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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
The only seat left standing for Labor in Tasmania after a 9.4% statewide swing at the last election, Franklin covers the Hobart suburbs on the eastern bank of the Derwent River together with Kingston on the city’s southern fringe, small towns further to the south, and the unpopulated southern part of the World Heritage area in Tasmania’s south-west. The remainder of Hobart, including the city centre and the suburbs on the river’s western bank, constitutes the electorate of Denison. As one of Tasmania’s constitutionally mandated five House of Representatives seats, Franklin has an enrolment of roughly three-quarters the national average and an uninterrupted history going back to the state’s division into single-member electorates in 1903.
Labor first won Franklin at a by-election held two months after the election of Jim Scullin’s government in 1929, then lost it again amid the party’s debacle of 1931. The seat subsequently changed hands in 1934, 1946, 1969 and 1975, before remaining in Liberal hands throughout the Fraser years and the first 10 years of the Hawke-Keating government. Labor finally won the seat when colourful Liberal member Bruce Goodluck retired at the 1993 election, which together a strong statewide result for Labor delivered a decisive 9.5% swing to Harry Quick. Quick maintained the seat with only mild swings either way at subsequent elections, although there were occasional suggestions he might be brought undone by internal party machinations. When his preselection appeared threatened ahead of the 2004 election, Quick was able to secure his position partly by indicating that he might run as an independent.
After choosing his own time of departure at the 2007 election, Quick sought to keep the seat out of factional hands by promoting his staffer Roger Joseph as his successor. This was thwarted when a deal assigned Franklin to Kevin Harkins, state secretary of the Left faction Electrical Trades Union, and Bass to the Right-backed Steve Reissig. Objecting that Harkins was a “right thuggish bastard” who would lose the seat, Quick declared that he planned to vote for the Greens. His attacks drew blood as newly anointed Labor leader Kevin Rudd sought to distance the party from unsavoury union associations, with Harkins carrying baggage from the 2003 Cole royal commission into the building and construction industry. Harkins’ position ultimately became untenable in July 2007 when the Australian Building and Construction Commission brought charges against him over an illegal strike. When he won preselection for the Senate ahead of the 2010 election, he was again rolled by the intervention of Kevin Rudd.
With Harkins out of the picture and the election looming, the preselection was referred to the party’s national executive, which maintained the factional balance by choosing the Left’s Julie Collins, the state party secretary and a strongly performing though unsuccessful candidate at the March 2006 state election. The loss of Quick’s personal vote combined with the manner of his departure resulted in Collins suffering a 3.1% swing, one of only four swings to the Coalition at that election. Coming off a suppressed base, she went on to enjoy a 6.8% swing at the 2010 election, the highest recorded by a Labor candidate anywhere in the country. She then emerged Labor’s only lower house survivor in the face of a swing that unseated sitting members in Bass, Braddon and Lyons, her margin reduced to 5.1% by a 5.7% swing to the Liberals that was 3.7% below the statewide result.
Collins was made a parliamentary secretary after the election, and progressed to the outer ministry as Community Services Minister in December 2011. After backing Kevin Rudd’s successful leadership bid in late June she was promoted to cabinet, adding housing and homelessness, the status of women and indigenous employment to her existing area of responsibility. Since the election defeat she has held the shadow portfolios of regional development, local government and employment services.
Kezza
I just do not see why everyone gets so upset about a schoolyard play on a name. KRudd was just as offensive and the Mad Monk (which I use) is more offensive. Prissy Pyne which I also use is far more offensive and politically incorrect than Juliar, and Truzzzzzz, Barnyard, Mad Katter are similarly mildly offensive plays on names.
However where I will agree with you is over the appalling “at home with Julia” show which was a sexist travesty.
WWP
[She doesn’t need the media to help to make labor supporters hate the greens, the greens did that for themselves.]
You’d be credible if the Greens had gone backwards in polling. But they haven’t.
Why do you bother persisting in this nonsense? Is it to convince yourself?
Confessions “uniquely Melbourne Appearance ” re di Natale
__________________________________
What on earth does that mean ????
I’ve lived here for 40 years and I have no idea what you mean buy that phrase”Melbourne appearance”
BTW It seems that di Natale handled the Morwell fire/smoke crisis very well
I have friends in the La Trobe Valley they were impressed as he spent a lot of time there during the smoke-crises and a gave a great address to a packed local meeting that was much comented on locally and may ensure a good Green vote in an area where the Liberal held seat of Morwell may be a problem for them,with a Labor win possible with Green prefs . Labor has held the seat in the past,but the area has changed with the de-industrialisation since Kennett
[You’d be credible if the Greens had gone backwards in polling. But they haven’t.
