No Morgan poll this week. Here’s some of the other mail:
• The Launceston Examiner reports that Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, veteran of numerous overseas postings and until recently the Australian Defence Force’s director-general of public affairs, has “confirmed that he is interested” in Liberal preselection for the federal seat of Bass. Also said to have his eye on the preselection is Senator Guy Barnett, who will otherwise have to settle for the slighly less appealing prospect of number three on the Liberal ticket.
• Michelle Grattan reports on a “glowing reference” for Kooyong preselection aspirant Josh Frydenberg from John Howard. Another of Frydenberg’s backers is Andrew Peacock. His principal rival, industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto, is supported by Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam, who was himself sniffing the breeze before deciding not to proceed. Former Liberal president and Fraser government minister Tony Staley has given his seal of approval to Peter Jonson, a 62-year-old former Reserve Bank official known to the web at large as Henry Thornton.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports there are rumours that prodigious McDonald’s franchiser George Colbran again hopes to run for Labor in Herbert, where he narrowly failed to unseat Peter Lindsay in 2007. Colbran reportedly says he “won’t commit either way”.
• David Rood of The Age reports that John Brumby has “cleared the way” for Keilor MP George Seitz to be dumped at the next election, amid the fallout from the Ombudsman’s recent report into Brimbank City Council. The party’s administrative committee will decide this evening whether to take preselections for western suburbs seats out of the hands of local branches, in which Seitz and others remain powerful. Also affected will be Kororoit MP Marlene Kairouz, whose preselection ahead of last year’s by-election formed the backdrop of much of the shenanigans investigated by the Ombudsman, and Derrimut MP Telmo Languiller. Labor sources quoted in the article wonder why both Languiller and Western Metropolitan MLC Theo Theophanous aren’t equally being targeted along with Seitz, so it evidently should not be taken for granted that either Languiller or Kairouz are endangered.
• Taking his cue from Manmohan Singh’s assumption of the Indian prime ministership from the upper house, Malcolm Mackerras argues for an end to the convention that Australia’s party leaders must sit in the lower house, which he relates to the anachronistic presumption that it is the more democratic chamber.
• Final score from the Fremantle by-election: Carles 10,664, Tagliaferri 9,100. Margin: 3.96 per cent. I expected Labor would rein it in a little on late counting, but no.
• With the whiff of a dying government in the air, talk of electoral reform is very much in vogue in London this season, just as was when the scandal-ridden Major government was breathing its last. Conservative leader David Cameron opposes proportional representation but promises to “look seriously” at fixed terms. Health Secretary Alan Johnson – “still the favourite to lead Labour if Gordon Brown is removed from the top job“ – has suggested the government at last look seriously at the “Alternative Vote Plus” model which has been floating around since the 1998 report of the Jenkins commission, which was set up when Tony Blair came to power. It proposes a slightly watered down version of German/NZ style MMP, combining constituency members with party list members to produce a proportional result. Unlike Germany and NZ however, there would be a cap on the number of party list members which might make results less than fully proportional. The “Alternative Vote” part of the title refers to Australian-style preferential voting for the constituency seats, which the Jenkins commission appeared to be taken with as it had just helped defeat Pauline Hanson. From the Jenkins commission report, a “note of reservation by Lord Alexander”:
My colleagues also think that AV will contribute to a less confrontational style of politics because candidates will be inhibited from attacking rivals too strongly as they wish to gain their second votes. I do not see it as particularly desirable that candidates from different parties, who are different precisely because they do not agree on all issues, should be pulling their punches in order to seek approval from voters who support other parties. In any event, from my observation of Australia, which is the only single large country to use AV, their politicians tend to be, if anything, more blunt and outspoken than our own.
This actually is a better illustration of the Ftizy beatup by a dying old media as Rupe has called it:
The ‘revelation’ that Fitzgibbon had trips paid for by Liu before he entered politics to me explains why he forgot to register the others.
I’m not totally defending him, he was stupid to deny them in the first press conference (when such a specific question is asked, any politician worth their salt should at least pause and think before answering, it’s an obvious ‘gotcha’ situation) and obviously should have declared them to start with.
What it suggested to me was that he was used to having these kinds of things paid for by Liu and saw them as totally personal affairs not connected with politics.
