The Stalking of Julia Gillard: Kerry-Anne Walsh. A Review

This is an enthralling book. It carries the telling subtitle: How the media and Team Rudd contrived to bring down the Prime Minister. For political tragics, it is a ‘must read’. For others who wonder what on earth goes on in the hallowed halls of Parliament House and the Canberra Press Gallery, it is a revealing exposé. It is literally a ‘page-turner’, one of the most illuminating books on Canberra politics that I have read.

Its author, Kerry-Anne Walsh, is a highly respected political journalist who spent twenty-five years in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, leaving it in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with political spin. She has been a columnist for several local and overseas papers, a producer of TV programs, and a panelist on the ABC’s Insiders and on Sky Agenda.

Ms Walsh kept a diary of the extraordinary time in federal politics from June 2011 to April 2013 during which the Gillard Government was in power. At the end there is a postscript in which 18 June is the date last mentioned, just two days before the two year campaign of sabotage of Julia Gillard and her government by what Walsh describes as ‘Team Rudd’ brought about her replacement by the one she had replaced three years and three days earlier.

Those who have followed federal politics closely will be familiar with every step of the stalking process. What Walsh does is to fill in for the reader the behind-the-scenes machinations in the hothouse that is Canberra politics. She exposes the complicity of the Press Gallery in every move made by Team Rudd. She names those who see themselves as influential ‘players’ in the process: insiders, confidants, king makers and destroyers, and documents their involvement. We know all those she names; the extent of their involvement though is a revelation.

It will not surprise you that Peter Hartcher emerges as perhaps the most determined Rudd supporter, one who despite his senior position as Sydney Morning Herald political and international editor, time and again seemingly discarded the tenets of balanced journalism to become a strident advocate for Rudd and ‘Team Rudd’, a would-be kingmaker who fashioned stories to be powerfully pro-Rudd, and who served as a conduit for every scrap of Team Rudd propaganda he was fed. It is my view that in doing so he damaged the principles of objective journalism, Fairfax media, and most of all himself. Walsh had this to say about Hartcher: “What now of journalists such as the Sydney Morning’ Herald’s Peter Hartcher, who promoted Rudd’s cause month after month? I emailed him questions about the ethics of his reportage and his commentary on the leadership issues, given his robust advocacy for Rudd. He responded that he ‘utterly’ rejected my premise that he had advocated for Rudd, ‘and, therefore, the questions predicated on it’.

There were some political journalists though that Walsh did not name: “…two of Aunty’s most respected political journalists were said to be privy to the inside running on Rudd’s battle plan for his February 2 challenge weeks before the leadership ballot, yet they chose to keep this to themselves.” I wonder who they were: Chris Uhlmann, Barrie Cassidy, Tony Jones, or someone else?

Writing about the never-ending succession of deadlines set by Team Rudd or media pundits by which Julia Gillard would be gone, Walsh says: ”When one deadline fails to eventuate, it should be an embarrassment for a gullible media; when dozens fail to materialize over two years, it’s been a massive, humiliating con…We in the Fourth Estate have much to answer for.” She goes on to write: “As the ABC’s political editor at 7.30, Chris Uhlmann, remarked frankly after the day of high farce: [the day of the aborted 2013 Rudd challenge] ‘The media has played a role in this, and it’s for others I guess to parse how well or how badly the media has done. There’s not a shadow of doubt that the media has been used to help build momentum, to help build a sense of chaos, particularly this week. And anytime it looked like it was falling off, there was someone else [from Team Rudd] out and about…There is absolutely no doubt the Rudd forces have been using the media quite cleverly for some time now.”

These are revealing admissions from an insider of a reality that those of us in the Fifth Estate suspected for a long while. Yet the wider electorate is likely still largely oblivious of the media’s grossly manipulative behaviour.

Walsh confirms what we have been saying here for ages when she writes: “The press gallery can be a beast that feeds on itself. Apart from attending the occasional press conference, Question Time or ministerial interview, gallery journalists are shackled to their desks. Their company is each other; their sounding boards are each other; their judgements about the political angle of the day are formed out of exchanges with each other. But the competition is fierce for a headline story – to be the agenda-setting pundit, or to be the first online to repeat a whisper. The added dimension for journalists nowadays is the voracious appetite for novelty that the twenty-four-hour online story beast demands. Coupled with the sacking by newspapers of experienced sub-editors and fact-checkers, journalists find themselves in a dangerous new space of unvetted reporting. In this climate, the anonymous quote – once used only to protect legitimate deep throats or to give nuance to a story – became the most popular bedrock for Gillard-Rudd leadership stories that dominated headlines and threatened the PM and her government. Every rule in the handbook of good journalism was broken.”

Later Walsh writes: “Over the last few years there have been serious reporting mistakes, gross errors of judgements, biased commentary and empowering of Team Rudd’s agenda. When the house of cards collapsed – twice – those journalists remained at their desks. And they all pull handsome salaries; they are paid more than a backbencher in many cases, and among the upper echelons as much as ministers. But while ministers are forced into abject mea culpas and apologies for mistakes, we in the fourth estate simply waltz on to the next project without acknowledging our errors. The media holds politicians up to the highest possible standards of behaviour. Not even human error or a slight slip of the tongue escapes our harsh judgements; the echo of ridicule about Gillard’s mispronunciation in April 2011 of ‘hyperbole’, for instance, still reverberates. Something has to give.”

Indeed, something ought to give. But will it, given the dilapidated and steadily collapsing state of the Fourth Estate, its degraded state of journalism, its clearly partisan orientation, and the political and commercial intent of its owners? Sadly, the answer seems to be NO!

Let’s now see what Walsh has to say about the polls: “The fortnightly Newspoll published by The Australian, the monthly AC Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers, and the ad hoc Galaxy polls published in News Limited tabloids are treated by journalists as more important when assessing the government’s performance than its achievements or policies. Yet these polls are at best arbitrary snapshots of the public’s mood, tiny random samples of a voter’s reflexive reaction to events of the day – reactions that are strongly influenced by the media’s portrayal of the way the government is faring. And the way the media interprets the polls influences the next poll – constant cries that the government is wretched and doomed, is led by a wretched and doomed leader, affect the perception the voting public has of the government and its prime minister. Journalists who habitually ply statistics to promote the case that a government or its leader is terminal when there are months, even years, before an election are engaging in fraudulent misrepresentation. They are conning the public.”

Continuing with her appraisal of polls, Walsh writes: “These days the regular published newspaper polls concentrate on voting intentions alone, and reporters simply look back at political events of the previous fortnight and draw conclusions about the issues that have affected the public mood – even if there is no proven connection. They then peer into their crystal balls and declare that, based on their deductions and the numbers in front of them, it spells doom or success at an election that can be the political equivalent of light years away. Yet the future is full of events, circumstances, people, twists and turns that will affect and maybe change voters’ opinions of their elected representatives. Because the headline results are circulated the night before, so as to maximize a particular newspaper’s bang for its bucks, the polls are absorbed and spat out by television and radio from dawn the next day. The conclusions of those journalists and commentators who interpret the polls frame the political discourse for the day, sometimes for forty-eight hours, and are echoed in the news analyses from other media outlets.

“Independent polling analyst Andrew Catsaras is appalled by how the polls are often interpreted, and that the interpretation is then mimicked elsewhere. Even polls that show no change, or changes within the 3 per cent margin of error are splashed around by the commissioning organization. The Australian, for example, is brilliant at prominently running reams of copy on polls that haven’t shifted, or only shifted slightly, setting an artificial news agenda for the day. ‘The papers that spend money on these polls need to make news stories out of them, even if there’s nothing to report’, Catsaras tells me. ‘The interpretation is often distorted – if they want to promote a leadership story, they can do it. What is a statistical variation can be interpreted or spun around something that has occurred in the political world in the previous fortnight, even if there is no connection at all.’


Her final words on polls are these: “Many senior politicians privately anguish over the influence Newspoll and The Australian have on power plays and the standing and conduct of governments and opposition, but they feel helpless to take on what is now treated as an omniscient part of the political infrastructure. They also need to keep News Limited onside; over the years The Australian’s editors, using polls as its principle weapon, have worked deftly to erode the standing of governments or leaders they don’t like or don’t deem fit to govern.”

There you have it, from an experienced insider. There you have what we have been saying here for years about political journalists, polls, the media owners, indeed about the whole Fourth Estate. A truly satisfying aspect of Kerry-Anne Walsh’s book is the confirmation of so much of what we have known or suspected and written about for so long.

It is to be hoped that in the next edition she adds an afterword that covers the final two days of the Gillard government, how Team Rudd finally succeeded, and how we lost an outstanding leader, Julia Gillard.

Seldom have I read a political exposition so revealing, so informative, so full of insights, so readable, so lucidly written. This review can but touch upon some of its highlights; the book itself needs to be read to unearth its treasure trove. Anyone interested in federal politics that buys a copy, or downloads the E-book version onto a reader, will not be disappointed.

The Stalking of Julia Gillard: How the media and Team Rudd contrived to bring down the Prime Minister, Kerry-Anne Walsh, Allen & Unwin, 2013, RRP$29.99.

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Ad astra

14/07/2013Folks I hope this review of Kerry-Anne Walsh’s book: [i]The Stalking of Julia Gillard How the media and Team Rudd contrived to bring down the Prime Minister[/i] will give you a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes machinations and skullduggery that went on during the three years of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership. You will all know some of it, but this book reveals the depths to which her adversaries sank to undermine, and finally destroy her leadership. As a review it can serve only to give you a glance, a foretaste of this revealing book. If you are interested in the details, many sordid, you need to read this absorbing book from cover to cover. It is available in print and for downloading to your reader. Here is one source for the book: http://www.booktopia.com.au/the-stalking-of-julia-gillard-kerry-anne-walsh/prod9781742379227.html?gclid=CJiJ9Y6NrrgCFQYepAodKykAgw Here is where you can find a downloadable version: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Title/book-peg-Lsp4NEmoHVjcbaVbbA/page1.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=google-shopping&utm_campaign=product-listings&kwd= Your comments, as always, will be welcome.

jaycee

14/07/2013There's no escape for the culprits of the Forth Estate..their names, their actions, their guilt are forever history....all that remains is their condemnation. "When once the tottering house begins to shrink..thither comes all the weight by an instinct"

Gravel

14/07/2013Ad Astra Thank you for this. It does justify what yourself and many here have been saying and seeing since Julia took over the leadership. It is also the reason that I have lost all emotional connection to politics since Julia was replaced. It will be with a very heavy heart that I vote at the next election.

Pikiranku

14/07/2013Thanks, AA, I haven't yet read this book but I will. One of the questions that spring to mind is: Why do we have a Press Gallery at all? It's not as though it's any longer necessary to have reporters on the spot to tell us what is happening in our parliament. Parliament is broadcast daily and available on the internet, so this bunch of expensive, self-indulgent, inward-looking, self-serving unprofessionals is now totally anachronistic. All they serve to do is to distort the facts coming from Canberra. Newspapers are frantically cutting costs and shedding staff, so while they're at it why don't they do themselves and the rest of the country a favour and consign these dodoes to history? Of course the answer probably lies in the fact that newspapers are no longer maintained in order to inform the public or even to make money for shareholders, but are primarily propaganda tools for a few super-rich individuals who wish to control our minds. And as long as the members of the Press Gallery know and follow the rules, feeding us the approved information, their positions are assured. The Peter Hartchers might appear to be players, might even believe they are; but they're actually pawns.

2353

14/07/2013You would have to wonder when the Canberra Press Gallery generally started to believe their own publicity. Is it that they believe that the best "competition" for the next election is Rudd vs Turnbull and are attempting to arrange that to sell more papers/airtime? Unfortunately the probably unintended consequence of the Press Gallery's actions (especially if books such as this get a wide readership) is to diminish their own creditability. While I understand a few internet sites have sought or gained "admission" to the Press Gallery, I question the reasons for this. If you're in the "club" it is very easy to become part of the "club" - and in reality with the current PM claiming to spend a fair bit of time on his back desk in no so tropical Brisvegas, what benefit is a reporter some 1500km away from the "action" anyway?

Nellie

14/07/2013Thanks for the review - half way through the book and can't it down. A real eye opener.

Catching up

14/07/2013One wonders if it would have bee different if Julia Gillard herself took the time and effort to cater to the media. If she also spent hours on the phone, as others did. We still have to wait for the time. that Ms Gillard decides to let us in on all that happened over the last three years. I bet, that we will have to wait, as she, and it appears, she alone, will not do anything to bring Labor down. Whether Rudd wants us to believe it or not, he is running on all that Gillard had in place. As for the polls, how does one disseminate what they mean, while ignoring up to 30% undecided that has been there for most of the time. That is up to 30%, no less than 15% sitting on the fence.

Mal

14/07/2013Lets get this straightJulia Gillard was brought down by the Murdoch Press Tony Abbott and her own party detractors so we can talk about for as long as we like but it looks like Kevin Rudd has got some chance of stopping Abbott where as we had no hope before. So lets not talk about it any more as much as I respected Julia Gillard and wish her well Abbott has to be stopped and Rudd is our only hope love him or loath him.

Bilko

14/07/2013AA You have certainly raised my interests so I shall buy the book from my meager pension suitable increased by the best government that we have had in nearly 20 years. I have failed to pick up Grogs Fifth Estate book on my trips to the shops but will keep my eyes and memory alert. As an old instructor remarked "Be alert we need more lerts" much to the dismay of my grandchildren who respond not again. ps I notice a few of my comments dropping off the grid is there a problem??? or is it just me.

42 long

14/07/2013Finished the book a couple of days ago. Having put a lot of time into many suitable sites I was surprised that few new facts (if any) were provided. As always confirmation is helpful and it is a good thing that the book has been written. the writer is pleasingly candid, but I would have liked more depth in some areas. This is just My wish and the book has it's market and readership target. Thanks to Peter wicks, IA and the links on TPS, I found myself to be quite well informed on most of the matters. Aren't some people creeps though? Some quality has gone I'm afraid. Sometimes there is no justice.

Patriciawa

14/07/2013Agreed, Gravel. Whatever I want to say right now is not helpful to Labor. For the moment it's better to say nothing.

Janet (jan@j4gypsy)

14/07/2013 Thanks for a great review Ad. Read the book (on Kindle from Amazon) over the last couple of weeks. Felt sick, quite literally, to have affirmed so openly, and by an “insider”, what so many of us thought we were seeing but never were able to confirm. And then came relief. It was, though, not particularly an empathetic or even altruistic relief for Julia; it was far more selfish. I was relieved that I wasn't mad after all. It was the relief at knowing one WAS the victim of abuse; and worse, of an abuser who had consistently said: “There IS no abuse. It is all in your own mind/behaviour/thinking etc.” It wasn't. And I remain appalled, and pretty enraged. What do you call the emotional/psychological illness that is induced by this kind of abuse -- the abuse that denies it is abuse -- especially when it is carried out on a mass scale? Or, more specifically, what is induced in the national psyche when one or more of its institutions, but particularly the institution of “the media”, refuses to describe and reflect what is real, while denying it is doing just this? There has been another kind of relief, some of it appearing in blogs, and on Twitter, often with a quite guilty aside that one is ashamed to be relieved. It is the relief that the moment we changed from a female to a male PM, the other kind of abuse, the direct abuse to and of the female PM by the rest of the politariat and the mainstream media ... stopped dead. Some of the relief was gendered: see No Place for Sheep's “Why Julia Gillard is my sister” ( http://noplaceforsheep.com/2013/07/03/why-julia-gillard-is-my-sister/ ) on the relief for women in not having that abuse drip into one's own female veins, because there's no avoiding it. Some was sisterly, albeit a bit patronising (would this be written about a male PM?), such as Claire Wright's piece, 'Former prime minister Julia Gillard can finally relax and enjoy herself' ( http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/former-prime-minister-julia-gillard-can-finally-relax-and-enjoy-herself/story-fni0cwl5-1226671929796 ). We no longer have to watch and witness the bear-baiting, the open-mouthed jeering at the alleged inadequacies of the female PM's government either. A weird semblance of civilised debate returned, immediately, to the pages of newspapers. But, above all, we no longer have to leap to protect her, the savagely stalked and abused PM, as hundred of thousands of us have done in the last three years. I'm not yet sure if there is relief in that. There is still infinite sadness, anger, and a sense of loss of purpose, so well expressed by Gravel on TPS. If purpose returns, then I'm with those who will work for removing the Press Gallery from the Parliament building, and/or dismantling it altogether. Andrew Elder has been consistently proposing this in the last few months. The mental health of the nation depends upon it. That Kerry-Ann Walker has truly hit the Press Gallery below the waterline in her book may just be reflected in the fact that there are very few reviews around, except perhaps Mark Latham's -- http://www.afr.com/p/national/arts_saleroom/mark_latham_shame_on_the_canberra_unhJxxsoQjtvJaZT7QVIVO -- anywhere. Thank you again, Ad, for yours.

Austin 3:16

14/07/2013Jane says: [quote]ToM, as usual like all barrackers, you are being willfully dishonest about the carbon price. It is not, nor has it ever been a tax. when you can show that it was applied as a tax, you might have some credibility, but I won't hold my breath.[/quote] The Australian Government at Clean Energy Future says [quote]"The carbon pricing mechanism will start with a fixed price on carbon like a tax..... "[/quote] http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/securing-a-clean-energy-future/chapter-3-putting-a-price-on-carbon-pollution/ David Pannell Director, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy at University of Western Australia. 30 June 2011, 2.36pm EST - https://theconversation.com/au [quote]I haven’t seen them try to argue that their carbon pricing system is not a tax. In the circumstances, this is probably wise. Even though, technically it involves purchase and surrender of emission permits rather than a tax, in practice the effect is basically the same as a tax. [/quote]

42 long

14/07/2013By any measure Julia Gillard's workplace would not meet bullying standards. I always recall Pyne and Hockey heckling her as she walked alone through the grounds of parliament. Big hairy chested men eh! Not the one instance but all of it never stopping just trying to make her make ONE slip-up and have it jumped on and interpreted by a manipulating media who don't report news but make things happen for the fun of it or for making a profit for murky who wants a government that cowtows to his wishes. As for the crowds who believe what the detestable 2GB spruik, they would deserve the bad deal they would get from the LieNP . The fact that anything repeated often enough is accepted as truth is well proven and should scare us as to it's effectiveness. Those who support corrupt media because it suits them to, are still subject to its effect anytime the forces choose. IT'S BAD FOR EVERYONE

Ad astra

14/07/2013jaycee You are right: “[i]…their names, their actions, their guilt are forever history....all that remains is their condemnation.”[/i] Gravel Thank you for your comment. Many will feel like you: “[i]It will be with a very heavy heart that I vote at the next election.”[/i] Kevin Rudd owes us a solid win at the next election after all he has done. Pikiranku Thank you – I’m sure you will enjoy the book. Your question is germane: “[i]Why do we have a Press Gallery at all?”[/i] 2353 I agree: “[i]…the probably unintended consequence of the Press Gallery's actions (especially if books such as this get a wide readership) is to diminish their own creditability.” [/i]In my opinion the credibility of most of the Fourth Estate is already shot. Nellie Like you I found the book hard to put down. Catching up It would indeed be fascinating if eventually Julia Gillard decides to let us in on all that happened over the last three years. Mal Many would agree with: “[i]Abbott has to be stopped and Rudd is our only hope, love him or loath him.”[/i] Bilko I am confident you will find the book enthralling.

Michael Taylor

14/07/2013Congratulation, Ad Astra, on another great post.

xiaoecho

14/07/2013Thanks for another great post Ad Astra. I am curious about the strange and fearful way people react to criticism of Kevin Rudd. I have a small anti Abbott facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheAbbottoir and there seems to be a consensus that any mention of PM Gillard is 'not helpful', when being polite or if being rude 'Get over it' Any truth telling about Kevin is seen as treason and succour to the enemy. What is this about? I see it here on this page today.

Ad astra

14/07/201342long Yes, confirmation is comforting. We are not imagining it all. You are spot on: it is workplace bullying writ large. [i]”Those who support corrupt media because it suits them to, are still subject to its effect anytime the forces choose.”[/i] Exactly! Patriciawa Kevin Rudd owes us big time. Janet Good to see you back again. Thank you for your comment. You are right: “[i]…to have affirmed so openly, and by an “insider”, what so many of us thought we were seeing but never were able to confirm.”[/i] That to me was the big revelation. Xiaoecho Thank you for your comment. I can’t explain why Kevin is a protected species. For me, he needs to redeem himself – a strong election win would be a start. Michael Taylor Thank you Michael – a fine compliment from a great fellow-blogger.

Ad astra

14/07/2013Folks I'm calling it a day.

John Bloomfield

14/07/2013Thanks Ad astra for another informative post - the book is a must read. I stopped reading Hartcher some years ago - his grossly unfair commentary I think is symptomatic of the whole of the Fairfax media operation. Their continued support of the shock jock radio networks is unforgivable to all intelligent decent observers. Fairfax has lost all credibility as a source of fair political commentary, as a result I no longer buy any mainstream newspapers. Rudd's friendly treatment from the MSM makes me deeply suspicious of the likelihood that Murdoch has now added Rudd as a second string to his corporate bow for the coming election. The apparent watering down of climate change policy is also deeply worrying - it does not bode well for Earth's climate. This report on our continuing suicidal consumption of fossil fuels is sobering: http://theconversation.com/the-black-decade-15998 The ongoing CO2 pollution is so serious that I think any argument as to whether any implemented mitigation measure constitutes a "carbon tax" or an "ETS" is frivolously moot. Whatever it is, it needs to be MORE effective, not less, if humanity is to survive the next few hundred years. This "atmospheric" CO2 experiment being conducted by industrialists and sycophantic politicians is for real - we only have this one Earth! What are they thinking???

jane

14/07/2013Austin, when I see a carbon price component included in my grocery bills, or on fuel, registration, insurance, services and maintenance of my car, or on council rates, personal insurances, phone & internet bills, household goods, the price of a meal etc, I will agree that it is a tax. There is a tax imposed on the above, but it's not the carbon price, it's the GST, which costs far more than the carbon price included in a power bill. Ad astra, thanks for the review of [i]The Stalking of Julia Gillard[/i]. I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy as yet, but from what I have read above, I think it will make intriguing and infuriating reading. Infuriating because it confirms our belief that the appalling, scurrilous treatment of our first female PM can be laid firmly at the feet of The Termite & his enablers in the lazy, incompetent, mendacious Press Gallery and to a lesser extent, the Liars Party and the wider msm. What makes my rage white hot is that if, instead of conducting his selfish, treacherous, arrogant, spiteful sustained campaign of destabilisation and demonisation of Julia Gillard, The Termite had either left politics altogether or got behind the government and the party he claims to support, there would have been no hung Parliament and the government would have been looking at another term with a comfortable majority. Like Gravel and Patricia, I cannot take any pleasure in the improved ratings, obtained as they have been on the back of the treachery of The Termite and his cabal. Every time I see his smug face, smirking out of the TV, I want to smash it with a cricket bat. I will vote ALP in the election in spite of The Termite's restoration, because the government has the best, really the only, policies. He should also reflect that if Julia Gillard was as dishonourable, mendacious and treacherous as he is, his place in the sun would be very brief indeed. I agree with janet that this book has dealt a relevance blow to the press gallery and unless they lift their game, it will be permanent, because the rise of the 5th estate undermines them more with each passing day. I haven't bought a paper for several years; I prefer to read news, comment and opinion here and at sites like Cafe Whispers, Truth Seeker, Andrew Elder and twitter, which i've taken to with a passion lately.

DMW

14/07/2013xiaoecho @ 9:33 PM, [I]I am curious about the strange and fearful way people react to criticism of Kevin Rudd.[/I] There was a time not so long ago that groups of people would brook no criticism of Ms Gillard. Many of those people also reacted in a fearful way as if Ms Gillard could do no wrong. But let's face it Ms Gillard was deserving of some criticism just as Mr Rudd is now deserving of some and all leaders are at times deserving of some. Some of those currently fearful of any 'straying from the script' that the resurrected Mr Rudd is our 'saviour' are likely to be people who believed everything they read about Ms Gillard being incompetent, scatter brained etc. and fear any type of criticism of Mr Rudd will be amplified by the meeja and the machine behind ensuring that Mr Abbott is our next Prime Minister. Unfortunately we are stuck with Mr Rudd and while at the moment he appears the lesser of two evils we may soon discover something different. We can only hope that some of those that supported Ms Gillard up to the end and have chosen to remain as members of the government have the fortitude (and support) to keep Mr Rudd's ego and messianic tendencies in check.

