Don’t ask me how, but Peter Brent at Mumble seems to have the scoop on Newspoll. Labor’s lead is up slightly on a fortnight ago, from 55-45 to 56-44. Better news for them still on the primary vote, up four points to 46 per cent with the Coalition down one to 34 per cent. Despite this, Kevin Rudd has recorded his weakest personal ratings since October, his approval down six points to 58 per cent and his disapproval up five to 31 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s position has improved, his approval up four points to 40 per cent and his disapproval down three to 42 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 64-19 to 58-24.
[as I keep on saying like a broken Record, Latham tried that with the old growth forests in Tasmania and as a result the ALP lost ALL of their Tasmanian seats and we got lumbered with Workchoices]
which caused the electorate to vote out the libs and the then PM, oh and as a side casualty wiped the dems and created FFf’s and xeno the wily
But that was the will of the people was it not???
[which caused the electorate to vote out the libs and the then PM, oh and as a side casualty wiped the dems and created FFf’s and xeno the wily
But that was the will of the people was it not???]
And that what happens when you stick to ideology at all costs.
Frank
[Latham tried that with the old growth forests in Tasmania and as a result the ALP lost ALL of their Tasmanian seats and we got lumbered with Workchoices.]
“old growth forests” and “lumbered with Workchoices” – good pun. 🙂
There is no choice between ‘pragmatism’ and action. We now see that ‘pragmatism’ means total inaction until after the next election. Rudd has not assisted his legacy with that cop out.
There is no choice – we have a science issue before it’s a political one. The science has to be followed – end of story.
The government must take the required action, and if it is worried about the reaction of elements of the electorate, then it must strongly LEAD the electorate through it by endlessly explaining the necessity to act. That has not happened.
What has happened is a milksop capitulation to vested interests and the fear of a backlash electorally. Some leadership.
I wouldn’t bother about the 2004 timber worker incident because it was a sudden dumping of a new policy by an erratic goose, guaranteed to get the reaction it got. It is nothing to do with the current circumstances on climate change. The CFMEU and everyone else must understand the imperative for action. Action on climate change means more jobs because it will boost the economy. Stern says so. So where’s the problem anyway?
[And that what happens when you stick to ideology at all costs.]
exactly
So what we are seeing with the greens is an expression of the electorate’s ideology
(I personally would rather a resurgent “left” than a resurgent “right”)
the greens rise is not a failure of labor, but an expression of labors strength to be able to have the electorate consider two left options.
Frank
as I said pre 2007 , the libs are dying and as electors we will face in the future two left options as competitors for gvt.
Perhaps instinctively you have identified the greens as the opposition,tho this time from the left as opposed formerly from the right.
In this I totally agree, but unlike yourself ,I give credit to the greens as a viable opposition/gvt within the next 20 yrs
Parting piece is the first verse of Lennon’s song, which sums up my feelings on the climate change sellout:
I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth”
[Latham tried that with the old growth forests in Tasmania and as a result the ALP lost ALL of their Tasmanian seats]
Not so Frank – Labor held three of the five Tas HoR seats after the 2004 election.
[the libs are dying and as electors we will face in the future two left options as competitors for gvt.]
Talk about counting chickens before they hatch, Gus. You could be right but I wouldn’t count on it!
[I wouldn’t bother about the 2004 timber worker incident because it was a sudden dumping of a new policy by an erratic goose, guaranteed to get the reaction it got. It is nothing to do with the current circumstances on climate change. The CFMEU and everyone else must understand the imperative for action. Action on climate change means more jobs because it will boost the economy. Stern says so. So where’s the problem anyway?]
Actually The “Goose” adopted the policy to ensure the Green vote- but it backfired completely.
And Rudd doing the same to appease Bob Brown on Climate Change in that manner will give us EXACTLY the same outcome.
But of course the oh so pure Greens would love to see the CFMEU on stage with a whole lot of Coal Workers cheering him like a hero, and then 6 months later, we get an even WORSE version of Workchoices.
I rest my Case.
Don’t forget the Libs still have (something like) 3 or 4 times the number of voters than the Greens have.
Maybe the Greens are the coming second force, but I’m yet to be convinced. Moroever if the Greens did become a major party, at the expense of the Liberals, you would probably see Labor taken over by business interests (as it would be the logical party to represent their interests). So it would still be “right” v “left”, just with different party names.
[I rest my Case]
I wouldn’t rest it yet Frank. More erudition required. A lot of frowns among the jurors.
🙂
Goodnight
[the libs are dying and as electors we will face in the future two left options as competitors for gvt.
Talk about counting chickens before they hatch, Gus. You could be right but I wouldn’t count on it!]
I sometimes wonder if someone said to menzies way back when
“the liberal party- no conservative in their right mind would vote for a party named liberal”
[Not so Frank – Labor held three of the five Tas HoR seats after the 2004 election.]