Therefore when he was filling out pecuniary interest forms they genuinely didn’t come to mind.
Just read the article (teach me to follow links before commenting!)
It really is a very poor piece of journalism.
For starters:
– the trip referred to was declared by the elder Fitzgibbon. It wasn’t a mystery then, it’s not a mystery now.
– I would expect he was spied upon whilst in China. I thought it was common knowledge that any foreigner is spied on whilst in China. Do we get articles about every highly placed Chinese traveller suggesting they’re spies? (News flash: Whilst in China, PM Rudd was spied upon).
– the Chinese authorities might have suggested Ms Liu be used as a spy. (It’s the sort of thing that can’t be disproved, so it’s always safe to say). Whether she was actually asked to be one and whether she accepted is a totally different story.
– the anonymous sources are given more weight than those which have gone on the record. So someone who refuses to give their name or any other details is more reliable than a former MP and the Defence Department.
Zoomster,
[
Just read the article (teach me to follow links before commenting!)
]
If the article says anything (on the home page) which puts JF, Liu or China in some combination in the same sentance, I’ve learned not to go there.
Guess they didn’t get a Morgan this week so they’re looking to beat the same boring drum looking for a lift 😀
Good point, juliem – guess I’m a slow learner!!
[
The Federal Government says it will consider a request by the US President, Barack Obama, for Australia to resettle some of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
It is understood the detainees in question are 17 Uighurs, who are Muslims from north-western China. Australia refused in January to accept them after a similar request from the Bush administration in December. It was the second time a Bush administration request regarding Guantanamo inmates was rebuffed.
]
I’m on record as being all for letting all the refugees/detiainees in, all of them. When I’ve previously stated that, though, I’ve been referring to our cases here and not those inherited by Obama.
They can come in too, all of them BUT ….. BUT ….. if Rudd accedes to this request when made by Obama as opposed to Bush, he had bloody better well bookend that accession with the #($*)#*$()#*$()* closing of all of our detention centers.
Double standards are something I can not tolerate. 😡
If Senator Chris Evans moonlights on this blog or someone who knows him reads this, please pass along this message to him. 💡 🙂
[
http://www.smh.com.au/national/obama-pressures-rudd-over-gitmo-inmates-20090529-bq8c.html
]
oops, William …. you probably aren’t out of bed yet, but if the “chars” in para2 above breach the “strong language” conventions of your moderation guidelines, please delete them as the sentance will stand fine enough on its own without them.
sorry if I’ve done the wrong thing 😳
Thanks Julie, but there’s no problem if it isn’t clear what word you meant.
Hey Zoomster? Read up, good on the Herald Sun here, they are playing Good Cop this morning to The Age’s Bad Cop ……
Comments from the resident Libs who were whinging about payments to dead people (that their estate(s) were entitled to) will be encouraged 😀
[
Rich taxpayers receiving multiple stimulus bonus payments
May 30, 2009 12:00am
RICH taxpayers are rorting Kevin Rudd’s $8 billion cash splash by claiming up to six of the $900 bonus payments.
Angry accountants say they have clients on $5 million a year who have legally received multiple cheques.
But battlers earning $13,000 are missing out because of the scheme’s design.
The revelation comes as the Tax Office has reportedly told those getting extra payments to spend it rather than return the cash.
The Herald Sun has uncovered widespread problems with the cash bonus, including cheques sent to expat Aussies working as bankers in New York and the Middle East.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25558462-662,00.html
]
108,
NEAT 😀 Good on you William 🙂
The heading “New Claims Over Fitzgibbon’s Trip” seems to be assigning a meaning to “New” which is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
(apologies to Yes Prime Minister)
[RICH taxpayers are rorting Kevin Rudd’s $8 billion cash splash by claiming up to six of the $900 bonus payments]
And when the govt moves to clean up these rorts we will see headlines of “envy of the rich”?
I would think the rich getting the tax payment would make people angry at the rich bastards rorting the tax system, not at the Government.
[Dr Capolingua described her relationship with Ms Roxon as one of “mutual respect”, ]
The article is quite funny.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25557276-29277,00.html
She describes doctors as
[devoting their lives to helping people]
And the govt as
[deliberately feeds misinformation about doctors to the media. (doctors) actively attacked and cast as the black hats, the villains in the health debate, by our elected government representatives.]