Catching up

15/07/2013Many, I am sure, will go our best to keep Rudd in check.

lyn

15/07/2013Today’s Links Bob Ellis: Murdoch’s brainwashing fails by @independentaus Even to the most impartial observer it is clear to see that Murdoch’s News Limited has an anti-Labor agenda, with the return of Kevin Rudd Bob Ellis writes that their brainwashing plan has failed gloriously. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/murdochs-brainwashing-fails/ Leader Attitudes by Ghost Who Votes http://ghostwhovotes.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/nielsen-130715-leaders.png Labor and Coalition neck and neck in latest Nielsen poll, Rudd leads as preferred PM by ABC Labor and the Coalition are neck and neck after preferences in the latest Nielsen opinion poll.The poll says the two major parties each have 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote - a seven-point gain for Labor on last month's result http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-15/major-parties-neck-and-neck-in-latest-poll/4819590 Turnbull holds forth on holding back by @awelder For the popular Turnbull to replace the unpopular Abbott would require smarter Liberal strategy than they have available. It is important to keep in mind that Liberal strategists are morons http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/turnbull-holds-forth-on-holding-back.html Land Grabs — the new global oil and gold rush by @Jarrapin The take-home message from the global Land Rush is this: if the lure of agricultural riches is such that powerful interests are prepared to violate people’s rights and destroy their livelihoods in the process, why aren’t we having a proper debate in this country about Australia’s future food and water security in a warming planet http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/land-grabs-the-new-global-oil-and-gold-rush/ Sexism and Political Authority – It’s Not Just Julia Gillard’s Enemies Who Airbrush Her Record by @djackmanson Mr Rudd’s mass popularity is not based on any idea that he will make things better for Australian workers; in fact he has insisted that a 2% increase in productivity each year is to be demanded from us, and everything I’ve described Ms Gillard as saying, she said as his deputy. http://ausvotes2013.com/2013/07/14/sexism-and-political-authority-its-not-just-julia-gillards-enemies-who-airbr Repudiating the Negative by @saint13333 Laurie Oakes tells us that the Coalition is about to launch a big budget advertising campaign against the Prime Minister. He describes it as an “Artillery barrage”.The campaign comprises both positive and negative advertisements and are based on the results of focus group interviews http://theaimn.com/2013/07/13/repudiating-the-negative/ Canberra Press Gallery named, probably not shamed by @btckr Last Tuesday, one-time press gallery journalist Kerry-Anne Walsh exposed former colleagues in her book The Stalking of Julia Gillard Walsh names those who should be ashamed of allowing political journalism to degenerate to a degree that has rendered it irrelevant for those who are interested in an informed and impartial debate. http://truthinmediaresourcecentre.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/canberra-press-gallery-named-probably-not-shamed/ Cut and paste churnalism- in the lead up to the 2013 Australian federal election campaign by @no_filter_Yamba Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking. http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/ Gillard and Rudd: a short history by @JohnQuiggin2 A crucial point in understanding the issue is that Rudd was, and is, well-liked by the Australian public, but disliked, even hated, by many of his colleagues and other insiders.1 By contrast, Gillard was, and is, well liked, by her colleagues. http://crookedtimber.org/2013/07/14/30025/ Could anything work for Abbott? by @MigloMT Three years of pure madness have been wasted as the playing field has now changed and the polls have thus turned. Yet still he goes on about the boats and electricity prices, while munching on pies and clutching to the pamphlet that will change the world. Same old same http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/could-anything-work-for-abbott/ Sunday Editorial – The Minors by @bodypoliticaus Christine Milne took to Insiders today to release the Green’s 2013 election pamphlet, and what we saw is an interesting exercise in politics.modern looking document details the minor part’s policies including a $50 a week increase to Newstart payments that would cost $9 billion to the budget. http://bodypoliticaus.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/sunday-editorial-the-minors/ Latest LEMONs – (Liberal Endless Mantra Of NO) by @otiose94 http://otiose94.wordpress.com/ Yes, we are going through a weak patch by @1RossGittins Note that employment is still growing, though at a slower rate - only about 7500 jobs in June, compared with about 18,000 jobs a month around the turn of the year - with almost all the new jobs being part-time. http://www.rossgittins.com/2013/07/yes-we-are-going-through-weak-patch.html Rudd dumps carbon tax, leaves Abbott punch drunk: media round up by @WTDeniers The move neutralizes the cost of living concerns (unjustified) voters had about the “tax”Rudd’s move takes from Abbott and the LNP there most effective line of attack on Labor http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/rudd-dumps-carbon-tax-leaves-abbott-punch-drunk-media-round-up-1/ The lobby group that got much more bang for its buck by James Panichi Targeting marginal seats is nothing new in politics. But the gambling industry showed that it could also work for a lobby group facing a panicky government. http://inside.org.au/the-lobby-group-that-got-much-more-bang-for-its-buck/ Turnbull opens defamation door with inaccurate claims Quigley was “fired” by @renailemay Turnbull has left himself open to a defamation action here. I am sure the mild-mannered Quigley won’t pursue one, especially as he’s planning to retire from corporate life and is already a multi-millionaire, but as a journalist I am very, very conscious that the minute you publish an allegation that someone has been “fired”, unless you have direct and clear evidence http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/13/turnbull-opens-defamation-door-with-inaccurate-claims-quigley-was-fired/ NBN Co paying lobbyists to woo the Coalition? This madness must stop. by @renailemay NBN Co must operate as the Government of the day wants it to operate; it is not independent; and its shareholder ministers have a constant, ongoing, say in how it is operated. And that operation clearly should not include the hiring of political lobbyist firms. http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/13/nbn-co-paying-lobbyists-to-woo-the-coalition-this-madness-must-stop/?utm_source=dlvr.it& Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 15 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

janice

15/07/2013Ad astra, Thank you for yet another excellent piece. I read THE book and all the while I marvelled at the expertise Walsh displayed in her writing craft. She did not write an "opinion" piece but presented an accurate account of the events as they occurred over the term of JG's Government as well as the involvement of the players in the whole sorry affair. When I finally put the book down, I was left with a numbness of mind I can't describe. No anger, no hate, just a nothingness and despair that a whole nation was conned so completely by a handful of "respected" journalists and a bunch of self-serving (elected) politicians, all backing a single vengeful, egotistic psychopath to re-install himself into the top job. The result of the last three years of this destructive campaign leaves the people with an election choice between two men who lack principle and integrity. The choice, though a lousy one, is clear because although one is a smiling assassin, a termite and egotist, at least he has a line-up of good people who have the interests of the nation at heart. So it is with a sorrowful, heavy heart that I will tick the Labor boxes on the ballot papers but I no longer have any emotional connection.

Ad astra

15/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

bob macalba

15/07/2013How do we get even? there's lots of us and im sure collectively somehow we could make their lives miserable and uncomfortable, pick one of the bastards every day and inundate them with e-mails, phone calls, letters and even dropping in at their workplaces just to annoy the crap out of them, basically being a bloody nuisance and pissing them off taking up their time with mundane crap, starting with that prissy prat harcher..just a thought cheers

Ad astra

15/07/2013John Bloomfield Thank you for your comment. You write: “[i]I stopped reading Hartcher some years ago - his grossly unfair commentary I think is symptomatic of the whole of the Fairfax media operation...
Fairfax has lost all credibility as a source of fair political commentary, as a result I no longer buy any mainstream newspapers.[/i]” I’m sure many have done the same, which is one reason why Fairfax continues to sink. Jane When you read the book, you will indeed find it “[i]intriguing and infuriating reading.[/i] janice I empathize with your feelings, and your comment: “[i]The result of the last three years of this destructive campaign leaves the people with an election choice between two men who lack principle and integrity.”[/i] Kevin Rudd owes all Julia Gillard’s supporters a thumping win at the election. It will not negate his behaviour, but will keep Slogan-Abbott’s hands off the wheels of power.

Truth Seeker

15/07/2013Ad, thanks for a great review :-) As you said, confirming what many of us already knew, or suspected :-O Love your work :-) Cheers :grin: BTW, Posted a couple over the weekend; [b]"Tony… Stop the LIES, and Stop the RORTS!"[/b] http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/tony-stop-the-lies-and-stop-the-rorts/ [b]"Tony (Facts?… What facts) Abbott!"[/b] http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/tony-facts-what-facts-abbott/ Cheers :-)

Catching up

15/07/2013He does not believe in a market system. He believes it is the non delivery of an invisible substance to no one. Can anyone tell me what he is saying,. Today at Catholic school at Camden.

KHTAGH

15/07/2013Thanks for that brilliant review in this piece, I do notice with horror that Limited News today is not mentioning the rise in the polls by Rudd & Labor it shows they are not interested in the polls when they don't suit their aims. No in depth mention of Abbott's rorting of his expenses etc regardless of the publisher picking up all his out of pocket expenses, in my books that makes it straight out [b]fraud[/b]!, they are still trying their hardest to get Abbott elected.

lyn

15/07/2013Hi Ad, Thankyou very much for your article, another wonderful read. Ad I think your article is much more enjoyable than bothering to read the book. Your opinion is always so honest Ad and so genuine. I have always quite liked Kerri Anne Walsh, well sometimes anyway. From her appearances on The Insiders her opinion sometimes positive. From all the excerpts & reviews I have read and now your brilliant, informative Opinion/Review Ad, even though you say [quote]Seldom have I read a political exposition so revealing, so informative, so full of insights, so readable, so lucidly written. [/quote] “ I still won’t read her book”. Your article is featured in Blogotariat again:- The Stalking of Julia Gillard: Kerry-Anne Walsh. A Review http://www.blogotariat.com/node/1144144 A few other Reviews for interests sake:- [quote]Uncovered: The secret circle that brought down Julia as Kevin Rudd went 'Choo-choo!' [/quote] Everything you need to know but hadn't bothered to read in Kerry-Anne Walsh's book, The Stalking of Julia Gillard: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cut-paste/uncovered-the-secret-circle-that-brought-down-julia-as-kevin-rudd-went-choo-choo/ [quote]The Newtown Review of Books KERRY-ANNE WALSH The Stalking of Julia Gillard: How the media and Team Rudd contrived to bring down the Prime Minister. Reviewed by Linda Funnell [/quote]More than once Walsh shows the causal chain of press attacks on Julia Gillard’s leadership leading to poor polls which lead to more press attacks which lead to worse polls. When positive polls emerged, as they did earlier this year, the press focus on the negative swiftly followed. http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/07/11/kerry-anne-walsh-the-stalking-of-julia-gillard-how-the-media-and-team-rudd-contrived-to-bring-down-the [quote]Review – The Stalking of Julia Gillard by Matthew Horan No Fibs[/quote] it’s here that Walsh fails. There’s little insight into how the media thought. There’s a recounting of it, and Walsh’s interpretation of it, but no substantive interviews with the journalists in question. There’s an understandable reluctance to reveal sources, but surely some insight into newsroom decisions would be worthwhile. Equally, [b]Walsh’s analysis of the media is her analysis, rarely backed up by third-party sources[/b]. It’s her essay – her crie de coeur – on the ills befalling the Gallery, not an independent and sober analysis of what did and didn’t (or should have) happened. http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/09/review-the-stalking-of-julia-gillard/o Catching up @ 11:37 AM:- Run Rabbit Abbott has gaffed again big time this morning: “ says you can’t have a market for invisible things sent to nobody” [quote]Emissions scheme a trade in the 'invisible': Abbott [/quote]emissions trading scheme is all about. It's a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one,'' he said, when addressing reporters in Camden, in south-west Sydney, on Monday. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/emissions-scheme-a-trade-in-the-invisible-abbott-20130715-2pzdo.html#ixzz2Z4zqg4YQ [quote]Mr Abbott later offered his analysis of an ETS."It is a market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one," the opposition leader told reporters[/quote]. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/coalition-vindicated-on-carbon-tax-abbott/story-fn3dxiwe-1226679419408

TalkTurkey

15/07/2013Margo Kingston on [i]No Fibs[/i] Is @TonyAbbottMHR really ‘volunteering’? July 15, 2013 http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/15/is-tonyabbottmhr-really-volunteering/

Pikiranku

15/07/2013Gravel & Janice In a couple of brief sentences you've absolutely encapsulated the way I feel too. Thanks for that - as the cliche goes: Trouble shared is trouble halved. It's always a comfort to know that others share your despair. I'll certainly vote Labor in the Senate, but as I live in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat and it doesn't matter a jot who I vote for in the HoReps, I might just be a bit self-indulgent. Scrawling "I'm with Julia" across my ballot-paper is an option. Presumably some scrutineer will get the message. John Bloomfield Your posts are excellent - thoughtful and enlightening. Thanks. Ktagh I'm actually quite relieved that News Corp is still bagging Kevin Rudd. I had this sneaking fear that he had done a deal with them but their continued support of Abbott has diminished my suspicions.

42 long

15/07/2013Perhaps their continued bagging, inaccuracies, deception and negativity will rebound on them. The LieNP ads dumped in my letterbox were so juvenile that a schoolboy in sixth grade could have been the author. Doesn't show much respect for the intelligence of the electorate. How about some FACTS abbott? Be something new from your direction.

Michael

15/07/2013Thank God and anyone else the world and the nation might choise to thank. Tony Abbott has saved us all. There is no climate change. It just isn't happening. Too much carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere? Nope, there's none. Breathe easy folks. Pheww, that was close, huh? What would we do without this remarkable fellow to set us and all of humanity right?

Ad astra

15/07/2013Hi Lyn Thank you for your always-encouraging words, and for providing links to other reviews of Kerry-Anne’s book. I can’t make out how they work at [i]Blogotariat[/i]. Someone titled ‘Admin’ has lifted my entire review, a nice compliment, but there is no attribution to [i]The Political Sword[/i], or the author, and the whole of the text is devoid of paragraphs and thereby hard to read. Why can’t they present their material in a readable form? Linda Funnell’s review in [i]The Newtown Review of Books[/i] is a sound appraisal of the book. In [i]‘no fibs’ Citizen Journalism[/i], Matthew Horan’s review epitomizes so much of contemporary journalistic behaviour. Perhaps that is because he was a former Federal Press Gallery reporter and former Chief of Staff of The [i]Sunday Telegraph[/i]. He thinks and writes like one whose attitudes and beliefs are a derivative of Press Gallery groupthink that Walsh describes so well. His approach to the review is diagnostic of the entrenched problem of incestuousness that we can see within the Press Gallery, but which he and most of his colleagues cannot, so starkly illustrated in its assessment of Julia Gillard’s ‘misogyny speech’. Commenting on Horan’s review, FelineCyclist says: “[i]Matthew’s review reminds me of much of what was said by the Press Gallery about The Misogyny Speech. The Gallery missed the point then and I’m afraid it appears that Matthew has missed the point here. Matthew assesses the book, and finds it lacking, as something it doesn’t intend to be or purport to be.”[/i] Exactly. Horan writes: “[i]But it’s here that Walsh fails. There’s little insight into how the media thought. There’s a recounting of it, and Walsh’s interpretation of it, but no substantive interviews with the journalists in question. There’s an understandable reluctance to reveal sources, but surely some insight into newsroom decisions would be worthwhile. Equally, Walsh’s analysis of the media is her analysis, rarely backed up by third-party sources. It’s her essay – her crie de coeur – on the ills befalling the Gallery, not an independent and sober analysis of what did and didn’t (or should have) happened.”[/i] [b]Horan criticizes Walsh for not writing the book he would have preferred to read![/b] Walsh’s book is based on her diarized observations, which she offers us in lucid detail. Horan wanted something else. Perhaps with the benefit of his recent post-graduate research studies in the later Roman Empire, he could fill the gap that he laments in Walsh’s book. I couldn’t get the link to [i]The Australian[/i] to work – I got a 404 error message.

Michael

15/07/2013http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-15/abbott-dismisses-ets-as-market-in-an-invisible-substance/4820564 Here's Toneeee!

Michael

15/07/2013'Abbott dismisses an ETS as a market in an invisible substance.' http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-15/abbott-dismisses-ets-as-market-in-an-invisible-substance/4820564 Here's Toneeee!

Jason

15/07/2013Michael, Scott Morrison: 'As long as Kevin keeps flying, and Kevin keeps talking, the boats will keep coming'. Yes, that's a direct quote.!

Ad astra

15/07/2013Truth Seeker I enjoyed your latest two pieces. And to think that this man wants to be PM! Catching up I suppose one of his minders dreamt up that description of an ETS: “[i]… the non delivery of an invisible substance to no one[/i], thinking it was humorous. That Slogan-Abbott repeated it, is a reflection of his attitude to AGW, and his arrogance believing anyone with an intellect would swallow such pretense. KHTAGH Thank you for your kind words. News Limited is duplicitous. It prints only what suits its purpose. TT Slogan-Abbott seems to be rorting the Commonwealth allowance scheme. But if he is, will he be exposed and disciplined? We already know the answer.

lyn

15/07/2013Hi Ad Try this one http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/coalition-vindicated-on-carbon-tax-abbott/story-fn3dxiwe-1226679419408

Michael

15/07/2013I think the Coalition spokesfolks are sniffing something. Abbott assures us it can't be carbon dioxide. Judging from what he and Scott Morrison are on record as saying today, perhaps it's nitrous oxide? Or maybe C17H21NO4?

42 long

15/07/2013Nitrous oxide is Known to make one tell the truth> Morescum and the monk would need a strong dose. Hasn't abbott shown how stupid he really is and totally ignorant and contemptuous of anything technical or scientific in nature. What an embarrassment he will continue to be for us if elected to PM.

Ad astra

15/07/2013Hi Lyn Thanks - that one worked. Michael Slogan-Abbott is behaving like a fundamentalist - no matter what evidence you offer him, his mind is already made up. Logic and facts are irrelevant. And this man wants to lead our nation!!!!

Ad astra

15/07/201342 long How right you are - Slogan-Abbott, the alternative leader - is an embarrassment to our nation.

Michael

15/07/201342 Long, hi. Wikipedia tells us: "Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is a chemical compound with the formula N 2O. It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colourless, non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odour and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anaesthetic and analgesic effects. It is known as 'laughing gas' due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as a dissociative anaesthetic." Nitrous oxide knocks people out, and causes giddy irrationalty. In as much as both Abbott and Morrison were spitting out 'giddy irrationality' today, perhaps nitrous oxide is a 'truth drug' when it loosens otherwise facts-eschewing Coalition tongues. I don't think a large serve would be needed to loosen the lips of the two bozos in question. They've been biting their tongues to hold back from sharing their 'reality' since Abbott took the leadership, and letting cats out of bags has always been just a breath away. The most interesting political development of the last few days, as your quote from Morrison confirms, is that the Coalition has shifted from slogans to nonsense. Rudd's got them discombobulated. And digging themselves deeper into the Lewis Carrollian rabbit-hole with each new 'attack' on him.

Curi-Oz

15/07/2013I think I have worked out how Mr Abbott and the rest of the LNP claqueurs can help reduce the CO2 load in the atmosphere ... They could stop talking! This would relieve them of actually developing or promoting policies, which, also being invisible, would therefore be quite easy for them. *sighs* What I most resent about the last 18 months and the last month in particular in observing the political circus, is that my respect for those currently in parliament has so diminished for both major parties. And my respect for the various media players has rarely been lower. This book has merely confirmed that there was something wrong, I just hadn't quite realised how 'wrong' it really had become. I also resent how easy it has become for me (or others) to denigrate both sides of politics. It is not good for me, and I don't think it is good for the country either.

Austin 3:16

15/07/2013Hey Jane, [quote] when I see a carbon price component included in my grocery bills, or on fuel, registration, insurance, services and maintenance of my car, or on council rates, personal insurances, phone & internet bills, household goods, the price of a meal etc, I will agree that it is a tax. [/quote] Ok then based on that here is a quick little list of things that aren't taxes - capital gains tax - mining tax - payroll tax - departure tax - fringe benefit tax - superannuation taxes - income tax Hang on, wait just a minute - they are taxes after all. Much like the carbon tax [quote]There is a tax imposed on the above, but it's not the carbon price, it's the GST, which costs far more than the carbon price included in a power bill.[/quote] Now there's a newsflash - how about you email that back ten years or so and we'll talk about fightback. But imagine this hypothetical - let's say PM Howard just managed to sneak a win in 1996 relying on support from a right wing minority party. And in order to shore up support from those right-wingers he introduced the GST - despite promising that there would never ever be a GST. BUT he very, very cleverly called it the "Goods and Services PRICE". Then tried to tell the Australian people that it wasn't a tax on goods and services it was a PRICE on goods and services. Sure it worked just like a tax - but it wasn't a tax really. Imagine what the pubic reaction would have been. Back to 2013 the mechanism Gillard introduced to attempt to regulate and reduce carbon emissions in Australia works in the same manner as a "carbon tax" would. It's a tax in all but name. Not even that since the the term "carbon tax" is used pretty widely in this country - it's a tax in all but spin. And it was ridiculous sophistry like the "carbon price" that is the root cause of Gillard's downfall. Much as her few and dwindling band of supporters would like to blame Rudd, the MSM, sexism, mind controlling alien overlords from the dark side of the moon etc

jaycee

15/07/2013I am with Patriciawa on this subject...I find it very difficult to even rationalise the possibility of a favourable outcome for Labor in the next election...I would like to see it so, but I have no heart for it. If any of you can get hold of it, there is a brilliant short story by Irwin Shaw, called "The Monument"..(pub' circa 1940's?)...it has all the ingredients of this political affair, but centred in a high-class bar around a decision and consequent arguement between the bar-manager and the owner on the purchase of cheap, "Own Brand" alcohol against the quality product......but of course, with much deeper implications. Unfortunately, the short story has the better ending.

jaycee

15/07/2013You're talking rubbish, Austin..you know it, I know it, we all know it...but you just like the sound of it....like a child with a tin-whistle.

Austin 3:16

15/07/2013Hey Ad, [quote]Abbott is behaving like a fundamentalist[/quote] In a lot of ways he is a fundamentalist - how did the "mad monk" moniker come about ? And you don't have to talk to too many fundies to realise that quite a few of them don't get climate change.

jaycee

15/07/2013"You do know how to whistle, don't you?....You just put your lips together and....blow"

jane

15/07/2013[quote].......he has a line-up of good people who have the interests of the nation at heart.[/quote] Except for his self-serving fellow conspirators. janice. AFAIC, they're every bit as bad as The Termite. If they'd actually had the interests of the country at heart, Julia Gillard would still be PM leading the government to a comfortable majority third term and the ugly misogynist destruction of Julia Gillard wouldn't have occurred. I will never forgive The Termite or his coven of treacherous fellow travelers. If they're bagged, I won't say a word to defend them. bob mcalba @10.31am, I like the way you think. :)

John Bloomfield

15/07/2013Patriciawa, jaycee, "Bridget" over at IA has eloquently summed up my fears/reservations on the return of K Rudd and the associated change in tone of MSM reporting:- http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/murdochs-brainwashing-fails/#comment-151527 A very perceptive and well reasoned post. I think it is safe to say that Murdoch only looks after Murdoch.

jaycee

15/07/2013Yes, John....weird city!.....I too have my doubts.

Watching the Deniers

15/07/2013I'm about 2/3rds into it. I agree, it is an eye opener and reveals something rotten in the heart of the mainstream media. Of course it is not just the Rudd/Gillard tussle News Ltd have distorted: climate change, refugees, the NBN... The Australian is an un-elected and unaccountable political actor. Time to recognise this, and perhaps time to talk about how to counter their misuse of power.

Tom of Melbourne

15/07/2013Austin 3:16 @ July 15. 2013 06:34 PM makes a fair point

jaycee

15/07/2013What I find most..wincingly offensive..is how easy it seems to have been for such an internationally filthy mogul to bribe and threaten (through employment) so many pitiful individuals in the MSM. to not only do his dirty-work, but THEN to take the rap for HIS malevolence! I would have thought that once it would be very difficult to fine ONE citizen to betray their nation..any nation..but now it appears that it only takes a weekly wage and/or a spot on the tele, and suddenly, if we are to go by the behaviour of the MSM., a queue! The only satisfaction I can take away from this whole affair is the thought that "natural justice" will condem those guilty journos' to face their own sense of infamy and disgust whenever and wherever they face some of us in the street.