Why do you bother persisting in this nonsense? Is it to convince yourself?]
Nah, he is right. The Greens are farquing hopeless.
+1 to deblonay @853. He’s a good Senator who happens to wear glasses. I don’t think that’s alienating to middle Australia/working families/battlers, whatever you wanna call em
briefly
Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 11:14 pm | PERMALINK
kezza, I did hear Milne on ABC Radio news at 7.00 pm tonight using the term. I could hardly believe it.]
Yeah. I’ll probably hear it later on, too. Because I always listen to NewsRadio overnight. And when I hear something shocking I come to PB for confirmation.
And then try to track down a primary source.
But, I will be well armed with the evidence I have tonight. And I won’t believe it.
Because there’s absolutely no evidence she said it in the context of which she’s been quoted.
I would have believed it if the videotape hadn’t cut to JG while she was saying it.
She must have been wearing something different for them to do that or they would not have cut her vocalisation at that point. I know it. I know how it works.
Perhaps Richard sometimes wears a hat that says ‘latte sipping elite’ in big letters on it that I haven’t seen though. Goodnight everyone
Nick of Melbourne but are glasses “uniquely Melbourne”
short sight is commin in Perth.Cairns and wherever in OZ surely
Deblonay,
[Labor has held the seat in the past,but the area has changed with the de-industrialisation since Kennett]
There was polling that indicated Labor would win the seat. However, even if we ignore the accuracy of local-level polling, I doubt they’d win it, personally. In the eastern suburbs we suffer a similar problem to many rural areas of pockets of “left” support surrounded by a sea of conservative support, odd towns like Moe against the vast ballast of rural conservative vote. It’s why there’s only one Labor seat in the east past Richmond, whereas, given their own seats, Healesville, Warburton and the general Belgrave/Mt Dandenong area would yield Labor members. Unfortunately, the cards don’t fall that way and we just have to deal with it
(Labor is putting significant resources into Ringwood, and I think Bayswater as well, though)
Re the upcoming VIC election. There is a kind off dissonance out there in the community that a first term LNP Gov could lose. Despite the polls there is a view that the LNP can claw back the polling deficit. It’s eerily like the last State election when the popular sentiment was the ALP would win easily, understandable given the ALP were in a far better position polling wise than the current LNP Gov. People seem to be discounting the current polls as unreliable. But not from the LNP whose rushed, cash splash State Budget reeks of panic.
Goodnight
Nothing wrong with lattes! We’re not in the US where Starbucks is some fancy new elite thing, we’re in Australia, where real coffee is readily available.
deb
[. . . “uniquely Melbourne Appearance ” re di Natale
__________________________________
What on earth does that mean ????]
It means the rest of the states and territories of Australia, in the minds of Perthites, are still not over Marvellous Melbourne.
You know how Melbourne paid for everyone in Australia back in the day, before Sydney and NSW decided to become self-sufficient.
And then Melbourne and Sydney had to support the rest of Australia.
The outer colonies can forget. Except for WA. They’re still stinking mad at what they thought was neglect, and they’re feeling a bit swank now. Think they can stand on their own two feet, and they’re mean and nasty.
And don’t want to give a dime to anybody else. Because, of course, they felt abandoned due to lack of communications, and didn’t feel they were being looked after. And they’re not fucking going to help out anybody else now.
He he he.
Ah, sibling rivalry. The baby has something to say, even if it can’t find an aircraft. And the inner-city is turning to shit while the miners are getting wealthy.
Say, when did that happen to Marvellous Melbourne?
Isn’t history grand. And doesn’t it have a habit of repeating itself.
[Nick of Melbourne but are glasses “uniquely Melbourne”
short sight is commin in Perth.Cairns and wherever in OZ surely]
We dress like we’re the non-fictional home of House Stark. Long, dark coats are very popular if heading to or if you live around the city. We dress darker than other capitals, I think, especially now Winter is Coming. Just my impression, I do think there is a “Melbourne look”, but whether my impression of it and confessions’ are the same, I’m not sure.
Nice to see VIC ALP candidates out in force at railway stations this morning the day after the State Budget Encouraged to hear their messages about rebuilding TAFE – although I hope they remember the rot started under the last State ALP Gov with its stupid embrace of private TAFE providers and market competition.
I liked Rat or the Lying Rodent as well…good names matching the character of the person.
