s Australian Andrew Robb makes a comment on Liberal Party greenhouse policy:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23991632-2702,00.html
The article also suggests that some of the wetter Libs (e.g. Peter Georgiou, Judy Moylan) are urging “Nelson to lead on carbon.” It’s good general advice, as I will argue below.
Meanwhile, in Perth Howard is kibbitzing on national politics, presumably because he thinks he’s still popular. He lost the election and lost his seat, but he still thinks he wuz robbed. That’s chutzpah.
How do they all get away with this? Why hasn’t Labor under Rudd crushed this inept bunch?
Because Rudd is still fighting the election.
He seems scared to take them on lest he lose a few votes in some marginal constituency which might be vital on polling day. Except there’s no polling day imminent.
It’s not only the Libs who haven’t woken up to the new reality of Labor being in government. It seems like Labor hasn’t woken up either.
Rudd gives the impression of a batsman too scared of losing his wicket to get on with it and and score the runs needed to win. As a result the bowling side is crowding around him, hoping to catch him out on a fluffed shot at silly point. There’s a lot of sledging of course, which seems to be affecting his concentration, making him even more cautious. Rudd needs to hit a few boundaries, maybe a couple over the pavilion roof into the carpark, perhaps one or two straight at the fielders to get them thinking about their own skins.
There’s no point being not-out at at the end of fifty overs but losing the game by five runs. Every time he defends when he should attack it’s not only a ball wasted, but it’s also time wasted, plus the bowling side gets a confidence boost. The longer he hesitates and defends, more pressure is placed on him to score big, to take risks, to try to up the run rate as the innings approaches stumps. He has to cram more action into a shorter time.
The other batsmen on his side don’t have Rudd’s technique. If he fails they’ll find it harder to do what has to be done without him. Besides that, Rudd’s cautious approach is boring for the crowd. They’re starting to slow handclap.
Maybe, when there were ten overs to go, five wickets in hand and fifty to score, the slow and steady approach looked do-able. But now that the pressure’s on, more and more – maybe too much – has to go right to make the outcome certain. Mistakes will be harder to recover from if he wastes the time and opportunities he’s achieved for himself. Process is one thing. Technique another. But winning is everything.
Rudd is not being positive enough. He’s fond of saying “the Devil is in the details”. But I think he revels in the details. If details were a swimming pool Rudd would do laps all day long. He’s one of those guys who loves a problem to solve, or more correctly, the process of solving it, rather than the end result. He lacks the ability to inspire with rhetoric, so buries himself in jargon and minutae. “The Devil is in the details.”
I was watching a History Channel program the other night called Apollo Eleven: The Untold Story. It recounted just how close the lunar lander came to running out of fuel during its final approach: 15 seconds, as the astronauts took over manual control of the LEM looking for a safe spot to set down. The computer – described as being “between a digital watch and a calculator in complexity, but closer to a digital watch” – had continually overloaded and reset itself on the way down to the lunar surface. Some guy with a short-sleeved white short and a NASA haircut had a stop watch going, counting down to disaster when the watch reached “zero fuel left”. Nixon had already written the funeral speech in case the flaky take-off rockets failed (as they had in training, many times).
Yet all went well and the astronauts got back alive. The point was made that if someone had said “Let’s go to the Moon” today, in 2008, they’d be laughed out of the room. Yet they did it – 39 years ago – in 1969. And all because a man had said, in 1961,
Kennedy had inspired America to achieve, not made excuses for doing nothing. If you think it’s difficult to contemplate a Moon mission today, imagine how impossible it must have seemed in 1961.
Instead of issuing truisms like, “The Devil is in the details”, letting Penny Wong loose to bore us to sleep, and wonking on about “outcomes” and “policy objectives” , instead of obfuscating about what we all know to be the truth of “short term pain for long term gain” – for fear of losing some of “the paint” off his popular appeal – Rudd should be out there inspiring Australians with a vision for the future, exciting us with the possibilities of a new world, with new technologies and better lives and livliehoods for our children and grandchildren. All of these may be what he has in mind, privately, but he’s not letting us in on the secret if it is.
There is a way of beating the other team, who are really no more than a scratch collection of has-beens, apologists for the glorious past of Howardism, cheap-shot spruikers, climate change denialists and tree-hugging absolutists. It’s to go direct to the people and challenge them to do something about Global Warming, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Left without any inspiration, the Mob pays attention to things they shouldn’t be paying attention to: 5c a litre excise reductions, a few dollars here or there in welfare adjustments, the Piers Akermans and the Glenn Milnes of this world who can only carp and snipe from the sidelines with their malevolent commentatries. But the slow hand-clap can be stopped instantly with a demonstration of guts and verve, with an alternative injected into the heads of the huddled masses besides penny-ante crapola concerning the nits left over after the first round of nitpicking.