Austin 3:16

16/07/2013Hey Jane, [quote]If they'd actually had the interests of the country at heart, Julia Gillard would still be PM leading the government to a comfortable majority third term and the ugly misogynist destruction of Julia Gillard wouldn't have occurred.[/quote] Based on what ?

Austin 3:16

16/07/2013Hey Jaycee, FYI substance - that wasn't it.

lyn

16/07/2013Today’s Links The real politics behind a floating price on carbon by Lenore Taylor discussion has been locked in this senseless, fact-free headbutt of a debate about "axing the tax" for so long, it's been easy to forget that reducing emissions - probably by more than the minimum 5% by 2020 agreed by both major parties - is the point of the exercise. The "tax", the trading scheme and even the Coalition's "Direct Action http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/floating-carbon-price-labor-coalition Early move to trading – bad for Abbott says Google by Tristan Edis The question is more about whether this might somehow make it more difficult for Tony Abbott to demonise the scheme in voters’ minds through that nasty word: T-A-X. According to the modern oracle, Google, Abbott may well be trouble. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/15/carbon-markets/early-move-trading-%E2%80%93-bad-abbott-says-google#ixzz2Z6KY4DWx Abbott’s Great Big Carbon Tax Lies – Part 1 by Miriam Moriarty In fact, despite his barrage of criticism directed at Gillard for her alleged ‘lie’ about the carbon tax, Abbott has himself lied again and again about the carbon tax and climate science in general. Let’s have a look at some of these lies here: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/abbotts-great-big-carbon-tax-lies-part-1/show_comments From fixed price to ETS: the complications of reducing emissions by Alan Pears AM Now Mr Abbott is forced to apply the most extreme interpretation of his promise to remove the carbon tax: remove all pricing mechanisms. Until now, many commentators have pointed to the vague wording of his promise to argue that bringing forward the internationally linked trading scheme http://theconversation.com/from-fixed-price-to-ets-the-complications-of-reducing-emissions-16071 Carbon Tax Axed – sellout or smart politics? by rossleighbrisbane The Carbon Tax has had some effect on people’s behaviour, and while the incentives won’t be as strong from July 2014, we were always moving to an emissions trading scheme at some point. One year earlier isn’t significant when compared to the Opposition’s policy of no disincentive at all. http://theaimn.com/2013/07/15/carbon-tax-axed-sellout-or-smart-politics/ Abbott’s “Real Solutions” really lacking fact checking’ by @Mothincarnate I find it funny that the booklet is littered with quotes from Abbott now nearly 20yrs old. Has he not said much of inspiration since? Furthermore, he has made it clear that dredging up old quotes of his that are not in his favour is a mugs game – how is it different here? http://newanthropocene.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/abbotts-real-solutions-really-lacking-fact-checking/ Is @TonyAbbottMHR really ‘volunteering’? by @margokingston1 I am advised that Mr Abbott can claim these activities as official business as the Leader of the Opposition. This is because for travel allowance, official business for office holders is very broad. Effectively he just has to do something for a community group and it can be argued that he is performing official business as LOTO. http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/15/is-tonyabbottmhr-really-volunteering/ FactCheck: have power prices gone up 94% under Labor? by @ConversationEDU Verdict Technically true, though it is wrong to imply that the federal Labor government has been responsible. Most of that rise has been due to much higher network charges, which are set by state-based regulators or by the independent Australian Energy Regulator. http://theconversation.com/factcheck-have-power-prices-gone-up-94-under-labor-15701 Election Timing and the Issues of Election Writs by @AntonyGreenABC Twice today I've been told of a scenario that sees Australia going to the polls on 24 August. The scenario sees the Labor caucus meeting on Monday 22 July to approve Kevin Rudd's proposed rules for electing the Labor Party Leader. Kevin Rudd would then visit the Governor General on Tuesday 23 July to call an election for 24 August. http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/07/election-timing-and-the-issues-of-election-writs.html Should journalists declare themselves? by @btckr Antony Loewenstein ":- We, as journalists, should disclose for whom we vote and any other political affiliations that may affect our reporting. It’s the least we can do to restore trust in an industry that regularly receives low marks by its readers. A 2011 study by Edelman Public Relations found only 33% of the Australian public trusted the press, http://truthinmediaresourcecentre.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/should-journalists-declare-themselves/ Malcolm Lets Not Pretend by @TheHoopla You say business leaders complain about politicians being too “populist” but they would, you see, because they never have to face the public and try to win our hearts and minds. Like it not, Malcolm, popularity still matters http://thehoopla.com.au/pm-pop-u-lar/ Mumbrella video hangout to talk fact-checking as PolitiFact reveals Fairfax tie-up by @mumbrella Politifact Australia, which has previously agreed a partnership with Seven News, says this partnership will allow it to bring content to Fairfax mastheads including the SMH, The Age, The Canberra Times, brisbanetimes.com.au and WAtoday.com.au. http://mumbrella.com.au/frays-politifact-to-partner-with-fairfax-media-167215 It's time, Kevin By Mungo MacCallum old political hard heads have always urged him to go early, while the honeymoon factor is still in play. And now the opposition advertising blitz is under way, the advice applies in spades. There is no doubt the Coalition can and will massively outspend the ALP, and a short campaign at least reduces that advantage http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/mungo-maccallum/2013/07/15/1373855205/its-time-kevin Labor Should Give The Unions Some Space by @newmatilda Unions have also historically delivered big wins for workers, ranging from work health and safety laws, annual leave to equal pay for women. Much more remains to be done in terms of addressing issues like the alarming growth of insecure work. http://newmatilda.com/2013/07/15/labor-should-give-unions-some-space The ASHBY v SLIPPER APPEAL. The full story of an appeal awaiting a decision. by @boeufblogginon I’ve received a number of requests about the Ashby v Slipper appeal. I’ve put all the posts I’ve written into one blog so you can get up to speed on it at your convenience. http://boeufblogginon.wordpress.com/ All of a sudden everybody loves Malcolm by @MigloMT mainstream media, for so long content to guide Abbott into the Lodge, have come to the realisation that they might have been holding the wrong hand. From The Age this morning comes Liberal Party’s best bet: switch to Turnbull. I’ve picked out a few telling sentences: http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/all-of-a-sudden-everybody-loves-malcolm/ Tony (Facts-… What facts) Abbott by Truth Seeker So Tony, instead of wasting money on adverts telling voters lies about the BER, the HIP and the myriad of other spurious claims, you should take a good long, hard look at yourself, get some balls and start doing what you have been well paid for, for the last three + years. http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/tony-facts-what-facts-abbott/ Sorry, productivity isn't almost everything by @1RossGittins Ideological blinkers have prevented many people from seeing that the Gonski reforms to direct greater funding to disadvantaged students should have a productivity pay-off - as should the national disability insurance scheme. http://www.rossgittins.com/2013/07/sorry-productivity-isnt-almost.html Is China in for a hard landing, or is this the new normal? by @TheKouk there seems little doubt that the Chinese economy will remain a global powerhouse. It will be the main driver of global growth and will have a huge appetite for commodities. It is just that the GDP growth rate will seem less impressive, even though in three years China will be only the second country in the world (behind the US) to have annual GDP in excess of $US10 trillion. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/15/is-china-in-for-a-hard-landing-or-is-this-the-new-normal/ Treasurer confirms Labor to drop fixed carbon price by @EcoNewsDaily The current fixed carbon price of $24.15 a tonne would be removed in favour of a floating price, thought to be between $6 and $10 a tonne.Mr Bowen said the government would keep the carbon price compensation package for families in place, http://econews.com.au/news-to-sustain-our-world/treasurer-confirms-labor-to-drop-fixed-carbon-price/ Coalition ads attack Rudd's record, promote positive plan by Frank Chung The ads follow Labor's effort last week, 'Raising the Standards', in which Kevin Rudd called for an end to 'negative politics'. It followed two earlier Liberal Party attack ads, 'Labor Chaos' and 'New Rudd Minister'. http://www.adnews.com.au/adnews/coalition-ads-attack-rudd-s-record-promote-positive-plan The Words Change But The Song Remains The Same by @sortius This interview has demonstrated exactly how far Mal is willing to go to defend his myopic, substandard waste of money. There is no line he would cross, no lie gone untold, & mostly, no data he will reference, in his singular goal of “destroying the NBN”. http://sortius-is-a-geek.com/?p=3164 Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 16 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

TalkTurkey

16/07/2013Ad astra, and Comrades All, It's 4 AM and I'm feeling sad for all those with broken dreams and I don't know what to say because I am one with you myself. I have always written our XPM's name *J*U*L*I*A*, no-one holds her in higher esteem than I do. I believed that in the run home to the election she would show her true mettle and burn off the Abborttians with all the ammunition she has stored up - the wonderful legacy of achievements and legislation her Government has logged in her 3 years at the helm. I believe that she would have fired the afterburners immediately after the last day of Parliament. I had based all my prognostications of the shape of the final battle for Canberra on that. But she was never given the chance - and this by her own Party members. I have never found it hard to write my thoughts for the Political Sword, but I do now. Like many here I seethe with resentment each time I see her puffed-up usurper being fawned over by the same Media that for all her incumbency harried *J*U*L*I*A* so relentlessly, so clandestinely, so despicably. Just six years ago Rudd was our hero, the architect of Howard's end. Today we see him clear for the petty and perfidious creature he is, the first Labor leader since Billy Hughes to be prepared to put his own ego before the interests of this, our noble Australian Labor Party - first Labor Party in the world to form a national Government, and the Labor Party with the greatest continuous existence. No fly-by-night political party ours, but the one with the proudest tradition of all, having weathered every storm in its turbulent but triumphant history. But we have never had a situation such as Rudd (and Rudd [i]alone[/i]) has presented us with. From the moment of his deposing - when he began a campaign that was nearly successful in bringing down the Government as it turned out, but instead delivered him a uniquely serendipitous hung parliament which with the connivance of the yellow media he was able to exploit for the next three years - relentlessly destroying every bit of good news in his quest for vengeance, while completely careless of the fate of the Government itself, as long as he could not be at its head. All I can think of to say is that we MUST NOT let our grief and resentment cloud our main objective, which must be to stave off the worst of all threats, that a rabid rightist cabal of religious fanatics seize power - for if the Abborttians were to win Government in the next couple of months, that will be IT forever afa concerns democracy in the Wide Brown Land. Comrades it puts us in a dreadful bind of loyalties, the like of which I never hoped to see. The overweening necessity though is now not to win a Labor Government of the kind we hoped for, but to fight off the Orc-like hordes of the Far Right. AFTER THAT we must, and we will, address the nature of Labor Party that rules into the future. We note with grave misgivings some of the changes Rudd is moving to make to "democratise" the Party, I liked *J*U*L*I*A*s notion of democracy a lot better than his and that is what made the ALP worth all the effort. Yes I feel that this has been betrayed by petty and pious men. Yes I am dismayed and deeply disappointed. And Yes my sense of positive purpose has largely disappeared. But my resolve to see Abborrrtt brought low is undiminished. And that is plenty to keep me supporting Labor. I grieve for many in this last Parliament. For some useful "faceless men" who for purely political purposes were hounded out of deserved careers. For poor Craig Thomson, victim of the most savage persecution of all. For Peter Slipper, not my favourite as a person but not deserving of the set-up which will damn his reputation beyond the grave. For Peter Garrett who was as they say hung out to dry by Rudd over Peter's innocent part in the so-called Pink Batts Fiasco - a piece of perfidy on Rudd's part which presaged a pattern in all his subsequent behaviour. For Peter, and the delightful Craig Emerson, the sober polite erudite Stephen Smith, and all the other honest faithful Labor MHRs who have decided not to renominate. For their staff too. And for all the ordinary ALP members of whom I am still proudly one. And of course most of all, for *J*U*L*I*A* herself, who weathered so much from attacks by the rich and powerful, the Media and the nastiest Opposition the like of which we have never seen in Australian politics before ... only to be deposed by her own Party. Well, Comrades, they say when the going gets tough, the tough get going ... This is tougher than any of us anticipated, I'm sure, so it is a test of just how tough we can be. Come on Janice, Gravel, Jason, Up There you Cazaly's of the political game, I know it's sad but don't give up the fight now, first we must re-elect Labor, then we get to work on Labor itself. VENCEREMOS! [i]No Pasaran![/i]

Ad astra

16/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

Michael

16/07/2013Sortius is a Geek is a site routinely listed amongst Lyn's (superb!) Links. Sortius focuses mostly on his area of expertise, which is digital communications in general and the NBN in particular. And with regard to the "NBN in particular", Sortius, even if he hadn't particularly wanted to do this, finds himself constantly required to expose the Shadow Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull, as an inveterate liar about the NBN and Coalition policy for national broadband. He does a bloody good job, as you will find at today's link, here: http://sortius-is-a-geek.com/?p=3164 If, on the other hand, you are not particularly interested in telecommunications, or have already picked Malcolm Turnbull for the shifty shyster he is, then might I respectfully suggest you visit the Sortius page for the other thing it does. It exposes the method of just how EVERY Coalition policy is brought to the public and fiddle-faddled with when irksome facts contradict them. (Hello Julie Bishop, nuance-reader of all things Indonesian. She thinks she's as subtle as a Javanese? Nobody is as subtle as a Javanese - the Javanese outsubtle each other from the womb.) OK, Ms Self-Deluding Bishop aside, the forensic demolition of Malcolm Turnbull's supposed grip on his area of potential government responsibility by Sortius can be read (without strain) as a precise metaphor for how little any Coalition Shadow Minister is on top of their aspired-to ministries. Pyne, Mirabella, Bwana Morrison, Truss, Hockey, the whole Howard 'D Team', each of their Fifth Estate equivalents of Sortius could do exactly the same job on them as he has done on Turnbull. How many questions on his portfolio area did Pyne ask over the last three years of Parliamentary sittings? Dutton? Truss? Read Sortius to truthfully find out about the NBN... and Turnbull's vacuous attempts to mislead us about it. Read Sortius and think just a little bit laterally to 'read' the capabilities and intentions of the entire Abbott line-up.

jaycee

16/07/2013Austin....some of the content of your posts are worthy of serious consideration, but the whole is delivered with the ; "Hey jaycee!" hokeyness of "Ritchie" from "Happy Days" mixed with the smart-aleck sniping of a side-show spruiker! Just give consideration where and to who you are posting and I daresay your more serious points will be given the consideration they deserve, rather than be seen as a sort of white-noise trolling!...imho.

jaycee

16/07/2013The thing I find most difficult with the "new order" is that if one is judged by the company one keeps, what sort of (political) company am I to associate myself with? I want Labor to win, yet I find it difficult to cheer for the current squad and indeed feel sort of compromised (to be polite!) to be associating with them. I suppose I am like one of those Japanese "Ronin" at the moment..tho' I do have a social direction and intent. But!....alas!

jaycee

16/07/2013It seems to me that Q&A has decended into a delivery system of snappy quest' and ans' that are more directed to a high-scale measurement on the "clap-o-meter" than serious debate.

nasking

16/07/2013 CHANNEL NINE DESPERATE TO GET AN AUDIENCE FOR THEIR BIBLE SHOW...REMINDS ME OF AMERICAN EVANGELISTS SPRUIKING THEIR BRAINWASHING WARES... THE LAST THING I FEEL LIKE DOING AT NIGHT IS WATCHING YET ANOTHER RELIGIOUS FANTASY THAT HYPES UP THE SUNDAY SCHOOL STUFF. CHANNEL NINE HAS BECOME A REAL PROPAGANDA MACHINE FOR ABBOTT AND HIS CHRISTIAN CRUSADERS... THE WAY THE AMERICAN ABC WAS FOR GW BUSH AND HIS BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN NEO-CON NUTBAGS...WORKING ALONGSIDE FOX NEWS...AS WE HAVE SKY NEWS HERE. AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT AMERICA. WE WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN. HMMM... FUNNY THING IS...WHAT'S SO CHRISTIAN ABOUT THE LIKES OF ABBOTT, MURDOCH, PACKER, SINGLETON, JONES, RINEHART, THE CHANNEL NINE SPRUIKERS...? PONTIFACTORS YES...BUT THEY ARE A LOT OF GREEDY FECKERS...AND MEAN-SPIRITED...REVENGEFUL...USING THE POOR AND UNFORTUNATE AS PAWNS IN A GAME...TO FULFIL THEIR OWN NASTY GOALS. AREN'T THEY REALLY JUST REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE? WANTING TO SILENCE DISSENTORS...AND PROMOTERS OF PEACE...AND EGALITARIANISM? STRANGE DAYS INDEED. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. Mahatma Gandhi

nasking

16/07/2013 When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. Desmond Tutu

jaycee

16/07/2013Lollypop politics? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rYoRaxgOE0

nasking

16/07/2013 Lessons for Australia So, apart from calling on our government to join Oxfam in condemning land grabs at the G20 summit in September this year, are there any lessons from the global Land Rush for Australia? There has certainly been no let up in the pitched battle between farmers and CSG miners, especially in the high yield cropping regions of the Liverpool Plains in NSW and Cecil Plains in Queensland. In Victoria, as a result of the LNP government overturning the former Labor government’s shelving of mining licences, eighty per cent of Gippsland – Victoria’s prime agricultural land – is now under licence. The moratorium on fracking is about to end and Victorian farmers are deeply concerned about the, as yet, unknown implications to crucial water aquifers. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/land-grabs-the-new-global-oil-and-gold-rush/ FRACKERS...COME LIKE MISSIONARIES WITH BIBLES...TO SEDUCE... N'

nasking

16/07/2013 GW BUSH: "My faith plays a big part in my life. And when I was answering that question what I was really saying to the person was that I pray a lot. And I do. And my faith is a very, it's very personal. I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray for our troops in harm's way... "...The God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom...

Michael

16/07/2013Q&A last night Julie Bishop looked like she was on crack. Rude, simplistic, vice-principal of a primary school lecturing. And hollow to the desiccated core.

nasking

16/07/2013 Studies have also found that certain patterns of suicide among civilians seem intensified within the military. Among civilians, young white males are one of the most likely groups to kill themselves. In the military that group, which is disproportionately represented, is even more likely to commit suicide. Among civilians, firearms are the most common means; in the military, as might be expected, guns are used even more often, in 6 of every 10 instances. Deployment and exposure to combat can act as catalysts that worsen existing problems in a service member’s life, like drug abuse, or cause new ones, like post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries, which may contribute to suicidal behavior. Indeed, a study published this week in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry found that troops with multiple concussions were significantly more likely to report having suicidal thoughts than troops with one or no concussions. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/baffling-rise-in-suicides-plagues-us-military.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 N'

nasking

16/07/2013 Child and teenage asylum seekers have attempted suicide and self-harm while being held at the Pontville detention centre in Tasmania. Pontville is what the Immigration Department calls an "alternative place of detention" and it currently holds about 337 asylum seekers - all of them children and teenagers. This morning, the Department confirmed that two 11-year-old boys being are being detained with family members at the centre, north of Hobart. Children's Commissioner Megan Mitchell visited Pontville last month and met with 200 of the children and teenagers. She told ABC's AM program she has serious concerns for their mental health. Ms Mitchell says many of them are anxious and depressed and there have been incidents of self-harm. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/suicide-and-self-harm-attempts-confirmed-amongst-pontville-chil/4822262 N'

2353

16/07/2013TT, Your long post above is one of the best I have seen you post here. Regardless of the politics of how the current and immediate past Prime Ministers came to be in their current positions, the real issue at present is ensuring that (to coin a phrase from a Facebook group) "Tony Abbott never becomes Prime Minister". Once that issue is done and dusted - it is time to ensure that the ALP is a transparent and accountable organisation - not only to themselves but to the general Australian community prior to the onset of the state elections that inevitably follow the Federal Election.

nasking

16/07/2013 WAR-MONGERS, RELIGIOUS FANATICS AND GREEDY RESOURCE COMPANIES DISPLACE FAMILIES...AND SEND YOUNG PEOPLE TO WAR. LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES? MSM...DO YER JOB. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 WAR-MONGERS: GW BUSH, DICK CHENEY, JOHN HOWARD, TONY BLAIR...RUPERT MURDOCH RELIGIOUS FANATIC: TONY ABBOTT

nasking

16/07/2013 RUDD HAS CHALLENGED ABBOTT TO DEBATE ANY TIME NEXT WEEK THE ETS VS DIRECT ACTION SCHEME. WILL THE YELLOW FERAL LIB RUN AGAIN?...OR FRONT UP? N'

nasking

16/07/2013 TWO COMMENTS FROM AN IMPORTANT ABC ARTICLE: uptightoutasight 8:29 AM on 16/07/2013 And here in Queensland, Newman is slashing health. Even more nursing positions are about to be cut and the work done by less trained staff. Many new grads aren't about to get jobs and experienced nurses fear for their jobs too. We are just going backwards in so many ways. We know that nursing home work is considered by many to be a job of last resort because it is hard work even when properly staffed. Making it harder, by overworking people, is bound to lead to problems. I believe the staff are mostly good people who are just burnt out. It is a disgrace and a good example of people who are unable to advocate for themselves being ignored. elwyn rice davies 8:12 AM on 16/07/2013 If we have allowed Nursing Homes to be run by the private sector what do we expect? They are run for profit and the profit is made by employing cheap untrained staff and buying cheap food. The Federal Government's inspection of these homes is a joke, but not a funny one INDEED N'

nasking

16/07/2013 LINK: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/shocking-claims-elderly-being-mistreated-in-nursing-homes/4821492 N'

nasking

16/07/2013 The Minister for Aged Care, Jacinta Collins, discusses the crisis in aged care and says the Labor Government has a 10-year plan to improve the supply of aged care services. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3803716.htm

nasking

16/07/2013 TONY EASTLEY: He called himself 'Fabulous Fab', but the former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre is probably feeling anything but fabulous as he faces trial accused of lying to investors. The case is reviving memories of the reckless trading that took place in the lead-up to the Wall Street crash in 2008. His court appearance is also reminding people about how few senior money traders have faced justice over their part in the financial crisis... DENNIS KELLEHER: Not only has the SEC not taken action to actually deter such wrongdoing in future; by going after so few big firms, going after even fewer individuals, the message they have sent to wall street is, 'Don't worry about the SEC - we're AWOL. Do what you want.' http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3803740.htm HOW MANY YOUNG DOPE SUPPLIERS GO TO JAIL COMPARED TO THIS LOT? IT'S CRIMINAL. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 Cuts to fund carbon price policy Abolishing statutory formula for fringe benefits tax on cars - $1.8 billion over forward estimates Energy security fund: bringing forward free permits, then discontinuing program - $770 million over forward estimates Changes to coal sector jobs package to adjust value to new carbon price - $186 million Changes to clean technology program and carbon capture and storage program - $586 million over forward estimates Return unallocated funds from biodiversity fund to budget - $213 million over forward estimates Cuts to funding for carbon farming futures program - $143 million over forward estimates Changes to public service including 1 per cent cut in executive staff numbers - $248 million http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/38-billion-to-terminate-carbon-tax-says-kevin-rudd/4822556 DON'T THOSE PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS COMPLICATE THE ARGUMENT HERE IN QLD? SIGH. GOOD REASON TO VOTE GREEN HERE IN QLD...AND THEN LABOR. MAYBE SAME ELSEWHERE. ANYONE IN A PUBLIC SERVICE JOB CANNOT TRUST EITHER OF THE MAINSTREAM PARTIES. NOR KATTER...NOR BIG MINING GREEDSTER PALMER. N'

Ad astra

16/07/2013Talk Turkey Many will identify with your written-during-the-night sentiments. We who have supported Julia Gillard for so long, we who despise the forces who were pitted against her for so long, ‘Team Rudd’ included, face the dilemma of whether we should support the one who brought her down in his war of attrition. As you indicate, the alternative to Rudd as PM is Slogan-Abbott, an empty man guided by entrenched attitudes born of his upbringing, whose vision is backward looking to what he regards as the golden era of the Howard days, backward looking to the same old faces that filled that era, backward looking in his policies, backward looking to the worst aspects of conservative thinking. The horror of such a man leading our nation is too awful to contemplate. His utterances about climate change in the last twenty-four hours shows how antediluvian he is, how antiquated his ideas are, how archaic his policies have become. Whatever we think of Rudd and Team Rudd’s sabotage of Julia Gillard, the prospect of Slogan-Abbott in charge requires us to do whatever we can to avoid having that disaster inflicted on our country.

