The federal redistribution of New South Wales has been completed, with a final determination that turns up fewer surprises than the recent effort in Queensland. Antony Green has as always given the new boundaries the once-over; all margins quoted herein are as calculated by him.
• The commissioners have responded to widespread criticism of the original proposal to put the electorate name of Reid out of commission, the general feeling being that Australia’s fourth prime minister deserved better. It has been decided that instead of changing the name of its eastern neighbour Lowe to McMahon (which under the redistribution takes in 32 per cent of the voters from abolished Reid), it will instead change to Reid and the new name of McMahon will be given to Prospect, located further to the west.
• To maintain continuity with local government boundaries, the frequently redrawn Calare will recover the western shires of Parkes and Forbes it was to lose to Parkes, and lose the areas of Wellington Shire Council (including Mumbi and Neurea) and Mid-Western Regional Council (Mudgee and Gulgong) it was to gain from it. This is great news for Calare’s National Party member John Cobb, whose margin is now cut from 12.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent rather than the originally proposed 1.2 per cent.
• The vast interior electorate of Farrer, which was originally to remain unchanged, will now absorb a part of the Shire of Central Darling including Wilcannia from Parkes, with no impact on its margin. Parkes in turn will gain the balance of the Shire of Parkes around Lake Cargelligo from its southern neighbour Riverina.
• A transfer of 1100 voters in the north-eastern part of the Shire of Tenterfield from New England to Page has been reversed. This has been counter-balanced by the transfer of the Shire of Lachlan from New England to its western neigbour Parkes. The collective changes to Parkes cut the Nationals margin from 13.8 per cent to 13.6 per cent.
• A transfer from Hume to Throsby south of Sydney has been slightly clipped so the town of Bundanoon remains in Hume. Hume also has its gain from Macarthur further to the north expanded to bring the boundary into alignment with the Nepean River and Sickles Creek, adding Theresa Park, Orangeville and Brownlow Hill in Sydney’s outskirts. None of the margins are affected.
• A transfer around Duckenfield on the west-east boundary between Newcastle and Paterson has been reversed, returning that area to Newcastle, which has further gained the adjacent area of Millers Forest.
• There have been minor adjustments to boundaries betweeen Cunningham and Macarthur, which have been tidied with elimination of a salient that formerly extended into Macarthur at Darkes Forest; Grayndler and what will now be called Reid, the latter of which gains a few blocks of territory to keep Croydon within one electorate; Bennelong and Berowra, where a proposed transfer of 1900 voters in Beecroft from the former to the latter has been reversed; and to the new boundary between Blaxland and Parramatta (in territory previously covered by Reid), adding three blocks of territory to the former at Granville.
• Other adjustments are more incidental still: a transfer of the unpopulated Spring Hill industrial area north of Port Kembla from Throsby to Cunningham has been reversed; Hughes’s boundary with Cook and Cunningham has been altered to follow the Illawarra Railway rather than nearby roads; and the boundary between Mitchell and Parramatta will now follow North Rocks Road rather than nearby Darling Mills Creek.
Other news:
• According to the ABC, the decision to maintain the name Reid increases the likelihood that its nominal member, Laurie Ferguson, will seek to continue his political career through a preselection challenge against John Murphy, the member for what is currently called Lowe. Ferguson is demanding that the matter be determined by a local ballot rather than the state or national executive processes which tend to prevail in contentious circumstances.
• Thwarted in McPherson, Liberal MP Peter Dutton now confirms he will attempt to retain Dickson, which he earlier swore he wouldn’t do.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports “sources across all factions” agree that Macarthur MP Pat Farmer is certain to lose Liberal preselection at next Thursday’s ballot to former Campbelltown mayor Russell Matheson. It is further said by Salusinszky’s sources that Farmer, who dumped a bucket on his own constituents on election night and has since moved far away from them to the expensive north shore suburb of Mosman, is only running to be eligible for parliamentary superannuation granted to those who serve three terms followed by “involuntary departure”. Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Camden Advertiser reports Labor’s preselection for the seat looms as a four-way contest between Nick Bleasdale (local carpenter and narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007), Greg Warren (the deputy mayor of Camden), Michael Freelander (a Campbelltown pediatrician) and Paul Nunnari (a wheelchair athlete). Ben Raue at The Tally Room offers an informed overview of the local political situation. The redistribution has turned the seat from 0.7 per cent Liberal to 0.1 per cent Labor.