If we lead the world in our response to Global warming, we stand a good chance of leading the world in a whole new approach to the way we deal with our environment and our standards of living, and in many other fields as well: technology, philosophy, science, health and education. Somebody needs to articulate this. Somebody needs to lead us out of the wilderness, to make our world a better place. What we don’t need is someone who only offers a slower, more cautious death, but death just the same.
At the moment I’m afraid there’s a vacuum of inspiration in Australia. Rudd is clearly tired and overworked. He’s concentrating too much on not making a mistake, on getting his stroke play perfect. In the meantime the available opportunities erode away, and when he does find his groove, his moxy, there won’t be enough time left to do all the things he has to do.
Sure, we need perspiration. Rudd is good at that. But we need inspiration too. If Rudd can’t deliver, then we should look for someone who can.
[Why hasn’t Labor under Rudd crushed this inept bunch?
Because Rudd is still fighting the election. ]
I wouldn’t say that, but it definitely takes a while for an Opposition to make the transition into behaving like a government once they win office. They’re certainly not there yet.
109 “Rudd should be out there inspiring Australians with a vision for the future, exciting us with the possibilities of a new world, with new technologies and better lives and livliehoods for our children and grandchildren. All of these may be what he has in mind, privately, but he’s not letting us in on the secret if it is.”
I thought that that might be the role of the whole cabinet BB. By the way, I remember a time when Bill Lawry carried his bat through the innings when Australia lost a test match and abused the other players for not staying with him. The cartoonists had a field day drawing Lawry with cobwebs all over him.
Steve,
Rudd’s the Leader. He should lead.
That’s true BB but I think the whole cabinet has a responsibility to explain the inspirational aspects that their departments are achieving.
There is no doubt that thousands of people are involved in making programs work and nothing is more soul destroying than beavering away constantly only to see whingers and knockers getting trivial diversions up and running in opposition to the work being done.
But Steve, Labor lets the “whingers and knockers” do their whingeing and knocking. A mate of mine pointed out to me Howard’s “Rudd has no shame” comments this morning.
My mate’s comment?
I can assure you that private business doesn’t hesitate to blow their own trumpet if they come up with ideas that are supposed to improve our lives or make life less difficult in some way. The overwhelming message since the change of government has been life is tough and expect it to become tougher.
Exactly.
What about:
“Life is tough but expect it to become better… and here’s how…”?
11+ years of reactionary Howardism enculturated onto an already conservative electorate has perhaps rendered the concept of Grand Visions obsolete?
Rx, my objection is that by the default the Howeird Government is being painted as the source of all fun and good times.
Well dust it off and put it out there again. There’s nothing stopping them except the log jam at the top.
Howard said one thing I agreed with in his speech yesterday:
What BB is yearning for is a progressive society with a progressive leader. I regret to opine that progressiveness, inasmuch as it continued to exist after Whitlam, has been calculatedly bred out of the national psyche by the reactionary rodent and his throwback accomplices. Australia now seems more timid and inward-looking than at any time since Keating. I honestly don’t see how this can be turned around, in the short term at least.
Rx that may well be the case but a major reform such as knocking back the amount of air pollution and replacing it with more clean technologies surely affords an opportunity to turn that thinking on it’s head at many levels of Australian society both in the short and long term view.
Well, let’s not try then!
Honestly, Rx, if a crisis that threatens to kill millions, inundate the ocean shores, bring on the spread of disease and wreck the environment – all within perhaps one or two lifetimes hence – can’t produce at least someone, somewhere with a bit of vision and optimism that we can not only beat it, but beat it and prosper better than ever, then something is truly lacking in our leadership.
Better to live a life and try to win than to die a safe death.
I agree, Steve, it offers the opportunity. What we have in Kev, I think, is a visionary (in some but not all ways) who is scrunched up in a conservative mould, a mould that suits the times and the electorate.
Can’t help remembering with disappointment what happened to the last visionary to lead Australia: Mr Keating. He with his “Big Picture” was way in front of an electorate that, even then, was very conservative. He left them behind … and at the 96 election they left him behind.
In the time since then, Howard has largely won the culture wars, leaving in his baleful wake a nation more frightened, narrow-minded and constrained by conservatism than is good for it.
Will be glad to be proven wrong however.
123 “In the time since then, Howard has largely won the culture wars, leaving in his baleful wake a nation more frightened, narrow-minded and constrained by conservatism than is good for it.”