nasking

16/07/2013 I WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR TONY ABBOTT (RELIGIOUS OPPORTUNIST AND NEGABORE...SUPER WANKER, BROWN-NOSER OF MURDOCH AND RINEHART, HATES UNIONS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS)...NOR ANY LIBERAL PARTY THAT HAS CHRISTOPHER PYNE (NASTY FECKER WHO HATES PUBLIC SCHOOLS), JULIE BISHOP (OPPORTUNISTIC TWIT WHO HAS DEFENDED BIG TOBACCO AND ASBESTOS COMPANIES), SCOTT MORRISON (GUTTER SWIMMING DOG WHISTLER), KEVIN ANDREWS (RELIGIOUS MORALISER), SEN BERNARDI (COMMUNITY DIVIDER, HOMOPHOBE, CRUSADER), SOPHIE MIRABELLA (MEAN-SPIRITED XENOPHOBE)... AS FOR RUDD'S LABOR... I HAVE TO HOLD MY NOSE WHEN VOTING FOR THEM... WHY? LOVES LIVE EXPORTS AND IGNORES ABUSE OF ANIMALS APPARENTLY, TOO PRO-COAL FOR MY LIKING...BIT TOO RELIGIOUS..,SAYS TO END CLASS WARFARE WHEN THE MEGA-RICH ARE SCREWING US POOR...IN BED WITH MURDOCH SOMETIMES...CUTS PUBLIC SERVANTS...WAY TOO BIG ON NOT FOR PROFIT TYPES TAKING PUBLIC SERVANT JOBS...DIDN'T GO AFTER HOWARD, DOWNER ETC FOR THEIR WAR CRIMES ONCE IN GOVT... WHY I VOTE GREEN FIRST: ANTI-LIVE EXPORTS, MUCH MORE PRO-ENVIRONMENT, PRO-UNI FUNDING, PRO-DENTICARE, PUSHING BACK AGAINST RAMPANT COAL SEAM GAS ROLLOUT, PRO-GAY MARRIAGE, AGAINST MINING IN ANTARCTICA AND ARCTIC...SUPPORTIVE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS...DON'T TREAT ASYLUM SEEKERS LIKE PAWNS IN A GAME. AS FOR KATTER...I LIKE THE FACT HE CARES ABOUT QLD...BUT HE'S A HOMPHOBE, INTO LIVE EXPORTS...AND HAS VERY OLD FASHIONED IDEAS. PALMER IS JUST A DESPERATE MEGA-RICH PRETENDER AND EGO-MANIAC LIKE TRUMP. LIKES TO THREATEN WITH LAW SUITS. THAT'S WHY I'M VOTING GREEN THEN ALP. MY WIFE TOO. AND SO FAR THREE OF MY FRIENDS IN SYDNEY HAVE CONFIRMED SAME. CLIMATE CHANGE IS TOO BIG AN ISSUE TO PLAY GAMES WITH. MY MATE IS GONNA SEND ME BOB BROWN'S LATEST BOOK TO READ. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]As you indicate, the alternative to Rudd as PM is Slogan-Abbott, an empty man guided by entrenched attitudes born of his upbringing, whose vision is backward looking to what he regards as the golden era of the Howard days, backward looking to the same old faces that filled that era, backward looking in his policies, backward looking to the worst aspects of conservative thinking. The horror of such a man leading our nation is too awful to contemplate. His utterances about climate change in the last twenty-four hours shows how antediluvian he is, how antiquated his ideas are, how archaic his policies have become.[/b] ABBOTT MAKES ME WANNA PUKE EVERY-TIME HE COMES ON TV. WEIRDO. N'

Ad astra

16/07/2013nasking I see you are back in full flight this morning. I hope you are feeling refreshed. Regarding your comment about cuts to the public service consequent upon the bringing forward of the transition to an ETS at a cost of $3.8 billion over the forward estimates, and your comparison of them with the Newman cuts, I suggest you examine closely where the cuts, which are said to be through natural attrition, are to be applied. You may find a compelling logic to this move, in contrast to the seemingly indiscriminate slashing and burning of the Newman government. It was hard to ascertain this from the Townsville Press Conference. There are some details here of the cuts, but not much about the public service cuts except: “[i]… $248 million in cuts to the commonwealth public service, including the loss of 800 senior positions.”[/i] We will have to wait for the details. http://www.afr.com/p/national/rudd_unveils_bn_cuts_to_pay_for_hX7a0EwX3QjqbA5GwYHhCJ

Ad astra

16/07/2013jaycee I have enjoyed reading your comments. Michael Thank you for your comment and your link to ‘Sortius is a geek’. The sentence: “[i]When faced with such damning evidence, Mal [Turnbull] become uncomfortable, busting to talk over Ed [Husic] & shout him down. The typical reaction of a bully boy: busted lying, so get aggressive.”[/i] This is typical Tea Party, Fox News behaviour, copied from the US. We see Morrison, Hockey, Pyne, Julie Bishop, Mirabella, and Co. all doing the same – shout, talk over, bully. We saw JB at this last night on Q&A.

John Bloomfield

16/07/2013Great stuff Talk Turkey - love your sentiments. There are too many people putting short term ego/ideology/politics/career/profit ahead of Australia's national interests. We must send Rudd and his fellow 'climate change marshmallows' a message at the ballot box; might I suggest a new slogan for disillusioned Gillard labourites: "Vote Green - when safe to do so"

nasking

16/07/2013 WHY DO THE COALITION SOUND LIKE THE WORST OF TABLOIDS? SLOGANS...HYPE...DISTORTION...FEAR-MONGERING. TELLS YA SOMETHING. THE SAME TABLOIDS THAT TOOK US INTO EXPENSIVE DUMB WARS. N'

Curi-Oz

16/07/2013Have to laugh at me. http://tinyurl.com/lhe7wlw is this the location of the new LNP policies? I don't think anyone really recovers from being fascinated by the idea of dinosaurs roaming the earth. It's just a little disturbing when you see them pontificating in the media ...

42 long

16/07/2013The biggest "talk over everyone " merchants are the IPA. Who funds THEM? Right wing THINK tank? Really?. The "P" stands for propaganda. The abc are hooked on the IPA. Get them off. They add nothing to the conversation. And while I'm at it stop calling RICHO a LABOR person. He is a money seeking opportunist who is happy to work against the party he was in for reward from Murky/

42 long

16/07/2013Most of what you say, nasking is right on. Don't fret about the rest. Nobody is perfect.

Curi-Oz

16/07/2013I was reminded of "Inside the Canberra Press Gallery" by Rob Chalmers (http://tinyurl.com/kv9sy9e) and I think that the observations of the last few chapters feed quite well into the thesis of the book Ad Astra has reviewed this week. Unfortunately it suggests that the "rot" in the reporting of what happens in Parliament started a long time ago, and can only get worse as control of large media outlets is consolidated in the hands of a few rich/power people. I am reminded of FDR's words [quote]“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”[/quote] I am starting to suspect that is what we have to stand up to.

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]I suggest you examine closely where the cuts, which are said to be through natural attrition, are to be applied. You may find a compelling logic to this move, in contrast to the seemingly indiscriminate slashing and burning of the Newman government. It was hard to ascertain this from the Townsville Press Conference. There are some details here of the cuts, but not much about the public service cuts except: “… $248 million in cuts to the commonwealth public service, including the loss of 800 senior positions.” We will have to wait for the details.[/b] Ad, I HOPE YER RIGHT. TIME WILL TELL. AS FOR NEWMAN'S APPROACH...BRINGING COSTELLO INTO IT...CUTTING WITH A GRANDIOSE SMILE...WHILST TRYING TO SELL OFF PUBLIC SCHOOL LAND...CUTTING IMPORTANT HEALTHCARE JOBS...SCARING THE CRAP OUTA GOOD WORKERS...WHILST HANDING OUT MONEY TO CORRUPT LNP MINISTERS... LEAVES A BAD TASTE IN QLDers MOUTHS. IS IT ANY WONDER WE PANIC UP HERE WHEN WE HEAR ABOUT 'CUTS'...LOOK AT THE UNEMPLOYMENT LEVELS IN QLD... THAT'S WHY JOE HOCKEY HAS GONE DOWN LIKE A LUMP OF POO WITH HIS GLEEFUL ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS...HIS WEIRD USE OF 'ENTITLEMENTS' AFTER VISITING 'AUSTERITY MEASURES' UK... NOT TO MENTION HOCKEY'S EAGERNESS TO UP THE GST. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]This is typical Tea Party, Fox News behaviour, copied from the US. We see Morrison, Hockey, Pyne, Julie Bishop, Mirabella, and Co. all doing the same – shout, talk over, bully. We saw JB at this last night on Q&A.[/b] Ad, INDEED...AND WHO DO WE HAVE IN COMMON? RUPERT MURDOCH. MR. TABLOID. GETS HIS MOB TO USE BULLY BOY TACTICS TO SHOUT DOWN OTHERS. AND SLOGANS. NO WONDER ABBOTT GETS HIS APPROVAL. AND WHAT A GREAT JOB MURDOCH DID...HELPING PUSH HOWARD, BUSH, BLAIR INTO THE IRAQ FIASCO. N'

jane

16/07/2013TT @7.05am, I agree with 2353. One of your best and most inspiring comments. You are absolutely right. No matter how betrayed we feel, the threat from the Liars must take priority. We will deal with The Termite later. NAS' IT'S IN THEIR DNA. THEY NEED GENETIC MODIFICATION; WAITING FOR MUTATION TO OCCUR NATURALLY WILL TAKE TOO LONG. [QUOTE]ABBOTT MAKES ME WANNA PUKE EVERY-TIME HE COMES ON TV.[/QUOTE] LOL, ME TOO. Curi-Oz @12.20pm, roflmao! I think the policies are buried in inaccessible locations, but it doesn't stop the pontificating. 42 long @12.25pm, hear! hear!

nasking

16/07/2013 [quote]Guardian Australia political editor Lenore Taylor has filed a news wrap of the carbon announcement. You can find that here. Lenore makes the point that conservation groups and climate lobbyists were most concerned that Rudd would remove or change the role of the independent Climate Change Authority, which advises the government on how deeply Australia should be cutting its greenhouse emissions by comparing the country’s effort with the rest of the world. But the system remains in place. Butler said the government would continue to rely on the authority’s advice about Australia’s greenhouse gas limits, and said this limit, rather than the price paid for every tonne of abated pollution, was the point of the carbon-pricing exercise. “The price isn’t the most important thing from the environment’s point of view. The environment just wants to know there is less carbon pollution being spewed into the atmosphere,” Butler said. [/quote] 12.09pm AEST [b]Tony Abbott is with the Liberal Party's candidate for Bass. He's forgotten the name of his candidate for Denison. [/b] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/15/kevin-rudd-carbon-price LIVE BLOGGING GOING ON THERE N'

nasking

16/07/2013 JANE, ABBOTT REMINDS ME OF ONE OF THOSE OLD-TIME PREACHERS WHO'D BORE YA STIFF IN CHURCH. YA GOT SICK OF THE FEAR-MONGERING AND CRITICISM OF ANYONE WHO DIDN'T SUIT THEIR LIMITED AGENDA. SOMETIMES YOU'D CHUCKLE INSIDE AT HOW EXCRUCIATINGLY BORING THEY WERE, HOW SILLY THEIR IDEAS...HOW SERIOUSLY THEY TOOK THEMSELVES... OTHER TIMES YOU'D SQUIRM...TOO MUCH VENOM...TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING WRIGGLING UNDERNEATH THEIR SKIN YOU COULDN'T QUITE PUT YER FINGER ON... EVEN WERE TIMES YA WANTED TO ACT UP...EVEN CHUCK A WAD OF PAPER AT THEM...ANYTHING TO SHUT 'EM UP. THAT'S HOW I GET WITH ABBOTT...AND PYNE...AND BISHOP. THE LOATHSOME TRIO OF NEGABORE PREACHERS. JANET ALBRECHTSON, ANDREW BOLT AND ALAN JONES HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON ME. N'

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]OTHER TIMES YOU'D SQUIRM...TOO MUCH VENOM...TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING WRIGGLING UNDERNEATH THEIR SKIN YOU COULDN'T QUITE PUT YER FINGER ON...[/b] APPLY THAT TO SCOTT MORRISON N'

jaycee

16/07/2013"jaycee I have enjoyed reading your comments". Thank you AA. I appreciate the opportunity.

Ad astra

16/07/2013nasking Lenore's article provides more detail of the move to an ETS, but still not much about the public service cuts. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/kevin-rudd-terminate-carbon-tax?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 Environmental groups seems reasonably contented with the move, but Christine Milne was soon out bemoaning what she called cuts to environmental programs. Having already condemned the government for doing this [b]before[/b] today's announcement, I suppose she felt obliged to come out again to justify her predictions. Although the cut backs seem less than she was predicting, there she was cavilling once again. She should be careful about inviting a 'Carping Christine' tag.

bob macalba

16/07/2013Talk Turkey.....VENCEREMOS comrade NASKING...RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE..YEAH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxk3c_SbWMg WARNING..A PRETTY ANGRY SONG. Jane...cheers, somehow they have to pay

nasking

16/07/2013 I JUST READ ON CRIKEY THAT DAVID WILLIAMSON IS WRITING A PLAY ABOUT RUPERT MURDOCH...HE SEES PARALLELS WITH RICHARD III. ME...I THINK THIS IS MORE APT: [b]Trailer - The Blob (1958)[/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUsyXQ8Wrs&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTdUsyXQ8Wrs INTERESTINGLY, THE FILM WAS RELEASED AS A DOUBLE FEATURE WITH: [b]I Married a Monster from Outer Space.[/b] N'

Michael Taylor

16/07/2013Well said, young turkey.

nasking

16/07/2013 GOOD POINT: [b]These are the boats we really have to stop. Tell Environment Minister Mark Butler not to approve dredging and dumping in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area for building new coal ports:[/b] https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152308764807203&set=a.10152230910232203.1073741827.685402202&type=1&ref=nf N'

jaycee

16/07/2013I see Hunt and Tabbott out spruiking the policy of "direct action....Well, let me tell you..: On “direct action”tree planting…Having had a lot of experience in the realities of tree-planting, and being saavy in the realities of such things associated with carbon sequestration, I can tell you that it takes approx’ four years to get a tree to the point of being anything useful in that area. In those intervening four years, (2014-2018)…the amount of extra co2 put in the atmosphere will make any attempt of “direct action”to alter the realities of global warming a miniscule “piss-in-the-ocean”!….and considering there is a percentage loss with every plantation of at least ten-fifty percent!……? An absolutely stupid, useless waste of time.

nasking

16/07/2013 FROM THE UK: [b]Cigarette packaging: the corporate smokescreen Noble sentiments about individual liberty are being used to bend democracy to the will of the tobacco industry [/b] George Monbiot The Guardian, Monday 15 July 2013 It's a victory for the hidden persuaders, the astroturfers, sock puppets, purchased scholars and corporate moles. On Friday the government announced that it will not oblige tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging. How did it happen? The public was overwhelmingly in favour. The evidence that plain packets will discourage young people from smoking is powerful. But it fell victim to a lobbying campaign that was anything but plainly packaged. Tobacco companies are not allowed to advertise their products. Nor, as they are so unpopular, can they appeal directly to the public. So they spend their cash on astroturfing (fake grassroots campaigns) and front groups. There is plenty of money to be made by people unscrupulous enough to take it. Much of the anger about this decision has been focused on Lynton Crosby. Crosby is David Cameron's election co-ordinator. He also runs a lobbying company that works for the cigarette firms Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. He personifies the new dispensation, in which men and women glide between corporations and politics, and appear to act as agents for big business within government. The purpose of today's technocratic politics is to make democracy safe for corporations: to go through the motions of democratic consent while reshaping the nation at their behest. But even if Crosby is sacked, the infrastructure of hidden persuasion will remain intact. Nor will it be affected by the register of lobbyists that David Cameron will announce on Tuesday, antiquated before it is launched. Nanny state, health police, red tape, big government: these terms have been devised or popularised by corporate front groups. The companies who fund them are often ones that cause serious harm to human welfare. The front groups campaign not only against specific regulations, but also against the very principle of the democratic restraint of business. I see the "free market thinktanks" as the most useful of these groups. Their purpose, I believe, is to invest corporate lobbying with authority. Mark Littlewood, the head of one of these thinktanks – the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – has described plain packaging as "the latest ludicrous move in the unending, ceaseless, bullying war against those who choose to produce and consume tobacco". Over the past few days he's been in the media repeatedly, railing against the policy. So do the IEA's obsessions just happen to coincide with those of the cigarette firms? The IEA refuses to say who its sponsors are and how much they pay. But as a result of persistent digging, we now know that British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have been funding the institute – in BAT's case since 1963. British American Tobacco has admitted that it gave the institute £20,000 last year and that it's "planning to increase our contribution in 2013 and 2014". Otherwise it's a void. The IEA tells me, "We do not accept any earmarked money for commissioned research work from any company." Really? But whether companies pay for specific publications or whether they continue to fund a body that – by the purest serendipity – publishes books and pamphlets that concur with the desires of its sponsors, surely makes no difference. The institute has almost unrivalled access to the BBC and other media, where it promotes the corporate agenda without ever being asked to disclose its interests. Because they remain hidden, it retains a credibility its corporate funders lack. Amazingly, since 2011 Mark Littlewood has also been the government's adviser on cutting the regulations that business doesn't like. Corporate conflicts of interest intrude into the heart of this country's political life. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/cigarette-packaging-corporate-smokescreen-liberty FRANKLY, I WOULD EXECUTE THIS LOT FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. ANYONE WHO HAS SPENT TIME IN HOSPITAL WATCHING ADDICTED SMOKERS AND EX-SMOKERS DIE AGONISING, HORRID, SLOW PAINFUL DEATHS PROBABLY FEELS SIMILAR...IF NOT SAME, THE LIES AND DECEIT OF THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND ITS PUPPETS IS AS BAD AS THOSE IN THE WAR-MAKING INDUSTRY... AND PROBABLY ACCOUNTS FOR AS MANY...PERHAPS MORE...DEATHS, N'

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]An absolutely stupid, useless waste of time. [/b] IRONIC INNIT THAT NEO-LIBS AND NEO-CONARTISTS WANNA PLANT TREES...WHILST THEIR ALLIES CUT DOWN THE PRECIOUS FORESTS AND JUNGLES THAT ACT AS CARBON SINKS? I THINK ABBOTT IS TALKING THRU HIS BUTT AGAIN...ALL HOT, FOUL SMELLING AIR. N'

Ad astra

16/07/2013Hi Lyn I’ve just finished reading your links after a busy day, some of it spent on my next piece, which will be a dedication to Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott. Each week seems to come round so quickly! What an interesting and pertinent collection they were. Right up-to-date with many items on the move to an ETS. I get the impression that Rudd is systematically dismantling Slogan-Abbott’s election slogans – the ‘carbon tax’ would be gone well before Abbott could dismantle it if he won government, as he would need a Double Dissolution election, and that would be unlikely to be possible before July 2014. So Rudd could say: ‘Labor would get rid of the carbon tax before you possibly could’. And if Abbott still pushes the line that an ETS is still a carbon tax, he would have to convince voters that his DAP was workable, which it isn’t, and that it is better than an ETS, which it isn’t either. I can imagine the ads Labor could run to discredit climate change skeptic Abbott and his DAP, which will COST every household $1200 a year to enable him to pay polluters to stop polluting, whereas Labor’s ETS will SAVE them $380 a year. It looks like a no-brainer if household economics is all that counts, which is likely to be the case. And Rudd is undermining Slogan-Abbott’s ‘Stop the Boats’ mantra by questioning whether that part of his policy is possible at all while Indonesia seem unwilling to have the boats pointed back at them. If Abbott can’t turn the boats around (always qualified with ‘when it’s safe to do so’), which of course won’t be possible if the boat crew disables the boat as they have done before, he is left with only offshore processing, which already exists, and TPV’s, which didn’t work last time. So if two of his favourite slogans go up in a puff of blue smoke, and he won’t debate Rudd on the economy and how he would do better, what has he got left?

Curi-Oz

16/07/2013Nasking [quote] ANYONE WHO HAS SPENT TIME IN HOSPITAL WATCHING ADDICTED SMOKERS AND EX-SMOKERS DIE AGONISING, HORRID, SLOW PAINFUL DEATHS PROBABLY FEELS SIMILAR...IF NOT SAME, [/quote] I have a dear friend who watched her mother die this way. To this day she refuses to stop smoking because 'the science about deaths due to smoking is still undecided' and 'statistics are just complicated ways of telling lies'. I just hope that she is one of the statistical anomolies and lives a long life, dying in her own bed at the age of 120. But but realistically? *sighs*

nasking

16/07/2013 Pakistan Taliban fighters arrive in Syria aje.me Armed group says its fighters have set up a command and control centre to begin operations in the war-torn country. The Pakistani Taliban has said its first batch of fighters has arrived in Syria to fight alongside rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/20137167916826540.html WHO WILL ARRIVE NEXT? THE NTH KOREANS? N'

nasking

16/07/2013 [b]But but realistically? *sighs*[/b] Curi-Oz, Indeed...indeed. ------ BOB MACALBA, MY DAD ALWAYS SAID THEY KILL IN THE NAME OF GOD...MONEY IS THEIR GOD. N'

Catching up

16/07/2013I believe that Rudd should have gave the Community Cabinet meeting a miss. It is showing up the many faces that deserted Rudd. New faces do not give one confidence. At least Rudd seems to be keeping Gillard's fprmat.

Patriciawa

16/07/2013As always, Lyn, thank you for your sanity and life saving links, particularly today for http://sortius-is-a-geek.com/?p=3164. Talk Turkey, like jaycee, 2353, gravel, jane and others, I found your thoughts of the wee small hours inspiring. For the moment though I’m not ready to come out with all guns blazing for new this Labor team. I will, however, hold my fire until Shorten, Albanese, Wong, Plibersek [i]et al[/i] have demonstrated their determination to rescue those all important reforms of recent years which to my mind is the only possible justification for their decision to switch from PM Gillard to Rudd. Even Tony Abbott’s latest solecism hasn’t produced a smile or pome, so I haven’t found much to write about in recent weeks. I keep reading though and Ad Astra’s brilliant review here of Kerry-Anne Walsh’s book reminds us again of the bias and treachery of the Canberra Press Gallery he wrote about in his previous post, http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2013/07/07/An-accolade-for-Julia-Gillard-a-fine-prime-minister.aspx. Bacchus, I followed your link from there to read Anne Somers again in the SMH at the weekend, because her [i]"Mad as hell and not ready to make nice!”[/i] title exactly expressed my own feelings. Like Fed up, I was particularly struck by this phrase....... [quote]If you are a woman it is hard not to see parallels in your own life when a female leader is so brutally felled. [/quote] http://www.smh.com.au/comment/mad-as-hell-and-not-ready-to-make-nice-20130712-2pv9d.html#ixzz2ZBxQqksv I found that qualifying phrase [i]‘If you are a woman’[/i] particularly evocative. It sent me digging back into long ago records, unopened for decades, about the ignominious end to my own beloved career at much the same age as Julia Gillard and in eerily similar circumstances, not that I was ever likely to be Prime Minister! I'll try to explain it all, if I can get myself writing again. I can’t just scan these notes, which is probably just as well, since it means I have to copy them verbatim and perhaps the typing of them will help me move from the paralysis of rage and grief which currently grips me. Anyway, I’ve promised Miglo an article, if not a pome, so I’d better use this as a hill start.

KHTAGH

16/07/2013Just saw this on FB The Abbottoir shared Les Hall's status update. Les Hall Liberal party insider stop press !!! LNP power brokers canvas support for a return to Malcolm Turnbull - could we see a completely different two candidates ? Seems to be gaining some momentum as news corporation question why there has been no Tony Abbott for PM election posters or advertising pre planned ? Well that would change things, how would his past seem, 20 million grant to one of his election donor's, his compliance in the great climate bullshit, 'utegate', 'fraudband' those are just some I remember.