• The Courier Mail says the Liberal preselection for new Gold Coast hinterland seat of Wright will be “a five-way affair” involving Cameron Thompson, who lost Blair to Labor’s Shayne Neumann in 2007; Hajnal Ban, Logan City councillor and Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007; and Bob La Castra, Gold Coast councillor and former presenter of the 1980s children’s television show Wombat.
• Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the New South Wales Liberal Party is “talking about recruiting everyone from the former ABC broadcaster Sally Loane to the former right-hand man to John Howard, Arthur Sinodinos”. Loane’s services are reportedly sought in Coogee, while Sinodinos might replace the outgoing Peter Debnam in Vaucluse. Conservative Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine is apparently not interested.
• Former NRL player Hazem El Masri has also reportedly been approached by the Liberal Party to stand in the ultra-safe Labor seat of Lakemba. However, Andrew Clennell in the Herald relates that “Liberal sources said yesterday they believed Mr El Masri would not agree to stand for Parliament”. Labor is also said to have its sights on El Masri, with earlier conjecture he might succeed Tony Stewart in Bankstown.
• The Progress Leader reports Graham Watt, the owner of a local carpet cleaning business, has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Jeff Kennett’s old seat of Burwood, currently held by Labor’s Bob Stensholt on a margin of 3.7 per cent. Watt reportedly received 70 votes against 45 for former Hawthorn AFL player Steve Lawrence (who was given a reference by Kennett) and five for David Solly, IT manager and one-time Nationals member.
[It is further said by Salusinszky’s sources that Farmer, who dumped a bucket on his own constituents on election night and has since moved far away from them to the expensive north shore suburb of Mosman, is only running to be eligible for parliamentary superannuation granted to those who serve three terms followed by “involuntary departure”.]
I’ve never understood why this is so. Surely three terms is three terms, whether you opt to retire, get dumped by your party, or get dumped by the voters.
Furthermore, the preselection process is a black box to all but party insiders. To the rest of us – including whichever government agency regulates this – there’s no substantial difference between a preselection loss and a voluntary retirement.
[There is more to it than that.]
Such as?
If you view every issue as a purely partisan, football team supporting one, you may be right about “the other side is worse”. It still means you never have to do anything other than blindly follow your party which is an intellectually weak stance. Such as the need to argue against straw men because you can’t sustain a logical argument (I’m looking at you vera).
The Laboristas seem to be struggling with the fact that they hated Howard and their hero, St Kevin, is basically Howard-Lite on many policies; asylum seekers, ETS, the tax cuts, gay marriage, etc etc.
I saw this comment posted on Crikey. I don’t know who the politician was but it was pretty accurate;
[I liked that comment by some politician or other about how PM Rudd must feel to look and the mirror and see former-PM Howard looking back.]
[The Laboristas seem to be struggling with the fact that they hated Howard and their hero, St Kevin, is basically Howard-Lite on many policies; asylum seekers, ETS, the tax cuts, gay marriage, etc etc]
actually the tag howard lite is used mainly by neoconservatives.Both as a derogratory term and conversely as a compliment.
derogatory because to the neocons he can never be Unca howie, and as a compliment to sow dissent among the laboristas.
of course you have the damascenes (hola dio) who are always happy to find the shortcomings and generally plug the howard lite line , without being overtly liberal.
Gus
Is there something wrong with finding short-comings in someone’s policies? I often think that many posters here aren’t really interested in issues and only staying in or getting in power.
If Rudd is Howard-lite on some issues or not you cannot know until the end of the journey? Is where we are now the final destination or the beginning of the journey, is he balancing political reality with his ultimate intentions or are we seeing his ultimate intentions. I think we see the game of maintaining political advantage whilst slowly turning the ship. We won’t know how to judge Rudd in totality until about half way through his next term (if he wins).
But we are certainly heading in a better direction than we were in 2007 where we were sailing full steam ahead over neocon falls.
[People arriving by boat are being treated abominably. People arriving by plane are not. The reason – politicians playing to low xenophobia among us.]
They are not being treated abominably. They are processed at or near the point of entry and are allowed into the community when that processing is complet, which can sometimes take a long time ass many do not have the specified documentation required for a visa application. If they had applied for a visa, it would probably have taken just as long to be processed had they done this from home. People arriving by boat choose the hardest option and so must assume a lot of the responsibility for the consequences and delays. At least Rudd isn’t sending them off to a fenced-off guano mine in Nauru.