[You’d be credible if the Greens had gone backwards in polling. But they haven’t.]
ROFLMA – so the greens are just like Tony at the last election lots of lies and great polling … what a stupid stupid stupid defence
Rossmore,
[Despite the polls there is a view that the LNP can claw back the polling deficit.]
It’s hard to see. Non-political people are openly critical of the state Government’s actions, and I think the current dispute with the paramedics and firefighters is hurting them bad (especially as they have both made campaigns personal, directed at Napthine), and people wouldn’t have forgotten the past disputes with the nurses, police and teachers
DTT
[It is late and I am for sleep but like it or not the carbon tax was a TAX. Gillard was actually being quite sensible in admitting this BUT sadly the PR fall out was terrible. I have many criticisms of JG but this is NOT one of them, although sadly she unfairly copped a heap of c**p over it.]
It was not a tax, and Gillard’s blunder was very serious. I was astonished at her intellectual lapse here.
Abbott’s blunder here puts Gillard’s into the shade. Gillard has since admitted her blunder, but this levy stands in stark contrast to a key Abbott claim — that only the ALP and Greens would introduce new taxes and that mere management of waste could get the surplus back. Abbott is not running a minority government and he did say ‘no surprises, no excuses’.
[It was not a tax, and Gillard’s blunder was very serious. I was astonished at her intellectual lapse here.]
It wasn’t an intellectual lapse it was a lapse about lying and fighting lies, and she was so far behind Tony and the greens with lies on this issue she didn’t stand a chance whatever she did. I thought you were smarter than to type a sentence like that.
[It was not a tax, and Gillard’s blunder was very serious. I was astonished at her intellectual lapse here.
Abbott’s blunder here puts Gillard’s into the shade. Gillard has since admitted her blunder, but this levy stands in stark contrast to a key Abbott claim — that only the ALP and Greens would introduce new taxes and that mere management of waste could get the surplus back. Abbott is not running a minority government and he did say ‘no surprises, no excuses’.]
Well if the Greens weren’t so farquing hopeless they would’ve helped Gillard out, such as allowing the carbon price shift to an ETS before the 2013 election.
But instead sometime between July and September Australia will end up with new credible carbon emission reduction policy.
Thank you very much Greens.
Hit the poor
_________________
In the USA Republican Paul Ryan(Rep) who was VP candidate to Romney at the last Elections…calls for cuts in Food Stamps …for the really destitute….and an end to Obamcare and other forms of health benefits for the poor
He is the son of a millionaire
US report from “Informed Comment”
Rossmore,
TBH, one of the major campaigns for the ALP out here is “Only Labor will bring back Lilydale Swinburne”, but, even as someone who’s had a bit to do with said institution, I’m not convinced of it as a policy. There’s a Swinburne in Croydon and Wantirna. I feel political energy and resources may be better directed towards things like changes and funding of VCAL.
[It was not a tax, and Gillard’s blunder was very serious.]
I’m not sure. I can understand why she did it, so they didn’t spend an interview discussing semantics. I know it’s a decision I would have made. She underestimated the media, but I think everyone did. I wouldn’t have thought that the media would spend a week discussing a sandwich found in her general proximity on the ground of a HS, but they did, as though it was actually interesting, relevant and important.
Ah Queensland, perfect one day, home of two warring ego-maniacs the next. This will be fun.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-07/palmer-serves-newman-with-defamation-writ/5436502
Kezza Two post 862..Brillianjt comment spot on re Marvellous Melbourne
_________________
I find the WA attitude really crass .
I recall when they and Qland were called “mendicant states” and had the seat out of their pants
WA is by far the worst I think
It’s a pity they joined the Federation,as many there wanted to be seperate at the time of Federation
In reality they could not afford to be
They would have had trouble funding themselves in such a remote and thinly peopled state ..let alone funding defence needs…so we have all paid up big over the years for them
[daretotread
Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 11:21 pm | PERMALINK
Kezza
I just do not see why everyone gets so upset about a schoolyard play on a name. KRudd was just as offensive and the Mad Monk (which I use) is more offensive. Prissy Pyne which I also use is far more offensive and politically incorrect than Juliar, and Truzzzzzz, Barnyard, Mad Katter are similarly mildly offensive plays on names.
However where I will agree with you is over the appalling “at home with Julia” show which was a sexist travesty.]
I have never said that “At Home with Julia” was a sexist travesty. In fact, I think Julia Gillard was fair game for satirists.