Jason

16/07/2013ToM, Even if you were sitting on the front bench of any Labor government State or Federal I still wouldn't like you! As for integrity did you see this? KEVIN Rudd's promise to clean up the NSW Labor Party is in tatters following allegations of branch-stacking to elect a former Labor boss and union official to replace retiring minister Peter Garrett. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/dirty-deal-damages-kevin-rudds-clean-up-campaign/story-fni0cx12-1226679857174

jaycee

16/07/2013After having the sychophantic Uhlmann inflicted upon one, the follow-up is the puerile Crabb with her p*ssweak wit!...Crikey...the tele'(ABC.), the MSM. journalism, the politics has reached an all time low in this nation...the absolute nadir of bad. "Poor fellow my country".

TalkTurkey

16/07/2013He who comes to spit ill-will Made to swallow bitter pill!

jaycee

16/07/2013To those of you who have the book..does it give the name of the person who allegedly paid that bogan woman in Western Sydney to yell abuse at Julia Gillard on her visit there?

lyn

17/07/2013Today’s links Sweetening the base by @awelder Abbott to dismiss Labor's approach to carbon pricing: he would do that, wouldn't he. His comments about carbon being invisible and not delivered to anyone were immediately condemned by the sorts of people who were never open to persuasion from him. Far more telling is the doubt they cast over the whole idea that carbon abatement http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/ Seriously Scary by @KayRollison His latest effort on an emissions trading scheme – ‘it’s a market, a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance, to no one’ – suggests that his grasp of the theory of the market economy is indeed weak – it seems he got this attempted sound bite from the Daily Telegraph, in London – but that doesn’t lessen his reliance on it http://theaimn.com/2013/07/16/seriously-scary/ Tony Abbott caught wolf-whistling to climate change denialists by Giles Parkinson sourced by Abbott's quip-writing team from a comment piece penned by Jeremy Warner, assistant editor of the arch conservative British daily The Daily Telegraph. Warner wrote three years ago that “the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/16/tony-abbott-climate-change-denial?CMP=twt_gu Shifting Politics by Gary Sauer-Thompson The Rudd Government's proposed shift from a fixed carbon price to a floating one in an emissions trading scheme is flushing out the Coalition's position on climate change--its remedial policy is half-hearted, driven mainly by the search for votes, and under pressure from the climate deniers in the Liberal Party. It is also drive the Coalition further to the right. http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2013/07/shifting-politi-1.php Invisible substance: latest Abbottism slams together cheap slogans and willed ignorance by @WTDeniers It is clearly a dog whistle call to climate sceptics and grumpy old men like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones. But rather than becoming a new rallying cry for those opposed to a price on carbon, it ranks as one of the more hilarious own goals in recent Australian political history. http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/invisible-substance-latest-abbottism-slams-together-cheap-slogans-and- Abbott without Costello is starting to look like one of The Three Stooges. by rossleighbrisbane Are we to presume that the fact it’s invisibility somehow makes it somehow less real? Are we to apply this standard to other invisible things and dismiss them because no-one can see them? Australia’s borders, honesty, carbon monoxide, God, radiation, the Internet, friendship, http://theaimn.com/2013/07/16/abbott-without-costello-is-starting-to-look-like-one-of-the-three-stooges/ “Bob Ellis: “Invisible substance” gaffe spells Abbott’s end by @independentaus Abbott’s “invisible substance” gaffe is the equivalent of Keating’s “the recession we had to have”. It may signal his end and lead to the return of Malcolm Turnbull who isn’t a fundamentalist fool. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/bob-ellis-invisible-substance-gaffe-spells-abbotts-end/ Abbott ‘absolute joke’ for ETS comment by @EcoNewsDaily Mr Abbott’s remarks came as Australia’s Labor government prepared to explain how it would plug a forecast multi-billion dollar budget hole from moving earlier than planned to an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). http://econews.com.au/news-to-sustain-our-world/abbott-%e2%80%98absolute-joke%e2%80% Speaking of invisible substances and the gas emanating from Tony Abbott by Dorothy Parker Can someone please hand the honourable leader of the opposition a large chunk of dry ice, and ask him to recite over and over, a substance (let us accept the generalist definition a particular kind of matter with uniform properties) can in fact be a gas http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/speaking-of-invisible-substances-and.html#.UeUaHEpArX4 Invisible Things Are Ridiculous, Says Man Who Lives His Life According To Invisible Thing by @The_Shovel_ The man, who also hopes to become Australia’s next Prime Minister, is the same man who once described the Clean Energy Regulator as a “police force chasing an invisible, odourless, weightless, tasteless substance”. http://theshovel.com.au/2013/07/16/invisible-things-are-ridiculous-says-man-who-lives-his-life-according-to-invisible-thing/ Rudd slashes climate programs to pay for climate politics by Giles Parkinson Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made us wince as he confirmed plans to take the thought bubble away from Tony Abbott and transition to an emissions trading scheme a year early. Today, he made many cry as he identified the victims who would have to make way for his populist ploy. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/rudd-slashes-climate-programs-to-pay-for-climate-politics-90321 Rudd's $3.8bn climate tax shuffle by Tristan Edis A number of energy efficiency equipment and service providers, as well as solar PV suppliers focussed on business rooftops will be disappointed to hear of these cuts. Informal feedback suggests that this program had been highly effective in overcoming manufacturing businesses tendency to ration capital for energy savings initiatives, because they were considered http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/16/policy-politics/rudds-38bn-climate-tax-shuffle Selfies, Boat Stopping and Bloody Cricket by @TheHoopla Jolly Joe Hockey-Sticks, everyone’s favourite shouty fear merchant, declared on Channel Seven’s Sunrise that a move from the carbon tax to an emissions trading scheme would create a $15 billion black hole in the budget. Even though that has been shown to be bollocks, http://thehoopla.com.au/corinne-grants-rage-index-4/ Marty Natalegawa says Indonesia will NOT accept boats which have been turned back by Susan McDonald and Naomi Woodley Such a policy would constitute a unilateral type of measure that we do not support, and that's why in my earlier remarks today what I said basically is that let's hear what the policy is all about," he said. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/marty-natelegawa-says-indonesia-will-not-accept-boats-which- Rudd Nails Coalition On Indonesia To No Advantage While Morrison Emulates Margaret Thatcher by Under the Milky Way I naively though that such a distasteful persona could have only limited appeal and that Hadley was a fringe dweller of acceptance only to those suffering from ravaging hatreds. Horribly, it appears Hadley is the face and voice of much of Western Sydney and therefore many typical swinging voters http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/rudd-nails-coalition-on-indonesia-to-no-advantage-while-morrison- How Far Will The Coalition Tow The Boats? by @beneltham Morrison's media strategy is simple, but effective. Every time a boat arrives, he issues a press release and makes himself available for media comment. The line is always the same: we'll tow them back. On 5 July, for instance, he wrote that “if elected, the Coalition will implement a full suite of proven border protection policies including turning boats around http://newmatilda.com//2013/07/16/how-far-will-coalition-tow-boats Is Abbott Australia’s best opposition leader ever by @macro_business Let’s not kid ourselves, but Tony Abbott is struggling in the polls for one reason: Tony Abbott. Sure, he’s proven to be a highly successful attack dog, but when it comes to projecting a vision for Australia, he has so far come up short. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/07/is-abbott-australias-best-opposition-leader-ever/ on same-sex marriage in Australia: what are the chances? by @burgewords Newly minted Prime Minister Rudd and his Deputy Anthony Albanese have since affirmed their commitment to making marriage equality a reality in Australia, even suggesting alternatives if the Coalition remains unchanged in its opposition to conscience voting. http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/16/burgewords-on-same-sex-marriage-in-australia-what-are-the-chances/ Has Abbott got crystal balls… or just a glass jaw… or both- by Truth Seeker So the gauntlet has been thrown down by Rudd for a debate on climate, the carbon price and the ETS. Now according to Abbott and the LNP these are both areas where the government has spectacularly failed, and they have all the answers. :shock: http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/has-abbott-got-crystal-balls-or-just-a-glass-jaw-or-both/ How to make a perfect meal by @MigloMT Can you just imagine Tony Abbott with a microphone to the world? We’d be the laughing stock of the entire planet if we had a Prime Minister who made a perfect meal of everything he tried to talk about on the international stage. Abbottisms might be funny. Incompetence isn’t. http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/how-to-make-a-perfect-meal/ Turnbull demands NBN audit by @renailemay Anthony Albanese must immediately commit to an audit of the NBN rollout following reports that construction has stopped in Ballarat,” Turnbull said in a statement released yesterday. “Labor cannot continue to say this project is running on time and on budget when contractors are losing money and subcontractors are walking away from work.” http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/16/turnbull-demands-nbn-audit/ Australia election threatens shape of £22.7bn broadband plan by The Guardian The future of an ambitious project to connect almost all Australia's inhabitants to high-speed internet, the largest infrastructure enterprise in the country's history, is hanging on the outcome of an upcoming federal election. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/16/australia-election-threatens-broadband-plan Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 17 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

Ad astra

17/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

Pappinbarra Fox

17/07/2013You know a politician is in serious trouble when he (always a he) starts to get mocked by the public at large. Remember when Hawke said "what? Malcolm said hide it under the bed - but that is where the reds are" A turning point! when the jokes start about things that a pollie says. And let me assure you the jokes are certainly not invisible but there is a helluva market out there for them. Or alternatively, if you make a better joke the buyers will come to your door.

Ken

17/07/2013Ad and Nasking A couple of comments on the proposed cuts to "senior" levels of the APS. The cuts are aimed at Executive Level, including EL1s, EL2s and possibly some SES (Senior Executive Service). I have no problems, in principle, with some cuts at this level because over the years the APS has become top heavy. Work now being done by EL1s and EL2s used to be done by people classified at the APS5 and APS6 level. (The argument was that the work has become more complicated - which IMHO is debatable!) Worse, people at the EL levels, because lower level staff have reduced dramatically, now spend time doing major photocopying jobs, addressing envelopes for mail-outs, etc, even though they are earning around $100,000 (and more). If they do get rid of staff at these levels, they need to employ more lower level support staff so that those that are left do have time to focus on policy work and not waste much of their high-paid time on menial administrative tasks. The other issue, is that I also think there should be reductions at the SES level but history suggests that won't happen. The SES are the senior managers and every review in departments that I lived through almost always started on the principle that they still needed enough "Divisions" and "Branches" to match the number of SES officers they already had. They are the Managers and make the final decisions so, of course, they always maintain their own positions and pass the losses down the line. They don't just need cuts, they need a proper review of the APS's current structure and ways of getting it back in balance.

nasking

17/07/2013 AND LIBERAL JULIE BISHOP CALLS FOR SPEEDING UP OF FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH CHINA...WHAT WILL COME OUR WAY?: Back on the other side of Beijing, it's hard to imagine a test that would convince Huhu, the toddler's parents, to shop locally. Even the rice - the most Chinese of foods - their son eats is imported from Germany... Just this year, more than 900 people were arrested across China for crimes involving imitation meat, including rat illegally substituted for mutton and sold in market stalls. So many people in China have developed their own coping strategies to deal with nagging worries about their food. Some, like Huhu's parents, horde imported goods. Others choose to arm themselves with information. A host of smart phone applications have surfaced in the past year offering daily alerts on the latest food safety scandals. A cursory check of a single app warns users that a man in China's central Hunan province was arrested for selling bean sprouts that were illegally whitened with bleach. The next posting, from a user in Beijing, reveals that "black lumps that appeared to be mouse droppings" were found in a packaged pastry from a local grocery store. A photo illustrates each grisly report. Some consumers choose to protect themselves by becoming amateur food inspectors. Sales of home food safety tests are soaring online. The Zhiyunda Science and Technology Company, a private laboratory staffed by former food safety researchers, is doing brisk business. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23316125 YIKES! N'

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17/07/2013Folks [b]This is a warning that in future, when I delete a comment of any who come here to abuse, demean or ridicule others who comment here, or who repeatedly come to make mindless, inane remarks, I will also delete the comments of any who respond to them. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THESE PEOPLE. Their comments add nothing to rational debate. They litter the site with their rubbish. There is no point in anyone kicking that rubbish around. IGNORE THEM. LEAVE ME TO DISPOSE OF THE REFUSE.[/b]

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17/07/2013Ken Thank you for your informative comments about the proposed reductions to senior levels of the federal public service. What you write makes sense.

nasking

17/07/2013 KEN, THNX FOR THE INFO. [b]If they do get rid of staff at these levels, they need to employ more lower level support staff so that those that are left do have time to focus on policy work and not waste much of their high-paid time on menial administrative tasks.[/b] CAN SEE YOUR POINT...BUT I'M ONE OF THOSE WHO BELIEVES THAT NO WORK IS "MENIAL"...KEEPS A PERSON GROUNDED BEING FORCED TO DO AS OTHERS DO...PROVIDED OF COURSE THERE IS NOT SO MUCH OF THIS WORK IT TAKES FROM THE JOBS OF OTHERS AND UNDERMINES THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVES OF THAT POSITION. N'

KHTAGH

17/07/2013Your a great writer AA, you also do a good job of part time janitor too, many thanks.

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17/07/2013KHTAGH Thanks - I still take the rubbish to the tip!

nasking

17/07/2013 LYN, FROM YOUR LINKS: Abbott has sacrificed even the pretense that climate change is a real issue. Liberals who defend Abbott's sincerity about environmental and climate issues have now been abandoned by their own leader, another example of the futility of moderation in Abbott's Liberal Party. The Coalition's Direct Action policy is now a joke. Today is Greg Hunt's last chance to quit in order to save some dignity and credibility for what remains of his career. It would be more honest for Abbott to disown it and contest the election from a denialist perspective, making the election a referendum on anthropogenic global warming and Australia's role in causing and abating it. The current position isn't conservative hedging or even moderation, it's indecision and wanting to have it both ways. Abbott stands more of a chance as an unapologetic denialist than with the half-hearted, half-witted position he's in now. Scott Morrison was a creature of the party machine, imposed upon his electorate. He has always known that his political career depends upon building a broad popular base as well as cultivating the powerful. The fastest way for a politician to build a popular base is to be populist, and Morrison has certainly done that. Morrison bit off more than he could chew by wading into foreign policy. Before the Gillard government started sending asylum-seekers to Nauru he avoided anything more than urging the then PM to phone that country's President. After Malaysia, after meeting the Sri Lankan dictator and promising to return escaping dissidents to him, he now turns on the Indonesians and insists they do not mean what they say. You never look like a prospective government when you pick fights with foreign leaders, a lesson Mark Latham learned the hard way. Morrison's insistence on abandoning desperate people at sea achieves the effect Labor had hoped: theirs looks like the middle-ground position while Morrison and Abbott look like they've gone too far. Even Morrison's imagery is wrong: what the hell is wrong with "sugar on the table"? That image is one of sweet domesticity, and the conviviality of sharing a cuppa. It goes perfectly with Rudd's dull, reassuring public-servant image, with his own-blend tea and Iced Vo-Vos. It also reinforces the contradictions of a former head of Tourism Australia trying to discourage people from coming here. If Morrison has a sugar bowl at his place it's probably only there for the cameras. Look at that image again: imagine Abbott's white-knuckled fist crashing into that bowl. Not hard to imagine, is it? Sugar only makes you fat anyway. [b]Politicians only retreat to their base when they're in trouble. [/b] http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/ INDEED. N'

Ken

17/07/2013Nasking Take your point about "menial" with which I actually agree - but I was trying to distinguish the lower level photocopying-type jobs from higher level administration which, obviously, is also a major part of APS work. Will think of a better word next time.

nasking

17/07/2013 KEN, NO PROBS...GET WHERE YER COMING FROM. APPRECIATE YOU PROVIDING THE INFO. N'

bob macalba

17/07/2013Joe Hockey on ABC radio http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/hockey-says-ets-is-still-a-tax/4824876?section=business joe's such a lightweight

Austin 3:16

17/07/2013Hey Jaycee, How's about you just play the ball instead of the man and give consideration to the content.

nasking

17/07/2013 LYN, YER OFFERING UP A CORNUCOPIA OF GOODIES TODAY. :D YET ANOTHER ENLIGHTENING ASSESSMENT OF TONY ABBOTT...POSSIBLE PM (HEAVE): [b]Seriously Scary[/b] [b]What has perhaps been overlooked by some of these commentators is the degree to which Abbott appears to be influenced by not only the tactics, but also the ideology of the American Tea Party. [/b] Ali is happy with Abbott’s approach to Opposition, saying ‘Abbott has spent a lot of time thinking about precisely what an Opposition’s job is’, and quoting approvingly his statement that ‘Oppositions are there to hold the government to account. And unless we are confident that a piece of legislation is beyond reasonable doubt in the national interest, it is our duty as the Opposition to vote it down.’ [b]This is actually more crazy talk, because an Opposition can’t by definition vote something down. But leaving that aside, this doesn’t begin to cover the relentless negativity of Abbott’s tactics, which have operated outside parliament as much as within it – the stunts, the rallies, the abuse, the three word slogans.[/b] [b]These slogans are also part of the Tea Party legacy. (Don’t forget the time Cory Bernardi spent in the US learning the Tea Party model – see his Conservative Leadership Foundation.) Stop the boats, end the waste, repay the debt. [/b] [b]These are the same issues that motivate the right wing of the Republican party – though it’s Mexicans there, not boat people. Where else did he get the (erroneous) idea of attacking the debt ceiling? [/b] [b]There is no reasoned debate, let alone alternative proposals. This sort of unthinking market fundamentalism is a hallmark of the Tea Party; nothing that they might learn about the reality of a situation causes them to waver from their narrow ideological path. Anti-intellectualism is an article of faith. That’s exactly the approach to public policy that Abbott demonstrates.[/b] So what does this add up to? Abbott is not a conservative. His Catholicism is relatively unimportant in his politics. He is a neoliberal above all else. He is a calculating one, who will put electoral advantage first, but this doesn’t mean he has a particularly nuanced position. His latest effort on an emissions trading scheme – ‘it’s a market, a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance, to no one’ – suggests that his grasp of the theory of the market economy is indeed weak – it seems he got this attempted sound bite from the Daily Telegraph, in London – but that doesn’t lessen his reliance on it. Just read Tim Dunlop’s excellent article for the details of the policies announced so far. Think of him, as Marr says, ‘waiting for power.’ [b]Still saying Abbott is ‘a serious person’, Ali? Certainly the idea of him as Prime Minister is serious. Seriously scary.[/b] http://theaimn.com/2013/07/16/seriously-scary/ PERHAPS GINA RINEHART IS OUR KOCH BROTHERS? SKY NEWS IS TRANSFORMING INTO FOX NEWS MORE BY THE DAY. WE HAVE A NUMBER OF SHOCK JOCKS ACTING LIKE THE VILE RICH COCK JOCK RUSH LIMBAUGH. SARAH PALIN SEEMS TO HAVE TRANSFORMED INTO A BAKED ALASKAN FORM OF PAULINE HANSON. CHANNEL NINE HAS TAKEN THE ROLE OF AMERICA'S ABC DURING THE DREADFUL BUSH YEARS... THO, CHANNEL TEN HERE HAS GIVEN THEM A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY WITH LACHLAN MURDOCH AND GINA DOING THEIR BLACK MAGIC...MEET THE PRESS AND BOLT'S ALL-SPIN ZONE FEELING LIKE THE MUTANT CHILD OF ABC AMERICA AND FOX NEWS. OUR TABLOIDS SOMETIMES HAVE THAT NY POST...UK SUN FEEL ABOUT THEM. [i]THE AUSTRALIAN[/i] TOO. AND RUPERT MURDOCH LIVES IN NY. AND OWNS TABLOIDS IN THE UK. AND CONTROLS NEWS LTD HERE...AND ASPECTS OF SKY NEWS. AND OWNS PART OF FOXTEL. AS DOES OUR TRAVELLING CASINO MAN PACKER. SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ABBOTT?...THE FELLA WHO WORKED FOR MURDOCH, AND KERRY PACKER...WHO HEARTS GINA & BARNABY...AND THE VATICAN THAT DIGS RUPERT... THE SAME ABBOTT WHO ONCE HAD A ONE NATION FELLA WORKING OUT OF HIS OFFICE...BEFORE IT BECAME ONE NATION. PLAYER OF GAMES. SCHEMER. PUPPET. WEIRD...PUPPET. CYCLING LIKE MAD...LIKE GW BUSH...AND BORIS THE BOOB OF LONDON. N'

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17/07/2013Hi Lyn What a rich harvest of items you have presented this morning. Slogan-Abbott’s gaffe about that pesky invisible gas has reverberated afar. Not only was his statement scientifically stupid, it was ill-advised politically, as it reinforced the widespread belief that he is either a global warming denier or a skeptic, not a good position for a would-be national leader in a world where there is overwhelming evidence of AGW. The article on Slogan-Abbott by [i]Business Spectator’s[/i] Robert Gottliebsen in [i]Macro Business[/i] was fascinating, coming as it did from a Coalition supporter. It looks as if the Coalition power brokers are preparing themselves to ditch their leader if the polls run against him. The people’s choice would be Malcolm Turnbull, but could the Coalition swallow that option? If not Turnbull, who else? Hockey, Bishop, Pyne, Morrison? Pretty poor pickings there! Again, thank you for another harvest festival.

nasking

17/07/2013 WEIRD, HOCKEY AND THE OTHER LIBS AT HOMEBUSH LOOK LIKE [b]THE MOB.[/b] ANGRY, THREATENING. N'

nasking

17/07/2013 JOE HOCKEY VERY ANGRY THAT RUDD GOVT TRYING TO DEAL WITH CAR-RELATED RORTS... YET...THIS WAS HOCKEY PREVIOUSLY: [b]JOE HOCKEY: Well, with an ageing population and an entitlement system that has seen extraordinary largesse built up over the last 50 years, Western communities, Western societies are going to have to make some very hard and unpopular decisions to wind back the involvement of the state in people's lives. [/b] http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3480665.htm HMMM... N'

nasking

17/07/2013 [quote]I've recently given consideration to us bloggers having a blacklist that we all share, ie, if a person is banned on one site then that person becomes automatically banned on all conforming sites.[/quote] MIGS, SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING YOU'D EXPECT FROM NEWS LTD...OR SOME COMMIE REGIME...OR FASCIST CORPORATION. PROBABLY BEST TO LEAVE THE DECISION UP TO EACH BLOGMASTER ETC. THE IDEA OF CREATING A [b]BLACKLIST[/b] BRINGS BACK BAD MEMORIES...MCCARTHY ERA, REDS UNDER THE BED, NAZIS ETC. N'

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17/07/2013Michael Taylor I'm hoping that the offenders who leave their rubbish lying around here will deposit it elsewhere. As you say, there are sites that would welcome their rubbish. Why they don't use them is a mystery to me.

bob macalba

17/07/2013Ad we can just ignore the pests, can i suggest the first person to come across any rubbish put up a warning to any others following to scroll past and why, then you can decide whether or not its to be binned,....cheers ps..for some unknown reason i saw that post this morning and didn't even try to link on to it.it somehow seemed suss, when i came back later it was gone, glad i wasn't corrupted

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17/07/2013bob macalba Your advice is sound - just scroll past any suspicious comment, and of course any comment from the well known pests who come here to throw their rubbish about. I have come to recognise comments from spammers. Their comment bears no relationship to the thread, but includes an invitation to visit their website. I delete these as soon as I see them. These are manual spammers, as the Re Captcha mechanism traps the automated spammers.

bob macalba

17/07/2013this is funny...wait less time to meet the invisible man, for all the twitter folk http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/vatican-indulgences-pope-francis-tweets Talk Turkey..you might want to tweet him for a larf

