Lights out

The last time an Australian Labor leader came up with a phrase that was both memorable and of positive benefit to the Party was Ben Chifley's ‘Light on the Hill’. So good was it, in fact, that the media have deliberately tried to turn it into a joke phrase.

Oddly, the phrase is part of an otherwise forgettable piece of prose:

I try to think of the Labor movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective – the light on the hill – which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for.

Indeed the memorable ‘light’ part bears no obvious relation to the rest of the worthy description, and that in turn, though it is worthy, is totally unclear. ‘Better standards of living’? ‘Greater happiness’? You see what he is trying to get at, but it is no ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’, is it?

Nevertheless, it is a hell of a lot better than to suggest that the programmatic specificity of the Party was to incrementally adjust the economic indicators of the lower socio-economic groups in order to improve their wellness parameters.

The ‘Light on the Hill’ phrase is a ‘frame’. It is not a factual description of anything, but an image, a metaphor, which each person reading or hearing interprets according to their own ideas and experience, and as such is much more powerful than a long lecture or a text book. ‘Frame’ is a term coined by George Lakoff in a book whose title – Don't Think of an Elephant – makes clear the meaning. (The word ‘elephant’ carries such strong images that if you tell someone not to think of one they will be unable not to.)

For example, the ‘Light’ in Chifley's frame is usually considered to be a lighthouse, perhaps a beacon, showing the way. I read it rather as a farmhouse on a hill, with one light showing on the porch, guiding the way home for the weary traveller. With a Labor government in power eventually we will all find our way home to warmth and succour and rest – a very powerful image.

From that time onwards it has all been, so to speak, downhill for the Labor Party. The next memorable framing is Whitlam's ‘It's Time’, and this is another (two-word!) slogan often praised for its effectiveness. But in 1972 any old drover's dog's breakfast of a slogan would have beaten McMahon. And it's worth looking at this slogan with fresh eyes. All it was really saying was that, after 23 years, surely it was Labor's turn: what about us, it isn't fair, we don't get enough, now we want our share. Not exactly aux armes citoyens is it?

But, a trifle unfair, it also carried the connotation of ‘It's time we joined the twentieth century’ and ‘It's time we did all the things that have been neglected since Menzies became PM’ and ‘It's time to dump McMahon into the dustbin of history’. And these readings, this framing of the election choice, was emphasised emphatically after the Labor win as the Duumvirs Whitlam and Barnard – no time (!) to muck around waiting for caucus to elect a ministry – got stuck into a mountain of policy implementation in the most astonishing short period of government in Australian history.

So, benefit of the doubt, a deliberate and successful framing. But what else of Whitlam's words sticks in your mind? Ah yes, from the day the lights on the hill were turned off and the dream ended: ‘Well may we say “god save the queen” because nothing will save the governor-general’.

Now if you know nothing else about Whitlam you will know that phrase. Must have been replayed a million times in the next four decades. But, um, what does it actually mean? Who was saying ‘god save the queen’ exactly? And what is the meaning of the words ‘well may’ and ‘because’ in the sentence? And from what was the GG not being ‘saved’ and when? No, the whole thing is nonsense, words that individually have meaning but collectively are gobbledygook.

Those assembled cheered of course, would have cheered whatever he said, but I wonder if afterwards they were puzzled about why they cheered? If this was Whitlam's attempt to frame the events of Remembrance Day 1975 it was an abysmal failure. Apart from anything else, Kerr was merely a tool of Fraser (and Murdoch). The framing that was needed was to explain to the people precisely what was happening and why. But he failed to do that, and so the Fraser/Murdoch framing (Loans Affair, bad government) is what people remembered and proceeded to vote on a month later.

Then we come to Hawke. Someone I had remembered as, along with Keating, being good at framing. But what do we remember of the millions of words he spoke as PM? Just two phrases – ‘any boss who sacks a worker for being late this morning is a bum’ and ‘by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty’. Oh dear. Clearly a drover's dog could do a better job of framing than Hawkey.

‘Bosses’, ‘sack’, ‘bums’, all said with a mad cackle and a stupid smile while wearing a clown's jacket? Were the Lib minders organising the show? How about ‘under Labor Australians are encouraged to be world beaters by combining mateship with technology and skill’ or ‘boats will always sail faster under a Labor government’.

And the other one on children and poverty? Talk about providing hostages to fortune and the Opposition! What did such a boast mean? How would you measure it? How could you possibly achieve whatever ‘it’ was in such a short space of time? As a result it went down in history not as Hawke's ‘Light on the Hill’, which it was obviously meant to be, but a hollow boast signifying nothing. Why not ‘Labor believes all children are created equal’? What about ‘Labor always strives to give children a helping hand through the obstacle course of poverty’? Anything really except what he did say.

Then it was Keating's turn. Yes, yes, I know, pithy phrases, rotten carcasses swinging in the wind being done slowly and all that. But the one the public remembers, the one indelibly branded on Paul's forehead like the tattoo of a French clock? ‘This is the Recession we had to have’! I mean, if you wanted to save the Lib's faceless men time by thinking up negative framing for Labor that's the kind of phrase you might come up with. Alternatives? Well, I don't know, but perhaps ‘Labor has brought boom times for all Australians, but now we need to take a smoko for a moment while the economy readjusts’? Or something of the kind?

No good Paul, no good at all, and I doubt that he ever, in spite of perceptions, ever understood framing. Or perhaps he did mean to suggest to the voters who thought this the greatest country on the planet that Australia was instead the ‘arsehole of the world’. Is that a vote-catching frame or what?

So, goodbye true believers, hullo straighteners and levellers: John Howard, soufflé having risen for the third time, Lazarus having had his bypass, was in power. And immediately began talking as if he had learnt to speak Frame in the cot. Every sentence would have made George Lakoff proud, not a word wasted in driving home the message ‘Liberal good, Labor bad’.

You remember (and that is the point) ‘interest rates always lower’, ‘we will decide who comes here’, ‘lacks ticker’, ‘black armband’ and so on. Perfect framing every time. So perfect that he easily threw off every Labor challenge, all of them frame-free and totally forgettable as you walked into a polling booth. But then Howard's faceless men over-reached. Creating for their corporate masters a system of industrial relations which destroyed unions and took Australian workers back to Dickensian satanic mills, the likely lads of Menzies House called it, in an attempt to create the most improbable frame of all time. ‘Work Choices’.

The men and women of Australia, ultimately demonstrating that you can frame some of the issues all of the time, and all of the issues some of the time, but you can't frame all of the issues all of the time, saw through Work Choices as Hobson's Choice, and dumped Howard into the dustbin of history. Replaced by Kevin07, a slick marketing frame with not much behind it. Immediately confirmed by Mr 07 holding a 2020 Summit at which he sat taking notes at the feet of Australia's Best and Brightest for three days, and then, when the TV cameras stopped focussing on the bold and the beautiful of Australia's A-List, Kevin firmly established as one of them, dumped the notes into the dustbin of Parliament House and promptly forgot about them.

It was a kind of grand visual framing of how he saw his prime-ministership unfolding in the Versailles of the Southern Hemisphere, but it ended there. No one can remember anything Rudd said – backward ran sentences until reeled the mind – except for a few flourishes which became jokes: ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’, ‘gotta zip’, ‘programmatic specificity’.

And Julia Gillard was if anything worse. Given a clever program of reducing CO₂ pollution by putting a price on carbon for the big polluters while subsidising the public to compensate, she called it a ‘carbon tax’. Not only was this a gift in itself to the Likely Liberal Lakoff Lads, instantly referring to a ‘great big new tax’ when they weren't referring to a ‘toxic tax’, but she had apparently made herself seem to be a liar, having said that she would not introduce a ‘carbon tax’ (but would, in a second part of sentence never shown to the public, put a price on carbon) before the election. I'm thinking the frame writers in Abbott's office must have been pinching themselves in disbelief each morning after making an offering to Hanesha, the Elephant God in the room.

Having produced a negative frame for yourself and seen it used to enormous effect by the Opposition, Gillard (or her advisers) seem to have decided that frames were a Very Bad Thing and they would never use one again in case it turned out to be negative and they shot themselves in the foot once more. They ran so far in the opposite direction in fact that they produced a kind of anti-framing (on the principle of anti-matter) – political nomenclature that was so bland that not only did people not listen to it, they couldn't listen to it.

Thus a wonderful proposal to reverse the Liberal emphasis on rich private schools and begin funding on the basis of the needs of poor public schools was not framed in terms of benefit to students, or educational opportunity, or social justice, but was referred to solely as ‘Gonski’, the name of the man who produced the report on which the proposal was based. The use of such a meaningless anti-frame seemed so pleasing to Labor that they expanded on it with the even more meaningless slogan: ‘we give a Gonski’. Needless, perhaps, to say, the proposal was not understood by the public, not supported, and was attacked by the Liberals with that wonderfully cynical frame of ‘class warfare’.

Also popular were mind-numbing acronyms, beloved of bureaucrats and now it seemed of the determinedly non-framing Labor Party. A much needed scheme to improve funding for disabled people, so long casualties of the free market excesses of neo-conservatism, was referred to constantly simply as NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), thus ensuring again that no member of the public would ever hear of it. A similar example was the NBN (National Broadband Network) with its related acronym FTTH (fibre to the home). The constant use of these acronyms left the public in the dark about the benefits of this extraordinary nation-building effort, and left it open for the opposition to obfuscate about its alternative, inferior proposal with its own acronyms like FTTN (fibre to the node).

As a kind of unconscious symbolism of the underlying problem, Leader of the House Anthony Albanese kept crowing about the 500+ ‘pieces of legislation’ they had passed through a hung parliament, as if the number of these, not their objectives, was the whole aim of the exercise of governing. Five hundred pieces of legislation is a substantial body of work that could be used to explain to voters what you were on about, how you were aiming to reach the light on the hill, and how you differed from the Opposition (who were determined, and immediately on election set about, to erase all 500 from the statute books).

A good frame for a political policy does two things: it makes the policy memorable and it provides a succinct statement about its purpose. By avoiding frames Labor abandoned all hope of doing either thing. Indeed they often, as in the case of the carbon tax, sorry, price on carbon, seemed to be clueless themselves about the purpose, blathering away about the technicalities of the scheme while rarely if ever mentioning climate change.

So while the Labor ants were busy busy busy working industriously away in the bowels of Parliament House, making provision for the winter, the Lib grasshoppers strutted around in the sunshine attracting attention with stunts and slogans. The slogans were the frames; the stunts were a way of hammering home those frames night after night: ‘Axe the tax’, ‘Stop the boats’, ‘End the waste’, ‘Balance the budget’, ‘Bad government’, ‘Ditch the witch’ and so on. The Liberal faceless woman had decided that any frame could be represented by a three-word slogan, a dressing-up outfit, and a Lib-voting shopkeeper. Enormously effective in both getting the message to the public and in forcing the government to play on your preferred turf, completely negating the home ground advantage an incumbent government normally enjoys.

Meanwhile, Labor ministers kept wandering around, convinced it seemed that good deeds were their own reward, and turning up with folders of facts and figures to counter three-word slogans. Never take a fact knife to a frame gunfight, I could have told them.

It's Time - time the Labor Party began to employ some Lakoff students to not only run campaigns but to do so while understanding that these days the next campaign starts the day after the election. You need to frame your win or loss and take it from there.

The early days of Bill Shorten, including his continued referral to ‘carbon tax’ and mutterings about whether they will vote for its removal, and his complete lack of ability so far to frame responses to any of the Liberal omni-shambles of their first month in office (secrecy, asylum seekers, dumping clean energy finance, dropping funding and standards for preschool and aged care, money borrowing, expenses rorts, handing the environment to states to wreck, and so on) makes it look as if this Dream Team thinks it can win the next election without a good dose of the Lakoffs.

The Light has gone out on the Hill.

How many Labor members will it take to fit a new bulb?



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Pappinbarra Fox

17/11/2013I don't really understand the merits of viewing ideas in terms of framing them. That sounds like just more sophisticated spin. I know that the small target policy adopted over the last couple of decades has worked a treat, kinda, but I think it is about time that labor took up the gauntlet of developing real honest down to earth policies in the best interests of all Australians with Labor's special focus on the disadvantaged that it has always had. In detail. I know that the last person to produce a detailed policy to take to the electorate was John Hewson and he was done over by Paul Keating but we all know Abbott is no Paul Keating. And Hewson really fell on the GST hurdle - as indeed did Howard (on the national vote). If the policies are good, honest and detailed and what Australia needs (and that is where the argument would or should be) then the framing will take care of itself.

Pappinbarra Fox

17/11/2013I am not being dismissive of Bachus' great effort in putting together his opinion for discussion. It is a big effort. But I actually don't quite get the concept. I think the idea has merit but it reads like putting a lot of faith on choosing the right slogan where I think we should get out of the slogan business altogether.

TPS Team

17/11/2013The [i]Political Sword[/i] is proud to welcome this week's guest blogger, David Horton, who is well-known - to longer-term Swordsters, particularly - in a number of ways: . as the writer of his own blog 'The Watermelon Blog' [ http://davidhortonsblog.com/ ] with his articles included for numerous years in 'Lyn's Links' and more recently 'Casablanca's Cache'; . via his contributing comments on [i]The Political Sword[/i], particularly in this blog's earlier days; and . as @WatermelonMan on Twitter, where his profile states: "A conservative's worst nightmare - green on outside, social justice inside. World's best unknown blogger. 'Light, stinging, insolent & melancholy'." David's many life and work experiences may best be summed up in this biofrom the ABC's [i]The Drum[/i] website: "[quote]David Horton is a writer and polymath. He has qualifications in both science and the arts with careers in biology, archaeology, publishing some 100 scientific papers and a number of books on biology and archaeology. Now retired to become a professional writer and farmer, he often screams at tv news bulletins, writes a blog, writes a newspaper column, and edits his local paper. His books include The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia (1994 - winner NSW Premier's Literary Award) and The Pure State of Nature (2000). He is also the creator of the Indigenous Language Map. [quote]" (And if you have never looked at the fabulous [i]Indigenous Language Map[/i], now is the time: http://www.abc.net.auindigenous/map/ ) David tackles, in 'Lights out', a crucial subject and an essential aspect of contemporary politics: [i]framing[/i] ideas, policy and decisions - a concept taken from the work of George Lakoff. In one of his concluding paragraphs David states: "[quote]. Labor ministers kept wandering around, convinced it seemed that good deeds were their own reward, and turning up with folders of facts and figures to counter three-word slogans. Never take a fact knife to a frame gunfight, I could have told them. It's Time - time the Labor Party began to employ some Lakoff students to not only run campaigns but to do so while understanding that these days the next campaign starts the day after the election. You need to frame your win or loss and take it from there. [/quote]" That seems to offer quite a challenge, both to an ALP in Opposition and quite possibly to those who might wish to see a progressive government returned quickly in Australian political life. [b]What do you think? [/b] The TPS Team

woodypear

17/11/2013Excellent piece David. I find it amusing that some don't see the point! Yes, it's the old 'KISS' principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Perhaps that's why the ALP had such problems explaining all their good work. It appears to me that there are very few Australians who are interested in politics. They don't wish to appear this way in public, so they rattle off simplistic sayings etc that hide their ignorance. 'Stop the boats', 'Axe the tax', 'Toxic tax' all sound good and can get you out of an embarrassing debate. What I think is needed is to keep striving to do good but frame it in some catchy little saying that will save the politically ignorant from embarrassing situations. It's easier for them to quote a catchy saying than to regurgitate important facts.

Ad astra reply

17/11/2013David Thank you for a perceptive piece. Labor strategists should read all George Lakoff's writings on the language of politics. I'm currently reading 'Moral Politics', which I will quote in a piece I'm writing. He places great emphasis on framing, and expresses surprise that progressives have such difficulty with framing, while conservatives take to it naturally. I believe Labor needs to engage linguists and cognitive scientists and have them design memorable catchphrases that capture the essence of each policy. The LNP managed to do this, apparently with ease; Labor must find a way. Bill Shorten seems to have little aptitude, but Albo, Tony Burke, and Chris Bowen seem better equipped. While the bald facts and figures have validity, and are indeed essential in policy formulation, they do not necessarily resonate with the voters, who want and indeed need a straightforward explanatory frame that they understand and can fluently quote in discussions about politics. There must be a Labor counter to 'stop the boats', 'axe the tax', 'pay off the debt', and so on. It can't be that hard!

