Further dispatches to keep the ball rolling until the glorious day when paged comments return:
• Nicole Hasham of the Illawarra Mercury reports on possible successor to Liberal MP Joanna Gash in the southern NSW seat of Gilmore. The front-runner is said to be Shoalhaven deputy mayor Andrew Guile, a one-time staffer to Gash who is evidently not on good terms with his former employer. According to the report, the South Coast Register published a letter from Gash in August which criticised Guile for sharing a $1080 meal with other councillors at a Sydney restaurants at which various preselections were said to be discussed, including her own. Also named as a possible contender is Gash’s “close Liberal associate” Clive Brooks, who “owns South Nowra business Great Southern Motorcycles”.
• The Daily Telegraph reports Craig Laundy, “general manager of his father Arthur’s $500 million hotel empire”, has Tony Abbott’s backing for preselection in the central western Sydney seat of Reid. According to the report, “a senior Liberal source said Mr Laundy had been to see Mr Abbott, party president Arthur Sinodinos, state director Mark Neeham and moderate faction leader Michael Photios about his run for the seat”. He may face opposition in the shape of Dai Le, ABC Radio National producer and two-time state candidate for Cabramatta.
• Christian Kerr and Lauren Wilson of The Australian report that some in the Nationals camp hope the party might be able to poach the New South Wales seat of Hume from the Liberals if Alby Schultz retires as expected at the next election, by fielding Senator Fiona Nash as their candidate. One virtue of the plan is said to be that Nash is seen as “a possible party leader, a more stable alternative to (Barnaby) Joyce”.
• Similarly, the WA Nationals are said to be hopeful of winning Durack if the current Liberal member Barry Haase does not contest the next election, “as many predict”.
While the SMH’s lead editorial (in addition to the one I’ve quoted above) is some crap from an IPA rep about how Qantas was right to face down those evil unions. Seriously!
This is rubbish. The Government got it right. Qantas and its workforce have to sort this out without any help from outside. Gillard is completely correct to stay out of it.
wtf? That really is appalling analysis. What exactly did Julia Gillard do or not do to “fail” this “test”? Our commentators now require not only perfection, but pulling off the utterly impossible in order to satisfy. The 24 hour news cycle has turned into some sort of weird instant gratification – if it wasn’t solved yesterday it has taken too long and Julia Gillard (who didn’t even really have an opportunity to get involved) has “failed”.
Yep. It just struck me that the SMH is pushing the other interpretation very hard. Of course, they probably just went any excuse to keep up the ‘government in crisis’, ‘bring back Rudd’ crap.
What’s the bet these meme’s will be explored:
There are certainly elements in the media who feel that nothing she does is ever good enough.
If Abbott were PM, the commentary would be: “Sure, Abbott’s actions weren’t perfect but what PM’s is? No human could predict things would turn out the way they did. The perfectionist critics on the left need to lay off. Abbott was presented with a test of his leadership and he passed with flying colours!”
Or the fact that Qantas is a major advertiser with the paper.
Surprise, Surprise from Mark Textor:
Or worse, they’d admire his ‘strength’ in crushing unions, because that’s a display of ‘leadership’ and that’s what Prime Ministers do.
Ltd News telling Porkies ?
Well spotted. Ain’t it cute that the diff between News Ltd
and Fairfax
is the reason Gillard ‘failed’?
AWU Statement:
http://www.amwu.org.au/content/upload/files/companies/qantas/111031-QANTAS-ALLIANCE-UPDATE-TO-MEMBERS.pdf
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