Love the mutual respect, can you feel the love.
Laurie Oakes throws out a statemnt and backs it up with… err well with nothing:
[There is no doubt that the Government is vulnerable on the deficit and debt issue. People are worried, and the Opposition’s campaign is gaining traction. ]
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25557699-5000117,00.html
Traction? Where?
Steve Lewis contiues his fine work:
[The Government has been on the defensive after the Herald Sun revealed on Thursday the $900 cash bonus had been sent to 16,000 dead people and 27,000 expats working overseas. ]
Really? Defensive? The widows of bushfire victims weren’t getting stuck into Kevin Rudd this week.
I would have thought a more accurate report would be:
[The Opposition’s strategy blew up in its face this week, when after criticising the Government for giving money to dead people, talk back radio was flooded with calls from relatives of those who had recently died saying they had used the payments to help pay for funerals.
The widow of a man who perished in the Victorian Bushfires earlier this year said she was horrified to hear the Liberal Party joking about dead people getting the payments, saying she had used the money to pay for her husband’s gravestone.]
Of course given that Steve Lewis was the one who came up with the “scoop” he is hardly going to write that it was a dud.
Someone asked earlier this week “who were the pollies getting the bonus?”. I thought at the time that might probably have been tongue in cheek. However after reading this today, I wonder …. if any of the Libs used these back alley rorts to get the money, they had better well pray that Albo doesn’t find out about it or there will be trouble to pay next Parliament stting period in mid June 😀
Off to Bradfield with you Capolingua
116 – good point juliem. I think the LIbs kind of leaked it thinking it would be a good eg of how bad the payments were, and then they realised ooops, it might make them look a tad tax rorty.
Not sure how much people care about Tasmanian politics, but former premier Robin Gray thinks Liberal and Labor should form a formal coalition because they’re the same.
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/grays-vision-the-liblab-coalition/
Interesting article on that subject here as well:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8971
An intersting article in the WSJ about the dubious value of Cinese economic statistics:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124350326977562001.html
Its a valid point but I find the hypocracy glaring: the WSJ faithfully reported the profit results of Wall Street trading banks that we now know were hopelessly optimistic, and in some cases may have deliberately hid the extend of their (inevitable) sub prime and derivative losses. Even the official US economic figures I found hard to believe last year; there was no downturn reported until at least 6 months after everyone knew it had hit with full force.
That’s because the WSJ ‘s rule is:
Chinese statistics – Communist lies.
Bank profit results – Creative accounting..
Juliem 106
I agree with you; we should accept Guantanamo detainees that were found not to be terrorists. And we should not have our own detention centres either.
But I’d go futher than that – we should ask Obama for something in return. Identification and prosecution of the torturers would be a good start. They can’t be hidden for ever. Unless all detainees are going to be denied the right to speak publically for the rest of their lives sooner or later they will be released, speak, and the game is up. The excuse that it will endanger US servicemen is a crock. Stories on torture, Cheney defending the use of torture, and the content of the unreleased photos of it are already all over the Arab world:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/2009521154821973183.html
Exactly Grog. Perhaps the Chinese government doesn’t pay the WSJ enough in advertising revenue for it to print “the truth” about it.
Robin Gray’s observation has occurred to me before. If the two major parties could form a grand coalition in Germany, there’s no reason at all to think it won’t happen in Tasmania.
William,
They could all join as a coalition government, bring the resources of great minds and committment to the broader community and forge ahead as a united team bringing untold prosperity to Tasmania.
It will be called a Labor Government.
Socrates 122,
Obama may soon (if he’s not already there) find himself backed into a corner on this by comments from government officials with a conscience. Someone somewhere and it should be multiple people imho will be hung out to dry in the long term.
[
Petraeus Says U.S. Violated Geneva Conventions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/petraeus-says-us-violated_b_209215.html
]
Oz
Gray (among many others, I suspect) commits the sin of omission
[Greens leader Nick McKim said Mr Gray forgot that a minority government including the Greens had the difficult task of rescuing the State’s economy after the Gray Government left such a mess in 1989.