Casablanca

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The list is rapidly becoming longer than for any Western government in memory. http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-broken-commitments-so-many-so-soon,5898 3. A Week’s A Long Time in Politics. Hopefully Three Years doesn’t seem an Eternity. Ross Leigh The newspapers I read in Bali had very little mention of Tony Abbott. The International New York Times had an article about how strange Abbott’s Direct Action concept was, while the Jakarta Post mentioned him briefly on a couple of occasions... It’s only the ones overseas that have Abbott grovelling like a schoolboy about to be caned, saying that he’s really, really sorry and anything he can do to get a trade agreement is just fine by him. http://theaimn.com/2013/11/17/a-weeks-a-long-time-in-politics-hopefully-three-years-doesnt-seem-an-eternity/ 4. Abbott launches $25m Royal Commission into Rudd Government's roof batts program FORMER Labor government ministers, including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, will be compelled to give evidence as part of a $25 million Royal Commission into the botched roof insulation program. The Abbott Government will announce the scope of the judicial inquiry, which will be led by prominent Brisbane lawyer Ian Hanger and will be asked to report by mid-2014. http://www.news.com.au/national/prime-minister-tony-abbott-launches-25m-royal-commission-into-rudd-governments-controversial-roof-batts-program/story-fncynjr2-1226759273236 5. Turnbull urges politicians to mount hard arguments to the community Michelle Grattan Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called for politicians to take up their “megaphones” to explain policy and argue for reforms. 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Shortly before that, Prime Minister Tony Abbott decided not to have a minister for ageing, downgrading the importance of millions of seniors in the life of the nation. The sole reason for the dismissal of the panel, as conveyed to me privately by Coalition MPs, is that it was established by former treasurer Wayne Swan and it has been decided that every vestige of Swan’s term as treasurer must be obliterated. Such is the waste that politics represents in our national life. Be this as it may, the facts of life are that by 2040 there will be 55,000 Australians who are over 100, and 5000 of them will be 110. The largest segment of our population will be those between 85 and 100. More immediately, the number of 65-year-olds will double within the next decade. http://everaldcompton.com/2013/11/15/why-joe-hockey-should-not-have-sacked-me/ 8. 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Together, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard had the support of the nation and the party. Divided, their feud would be the undoing of a government. Over the next five days, we reveal how each of them plotted the other's downfall, the key players and the issues which divided them. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/interactive/2013/meltdown/ 11. Doubly Disillusioned Dan Rowden My case for holding that view is this: there is no reason that I can discern or fathom for any person who voted for the Coalition at the last election to, at this juncture, change their vote. There has been nothing in the actions of the Government sufficient to cause this to happen. Yes, from a Labor supporter’s perspective the Government has thus far been atrocious, but aside from some international diplomatic missteps – which will be forgotten about in a month’s time – the Government has done nothing that isn’t consistent with its stated intentions and/or its approach to matters socio-economic. 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Shorten faces awkward by-election referendum on carbon tax Michelle Grattan Even without a new Rudd in the field, the Griffith byelection will be pretty interesting, a battle with significance for both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten, but with the opposition leader having a good deal more at stake. In micro-land, it will also measure how Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party (PUP) is travelling. http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-shorten-faces-awkward-byelection-referendum-on-carbon-tax-20331 RUDD 14. The Rudd legacy: we need to talk about Kevin … or do we? Geoffrey Robinson Rudd’s popular appeal has been wide but shallow, as the rapid decline of his support during the 2013 election campaign demonstrated. As political blogger Greg Jericho has argued, Rudd’s appeal – unlike that of Julia Gillard - was to voters disinterested or hostile to “politics”. Rudd will have a smaller cadre of supporters to defend his legacy than will Gillard. http://theconversation.com/the-rudd-legacy-we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-or-do-we-20289?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The+Weekend+Conversation&utm_content=The+Weekend+Conversation+CID_88e550655f92df9ab73af4e254ab1120&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The%20Rudd%20legacy%20we%20need%20to%20talk%20about%20Kevin%20%20or%20do%20we 15. A great Rudd legacy is a more inclusive party Anthony Albanese Democratisation of the ALP is one of Rudd's greatest reforms, and still a work in progress. Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/a-great-rudd-legacy-is-a-more-inclusive-party-20131114-2xjjq.html#ixzz2kuyhGlx3 16. Now not knocking on Kevin's door Annabel Crabb There was wonderment in Caucus when the headline finally broke That the Nambour Kid was giving it away. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/now-not-knocking-on-kevins-door-20131116-2xnd3.html#ixzz2koWrmRBR 17. 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It was a welcome change from the increasing tendency of senior members of this government, which holds a clear majority in Parliament, to shrug off demands for transparency as being either irrelevant, or about ''operational matters''. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/team-abbott-talks--about-rudd-at-least-20131116-2xnhe.html 20. Leadership lessons for all from Rudd's teary farewell Michael Gordon Tony Abbott was hosting a private dinner in his Parliament House office on Wednesday when he discovered that Kevin Rudd was in the process of announcing his departure from politics. Abbott had no time to prepare the tribute he delivered to the crestfallen former prime minister, and this was a good thing. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/leadership-lessons-for-all-from-rudds-teary-farewell-20131115-2xmds.html 21. Kevin Rudd's swan song has Labor Party doing a fine dance Jacqueline Maley Earlier this week, Kevin Rudd's colleagues noticed he was writing a speech. When asked about it, the former prime minister bluffed and said he was working on a lil' something about the G20. Given Rudd's great personal attachment to the Group of 20 meeting (in August he said, a touch grandiosely, he had helped create it), it was no big stretch. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/kevin-rudds-swan-song-has-labor-party-doing-a-fine-dance-20131115-2xlku.html ECONOMY + BUSINESS 22. Suffering some pain now will stave off the economic dog days Ross Garnaut The resources boom hangover has left Australians and their leaders a stark choice. It was December 2005, and Australians were enjoying the longest economic expansion - and the largest rise in incomes over a short period - that a developed country had ever known. ''There are 'salad days' of economic policy,'' I said to the annual dinner of the Economic Society in Canberra, ''days when the economy outpaces even people's expectations. These are the times when poor policy looks good enough, and ordinary policy looks celestial.'' http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ross-garnaut-suffering-some-pain-now-will-stave-off-the-economic-dog-days-20131115-2xm6x.html 23. A Gaelic debt lesson for Mr Hockey Rob Burgess The problem with this campaign is that Hockey is still playing to a domestic voting audience, when as Treasurer he should be spending more time showing the world that “Australia is open for business” (as Prime Minister Abbott keeps insisting). The real motivator for Hockey’s argument is political. He does not wish to return to parliament in 2014 for a second serve of debt if something goes wrong with his budgeting – particularly on the revenue side. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/15/economy/gaelic-debt-lesson-mr-hockey?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=514054&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt= 24. When trade agreements threaten sovereignty: Australia beware Ruth Townsend The leaking of a key Trans Pacific Partnership document by Wikileaks this week suggests Australia may side with the US on some key issues including the insertion of an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause into the agreement, despite Andrew Robb having previously indicated some ambivalence on the issue. http://theconversation.com/when-trade-agreements-threaten-sovereignty-australia-beware-18419 25. Mind games could pay handsomely Peter Martin It's not so much that the Tax Office doesn't know how to write nice letters, it's that those letters haven't made it easy to pay or submit the information that's needed. Until now. Next week the Tax Office will go public with details of an extraordinary behind-the-scenes re-engineering of the way it interacts with the public. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/mind-games-could-pay-handsomely-20131116-2xnhp.html#ixzz2kuSzo6ww 26. The Truth about Debt and Deficit John Kelly ... putting the complexity of debt and deficit into simple English and exposing the hypocrisy of Joe Hockey’s references to Labor’s economic management...Why Joe Hockey will rue the Howard Government’s fiscal mis-management. http://theaimn.com/2013/11/06/the-truth-about-debt-and-deficit/ NBN 27. Gag on Turnbull briefing Bianca Hall, Dan Harrison The department led by Malcolm Turnbull - who last year said NBN Co was more secretive than the Kremlin - has refused to release its briefing to the new government under freedom of information laws. The ''blue book'' briefing was prepared to offer the Coalition - in the event it won government - the Communications Department's frank assessment of its election policies and commitments, as well as broader communications issues, to ensure a smooth transition to government. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gag-on-turnbull-briefing-20131116-2xnw4.html ENVIRONMENT + ENERGY 28. Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action Michael Mann But herein lies the crux—we no longer live in a world without warming. Given that 1985 was the last year with temperatures below the 20th century average, and 2000-2010 was the hottest decade on record, it has become impossible to say for certain that any given storm is free from the influence of our warmed world. http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/16/typhoon-haiyan-need-climate-action/ 29. Scientists warn of hot, sour, breathless oceans Seth Borenstein Greenhouse gases are making the world's oceans hot, sour and breathless, and the way those changes work together is creating a grimmer outlook for global waters, according to a new report Wednesday from 540 international scientists. The world's oceans are getting more acidic at an unprecedented rate, faster than at any time in the past 300 million years, the report said. But it's how this interacts with other global warming impacts to waters that scientists say is getting them even more worried. http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Scientists-warn-of-hot-sour-breathless-oceans-4981452.php?cmpid=twitter 30. Climate Deniers Must Pay $90,000 For ‘Not Acting Reasonably,’ NZ Court Rules Emily Atkin A New Zealand group dedicated to downplaying the existence of climate change has been ordered to pay close to $90,000 in court fees for bringing a “faulty” lawsuit that had sought to invalidate data that proved the country’s temperatures were on the rise. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/13/2934861/climate-deniers-pay-80000-court-fees/ 31. Climate-change activists are playing a dangerous game with their 'enemy' narrative George Marshall The argument between the British political parties over energy prices appears, on the face of it, to be another tedious, media-fuelled battle of words shaped by focus groups. Yet it is more interesting than that: it is proof of the power of cognitive frames and shows how easily the real and overwhelming threat of climate change can be sidelined because of its failure to fit a classic narrative. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/16/climate-change-dangerous-game-enemy-narrative 32. Methane Levels going through the Roof Sam Corana On November 9, 2013, p.m., methane readings were recorded as high as 2662 parts per billion (ppb), at 586 millibars (mb) pressure, which corresponds with an altitude of 14384.6 feet or 4384.4 meters. Where did these high levels occur? Methane levels were low on the southern hemisphere and, while there were some areas with high readings over North America and Asia, there were no areas as wide and bright yellow as over the Arctic Ocean (the color yellow indicating readings of 1950 ppb and higher on above map). http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/methane-levels-going-through-the-roof.html 33. ALP Must Stand By Its Reforms Craig Emerson AUSTRALIA has been better at economic reform than most developed countries. It's no coincidence that Australia is one of only a handful of developed countries to have enjoyed more than two decades of recession-free economic growth. Across the political spectrum there is general acceptance that this growth would not have been possible if not for the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating era. But growth, and the better opportunities for the underprivileged it enables, won't keep coming unless we keep reforming. Yet Australia is about to shirk a significant economic reform, an emissions trading scheme. As a party of reform, Labor must have no part in its repeal. http://craigemersoneconomics.com/blog/2013/11/16/column-in-the-weekend-australian-alp-must-stand-by-its-reforms 34. Politicians, lend your ears to engineers Tristan Edis A few days ago I wrote about how former Prime Minister John Howard could recognise that humans have an incredible capability to come up with technologies to counter resource constraints (Reading Howard's sceptic mind, November 6). Yet this belief seemed to stop at the idea of being able to develop affordable substitutes for fossil fuels (or, at least, mop up the CO2 from fossil fuels). http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/15/renewable-energy/politicians-lend-your-ears-engineers?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=514054&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt= 35. A back-flip on the carbon tax. John Menadue The ALP should cling to the policy it presented at the last election, end the carbon tax but only if it is replaced by an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It was not that the policy on the carbon tax was wrong. All the problems surrounding the carbon tax for the previous government were political – a broken promise, gross political exaggeration by Tony Abbott and a compliant Murdoch media. http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=857#comment-7222 36. Australia's Politics of Global Warming. Julia Baird Why are we regularly asked to trust poll-driven politicians more than data-driven scientists? Huge clumps of strange, pink-stringed jellyfish drifted into the protected bay near my home in Sydney last year. Thousands swarmed under the surface, stinging indiscriminately. I swam through them in a full-body wet suit for several long months with my swimming group, wondering if warmer currents had changed the habitat patterns. Scientists are now talking about a peculiar “jellification” of the sea, prompted by climate change. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/opinion/baird-australias-politics-of-global-warming.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 37. Trying hard to make Direct Action add up Paddy Manning With legislation to repeal the carbon tax introduced to Parliament yesterday, it is timely to consider the impacts of the carbon policy that is likely to eventually replace it: the Coalition’s Direct Action policy. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/11/14/trying-hard-to-make-direct-action-add-up/?wpmp_switcher=mobile 38. The Coalition's Direct Action Plan Greg Hunt Direct action on soil carbons will be the major plank of our strategy, supported by other direct action measures that will reduce CO2 emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 based on 1990 levels and deliver significant environmental outcomes – without the need for a great big new tax. http://www.greghunt.com.au/Portals/0/PDF/TheCoalitionsDirectActionPlanPolicy2010.pdf ASYLUM SEEKERS 39. Abbott Bungles The Asylum Operation Alex Hamer The Coalition's attempt to lock down the details of asylum seeker arrivals is in tatters after repeated contradictory accounts from Indonesia https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/14/abbott-bungles-asylum-operation 40. Boat people: Canberra protesters to target 'inhumane' treatment by major parties Stephanie Anderson The Coalition and Labor are in the crosshairs as protesters prepare to rally against the ''callous and inhumane'' treatment of asylum seekers at Parliament House on Monday. Organisers are expecting hundreds of protesters to gather for the rally, which coincides with a Labor Party caucus meeting to decide whether to support the Greens push to ban temporary protection visas. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said voters were ashamed of the ''callous and inhumane'' policies forced upon people seeking asylum in Australia. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/boat-people-canberra-protesters-to-target-inhumane-treatment-by-major-parties-20131117-2xpco.html#ixzz2kuRdahfw 41. Sri Lanka to use Aussie gift boats to stop people smugglers Ben Doherty, Bianca Hall Asylum seekers caught by the Australian-built boats in Sri Lankan or international waters will be returned to Sri Lanka immediately. The deal was immediately slammed by the Refugee Council of Australia, which said it was the first time Australia had directly co-operated with a refugee ''source'' country. ''This is an arrangement between Australia and a country where people are fleeing, in situations where many people believe that they have a well-founded fear of persecution,'' chief executive Paul Power said. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/sri-lanka-to-use-aussie-gift-boats-to-stop-people-smugglers-20131116-2xnwc.html 42. Tony Abbott's boats gift to Sri Lanka comes under fire Ben Doherty Prime Minister Tony Abbott has defended giving military hardware to a country the United Nations has accused of war crimes, saying the gift of two ships to stop people smuggling will "preserve lives at sea". http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-boats-gift-to-sri-lanka-comes-under-fire-20131117-2xp5z.html 43. Record boat arrivals lead to lengthier detention times Bianca Hall Record boat arrivals under Labor have led to record numbers of people languishing in detention for long periods of time, including a boy who was 15 when he was deported, after being detained for 2½ years without independent review. The cases have been highlighted by the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, which is clearing its backlog of reviews of long-term detainees. By law, the office has to report regularly on asylum seekers detained longer than two years. But it has struggled to keep up as the number of asylum seekers swelled to more than 21,000 this year. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/record-boat-arrivals-lead-to-lengthier-detention-times-20131116-2xnl9.html 44. Outsourcing refugee policy: the Australia-Indonesia ‘people swap’ Melissa Phillips With no details yet of the substance of a possible people swap with Indonesia, it is unclear how this proposal differs from Labor’s 2011 plan. However, there appear to be some key distinctions - and similarities - worth noting. It appears that Indonesia is taking a much stronger position on this issue. Comments by Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an adviser to Indonesian vice president Boediono, have highlighted Australia’s position as a rich nation and its status as a Signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. http://theconversation.com/outsourcing-refugee-policy-the-australia-indonesia-people-swap-20333 45. The Dream Boat Luke Mogelson More than a thousand refugees have died trying to reach Christmas Island. But faced with unbearable conditions at home, they keep coming...It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive, normally, from Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, to the southern coast of Java. In one of the many trucks that make the trip each month, loaded with asylum seekers from the Middle East and Central Asia, it takes a little longer. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?_r=1& 46. Undercover journalists publish firsthand account of asylum seeker journey to Australia Rick Feneley An undercover journalist has detailed how he and a photographer posed as asylum seekers and took an epic journey from Afghanistan's shady currency markets to Jakarta and on to a flimsy, open-decked wooden boat that delivered 57 desperate people to Christmas Island. In a 10,000-word report in The New York Times Magazine, American writer Luke Mogelson and Dutch photographer Joel van Houdt give the first account of what boat people go through to reach Australia. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/undercover-journalists-publish-firsthand-account-of-asylum-seeker-journey-to-australia-20131116-2xnd6.html 47. Morrison: Offshore Camp Can Handle A Profoundly Disabled Child Nick Olle A profoundly disabled four-year-old Tamil asylum seeker in a Brisbane detention facility will be transferred offshore along with her father, probably to Nauru. http://www.theglobalmail.org/blog/morrison-offshore-camp-can-handle-a-profoundly-disabled-child/743/?fb_action_ids=10151726014306814%2C10151726007471814&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%2210151726014306814%22%3A610410595688446%2C%2210151726007471814%22%3A215474285298474}&action_type_map={%2210151726014306814%22%3A%22og.likes%22%2C%2210151726007471814%22%3A%22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[] 48. A hard fact to follow Heath Aston Scott Morrison was warming to his task as the self-styled master and commander of "operation sovereign borders". A subtle change in facts allowed Morrison to insist there had never been a woman on Nauru carrying twins...Some refugee advocates believe the enforced separation - not common among the many women who have left Christmas Island to give birth in Darwin - was a result of her willingness to speak to the media on one occasion through a translator. Let's hope that is not a fact. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-hard-fact-to-follow-20131116-2xn65.html 49. Bulk of drop in boat arrivals was under Labor David Wroe, Michael Gordon The bulk of the dramatic fall in asylum-seeker boat arrivals happened under Labor's last-ditch Papua New Guinea deal announced before the election campaign, a Fairfax Media analysis shows. An analysis of week-on-week boat arrivals in the period from July 19, when Kevin Rudd announced the ''Papua New Guinea solution'', shows the rate of arrivals has fallen steadily but the drop was most pronounced before the Abbott government was sworn in. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bulk-of-drop-in-boat-arrivals-was-under-labor-20131115-2xmd2.html 50. Tony Abbott to sign deal on people smuggling with Sri Lanka at CHOGM Australia and Sri Lanka will sign a deal on people smuggling at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later today that will expand cooperation between the nations' navies. Mr Abbott has downplayed concerns the Sri Lankan government may have engaged in war crimes at the end of the country's ethnic war, and talked up the country's economic potential. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-16/abbott-to-sign-deal-on-people-smuggling-with-sri-lanka/5097132 HUMAN RIGHTS 51. Christine Milne ‏@senatormilne 11h @TonyAbbottMHR doesn't want to recognise human rights abuses in SL otherwise he would have to accept legitimacy of asylum seekers. #auspol 52. Getting Away With Torture Kellie Tranter and Aloysia Brooks In their recent report "Globalising Torture", the Open Society Justice identifies Australia as one foreign government that aids the United States in its "torture program". The report confirms, as has long been known, that diplomatic assurances of humane treatment are insufficient to prevent grave human rights violations, and that culpability for torture does not rest solely with the principal perpetrators like the United States but with all complicit governments. https://newmatilda.com/2013/02/20/getting-away-torture 53. Sri Lanka's civil war is over but the torture still goes on ucanews.com “They beat me on the soles of my feet with pipes and electrical wires, and they beat me with wires and plastic pipes filled with sand on my back,” he said. “They submerged my head in water and held me under until I suffocated.” “I had heard rumors that the Sri Lankan government was still targeting and torturing Tamils but I didn’t believe it was true until it happened to me,” said Murugan. “The Sri Lankan government is telling the world that it is peaceful there now, that things are okay for the Tamil community.” “I am living evidence that that is a lie,” he said. http://www.ucanews.com/news/sri-lankas-civil-war-is-over-but-tortures-still-go-on/69709 54. Australia’s CHOGM dilemma: addressing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka Catherine Renshaw Australian politicians are, for the most part, pragmatists. In general, trade and security is more important to Australia than moral posturing over human rights. Sri Lanka’s co-operation on the asylum seeker issue is of critical importance to Australia. Some international forums, however, are precisely about moral governance. And if they are not about that, then it is hard to understand the reason for their existence. CHOGM is one such forum. http://theconversation.com/australias-chogm-dilemma-addressing-human-rights-abuses-in-sri-lanka-20086 55. Sri Lanka’s Twitter Troll Diplomat Eric Ellis The countries of the Commonwealth are gathering in Colombo for the 2013 CHOGM meetup. Canada and India are boycotting in protest of the host's poor human rights record but Sri Lanka’s free-tweeting Consul General to Sydney is on the social media counter-offensive. No apparent respecter of alternative views, democratic opinion or, indeed, compelling reportage, Jayasekara holds that attack and kill-the-messenger tactics are the best form of defence. Anyone he doesn’t agree with quickly becomes an opponent, to be loudly condemned, diminished and demeaned, and tagged as a “terrorist”, “corrupt” or “mercenary” – sometimes all three. http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/sri-lankas-twitter-troll-diplomat/740/ 56. Abbott's torture comment sparks response AAP Prime Minister Tony Abbott's assessment of torture in Sri Lanka has been slammed by the federal opposition while his British counterpart insists leaders should not back away from difficult human rights issues. In Colombo attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), Mr Abbott on Friday commented on reports of alleged torture by Sri Lankan security forces. Mr Abbott told reporters that while his government "deplores the use of torture we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances difficult things happen". http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/abbotts-torture-comment-sparks-response-20131116-2xnfl.html 57. Australia breaks promise to protect children Editorial IN 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a major international treaty to protect children from persecution. A year later, Australia ratified the convention on the rights of the child. It is hard to reconcile Australia's commitment to that principle with the actions of the Australian government in the past week...It appears one of the reasons the government has cast an iron cloak of secrecy around asylum seeker boat arrivals is that it is instructing its officers to use children as bargaining tools to intimidate arrivals into returning to their place of origin. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/ct-editorial/australia-breaks-promise-to-protect-children-20131116-2xnug.html#ixzz2koXGRrft 58. Coalition's change to racial vilification laws kowtows to media mates Irfan Yusuf Since 1975, the Commonwealth has had in place the Racial Vilification Act, which seeks to implement our international legal obligations including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Twenty years later, the act was amended to introduce provisions on racial hatred. These provisions, contained in Section 18C, make it unlawful for someone to publicly do something that is reasonably likely to offend, assault, humiliate or intimidate someone or a group. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/coalitions-change-to-racial-vilification-laws-kowtows-to-media-mates-20131117-2xoyi.html#ixzz2kuSA1QNi MARRIAGE EQUALITY 59. That doesn't sound very Christian to me Sam de Brito As part of your campaign to oppose the bill you wrote to supporters: "Christian friends, we must pray and seek Almighty God's victory over this Bill which has originated in the depths of hell, as it is an attack on Almighty God's Creative Purposes for the human race, that marriage can only be recognised as between a male and a female, a man and a woman, not between two men or two women." http://www.canberratimes.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/that-doesnt-sound-very-christian-to-me-20131114-2xjfm.html#ixzz2kmyLlJUn HEALTH + SCIENCE 60. Research suggests responsible parenting extends well into children's early adulthood. New techniques for tracking brain growth show radical change extends into at least the mid-20s, suggesting responsible parenting should too. Just as the first pictures showing a vulnerable isolated earth from the moon helped transform thinking about environment protection, lab pictures of young brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging are transforming thinking about adolescence, parenting and the right social settings for creating highly capable adults. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/health/research-shows-parenting-continues-into-childs-20s-20131116-2xnlm.html 61. Late caffeine hit reduces sleep American Academy of Sleep Medicine A late afternoon coffee can drastically affect your sleep. A new study has found consuming two to three cups of coffee at bedtime, at three hours before going to bed or six hours before going to bed can take an hour or more off your sleep. The magnitude of reduction in total sleep time suggests that caffeine taken 6 hours before bedtime has important disruptive effects on sleep and provides empirical support for sleep hygiene recommendations to refrain from substantial caffeine use for a minimum of 6 hours prior to bedtime. http://theconversation.com/late-caffeine-hit-reduces-sleep-20343 62. A trip down memory lane is healthy The University of Southhampton People who are nostalgic about their earlier lives have more of a positive outlook towards their future. Self-esteem and optimism improve when someone recalls a sentimental song or experience from their past compared to those who retrieve emotionally-neutral experiences. Researchers believe that revisiting happy memories may help people cope with emotional difficulties. http://www.gadailynews.com/news/regional/187366-how-nostalgia-is-good-for-you-happy-memories-make-people-more-optimistic-and-less-anxious-about-the-future.html 63. Cells show signs of faster aging after depression Brenda Goodman Dutch researchers compared cell structures called telomeres in more than 2,400 people with and without depression. Like the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces, telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes to protect the cell's DNA from damage. Telomeres get a bit shorter each time a cell divides, so they are useful markers for aging. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-11-cells-faster-aging-depression.html MEDIA + PUBLISHING 64. Where's Australia's next media upstart? Harrison Polites Not too long ago, Australia could rightfully have been considered a hub for online media innovation. Think about it. Long before the New York Times considered its ‘digital subscription’ plan, Crikey was already rocking it with a slew of paying subscribers. And unlike the Wall Street Journal - which adopted a pay wall back in the 90s - they were paying for something other than business news too. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/15/technology/wheres-australias-next-media-upstart 65. What is a book in the digital age? Zoe Sadokierski As a professional book designer, I’ve spent a decade observing electronic books from a cagey distance. A couple of years ago, I reluctantly recognised the need to engage with these alien book forms, both as a reader and a designer. It is the 21st century. What I have come to realise is this: electronic books can do certain things that print books cannot, and therein lies their value. Enhanced electronic books are changing our definition and expectations of books. http://theconversation.com/what-is-a-book-in-the-digital-age-19071 SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES Refugee Boat Arrivals The updates that the Morrison Military Machine want to hide. http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/refugee-boat-timeline-updated-to-october-21st/ Ashbygate on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/585444634841472/ The Finnigans' Home of the BISONs The Beautiful Inspiring Set of Numbers http://www.thefinnigans.blogspot.com.au/ • ROULE REPORT — Issues of Today http://paper.li/RouleReport/1334728962 • AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm • NEWS HEADLINES 18 November 2013 http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/ ################################################################