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17/07/2013Folks You might be interested to read Matthew Knott’s piece in [i]Crikey[/i] today: [i]Hartcher hits back at book, critics: I'm no Rudd man[/i]. “[i]Sydney Morning Herald political editor Peter Hartcher has fired back at claims made by former Fairfax colleague Kerry-Anne Walsh in her book that he backed Kevin Rudd during Gillard's prime ministership. And he's not the only journalist fingered in a thorough examination of how the press gallery works. “The Stalking of Julia Gillard -- subtitled "How the media and Team Rudd brought down the Prime Minister" -- is already into its third print run after two weeks on the shelves. The 25-year press gallery veteran, who was most recently The Sun-Herald's political editor, doesn't hold back from naming and shaming journalists she believes became players in a destabilisation campaign against Gillard. “Hartcher -- described by Walsh as "Rudd's absolute favourite person in the press gallery", "Rudd's main media mouthpiece", "Rudd's mate" and "a tosser" -- receives the harshest treatment. When asked why Hartcher features so prominently in the book, Walsh told Crikey: "Because his writings were so emphatically pro-Rudd." She adds she's not the only person in Canberra, or the general public, who thinks so. “Among the many Hartcher stories Walsh references is a February 2012 piece in which he observed: "As he returns, in all likelihood, to the prime ministership in the weeks ahead ..." A week later, Gillard defeated Rudd 71 votes to 31 in a leadership ballot. “But Hartcher told Crikey: "I have no history as a Rudd supporter and am not a Rudd supporter. With Rudd, all I was doing was pointing out the political reality, based on established polling, that he was the preferred candidate to lead the Labor Party. If pointing out political reality now qualifies as cheerleading, then I guess I am guilty." “Hartcher has not read Walsh's book but says her thesis about the media's role in Gillard's demise sounds like a "conspiracy theory". "This is all a bit fringe and bizarre and confected," he said. "I'm not upset, I'm not shocked, I'm not angry, but I am bewildered." “On Saturday former Labor leader Mark Latham described Hartcher as "the equivalent of Rudd's press secretary, a political agent masquerading as an independent reporter". “But Hartcher says people have short memories. "When Rudd was PM I was one of his harshest critics," he said. "In Barrie Cassidy's book The Party Thieves he wrote that my commentary on Rudd's decision to abandon the emissions trading scheme would have led marginal seat members to think of supporting Gillard ... I have no private or personal or political attachment or indebtedness to Rudd whatsoever. It was the story I wrote [that Rudd's chief of staff was testing his caucus support] that provided Gillard the trigger to challenge Rudd." “Hartcher added: "At no point did Julia Gillard herself, or any of her staffers, tell me I was a barracker for Rudd." And he notes his story about frontbenchers Bob Carr and Mark Butler shifting away from Gillard was borne out by their votes for Rudd in the June leadership ballot. "It's an unhealthy relationship, and it's not serving the public interest where everything is off the record and no one has to put their names to anything." “Walsh's book was initially going to cover the workings of Australia's first minority parliament in 60 years. But she decided to shift focus because the parliament's policy achievements were being overshadowed by constant leadership speculation. During the Gillard years, she writes: "Every rule in the handbook of good journalism was broken." “Walsh's core contention is that the use of polling results and quotes from anonymous sources is out of control in the Canberra press gallery. She argues off-the-record briefings from Rudd and his supporters led journalists to repeatedly overestimate his level of caucus support and to underplay the minority government's policy achievements. This would have been less likely only five years ago, she says, when pressure to file around the clock was less intense and editors vetted stories more closely. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in terms of the daily rolling out of anonymously sourced stories. Maybe [journalists] just need to say, 'put your name to it or I won't bloody run it'. Politicians can whistle up any story they want with anonymous briefings. It's an unhealthy relationship, and it's not serving the public interest where everything is off the record and no one has to put their names to anything," she said. “Walsh says journalists should have publicly questioned Rudd about whether he was briefing against Gillard and called him out for undermining the PM. “On this point Hartcher said: "I have accepted confidences from many prime ministers, including from Julia Gillard before and when she was prime minister. When you agree to a confidence you have a professional obligation to maintain it -- that is why people are prepared to talk to us and to leak things to us. I've had briefings from Keating, Howard, Gillard, Rudd -- about every significant politician from any party we have -- in order to inform the public, not to benefit any one of them." “The media's fixation on Gillard's gender is another theme of Walsh's book, though not a dominant one. Walsh pings the Herald-Sun for claiming Gillard looked like she had "won a date with George Clooney" when she met Barack Obama. And she savages Hartcher for his analysis of Gillard's misogyny speech (he concluded the PM "showed she was prepared to defend even the denigration of women if it would help her keep power"). "I have copped a lot of flak on that, but I think I will be vindicated on this," Hartcher said. "Her deliberate use of gender for political exploitation only became clearer as the months unfolded." “While Hartcher receives the most stinging criticism, Walsh also gives press gallery reporters Phil Coorey, Dennis Shanahan, Simon Benson, Gemma Jones, James Massola and Michelle Grattan a serve in the book. Lenore Taylor, now of The Guardian, is praised for her use of "facts and even-handed quotes", and the ABC's Barrie Cassidy emerges as a hero for calling out Rudd's briefing tactics. "KA", as she's almost universally known, experienced Rudd's less-than-charming side in 2007 when he tried to kill a story casting doubt on his tale of childhood eviction. In Stalking she also recalls Rudd casually mentioning to her during a 2006 interview that then-Labor leader Kim Beazley might not be in good health. "It was a sinister, subtle undermining," Walsh concluded, "that put me on high alert that Rudd was a sniper in diplomat's garb."[/i]” Anyway, that’s how 'bewildered' Hartcher sees himself!

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17/07/2013bob macalba Everyone should read your link to [i]Vatican offers 'time off purgatory' to followers of Pope Francis tweets[/i] : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/vatican-indulgences-pope-francis-tweets That the Vatican is making such offers in this day and age is astonishing.

Michael

17/07/2013These latest drownings of asylum seekers north of Christmas Island just prove how dangerous the sea is out there. The boat in question was being escorted by two official Australian vessels. Not towing it, not turning it around, neither tethered to a boat nor pursuing one (or how many?) but still, in the mayhem of rough seas, with every ounce of professionalism and human determination, unable to preserve lives claimed by Nature's implacable force. Close enough to shepherd, but not able to do anything more when rough conditions occurred, how much more dangerous, how many more opportunities for death and injury will there be with ships' hulls banging up against each other, not during a welcoming rescue mission but essentially as part of a pitiless 'police action'? Does Morrison think 'towing boats back', 'turning boats around' on the high seas, is something like a yard monitor in a school's concrete and lines-marked quadrangle marshaling the movement of different year groups of school students? He seems to see himself with a riding whip in one hand and a megaphone in the other, Big Bwana Morrison. White Australia Redux in person.

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17/07/2013Michael Once the embargo on making political comments on the boat tragedy, imposed today by Jason Clare is over, Rudd should hammer Abbott and Morrison with: [b]Do you still believe you can safely turn boats around when in this instance two Navy vessels benignly shepherding the boat towards Christmas Island could not avert a capsize and drownings? Even with cooperative passengers and professional help, a tragedy occurred. How can you assert that you can turn around boats even when the occupants are unwilling to be turned around, when they resist to the point of disabling their vessels? How can you insist that you can successfully push them back into Indonesian waters? You must know that it is dangerous to the boat people and to Navy personnel. Why do you persist with this cruel charade?[/b]

TalkTurkey

17/07/2013bob Objecting to indulgences got one of my family members into very deep strife indeed ... He was the very first of the notable English reformers, burnt at the stake by order of Sir Thomas More for heresy in 1531, as many contemporary accounts detail ... More himself was later beheaded, right whack too. http://www.puritansermons.com/banner/bilney.htm http://www.lifeandlibertyministries.com/archives/000139.php Google Thomas Bilney and you will find many other references. The story of his death is as amazing as that of Socrates ... Get the part about his finger ..!.. Guess why my family are all atheists!

bob macalba

17/07/2013Fighting the buggers for almost 500yrs, truly impressed, if it was one of my family members..man i would still be pissed off too. ;} interesting read TT

bob macalba

17/07/2013austin....as always 'thats nice'

Curi-Oz

17/07/2013I'm fascinated that when ever a blog owner decides, for what ever reason, to limit the people who are consistantly rude or uncivil to the rest of their guests, there is always someone who crys "censorship"! I have come to the conclusion, after years of online activity, that civil disagreement is one thing, uncivility and boring troll behaviours should be removed from the public record as swiftly as possible to reduce the embarrassment to those poor fellows when they finally wish to be taken seriously as civil members of society. Perhaps a literate version of the Darwin Awards? http://www.darwinawards.com/

TalkTurkey

17/07/2013Bob I didn't know him personally ... ! But since I read that story about my namesake who does indeed hail from where I know my family did, and since he was so nice and so wronged and so beloved of the People, I've sort of sworn to get even on his behalf by calling out religious hypocrisy, well anyway I've used it as an excuse to get even more strident in my condemnation of such abuses as the Catholic and other Fundamentalist 'Christian' Churches. And especially as I get older I am dismayed at the weird belief in the Supernatural Ghost-Thing upon which all religions are founded. I was raised hardly going to church much at all, and then to the Unitarian Church, only one in Adelaide, and they didn't really believe in that crap at all. Miracles were more to be wondered at what they might mean symbolically rather than taken literally, they didn't believe in 6000-years ago creationism even back then, they didn't light candles or genuflect or confess to priests (we had a Reverend, and he was mildly revered and quite nice with two sons and he rode a 500cc Norton! He gave thoughtful sermons and we went to the Sunday School for short whiles where they did teach Bible stories and pretty much Good Samaritanism was the only thing that seemed important, and still does to me. It was sort of Clayton's religion. But I seem to know more about the Bible, like the story of Simpson and Delicious and how he slew 10 Million Filipinos with the assbone of a Jew ... :) http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Judges-15-16/ No really I am always surprised at how ignorant of Bible teachings 'Christians' turn out to be when challenged because I seem to know more than they do without ever having tried. And I am evermore of the opinion that Religion is the Tree of Evil itself, as Money is only the root. I want it OUT of the Parliaments of Australia. And State schools. And I want religious institutions taxed. Bugger 'em.

TalkTurkey

17/07/2013Our Trolls are like coal turning into carbon doxide! Start visible but disappear! :)

John Bloomfield

17/07/2013What offends me most in Abbott's smart-arse re-iteration of a British tabloid's inane simplistic catch-cry is that it conveys a cavalier and shamelessly irresponsible attitude to AGW; a dismissal, or disguised denial of the very real threat of AGW to all mankind. The Abbott led LNP are unable to separate ideological power seeking politics from the imperative to implement urgent transition to renewable energy sources as dictated by science. The scientific warnings being sounded by the most highly qualified and respected climatology experts/scientists are clear and virtually unequivocal - we must stop burning fossil based fuels URGENTLY- no ifs or buts can justify maintaining our present course of fossil fuel consumption. The (not so cold) hard facts are: With reference to Kevin Anderson 2012 lecture (from 46Min on linked video) :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U Due delay in action, there is now NO CHANCE of limiting global mean temperature increase (GMTI) to targeted 2DegC…. 3DegC is now almost certain…. bear in mind that many scientists advise that +4DegC future is incompatible with an organised global human community. The following is the new reality… Subsequent increase in heatwave ‘peak’ temperatures will be 2x or 3x the GMTI; i.e. +3Deg GMTI means a current summer 45DegC peak day will become a 48DegC peak day (dependent on geographical and local factors). All ocean coral reefs are predicted to die as ocean temperatures warm a further 1DegC from current levels. A 'x' DegC rise in ‘global mean temperature’ means that measured ‘land’ temperature will rise by 'x'+ 1 or 2 DegC (oceans are a massive cool heatsink, thus holding global ‘mean’ temp below prevailing ‘land’ temps) “Hottest day” peak (land) temperature during a heatwave will increase by 2x or 3x the rise in global mean temperature. The consensus among many climate experts is that anything over 2DegC is most likely to be unstable due positive feedbacks. Prof Kevin Andrews:– “There is a widespread view that a +4DegC future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems & has a high probability of not being stable (ie 4DegC would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level). Consequently…. 4DegC should be avoided at ‘all’ costs.” Yet corporations and their sponsored “conservative” politicians wilfully and carelessly waste precious amelioration time in denial- to stare down the barrel of ecological catastrophe – contrary to the scientific advice and evidence of changed reality. Maintaining corporate profits in the short term takes precedence over survival of our planetary life supporting ecosystem.

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17/07/2013John Bloomfield The facts are terrifying, yet we have Slogan-Abbott mouthing the inanities we heard yesterday, which is code for denialism in the face of incontrovertible facts. It reflects obscene disregard for our planet and all its ecosystems.

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17/07/2013Curi-Oz We have several candidates for a Darwin Award!

bob macalba

17/07/2013TT...dragged to the 'Kirk' on Sundays. off to the 'orange walks' during marching season, a wis only a wee yin but the message was clear....sectarian shit...and even now it still goes on..sigh Go the blues

Jason

17/07/2013Carbon, The “Political Slaughterhouse” By Rob Oakeshott July 17, 2013 Despite what the media tell you, Australia is not engaged in a tax debate on carbon emissions trading. We never were. Comprehensive tax reform is a separate, urgent debate, one that both major parties continue to sidestep. Instead, we have this crazy manufactured tax debate on carbon, where leading scientists and economists get neatly sidestepped, along with national challenges that really demand our urgent attention. http://www.theglobalmail.org/blog/carbon-the-political-slaughterhouse/660/

42 long

17/07/2013Would it not have been expected that as more real information became available that people would be "released " from the ignorance that pervaded past times. The inhabitants of this planet have never before had anything like the capacity to educate themselves, as they do now, yet flat earth types still get traction for their "fairy" stories and scary mind numbing bogeymen. You would have to be blind to not notice that religion has been the main excuse for barbarism and murder and many other foul acts down through time. It's also opposed the gaining of knowledge generally and the oppression of women.

John Bloomfield

17/07/2013Denial of AGW facts appears to be fundamental to corporations denying responsibility for accrued environmental debt. Earth's ecosystems will be left to pay with its/our lives. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/16/2307291/reuters-exposed-publication-openly-hostile-to-climate-coverage-top-editor-doubts-climate-science/ Yet another propaganda source exposed.

RhondaPerssons

17/07/2013When we vote this year those of us who supported Julia Gillard would like it be known-without voiding our vote. If we all made this comment on a blank sheet of paper and slipped it into the ballot box, would the electrol returning officer make ant comment - especially if there are many of us. At least Rudd might realise he is being voted for reluctantly

DMW

17/07/2013I just realised the saddest thing about the change in PM is that we don't have a First Bloke anymore. That's depressing. ... and I want another change ... from now on when we have a male as PM his partner shall be known as The First Sheila.

TalkTurkey

17/07/2013John Bloomfield If you are a newie, welcome on behalf of all the rest who write here, and in particular of our webmaster Ad astra who agreed with you saying [i]The facts are terrifying.[/i] Yes. But I'm old. Ad's older. It's Life on Earth we're terrified for, not our own. Human numbers are to blame, and Religion is the reason for human numbers. Class, and greed, and inhumanity, and promulgated ignorance are all ingredients; the witches' brew that is Religion is what drives the world's problems all down the generations.

TalkTurkey

17/07/2013Dog albitey. Just thinking. I have a Kevin 07 T-shirt, worn once. Would I wear it proudly as I give out HTV cards on E-Day? Ummm . . .

TalkTurkey

18/07/2013Pappinbarra Fox said Remember when Hawke said [i]"what? Malcolm said hide it under the bed - but that is where the reds are"[/i] I remember it well because the very next day I found myself sitting alongside of Hawkey on a rail at Woodlands Railway Station in Adelaide, waiting for a train to take us - him, my bro Gordon, and entourages, to Colonnades for a campaign launch for Kingston. It was 12 days out I think. I said to him wtte [i]That was a great comment Bob,[/i] ...H swelled and glowed, he said [i]You liked that did you?[/i] and I said I thought it was the final nail in Fraser's coffin. And so it turned out. Fraser was an object of ridicule after that. I heard later that Bob had lifted the comment from a female staffer but that didn't matter. I don't know who it might have been but I bet she was proud to help bring Big Mal to tears. And I keep hoping that someone, myself most particularly, will come up with something as poignant to skewer PiG~THiNG Abborrrtt with. So far the lovely Corinne Grant has been cleverest when she asked Turdball [i]What's your little blue booklet called Malcolm?[/i] and he muttered sheepishly [i]Real Solutions[/i], it sounded hilarious.

Mal Kukura

18/07/2013Enjoyed your story TT. Something poignant to skewer the piglet with sure does have allure and i wish i could say i have one but when i do i will share with you to get your views. Until then the leading liar has done quite well in preparing a skewer that he has punctured himself with and the rotisserie has begun. Re-arranging his pathetic attack on the acceleration of the carbon pricing schedule and substituting religion for market i come up with "This is not a true religion. Just ask yourself what religion is all about. It’s a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one." I have to acknowledge that the idea like Bob's came from someone else - ginnylowndes on Table Talk http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2013/07/16/abbotts-end-the-tipping-point/#comment-108606 July 16, 2013 at 11:28 am

lyn

18/07/2013Today’s Links Is Abbott Dead ? by Under the Milky Way I know this seem like a strange thing to say, but does Abbott already realize that he has lost the election ? On the news he looks strangely lifeless…defeated. No more somersaults. So what of the bravura of the Opposition demanding an election immediately ? If they know they’ve lost why call for an election straight away http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/tag/worms-on-a-fork/ My review of 'The Stalking of Julia Gillard' by @awelder Walsh focuses on journalists who were particularly prone to talk Rudd up and Gillard down. Her primary target is Peter Hartcher of The Sydney Morning Herald, whose career has moved in tandem with Rudd’s. Walsh is scathing of Rudd’s closeness to Hartcher, and Hartcher’s inability to report Australian politics in a way that doesn’t place Rudd at the centre of it. http://www.kingstribune.com/index.php/weekly-email/item/1844-the-last-big-journalists-strike When the Shit Hits the Fan by @saint13333 Never in all that time had a political party been accused of trying to use the courts to bring down a government.’’ Justice Rares in his judgement determined this to be so. Without wishing to labour the point. Does the reader fully grasp the implication of the judge’s ruling http://theaimn.com/2013/07/17/when-the-shit-hits-the-fan/ The coming end of the Murdoch empire by @independentaus Recent events surrounding Rupert Murdoch and the UK phone hacking scandal show no sign of letting up, former News Limited executive Rodney @ngungun –Rodney E Lever gives us an insight into the man and explains why his power is waning. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/coming-end-of-the-murdoch-empire/ Prime Ministerial 'selfie' speaks volumes by election watch IF YOU saw the Prime Minister's shaving 'selfie' last week — and chances are you did as it was retweeted hundreds of times, broadcast on the nightly television news, mentioned on radio, reprinted in newspapers and mocked in blogs — you also witnessed how political communication is changing. http://2013electionwatch.com.au/analysis/prime-ministerial-selfie-speaks-volumes Carbon, The “Political Slaughterhouse” by @OakeyMP The absurdity of the current debate is that Tony Abbott is today talking about a “floating tax” in an effort to label the entire market – not just the three-year fixed-price period – a tax. The logical extension of that argument is that we don’t have a share market, but a share market tax. http://www.theglobalmail.org/blog/carbon-the-political-slaughterhouse/660/ Crunching the carbon costings, who will be the winners and losers by Phillip Lasker Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's beaten rival Tony Abbott to the punch and axed the carbon tax. A switch to a full emissions trading scheme will cost nearly 4-billion dollars however Mr Rudd says business will be better off. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/crunching-the-carbon-costings-who-will-be-the/4824546?section=business New climate change policy play by @georgefwoods For the last four years, political and public discussion about climate change and the action Australia should take to mitigate it has been impeded by hyperbole and polemic http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/17/new-climate-change-policy-play-georgefwoods-reports/ Rudd’s emissions trading play by @LarvatusProdeo Abbott has already made himself look pretty stupid in his response, especially his comment about a tax on the non-delivery of an invisible substance. As already pointed out the comment comes from deep in the denialosphere. http://larvatusprodeo.net/archives/2013/07/rudds-emissions-trading-play/ Coalition turns to “clown prince” of climate to endorse Direct Action by @GilesParkinson Greg Hunt, Abbott’s climate change spokesman, delivered the fruit of his party’s four year search for a credible policy on Tuesday evening at the Grattan Institute, in front of a large group of informed listeners and delivered ….. an endorsement from a widely discredited former climate skeptic. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/coalition-turns-to-clown-prince-of-climate-to-endorse-direct-action-37814 Tony Abbott challenges Rudd to recall parliament over asylum seeker crisis by Helen Davidson "You caused this problem. This is a national emergency and it's got to be addressed now," he said in Mackay, Queensland on Wednesday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/17/abbott-rudd-parliament-asylum-seekers The return of the ETS by @JohnQuiggin2 I hope Parliament sits again, and that the government puts the necessary legislation forward. The amusement of watching Tony Abbott voting *for* the carbon tax would be well worth the price of admission. http://johnquiggin.com/2013/07/17/the-return-of-the-ets/ Labor may recall parliament for ETS changes by @EcoNewsDaily Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has expressed confident parliament will support the government’s plan.“Of course, we would get it through,” he told Sky News. http://econews.com.au/news-to-sustain-our-world/labor-may-recall-parliament-for-ets-changes/ IPA – a traitor to principle by Tristan Edis Abbott wants to use taxpayers’ money to pay for someone to not emit a tonne of CO2. You can’t physically measure CO2 not emitted, it quite literally doesn’t exist. Rather you have to develop an assumption of how much CO2 would have been emitted, and then compare that against how much CO2 is actually emitted. Determining this assumption can be complicated and subjective http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/17/policy-politics/ipa-%E2%80%93-traitor-principle Is the Current ALP government really wasteful? by @Mothincarnate Looking at the MYEFO, I was surprised to learn that when reviewing this source for the “Real Solutions” booklet, Abbott’s team missed the opposite message throughout. For instance, on page four, Australia’s GDP has remained persistently above other advanced economies, such as the US, Europe, the UK and Japan post Global Financial Crisis. http://newanthropocene.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/is-the-current-alp-government-really-wasteful/ Carbon dioxide emissions: how does Australia compare? by Nick Evershed There was a decrease of 4.7% in the emissions coming from electricity generation, which the report said was a result of falling demand for electricity. The former climate change minister Greg Combet said the carbon tax played a role in decreasing emissions from electricity generation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jul/16/australia-carbon-tax-emissionsLynton Abbott's non-delivery of substance? by Richard Holden Perhaps he was suggesting that climate change is fiction — that the overwhelming majority of both the scientific community and the Australian public are wrong. It's a fringe position, but at least not an incoherent one. But why then the need for "direct action", a policy he referenced in the same doorstop? http://www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/article/2013/jul/17/abbott-and-non-delivery-substance/ Coalition's soil carbon plan 'unviable', study finds by Peter Hannam A University of Melbourne survey of hundreds of Australian studies going back three decades found that using the country's soils to offset a significant proportion of national greenhouse gases “is technically limited and economically unviable at the present time”. http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1643761/coalitions-soil-carbon-plan-unviable-study-finds/?cs=12 Rudd the contender by @Drag0nista Then the opinion polls started rolling in. Newspoll, Nielsen, Morgan and Essential. All ten polls published since Rudd re-ascended less than three weeks ago showing healthy swings back to Kevin and Labor. And a counter-swing away from Abbott and the Coalition http://www.kingstribune.com/index.php/weekly-email/item/1845-rudd-the-contender That’s a load of rubbish, Andrew by @MigloMT Following the drowning of four asylum seekers off Christmas Island yesterday, Andrew Bolt had the audacity to comment that: http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/thats-a-load-of-rubbish-andrew/ Crosby’s clients are trouble for his political paymasters by @derekbarry Crosby and his partner Mark Textor were instrumental in John Howard’s four election wins and this is not the first time their activities have prompted calls of conflict of interest. Among their Australian clients are Qantas and as Howard headed into the election year of 2007, Crosby/Textor aggressively campaigned for an $11b takeover of Qantas by Airline Partners Australia. http://woollydays.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/lyndon-crosbys-clients-are-trouble-for-his-political-paymasters/ Online publisher labels Rudd access offer unethical as Vice avoids questions by @mumbrella The Sydney Morning Herald today revealed that Naked Communications was fired by the Labor Party after approaching youth orientated outlets, such as Fairfax’s The Vine, Vice and Pedestrian.TV is some cases asking for free advertising and tailored editorial in exchange for an exclusive interview with Kevin Rudd. http://mumbrella.com.au/publishers-label-nakeds-pm-access-offer-unethical-167641 Whatever happened to the health debate? by @GrogsGamut But while (not surprisingly) the Government thinks its current policy is the way forward, the Opposition hasn't quite yet come to the party. In its Real Solution document, Health Policy comes in at number 16 out of its 21 sections. For the most part it is a hodgepodge of statements http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/jericho-what-happened-to-the-health-debate/4823932 Egalitarian facade hides growing inequality by @1RossGittins The standard way to study the distribution of income is to compare the fortunes of the poorest fifth of households with those of the middle fifth and the top fifth. But Leigh has led the way in using income tax statistics to focus on changes in the share of total income commanded by the top 1 per cent of income earners. http://www.rossgittins.com/2013/07/egalitarian-facade-hides-growing.html Chunks Of NBN (1) – It’s A White Elephant by Under The Milky Way The LNP is planning to install a $29 Billion dollar White Elephant near you and every other Australian urban dweller. It’s their Fibre To The Node (FTTN) NBN and you should vote against it. The LNP FTTN NBN’s cost is $29 Billion and, as Malcolm Turnbull knows but disingenuously avoids to directly state, will in short time require a complete upgrade http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/chunks-of-nbn-1-its-a-white-elephant/ The NBN utility and connection boxes by NBNCo The Network Termination Device (NTD) will now informally be called the ‘NBN connection box’ and the Premises Connection Device (PCD), installed on an outside wall of a building, will now informally be referred to as the ‘NBN utility box’. http://www.nbnco.com.au/industry/service-providers/newsletter/july-2013.html?cid=eml:as:nl-july13::hdr:txt Labor and Coalition broadband policies – what’s the difference? by @ConversationEDU Labor promises a more future-proof solution that will cost more at the outset, but will stimulate broadband developments in government, business, and entertainment, and has potential to serve Australia beyond 2050 http://theconversation.com/labor-and-coalition-broadband-policies-whats-the-difference-16165 Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 18 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

Michael

18/07/2013http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/morrison-talks-up-english-tests-to-qualify-for-citizenship-20130717-2q4rm.html?skin=text-only Bwana Morrison edges the Coalition towards Down Under apartheid.