Mea culpa, but the fact that the 2 seats the ALP lost were in the Timber Worker seats of Bass & Bradden.
I’m pretty sure they said to Menzies, “call the party whatever you like, just get rid of Labor!” (Which he did in 1949).
[So it would still be “right” v “left”, just with different party names.]
I consider ,compared to the current crop, menzies to have been left
Of course you had the country party to fill out the right flank
To be honest and this is regardless of most issues, the main game is to make sure an ALP government is returned next round?(thus almost definitely ensuring at least 1 or more likely 2-3 election successes after that)
World meltdown and a new Gov in major debt after 11years of “happy” doesn’t worry me a lot, but it does a little. I don’t care if Labor sells the right to hunt baby harp seals for sport if that’s what it takes
….. He beat Howard so as far as I’m concerned he’s got a green light this run
Well get back to basics after the next round
Frank Calabrese
[
[Rudd wasn’t wrong when he used to say in 2007 before the election, and occasionally afterwards, that climate change is the most important issue. And nor is the party platform. But policy doesn’t count in government if staying in power is number one. Having the use of a white car is the main thing for the big party chaps.]
It was until there was this thing called a Global Financial Crisis.]
Oh, come on! The GFC didn’t make GW go away. The system isn’t working and its simply got to change. Take Japan: If somehow it could have 3% growth per year, as its pollies want, its economy would be 19 times bigger than it is currently by the end of the century! If we had business as usual Japan would need19 times more resources and energy and produce 19X as much waist. BUT the population isn’t growing (and they don’t import the commodity known as the “consumer/worker” like we do) and the implications of the GFC and GW are going to totally screw up any chance of that sort of growth anyway. Look up the effects of global warming some time – its bloody bad for the economy and that will peeve off the electorate.
It seems to me that the only “politically sensible” (sic) thing to do is business as usual. Yet the implications of such a course of action are very politically bad down the track a few decades. The Japanese system is dependant on its economy being roughly 19X bigger in 91 but this just isn’t going to happen – not by a long shot. So why do our politics as if it is? I can just see The Greens campaign slogan 50 years from now when agricultural production has dived, coastal cities have been partially abandoned and water rationing is bloody strict: “Told Ya’ So”! Although it probably won’t work as well as “Its Time” (because it intentionally immitates a spoilt brat)they could well receive a long-term electoral benefit from addressing these issues. Just as the ANC is voted for by most S-Africans because it stopped apartheid, so too may most people vote Green coz they stopped runaway GW or at least saw it coming and planned for it.
That should read:
“The Japanese system is dependant on its economy being roughly 19X bigger in 91 YEARS (2100) but this just isn’t going to happen – not by a long shot.”
A sustainable economy – a steady-state economy is whats needed.
Union snouters win victory. Rudd abandons principled reform.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25515012-601,00.html
Turnbull’s Battlers will no longer be getting access to this tax rort because their income is too high. No problem there; supported strongly.
But what the backdown means is that people on, say, $35,000 will be subsidising those who are on, say, twice that and who are lucky enough to be in an industry that has the capacity to provide a tax rort through employee share schemes. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.
In this context the pained cries of the impact on ‘Working families’ et cetera coming from the union leaders concerned is cynical and dishonest.
Possibly the first genuinely unethical decision by the Rudd/Gillard Government – taking from the poor and giving it to their union mates.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25348271-5013169,00.html
Buried in a rather silly article on Plimer’s book there is a bit of a hidden bombshell of very large proportions.
‘Adelaide’s water supply is in serious trouble. Despite the state Government’s insistence that water for households is guaranteed, the boss of the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Rob Freeman, blew the whistle this week when he told The Australian there might not be sufficient “carry” water to offset evaporation and seepage losses of moving supplies to the city’s reservoirs.’
I have been trying for some time to figure this bit of arithmetic:
I read some time ago in the Australia that 1,200 Gigs a year is needed for town water in the Murray Darling Basin. Various Government statements have been made to the effect that enough had been set aside to cover town water in the Murray Darling Basin for the next year. The bit I was having difficulty with was that there is only about 900 or so Gigs in the system now.
‘If the all the basic facts are more or less right,’ I asked myself, ‘How can governments be saying that enough has been set aside?’
Looks like Freeman is fessing up to same doubt. If Freeman is not being verballed, and if the current rainfall pattern maintains itself:
(a) the governments concerned are peddling some monstrous porkies;
(b) the coming catastrophe in the Murray Darling Basin will be even worse than I thought it would be.
‘More ill-conceived policy emerged last week when the Rudd Government proposed a taxation regime for employee share schemes that betrayed a deep ignorance of the way these schemes work. The new measure has already led companies to suspend their schemes and unless changed will ultimately kill share schemes stone dead, not wring tax from them.’