Casablanca

18/11/2013 [b]Climate change rallies held around Australia, with calls for Coalition to keep carbon tax[/b] Organisers say about 60,000 participated at the rallies, which were held in capital cities and more than 130 towns and regional centres. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-17/thousands-rally-across-australia-for-national-day-climate-action/5097536?section=australianetworknews

Casablanca

18/11/2013 Some quotable quotes from the Don Watson article. (Today's Cache No 6 - http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/november/1383224400/don-watson/tony-abbott-apologises) I will decide what I say and the circumstances in which I say it. I will decide what you need to know and the circumstances in which you will be told. Take no notice of this grin – it’s a medical condition. It is not that I am indifferent to truth, but that truth is indifferent to me. What I won’t be doing is allowing science to dictate policy on something as important as this [climate change]. We will decide what the point is, and when we have we’ll get back to you. Sorry.

2353

18/11/2013Slik and effective marketing is what the LNP is doing well. Unfortunately the ALP could respond effectively with "authentic leadership" ([quote]Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader’s legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. Generally, authentic leaders are positive people with truthful self-concepts who promote openness.[/quote] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_leadership). Unfortunately, the ALP seems hell bent on moving to the right to claim a generation of voters that are generally getting older - leaving the younger looking for an answer. This is an extremely well written and thought provoking piece David - thank you and welcome to TPS

jaycee

18/11/2013I liked ; "Kerr's cur" !....and a "souffle never rises twice" !

jaycee

18/11/2013While I agree with the "angle" of David Horton's piece, I think we need to acknowledge that most of the success of the LNP. catch-cries have been the consistency and regularity of the MSM. to deliver such innanities to the public ear day in day out...supported, as stated, by stunts and appearances. Where once the ABC. would counter-balance the commercial's obvious bias...Aunty now is sleeping with the enemy! Those MSM. journos' that we once trusted and considered clever and astute have performed poorly when a real test of ethical behaviour was required...at the first shot across the bow from a LNP. biased executive, they folded and went on to shout LNP. slogans from the rooftops for all their wages were worth... Cringing cowards to a man / woman. "Rupert's rogues" "Scott's scroungers" "Gina's goons" "Small-change patriots" You name it...they are it!

TalkTurkey

18/11/2013Gee Casabalanca I saw you on my TV last night driving that yellow Rolls-Royce around the mountains of Ljubljana with a whole company of Resistance fighters, you do get around! http://www.ovguide.com/the-yellow-rolls-royce-9202a8c04000641f8000000000e300af And back in time for legions of Links! I've read a few but not most yet. Yesterday morning J**** & I left Mildura at 5AM on the dot and I made Adelaide in good time to get to the Rally at Elder Park, quite a good turnout too, nice people, too many Greens voters but all hating Abborrrtt anyway. Labor per se was not a big presence though Penny Wong followed Sarah Hanson-Young speaking to the crowd. But Oh how I yearn for the rage of yesteryear, the venom of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, of passionate pickets and Green Bans and the opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which culminated in A HUNDRED THOUSAND protesters in this city alone one day in 2002 - a protest which had no effect whatsoever on Howard's hell-or-high-water determination to get involved in what was indeed a lie-based criminal war. And that brings me to David Horton's piece here. Actually I'd better reply later. I'll post this first. But it relates to the voltage at which Labor Party speakers have been delivering their orations ever since PJK was rolled.

jaycee

18/11/2013There already is a "great big new tax" on carbon emissions..it's a 'poll' tax..it has just been levied upon the citizens of the Phillipines in the shape of Typhoon Haiyan...the 'poll' being the head-count of the dead and injured...a very painful tax..a very expensive tax..an unstoppable tax.

jaycee

18/11/2013I find it amazing that the LNP. ministers can't seem to explain their policies without framing them against a backdrop of old Lablor policies..ie. ; "Labor did this so we are doing it too!...only more harshly"

Ken

18/11/2013David A very interesting piece. There is obviously a place for good policy but 'framing' my be an adjunct to help sell the policy to the elctorate. I think since 1996 politicians haven't known which way to turn. Hewson proved in 1993 that having a detailed policy doesn't necessarily win an election. And in 1996, Keating showed that "the vision thing" doesn't win elections either. In the recent election, Abbott and the LNP had already occupied the "slogan" ground and for the ALP to go that way as well may have been seen as no more than copying. Rudd framed climate change as the 'great moral challenge facing our generation' but failed to follow through (abandoned the CPRS). After two years of good polls that abandonment led to a rapid decline in Labor's fortunes. That points to a potential downside to successful framing: if it captures the public imagination but is then not acted on, the public will react. That reaction can be muted with the connivance of the MSM as is happening at the moment. While Abbott is fulfilling some of his slogans, others already seem to have disappeared off the radar but the MSM is only partially pursuing them. The other key question, of course, is how long successful framing lasts. While the phrases may be remembered in later years, do they actually influence voters once they stop being said - are they only to serve a short-term purpose? I'm a great believer in 'the vision thing' and successful framing of a vision may have value because policies can then be hung off it - without necessarily a new frame for each policy.

42 long

18/11/2013Even though they are comfortably in government, (by numbers and MSM support) the LieNP still get obsessed by Labor and it's policies. The desire to eliminate all traces of labor borders on MANIC. If they are made up of "experienced" ex Howard era ADULT people why don't they show some real evidence of it instead of being "reactionary" to Labor actions in the past. Labor in opposition is hardly a threat in it's present form. Are they obsessed with rewriting history and distracted from governing effectively? I would strongly suggest they are doing exactly that. Too much emphasis on imagery rather than the reality of effective government.. Do these great PROMISERS actually have any real ABILITY. You don't govern by SPIN.

Catching Up

18/11/2013Good effort. An aside. Good news. Senator Faulkner is coming off the front bench, to take part in Senate estimates. He is the master in this regard. I believe he was missed in the last government.

Catching Up

18/11/2013Labor has to continue with it's many good policies of recent years that have been ridiculed by the Coalition and media. What it also has to do, is get it's grass roots behind those policies, to the extent they once go out on the streets and fight for them. Yesterday's exercise was a good starting point. I am a little suspicious of such sayings as Labor needs a narrative, or they need to be framed. We have to move away from spin, and the believe that the advertising agencies can do the job. It does not work for Labor. Yes, the leader has to get out, addressing the public, taking on all comers. Yes, protests and rallies did work through history, until we got waylaid waylaid by modern technology. Yes, they take hard work. The policies have to addressed peoples real needs. Yes, attack the Coalition. That is not hard. Yes, show the community, that Labor is hearing, and addressing what they are saying. Often it is the little things that grab the imagination of many. Just a thought. I would like to thank the author for bringing up this discussion,. It is one we have to get right. No, Labor is not dead, Yes, there have been many lost in the last election, that makes the task much harder. The one thing I believe and know, this government does not have any answers. They are going to make things much worse.

Curi-Oz

18/11/2013Thank you, David, for a piece that puts the point to my own vague thoughts of the last few months! How come all these clever people who are currently running the apparent 'left' of our political spectrum either do not recognise and create their own frames to hang from, or is it that we are now at the tail-end of Mr Howard's "counter-reformation" to the Hawke/Keating era's changes to Australian finances and society that have left us with a disengaged society that just wants to be comfortable? As my old gran used to say, "The only really comfortable ones are the dead". And I'm starting to wonder if you actually have to be dead, or just have a dead heart or intellect to get into politics on either side of the apparent political fence, because there is decreasingly less life/light/heart in either of our major parties if one only looks at there reported policies or activities. What to do about it though? And how to engage with those who are not interested in politics and only hear what they are told by their 'betters' in the MSM? And, how to get the word through to the ALP and/or Greens (and possibly the mess off smaller Senate players) that there is a less destructive way to the future than a return to feudalism or oligarchy.

Catching Up

18/11/2013Maybe the way back, is concentrating on the grassroots, and using modern technology of the Internet, to draw more in. Could one ever have dream a decade ago, we would spend our days, talking in interacting to many, across many sites. I am not one for going back to the past. In this case, I am. Yes, back to the past, to do it better today, with the modern day communication out;lets we have available. I believe the young are hungry to become involved. Yes, and they sure know how to use the social networks that are available. Yes, it is networking experts we need. Yes, not advertising or spin doctors. An aside. Maybe Pyne wants to guillotine the debate on CC, because he cannot get many on his side to stand up and defend their action.

TalkTurkey

18/11/2013IA on Government secrecy: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-secret-state,5870

42 long

18/11/2013The missing ingredient is respect for truth. There is little value placed on it certainly from where I see it by the LieNP, particularly ABBOTT AND MORISCUM. Good deception is what they like and I mean deception they can get away with, that makes them look good and the others bad. This has to go back to the majority of the media and how the behave. They act on self interest alone and by massaging facts selectively , they can spin any story or hide it. A good media is essential to democracy to complete the equation of INFORMED people voting freely for the people they want to represent them. Misinformed people vote badly, buy badly and live badly

Casablanca

18/11/2013 TT I'm aghast that I missed that excellent article by Clint Howitt on Abbott’s Secret State. It will go into tomorrow's Cache! The most percipient observation, I think, is from Mungo MacCallum who said that: [quote]‘It is now clear that the underlying principle of the Abbott Government is to be ignorance: not only are the masses to be kept as far as possible in the dark, but the Government itself does not want to know.’[/quote] http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-secret-state,5870

jaycee

18/11/2013As regards "framing the Labor ideals"...what to do? This may read as a tad 'conspiracy theory', but...I kind of wonder on the objective of shedding the skin of unionism from the Labor party. I confess, it is like dragging a ton of lead for me to put pen to paper to write of the loss of so much good from the Labor Party...and I keep hearing the whisper into my ear..: "why?...why?"......Why has Labor gone down the path of cutting itself off from it's working-class base in the union movement? surely there is still such a thing as a working-class?...if not, who are all those minimum-wage earners in the HSU. that even Tony Abbott feels such empathy for?...Who are all those workers in hospitality that get screwed over for overtime because the hotels and restaurants "would go broke if they had to pay fair wages"...ditto for child-labour at fast food outlets hiring children fresh from the school yard..and child-care and carers in general..where are all the pensioners who depend on the PBS. and other services in their old age ? Whose plan was it to exclude a whole demographic ( the lowly-paid unionists ) from the political conversation?...why did those factory workers shake the hand of their fluro'd nemisis...was there no approval from Labor leadership to reject and to protest and scorn the scum?...to spit at his feet in full view of the cameras?...even now, it is so difficult to collect and collate so many moments where a deliberate action of noise or protest from the Labor camp could have at least given direction to many who would have welcomed decisive leadership on the issue? It so wearies one to try and write of it.....Why, after three attempts at undermining the sitting PM. did those Labor whiteanters get another chance...who gave them that chance? Why did'nt Julia Gillard give that WA. shock-jock who asked whether Tim was gay a beaut backhander across his face!...why didn't some of those men in the party take Toolman quietly to one side and give HIM a backhander?...since his partner was going to go down with the Party...the Party he was doing his best to destroy! Has the union numbers been deliberately culled because of what is seen as too much influence?....well, pardon me for the IPA. , Menzies House...the Business Council...the Mining Councils....Perhaps it was too much corruption?...Sweet Jesus Christ!!...the Libs and the Nats make a good living out of such a thing!...The Right-Wing aspirants of NSW. Labor have almost perfected it!...I don't see any members of the above conservative sympathisers being excluded for dabbling in such deeds!...Tell me when Mr. Bond is again expelled form the exclusive club of "old boys"...Was it because of ; quote ; "union thuggery"?...and Howard sends our troops to help destroy a nation and kill hundreds of thousands of it's citizens..and now we give gun-boats to stop people escaping from fear?...tell me about thuggery..tell Slipper, Hanson, Thomson about thuggery! I have to agree with Keating...Gough went too easy....Gillard went too easy...and then we lost so many good people..the election was lost too cheaply....there should have been pain for the conservatives, there should have been a couple of blood noses at least!....It burns inside my breast, the emptyness I feel for all those months of crying out for victory!...cursing fate for setbacks and the final betrayal of the sitting PM. for such a dead-loss....and I ask myself...and I know you ask yourselves...; Why ?

Catching Up

18/11/2013jaycee, as a old timer, I will try and answer your question. I was a member of HAREA, which became HSU back in the late 1980's during the time of setting up of the Richmond Scheme for the disabled, It recruiting members was hard, near impossible. Most workers in these jobs are isolated. Hard to communicate with. I began working in the metal and other trades, where factories of 2 and 3 thousand people were employed. The union was able to set up a strong network. Everyone knew what the unions were up to. Most were involved. Today, that is not so. There are very few large places now. That is particularly true for the new jobs that have been created, to replace the industries of previous years. I think it is a miracle, that unions have been able to keep the power they have. The union movement today, is nothing like many of us grew up in. Nothing at all. Jaycee, you are right, we have to make contact with low income workers. It is still true today, that united we can win, divided we fall. Sadly we are now divided. By the way, the isolation of many in the HAREA and now HSU, could lead to the corruption that has occurred. I was aware back in the 1990's that a certain HSU leader was having problems with a certain lady. He feared he was being set up. His crime was, that he wanted to clean the HSU up. Well that was a comment he made at the time. Made at a conference, after I had left HAREA and moved onto the PSA. Not being involved anymore, I let the comment go over my head, but funny thing is, I never forgot it, as I wished I had took the time to ask him why. Did not understand it then. Today I do. Yes Jaycee we need to get the low paid workers on board. The question is, how does one do it. How do we turn those lights on?

jaycee

18/11/2013Catch'...I served an apprenticeship in the building trade back in the days of the big all-encompasing building companies....yes, they have since disbanded and ended up becoming nothing but "project managers"....but the unions knew this...knew that a new strategy was needed...Howard did the dirty on the unions and the people of Aust'....Labor should have moved closer to them for warmth...but the right-wing of Labor got too big for it's boots, if you ask me!