But at the same time Rx the Australian electorate has voted decisively against the Liberal Party and continues to produce poll figures that can only be read as the population wanting the changes that they voted for at the last election. The main two issues were obviously the dismantling of workchoices and action to improve the environment.
Another thing RX, don’t believe all the hype that everyone is tightening their belts to the extent that big bucks still can’t be made.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/average-city-unit-nudges-1-million/2008/07/08/1215282803844.html
If you want to retard a country, let it be led for a decade by a Machiavellian ultra-reactionary rodent.
Going back to Keating again. Assuming he was voted out because he couldn’t get the electorate to keep up with him and his “Big Picture”. (I know there were other reasons, too, such as the “recession we had to have”, but for the sake of argument, bear with me).
Waiting in the wings was the reactionary rodent, who, you’ll remember always said that he would triumph “when the times suited him”.
So you had a visionary who was too progressive for the electorate, enthusiastically rejected for someone so reactionary he described himself as “the most conservative leader the Liberal Party ever had”.
The times suited the reactionary Howard.
And it’s only got worse since. He set to work to undermine any progressive/left-leaning threats that stood in the way of the realisation of his benighted white picket fince ideals.
Agree with Steve on this. The nation is crying out for leadership and something to look forward to, rather than the bunker mentality of the Opposition that sees any deviation from our current industrial and technological base as a threat to entrenched and soon to be irrelevant liveliehoods. The Opposition’s policy is to cram to the stern of the Titanic, but the end is still inevitable.
The assumption behind Nelson’s policy (if you can call it that) is to accept that our way of life can never and should never change. Following on from this, we will still want as much petrol as we care to use (even though petrol will run out in the next 50 or so years, at least as a retail commodity). We will still be working in coal mines or coal-fired power stations because that’s what our fathers did and we want our children to do the same. In both these cases anything Rudd introduces that threatens these monoliths will be used to carp and whinge around the edges about “Labor wreckers”.
Rudd’s policy – to confront and begin the process fo defeating Global Warming – is a good one, no doubt about it. But he is defending it not as an opportunity to achieve things we never thought we could achieve, but as a dire necessity that might, just might, save us from species annihilation. Perhaps true, but a little touch of upside wouldn’t hurt either.
For just one example… our far western plains towns and cities are dying by inches from drought. This will only get worse. Yet the droughts ahead mean clear skies for these geographic areas: perfect for solar electricity generation.
The doomsayer says, “But power stations out in the desert have transmission lines too long to be efficient in supplying power to the cities on the coast.”
The visionary will say, “Sure, so lets relocate some of our industries to the desert or semi-arid areas. This will make best use of our sunlight resources, only available because fo the chrinic droughts, and will give new life to those dying towns.”
Look at Arizona, or for that matter, our own Broken Hill: both examples of industry and life blooming in the desert. As to water, there’s be enough electricity to desalinate or to even pump water from the coastal areas. That visionary, and positive. It gives people hope. And wins votes as a result of that hope into the bargain.
Rx, he is only a page in history now. The trick is to learn from the past and move on. At this stage Rudd has the numbers to reform pretty much whatever the Australian People voted for in November.
Agreed steve. Howard had the indignity of not only losing the election but his seat as well. To say he won the wars entirely would be stretching it. The country woke up to him and royally booted him out.
I think we are listening way too much to the story the MSM is trying to spread that the government is ‘in trouble’. Blanket negative media coverage for the last 3 months at least, and the WORST mainstream poll still puts the ALP in landslide win territory. The average voter isn’t listening right now, because they had enough of it before the election. They know the media wants to bring him down and be in control… it’s that obvious.
Rudd is putting his head down and getting on with the job. We should give him the opportunity to do it.
Just saw your post #126 Rx.
You’re advocating trench warfare against conservatism. It would be ugly, brutal and grim.
I’m advocating a war of manoeuvre. Outflank the bastards. Make them look like Luddite fools.
If Rudd requested a national address to the nation on Global Warming, I would support it. This would get around the journalists and the Murdoch commentators by going direct. I would also support Nelson being given equal time. In fact I would require it, confident that his small-minded opportunistic bleatings would be seen for exactly that.
Rudd should offer us a choice: reture to the bunkers and the trenches and try desperately (and unsuccessfully) to maintain the present status quo ,or go out and show the world what we’re capable of, with all the dividends that can pay back to us in the process.
Dario #129: Rudd may be doing the job, but he’s not telling us inspirationally enough what the job is. He’s mired in the nuts and bolts of the machine rather than out on the race course setting lap records.