People arriving by plane are legitimately allowed to enter because they have, at some stage, qualified for visas. I believe it’s not unusual for visa over-stayers to be locked up in detention centres when caught, pending deportation, and for their rights to apply for further visas taken away from them, potentially permanently.
Diogenes, my last paragraph @12 was more about right wing criticism than left wing criticism. We are often faced with “frying pan or fire” choices. Given that Rudd is not about to throw open the doors of Australia to whomever wants to come here, by whatever means, I think his handling of the issue (especially in these early stages of the latest version of the “crisis”) has been pretty spot on. He is reacting on the side of caution, trying to be perceived as tough, not only for poll-driven reasons, but also because millions of Australians – xenophobes and not – want him to be tough, perhaps even tougher than he is already. As I said, it’s a democrisy (sic ).
[The argument that you can’t criticise Labor because it help the Libs is frankly abysmal. First of all, we are more critical of the Libs. Secondly, it’s just a cheap way of avoiding any dissent about Labor’s performance. You NEVER have to argue your case if you follow your logic.]
But I did argue my case. I said I’d like to see more boat people. I like the idea of people being prepared to take great risks to get here. It means they have spirit… just what we need more of in australia. But it’s got to be made more difficult than an airport arrival to get here on a leaky boat. We can’t just throw open the doors by making it easy. Once here they are being treated much better under a Labor government than Howard treated them. It’s a moral point that separates us, I agree, but so is yours, just a different one to mine.
One thing I know for sure is that I would never, at least not in any of the issues that have cropped up so far (debt, interest rates, immigration etc.), be so pissed off with Rudd that I’d vote for Turnbull and his mob. It’s quite a legitimate question to ask: are you so annoyed with Rudd that you’d vote for Turnbull on this issue alone? Or on all any of the others? The wailing an gnashing of teeth coming from the Right on immigration is just sour grapes, a big dummy spit that they couldn’t continue to sell the Pacific Solution. Inherent in their argument is that Rudd is the same as Howard, for all practical purposes, so why did the people vote them out in the first place?
A month has now been wasted on this immigration issue. There had been rumblings before that, but the issue didn’t catch fire until Ruddock’s front page article in the OO saying there were 10,000 more potential boat people waiting to leave Indonesia. It’s gotten more bizarre since then, culminating with the Right criticising Rudd from the left, Stone rabbiting on about Congolese, someone or other pointing out that jobs as camp wardens had been lost among the poor Nauruans, and Tuckey telling us that terrorists would use boats to come here (just on that last point, if arrival by boat is made too easy, I mean routine, I’d tend to agree with him… but it’s still hard to be a boat arrival, so at the moment I don’t agree with him at all).
Like it or not, many Australians are just not ready for the Full Monty on boat people, the comprehensive, plenary debate that sorts it all out. The subject still hits a raw nerve. It is still subject to hijacking from the Right. Rudd’s reaction has acknowledged that, and he has occupied some of the ground on the right to deny it to the Coalition and their spruikers. It’s good politics and shows good judgement of what is possible and what is impossible.
Incidentally, I think it’s very poor form to publicly correct spelling mistakes. It shows a prissiness that is unbecoming of your usually high quality coutput. If you don’t like the way someone spells an individual word then spell it correctly yourself, as an example. Don’t cheapen things by strarting your post out with a petty attempt to gain the moral ascendancy.
[Grog or anyone who knows
What sort of ratings does Fox news actually get? How does it compare to commercial broadcasters? Do these panels make much impact?]
No idea. I’d say Sky gets less impact than it likes to think it does.
TP
I fully agree with that and Rudd isn’t finished yet. We can only judge on what we’ve seen so far.
Hope your Grandmother is doing OK.
[I’m looking at you vera]
Diog, stop it you’re making me blush!
The ‘Howard lite’ description of Rudd has taken the place of the ‘me too’ of before the election.
Nothing changes much, not a very clever Rudd put down if you ask me.
This Laborista isn’t struggling with how Kev is going. You can’t have everything at once. He is treading softly so as not to scare the middle ground and as a result end up out on his A at the next election. I can live with that.
Gay marriage doesn’t worry me one way or the other so no, not struggling with that.