Catching Up

18/11/2013Jaycee, I agree. Trouble is, we have to find a new way. Was is more worrying, is thanks to this situation, the young have no contact with unions or politics.

The Sniper

18/11/2013Old quotes are always fun. Even better when you get them right. "Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a bum." https://www.google.com.au/search?q=any+boss+who+sacks+a+worker+for+&oq=any+boss+who+sacks+a+worker+for+&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.14180j0j9&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Casablanca

19/11/2013 KHTAGH [b]What bees don’t know can help them: measuring insect indecision [/b] Last week, my colleague Andrew Barron and I published results investigating uncertainty monitoring in honey bees and found that bees avoided difficult tasks that they lacked the information to solve. https://theconversation.com/what-bees-dont-know-can-help-them-measuring-insect-indecision-20099

Casablanca

19/11/2013 CASABLANCA'S CACHE Tuesday, 19 November 2013; 33 items ENTITLEMENTS & FIDDLES 1. PM's office approving all travel by Federal Coalition politicians: Abetz The Prime Minister's office is vetting all overseas travel by Coalition politicians, senior federal minister Eric Abetz has confirmed. MPs and Senators must now receive approval before taking overseas study trips, sponsored travel and private holidays, Senator Abetz told a Senate Estimates hearing. The confirmation was in response to a request for clarification sought by Labor Senator Penny Wong regarding a report that the Prime Minister's chief of staff had been personally ruling on the travel requests. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-19/pm-vetting-all-travel-by-coalitions-politicians-abetz-says/5100880 2. Taxpayers spending $3,000 a week to rent home Tony Abbott rejected Taxpayers are spending $3,000 a week to rent a house in Canberra that Prime Minister Tony Abbott does not want to live in. Mr Abbott has been staying at the Australian Federal Police training headquarters while The Lodge undergoes major repairs. It has emerged the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet signed a 12-month lease on a house in August, during the caretaker period. But department official Elizabeth Kelly says Mr Abbott made it clear shortly after the election he did not want to live there. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/taxpayers-spending-money-on-house-abbott-doesnt-want/5100350 POLITICS 3. Abbott’s Secret State Clint Howitt In the weeks since the Coalition assumed office, repeated criticism has been made of the escalating secrecy surrounding the Abbott regime. Mungo MacCallum observed: ‘It is now clear that the underlying principle of the Abbott Government is to be ignorance: not only are the masses to be kept as far as possible in the dark, but the Government itself does not want to know.’ http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-secret-state,5870 4. Indonesia recalls ambassador after leaked documents reveal Australia spied on president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono George Roberts Indonesia has recalled its ambassador and is reviewing all cooperation with the Australian government, over revelations Australia attempted to listen in to president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's phone calls. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/indonesia-angered-by-revelations-australia-spied-on-sby/5100264 5. Phone spying rocks Australian-Indonesian relationship Michelle Grattan The Australian-Indonesian relationship has plummeted - with Jakarta withdrawing its ambassador because of Australia’s eavesdropping on the Indonesian President and other top figures. The latest very detailed revelations about Australian spying in Indonesia – documenting phone monitoring at the highest level - come at the worst possible time for the Abbott government. https://theconversation.com/phone-spying-rocks-australian-indonesian-relationship-20445 6. Trawling For Morons: The Coalition’s Fishing Boat Bait-And-Switch Mike Seccombe How many Indonesian boats have we bought, and at what cost? Nobody’s saying. Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservative. So said John Stuart Mill, who is generally credited as being one of the fathers of modern liberalism, one who stood for the liberty of the individual against the power of the state. http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/trawling-for-morons-the-coalitions-fishing-boat-bait-and-switch/744/ 7. Business voices competing for Tony Abbott's ear Michael Mullins Prime minister Tony Abbott's post-election declaration that Australia was 'open for business' needed fleshing out. Possibly it got that on Monday evening in a strident landmark address given by the chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council Dr Maurice Newman. Newman said the economy was 'running on empty' and needed radical reform and fiscal discipline to avoid 'the prospect of growth with a zero in front of it'. http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38509#.UoowQLeqpZY ECONOMY + BUSINESS 8. Is Hockey Taking His Cues From Ronald Reagan? Ian McAuley We don't need a debt ceiling to keep governments in check, and the current Senate standoff is pointless. At least it might finally flush out Joe Hockey's economic policy. The Federal Government should not be shackled by a debt ceiling. Economists on both the left and right say that it is just as likely to hinder sound fiscal management as it is to keep a spendthrift government in check. https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/17/hockey-taking-his-cues-ronald-reagan 9. Multilateral, regional, bilateral: which agreement is best? Jeffrey Wilson One of the first acts of Tony Abbott’s government was to declare it intended to “embrace free trade” in its first term in office. Calling the trade minister Australia’s “ambassador for jobs”, the Coalition has staked its economic and foreign policy credibility on the promise to finalise a series of free trade deals that made limited progress under former Labor governments. https://theconversation.com/multilateral-regional-bilateral-which-agreement-is-best-19664 NBN 10. Malcolm Turnbull warns of 'daunting challenges' to get NBN rollout back on track Peter Ryan Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has warned it will be a "daunting challenge" to get the National Broadband Network back on track. NBN Co is in the middle of a 60-day review ordered shortly after the Coalition won government in September. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/turnbull-warns-of-challenges-to-get-nbn-on-track/5099500 ENVIRONMENT + ENERGY 11. Tony Abbott rejects Commonwealth climate change risk fund Ben Doherty Prime Minister Tony Abbott has rejected a proposal from the 53-nation Commonwealth to establish a new fund to help poor and island countries to combat climate change. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-rejects-commonwealth-climate-change-risk-fund-20131118-2xplc.html 12. Broad consensus on climate change across American states John Cook A recent US “survey of surveys” by Stanford University Professor Jon Krosnick has analysed public opinion on climate change in 46 of USA’s 50 states. Krosnick found to his surprise that, regardless of geography, most Americans accept that global warming is happening and that humans are causing it. https://theconversation.com/broad-consensus-on-climate-change-across-american-states-20314 13. Evacuation modelling: finding the best time (and way) to get going Victor Pillac and Pascal Van Hentenryck Reports from the Philippines reveal a lack of typhoon preparation and evacuation efforts. When to evacuate – and how – spells the difference between life and death. When to evacuate – and how – spells the difference between life and death. As we know, typhoons can cause widespread flooding of surrounding areas, and don’t just affect what lies in the path of the storm. Planning an evacuation is a game against nature. https://theconversation.com/evacuation-modelling-finding-the-best-time-and-way-to-get-going-20286 14. Is Australia shirking its international climate commitments? Katherine Lake This week Tony Abbott confirmed that Australia will not increase its emission reduction target from 5% below 2000 levels unless other countries make serious commitments. In a subsequent interview, environment… https://theconversation.com/is-australia-shirking-its-international-climate-commitments-20312 15. A Push Away From Burning Coal as an Energy Source Michael Wines The Tennessee Valley Authority sharply accelerated a shift away from coal as an energy source on Thursday, saying it would shut down eight electricity-generating units that together will burn nearly a fifth of its coal this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/us/a-push-away-from-burning-coal-as-an-energy-source.html?src=recg ASYLUM SEEKERS 16. Tony Abbott's refusal to discuss human rights in Sri Lanka cheapened the Commonwealth Ben Doherty To put a minor, questionable political point above an issue as fundamental as human rights diminished Australia and cheapened the Commonwealth. Tony Abbott came to Sri Lanka to praise President Mahinda Rajapakse, not to bury him under the weight of human rights abuse allegations that completely dominated this Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-craven-tony-abbotts-refusal-to-discuss-human-rights-in-sri-lanka-cheapened-the-commonwealth-20131118-2xpmh.html#ixzz2kyDorAga 17. Satire Has Become Impossible – There’s No Way To Make These Men More Ridiculous Than They Actually Are! Ross Leigh Of course, the best place to stop asylum seekers is at the source. Rather like the idea of a “pre-emptive strike”. Or LLAP-Goch – the ancient art of self-defence where you use surprise – you attack your opponent even before he’s thought of attacking you. See Monty Python LLAP-Goch. Of course, we deplore torture. But shit happens. It’s difficult. After all, some of those silly people on the left have even accused us of torture when all we do is lock people up indefinitely. And we don’t even run those detention centres. They’re privatised. So it’s really nothing to do with us. http://theaimn.com/2013/11/18/satire-has-become-impossible-theres-no-way-to-make-these-men-more-ridiculous-than-they-actually-are/ 18. People smugglers selling asylum seekers passports and visas for entry to Australia by plane Sarah Ferguson People smugglers are offering asylum seekers passports and Australian visas for entry to Australia by plane. An investigation by the ABC's Four Corners program has revealed evidence that people smugglers are selling the travel documents for up to $16,000. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/people-smugglers-visas-asylum-seekers-passports-australia/5098002 HUMAN RIGHTS 19. A craven Tony Abbott's refusal to discuss human rights in Sri Lanka cheapened the Commonwealth Ben Doherty 'To put a minor, questionable political point above an issue as fundamental as human rights diminished Australia and cheapened the Commonwealth'. Tony Abbott came to Sri Lanka to praise President Mahinda Rajapakse, not to bury him under the weight of human rights abuse allegations that completely dominated this Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-craven-tony-abbotts-refusal-to-discuss-human-rights-in-sri-lanka-cheapened-the-commonwealth-20131118-2xpmh.html 20. The Cover-Up That Could Have Changed CHOGM Trevor Grant As one of the most controversial Commonwealth meetings in decades winds up, hidden legal advice that would have seen Sri Lanka removed as host has been leaked. As Tony Abbott became the lone public defender of the brutal Sri Lankan regime in Colombo last week, it emerged that the Commonwealth’s senior executive hid critical legal assessments from Australia and other countries that would have seen Sri Lanka removed as CHOGM host and Commonwealth chair for the next two years. https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/18/cover-could-have-changed-chogm 21. Has The Queen Politely Joined The CHOGM Boycott? Trevor Grant With her trademark solemnity, Queen Elizabeth read and signed a new 16-point charter in March this year affirming Commonwealth principles that included democracy, human rights, freedom of expression and separation of powers. Her next move was to announce that she would not be attending the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting for the first time in 40 years. https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/15/has-queen-politely-joined-chogm-boycott 22. Commonwealth hamstrung to fight abuse in Sri Lanka Frederick Cowell The list of crimes alleged to have been perpetrated by brothers Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa – respectively the president and defence minister of Sri Lanka – are truly horrifying. During the last few months of the civil war in 2009, the Sri Lankan army was alleged to have deliberately shelled civilian areas and since the ceasefire, as the Sri Lanka justice campaign has detailed, there have been numerous extrajudicial killings and incidents of torture. https://theconversation.com/commonwealth-hamstrung-to-fight-abuse-in-sri-lanka-20192 23. Refugees and human rights abuses: we can’t pretend that we do not know Jeff Sparrow Hannah Arendt provides a useful framework to think about the extraordinary statement about torture made by Tony Abbott during his visit to Sri Lanka http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/refugees-and-human-rights-abuses-we-cant-pretend-that-we-do-not-know 24. The High Court – coming to a Centre Stage near you Sarah Joseph The High Court will be unusually prominent in Australian political and social life over the next few months. Politicians can throw gratuitous insults about “out of touch” judges “in ivory towers”. However, they have little choice but to abide by adverse High Court constitutional decisions. The only alternative is to seek constitutional change at a referendum. Yet Australia has formally changed its Constitution eight times in 113 years – the strike rate is very low. https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-coming-to-a-centre-stage-near-you-19993 NEW JOURNALISM 25. Getting to grips with Griffith by @GriffithElect Jan Bowman when Margo Kingston put out a call on Twitter for citizen journalists to cover their electorate during the election for No Fibs, my interest was piqued. My immediate response, however, was that as I lived in a safe Labor seat (Kevin Rudd’s no less), I assumed she would probably not be interested. - http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/18/getting-grips-griffith/#sthash.EoHhLpCt.dpuf http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/18/getting-grips-griffith/ 26. Can citizen journalism end the silence on Direct Action? Errol Brandt @e2mq173 reports. Errol Brandt For a political party with a belief in the power of the market, the Coalition’s climate change policy is a thoroughly disappointing piece of work. Direct Action does not address the source of our carbon emissions and may be based on incomplete scientific research. Not that Australians would know this, given the lack of scrutiny from mainstream media. http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/18/can-citizen-journalism-end-silence-direct-action-errol-brandt-e2mq173-reports/#comment-5383 27. Citizen Journalism...fun but crazy Michelle Primmer A couple of weeks ago I received a direct message on twitter from Margo Kingston (@margokingston) asking if I would like to report from Corangamite for the Federal election as a citizen journalist. I was incredibly excited and flattered. I had become a little disengaged from politics after the removal of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister and this seemed like a way to get back into it. http://mhsts.blogspot.com.au/ 28. Opting Out Of The Op-Ed Industrial Complex Sarah Burnside Clickbait is everywhere online, and it's big business. Is there any way to avoid it in the search for something decent to read? Sarah Burnside on how we can crack down on trollumnists. In recent weeks, clickbait and linkbait have been on many people’s minds, due largely to a combination of that Mia Freedman Article on sexual assault, that Mark Latham Article on the Bachelor, and Buzzfeed’s Australian launch. https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/18/opting-out-op-ed-industrial-complex 29. The hits and misses of journalism’s New Daily Tim Dwyer & Fiona Martin From more than one perspective the New Daily, Australia’s latest online news provider, couldn’t have a better chance of survival. With Bruce Guthrie (ex-Herald Sun and Age editor) as editor-in-chief, Daniel Sankey (ex-Age online editor) steering the news team and Crikey publisher Eric Beecher as advisor, it has a journalism startup A team. https://theconversation.com/the-hits-and-misses-of-journalisms-new-daily-20118 30. A New Daily, new models and new hope: journalism’s silver lining Andrea Carson November is a month of two tales for the Australian media industry: one of hope, the other of despair. The arrival on Wednesday of the online news site The New Daily, and reports that The Monthly’s publisher Morry Schwartz is set to launch a new Saturday newspaper, are the industry’s good news stories. In a boost for democracy, the new startups add diversity to Australia’s highly concentrated ownership of news media, and provide experienced journalists with full-time jobs. https://theconversation.com/a-new-daily-new-models-and-new-hope-journalisms-silver-lining-20257 VALE DORIS LESSING 31. Obituary: Doris Lessing A look at the life of Doris Lessing, the controversial novelist whose themes ranged from social justice to feminism and science fiction, who has died at the age of 94. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19912665 32. Doris Lessing, Author Who Swept Aside Convention, Is Dead at 94 Helen T. Verongos Doris Lessing, the uninhibited and outspoken novelist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a lifetime of writing that shattered convention, both social and artistic, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 94. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/books/doris-lessing-novelist-who-won-2007-nobel-is-dead-at-94.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0 33. The Adventures of Doris Lessing John Leonard (November 30, 2006) Doris Lessing, who turned eighty-seven in October, is telling us what “old” feels like. Not a believer in “the golden age of youth,” she “shudders” at the very idea of living through her teens again, even her twenties. Since she left Africa for England more than half a century ago, a single mother and a high school dropout with a wardrobe full of avatars—angry young woman, mother superior, bad-news bear, bodhisattva—she has published an astonishing fifty-five books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2006/nov/30/the-adventures-of-doris-lessing/ SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES Refugee Boat Arrivals The updates that the Morrison Military Machine want to hide. http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/refugee-boat-timeline-updated-to-october-21st/ Ashbygate on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/585444634841472/ The Finnigans' Home of the BISONs The Beautiful Inspiring Set of Numbers http://www.thefinnigans.blogspot.com.au/ • ROULE REPORT — Issues of Today http://paper.li/RouleReport/1334728962 • AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm • NEWS HEADLINES 19 November 2013 http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/ #################################################################

TalkTurkey

19/11/2013Dear Casablanca! You don't have to find every last decent article! You are a marvel already. The rest of us ought ALL to contribute, it should never be all down to just one person. jaycee I feel every word you write. I put the parlous state of consciousness - which is where the problem lies - squarely down to the mainstream media, one-sided as never before, and with a carefully Right-wing-stacked ABC which completed a grand slam of all media in this country. Ad astra of course understood very well the power of the media, and TPS was from the first dedicated to holding them to account. But nobody could have predicted the appalling depths to which Murdoch-driven journalism has plummeted. That alien bastard really has bought himself effective control of his native nation, whose allegiance he spurned. Murdoch is the world's greatest criminal in my Doomsday Book.

Casablanca

19/11/2013 CASABLANCA'S CACHE Tuesday, 19 November 2013. Abbott’s Secret State: We will decide what you need to know. http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/CASABLANCAS-CACHE-2013-11-18-%28Current%29.aspx

Casablanca

19/11/2013 TT Only 33 today! Slim pickings.

Casablanca

19/11/2013 Doris Lessing: a model for every writer coming from the back of beyond Margaret Atwood Inventive, brave, down-to-earth – she never hedged her bets or pulled her punches, doing everything with all her heart http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/17/doris-lessing-death-margaret-atwood-tribute

TalkTurkey

19/11/2013David Horton, A provocative piece, but one with whose basic premise I profoundly reject. You may not be able to see the light, but I do. True Believers carry it in their hearts like those Catholic burning-heart-pictures, and though at the moment the flames might be low, and even guttering dangerously in some, yet our little light is the hope of the nation. In the last post wrote an hour ago I spoke of my contempt for Murdoch in rejecting Australian citizenship. I must tell you that in some ways I feel quite similarly about those of the Left who turn their backs on Labor to follow various high-minded other parties. Were those deserters to stay with the only party ever to have made progress for the people of this nation, the Right would have no chance at elections. I'm not really across the notion of "framing", I'm afraid; I do know, though, that the Big Picture is infinitely more valuable than any frame. The Labor Governments just ousted always did have big pictures: NBN, NDIS, Gonski, MRRT, marine parks and river rationalisation, carbon pricing, - now all gone or under threat, thanks in the end to Greens' rejection of anything short of perfection with anything in Labor could do. I don't believe that, for the Left, electoral success should depend on catchy slogans, as seems the case for the Right, with all their money and Murdoch: though certainly, for example, 'Reds under the bed' helped Hawke sweep to power in 1983. I think it should on the one hand depend on good policy, and on the other, the will to FIGHT! - to take on every slight and falsehood straight away, to give the lie to terms like carbon TAX and ILLEGAL asylum seekers and all snide commentators like Uhlmann, to fight politely only so long as there is no aggravation - interruption, deliberate misrepresentation, obfuscation - and then, to react as determinedly as needs be to make points as they need to be made, and by that I mean talking over the top of the interrupters - *J*U*L*I*A* was the best I ever heard at that - and then if need be, finger jabbing, red-faced, [i]"Now you listen to me! ..." [/i] That's what I want in my Labor Party and in my Government. *J*U*L*I*A* hit that level just once and she was applauded by millions around the world. Politesse cuts no ice with the MSM, the LNP, nor, sadly, the coarsened populace. Labor doesn't need to be grubby, but it does need to be tough. And it needs all the Left.