109 Bushfire – Too harsh, too soon. You are making the same mistake the MSM is making.
BB @ 131 :
I understand what your trying to say BB, but if the race callers ( In this case the MSM ) decide they want the horse to be a nag, and they keep repeating he is a nag, then no amount race wins will change their minds. Nevermind that their own personal favourite hasn’t won a race at all, runs all over the track, is losing jockeys to overseas connections, but still the race callers give his stable all the good press.
He could win every race he enters but the race callers will say he should of won by a bigger margin.
131 BB, I think he has been trying to get the message out, but the MSM isn’t letting it get through. Instead they have been beating up anything they can lay their hands on, and stifling any message. I mean, even the Garnaut report hardly got ANY real airplay on major news bulletins!
“Rudd is putting his head down and getting on with the job. We should give him the opportunity to do it.” Spot on Dario.
You don’t turn the Titanic (maybe an unfortunate ship to focus on) around in 7 months. The only thing that will get positive reactions and opinions are runs on the board ie positive results. The best way of getting positive results is to do the hard preparation and planning required, which takes time.
The Greens in Queensland seem to have decided that it is better to change the system than put up policies that will ensure the Greens are represented in the Queensland Parliament.
http://publicpolity.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/a-new-electoral-system-for-queensland/
I haven’t got a problem with any of the above comments (#132 – #136). I agree hard work needs to be done. But inspiration is also needed.
I used the allegory of Kennedy’s “because they are hard” speech in relation to the Moon race. Kennedy didn’t have any details. In fact most NASA guys thought it was impossible. But it was done. Kennedy provided the goal.
The driver who is fixing the race car can put it one of two ways.
A. “I’m trying to get this petrol pump working better.”
B. “I’m trying to win the race by having a better petrol pump.”
At the moment Rudd is just telling us of the means, not the goals. And he’s telling us precious little of the means, when you come to think of it. That’s because there’s no details mapped out yet. He should substitute the goals until the means become clear, otherwise the slagger-offerers will have a field day… and already are.
Almost everything said about Global Warming is either negative or nuts and bolts. I want to be able to believe (at least for my grandkids’ sakes) that the goal is worthwhile. Even if I was a climate denier (which I am not) I would have to say that a program which put Australia in a better position to influence worlds affairs and technological development was a good thing in itself.
The implication in just about everything Rudd has said on the subject so far is that the only purpose behind an ETS is to keep the race car on the road, nothing about having a better race car when the modification is done, whether that modification turns out to be necessary or not. He seems to have bought into Nelson’s position that what we have at present cannot and should not be changed.
It doesn’t have to be a Whitlam “vision thing” or a Keatingesque “Big Picture”. They were perceived as Whitlam dreaming and Keating being arrogant respectively. The “Rudd Future” needs to be solid and achieveable, something to work towards. Bleating about how Howard rooned it all for us deep thinkers is defeatism.
The little rodent seems to have gotten away with murder last night in Perth. Somebody should put him in his place and quickly… and brutally. Letting him get away with speeches like that seemingly because it was so pathetic as to be unworthy of comment is just concedingthe floor to him: a failed loser.
the Mob is frightened. heir whole world is turning topsy turvey. They might start to believe it really is all down to the Rudd government if something isn’t done soon, in a big and meaningful way (not just cheap spin doctor tactics) to turn this around.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, let alone 6 months or so. It’s going to take a few terms of government to reverse the damage done to this country and its institutions by the Rodent and his henchmen!
132
Gary Bruce Says:
109 Bushfire – Too harsh, too soon. You are making the same mistake the MSM is making.
and @ 135
“Rudd is putting his head down and getting on with the job. We should give him the opportunity to do it.” Spot on Dario.
Second that.
I am sympathetic to a lot of what you say, BB, you are passionate, insightful and articulate. But you gotta give the Rudd government another year or so before passing too much judgement. While many who voted for the government may not personally warm to Rudd, I think he and the government have a lot more solid political capital up their sleeve (particularly on climate change) than some do, especially in the MSM, who are unlikely to EVER generally support Rudd.
And, as others have said, it is also going to take some time for Rudd to change the corrupt and corrosive political cultural legacy of the Howard years, and he will get little help in that from the MSM.
JM #140… your position and mine can easily co-exist.
There’s no direction at the moment in regards to Global Warming countermeasures. It’s all nuts and bolts.
We need a goal, and there is no reason why this can’t be articulated while the nuts and bolts work continues. It would suck the oxygen from the naysayers and the quibblers at the margins. Let’s hear their vision. All we’re getting is whingeing and carping, feed and feeding off the publics very real fears of potential economic collapse in the near future. Consumer sentiment is a very powerful thing once it becomes entrenched in negative territory. Let’s have something to look forward to, as well as doing the hard work.