On the ETS also I’m satisfied to start with lower targets and increase them as people get used to the idea and see they are not being taxed a fortune on power bills etc. Lets see what happens at Cophenhagen shall we.
On asylum seekers, the processing has been cut to 3 months, on SBS they had a report which said only the men were being held in the detention centre, women and kids were in the general community with freedom to go where the liked.
I am satisfied with this, I should imagine health and security checks could take a couple of months then most of them are given asylum and come to the mainland.
Also i’ll be interested what the deal is with SBY.
BB
I know that you have argued your case but there is a great tendency here to dismiss any argument that Rudd is less than perfect with the retort that “we’re better than the other lot” and just avoid the issue.
I’m interested in your comment about why this issue exploded. I don’t follow the MSM much and I’ve often wondered why it took off. I hadn’t realised that it was Ruddock coming back from the dead.
Diogenes is right. Just occasionally it would be nice to debate issues purely on their objective merits. This is usually impossible on PB because of the partisan starting and finishing point of the die-hard party supporters. Blind faith often wrecks dispassionate debate unfortunately. (As the late great Fred Daley of Grayndler once said – “If you can’t win a debate, wreck it!”)
The latest example is the refugee issue. It isn’t supporting the pitiful Libs to argue that the government shouldn’t be playing the xenophobia card by mistreating boat arrivals. It is merely pointing out that it is wrong in ethical and human rights terms.
The impression being given by the ALP supporters in the debate is that it is not wrong to discriminate against the boat arrivals the way the Human Rights Commissioner is saying; that they don’t care that the boat arrivals are being mistreated and we are breaching our international opbligations AS LONG AS it means that Rudd can wedge his oppponents. This to me is a morally indefensible and intellectually dishonest – if politically expedient – position.
Thanks Dio. Mother-in-law is doing well, seems to have healed up. Has had a day off the intravenous vancomycin to start again today but, still has more pain than she should in her leg. Then again she is 86.
BB – Are you saying the Human Rights Commissioner is misinformed?
TP
Just make sure they are checking her vancomycin levels and ensuring her kidney function is staying OK. That can get missed sometimes, esp in the elderly.
These types of issues – immigration and refugees should be bi-partisan and beyond political gamesmanship simply because they can evoke the worst emotions in the population. Which is the last thing you want.
The Howard Govt were grandmasters at using race/religion to imply that it was ok to hold racist views and express them. He loved getting into fights with local Muslims, demonising minorities, evoking fear and so forth. He even tried it on Obama.
He so changed the dynamic that it became impossible to address the issue without evoking dog-whistles somewhere. The problem now is that it is difficult to have a public debate since one side will not debate, but seek the wedge and dog-whistle on every part of your debate that gives a toe-hold. It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t had had Howard and his media cohort beforehand training the emotions of the population in the black arts of fear and xenophobia. And Pavlov reactions always trump reason.
Rudd needs to reeducate not just the thinking but the emotional responses of the population. The thing going in his favour is the public are probably suffering a bit of adrenal gland exhaustion on the issue due to it being over played by Howard’s lot. ie the Haneef failure.
Yes that is what they are doing. She normal to borderline kidneys and they have monitored her V levels, is why they took her off. Anyway get to wear white coats and wash my hands 50 times a day now.
gone for the day.
TP
[Rudd needs to reeducate not just the thinking but the emotional responses of the population. The thing going in his favour is the public are probably suffering a bit of adrenal gland exhaustion on the issue due to it being over played by Howard’s lot. ie the Haneef failure.]
All true – well said. The question just now is: will Rudd put aside his whistle and lift the political debate on the boat arrivals above fear-mongering?
[The Laboristas seem to be struggling with the fact that they hated Howard and their hero, St Kevin, is basically Howard-Lite on many policies; asylum seekers, ETS, the tax cuts, gay marriage, etc etc.]
Diog, i am sure you dont want me to likewise with your pretty boy at DC 👿
what has done so far except winning the Peace Prize?
to likewise = to do likewise
I think ‘likewise’ goes quite well as a verb – there is worse misuse about (to ‘podium’ etc.) 🙂
[The Laboristas seem to be struggling with the fact that they hated Howard and their hero, St Kevin, is basically Howard-Lite on many policies; asylum seekers, ETS, the tax cuts, gay marriage, etc etc.]