2353

19/11/2013CU & jaycee - I read you discussion above with interest. For what it's worth, here's my 2 cents. The unions went through significant changes in the 90's where a lot of "mega unions" were created. Most of the large ones have all the hallmarks of big business - call centres; marketing plans; "1800 numbers" and so on. While all these things give them greater efficiencies and the ability to provide faster services; it also makes them more remote from the low paid person they are trying to attract. On top of that younger people don't seem to be "joiners" any more. While they might become a member of a gym for a while, they tend not to join organisations such as the SES, Lions and so on - my theory is that they believe there is nothing in it "for me" Put the two together where the Unions are more remote (and the "extras" such as Credit Unions, Health Insurance etc are not exclusively for Union Members any more) due to the call centres and lack of representation on the "shop floor" combined with the perceived lack of "added value" and the feeling that you really are only a number in a "corporatised" large union that could easily number in the hundreds of thousands lead by a "professional Union Official" has lead to the decline of union membership. As an example I drove past a shop for the "Qantas Credit Union" in suburban Brisbane yesterday with a poster in the window inviting people to come in and talk to a "lending Expert". There was no mention of having to have any connection with Qantas (let alone being in their union). The ALP and Unions have both lost the ability to connect to the grass roots. They both need to understand that corporate plans and so on are the means to the end - not the end in itself. The Union I am a member of does have call centres, corporate plans and so on. The reason I put up with it is that I'm not that badly paid and I'm not that young (any more). There has to be a better "value statement" than watching $50 disappearing from your Bank Account every month and getting emails saying how great they are when from where the member is sitting they have just rolled over in front of the employer and asked for their tummy to be tickled.

jaycee

19/11/2013You know...I'll lay a bet this sudden release of spying information from 2009 is "payback" for the arrogance of the Abbott govt' concerning, mainly, climate change and also it's dogged pursuit of refugees. After all, from 2009, any security agency worth it's salt would have discovered any hacking and 'adjusted' it's security capacity...so these 'expose's' are purely for public embarassment!

jaycee

19/11/2013I mean..it doesn't necessarily have to have been Snowden who released it...it could be any other govt' agency who had such information..and it is 'ancient security news' after all!....I'll just bet it was some'one' seeking to bring the "Abbott amateurs" down a peg or two!!

jaycee

19/11/2013Agree TT..the MSM. owe for a debt of deceipt toward the nation and it's national interests..there is a duty we all owe...not any more to the King or Queen..those days are gone...nor to any one particular partisan party govt'..but we do owe a duty to our fellows and citizens...and that debt is magnified when, in a world of accelerating chaos from climate variabilities to political instability, we enjoy good human services, good economic governance and a remarkable stable society with the added luxury of "sun, sea, sand and surf"..to quote a cliche! The last Labor govt' AND the first female PM. did NOTHING to deserve the continual carping sniping and vicious undermining by the MSM. and it's employees, who out of sheer, unashamed spite and cowardness did the bidding of their handlers and payers and became the creatures of conspiricy to destroy stable governance and bring down the parliament...beasts!..beasts, lower than swine in swill!...may they rot in the hell they are helping create!

Michael

19/11/2013This article about the expensively rented house in Canberra that Tony Abbott turned his nose up at, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/lights-on-but-no-one-home-as-tony-abbott-lets-waste-pile-up-in-rented-canberra-digs-20131118-2xrbf.html?skin=text-only uses a very interesting verb in this portion of one sentence: "...while Mr Abbott consorts with police cadets." 'Consort' as a verb is defined thus - 'habitually associate with (someone), typically with the disapproval of others.' 'Consort' as a noun, definition, 'spouse of reigning monarch'. The senior writer on the article is Tony Wright, who's been around Canberra's politicians long enough to know more than a thing or two that the rest of us don't. He's also a lucid and articulate journalist, with a vocabulary deep enough to be very certain about the words he is using. I wonder where those two things meet in the phrase "...while Mr Abbott consorts with police cadets"?

jaycee

19/11/2013This idea of Credlin managing all political output is stupid to say the least...while Credlin may have capabilities in regard to election strategy for a buffoon, her international diplomacy qualifications would be just about zero, I'd imagine.

jaycee

19/11/2013The man's a fool!

Ken

19/11/2013Abbott is saying he won't apologise to Indonesia about the 'spying scandal'. I think heis right that [u]he[/u] won't apologise. But, behind the scenes, I have little doubt that Julie Bishop will be grovelling and apologising (even if not using the actual word). A thought a key moment that Abbott and his ilk don't get is SBY's use of the word 'hurtful'. In understanding Indonesians, that is a kay word. If think they have been hurt by a comment, then it does require an apology. In Abbott's defence (not something I would normally do nor recommend), I would also guess that he is receiving different advice from the 'intelligence community' and the department of foreign affairs. At the moment he is taking the intelligence line, at least publicly. I think there will be a lot of quiet diplomacy going on that we will never hear about.

Michael

19/11/2013Abbott has to be out front and centre, thumping that "hairy chest" of his. He won't leave it to "quiet diplomacy" because then it looks like someone else has sorted out his crap for him. He won't stand for that, he has to be seen to have achieved every good result. He simply does not comprehend his role. He's not a national leader's bootlace. He'll keep screwing up the relationship with Indonesia, and I confidently predict, everyone else around the world. Domino by domino. See David Cameron for starters. Abbott's Putin without leading a world power nation to make him someone who has to be put up with. He's Berlusconi without the financial resources to keep putting himself forward. Putinsconi Tony?

jaycee

19/11/2013The Keating interviews with 'Red' Kerry.... Gosh...oh gosh!...one shouldn't flatter, but can I just quote that old 'vaudevillian'..; Jackie Gleeson..." How sweet it is!"....how sweet it is.

jaycee

19/11/2013Dead right...Michael...spot on!

Casablanca

20/11/2013 [b]CASABLANCA'S CACHE Wednesday, 20 November 2013; 34 items[/b] ENTITLEMENTS & FIDDLES 1. Kitchenware worth $22,000 goes missing from Parliament Jacqueline Maley Politicians, we know from bitter experience, require careful supervision when in proximity to expenses claims, babies on campaign trails, and microphones generally. The secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, whose job it is to run the big house on Capital Hill, was forced to admit that more than $22,000 worth of ministerial crockery and cutlery had gone missing and had to be replaced, courtesy of the public purse. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/jacqueline-maley-kitchenware-worth-22000-goes-missing-from-parliament-20131118-2xrco.html 2. Politicians' compulsive dishonesty on the public service Markus Mannheim Some sad truths were confirmed today. The people behind the Coalition's public service policy - which featured prominently in its election campaign - are either incompetent, dishonest or both. As for Labor? Well, it's just dishonest. Cormann has just discovered 'Labor's secret public service cuts'. I find it hard to believe he's that stupid. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has finally shelved the government's impossible plan to shed 12,000 jobs, without redundancies, in less than two years. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/public-sector-informant/politicians-compulsive-dishonesty-on-the-public-service-20131119-2xs6n.html 3. PM's unused mansion costs taxpayers $3000 a week Tony Wright and Peter Martin "Stop the waste," Tony Abbott cried endlessly during the federal election, and then made a great show of moving into a little room in Canberra's Australian Police College for $110 a night rather than spend fat money renting a Canberra mansion while The Lodge underwent renovations. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pms-unused-mansion-costs-taxpayers-3000-a-week-20131118-2xqtv.html DIPLOMATIC GAFFES & BUNGLES 4. Caught red-handed, without an easy fix Mark Kenny Confronted in Parliament with the claim that Australian security agencies had tried to tap phones of the Indonesian leadership, Tony Abbott did the only thing he could do in the circumstances. He played it down, he generalised. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/caught-redhanded-without-an-easy-fix-20131118-2xrfv.html 5. SBY slaps Abbott Macro Business ...given Indonesia’s size and sustained economic growth, that might be the motif for the overall relationship in years to come: Australia as the suitor to an ever larger and more influential regional power. That’s a world in which the risks of a diplomatic breach fall much more heavily on Canberra than they do on Jakarta. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/sby-slaps-abbott/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily+MacroBusiness+CID_f7ce871e3ee457c10704617412417033&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=SBY+slaps+Abbott 6. Fall Of The Whirling Dervish bushfirebill Three months and the mistaken belief that a series of snarky heckling points in QT, borne of hubris and post-election triumphalism, would be seen merely as “robust Australian politics” by the Indonesians. http://pbxmastragics.com/2013/11/19/fall-of-the-whirling-dervish/ 7. 'All governments gather information': Indonesian uproar after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott admission Kathy Marks Relations with Australia’s nearest Asian neighbour and key regional ally were already strained, less than three months into Mr Abbott’s prime ministership, thanks to his election pledge – made without consulting Jakarta – that asylum-seeker boats heading to Australia would be intercepted and sent back to Indonesia, where they had begun their voyage... But his handling of the diplomatic spat has reinforced perceptions of him as a foreign policy lightweight producing gaffe after gaffe on the world stage. By Monday night, Indonesia had recalled its ambassador to Canberra, summoned the Australian ambassador for a stiff talking-to and announced a review of bilateral cooperation. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/indonesian-uproar-after-australian-prime-minister-tony-abbott-admits-to-gathering-information-8947763.html 8. Spying row: Indonesia gives Tony Abbott two days to respond to claims SBY's phone tapped By Indonesia correspondent George Roberts and staff. Australia has been given two days to respond to Indonesia over revelations its spied on the president, as Indonesia puts asylum seeker cooperation under review. http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2013-11-19/spying-row-indonesia-gives-tony-abbott-two-days-to-respond-to-claims-sbys-phone-tapped/1221842 9. Australia-Indonesia spy standoff more than just ‘gestural’ politics Krishna Sen The revelations that Australia was spying on its “best friends” in Indonesia have rocked Indonesia-Australia relations. Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa has withdrawn the country’s ambassador… http://theconversation.com/australia-indonesia-spy-standoff-more-than-just-gestural-politics-20427 10. RI, Oz police cooperation hangs in balance as diplomatic spat heats up Yuliasri Perdani, National Police chief Gen. Sutarman says that his force may discontinue its cooperation with the Australian government over revelations that an Australian spy agency attempted to bug the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his inner circle. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/19/ri-oz-police-cooperation-hangs-balance-diplomatic-spat-heats.html 11. Govt to review cooperation with Oz on boat people Rendi A. Witular, The Law and Human Rights Ministry, which oversees the immigration department, is in the process of reviewing the country’s cooperation with Australia following a diplomatic rift triggered by allegations that the neighboring country attempted to bug the phones of top Indonesian officials. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/19/govt-review-cooperation-with-oz-boat-people.html 12. Indonesian leader deplores statement by Aussie PM Ali Kotarumalos and Rod McGuirk In Canberra, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott endorsed intelligence gathering in principle without confirming or denying the reported spying under a previous government in 2009. In a series of tweets confirmed by his office, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reacted strongly. One in an Indonesian language said: "I also deplore the statement of Australian Prime Minister who underestimates the wiretapping of Indonesia, without sense of guilt." http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/19/indonesian-leader-deplores-statement-aussie-pm.html 13. Indonesia warns Australia: silence on spying threatens strategic relationships Oliver Laughland Indonesia has reacted with anger and frustration at Tony Abbott's refusal to apologise for or comment further on the phone-tapping revelations at the centre of a diplomatic crisis between the two nations... President Yudhoyono's foreign affairs spokesman, Teuku Faizasyah, described the Australian prime minister's decision to neither confirm nor deny the revelations as "not advisable". http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/19/indonesia-australia-spying-tony-abbott?CMP=soc_568 14. ‘Tony Abbott’s got my baby’ Lynette Eyb PARIS, France — As public relations disasters go, it’s hard to beat forcibly separating a mother from her sick infant. But Australia’s new Prime Minister Tony Abbott had promised a no-holds barred approach to asylum seekers from countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/131115/tony-abbott-s-got-my-baby 15. Phone spying rocks Australian-Indonesian relationship Michelle Grattan The idea that Australia is spying just inflames anti Australian feeling in Indonesia http://theconversation.com/phone-spying-rocks-australian-indonesian-relationship-20445?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013+CID_1c868af33c22821ff55927d87da0a98d&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The%20idea%20that%20Australia%20is%20spying%20just%20inflames%20anti%20Australian%20feeling%20in%20Indonesia 16. The Lies Abbott Tells - Part Three clarencegirl "These people were in a search-and-rescue situation in the Indonesian search-and-rescue zone,'' Mr Abbott told radio station 2GB. ''Now, the normal international law is that if you are rescued in a country's search-and-rescue zone that country has an obligation to take you...” http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-lies-abbott-tells-part-three.html 17. Today's Fairfax cartoonists' unique view of the world. http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/national/cartoons-for-tuesday-19-november-20131118-2xrg4.html?rand=1384819648080 … #auspol pic.twitter.com/3WxHbt0zcJ https://twitter.com/theage_photo/status/402589550800674816/photo/1 ABBOTT'S MINORITY GOVERNMENT 18. Libs vs Nats: GrainCorp stoush shows cracks run deep in the Coalition Linda Botterill Socrates once observed that no-one could be a statesman if they were entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat. Once again wheat – or, more precisely, grain handling and the sale of GrainCorp – is drawing attention to the fact that the Liberal-National Party coalition is not a single entity united in its approach to policy. Australia’s 44th parliament has only just convened and we are already being reminded that the Abbott government is not a majority government but a Liberal-led minority government. http://theconversation.com/libs-vs-nats-graincorp-stoush-shows-cracks-run-deep-in-the-coalition-20102?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013+CID_1c868af33c22821ff55927d87da0a98d&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Libs%20vs%20Nats%20GrainCorp%20stoush%20shows%20cracks%20run%20deep%20in%20the%20Coalition 19. PM’s ‘star chamber’ vetoed staff appointments James Massola At least three senior Coalition ministers have had key staff appointments vetoed by a committee run out of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office, senate estimates have revealed. Treasurer Joe Hockey, Employment Minister Eric Abetz and Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos have all had staff appointments knocked back by the five person Government Staffing Committee that is keeping a close watch on all 420 ministerial staff, from office chiefs all the way down to executive assistants. http://www.afr.com/p/national/pm_star_chamber_vetoed_staff_appointments_hUw0W2phxME4gH2ROxa8OJ LABOR 20. Plibersek's our favourite pollie but will she remain so? Nicholas Stuart No one doubts the intelligence of Labor's deputy. It's obvious that, with all her experience, Plibersek has a great career in front of her. Nevertheless, if the party is to survive opposition and remake itself into a plausible government, it will need to ensure it makes every post a winner. That can't be done without changing mindsets. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/pliberseks-our-favourite-pollie-but-will-she-remain-so-20131118-2xr3h.html 21. The meltdown: How it all ended in tears Peter Hartcher In January, Julia Gillard was toying with a radical idea – announcing the date of the federal election seven months in advance. She tested the idea on Labor's national secretary, George Wright. His initial reaction: it's your decision, prime minister. The following weekend he wrote her an email. He had changed his mind. It was a terrible idea. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-meltdown-how-it-all-ended-in-tears-20131119-2xtgd.html?rand=1384865694256 ECONOMY + BUSINESS 22. Economic blueprint, but will Hockey read it? Tim Colebatch The Coalition should read Ross Garnaut's new book on our economic recovery. With disarming frankness, Joe Hockey has drawn a line in the sand: he says he wants to ensure that Australia's record 22 years of growth does not end on his watch. But with a record mining boom set to contract sharply, that could be hard. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/economic-blueprint-but-will-hockey-read-it-20131118-2xr1c.html#ixzz2l6OR3CfS 23. Climate change: Dear grandchildren, I can only say sorry Ross Gittins The idea that, eventually, the environment would hit back and do great damage to the economy was one most people preferred not to think about. At the time, it was fashionable to bewail the lack of action to increase the economy's productivity. Few people joined dots to realise the climate was in the process of dealing a blow to our productivity, one that would significantly reduce the next generation's living standards... Did I ever doubt that climate change represented by far the greatest threat to Australia's future economic prosperity? Never. Should I have said this more often, rather than chasing a thousand economic will-o'-the-wisps? Yes. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/climate-change-dear-grandchildren-i-can-only-say-sorry-20131119-2xt90.html#ixzz2l5svLSCc 24. Revitalising the G20: the challenge of 2014 Wayne Swan The G20 must renew its focus and go back to basics. And there couldn’t be a better time for Australia to assume its leadership http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/19/revitalising-the-g20-challenge-of-2014-economics?CMP=soc_568 25. The Coalition's Big Lie David Hetherington At every turn, Coalition MPs railed against Labor's "reckless", "scandalous" and "wasteful" handling of the economy. The choristers within News Corp Australia played their part to perfection, with a daily drumbeat of opinion pieces echoing profound concern. That the Big Lie ran counter to all economic fact mattered not a bit. Its communication was so successful that many in the electorate came to believe it. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/hetherington-the-coalitions-big-lie/5098544 26. Bullshit job blues Leith van Onselen Back in the early-1930s, renowned economist, John Maynard Keynes, predicted that technical innovations and rising productivity would mean that advanced country workers would be able to work only 15 hours and still enjoy rising living standards. Earlier this year, anthropologist and anarchist, David Graeber, asked why Keynes’ prophecy had not come true and instead we find ourselves working a range of meaningless “bullshit jobs” that many of us hate: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/bullshit-job-blues/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily+MacroBusiness+CID_f7ce871e3ee457c10704617412417033&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=Bullshit+job+blues ENVIRONMENT + ENERGY 27. After Haiyan: how to act on scientific advice that's politically inconvenient? Roger Pielke Jr In the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan, debates over extreme weather require us to think harder about the relationship between the evidence, politics and institutions of scientific advice http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/nov/19/typhoon-haiyan-scientific-advice-extreme-weather 28. Australia worst carbon emitter per capita among major western nations Oliver Milman Country has failed to consistently decrease its emissions, faring poorly in a global climate report. Australia is failing to reduce carbon emissions at a rate comparable to the US or the European Union, scientists have warned, with global emissions set to hit a record 36bn tonnes in 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/19/australia-worst-carbon-emitter-per-capita-among-major-western-nations?CMP=twt_fd 29. UN climate talks in Warsaw: what you need to know Fiona Harvey The aim is to forge a legally binding global climate treaty in Poland to cut carbon emissions. But it's easier said than done http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/19/un-climate-talks-warsaw-poland 30. What Australia could learn from a US energy uprising Ed Langham and Chris Cooper Around the world, people concerned about global warming and wary of higher energy costs are turning away from big power distributors in favour of local and “distributed” energy technologies and services… http://theconversation.com/what-australia-could-learn-from-a-us-energy-uprising-19637?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013+CID_1c868af33c22821ff55927d87da0a98d&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=What%20Australia%20could%20learn%20from%20a%20US%20energy%20uprising ASYLUM SEEKERS 31. Spotting asylum seeker policy differences with 20/20 hindsight Mark Fletcher Asylum seeker policy has long been awash with unhelpful, uninformative rhetoric. ’Stop the boats’ ’Pick up the phone’ ‘Deaths at sea’ ’People smuggler’s business model’ ‘Queue jumpers’ ‘There is no queue’ ’No person is illegal’ ‘This is inhumane’ ‘We have excised the mainland and our hearts’ ‘Gulags’ ’Race to the bottom’. http://ausopinion.com/2013/11/19/spotting-asylum-seeker-policy-differences-with-2020-hindsight/ HUMAN RIGHTS 32. Sri Lanka, 'impossible journalism' and Channel 4 News Ben de Pear Tonight there will be no report from Channel 4 News on this important summit from Colombo, as despite having been invited to Sri Lanka, granted visas and even accredited for the event, after a difficult week it became impossible for Channel 4 News to operate as journalists in the county. On arrival six days ago we were greeted at the airport and our hotel by organised and controlled protests; with banners and chants accusing us of lying and supporting the LTTE- the former Tamil Tigers who fought the government for 26 years. http://www.channel4.com/news/channel-4-news-sri-lanka-mahinda-rajapaksa-chogm-summit NEW MEDIA 33. How to read Rupert Murdoch’s Twitter feed Neil Chenoweth Rupert Murdoch’s tweets have an almost irresistible appeal. He’s indestructible. He shrugs off the hundreds of hostile slaps he gets for much of his Twitter feed, the same way he has ignored his critics for six decades. Like him or hate him you have to admit: he’s perky. And of course really wacky. The man who built the world’s most powerful media empire, and he thinks things like that? And hey, now he’s on Tumblr, doing kooky things all over the world! http://neilchenoweth.com/2013/11/19/how-to-read-rupert-murdochs-twitter-feed/ 34. Copyrights and copywrongs: reforming educational film rights Ruari Elkington At the end of November, after 18 months of deliberations, the Australian Law Reform Commission will hand down its report on the appropriateness of existing copyright laws in the new digital environment… http://theconversation.com/copyrights-and-copywrongs-reforming-educational-film-rights-19392?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+19+November+2013+CID_1c868af33c22821ff55927d87da0a98d&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Copyrights%20and%20copywrongs%20reforming%20educational%20film%20rights SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES Refugee Boat Arrivals The updates that the Morrison Military Machine want to hide. http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/refugee-boat-timeline-updated-to-october-21st/ Ashbygate on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/585444634841472/ The Finnigans' Home of the BISONs The Beautiful Inspiring Set of Numbers http://www.thefinnigans.blogspot.com.au/ • ROULE REPORT — Issues of Today http://paper.li/RouleReport/1334728962 • AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm • NEWS HEADLINES 20 November 2013 http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/ ################################################################