“I welcome Mr Gray’s recognition that the recession warrants a war cabinet style approach, as that is exactly what I called for earlier this year, when I called for the three political leaders to work together in such a war cabinet style to guide Tasmania through these difficult economic times,” Mr McKim said. ]
Cue Frank and his cabbage patch dolls
😉
Don
The secondary bacterial infection which kills flu victims is normally Staph aureus. There isn’t a vaccine for it. Antibiotics work but it is often a case of SIRS which I mentioned earlier. The secondary infection triggers a cytokine storm which causes multi-organ failure which is why people still die of the flu.
fred
I agree that the public health response to the flu is wrong. It’s futile and counterproductive.
A fascinating way to watch the effect of the flu is to look at the share price of Biota, which makes Relenza. You can see the second spike once Oz patients started catching it.
http://hfgapps.hubb.com/asxtools/Charts.aspx?TimeFrame=D6&compare=comp_index&indicies=XJO&pma1=20&pma2=20&asxCode=BTA
[Robin Gray’s observation has occurred to me before. If the two major parties could form a grand coalition in Germany, there’s no reason at all to think it won’t happen in Tasmania.]
The article on Online Opinion makes a pretty convincing case.
As noted by some comments on the Tasmanian Times, Gray is now a director of Gunns. I don’t think it’s a big jump to suggest that his opinions reflects that of the business (especially forestry) community in Tasmania, that Liberal and Labor and the same and their biggest fear is The Greens.
Hmmm. It’s all getting a bit silly.
[Under the National Pandemic Action Plan, hotels are used to isolate people who have been in contact with the disease.
But the Australian Hotels Association says it is inappropriate for hotels to house people who are actually sick.
“It was never our understanding that hotels would be expected to accommodate people who have been diagnosed with a disease,” AHA chief executive officer Bill Healey said.
“This is a health issue and people diagnosed with swine flu should be located in a health facility.”
The Federal Government also said yesterday that Australia is not ready to ban public gatherings, but it could happen if the disease spreads. ]
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25558286-2682,00.html
Any potential Lab-Lib coalition would be fairly unexciting in policy terms, things in Tasmania would continue pretty much as they are. Suggestions that it would have enormous implications federally are pretty overstated. Fed Labor and Liberal are hardly going to make a big deal about it and while some commentators might get excited for a bit, everyone would get over it.
The only thing worth noting would be The Greens as the opposition.
It looks like all is doom for Malcolm, come what may, in the gospel according to Mesma’s admirer. Just as well Malcolm has his millions to cry all the way to the bank with.
[Turnbull will get only one shot at winning an election as Liberal leader. Whether the alternative is Peter Costello or a generational change to Joe Hockey or Peter Dutton (if he wins his seat), the 54-year-old Turnbull won’t stick around for another three years in Opposition. If he loses the next election his colleagues won’t have to move him on, he will do it for them. He has made this point to many of them. If this week’s BRW rich-list ranking proves one thing (Turnbull was ranked 182nd with $178 million) it is that the member for Wentworth has considerable interests outside of politics.
A double-dissolution election later this year is too soon for Turnbull; he would almost certainly be defeated. Kevin Rudd remains very popular and the effects of the economic meltdown haven’t really been felt yet. Turnbull needs more time to break down the Government’s dominance. ]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25556856-7583,00.html
dio 130,
[
“The Federal Government also said yesterday that Australia is not ready to ban public gatherings, but it could happen if the disease spreads. ”
]
AFL has said that they are NOT going there …..
[
Asked if it was possible the AFL would consider suspending a full round of matches if swine flu struck many clubs, Demetriou said: “We are not even entertaining anything along those lines.”
Demetriou indicated that if football was forced into dramatic measures in order to deal with swine flu, then society itself would already be in a dire situation.
“If you’re going to close football grounds down, you may as well close down the CBD or a supermarket, all public places,” Demetriou said.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25558725-19742,00.html
]
juliem
If Rudd banned AFL, it would be the end of civilisation as we know it.
132 – the next sentence is the key one:
[But let’s be realistic. Whether the election is called early or delayed until the end of next year, it is hard to see the Liberals winning it. ]
[If Rudd banned AFL, it would be the end of civilisation as we know it.]
I think it would take the end of civilisation before would even be contemplated.