Ad astra

18/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

Ken

18/07/2013To my mind, the problem with the climate debate is that we are arguing about only part of the problem. We are taking the vain human view that we can solve the problem by addressing CO2 emissions without addressing other issues (similar vanity to the view,expressed in a Boston Medical journal, that we seem to think we can be immortal if only we find a cure for cancer or for heart disease, etc, which is simply untrue!). With climate, we seem to think that if we curtail carbon emissions everything will be all right and we can just continue as normal. But we are not addressing population growth nor our constant economic emphasis on "growth". Both of those lead to increased energy consumption, increased consumption of finite resources, increased encroachment on the natural environment, and so on. It is my belief that if we are truly to address global warming we have to address these "elephants in the room". China is one of the few countries in the world that has genuinely addressed population growth. We are not discussing new economic models but we should be, models that do not rely on constant growth. The very fact that we consider a "downturn" in growth as a problem is itself part of the problem. My advice is not to ignore CO2 but to take the opportunity to broaden the debate to include issues that will lead to long term solutions and help reduce the possibility of similar situations arising again.

jaycee

18/07/2013The area where I live is dead or dying....marginal in farming and thinking...I have written a series of "Future Proofing" articles for the community forum site, but had to give up on the last as there was nothing promising for the future to proof against! What we need badly and I am want to promote it as it would bring the community down on my head, is an influx of those refugees, economic or otherwise to reinvigorate and reinvent the community. We are in bad need of "new blood" with new ideas and the "hunger" to implement them. The influx of European and Asian migrants in the fifties and seventies awoke Aussie to the exciting world of cosmopolitan food and wine and attitude..we need such a rejuvenation again.

jaycee

18/07/2013Isuspect the whole fear thing about refugees, economic or otherwise is the religious angle being played for all it is worth. Only so much market to flog the “God principle” and the Vatican is being undercut! Perhaps, in the interests of secular society, we should be promoting a kind of ‘Secular Festival of Games”…incl’ Soccer, footy, rugger, netball, cricket etc. over a month or so and a kind of open invitation to all nations, clubs, creeds and political beliefs….one in – all in!…and no race/creed/politico promos!…….just a month of social get-together for ALL AUST”!

Ad astra

18/07/2013RhondaPerssons Welcome to [i]The Political Sword[/i] family and thank you for your comment. Do come again. I don't know the answer to your question at 11.10 PM last night. Does anyone else?

Jason

18/07/2013RhondaPerssons The answer to your question is no! A scrutineer from the ALP may pass the comments on to the candidate but the returning officer doesn't.

Catching up

18/07/2013Even if we dumped the Refugee Convention, we are still liable to follow the universal convention of human rights. Yes, we will still not be able to abandon people. People will still have inalienable. rights. If the boats resumed coming because of Rudd, one would think when a harsher Pacific Solution has been put back in place would stop them. This has not happened. Maybe Rudd is not to be blamed. Maybe changed conditions are.

Catching up

18/07/2013What will we do, even if we decided all were not refugees, where do we return them too. Suggest, there is nowhere for them to go. We know Iran will not take them back. As for those we are returning to Sri Lanka, there appears to be evidence, that we are returning them to jail. Indonesia and I suspect Malaysia will not cooperate. At the end of the day, we will have to work within the reality of the problem. We will have to move beyond politics. Abbott seems to love the past, why not go back to the solutions used for those from Vietnam. Australia does not appear to be harmed by those who were allowed to come. The fact is that our culture has been enhanced. We have Morrison this morning back to integration and being able top speak English. Both are just red herrings to demonised refugees. In fact, it appears, what we are getting this time, are educated or skilled. Many seem to have the ability to speak English. Yes, even the middle and upper classes can be at risk. Money does not always protect one.

Catching up

18/07/2013Why does there have to be evidence of rorting to tighten up FB taxes. All they are asked to do, is keep records for a short period, once every five years. Seems reasonable to me. I believe that today, one can even use a ap. It can be a little of a nuisance, but becomes second nature, every time one uses the car. The Opposition outcry is a little overblown.

LYN

18/07/2013Good Morning Ad and Everybody, Thankyou for your comments to me on July 16. 2013 05:44 PM , in which you mentioned “[quote]I get the impression that Rudd is systematically dismantling Slogan-Abbott’s election slogans”[/quote] I agree he certainly is playing mind games with Abbott and it shows on Abbott’s face, more so this morning. Your second comment July 17. 2013 12:21 PM [quote]“Slogan-Abbott’s gaffe about that pesky invisible gas has reverberated afar”[/quote] still more articles today one in particular from Today’s links, re-tweeted 74 times was :- Abbott's non-delivery of substance? by Richard Holden, [quote]Perhaps he was suggesting climate change is fiction [/quote]excerpt http://www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/article/2013/jul/17/abbott-and-non-delivery-substance/ Thankyou for your gratitude & appreciation of “Today’s Links” I love it. Thankyou Michael I am pleased you enjoy Sortius as I do. Me being a lover of the NBN and have been following since 2007. Sortius provides the best facts in my opinion. Nasking good to see you are well a big thankyou as always, you are so appreciative, your words are full of feeling. Patricia you too @ July 16. 2013 06:30 PM thankyou . I see you enjoy Sortius too, good on you. So pleased you enjoy the links. Have to say I enjoy reading them & can assure you the nasties don’t get recognized in any way. This is an article of classic spin, spinning every which way & loose by Waterford. He must hate saying this: [quote]Rudd has many serious flaws, but, it seems, they rather like him in a way they have never liked Abbott. [/quote] [quote]Abbott now playing away, by Jack Waterford[/quote] Now it's Rudd who is setting the agenda, and Abbott who is reacting - and not all that well either. He has lost momentum, face and reputation over changes to the carbon tax, and is still struggling to explain and defend his boat people policy. Put bluntly, the Abbott we are seeing rather more resembles the Aunt Sally Rudd of the Liberal ads than Rudd does. Rudd is setting the agenda, dominating the news space, and announcing and aspiring to a raft of carefully focused-grouped proposals designed to make his government seem a successor to, not a continuation of, the Gillard government. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/abbott-now-playing-away-20130716-2q2nv.html#ixzz2ZM2VS9rl [quote]Kevin Rudd backs Tony Abbott into the corner in election race, by Mark Kenny [/quote] With Coalition control of both houses no longer possible, Abbott's oft-stated promise to dump the carbon tax will be deliverable only via a joint sitting subsequent to a double dissolution election. Labor can win even at 50:50, if its primary vote recovers in the places that the latest poll shows it has. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/kevin-rudd-backs-tony-abbott-into-the-corner-in-election-race-20130717-2q4iz.html#ixzz2ZM6WYfMD [quote]An invisible nod to the climate change sceptics, by Jonathan Green [/quote]intent seems clear enough: a nod to the people, both voters and those in his own ranks, sceptical of climate science, for whom the idea of "taxing air" has always been a semantic thrust at what they see as the absurdity of climate change, that so-called phenomenon, caused by things you can't even see. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-18/green-an-invisible-nod-to-the-climate-change-sceptics/4826472

TalkTurkey

18/07/2013Hi Lynnie As ALWAYS thanks for the links, and I wrote a little note to Sortius myself this morning, he is after a Black Magic camera which I don't know where he'll get one but I recommended a Fujifilm W3 Stereo camera what I is got!

jaycee

18/07/2013The "economic refugee" arguement is predicated on a little known set of facts that the “economic refugee” has their own personal wealth buying their way into Aust’….whereas, I believe, many are subject to the “hostage” situation of moneys borrowed against the remaining family members and or possessions back “home”. I know that many come here heavily indebted to money lenders..and if what one reads about such people here, I doubt there would be too much sympathy metered out to the remaining family members (women and girls?) left in lieu of… I suspect there is nothing “romantic” in the consideration of the sea voyage, in the imagination or whatever, for those desparate to try their hand at ‘Jolly Jack Tarr’. I think they earn the benefit of the doubt. I remember speaking to a cousin who was sponsored out just after the war as a fourteen year old…and he told the tale that when his uncle wrote in 1926 to the person who would sponsor him here, he asked ; “Is there much food there”…the answer being yes ; rabbitts!..he sent a telegram..”I’m coming!”

John Bloomfield

18/07/2013Talk Turkey (and Ken), thanks for your welcome and comments - I have been here a few times - but thanks anyway. As far as I can see religion promises "magic" solutions from some imaginary supreme being - available only to those with that particular faith - a proven business model from which religious organisations continue to accumulate great wealth and affluence. Basic human greed and avarice is the problem - exploited by both religions and business's to accumulate wealth and control. I believe the laws of physics will dictate and control our future existence on Earth - no magical solutions from any supernatural source will intervene to change the relentless impact of the damage/pollution of our life supporting atmosphere, land and oceans. To quote Kevin Anderson (Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University of Manchester) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U (starting at 49.5 secs on video) “Climate change is not about population –climate change is about a small group of people, and we know who they are…[us].. Sustainability is a 7 billion person issue – climate change is not. It’s about the next ten years or so…. 40 to 50% of energy emissions come from approx 1% of the world population, 50% of food related emissions come from 5% of the population…”. Developed countries are the major emitters (including 30 million people in China with affluent lifestyle). It is the developed world that must reduce its profligate co2 emissions. It is the developed world that must urgently stop burning fossil fuels, develop and rapidly shift to renewable energy sources. Developing nations will then follow. Unless we stop AGW, there will be no future in which we can address inequity, inequality and exploitation. Unleashed natural and "economic" forces will ruthlessly cull human populations - within one generation "overpopulation" will cease to be a problem. Nature provides no charity; corporations in financial crisis will dissolve like ghosts into the ether to avoid liabilities and preserve their wealth - expect no help from there either. Our current situation is undeniably unsustainable - business as usual will only assure and hasten the collapse our civil society.

Ad astra

18/07/2013Hi Lyn Your links once more give us an abundance of food for thought, and you have added even more later this morning. I found them all great reading. You really are a super-sleuth in finding relevant reading. The [i]Citizen Journalism no fibs[/i] piece on climate change has some revealing, indeed frightening graphics that show the effects of increasing global warming. Well worth a glance even if the words are skipped. http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/17/new-climate-change-policy-play-georgefwoods-reports/ There’s a neat analogy about an ETS versus the Coalition’s DAP by Tristan Edis in [i]Business Spectator[/i] He makes such jolly fun of Abbott's 'invisible substance'. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/17/policy-politics/ipa-–-traitor-principle The comparison of the NBN and the Coalition’s NBN Lite is well described and illustrated in [i]The Conversation[/i] by Rod Tucker. http://theconversation.com/labor-and-coalition-broadband-policies-whats-the-difference-16165 Your later links point to the reversal of roles now that Kevin Rudd is calling the shots and Slogan-Abbott is on the back foot trying to defend his position, still sloganeering. The latest is that ‘Rudd is internationalizing the boat arrivals problem’. Can you believe that Abbott has finally come to the conclusion that it is an international problem (as it [b]always[/b] has been), with something like 43 million refugees seeking another country to live in. For a Rhodes scholar, he seems to be a slow learner. Thanks again for feeding such a [i]cordon bleu[/i] menu, day after day.

Ad astra

18/07/2013The Business Spectator link isn't working, so use the one in Lyn's links, which does work.

lyn

18/07/2013Hi Talk Turkey, Thankyou for your nice words, I love how you continue to delight everyone being your normal “Happy Chappy” self. Ad Astra said above "[quote]For a Rhodes scholar, he seems to be a slow learner" Tony Burke thinks Lotto is a slow learner too. [/quote]Immigration Minister Tony Burke on Thursday hit back at Mr Abbott's assertion that boat arrivals were Australia's problem, not the world's. [b]''Mr Abbott is perhaps the first person in the world to not believe refugees are an international issue,'' he told Fairfax Media. [/b] ''By the very definition, refuges and asylum seekers are an international issue. We have a significant problem in our region and we need a comprehensive regional approach to deal with it.'' http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/boats-our-problem-not-the-worlds-tony-abbott-20130718-2q5r1.html#ixzz2ZMxNSzo2

lawriejay

18/07/2013 Worth a read : I've just read Andrew Elder's review of Kerry Anne Walsh's book on the stalking of JG - as with the book the review was also a healthy dose of reality. Definitely my cup of tea ? http://www.kingstribune.com/index.php/weekly-email/item/1844-the-last-big-journalists-strike

42 long

18/07/2013mrabbott must realise that he can keep his mouth closed and there may be some doubt as to his intelligence or open it and remove all doubt. What a DUD he will be. A total embarrassment to us all. He won't change. What you see is what you will get. The guy has his problems but why knowingly make HIS problems OUR problem? There is still time to wake up.

Ad astra

18/07/2013Folks [b]Just a reminder about TPS M@IL. Web Monkey went to a lot of trouble to create this unique resource, which enables you to email politicians with ease. No other site offers this facility. To send an email, simply click on ‘Create you own email’ in the box at the top of the left panel, or in the panels at the top and foot of each piece, and follow the instructions. If you’ve forgotten some of the details, click on ‘FAQ’ in the box in the left panel for a full explanation and details of how to send emails to politicians, and the journalists we have listed. With an election looming, this is the time to use this facility to the full.[/b]

Ad astra

18/07/2013Hi Lyn Slogan-Abbott is so stuck in his triple mantra of the Howard era that he can't move. He can't acknowledge that asylum seeking is an international problem because he wants to make it Rudd's problem, and his alone. He sounds more ridiculous by the day.

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18/07/2013lawriejay I agree, Andrew Elder’s review of Kerry-Anne’s book was sound. 42long You are right: Slogan-Abbott as PM would be an embarrassment to us all.

jaycee

18/07/2013I don't think Elders review was as concise as yours, AA. in that he didn't capture the angushed mood and emotion in light of the infamous intrigues as, I believe, Ms. Walsh intended. Hence the mistaken interpretation of a "rushed" feel....sometimes such emotions are so intense that words do not suffice and can seem jumbled because of such emotion. IMHO.

Michael Taylor

18/07/2013I found myself parting with a few dollars to buy the book. Ad is right; it's a real 'page turner'. Enthralling stuff.

lyn

19/07/2013Today’s Links Malcolm in the middle: why the Coalition might turn to Turnbull by Simon Jackman Does the Coalition have to consider the unthinkable? Does Malcolm Turnbull offer them a better chance at victory against a resurgent, Rudd-led, Labor party? The betting markets are certainly toying with the idea. Turnbull’s price in the Liberal leader markets was in to the $4.5 to $6 range this week, after spending the last few months at $7 to $8 or higher. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/malcolm-turnbull-coalition-middle Rudd’s UN refugee convention push by @LarvatusProdeo at the end, get this: “ The Deputy Opposition Leader, Julie Bishop, says if the Coalition is elected it would be open to withdrawing Australia from the Refugees Convention.Then if you have the stomach, on the 7.30 Report there’s the execrable Scott Morrison doing a good impersonation of a fanatic. http://larvatusprodeo.net/archives/2013/07/rudds-un-refugee-convention-push/ Explainer: Australia’s obligations under the UN Refugee Convention by @ConversationEDU Many of the Afghan, Iraqi, Iranian, Sri Lankan and Syrian refugees coming to Australia are proof of the continuing relevance of the convention and our need to support it. We must learn from our modern history and avoid the mistakes of the past. To withdraw from the convention would be to turn our back, http://theconversation.com/explainer-australias-obligations-under-the-un-refugee-convention-16195 Election 2013 climate change policies: by @GrattonWilson The principle of paying people or organisations to stop polluting is like the council paying litterbugs to stop littering. It is clearly wrong-headed. Those who cause the pollution should bear the cost - http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/18/election-2013-climate-change-policies-grattonwilson-reports/ Why Hunt doesn't make sense by Harley Wright I plead to the Coalition to come to its senses and deal with this serious issue seriously. Stop playing political games with our descendants’ future. A return to a responsible, bipartisan approach would be welcomed, possibly respected, all-round. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/18/policy-politics/why-hunt-doesnt-make-sense The growing irrelevance of the Murdoch media by @MigloMT both IA and Margo are attracting massive audiences which one would expect is to the detriment of the MM. They lead a number of long-established independent sites such as Andrew Elder, The Failed Estate, The Pub, Café Whispers, The Political Sword, Grog’s Gamut and more recently here at The AIMN where alternate opinions are awarded some voice. http://theaimn.com/2013/07/18/the-growing-irrelevance-of-the-murdoch-media/ Car Leasing firm plans to sack half its workforce by rossleighbrisbane Am I missing something? Does this mean that half their workforce was working thanks to people rorting the system? Remember, this doesn’t stop people leasing a car – it’s only a crackdown on people leasing a car who aren’t using it for work http://rossleighbrisbane.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/car-leasing-firm-plans-to-sack-half-its-workforce/ Automotive sector pleads: we need this tax rort by Bernard Keane perhaps by accident, instead Rudd Mark 2 has proposed the removal of yet another prop of the elaborate funding structure that makes Australia’s automotive sector not a legitimate stand-alone industry but a hybrid, heavily dependent on the taxpayer for life support. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/17/automotive-sector-pleads-we-need-this-tax-rort/ Jump in My Government Subsidised Car, I Want to Take You Home by @prestontowers I could - and still can - see the use of novated leases for people using cars for work purposes, like mobile nurses, union organisers, sales representatives. But for people going to and from work and then ferrying kids to sport and so on? http://ausvotes2013.com/2013/07/18/jumpinmysubsidisedcar/ In defence of the public service by @independentaus Let’s be clear about the Coalition’s plans. They want to cut 20,000 jobs, 12,000 in the first two years, from the public service. These cuts will hurt families. Local businesses in Canberra and nearby NSW towns will suffer. There will be fewer customers with less money to spend. Some businesses will even have to close as a result of this. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/in-defence-of-the-public-service/ Rudd Makes The Right Move On Carbon by @beneltham One thing Rudd and Labor will be happiest about in the move to a floating carbon price is the space it has opened up between Labor and its political opponents on the issue. The Greens have signalled they will block any move to abandon the fixed price in the Senate, while the Coalition remains wedded to its increasingly convoluted “Direct Action” climate policy. http://newmatilda.com//2013/07/18/rudd-makes-right-move-carbon “Sometimes bad things happen” | Tony Abbott’s gaffe by @darinsullivan09 Putting aside the subliminal beliefs he was displaying (ie that he thinks his actions and position on asylum seekers is like being the police, just policing criminals, and that it’s their own fault for being criminals) the obvious flaw in his argument was right in front of the media pack, and not one of them picked it up – http://darinsullivan.net/2013/07/18/sometimes-bad-things-happen-tony-abbotts-gaffe-and-the-auspol-ausmedia-missed-it/ Queensland LNP takes aim at electoral law by @benraue These funding cuts will most severely hit smaller parties. In addition to overall amounts of funding being cut, a candidate will need to poll over 10% to qualify for funding – a massive jump from the current 4% threshold. http://www.tallyroom.com.au/15750 Naked and Unashamed by @djackmanson It tells us a lot about how power works in our world that a PR agency would shill our Prime Minister in this way. But it tells us a lot more to know that it’s not the principle that was the problem, it’s just that the money wasn’t good enough. http://ausvotes2013.com/2013/07/18/naked-and-unashamed/ Said the Abbott to the Ruddster by Truth Seeker With the debacle over Rudd’s challenges to Abbott for debates, I thought it appropriate to exercise some poetic licence, and give it the “Truth Seeker” treatment http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/said-the-abbott-to-the-ruddster/ Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 19 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

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19/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

Michael

19/07/2013http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/quitting-refugee-convention-oppn-option-20130718-2q7c4.html?skin=text-only Bwana Morrison talks "war" again. And about how a Coalition Australian Government would 'keep the natives from ever leaving where they start out from'.

jaycee

19/07/2013One wonders what Shakespeare would have made of the Rudd/ Gillard affair in relation to his Othello play. Of course, there was no long-term undermining of Rudd when the spill was announced..knowing he didn't have the numbers, he didn't defend the position. Whereas with Gillard, like Othello, being schemed and deviously undermined by Iago...Gillard was schemed and undermined not only within, but by the MSM as well. Naturally, Iago was portrayed as a traitor and malevolent schemer/coward in the play and I ponder on those now, in this latest affair who willingly take the side of our modern-day Iago, as to just what their morals and ethics reflect on themselves as a person...just another devious, cowardly traitor, I guess! "You wouldn't trust them with a vegemite-jar full of five cent pieces".

TalkTurkey

19/07/2013Ad astra Re a certain post above, I can't resist repeating something the very norty Frank Calabrese says on occasion to noted whingers on Twitter: [i][b]MMMMMUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMM-MMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE[/b]![/i] And I'm happy to have it deleted of course.