Casablanca

20/11/2013 CASABLANCA'S CACHE Wednesday, 20 November 2013 [b]Abbott alarmed to find Rupert doesn't own Indonesian Press [/b]http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/CASABLANCAS-CACHE-2013-11-18-%28Current%29.aspx

2353

20/11/2013Casablanca = to paraphrase Paul Keating - this is a beautiful set of links. I especially love your twitter line.

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013 Victoria Rollison ‏@Vic_Rollison 31 Oct I hope @billshortenmp is listening, because @KayRollison has written his strategic plan for winning the next election http://theaimn.com/2013/10/31/where-the-bloody-hell-are-you/ … Both Kay and Victoria Rollison are splendid writers.

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013katie ‏@ktldbttr 23 May 12 Tattoo of Leviticus 18:22 forbidding homosexuality: £200. Not knowing that Leviticus 19:28 forbids tattoos: Priceless. pic.twitter.com/C663LU4V Retweeted by sortius Here's how it reads: New American Standard Bible 'You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD. King James Bible Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Er, ummmm, OOPS! :)

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013 Shortcut link to tattooed religiomoron http://t.co/C663LU4V

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013Mike Carlton ‏@MikeCarlton01 51m Ross Gittins, superb as ever, nails Abbott and the climate change deniers. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/climate-change-dear-grandchildren-i-can-only-say-sorry-20131119-2xt90.html …

Michael

20/11/2013Alexander Downer last night suggested that individuals at the highest level of Indonesia's government might have known in advance of plans to place bombs in Bali nightspots over a decade ago. Talking about gathering intelligence in Indonesia, he segued directly from a discussion of current events, which include the hacking of the Indonesian President's mobile phone, that of his wife, and of a range of other high-level political figures, to talking about the Bali bombings. And how they might have been avoided if Australian intelligence-gathering had been cast as widely as it clearly is now. That's almost a "duhhh" statement, in as much as use of mobile communication technology now is much more prevalent than then. And techniques to hack mobile communications technology have advanced in parallel to the technology's proliferation. But to imply top of Indonesian government phone hacking might in some way forestall terrorist activity targeting foreigners in Indonesia is another thing altogether. Make the connection?

jaycee

20/11/2013If it looks like a goose and now, honks like a loose-goose it's gotta be a downer!...will someone please throw him a milk-sopped crust?

Ken

20/11/2013Ross Gittens article in Casablanca's Cache reminds of an old song written by the late Don Henderson. Don was an Australian folksinger/song writer strongly associated with the union movement - he was involved in and wrote,sung about the Mount Isa miners' strike in the 1960s. "In my time" Tonight you were born into the world, it is yours, a world that is none of your making. A world that is easy to fault, ask the cause, The blame is not yours to be taking. Still ask for reasons, it's your right to know why I've come so far with so little to show; there's blame to be laid, you're blameless, so blame me I knew what had been happening [skipped a verse] But when you're a man and have kids of your own, if they ever come to you crying, and say that've seen someone who was all alone, seen hunger, seen hatred, heard lying. remember the vision so bright that had paled, with day to day dullness commitment entailed. Don't try to tell them their grandfather failed, or that you were only one man.

Ken

20/11/2013correction: line should read "and say they've seen someone who was"

Catching Up

20/11/2013Pyne made a big noise about moving Naplan on line. It appears that the work for that is already a long way down the track, from efforts of the previous government. So much for taking credit of others.

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013Catching Up I've seen footage of Israelis who have ousted and then taken over Palestinians' homes, so PROUD of their new homes! And Michael, as for Downer's crap, "If better intelligence" had been had then the Bali bombings might have been circumvented, well yeah Downer, your personal intelligence is what is lacking.

42 long

20/11/2013Bad advice and "idiot" Downer go together. Why do these ineffectual dysfunctional "ghosts" of the past keep turning up? They were no good when they were new.

jaycee

20/11/2013I see A. Crabbe has a shot at "wit-speak" in her interpretation of the Indonesian hacking scandal. She reads like a try-hard, second-level gag writer for a daytime sit-com. I suspect she harbours a treasured autographed biro of Dick Van Dyke's as 'lucky-icon' .

Casablanca

20/11/2013 At last an insightful article about the current imbroglio with Indonesia. [b]Off we go again on the Indonesia rollercoaster[/b] Allan Behm Cultural dynamics are at play and diplomatic normality is further than you think. Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/off-we-go-again-on-the-indonesia-rollercoaster-20131119-2xt8i.html#ixzz2l9K74ld5

TalkTurkey

20/11/2013legalizepotusa ‏@legalizepotusa 3m When a man is denied the right 2 live the life he believes in he has no choice but 2 become an outlaw ~ Nelson Mandela Hear Hear sez I.

jaycee

20/11/2013Just watched a bit of question time in the House....what a bunch of amateurs the Govt' is..Abbott is still in opp'n mode, Morrison is all at sea with his explanations and BB. in the chair looks like an aged Joan Simms in a reborn "Carry on" role!......Will somebody please draw the curtain on this charade!

Casablanca

20/11/2013[b]`well behaved knight`[/b] Vs 'The uncouth pugilist' Bambang Yudhoyono was born in Tremas, East Java, to a lower-middle-class family.. His name is Javanese, with Sanskrit roots.[2] Susilo comes from the words su-, meaning good[2] and -sila, meaning behaviour, conduct or moral.[2] Bambang is a traditional boy name in Javanese, meaning knight. Yudhoyono comes from the words yuddha -meaning battle, fight; and yana, meaning journey.[2] Thus his name roughly translates to `well behaved knight`. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susilo_Bambang_Yudhoyono Anthony John Abbott, born in London to lower middle class parents who came as boat people to Australia. The family quickly established itself as upper middle class and cossetted its only son such that he developed a strong sense of self-aggrandisement. His anglo-saxon name roughly translated means 'uncouth emotionally-stunted pugilist'

42 long

20/11/2013Abbott's running out of time on this. Humility and sensitivity and truth is no part of this FRAUD person. "No straight answers" Tony. Mr SMUG. "We told you what we would do" (BIG LIE they OBFUSCATED TOTALLY pre election.. "Now suck it up,SUCKERS". WE are IN now.

jaycee

20/11/2013It is becoming more and more apparent that the LNp. has no plan, no talent for running this country..so one has to ask..: "Who is!?" The ship of state is fast approaching the wrecking reef.

Casablanca

20/11/2013 I just sent the following tweet to Rupes: [b]@rupertmurdoch Mr Murdoch, Sir, may I respectfully request that you replace PM Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull, ASAP.[/b]

jaycee

20/11/2013I think before we all begin to line up the Abbott jokes in connection to this "jerkoff" govt', I think we ought to take a cold shower and consider for a moment the dangerous waters we have entered. We saw yesterday, the minister for immigration refuse the Senate's demand for answers...an arrogance that ought to come with an instant dismissal rider. We are witnessing the breakdown in relations with our next door neighbour because of the PM's hubris and vanity....an arrogance that WILL come with a economic and social price that WILL damage the nation. We see a treasurer flounding in a world of economics way beyond his politics and he is losing sight of the economic horizon....THIS will cost a lot of mazoola! The seemingly entire construct of civil governance has been weakened by the arrogance and sabotage of the last three years of LNP./ Media /Business attacks of social law and order...all that appears to remain is a facade of "The State"...there does not appear to be any jurisdiction to bring those Vandals to account. The AFP. seem to do the bidding of an old boys club..The senate's powers appear to have been castrated...what the High Court and the judiciary of the nation think is beyond me...they haven't made a peep!...and to think they figured so loud in the Whitlam years!...With all this dismantling of oversee in the nation, we are left with nothing but delinquent politics, rogue Media and our poor civil institutions but a house of cards!

Casablanca

20/11/2013 2353@November 20. 2013 06:46 AM You said[quote] 'Casablanca = to paraphrase Paul Keating - this is a beautiful set of links. I especially love your twitter line'.[/quote] Thanks. That line was favorited and re-tweeted an amazing number of times as was one from a couple of days ago 'TA follows his Tour of Apology with Tour of Appeasement.' Wasn't that another splendid interview with PJK last night!

Casablanca

20/11/2013 NEWS UPDATE - 4 mins ago Indonesia moves to downgrade relationship with Australia as Tony Abbott expresses 'deep and sincere' regret over spy reports By Indonesia correspondent George Roberts, staff Indonesia's foreign minister says his country is already moving to downgrade its relationship with Australia in the wake of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spying revelations Marty Natalegawa says Indonesia is "not only reviewing our cooperation with Australia - we are actually already implementing the downgrading of our bilateral relations with Australia." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/abbott-regrets-indonesias-spy-scandal-embarrassment/5105326?WT.mc_id=newsmail

Martin Spalding

20/11/2013Interesting & well-constructed piece David. Thank you. But I have the same concerns as some of the other commenters here - that this could be taken as an exhortation to sell out & go with a political strategy heavily based on spin, slogans & PR wizardry. I think this is the wrong turn for the progressive cause. I know what you are saying - just like a sporting team needs defence and attack, a political party cannot get by on one element alone. Labor can't just do good things & ignore the 'sell' part. Not can they do the opposite. But I think your article goes a tad too far in its worship of the Lakoff-inspired dark arts. I agree with the previous commenter that said we can't forget the role of the media in shaping, developing & running with the frames. It's not just Labor's fault. Secondly, I think Labor are already deep into the Lakoff techniques - witness NSW Labor, witness Rudd & his thirst to 'win the day' via press release, witness third-way Labour in the UK. Thirdly, there is a good reason why framing is criticised - it can be very bad for governing! Good government means having to deal in messy, complex reality with all its nuances. By relying on slogans, nifty wordplay & subliminal appeals, framing can drag you away from the facts and what are the best solutions. This is manifestly what the new govt is struggling with - its slogans are good ear-candy but largely unrelated to truth or reality. Fourthly, although you David didn't mean this, embracing the art of framing in a full-throated way I think legitimises a certain amount of deception. This may be craved as a way of countering the Coalition's deadly assaults on things like the carbon price. But if the price is losing the high moral ground, I seriously question whether it is worth it. I think Labor would be better served 'unframing' the Lib frames and simply spelling out what it stands for - direct & straight. By all means have good communication and even frames, but get the substance right & the rest will be easier.

42 long

20/11/2013But tony's TOUGH. He will show them what a REAL man does. Am I one bit surprised NO? This guy is an image freak. Nothing has changed one bit since he first got into university politics. How do you limit the damage? Perhaps the Senate might exercise all it's powers before they are usurped. With Morescum you have a minister who not only ignores the senate request he misleads the Parliament. I thought that would be a hanging offence. Remember the carry-on with Craig Thomson when they tried (unsuccessfully) to hang that on him.

DMW

20/11/2013Hi Swordsters, been more flatout than a lizard drinking of late but have had 'timeout' today to attend the wake of a dear and inspiring friend best described as an iconoclastic and radical revolutionary. An interesting and thought encouraging article thanks Watermelon Man. [i]It's Time - time the Labor Party began to employ some Lakoff students to not only run campaigns but to do so while understanding that these days the next campaign starts the day after the election. You need to frame your win or loss and take it from there.[/i] Whoa. Not so fast WM. First Labor needs to learn the correct lessons of it's loss and that ain't gonna be easy. Amongst the people I spoke with at today's wake was a very astute and respected Labor representative who enlightened me further on Labor's 'problems' among them that we still haven't learnt the correct lessons of the defeat in 2001 and probably some of the lessons previous to that. One example of my own is around leadership. One of the lessons that appears to be burnt into the souls of Labor people is that to win government we need a popular leader and the victories proved that 'wisdom' beyond doubt. Yet, there is strong evidence that this is misguided as the victories of Fraser, Howard and very strongly Abbott show less popular people can lead a party to cross the floor to place their bums on the treasury benches. Long before 'framing' the basic truths and understanding need to be learnt and internalised. Only then will the party be be able to step up as a viable alternative government. Today has been an incredible day of learning (again) for me and some of it has come from the article and comments here.

Catching Up

20/11/2013DMW, agree. One has to unframe all that the Coalition says and does. Today, more than once, I heard them accuse Labor of 400 billion debt. Sorry, the figure is less than 300 billion. Hockey has added to the debt in 64 days, nearly debt. Will only meet the 300 bn for a couple of DAYS. The world will not stop. The The treasury has many other options of dealing with problem. Yes, we have to keep harping on what the government is doing. Must not let them off the hook for a few seconds even.

DMW

20/11/2013Re the Indonesian spying thing there is something I do not understand. Mr Abbott has totally missed a golden opportunity on this and has been blind sided. The allegations are about 'spying' in 2009 so it totally befuddles me why he didn't stand up and say something like [i]... oh it was all that dastardly Labor government what done it and now we are aware of it we will stop and we are really sorry and it just goes to show how incompetent that Labor were' ...[/i] Have they lost the plot already?

jaycee

20/11/2013I see David Murray is to head a commitee on competition in the financial sector....I wincingly heard him "talk" about climate change the other week... Where do they get these Liberal stooges from?....; are they the residue left over from the "brain drain" ?.....How do they qualify for their appointments?...;by having vast experience shortchanging schoolkids at the tuck shop? does their barber get a cut of the proceeds?...at least the Gestapo had designer uniforms.

jaycee

20/11/2013An open letter to the indonesian govt' and people.... Please understand our situation..: less than half the people voted for him...only a third of those wanted him...and only a mother could love him!...I'm sure you understand....and as that famous American President once said of Battista..: "He may be a son of a bitch, but (in this case unfortunately) he's our son of a bitch"!.....THAT, I'm sure you understand!