#135, i know. just trying not to be too cruel while being kind.
[Robin Gray’s observation has occurred to me before. If the two major parties could form a grand coalition in Germany, there’s no reason at all to think it won’t happen in Tasmania.]
Participation in the Merkel government has reduced the SPD’s level of support to 20%, the lowest in the postwar period. Come the elections in September, if people want to vote for the government, they will vote CDU. If they want to vote against the government, they will vote FPD, Green or Left. The SPD, being weder Fische noch Hunne, will fall through the middle. This fate has already befallen Israeli Labour, and for the same reason.
I guess the moral of the story is that it doesn’t pay to be the junior partner in a grand coalition. Surely though in Tasmania, that role would more likely fall to the Liberals, who seem to accept that being in government is a historically rare event. It might well be though that they would be better off backing a minority Labor government.
If there’s a hung parliament at the next election, I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that the outcome will be minority Labor government with Lib support.
The question is how close the partnership is. Is it restricted to confidence and supply issues? Or will the Libs ask for ministers, thus making it more like the formal coalition Gray is talking about.
Policy convergence and the influence of business on both parties has ruled pretty much ruled out minority government with Greens support.
As BH said on Wednesday, the msm will be doing their dangest to get a few hit’s on Rudd and his govt before the newspoll on Monday, but fair dinkum, things are crook when they have to rehash Fitz’s Chineses spies, stimulus to dead and Rudd overworking staff.
Talk about slack can’t the media hacks at least come up with a new scandal?
[quote]But let’s be realistic. Whether the election is called early or delayed until the end of next year, it is hard to see the Liberals winning it.[/quote]
I guess I agree with this statement, but I am also wary of going with conventional wisdom, especially conventional political pundit wisdom.
I’d really start getting scared, for example, if it had been Glenn Milne who wrote those words. I’m happy with his fevered rationales for Rudd being a “oncer”. If he started out stating the bleedin’ obvious about the Libs’ hapless state, it might just make his “oncer” statements come true.
Don’t ask me how or why Milne gets so much so wrong, so often. It’s a mystery.
Oz,
Sure, Eric Abetz as a rusted on “True Believer”. I’d like to see that. I reckon his head would explode.
Why wouldnt the Libs stay out of Government and let the ALP have to deal with the Greens 🙂 Unstable government, a government reliant on watermellons will surely do a poor job of running the State which will bring the Libs into contention the election after.
It never pays to be in a Coalition government, look at the Nats 🙂
Also one of the reasons the Nazi Party did so well was because they stayed out of large Weimar coalition Governments in the 1920s/early 30s until they were offered power and the Chancellor ship. When all the major parties in Government were pro-Weimar political parties, this meant the only opposition to them was the Commos and the Nazis and the Nazis and Commos did well in subsequent elections.
If the Liberals will die a slow death in Tassie if they join the ALP.
So far, the Libs have been very responsible about not politicising the swine flu pandemic.
This cannot last.
I predict that on Monday that the Opposition criticize the response as “all over the place, unco-ordinated, policy on the run, lacking leadership which is unnecessarily inflaming the situation” or similar. There will be no specific criticism as they don’t want to defend a decision.
Dio i was more thinking the Coalition would come into QT all with face masks on. 😉 sounds like a stunt Uncle Buck would possibly run with.
[Why wouldnt the Libs stay out of Government and let the ALP have to deal with the Greens]
Very unlikely that Bartlett would deal with The Greens.
With the CFMEU standing behind Labor and Gunns standing behind Labor and Liberal, I think a Lab-Lib partnership of some kind is virtually agreed.
Another record low for UK Labour. They’re down to 21. But the Lib Dems have also taken a massive 7 point hit.
In the EU poll, the majors are all down but the UKIP is up to 19, The Greens are at 10 and the NBP is at 5.
With The Greens polling double the BNP, you have to question the flood of media reports suggesting the BNP have been the “main beneficiaries” of the expenses scandal.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6390069.ece
Diog,
Flu will always be more hysterical under the Libs.
[Another record low for UK Labour. They’re down to 21. But the Lib Dems have also taken a massive 7 point hit.]
Met a UK govt MP this week. He was in no doubt of the situation coming up next year. He’s aware that by May next year he’ll be in opposition.