“We do not do these things because they are easy. We do them because they are hard,”… and the benefits will be immense if we get in on the ground floor, for once, and stop this “follower nation” status that has permeated our history and our psyche from day one.
We should not just regard ourelves at the world’s quarry, or the world’s farm or, worse, the world’s pet, faithfully following our masters wherever they go, or don’t go.
As to Howard’s speech: He is in every sense of the phrase, yesterday’s man, completely irrelevant. The electorate unambiguously moved on from him and his style of governance about 2 years ago, and ain’t listening no more. If the conservatives think they are going to get an electoral boost by trotting him out, hanging off his every word, and singing his praises as an ‘elder statesman’, they are very seriously mistaken. All his re-appearance on the political scene does is remind people of why they voted for Labor. I hope the opposition give him every possible opportunity to speak in public, it will not hurt Labor.
BB certainly one way of reading the flip flopping of Nelson over the past couple of days (followed by a train of Shadow Ministers trying to tell us what he really meant) is do nothing until the US and other countries give us permission to do so.
109 Bushfire Bill.
HEAR HEAR!!!!
I think it would be nice if the Opposition and the Murdoch press stopped talking down Australia too.
http://liberal.org.au/info/news/detail/20080409_Consumerconfidence.php
…and if Rudd talked Australia up.
We have a potentially wonderful future. This needs to be set out as a goal, not as the product of raw good luck or something that is always in danger from numerous threats conjured up by itinerant nitpickers.
BB. I agree that Rudd could do more on selling the broader vision, I just do not think it is a pressing issue yet. It will start becoming so in 12 months or so (after the due diligence phase is over) if he does not attend to it.
The mere fact that he is doing something serious about climate change, is itself a major step forward, one he has been very public about. Don’t forget there is still one more report to come from Garnaut, and it is the one with the economic details, so the government can’t really move too far on this policy just yet. Plus, I will bet that the international community is about to start moving seriously on climate change, so the government is not going to be ‘recklessly leading’, as the opposition charge, but will be comfortably positioned by the time the next election comes around. The opposition will not be.
Just posted this on Bolt’s blog. dickheads there got up my nose 🙂 Probably won’t appear:
Proud Aussie
I don’t know anyone that wants Howard back, not even Fiberal voters. And the latest Newspoll was 55:45 to Labor, landslide election territory.
Look, if you want the Fibs to regain government don’t just expect a small swing is all that is needed.
Whatever the margin at the last election, there are a whole new set of Labor MPs. These will be working hard in their electorates, building up a personal vote of 1-1.5%
Secondly, Labor is now the incumbent, with all that that implies, pork barreling to put it crudely but many other advantages too, e.g. government advertising. What is that worth, say 1-1.5%? probably more.
So, the swing the Fibs need is the margin at the last election plus 2-3% extra–quite an ask. Then there are demographic changes, accelerated by reversing the rorting of the Electoral Act under Howard as young voters enrol and the oldest voters, the most staunch Coalition demographic, start dying off. Also, the redistributions will likely make the job even harder for the Coalition in most states.
The Nats will continue to bleed as their children head for the cities and are replaced by those looking for a seachange.
All in all, the Coalition will need to work miracles not to go backwards at the next election, let alone try to win government.
Do not expect the ETS to win government for you. Labor expected the GST to do the job and it didn’t. The EST will be introduced very carefully after much modeling at Treasury, consultation on the Green Paper and the government will (have to) advertise the EST and how it advantages most people.
Cheap comments won’t work, lots of hard work will be needed for the Coalition to regain government, cheap populism like opposing the ETS will not do it.
Re greenhouse gases, even the G8 is starting to take this seriously.
brenda has right royally wedged herself
BB – you are right in that some of us are longing to hear more about the positives ahead. I want to hear of the opportunities and not so much of the doom and gloom. But I will give Rudd credit for making CC a difference now between Labor and the so so sorry looking Libs.
We can’t all be inspirational in manner and the tough survival instincts he had to have as a kid have probably not helped in this regard. But as a highly intelligent individual he knows what is needed. Hopefully Rudd will find the right person to sell this.
No-one can say Howard was inspirational – and this morning’s diatribe on ABC was positively sickening.
I’m with you when you say that Labor needs to keep reminding the Opposition that they lost the election but if Rudd is the one continually doing it he will get a hammering in the MSM. So he needs an attack dog. Does Labor have a Heffernan to do the job as Howard did. Would that help?
Loved your ideas re the West and Broken Hill opportunities. Great possibilities there.
Good luck Harry – it is a cruel time for all.