Casablanca

21/11/2013 [b]CASABLANCA'S CACHE Thursday, 21 November 2013; 30 items[/b] ENTITLEMENTS & FIDDLES 1. Plans for second George Brandis library shelved Jonathan Swan George Brandis's plans for a second taxpayer-funded library have, for the time being at least, been shelved. The Attorney General, who described himself as “minister for books” in response to media reports about his vast personal library, which cost taxpayers $20,000, ordered a new custom-made bookcase to be built in his office but his request was rejected, a Senate committee has heard. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/plans-for-second-george-brandis-library-shelved-20131120-2xuao.html 2. Is it cheaper for MPs to fly VIP jets, as Christopher Pyne claims? ABC Fact Check The verdict: Mr Pyne says the VIP flight from Perth to Canberra was "probably cheaper" than Qantas or Virgin. Comparable commercial fares would have cost a maximum of $56,260 whereas the cost of sending the VIP jet to Perth would have been a minimum of $140,483 before other costs are added. Mr Pyne's claim is incorrect. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/is-it-cheaper-for-mps-to-fly-vip-jets/5086058 SPYING 3. Protecting secrets: inside Australia’s mysterious spy agency John Blaxland Much like in the movie Casablanca, there is much huffing and shaking of heads about activities of the nation’s electronic spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), after allegations emerged that the agency tapped the mobile phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and his senior colleagues. “Round up the usual suspects” echoes in my mind. http://theconversation.com/protecting-secrets-inside-australias-mysterious-spy-agency-20541 4. To publish, or not to publish? The ethics of reporting spying Denis Muller The foreseeable harm that would result from the revelations about the phone tapping is exactly what is now occurring. A serious diplomatic row has erupted between Australia and its biggest neighbour, Indonesia - a country with whom Australia’s relationship has been delicate for decades, and whose co-operation is critical in deterring people smuggling and drug trafficking, among other policy priorities. This is significant harm. Is the public interest in disclosure commensurate with the harm done? http://theconversation.com/to-publish-or-not-to-publish-the-ethics-of-reporting-spying-20533 5. The surveillance state: How Australia spies on its own Murray Hunter The Australian security state is collecting intelligence on an Orwellian scale never seen before. Through rapid technology advances, the Australian security apparatus has grown to an Orwellian scale. This has not necessarily been at the design of any elected government but something the Australian bureaucracy was forthright in promoting. The executive government has only superficial control over the Australian surveillance system. http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-surveillance-state-how-australia-is-spying-on-its-own,5907 BILATERAL RELATIONS 6. Abbott's spy games Tony Kevin The adverse consequences will only mount for Abbott. Forget about meaningful cooperation now on stopping the boats. Probably more will now come....There are enough sensitivities and historic faultlines already in Australian-Indonesian relations that this incident will not blow over soon, especially with a new Indonesian president in the offing...Timing is of the essence. I hope by the time this article is published, our Prime Minister in the national interest will have already said the right things. No ifs, no buts, just, 'Sorry, SBY, for our national disrespect to you.' http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38523#.Uow5cbeqpZY 7. Mark it in Textor and a Liberal Excuses Bingo Update rossleighbrisbane Apparently, Mark Textor of Crosby/Textor fame (the Liberal strategist) was a bit upset with Indonesia’s President and tweeted “Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke looks like a 1970s Filipino porn star and has the ethics to match”. http://theaimn.com/2013/11/20/mark-it-in-textor-and-a-liberal-excuses-bingo-update/ 8. Australia should be embarrassed, says Marty Bagus BT Saragih “I don’t get it. Why would the President of Indonesia be embarrassed?” Marty said in an exclusive interview with Channel News Asia. Marty was referring to a statement made by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier on Tuesday before the Australian parliament. “I regret the statement by the Australian prime minister that without remorse belittled Indonesia over this phone tapping matter,” the President said on his Twitter account @SBYudhoyono on Tuesday early morning. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/19/australia-should-be-embarrassed-says-marty.html 9. Anti-Australian rhetoric rising in Indonesia after spy row ABC & New Daily One of the largest selling Indonesian language newspapers, Media Indonesia, also carried an editorial under the headline “Not Inferior Nation”, calling for a “harsh response to the Kangaroo Country which has betrayed the good relationship”. “It’s time to remind the world that Indonesia is not a nation to be treated (in this way),” the editorial read. Another nationalist leaning newspaper, Republika, led its front page with the headline: “Tapping Destroys Diplomacy”. http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2013/11/19/anti-australian-rhetoric-rising-indonesia-spy-row/.UovhyDJZjxM.twitter 10. PM's belligerent stand inflames already sensitive situation Tom Allard Prime Minister Tony Abbott has doubled down on defiance, refusing to explain, review, or apologise for Australia's spying on Indonesian leaders that has caused such angst in Jakarta. It's a surprising, high-stakes move. More likely to inflame a troubled relationship than encourage, in Abbott's words, cool heads to prevail. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/pms-belligerent-stand-inflames-already-sensitive-situation-20131119-2xtes.html 11. PM, try the telephone, forget the megaphone Michael Gordon Pick up the phone, Tony! It's time for some plain speaking to reassure the man you call ''perhaps one of the very best friends that Australia has anywhere in the world''. The message from Jakarta is that President Yudhoyono feels like anything but a friend - and, until he gets some answers, all bets are off. Having tweeted his anger and dismay on Tuesday to no effect, Yudhoyono now plans to write a letter demanding an explanation for what he sees as a breach of trust. Abbott made a statement to Parliament on Wednesday night, saying his response, when the letter arrives, will be swift, full and courteous. Why wait? http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/pm-try-the-telephone-forget-the-megaphone-20131120-2xvyb.html 12. SBY hits fight against people smuggling in retaliation over eavesdropping Michelle Grattan Yudhoyono also wants a new “code of conduct” to govern relations in various areas including co-operation on people smuggling. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa claimed the Australian intelligence community had “run amok”. “The ball is very much in Australia’s court,” he said. Australia must take concrete steps to repair the “almost irreparable” damage done. The President’s reference at co-operation on people smuggling underlines how strongly Indonesia wants to register its displeasure. http://theconversation.com/sby-hits-fight-against-people-smuggling-in-retaliation-over-eavesdropping-20576 13. Australian PM vows to fix Indonesian relations Rod McGuirk and Ali Kotarumalos Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali has become the first government minister known to have canceled a visit to Australia because of the spying furor, an Australian academic said on Wednesday. Prof. Damien Kingsbury, director of Deakin University's Center for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights, said Ali was to arrive in Melbourne next weekend to give a seminar on managing religious diversity in Indonesia. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/australia-reportedly-spies-indonesia-president 14. Tony Abbott must eat humble pie to placate Indonesia after spying scandal's sour aftertaste Philip Dorling Tony Abbott should apologise to Indonesia without delay. Even more importantly, he should establish a wide-ranging inquiry, preferably a royal commission, into Australia's intelligence and security agencies. The Prime Minister needs to do these things to head off major damage not only to our diplomatic ties with Indonesia but also with our other Asian neighbours, which are long-standing Australian intelligence targets. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbott-must-eat-humble-pie-to-placate-indonesia-after-spying-scandals-sour-aftertaste-20131119-2xtet.html 15. Indonesia: the only long-term solution is deeper engagement Mark Beeson In the longer-term, however, there are strategies that can be put in place to ensure current events come to be seen as more of a tiff and less of a rupture. Indeed, it is plain that the relationship already has important strengths that should help both sides find a way through what has rapidly become a major crisis and an early, entirely unexpected test of the Abbott government’s diplomatic skills. http://theconversation.com/indonesia-the-only-long-term-solution-is-deeper-engagement-20542 16. Indonesia suspends cooperation on people smuggling as Tony Abbott expresses 'deep and sincere' regret over spy reports George Roberts, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says all military and intelligence cooperation with Australia is on hold until he gets a proper explanation as to why Australian spies tried to tap his phone. Speaking in Jakarta today, an angry Mr Yudhoyono said Indonesia was suspending cooperation on people-smuggling issues, including combined maritime patrols. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/abbott-regrets-indonesias-spy-scandal-embarrassment/5105326 17. Abbott's hollow presidential peace offering Michelle Grattan Tony Abbott has declared he doesn’t need to apologise for Australian eavesdropping on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other leading figures, as he tries to deal with Indonesia's anger while not giving too much ground. http://theconversation.com/au 18. Abbott’s siege mentality could work Rob Burgess It is far from clear yet whether the current diplomatic row over Australia's tapping of the phones of President Yudhoyono and many other senior government figures, lead us into a slow, grumpy healing process or into a genuine crisis affecting trade and strategic partnership. However, Abbott's response to it is shining a light on his brand of conservatism and where it might lead us. All the evidence so far, across a range of policy areas, is that he is for any pragmatic policy response as long as it fits with the core of his highly successful political strategy. To give it a moniker, it's the 'siege mentality'. The idea that there are people 'not like us' who, through sheer misguidedness, want to wreck what we have, is central to the Abbott ascendancy. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/20/politics/abbotts-siege-mentality-could-work 19. Leigh Sales interviews Hugh White Transcript & Video ..clearly SBY is very dissatisfied with the way Tony Abbott has responded to this whole issue. He's clearly chosen to ratchet it up very significantly and I think it's not going to be credible, it's not going to be possible for Abbott to stick with the line that he's now repeated two days in a row that he's said what he's going to say and he's not going to say any more. I think the relationship with Indonesia will not get back onto a constructive track until Abbott has been prepared to offer SBY more than he has so far. The problem for Abbott is that that's going to look like a backdown, and the longer he holds out, the bigger a backdown it'll look.... So I think we're in the sort of second stage of this where it's the nature of Abbott's response, his refusal to take Indonesia's concerns seriously which is fuelling the anger and the determination I think to try and force a greater concession out of Abbott. That makes it a kind of a dangerous escalation. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3895558.htm 20. No apology to Jakarta but the price will be high Paul Kelly TONY Abbott has stood firm amid the political whirlwind from Jakarta. The Prime Minister offers no apology, no retreat, no cringing clarification - and the Abbott government will pay a price, almost certainly a fearful price. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/no-apology-to-jakarta-but-the-price-will-be-high/story-e6frg74x-1226763763345#sthash.52CDR9Yz.dpuf POLITICS 21. Kicking heads is not enough David Llewellyn-Smith The new government has a problem. It’s not governing. Instead, its habit of adopting extreme contrarian positions as an opposition tactic have carried over into power. The press is unkind to Tony Abbott today over his handling of the Indonesian spying affair. Newspapers Left and Right are critical. Coalition apologist, Jennifer Hewitt is typical: So much for the Abbott government’s hopes of building on the benefits of quiet negotiation with Australia’s neighbours. The political promise was for an end to “megaphone diplomacy”. Instead, the rapidly fraying relationship with Indonesia is now being played out in the most public and damaging of ways.…Now the promising new start of the Abbott government is foundering in dangerous political seas. Abbott needs to find a lifeline in a hurry. But a timely rescue seems unlikely. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/kicking-heads-is-not-enough/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily+MacroBusiness+CID_fb931090fb2fd3da6b2a9b94a83590c7&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=Kicking+heads+is+not+enough 22. The public servant job cuts were never 'secret' Rob Burgess Oh dear. Even as Kevin Rudd departs he is managing to swing like a wrecking ball across the parliament. However, this time he's wrecked the Coalition's fiscal policy. The major mistake in the Abbott ascendency, it seems, was for the Coalition to literally believe its own slogans – particularly those that included the phrase "the worst government ever". As Business Spectator pointed out back in March, that phrase was always at the end of the hyperbole scale marked "bunkum" (see: The worst government ever? Not yet, March 19). http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/19/politics/public-servant-job-cuts-were-never-secret?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=518907&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt= 23. Politicians' compulsive dishonesty on the public service Markus Mannheim Some sad truths were confirmed today. The people behind the Coalition's public service policy - which featured prominently in its election campaign - are either incompetent, dishonest or both. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/public-sector-informant/politicians-compulsive-dishonesty-on-the-public-service-20131119-2xs6n.html THE PUBLIC SERVICE 24. Decade of hardship looms for public servants, Ian Watt warns Markus Mannheim Speaking at the Institute of Public Administration Australia's national conference on Wednesday, The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet's head, Ian Watt, said one "can't have a discussion in Canberra among public servants these days without talking about the fiscal environment". "We know we have a challenge of a very tight fiscal environment in the [Australian Public Service] and it's probably getting tighter. "In my view, the fiscal environment will be tight for at least a decade." Dr Watt said the bureaucracy had faced similar challenges during John Howard's first term as prime minister. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/decade-of-hardship-looms-for-public-servants-ian-watt-warns-20131120-2xupv.html#ixzz2l9c5DGp4 25. The costs of retrenching government staff Markus Mannheim This is the problem that threatens to undo the federal government's downsizing program. The costs of retrenching public servants, military personnel and other government staff rose sharply in recent years, as agencies increasingly used redundancies to reduce their workforce. Total payments to these workers reached $261 million in 2012-13. Even in real terms, that was the biggest hit to the budget in 14 years. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said this week he would shelve the Coalition's plan to shed 12,000 public servants in less than two years by implementing a hiring freeze. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/public-sector-informant/the-costs-of-retrenching-government-staff-20131120-2xuk7.html ECONOMY + BUSINESS 26. $500bn debt limit 'prudent': Parkinson AAP Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson says a debt peak significantly above $370 billion in 2015-16 is likely. He says the government's aim for an increase in the debt limit from $300 billion to $500 billion debt ceiling is "prudent". In Treasury's pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (PEFO) it forecast a debt peak of $370 billion in 2015-16. Dr Parkinson also agreed with the Australian Office for Financial Management that there should be a buffer of $40 billion to $60 billion above the forecast peak. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/11/20/australian-news/500bn-debt-limit-prudent-parkinson?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=518988&utm_campaign=pm&modapt= 27. Greens unconvinced on $500 billion debt ceiling Michelle Grattan Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson today mounted a strong case for the government’s proposed $500 million debt ceiling in a Senate committee hearing, where he got a hard time from his former boss Penny Wong. But in vain: the Greens, who hold the key Senate votes on the legislation, immediately interpreted his evidence to insist that $400 billion would be perfectly adequate for the time being. http://theconversation.com/greens-unconvinced-on-500-billion-debt-ceiling-20567 28. KGB: Ross Garnaut Alan Kohler Robert Gottliebsen & Stephen Bartholomeusz Economist Ross Garnaut tells Business Spectator's Alan Kohler, Robert Gottliebsen and Stephen Bartholomeusz: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/11/19/commercial/kgb-ross-garnaut FEDERALISM 29. Queensland challenges Abbott to end federal ‘meddling’ Liz Minchin Tony Abbott will face a fired-up “states' union” at his first meeting with Australia’s premiers and chief ministers next month, with Queensland Premier Campbell Newman calling on the federal government to stop “meddling with the states”.... Former federal Labor MP and current chief executive of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Stephen Martin, broadly backed Mr Newman’s call for urgent federal-state reform. http://theconversation.com/queensland-challenges-abbott-to-end-federal-meddling-20547 HUMAN RIGHTS 30. NDIS helps the common good Moira Byrne Garton Indeed, Dr Maurice Newman's criticism of the former Government for establishing and funding programs such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme reveals an upsetting indifference toward those who shoulder the true cost of disability in Australia. Newman described the decision http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38521#.Uow_m7eqpZZto commit to the NDIS as 'reckless' and implied a preference to implement a scheme such as the NDIS during a more prosperous era. SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES Refugee Boat Arrivals The updates that the Morrison Military Machine want to hide. http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/refugee-boat-timeline-updated-to-october-21st/ Ashbygate on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/585444634841472/ The Finnigans' Home of the BISONs The Beautiful Inspiring Set of Numbers http://www.thefinnigans.blogspot.com.au/ • ROULE REPORT — Issues of Today http://paper.li/RouleReport/1334728962 • AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm • NEWS HEADLINES 21 November 2013 http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/ ################################################################

Casablanca

21/11/2013 CASABLANCA'S CACHE Thursday, 21 November 2013: [b]I spy a PM out of his depth and out-manoeuvered.[/b] http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/CASABLANCAS-CACHE-%28Current-Ed%29.aspx SBY has 4,027,522 followers on Twitter; Tony Abbott has 262,410. Game, set and match!

jaycee

21/11/2013When even a justified ; "We told you so" feels more like a tearful chest-beating confessional lament than a cry for justice!...this moron and his crew of criothans are leading this nation down the very path as was predicted and predictable. The inevitable ending that waits such a ship of fools as voted this bad example of buffoonery in will be, sadly, their just reward.

jaycee

21/11/2013And then they wheeled out "the fool Downer" to disprove the science that in a vacumn there is no noise! But where are all the "contexting" journos'? Where are all the political comentariat, that was OH SO WISE! in summing up the Gillard /Rudd conflict and painting the invisible man ; Abbott as the best thing since sliced bread!...where are they all now?..gone to ground with their security blanket and a bag full of jelly snake lollies!....and we end up with Downer...the man renown for little else that a collector of Danny La Rue's used crothless underwear! The LNP. ; you're wading through it!

Ad astra

21/11/2013Folks I've a busy day today. We will be on the road returning to the south coast. I'll be back tomorrow.

jaycee

21/11/2013So the little twerp ; Hunt, is out and about talking "mandates"...like the one they had in dealing with Indonesia?... I have a friend whose father so despised the Salvation Army, that every time it's brass band came to play in their neighbourhood park rotunda...he would sit directly in front of the trumpet player and, in a timed theatrical manner, take from a brown bag on his lap a big lemon..cut it slowly into wedges, all the while holding the gaze of the trumpet player and then would slowly raise the wedge to his lips and in a shuddering twisting grimace loudly suck it dry......one by one!....till the poor trumpet player was psyched into playing rasberries! That's all that Hunt can now talk..: rasberries!

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013 How can people become so expert? Jugglers ... Musicians... Acrobats ... Men carrying bricks ... I am in awe of such as these. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8qFBvnUGSM&sns=em

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013Consummate skill! You'll laugh at this first one ... https://www.youtube.com/embed/n6mbW-jMtrY?rel=0 But you'll be utterly amazed by this second one. This isn't done to amuse a crowd. It's the man's job. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XNx_z2il-g

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013jaycee just in case you think nobody is digging your posts I AM! :)

Catching Up

21/11/2013Now it appears, a amendment is a proposal, therefore can only be moved by a minister. Gagging well in play. Dissent motion once again moved against the speaker. Question be put, once against without defending the speaker.

Jason

21/11/2013Catching Up, The speaker is about as useful as T!ts on a bull! She gave the impression over the years she'd be a natural as speaker for no other reason than she would get up and make points of order on the 4 or 5 she actually knew. Since getting the job she's shown the world just how incompetent she actually is.

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013Katauskas is one of the best. Jo ‏@Loveont0ast 5m Gold “@FionaKatauskas: No Wuckas- my new @newmatilda cartoon’s up https://newmatilda.com/2013/11/21/relaxed-and-comfortable …”

Catching Up

21/11/2013Hockey is upset about the Opposition not asking him any questions. Why would one do so? Duel between Brandis and Wong over in the senate. Hitting a few tender spots.

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013Australia is now in the hands of a government governed in turn by an utterly partisan and equally incompetent Speaker in the House of Representatives. We have effectively been taken over by a government which will behave illegally at will.

42 long

21/11/2013In the short time the Parliament has sat the pattern is already clear. No respect for fair play and no regard for proper protocol. They didn't show any in opposition and now they have the reins all hell will be let loose. They are still testing the waters but as they find they get away with anything they will be more extreme, gloating and outrageous. They are well skilled in those antics. I have watched all QT so far. Not ONE question has been answered in any way satisfactorily. the whole aim is to rave on about the Oh Golly Gosh! TERRIBLE beyond belief LABOR Party MESS that they will use as an excuse for breaking the very limited assurances they gave to the voters pre -election an carry out their planned assault on those who don't have much already. NASTY and Infantile and talent deprived. Why can't the Libs/Nats attract TALENT. At least years ago they got a few returned service people with INTEGRITY. Today it's TEA PARTY mimics programmed by weird "minders".

jaycee

21/11/2013I cannot believe it! I cannot believe this mob of monkeys are in charge of the nation!...After three years of media backed, barking mad bulking and blocking and stalling and proclaiming how they were "ready to govern"..and "election now" and "the experienced team"....not only do they not know how the govt' operates, not only does the "ready-made, natural-fit, old-school-solid-state-made-for-the-job-speaker" not even know who's from what electorate, but the bloody PM. demonstrates he hasn't the basic skills to handle the cutlery of international diplomacy!....This "vehicle of state" is a real 'lemon'...I just can't believe this mob of morons are driving it!...there surely must be some sort of crazy "Wizard of Oz" behind the curtain, pulling levers, not the likes of Pyne, Morrison Abbott, Brandis and Abetz,et all...in a circle pulling each other's dicks!!?? This isn't a govt'....it's a porn show!......trouble is..; Aust' is the one being screwed!

jaycee

21/11/2013Surely there must be some avenue of appeal!?...we can't sit idle and watch these children "play with matches"...it's already abundantly clear to anyone old enough to have had a position of responsibility..from raising a child to just looking after the pantry key of the tuck-shop, that the LNP. are in way over their depth!...WAY OVER!..and some higher authority must relieve them of those incendiary devices before they set fire to everthing around them! They are but children in an adult's playing field.