Dio, Howard lite will always be better than Howard full strength. For most part Howard read the people like a book. His problem? He went far too far. Rudd is not making that mistake. Nor is he making the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water like some here want him too. He’s too politically savvy for that. You don’t change things from opposition. Like it or lump it that is the reality of the situation.
[This is usually impossible on PB because of the partisan starting and finishing point of the die-hard party supporters. Blind faith often wrecks dispassionate debate unfortunately. (As the late great Fred Daley of Grayndler once said – “If you can’t win a debate, wreck it!”)]
All this assumes either we don’t believe what we say or we’re conditioned not to go against the party line. Total BS and a put down.
Well, personally, I find it hard to deal with when, having put forward my own point of view and defended it, often pointing out where I’m diverging from the party line, or where the party is disappointing me, to find that my comments are being lumped together in the ‘Labor hack’ box or dismissed as blind Rudd supporting.
I’ve never used the ‘the other side would be worse’ argument and can’t remember seeing it used here (‘the other side was worse’ is surely just a statement of fact, and a reminder of where we’ve come from).
I don’t believe I’ve been xenophobic, encouraged xenophobia, supported harsh treatment of refugees, or any of the other accusations thrown around above.
As Gusface says, name names. Putting us all in one box, whether that box is labelled ‘hacks’ ‘supporters’ ‘Laborites’ or whatever is lazy and offensive. I don’t know whether (when you used those terms) you do a mental ‘but of course I don’t mean posters x y and z’ but I’m tempted to believe that the smugness of feeling you’re not one of us makes you genuinely think we all come from the same mould.
Dont worry too much about few thousand Tamils or Afghans on the leaking boats. Watch out for another 30K Pommies that will come by the luxurious opulent A380.
[Shock figures showing that Britain is still struggling through recession sent the pound plunging and threw fresh doubt over Alistair Darling’s plans to cut the national debt.
The City and Downing Street were stunned as output data revealed that the economy shrank by 0.4 per cent between July and September — an unprecedented sixth consecutive quarter of decline.
The figures dashed predictions that Britain was emerging from recession and dealt a blow to Gordon Brown’s hopes of an economic recovery taking root before the election. The pound, which had been trading at €1.111 and $1.6693, collapsed against the currencies to €1.087 and $1.6323. ]
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6888402.ece
[or we’re conditioned not to go against the party line.]
Yep
(no names, dammit 🙂 )
[Some analysts are now talking about the current conditions turning from recession to full-blown depression. As much as £100bn worth of output has been lost in this slump and the consensus among economists is that the level of output seen last spring will not be seen again before 2012. ]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/growth-figures-dash-hopes-of-britain-coming-out-of-recession-1808390.html
sorry, make that 50K pommies.
[Bob La Castra, Gold Coast councillor and former Wombat presenter.]
Is wombat presenting a Qld sport? I hope the wombats don’t get hurt.
zoomster
I don’t mean to offend. The pary defense syndrome often appears early and the issue isn’t considered on its merits. When rationalisations are made for the current offshore policy, for example, on the basis of it being good for the the govt in the polls. That fails the ethical test of “What ought we do?” That should always be the starting point when testing policy shouldn’t it? The Human Rights Commissionser gives it a huge fail, as do I.
Then, if it is acknowledged that there is discrimination against boat arrivals, it is reasonable to go to Step 2 and say “The reason the govt is continuing the offshore discrimination is because they want to hold on to a bloc of frightened xenophobes voters.” Then that cann be debated.
It has been too often the other way around, with “The government needs to hold on to the skittish voter, so any disrimination against boat people is justified.” line being followed. That works backwards in logic. Anyway, it’s obvious to me 🙂
Finns
I gave up on Obama long ago. In fact, the final straw for me was his selection for artists to play at his inauguration. He’s a classic “better than Bush”, and Bush was way worse than Howard so I’d say Rudd and Obama are pretty close. Obama gives a better speech though and is more interesting.
z
I’m not lumping anyone in when I use the term Laborista. It’s a generic term.
76 – Well at least now I know to ignore your comments. A waste of time and effort.
Way to go judging a president’s entire 8-year term by the entertainment at his inauguration! Such depth of insight!
The usual Diogenes silliness aside, Obama is a lightweight (as I said last year, to a chorus of abuse), and it’s starting to show now that the hard slog is beginning. Rudd on the otherhand is a heavyweight, as he has shown repeatedly in the face of enormous challenges (IR, the GFC, the CPRS) and as he is showing again now with border protection. He has a unique capacity to get the policy right and the politics right simultaneously. The business of legislating is of course easier in Australia than in the US, where a lightweight president can’t get even his own party to do what he wants. But even allowing for that, Rudd’s mastery of the political scene is far greater than Obama’s, despite the fact that Obama started out with the whole world at his feet.