Janet A does not like the fact that the Government announced in the budget an attack on the share scheme stuff. As would be expected, she has put in a word for Turnbull’s Battlers.
Shock horror, some companies are suspending the schemes. Well, of course they would. They were a nice little way of companies and their union mate snouters to pay people extra without the employees having to pay tax. In turn the company could afford to pay their workers slightly less. Win for the company, win for the snouters; loss for everybody else who is paying tax at the real rates and who has to subsidise the snouters.
It has apparently not occurred to Janet A that the share schemes distort the tax system and that the working poor will now be subsidising middle income earners. But, may it has occurred to her but in Planet Janet that does not count. Who knows?
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/nightmare_for_business/
[Rudd abandons principled reform.]
Yes, in going for the share tax rort he forgot a lot of union members earn more than 60,000. miners, truckies, forestry etc. Nice little rort for them too, bring down taxable income to claim more middle class welfare. But don’t won’t to upset his backers like mad Mark did in Tassy.
I’m surprised the Oz didn’t go with the headline “union bosses force Rudd backdown on tax rort.” They must be getting slow in their old age.
Another backdown by St Kev, following his rollover on ETS, soon be known as the gutless one if he keeps it up.
[Senate rebukes Obama, blocks Guantanamo shutdown
By DAVID ESPO – 52 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare, bipartisan defeat for President Barack Obama, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay open for the foreseeable future and forbid the transfer of any detainees to facilities in the United States.]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gj2oO72tz7sEIr76Tr_UrJNTtGSgD98A74GG2
Obama is finding the real politik is much harder than words. “Yes, we can” is easy to say. “No, you dont” is harder to overcome. In addition, the Dark Lord Dicky Chaney is setting himself as the head of the US Govt in exile in an open challenge to the Obama Admin on this issue.
GITMO is turning out to be the defining issue for Obama and his presidency. How he handles his friends as well as his foes.
To be fair here, Castle, he hasn’t ‘abandoned’ the reform and there’s no sign he’s going to.
Yes, it looks like it’s going to be watered down, and that might not be ideal (I’m really not across the issue).
It will still apply to the big income earners, which – if the reform was abandoned – it wouldn’t.
That was the rorting that most people were concerned about and where most of the tax money can be clawed back.
Hillary was always hampered as a candidate because she knew what was possible and what wasn’t, and was pragmatic about it.
The idealist who can say whatever one wants to hear and doesn’t understand the difficulties in delivering always has an advantage over the realist who makes responsible commitments they know they have some chance of keeping.
(Hmmm….paralells, anyone?)
You have to admire the Rudd government if it is.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25515014-5018020,00.html
Good ol Sol,
Seems to have a dose of Costello Syndrome.
There will always be more can-can under Obama
Just thought that I saw Barnaby Joyce in Sydney city (near Circular Quay) today while I was coming into work.
I’m assuming there’s a Shadow Ministry meeting in Sydney today (otherwise, why would a Qld Senator come down to Sydney at 8:30am?)
Joyce is not on the Opposition front bench.
Story on the Age this morning that Rudd will try to lure Sarkozy and his Ms. to Australia for a state visit (before/after) he flies to New Caladonia later this year or early next on official French business.
[
http://www.theage.com.au/national/bonjour-mate-come-on-down-under-20090520-bfp9.html
]
Have we discussed Joyce’s bizarro world opinion on the amenities fees for universities? He wont vote for it unless the money is used ONLY FOR SPORT??? Huh??? This guy simply does NOT make sense…
He’s also gone out of his way to clarify that chess should not be considered a sport under the scheme. Make sure to put this girly intellectuals in their place.
[Have we discussed Joyce’s bizarro world opinion on the amenities fees for universities? He wont vote for it unless the money is used ONLY FOR SPORT??? Huh??? This guy simply does NOT make sense…]
I assume he wants to make sure that it can’t be used for student politics. That doesn’t explain why he is limiting it to sport…
He’s got this whole tedious routine about univeristy being ‘the classrooms and the sports fields’. That is, he views university life as being focused around learning and playing sport.
An extract from an interview with him in 2005 when the original VSU legislation was being debated.
[If people go to a university, they acknowledge they are going to an institution that is both buildings and fields and you must provide the finances to affect both of those things.]
[If people go to a university, they acknowledge they are going to an institution that is both buildings and fields and you must provide the finances to affect both of those things.]
So in his mind, the money is for maintenance of university infrastructure, rather than organizations or facilities?
I would have thought that health care, financial advice, etc were more important than sport and can’t see how these could be politically manipulated by cynical hard bitten lefty students.
Exactly zoomster. His position just doesnt make sense. Is this guy all there??