Jason

21/11/2013jaycee, When will you be at the central markets again?

jaycee

21/11/2013jason...How'd you know I go to the central markets!?....probably some time in the next few weeks..we only go once a month or five weeks now...we went a couple of weeks ago. Why ? say!...if you want my email address...ask the TPS commitee..it's ok by me.

Jason

21/11/2013jaycee, Just from your previous posts here and elsewhere I live in Pooraka, but would like to meet you when you come in from the Barossa for your visit to the Market. Committee could you send me jaycee's email please? Thanks

jaycee

21/11/2013Pooraka !!?....wow!..that's in the thick of it!....brave soul...but wait a minute...there's Davoren Park !

Catching Up

21/11/2013 [quote]jayceeSurely there must be some avenue of appeal!?.[/quote] Yes, a very old one.Getting out and protesting very loud and long. It is called public opinion. Doing what we are now doing. High lighting all that this government does. http://billshorten.com.au/introduction-repeal-legislation-2

TPS Team

21/11/2013Jason and jaycee, email sent as requested.

Michael Taylor

21/11/2013Jason, I used to live in Pooraka, now you live there. You used to live in Canberra, now I live here. Anybody would think we're trying to avoid each other. :)

jaycee

21/11/2013When I was younger, Pooraka was a wild place!...I always thought of it as an industrial suburb...but I know there were different parts to it...but I always think of it as industrial.

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013 jaycee We really oughter get together We seem to be birds of similar feather Or at least we all got similar foes: (Jason'll love this) [i][b]Go the Crows![/b][/i]

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013I taught at Pooraka Primary School in ?1978? Piece'o'cake, lovely kids, no wildness at all! There was one red-headed paedophile teacher there though, (it turned out later) - a Queen's Scout and scoutmaster, aged 27, used to take boys camping ... no pun intended, but let it stand ... He ended up doing about 6 years. Only paedophile teacher I ever came across. When the headmaster found out he was so distraught at having had him on his staff that he resigned, he blamed himself somehow, it really affected him.

TalkTurkey

21/11/2013Good cartoon! https://t.co/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FdoOIOVVaZ4&sig=e6bfba7671512773d07c9fc43a698581a9de20d5&uid=247240088&iid=f24ccd25d7864689a5556836458111e3&nid=141+1072&t=1

Pappinbarra Fox

22/11/2013Hey Swordsters it is Friday - is anything happenning?

Pappinbarra Fox

22/11/2013 http://www.smh.com.au/comment/howling-of-the-hacks-confronted-by-some-real-news-20131121-2xyfd.html ThunderBolts lit up the sky. These media organisations ''had breached national security … unnecessarily antagonised the Indonesians … and betrayed Australia''. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was described as a ''criminal fugitive''. The voices were familiar and, once again, uniform. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/howling-of-the-hacks-confronted-by-some-real-news-20131121-2xyfd.html#ixzz2lJo8tnr8

jaycee

22/11/2013I see those two "guilty for reporting the bleedin' obvious" news outlets ; ABC. and The(Aust)Guardian, have led with a "domestic" story today...Been warned off by Tony? Did you see that grab of Textor last night?...talk about a "hands in pants" intellect!...typical right-wing pancake...; thin on thought, dense on substance and a thick skin!

jaycee

22/11/2013TT. both of us being in the same state. I daresay we will cross paths sooner or later...as with Jason...looking forward to it! Actually, I do have some information (totally off subject/interest for this site and cross-section of posters)on ethnicity and language that may interest you...as it interests me also...perhaps If I can have your email address, I will send it to you. It involves some historical research I am doing on early settlers here in the mallee.

Catching Up

22/11/2013jaycee, that I taker it, is not the mallee in NSW. Also have an interest.

jaycee

22/11/2013Catch'...no ..; mallee sth aust....what is your interest?...though the two do overlap, particularly around the Hamilton area.

jaycee

22/11/2013sorry...that's vic.of course.

jaycee

22/11/2013Stone th' crows!..it's football now. Not my forte..though I'll allow Others their peccadil'..to get their fill while I myself, with you agree,......TT. Share same interests, To some degree, Through similar politics.....and a touch of poe'tree?

jaycee

22/11/2013Julia Gillard's CNN interview... http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/

TalkTurkey

22/11/2013Has anybody been watching ABC1 this morning? Wall-to-wall Doctor Who bullshit from Trivioli's toyboy Rowlands with some blonde bimbo who is an apologist for Abborrrtt. Hours of almost nothing but crap, rererererepeated at that

Catching Up

22/11/2013Interesting interview with former PM http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/?hpt=hp_tvbx

Catching Up

22/11/2013My father spent the first half his life in the central west NSW. Was a wheat and sheep cocky from the early 1920's near Lake Lake_Cargelligo, which is mallee country. Those mallee roots make a wonderful fire. Family first settled in the Tumut area around 1850. End up a dairy farmer on the Central Coast NSW. hated it.

jaycee

22/11/2013I wonder how long it will take for the collective Asian nations that are targetted for News Corp' investment and infrastructure set-up, that Rupert comes with a price!..and THAT price is interference in their nation's politics in whatever way suits Rupert's business interests.....I bet they have figgured it out already..if not, they better take note of the damage he has done to stable govt' and healthy politics of this country..not to mention the polarising of the population. China!..take notice. Indonesia!..take notice. India!..take notice. Thailand!..take notice. All the rest of Asia!...take notice...Rupert has his price!

Jason

22/11/2013jaycee, Did you see this today? The office of a former Liberal South Australian state minister has been revealed as the source of the ABC payroll leak. It is understood a freedom of information request made from the office of Robert Brokenshire – now a Family First MLC – led to a much larger cache of data than intended being inadvertently sent. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/abc-salaries-leak-source-revealed-brokenshire?CMP=twt_gu GRUB

jaycee

22/11/2013jason...yeah!...but then Brokenshire has been in Rupert's pocket for years!

jaycee

23/11/2013After just listening to Gerry on ABC. national talking about the 90 major polluters...I bet London to a pearly queen that by the time humanity pays for the cost of the damage of climate change etc...the sum total value of all these enterprises that make umpteen squillions for these companies and shareholders, will be in the nagative column of the ledger book...costing a tad more than the said squillions profit to undo and rebuild the damage..... You know it's true!

jaycee

23/11/2013Where is everybody?....hogging the bong!!?

Catching Up

23/11/2013Still here. Busily trying to keep up with the none actions of Abbott. If he can create this much chaos in 67 days, one can only guess what he can do in a 1000 or more. I do not mix with many people, so I am asking, if anyone has heard people around them cheering Abbott for rescinding all the CEF legislation.

Catching Up

23/11/2013http://australianpoliticselection2013.blogspot.com.au What really happened in the last elections. [quote]The Details: Only 79.67% (let's say 80%) of voting-age Australians actually voted in the 2013 Australian Federal election. In other words, 1/5th, 20%, did not vote. That's according to the International IDEA Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance as well as another analysis in the Australian newspaper. [1] Of the 80% who did vote, the ABC reports [2] that the primary vote figures are: Liberal: 32% LNP: 8.9% National: 4.3% CLP: 0.3% bringing the total for the 'Coalition' to: 45.5% Labor: 33.4% Green: 8.6% PUP: 5.5 Others: 6.9 Notes: Of the 80% who actually voted, a minority of 45.5% voted for the Tony Abbot-led Liberal-National-LNP Coalition. 80% of that 45.5% means only 36.4%, or roughly 1 in 3 voting-age Australians, actually voted for the Coalition. 80% of the 32% vote to the Liberal Party means that only 25.6%, or 1 in 4 of voting-age Australians, actually voted for the Liberal Party. From another angle, around 75% or 3 in 4 eligible voters did NOT vote for Tony Abbot's Liberal Party. The ABC reports [3] t[/quote]

jaycee

23/11/2013Catching up... I was at the AGM. of our local environmental group yesterday. Of course, the talk got around to certain sensitive political subjects...I say "sensitive", not just because of the headlines in the dailys, but because there are still those of an older generation (and some younger!) who vote LNP. in the group.....generally you can pick the LNP. voters, because they will not join in nor put forward any rational points for debate on such sensitive subjects...just sit there with set-jaws and dark looks!...THEY have voted on "conditioned responses"...the Pavlov's Dog reaction.. as their parents did..as they always will ...But they still have concerns for the enviroment...BUT....but it is closely connected to what they also see as a fading way of life...the "way of life of their parents and their young years"..( I can't think of that generation as having a "youth" experience...as many of them never experienced a time of "youth")...curiously, when pressed for tales of those "lost times", they will relate about the ease of shooting , fishing and farming ...all those activities that were done in excess and bring us to where we are now! Unfortunately for most of that generation, the internet came along just a little too late...they are a "cusp generation", the last bridge between the pioneer knowledge and hardship of their parents and grandparents trying to "open up" the land, the last remnants of clusters of indigenous peoples hanging on to their local culture and our times where we are trying to join the threads of local history to "remake" or restore a semblance and structure of the environment. Trouble is, they do not have the interest to take to the internet to tell their experiences, save the hardy few..and they are past writing of their experiences, again, save the hardy few. It is tragic really...I gave a short address yesterday on the importance of people at least trying or getting their grandchildren to do it on their behalf to connect and record their bits and pieces of life for the rest of us to join the dots....For instance, I was talking to an older Lady about this Station where she worked as a young girl there, on the River Murray and she said she remembers seeing the indigenous tribe of the area (back in the 1930's) fording the river at a certain place, with their possessions on their heads to cross and get supplies there at the station....they knew the shallow places to cross the river...this is the sort of small snippets that add a patch or two to the quilt and it is a shame that we all become too tired or too self-conscious to put these little things down on the record. Now we have the internet, it is so much easier to do these things and no matter if we cannot see that anyone is "out there" reading it..you can bet your bottom dollar they are!.....I know that, because at least even I am here always lurking or commenting...as I do on many sites as millions of others likewise.....so for my money, I say ; " BLOG AWAY !"

TalkTurkey

23/11/2013Good morning Swordies I'm still here! :) It's harder to find things to be upbeat about these days but we have the opportunity right now to convince enough Australians of what we have always known about Abborrrrtt and his gang of thugs frauds crooks racists bigots hypocrites and religiomanes, enough I say that he and they will never recover whatever they do. The Fighting 5th should now focus on the forthcoming new Senators - some will already be dismayed by Abborrrtt's bumbles and they may just prove [i]not[/i] to be All The Way with Tony A. He is a fool and he has already cost Australia hugely in international and regional standing, we are pariahs both as racists and climate vandals, and make no mistake, there are Australian companies throughout our region that will go broke because reciprocal companies in those countries will actively discriminate against Australia. I would, if I were a captain of business, in the region particularly. Some in the incoming Senators will have serious doubts about the whole Government by now. Let us add to those doubts, by exposing them to the truth, the validity and importance of the issues we fight on, and the realisation of their own awesome responsibilities now. Keep your blades sharp Folks, they will taste blood in the next few months. [i][b]VENCEREMOS![/b][/i]

jaycee

23/11/2013TT..What a lot of these Aussie companies do not seem to have taken into consideration with the dismantling of the ETS. , is that their international trading partners, in accepting the goods og Australian companies may not want to accept the carbon cost attached and unpaid against those products! So yes, I beleive many companies will pay the price for the LNP. vanity!

2353

23/11/2013This tactic shows promise for the future. http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/taking-the-cleaners-to-westfield/728/ [quote]An Australian union representing cleaners at Westfield malls shelved strike action in favour of a worldwide sweep through the global retail giant’s books. Now it’s shopping reports of company tax avoidance in the US, UK and Australia.[/quote]

jaycee

23/11/2013are Google and Microsoft playing silly-buggers again?...I notice when I open on "Internet Explorer" to the Google home page, there seems to be strange delays and sometimes it goes downhill from there...but if I open directly into a desktop site, it is ok. What do other users think?

jaycee

23/11/2013I see the Monty Python crew are reforming to present a new show. I think they will be hard-pressed to outdo this govt's comedy act..even down to pinching the Monty Python's "Fish-slap" sketch with Morrison and his three-star general as the performing players!

2353

23/11/2013Jaycee - dunno about Internet Explorer as it won't run on a Mac. Google seems to be ok however.

jaycee

23/11/2013" I think you prefer those bought biscuits more than mine ", my partner sarcasticly commented...but I was hardly listening, as the ABC. radio national news was on and I was listening to the minor controversy of Quentin Bryce supporting same-sex marriage. "geezus, love!...to think we boomers almost had it in done and dusted and now we have lost it all...we were sooo close!" "What did we lose?" "All this talk about 'same-sex'...and 'gay-marriage'...I thought we had resolved the sex question back in the early seventies, now here it is starting all over again...like it was something new"....my partner wrinkled her nose somewhat.." I wouldn't get too sentimental about the old days if I was you"..she replied.... I'm not getting sentimental at all...just reflecting a little...I mean..hey!..back then we were all over sex and such things...in the end people were rooting everyone and everything...jeezus!...if a tree with a knot-hole stood still long enough it was fair game !...." "That's because our parents never had sex!..or it seemed like that" the partner added. "True...I suppose when our generation got it's first taste of unbridled lust it was a suprise case of " Jesus!..this is great!..how long has this been going on!".... But it is somewhat true...I remember going to parties where gays and straights mixed and passed around the joint or the whisky bottle (it was "top-shelf" at the parties I went to!)...and Santana "Abraxas" belted out of the quadro-system..I suppose there must have been some "cross-pollination" but dammit!...I would have thought it would be old hat by now...and the issue well and truly done and dusted.....coming from a society that cringes from ANY idea that older citizens can have sexual frolics at all!..to be repulsed at the idea of same-sex marriage demonstrates there is an awful lot of growing up to do for some of us! Jeesus!...you'd think we had only been on this planet for a couple of decades, rather than a few million years!

Jason

23/11/2013Insiders tomorrow could be worth watching if it weren't for Michael Stutchbury being on the panel. However the guest is Tanya Plibasek and the rest of the panel is Kerry Anne Walsh and Mike Seccombe

Dan Gulberry

23/11/2013Hi everyone, Hope y'all remember me from back in the days when AA was running TPS. Many of you may be aware that over the last few months I've been very quiet in the interwebs, even on Twitter, because I've been working on a new project that was inspired by LynnLinking. The project is The Progressive News Centre (PNC), which is sort of Lynn's Daily Links on steroids (I hope). The first site to be rolled out is PNCAU, the Australian edition. It can be found here http://pncau.net. It still has a few bugs in it, so hasn't been officially launched as yet. Most of it is functional though, so I hope you give it a try and offer some constructive criticism on it, as well as providing some feedback on other features you'd like to see added. Hopefully, the site can be officially launched in the New Year. After that, I will be launching versions for the other main Anglosphere nations (New Zealand, Canada, the UK and US). I've got all the domain names registered PNCNZ, PNCUK, PNCUS and PNCCanada (unfortunately PNCCA was already taken :-[), with both .com and .net variations of each. I've also acquired the following domain names: progressivenewscentre.(com,.net, and .org) and progressivenewscenter.(com,.net, and .org) just in case someone types in the AmerEnglish spelling. At the same time as registering these domain names I also acquired the following: conservativenewscentre (.com, .net and .org) and conservativenewscenter (.com, .net and .org). I've no real intention of doing anything with those two however, I only acquired them to stop anyone else registering them. I consider the $60 I spent on registering them as a pretty good investment, even though nothing will probably be done with them (insert evil grin here). In all cases (except the conservative domains), the .net versions will be COMPLETELY ad-free, and will just feature links to articles that are of interest to those of us on the Progressive end of the political spectrum. The .com variants will be the commercial arm, which will have stuff to purchase (t-shirts, books, and more) that will hopefully subsidise (in full or part at least) the whole network). The .org's will just be news and announcements of developments within the PNC network. Anyway, i hope y'all visit the site (http://pncau.net) and let me know what you think. The email for criticism and suggestions is: development at pncau.net Hope you all enjoy.

jaycee

24/11/2013Hello Dan...I already have PNCAU. on my favourites list..I go there nearly every day to check the items...it IS a good site.. congrats and good luck.

TalkTurkey

24/11/2013 Indonesians don't like Abborrrrrtt any better than we do. But their media isn't so Murdochratised as ours. http://t.co/XWLWKLC09z

TalkTurkey

24/11/2013Check out his underpants. Sooner we have a proper flag of our own the better.

jaycee

24/11/2013I don't know why the other guests on the Insiders couch let that fool Stuchbury atke over and dictate the direction of the conversation...at some point, in my world of the building site he would have been told unpolitely to STFU. and give someone else a go!...trouble is..in "polite" society these pricks know how to "work the flooor" with such people...and they take control because they KNOW that polite people will not interupt... I would reccomd a glass of water be kept handy so at least one of the guests can throw it over such a buffoon to "cool his ardour!"

jaycee

24/11/2013http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/ worth it.

TalkTurkey

24/11/2013Alternative Law Jnl ‏@AltLJ 35m Victoria Police tried to prevent this footage from being released, but the coroner ruled it in the public's interest http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-22/coroner-to-release-cctv-of-man-who-died-outside-a-police-station/5110578 …

2353

24/11/2013Hi Dan, Your site looks good. More power to your Sword (pun intended).

TalkTurkey

24/11/2013Stan Steam ‏@StanSteam2 2h Interesting article by Alan Ramsey (SMH) on Abbott advisor Mark Textor... http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/behind-the-curtain-a-view-to-the-wedge/2007/06/22/1182019369226.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap3 … #auspol #indonesia pic.twitter.com/vBo3ooz7zh They don't make journos like Alan Ramsey any more. Except maybe Mike Carlton, to whom, Respect.

Catching Up

24/11/2013Shorten now on. Broken promises. ABC 24

jaycee

24/11/2013Watching a replay of Tanya Plibersek's interview with Casidy this morning, I see Bazz Cazz doing his best to corner Tanya nad to get her to make accusations against the PM. just for that "gotcha" moment....strange how in the Gillard years, commentators like Bazz were "awash" with advice..awash with "contexualised interpretations" that they wanted the govt' of the day to take...awash with critique and slander....where are these "contexts" now!?....bastards!

jaycee

24/11/2013Cross-posted from Andrew Elder's site... Watching the "doorstop grab" of Textor on the ABC. , one could see by his petulant arrogance that by going "public" he has reached his "Peter Principle" limit. Such people work well behind the scenes...and stay successful as long as they stay there...Textor has neither the personality, looks, nor the "think before you act" pause-button in his makeup to be anything but a "back-room boy". But then..isn't it always the way such fulsome operators end up, through deluded vanity, becoming such fools themselves ! ?

Catching Up

25/11/2013Does one get the impression, that O’Farrel might have no lover for Abbott and co. The NSW eduction minister has sided with Shorten, and sent out a warning to Pyne. ABC 24 Yes, it appears the lies and misinformation are coming home to roost on all sides.

Catching Up

25/11/2013http://nbndefender.com
How many umbrellas are there if I have two in my hand but the wind then blows them away?