And I actually thought, at times, it was okay. I wasn’t even particularly upset about screwing on the flat. But then I’m not a monarchist.
However, I could scarcely believe my father’s hysterics at KRudd. Get it, kezza? Umm, yeah. Gosh you’re so original, dad. Who’d have eva thoughta that. Well done, papa. Yes, dad, he’s a piece of shit aka crud. Where’s the belt? Wash yo mouth.
Mad Monk. Oh please. How unoriginal to give a moniker like monk to an ex-seminarian. Pretty lame. And he was/is stupid/crazy. I get it. He’s mad. He’s a mad monk.
Prissy Pyne. Well, what’s wrong with prissy? Bit stuck-up and bit of a stickler for convention. I think Prancing Poodle is a bit more of a sophisticated put-down. Why? Cos it just encompasses his characteristics a bit more than the boarding school label of ‘prissy.’
Truzzzzzzzzzzzz is clever. Because he’s boring.
Barnyard speaks for itself. Also clever because it can mean Joyce can be at any instant portrayed as the worst aspects of any given animal.
Mad Katter. Well, I would have thought Mad Hatter, or Cat in the Hat, or whatever. Funny. Slow.
Even Gil-LARD wasn’t too bad, bad taste, but still within the realms of beatupcracy.
But Juliar. JEW-LIAR. Nup. Never was funny. Never was clever. Never was a play on words. Just outright offensiveness. And it wasn’t true.
All the rest had an element of truth or something one could deduce. But JEW and LIAR as a tag. That was utterly offensive all over the shop.
And worst of all, not one male or female, on either side of the house, nor one Jew, male or female, on either side of the house, came out to defend Julia Gillard.
That was the most offensive to my mind.
And, I knew then she would never win the next election.
Everyone underestimated the sheer bloody-minded disgusting sexism of the political and media classes. People did not have to swallow it whole, or join in the witch-burning, but they did. I do not think anyone could have foreseen just how nasty this country became. It is easy to say in hindsight this or that should not have said or done. How could anyone know that everything male Prime Ministers have done since the dawn of time would be taboo for a female Prime Minister?
But we know now and when the ALP puts up the next female PM )because there will never be a LNP one) we will know what to expect and be ready for it.
[Well if the Greens weren’t so farquing hopeless they would’ve helped Gillard out, such as allowing the carbon price shift to an ETS before the 2013 election.]
I would agree that Gillard badly needed help in selling policies (and policy implementation, as she proved in education) but it was not the Greens job to do that. A bit late now anyway, as she has become an academic. Turns out you do not need a PhD or research track record after all.
Rather than bicker with each other, I’d rather see both Greens and Labor leaders rip the very flimsy justifications for the Liberals budget cuts to shreds, and do it in public.
They both need a media performer who cuts through. I hope Scott Ludlam has a go for the Greens. I hope Albanese does so for Labor. I know Shorten has made statements, but he is no Paul Keating in terms of ability to come up with memorable one liners. Just as Tony Abbott is a less charismatic version of John Howard, if that were possible.
Abbott’s alleged tax lie is not a lie at least until next Tuesday. There is still time for a backdown even if it’s unlikely.
[Abbott’s alleged tax lie is not a lie at least until next Tuesday. There is still time for a backdown even if it’s unlikely.]
Well all the talk is that the budget was finalised today, because the documents have to be sent to the printers by late tomorrow.
And if you heard Mathias Cormann’s press conference, which he attended after a cabinet meeting, it was pretty clear there will be an income tax increase of some sort in the budget.
[Abbott’s alleged tax lie is not a lie at least until next Tuesday. There is still time for a backdown even if it’s unlikely.
]
It is merely the last lie on a pile of lies.
He lied that Labor were mishandling the budget, that a surplus was easy and could be achieved without any tax rises and in fact could easily be achieved sooner with two tax cuts. It was a fraud on the public and a disgraceful one.
He lied that the budget was in a bad state similar to the worst budgets in the world. It was such a stupid lie that no intelligent person believed him. it was such a stupid lie that on coming to power based on his deliberate and disgusting fraud he and Hockey had to create a fake worsening of the budget to try and support their lie. they then had to lie about this lie. No greater cowardice and dishonesty have we ever seen in public life in Australia.
Having let the statute of limitations expire before charging any major US banking executives over the GFC, US attorney general Eric Hodder must be going for a comedy career with this empty lie.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-06/no-banker-too-big-to-jail-says-us-attorney-general/5434342
Night all.
Kezza.