I noticed a week or two ago that Hillary’s satisfaction rating was ahead of Obama’s too 😉
Psephos
It was a prediction, not a judgment. An appreciation of music would lead anyone to have worked out that Obama was going to be a dud based on his music choices. As it turns out, I was right. There were lots of shallow, populist choices with a feel-good message.
[He has a unique capacity to get the policy right and the politics right simultaneously.]
That’s only because you can’t differentiate between politics and policy.
gary B
[Well at least now I know to ignore your comments. A waste of time and effort.]
Fair enough, but why? I’m not pre-programmed in any party direction. I had thought that was an advantage in merits debates.
Hillary in 2012! The dream will never die!
What music should Obama have had at his inauguration? Stockhausen?
[Hillary in 2012! The dream will never die!]
So she’s going to do what Ted Kennedy did in 1980? (Only succeed, presumably).
There’s only ever been one sitting POTUS who was dumped by their party insted of having a second run. Forget the name but he regularly rates in the bottom five presidents.
Diog, if Obama failed, it would set the non conservative side of politics back to the stone age, as the expectations of him are so high.
Whereas, Rudd is the opposite. There was no high expectation of him and he is delivering on all fronts.
wRONg Again, sorry.
[Hillary in 2012! The dream will never die!]
And the Three Amigos will ride again!!!! 😀
I’ve just returned from shopping in Chatswood (NSW). On the edge of the (outside) mall were a couple of bottom-feeding sc… sorry, Young Liberals, filling and handing out helium balloons to kiddies. They were the usual blue Liberal balloons, with the Liberal logo on one side, and everything the Liberals believe in written on the other.
I assume this is all in aid of pre-Bradfield spruiking, but really, children should not have to be exposed to the Liberal Party, and especially not to Young Liberals. This is exactly the kind of thing likely to destroy what little is left of innocence in our society.
I think I’ll write a letter to my local member… “Dear Mr Hockey,”……….
Rudd’s had the politics of the boat people issue right from day one. (Which is what I said at the time, btw, irrespective of the fact that one prominent PBer seems to think I said the exact opposite).
He’s also got the policy (about) right. So did Howard. That’s why their stances are quite close to each other’s.
Notwithstanding the mad ravings of Tuckey, and the clear (and understandable) frustration of the Liberal leadership, I’d be willing to wager that a good majority of my fellow Liberals would agree with me on this.
Finns
[ Hillary in 2012! The dream will never die!
And the Three Amigos will ride again!!!! 😀 ]
Just imagine how ugly the Obama v Billary Dem primary race would be. The living would envy the dead.
[Rudd’s had the politics of the boat people issue right from day one.]
Having re-read that, I should clarify. I meant from day one of this latest brouhaha. Not necessarily from day one of his government.
dyno
[Rudd’s had the politics of the boat people issue right from day one.]
What about the ethics of it?
[Fair enough, but why? I’m not pre-programmed in any party direction. I had thought that was an advantage in merits debates.]
JV, anyone who wants to totally dismiss the effects an issue has on the polls on a bloody site called “Poll Bludger”, which looks at polls and the issues affecting them, really is missing the point. It’s not the be all and end all but it is a factor which shouldn’t be ignored. As Psephos says “He (Rudd) has a unique capacity to get the policy right and the politics right simultaneously.”
Psephos
He had;
Shakira, Beyonce, Jon Bon Jovi and worst of all (apologies in advance to fans) U2.
Obama actually has good musical taste but he chose sappy populist stuff instead of the bands he likes (he does actually like U2). It set the tone.
Where were the Arcade Fire, the Decemberists and Bob Dylan?
[He’s also got the policy (about) right. So did Howard. That’s why their stances are quite close to each other’s.]
To a point I agree,the divergence is where howard stressed the political,rudd is stressing the humanitarian side.
I think the parliamentary libs are yet to figure that rudd is one stepp ahead of them on all issues.The fact granpa tuckey is providing the cattle prod to the libs on refugees is a bonus .
One other thing,I am sure rudd knows whose buttons to push and when,on that point he and howard are the same.