Haven’t had a chance to read all the comments yet but what is everyone’s take on Joyce and Xenophen joining forces on petrol outlet pricing.
Completely irrelevant media stunt. Considering it is a private bill it will never be fully considered.
Juliem – thanks for bit re Wallace/Richmond the other day. AFL site takes ages to download here – too many piccies.
I”m with you Zoomster – assistance with healthcare and financial advice are absolutely essential for students. Unless they are supported by parents (like GP) it can all get too much for some who would otherwise do well if a little help was available.
The poor devils start off with a debt when they finish.
I’m still for a free education for those who actually knuckle down and work. For the perpetual students – those chopping and changing just to stay at Uni – let them pay for their own.
Itep – it will get good weekend media coverage I bet so you may be right. Will be all ears for Turnbull/Hockey’s reaction.
I was once very heavily into the whole ‘reduce petrol prices in the bush’ issue.
Ultimately, I realised that the real solution involved putting local families out of work and since then I haven’t touched it.
Petrol is cheaper in the city largely because of economies of scale. Look at any petrol station in the city – chockerblock full of cars, one or two spotty sixteen year olds behind the bullet proof glass taking your money.
Whereas a typical country town has a couple of cars there at any one time, and at the very least supports one family (two adults), with usually some (adult) staff employed as well.
In my small town, we have four petrol outlets for 3000 people. Two of these are family operations, both of which employ several adults as well as members of the family. One is merely a petrol pump outside a general store, and the other is a franchise type operation, which again employs probably five adults.
Yes, you could dramatically cut petrol costs by the simple expedient of getting rid of three of these outlets. One could adequately cope with demand, and would not even need to expand its workforce to do so.
But to do so would mean at least half a dozen adults losing their jobs.
If you cut back further and didn’t provide the extra services country people expect, you could do the pimply youth behind bullet proof glass thing and save even more money, which would flow on to your customers in the form of cheaper petrol.
Which would mean a further loss of adult jobs.
That’s the only real way to dramatically reduce the price difference between the country and the city.
Good points Zoomster. I often moan about the extra price we have to pay up here as against 100 kms down the road but I’m afraid I am guilty of using Woollies and Coles outlets. Altho, there’s not much other choice left here.
I do use our village shops and tradies as much as possible because, as you say, it supports a lot of people. The 2 cash handouts were extremely valuable to our local shops.
[And while he may have helped the Coalition secure
its first senate majority in two decades, Joyce hasn’t
been afraid to follow his convictions first and the party
line second, even when those convictions have led
him all the way across the senate floor – as they did
in December 2005, when he voted with Labor and
the minor parties against the Government’s voluntary
student unionism (VSU) legislation.
“I crossed the floor on VSU because I knew this
legislation would severely effect the ability of
universities like UNE to raise revenue for sporting
facilities and other extra-curricular activities,” Joyce
says. “Those are the things that make studying at a
place like UNE so different from studying at a big city
campus.”]
Barnaby Joyce, the thinking mans hippocrite.
http://www.une.edu.au/mpa/communications/magazine/autumn07.pdf
[Hillary was always hampered as a candidate because she knew what was possible and what wasn’t, and was pragmatic about it.
The idealist who can say whatever one wants to hear and doesn’t understand the difficulties in delivering always has an advantage over the realist who makes responsible commitments they know they have some chance of keeping.
(Hmmm….paralells, anyone?)]
Yep, see last night’s debate 🙂
Yes, but the Bill was not defeated. He only ever crossed when the Government had the numbers, Barnaby never crossed the floor to defeat a Bill.
Pru Goward is cross.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/21/2577054.htm
[Pru Goward is cross.]
Yep, it’s all Williams Fault 🙂
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned this shameless piece of nepotism by both parties. Is Cory Bernardi’s wife really the best person for the taxpayer-funded job? What was the selection process used to pick her? This is an example of why politicians are held in such low esteem by the public. Some of them just can’t help themselves.
[FEDERAL MPs are using a loophole to employ their spouses and other family members on taxpayer-funded salaries.
The Advertiser can reveal that the practice of recruiting from within the family is common within both Labor and the Coalition.
Under the rules set out in the Standards of Ministerial Ethics guidelines, ministers cannot hire relatives, to avoid claims of nepotism, but there are no such restrictions on other MPs.
The loophole has allowed more than a dozen MPs to top up family income by employing relatives and, in some cases, double dip for lucrative travel allowances, worth up to $250 a night.
Liberal senators Cory Bernardi and Chris Back are the latest parliamentarians to put their wives on the office payroll.]
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25514762-5006301,00.html
Political staffers are not public servants but employees of the individual member/senator. It should be up to individual members or senators to decide who they wish to employ, whether that be a family member or someone else.