The way prominent groups and people laid low and said nothing over what was done to PMJG will remain a stain on this country for decades to come. It was shameful in the extreme and I feel disgust when I think of those who joined in.
I picked up the Jew-Liar thing: I wonder if the exaggerated nose drawings in cartoons tapped into this.
I certainly identified the racism in Abbott using the liar and ‘welsher on their word’ memes which are applied in particular to Welsh people by the English. I believe Abbott, as an Englishman who was tertiary-educated in England, knew exactly what he was saying, as did Julia.
Davidwh
[Abbott’s alleged tax lie is not a lie at least until next Tuesday. There is still time for a backdown even if it’s unlikely.]
if Abbott does introduce a new tax or levy in the budget next week, would you agree then that he has lied?
Next Tuesday night should be a hoot. I don’t know whether to be angry or just shrug my shoulders saying that the Australian people asked for it. But then again, about half of them didn’t.
Maybe I should just pour a large glass of sherry and sit back and weep.
PtMD
The word Welsh, for the people from Wales, has a very long xenophobic/racist history.
[if Abbott does introduce a new tax or levy in the budget next week, would you agree then that he has lied?]
Any credible person wouldn’t have even raised the ‘he hasn’t lied’ farce, it is hilariously stupid, so no he wont be talking about the 1000th Abbott lie after having missed the first 999.
DavidH
Whatever Abbott does in the Budget, he would have lied. Every option open to him involves him not just breaking a promise but telling an outright lie. That is because his whole campaign to get into government was based on falsehoods and lies.
I believe it is called painting oneself into a corner.
Eric Hodder aptly named, a place holder AG. His role to ensure no prosecution of the favoured ones takes place.
Just as the head of the SEC and CFTC are captured rodents whose entire responsibility it is to allow continuous manipulation of markets. Normally when they finish their stints in these regulatory roles they find themselves in multi million dollar jobs with a bank somewhere.
I am sure place Holder will get well looked after as well.
Fran,
I do not know what the correct term is for the people, but I know Wales is Cymru.
I know what Abbott was doing, and it shows what a total bastard he really is, a sexist and racist one at that.
Bugler quoted me:
[It was not a tax, and Gillard’s blunder was very serious.]
Then added:
[I’m not sure. I can understand why she did it, so they didn’t spend an interview discussing semantics.]
There are two things wrong with this.
1. It wouldn’t have been mere semantics. The. MPCCC was readying to consider ways of pricing emissions. Gillard had ruled out a tax, by which she meant something like the G&ST or some other levy.
2. Had she spent ten minutes explaining why it ought not be called a tax she’d have had ten minutes to put her case for pricing carbon when she still controlled the agenda, rather than immediately surrendering it to Abbott and Murdoch. This was a massive own goal. She was going to be called (unfairly) a liar, and here she was offering grist to the mill. She regretted this later, but I knew immediately that people like me were going to have to spend an enormous amount of time arguing ‘semantics’ when the regime could not. I lost track of the number of times some fool at the ABC would quote Gillard to me and say that this made them entitled to call it a tax. I could only respond that it was the job of journalists to pursue truth rather than accept the spin of politicians! Some of them gasped at that long enough for me to put the argument that Gillard should have.
[I know it’s a decision I would have made. She underestimated the media, but I think everyone did.]
I didn’t and neither did my fellow Greens. Unlike many ALP folk at the time, we were scandalised at her gaffe.
kezza2@877
Hang on there – aren’t you the one who was so dogmatically pronouncing at a certain stage (not long before she was rolled) that Gillard would beat Abbott, that I asked if you would put something behind it by quitting PB if Abbott beat her?
(I do confess that that challenge – which was accepted – was inspired by my admiration for Andrew Elder’s guts in saying he would quit blogging if Abbott became PM. Admiration that of course completely disappeared after he didn’t go through with it, especially given that he goaded many journalists for failing to match his “commitment”.)
Re Milne and Juliar
Some history first.
1.Before the election – by just one day – of 2010, Gillard specifically stated that she did not rule out an ETS scheme – which was essentially what she delivered later. That is on the record – in The Australian no less. Technically it was not a tax and technically she did not lie. Technically – but that is really just semantics and there was no doubt there was a backflip.
But circumstances after the election were – very obviously – dramatically different to pre 2010. The hung parliament scenario should have granted her a lot of slack.
Nevertheless the opposition, namely the media – it was, always the media that was the main opposition to Gillard and Rudd governments – jumped on the word ‘tax’ remorselessly and Abbott rode it along well after its political impact should have disappeared.
When you compare the stream of porkies that emanated from Abbott and other Libs to hang the charge of Juliar on Gillard was just plain injustice.
Par for the course.
2.The media often cuts, slices, takes out of context and distorts the words of politicians they don’t like to create poor impressions.
The Greens’ Bob Brown was the victim repeatedly of such cheap tricks , on one occasion the Australian actually changed the wording of a public letter he wrote to create a false impression.
I don’t trust the media.
3. When they cut and slice video interviews, as in this current case, I would not trust the media to present spoken words in true context.
4, I note that Milne has used the works ascribed to her but I note that video immediately stops.
What came next?
Well maybe something that alters the interpretation that has been placed on it by several here.
And maybe not.
And if not then I, as a greens supporter and a supporter of Milne in particular, would be disappointed in Milne.
Because Julia Gillard never deserved the tag she got nor the vehemence and vitriol with which it was used and whilst Abbott well and truly deserves to be labelled as lying, not just on this occasion but many previous, Gillard, whilst no saint, should not be placed in the same category as Abbott.
I would love to see the raw footage of that interview.
Fran,
It’s not that I don’t understand the argument or think its invalid, I merely don’t agree with it. I rather doubt had she argued the point it would not have still been labelled a “lie”. But, I don’t accept a lot of things spouted about “the lie”, for example that a significant amount of people (or even anyone, for that matter) voted for Labor purely because she stated she intended to implement a carbon price/ETS but ruled out a carbon “tax”. The entire premise on which the whole attack was based was absurd and assumes so much for it even to begin to be plausible. It’s indicative of all the wasted energy in the media and political circles talking about nothing. It’s infuriating. I honestly do not understand why virtually none of the media (or some in Labor) for 3 years actually wanted to talk about whether it was a good policy or not.
Anyway, heading off to bed. I may post a more coherent response after work tomorrow should you require it 🙂
[Kevin Bonham
Posted Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 12:48 am | PERMALINK
kezza2@877
And, I knew then she would never win the next election.
Hang on there – aren’t you the one who was so dogmatically pronouncing at a certain stage (not long before she was rolled) that Gillard would beat Abbott, that I asked if you would put something behind it by quitting PB if Abbott beat her?
(I do confess that that challenge – which was accepted – was inspired by my admiration for Andrew Elder’s guts in saying he would quit blogging if Abbott became PM. Admiration that of course completely disappeared after he didn’t go through with it, especially given that he goaded many journalists for failing to match his “commitment”.)]
Kevin,
Hell yeah.
In fact, when I said no one supported Gillard, I should have qualified that by saying one did, “me.”
And I did all the way.
I wanted her to beat the blatant misogyny so much; a faint heart never won a fat turkey.
You’re right. I didn’t have my fingers crossed behind my back.
So, you want me to resign from PB? Just like Elder couldn’t believe Abbott would win and Elder said he would resign? and then reneged?
I guess I’m reneging. But then I never claimed not to be a liar.
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 12:17 am | PERMALINK
Kezza.
The way prominent groups and people laid low and said nothing over what was done to PMJG will remain a stain on this country for decades to come. It was shameful in the extreme and I feel disgust when I think of those who joined in.]
Hey, don’t stress. We worked hard. Copped a lot of flak, here and abroad, even from Labor supporters. Which was the most shameful, in my book.
I can excuse the ignorant, but not those in the party.
I don’t think I’ll see gender equality in my lifetime, but there’s hope if my boys and their friends have anything to do with it.
There’s already 3 Liberal Senators who have gone on record as opposing the deficit tax.
The Coalition may not even have enough numbers in the Senate to pass it even if they get the Greens to agree to it!
[876
deblonay
WA attitude really crass .
I recall when they and Qland were called “mendicant states” and had the seat out of their pants
WA is by far the worst I think
It’s a pity they joined the Federation,as many there wanted to be seperate at the time of Federation
In reality they could not afford to be
They would have had trouble funding themselves in such a remote and thinly peopled state ..let alone funding defence needs…so we have all paid up big over the years for them]
We would have found a way, you can be sure of that. For most of the 20th century WA paid to help protect the tariff-reliant manufacturing of Victoria and SA. These days WA contributes well over half the country’s exports, helps fund the State governments of SA and Tasmania, makes a disproportionately large contribution to the Commonwealth budget and is a continuing source of vitality and opportunity.
But that’s only the money. In every other sense, WA stands on its own two feet as well. The idea that we are “remote” simply attests to your own parochialism and Vic-centric obsessions.