Michael

19/07/2013Bwana Morrison going bananas! Under the interrogatory 'scalpel' of Chris Uhlmann, of all people. Transcript from last night's 7:30. CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: The political arms race over asylum seekers is escalating with the Coalition declaring tonight that Australia must wage a war against people smugglers and should consider withdrawing from the United Nations Convention on Refugees. The dramatic new rhetoric comes as Kevin Rudd finalises the Government's asylum seeker strategy, which is expected to be announced in the next few days. The Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison and joined me here in the studio a short while ago. Scott Morrison, welcome. SCOTT MORRISON, OPP. IMMIGRATION SPOKESMAN: Thanks, Chris. CHRIS UHLMANN: Can you safely turn around boats without Indonesia's cooperation? SCOTT MORRISON: Yes, we can, and that's exactly what happened last time we were in office and there are a whole range of scenarios that obviously do present and that's why we've been working very hard with those who have lot of experience in this area to ensure that we can have the appropriate tactics to confront these things. CHRIS UHLMANN: Well, the expert panel on asylum seekers found that only eight attempts were ever made to turn back boats. Four succeeded and four didn't. SCOTT MORRISON: Well, that's what I'm saying: it can be done when it's safe to do so and that's what Admiral Ritchie said as well and he said when it was done, the boats stopped coming because the measure worked and that's why I think Brigadier Hogan and I think General Molan and I think others have been so supportive of the plan. I think what underpins their support is their confidence, as I have confidence in the professionalism of our Navy. CHRIS UHLMANN: But you agree with what the expert panel found that every time people resisted, the boats couldn't be turned back? SCOTT MORRISON: Well, there were things that they've referred to in their report and they referred to those instances, but every instance is going to be different and I'm very confident about the Navy's capacity to get the procedures in place, as they did last time, for this policy to be effective. CHRIS UHLMANN: Can you explain how it works because you take them out beyond your 24-mile zone, what, do you just leave them in international waters? SCOTT MORRISON: Well, again, I've said this I don't know on how many occasions, I'm not going to telegraph our moves that we might make at sea and the tactics that compromises the mission. I think that would be irresponsible to do for those who are serving in our Defence Forces and in our Customs service who would be asked to go and perform these duties. CHRIS UHLMANN: Don't you see that if the vessels aren't escorted, then there'll be a problem with the vessels once they hit Indonesia's waters? SCOTT MORRISON: Well let me just sort of refer to what happened last time, as Admiral Ritchie did, and that is when they went back into Indonesia waters, they went back to the ports from which they've came because that's the amount of fuel and other things they had to get them to that place. So, that's how the policy operated last time. There'll be many others scenarios that will present on this occasion and if we work through in some detail as to how me might address those and the smugglers will find out about that when they're confronted with that. CHRIS UHLMANN: And we've seen this week that a boat that was being escorted by not one but two naval vessels capsized and four people drowned, so even under those circumstances, this is really dangerous. SCOTT MORRISON: Well, the sea is a dangerous place, and I wonder about what the Government's position is on this. Is it seriously their contention that they are just going to let the boats keep coming? See it's our policy to stop them. And my challenge to Kevin Rudd is simple: do you believe your policies, which currently don't exist, Prime Minister, will stop the boats? We do. CHRIS UHLMANN: And is it seriously your contention that you could turn around a boat at sea and just leave it there and hope that it makes its way back to Indonesia safely? SCOTT MORRISON: Well, that is what occurred last time. CHRIS UHLMANN: So they just sailed back themselves? SCOTT MORRISON: That's right. CHRIS UHLMANN: And what if they turn around and come back again? SCOTT MORRISON: They don't have enough fuel to get back to Australia. CHRIS UHLMANN: And then they get stuck somewhere between Indonesia and Australia; isn't that what happens? SCOTT MORRISON: No, they went back to shore. CHRIS UHLMANN: And who's responsibility ... SCOTT MORRISON: They went back to shore, Chris. That's the point of the policy and there are other scenarios that present where the Navy also is able to ensure that people can do the best in their interests in terms of their own safety and the safety of our own people. So, I mean, we can go round this many, many times, Chris, but the bottom line is when you've got Admiral Ritchie, Major-General Molan, Brigadier Hogan - all people who know what they're talking about backing the man, well, I'll leave it to the Australian people to judge and our form is our record. What is Kevin Rudd's form here? Kevin Rudd's form is prior to the 2007 election he said was going to do this. He never believed in it, he never did it. What he believed in was abolishing the measures that worked which has given us the chaos and the cost and the tragedy of the last five to six years. CHRIS UHLMANN: And even though you say that these people change their business model all the time, they won't just change it again to adjust to what you do and you won't stop the boats? SCOTT MORRISON: We will stop the boats because we will respond to the situations that we're presented with and that's our resolve. See, this a war against people smuggling and you've got to approach it on that basis. And we will not cease until it's done. Kevin Rudd doesn't believe you can stop the boats. That's why he won't commit to stopping the boats. CHRIS UHLMANN: Is it a war against people smuggling or a war against asylum seekers? SCOTT MORRISON: This is a war against people smugglers. That's what I just said. CHRIS UHLMANN: There are governments in the world that are much tougher than yours is ever likely to be. If I can take you back to 1970s when the Vietnamese were fleeing their country, some of the neighbouring countries there shot at the boats, some of them towed boats out into international waters and left them there and the boats continued to come because people were desperate. Can you win that kind of war? SCOTT MORRISON: Well I think the comparison between what was happening in the Indochinese crisis and what is happening here is very, very different. We have peoples going secondary movement through a transit country where they're flying in from other countries. When people are going to be denied the outcome they're seeking, then the reason to take that great risk changes. The whole parameters change. So as long as they think they can get what they're getting on the boat for, then they will get on the boat. Our policies are designed to change that equation, as they did last time, whether it's turning back, whether it's temporary visas, whether it's regional offshore processing, whether it is the situation that you don't have documents, you don't get a go. CHRIS UHLMANN: Isn't this debate now utterly hysterical? Is it right to start describing this as a war with people smugglers? SCOTT MORRISON: Well, I'm not sure how you would propose to fix this, Chris, but how we propose to fix it is on every case, in every occasion, at every opportunity, we will put in place a deterrent and we will do that all the way back from our border, all the way up through the region, all the way up through to the source countries as well. That has always been our position, always our position and that is the resolve it takes to beat this. This government hasn't been trying to fix this problem, they've been trying to fix the politics. Now we have Kevin Rudd on the eve of an election talking about issues he's never talked about in his life. CHRIS UHLMANN: And on the border with Syria where there's a real war, 2,000 people a day are coming across the border. There are much bigger problems in the world than the one that you might face. SCOTT MORRISON: Well, with 1,000 people and more dead, Chris, then I think it's a very serious issue and I think most Australians do as well. CHRIS UHLMANN: Hasn't the behaviour of the Government and the Coalition helped to really dent the relationship with Indonesia? SCOTT MORRISON: No, I don't accept that either. I mean, I think we will have a very good relationship with Indonesia. They may not agree with everything that we may suggest. I don't think the Australian Government even currently agrees what the Indonesia Government is doing, and let me give you a case in point: Iranians are given visa on arrival in Indonesia. They are the dominant group coming on boats at the moment. The fact that they can get visa on arrival in Indonesia is an issue, but that's a sovereign decision of the Indonesian Government, just as we have sovereign decisions on ours and we are not going to hand over a right of veto to Indonesia any more than they would to us. CHRIS UHLMANN: And one of the sovereign decisions that we made was the sign the Refugee Convention. Was that a mistake in hindsight? SCOTT MORRISON: Well there was 1.5 million refugees back then and that was a very different world to what we're looking at today. I've made criticisms of this convention and more importantly its interpretation for some years. Kevin Rudd has discovered this in the last couple of days. But we've heard it all before from Kevin. Kevin Rudd is looking for a distraction, trying to take every domestic issue into an international issue so he doesn't have to do anything, so he can just get on a plane and go to another meeting. CHRIS UHLMANN: Finally, briefly though, would you withdraw from that convention? SCOTT MORRISON: Well, I think we've got to keep all of our options open, but understand this: if you were to withdraw from the convention ... CHRIS UHLMANN: So it's an option to withdraw ... ? SCOTT MORRISON: Let me just explain this: if you were to withdraw from the convention, it wouldn't take effect for a year. That's the process. What we think we have to do immediately is things that have an impact right now and that is turning boats back where it's safe to do so, it is temporary protection visas, it is expanded regional offshore processing and it is dealing with the issue of no documentation. We can do all of those things without a further word, without a further bill, without a further delay. CHRIS UHLMANN: Scott Morrison, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you. SCOTT MORRISON: Thanks a lot, Chris. Bwana says "thanks a lot" to the man who's just allowed him to expose himself as vicious, hollow, demonstrably stupid... but, hey, he's toeing Abbott's line, which makes him "vicious, hollow, demonstrably stupid"... 'Back to how Howard did it' as the core of Coalition policy sees Abbott and his challenged crew walking around and around in ever-diminishing (and darkening, sphincterlike) circles.

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19/07/2013Hi Lyn I got an early start on your links today. Another great collection, as usual right on the money. The emptiness of the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan came through yet again. Why does it have to be the Fifth Estate that exposes this? Why do we read practically nothing in the Fourth Estate? DAP is a con, not because it has no sound elements, but because the so-called ‘reverse auction’ of paying people [b]not to pollute[/b] requires a measurement of something that did not happen. To use Abbott’s phraseology, it would be ‘paying for an invisible event that did not happen and cannot be measured’. The only way a polluter could claim compensation would be to ‘prove’ that it had emitted less than previously, which would require it to provide before and after measurements of the pollution it emitted. Abbott and Hunt have never told us how that would be done. I see that Slogan-Abbott is adding to his ‘turn the boats around’ rhetoric with another slogan: ‘Sometimes bad things happen’ to cover the likely tragedies that will result from the turning around policy. Sounds like something he said in Afghanistan! Those who don’t want us to know how we taxpayers have been subsidizing vehicle use for private purposes are obscuring the car-leasing saga. If having to keep a log for three months in five years is going to devastate the ‘salary packaging’ industry that has grown up to feed this beast, there must be rorting going on. The new system provides the means for legitimate claims for work-related travel in a private car, by a means much less arduous than when I used my car for business, when every kilometer travelled on business had to be recorded manually in a log-book. By comparison, keeping a record for three months every five years seems easy. Does anyone know how these packaging businesses, which employ so many people (half of which they now say they are having to sack), get paid for their services? I suppose we taxpayers pay for that too. Truth Seeker gives us more clever satirical verse.

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19/07/2013Michael Morrison uses Tea Party tactics. He loads his verbal AK47 with a large magazine, shoots off his mouth until it’s empty, reloads again and again, intolerant of interruptions or even questions, and continues until his ammunition or the interviewer is exhausted. His technique is reminiscent of Republican and Tea Party spokespersons on Fox News. Bullying, loud, persistent and rude. Last night was an example.

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19/07/2013Folks For the global warming skeptics there is this today in [i]Business Spectator[/i]: “[i]June was one of the hottest such months on record globally, based on newly released data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The month extended the unbroken string of warmer-than-average months to 340, or a stretch of more than 28 years. That means that no one under the age of 28 has ever experienced a month in which global average temperatures were cooler than average (based on the 20th century average).[/i]” Read more: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/19/science-environment/globe%E2%80%99s-warm-streak-extends-340-months#ixzz2ZSE6SIdw

TalkTurkey

19/07/2013I'm sure Lyn has posted this before - well I saw someone's link to it, so probably Lyn! - but anyway it's well worth the read. http://www.afr.com/p/national/arts_saleroom/mark_latham_shame_on_the_canberra_unhJxxsoQjtvJaZT7QVIVO Ad it isn't just your threads that make great reading, your replies and comments do too. I am proud to be allowed to share your site. You, Lyn, and the rest of us - I have loved every minute of the civilized rational thought to be found here. Thanks to everyone. Aren't we lucky! Imagine this last 3 years sans the Fighting 5th Estate, and the Sword most of all! And Lynnie, if I'm a Happy Chappy that helps keep people's spirits up even a little, well what keeps ME up is the people here.

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19/07/2013ToM For a long while, you have come here repeatedly with inane and often offensive remarks, and in recent days you have repeatedly posted links to another site with the intention of embarrassing others who blog here. I have deleted these unacceptable comments. Then when you finally post a reasonably rational comment, you expect all your past behaviour to be forgotten and forgiven, and you come over all offended when it too is deleted. You pushed our tolerance beyond a reasonable limit, and you are suffering the consequences. You have irritated and upset many sensible people that blog here, and you have wasted my time. Now you want to come back! [b]Tell us why you should be allowed back here at all. Tell us under what circumstances you believe you should be permitted to post here.[/b]

John Bloomfield

19/07/2013Ad astra @ 02:48 PM Indeed - the AGW future is looking very bleak. So serious in fact, that I am of the opinion that those who seek to wilfully mislead humanity to achieve amelioration inaction should be charged with public mischief. The consequences of inaction are extremely dire to all on Earth! Just as those who hoax call emergency services or threaten national security with false information are charged and tried in our courts, so should they. If it is found they are receiving remunerative reward from vested interests, those sponsoring the misinformation should be brought to account. I take this opportunity to correct an error in my previous post of July 17 06:35 '...Due delay in action, there is now NO CHANCE of limiting global mean temperature increase (GMTI) to targeted 2DegC…. 3DegC is now almost certain…. bear in mind that many scientists advise that +4DegC future is incompatible with an organised global human community. The following is the new reality… Subsequent increase in heatwave ‘peak’ temperatures will be 2x or 3x the GMTI; i.e. +3Deg GMTI means a current summer 45DegC peak day will become a 51-54 DegC peak day (dependent on geographical and local factors).....' Can anyone imagine bushfires in 50+ DegC temperatures? What food crop in the field could withstand such temperatures?? What high density city population in the world could survive several days above 50DegC? The above scenario is not science fiction - it is the consensus opinion of reputable climate scientists of weather conditions that will be experienced by the end of this century. The reality and seriousness of our predicament must be confronted. If the science supported by 97% of climate scientists is correct, BILLIONS of people will perish in the next hundred or so years. No ice = no water = no food = no order = no survival. Yet we concern ourselves with frivolities, like fringe benefit tax lurks, or a few thousand desperate people arriving by boat, or implementing a totally inadequate lightweight ETS.

42 long

19/07/2013You are right John. It is time to get real and stop the posturing. Those who peddle lies for profit are culpable. There is nothing more serious than this. Those who cannot cope with the reality are one thing .those who deliberately distort and peddle lies are another.

Jason

19/07/2013Insiders ABC ‏@InsidersABC 5h Immigration min @Tony_Burke joins #insiders on Sunday. Panel @frankellyabc @JacquelineMaley & @andrewprobyn

nasking

19/07/2013 HOW THINGS CHANGE...THE UGLY MEDIA AND POPULIST POLITICS WINS AGAIN: Government policy towards unauthorised boat arrivals remained controversial for the life of the Rudd Government. During the 2010 Labor leadership spill that resulted in Julia Gillard replacing Rudd as Prime Minister, [b]Rudd told media on 23 June: " This party and government will not be lurching to the right on the question of asylum seekers, as some have counseled us to do".[/b] The Gillard Government made a further series of adjustments to Labor policy and moved to restore offshore processing of asylum seekers in 2011. WIKIPEDIA GREAT WORLD WE HAVE SINCE MURDOCH TABLOID EMPIRE OF FEAR-MONGERING AND SHOCK JOCK INSANITY CAME ALONG. N'

nasking

19/07/2013 THE RUDD HAMMER: Arriving in Australia by boat will no longer mean settlement in Australia. Australians have had enough of seeing people drowning in the waters to our north. Our country has had enough of people smugglers exploiting asylum seekers and seeing them drown on the high seas. We are sick of watching our servicemen and women risking their lives in rescues in dangerous conditions on the high seas. Regional processing arrangements in Papua New Guinea will be significantly expanded and people will be sent to Manus Island as soon as health checks are complete and appropriate accommodation is identified. PNG officials will assess their claims on Manus Island. Our governments will expand existing facilities on Manus Island, as well as establishing further facilities in Papua New Guinea. There is no cap on the number of people who can be transferred to Papua New Guinea. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/19/kevin-rudd-labor-asylum-border-protection TUFF :( N'

nasking

19/07/2013 THE GUARDIAN LIVE BLOG: 5.19pm AEST Greens leader Christine Mile looks furious. She's called a press conference to react to today's announcement. Absolutely hardline, Senator Milne says of Labor's policy, and from a man who declared he would not lurch to the right on the management of asylum seekers. PNG can't deal with this problem she says. It's a country with profound economic and social problems. Milne: [b]This is a day of shame for the nation.[/b] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/19/kevin-rudd-labor-asylum-border-protection SAD. N'

nasking

19/07/2013 TONY ABBOTT ASKS "WHO CAN YOU TRUST"?: [b]During the 2004 Federal Election, Tony Abbott, the then Minister for Health and Ageing, made a promise that the Medicare Safety net would not be raised.[/b] This is part of the interview that went to air on the ABC’s 4 Corners, on September, 6, 2004. TICKY FULLERTON: Will this Government commit to keeping the Medicare-plus-safety-net as it is now in place after the election? TONY ABBOTT: Yes. TICKY FULLERTON: That's a cast-iron commitment? TONY ABBOTT: Cast-iron commitment. Absolutely. TICKY FULLERTON: 80 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses rebatable over $300, over $700? TONY ABBOTT: That is an absolutely rock solid, iron-clad commitment. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2004/s1193609.htm However, in 2005, Tony Abbott and the Howard Government raised the Medicare Safety Net threshold from $300 to $500 for lower income families, and $700 to $1000 for everybody else. In an interview with Laurie Oakes that took place April 17, 2005, Tony Abbott defended his broken promise by stating: “Well, Laurie, when I made that statement, in the election campaign, I had not the slightest inkling that there would ever be any intention to change this. But obviously when circumstances change, governments do change their opinions, and that is actually the responsible course of action.” The problem for Tony Abbott is that he made a promise that he knew he couldn’t keep. http://www.phonytonyabbott.com/lies-and-deceptions/medicare-safety-net-broken-promise-–-2004-election-promise HMMM... N'

Austin 3:16

19/07/2013Hey Bob, As always that's useless. I'd try and needle you into producing something of substance too - except that talking to a wall is likely to be more productive.

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19/07/2013ToM You can have your opinion, by tell us why you keep returning to a blog site you despise? Why not go to a site where you are welcome. We don't want you here. You still haven't told us why we should listen to you again. Let's hear from you. Stop sidestepping the issue.

nasking

19/07/2013 BERNARD KEANE: Politically, this just may provide Rudd with enough to neutralise the issue in the electorate: Tony Abbott has his own problems on the issue, with a virtual war of words with Indonesia over towing back boats; Rudd can now present what was, in the context of the Malaysian agreement, a virtual tow-back, if not to Indonesia, then to Port Moresby. And given the agreement has now been reached with the PNG government, it will be difficult for Tony Abbott to repudiate it. Whether the “Rudd Solution” turns out to be effective remains to be seen, but the pattern of boat arrivals after the announcement of the Malaysian Solution suggests that the prospect of automatically being transferred to a third country is a significant deterrent for asylum seekers desperate to reach Australia by boat. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/19/the-rudd-solution-all-maritime-arrivals-to-be-resettled-in-png/ N'

jaycee

19/07/2013Corpus onustum hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una. (By yesterday's excesses still oppressed, the body suffers not the mind to rest.)

nasking

19/07/2013 • If another blogger seeks to unilaterally impose a nebulous standard for wide ranging banning, that should be identified. Incidentally, application of the rule proposed would have had Nasking prevented from commenting on this site ToM, I DID NOT FAIL TO FORGET THAT. :D LIKE UNIONS...I DISLIKE BLACKLISTS. N'

Ad astra

19/07/2013ToM You still avoid my questions: Why do you keep returning to this site, one that you despise? You can tell me how bad it is as much as you like, but you never say why you keep coming back. No one is compelling you. Why don't you go elsewhere? Why should we have you back? Answer the questions instead of obfuscation.

nasking

19/07/2013 MEMORIES: [b]Britain's biggest trade union is locked in a campaign with the bosses of the largest engineering project in Europe over claims that workers have been blacklisted for raising health and safety concerns. When I heard from the Unite union about the situation faced by Frank Morris, an electrician who says he was sacked by Crossrail for trade union activity, it reminded me of the time I was thrown in jail, and the suffering my comrades had to endure, for being prepared to stand up to our bosses.[/b] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/bosses-blacklisting-trade-unions-shrewsbury-24 BAD STUFF N'

nasking

19/07/2013 [b]Unionists claim membership means no work [/b] [b]ELEANOR HALL: While employers in Western Australia say they're being forced to look overseas for skilled workers some of the state's workers say they have been barred from big mining and construction projects because they're union members. The unionists are pointing the finger at a labour hire screening company that they say has black-listed them.[/b] But those running the labour system which is used by some major companies deny holding any information about union activity. In Perth, David Weber reports. DAVID WEBER: Unions claim hundreds of workers in Western Australia have been black-listed. The World Today has spoken to dozens of people who believe they've been filtered out through the system called ERMS (Employment Relations Management System). One of them is AMWU delegate Dave Fox. DAVE FOX: Well basically I haven't been able to work in construction for the last four and half years obviously because I have been blacklisted out through from my union activities when I was working at Pinjarra back in 2005-2006. DAVID WEBER: How do you know that this is the case? DAVE FOX: Well when I first started employment there we had to fill out a form in order to start work. We had to fill out a form that our name would be subject to a thing called ERMS. I wasn't aware of what that was about at the time. Basically what it is it's an employment and screening process that basically it says if you're eligible to work in future projects, especially in the resource sector. DAVID WEBER: The form doesn't ask anything about your previous union activity as such does it? DAVE FOX: No, no it doesn't. DAVID WEBER: How do you know it's part of this blacklist? DAVE FOX: Well what happens, it's basically all construction companies involved in the resource sector are party to it. They've helped set it up in the first place. It's basically a form of screening, what we know of it. And those of us who have been active in the union on those sites and stuff have never been able to get work again. And as I said I haven't been able to work in construction for four and a half years because of it. And I am aware of many other people that haven't been able to get work or finding it very difficult to get work. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s3092755.htm N'

42 long

19/07/2013Whistle blowers do it at their own risk. I had a friend (Sea Captain) who refused to take a USA registered ship to sea without a standby electrical power source. Blacklisted around the world as a result ever though the item is mandatory to be functional. This sort of thing goes on in the building, airline and other forms of transport industries increasingly, as unions get less evident. It's pretty obvious which persons want unions eliminated from the equation. The corner cutters, who quote low and don't then operate within the rules, to meet the profit target.

nasking

19/07/2013 [b]Whistle blowers do it at their own risk. I had a friend (Sea Captain) who refused to take a USA registered ship to sea without a standby electrical power source. Blacklisted around the world as a result ever though the item is mandatory to be functional. This sort of thing goes on in the building, airline and other forms of transport industries increasingly, as unions get less evident. It's pretty obvious which persons want unions eliminated from the equation. The corner cutters, who quote low and don't then operate within the rules, to meet the profit target[/b]. 42 long, WELL SAID. N'

Ad astra

19/07/2013What an arrogant fellow you are ToM. You come here to set us right do you? What right have you to intrude where you are unwelcome? Do you invade other people's homes and tell them how to run their house? Go where you are welcome if you can find a site that wants you. You are certainly not here.

KHTAGH

19/07/2013Dear Ad Astra I think the current debate with the person from Melbourne is basic, you either want the people that make this site what it is or you can have him here, because I for one can tell you that I would consider it a blow to the standards of intelligent debate on TPS if you capitulate to his demands, I have had a total gut full of his crap(although I don't bother reading his posts, I gather what he says from the response of others). I think his avatars of poking his tongue out at everyone here says it all. I have found your ability as the blog master to put up with his crap as a much as you have in the idea of free speech admirable. There has to come a point where you realise he does it, as you say to get a bite from us. If you allow him back he will start his normal crap again within days. As you say if he is so opinionated why does he not start his own blog?, probably because it would consist of one opinion & input, his own!. From you last point I take it you have reached your limit too. I have come to the point where TPS is my main place of information with our lovely tweetie birds links that are the best selection that the web has to offer, allowing him to have his daily literal spew on here is like poking Lyn & yourself in the eye with a blunt stick, you both make this a site of unequal parallel on the net, you don't deserve to have your efforts ruined by him.

Libbyx33

19/07/2013KHTAGH What you said! Amen to that!

TalkTurkey

19/07/2013Ad astra I think you might take your own advice wrt the illwillians to whom I now never respond directly. IMO you are wasting that wonderful mesh of neurons in your head, even contradicting it, for you must know that such as he whom you have just addressed puffs with glee and self-congratulation when you have. And likewise you must know he will not respectfully reply, let alone change his nastiness. I wouldn't even care now if he were to offer an abject and apparently sincere apology garnished with promises. He's a jerk, he insults this blog and he insults many in particular himself, adds nothing anyone here wants, just snip him say I every time. If you're worried about being seen to be lop-handed, well you're not. Everyone's glad to see him and his few nasty sty-mates turning to CO2.

Libbyx33

19/07/2013Ad, I don't know if the new asylum seeker policy will work, but I sure loved the way the Noalition stuttered & stumbled in their response. This policy has the direct effect (in purely political terms) of changing the entire debate, and blunting the Opposition's puffed-up carry on regarding this issue. And it doesn't hurt that the Greens are spitting chips (some Labor voters hate the Greens with a vengence, something I've never understood, but anyway). Fingers crossed it WILL stop people, for whatever reason, getting on un-seaworthy boats & dying. And it WAS purely political, too. Of course I knew Rudd had rat-cunning in him. But [i]this much[/i] rat-cunning? A political animal to his boot-straps. PS thanks for the review of this book - I ordered it this afternoon based on your recommendation (online, as it's STILL not released in QLD until August 1st. Why is that? Go figure.)

Ad astra

19/07/2013KHTAGH, Libbyx33, Talk Turkey I endorse your comments about ToM. You can see that any attempt to enter into rational dialogue with him has proved impossible. He invades our home, our website, and condescendingly thinks he is entitled to tell me, and you, how to run it. He can go elsewhere, but keeps coming back here like some crackpot who stands on a street corner telling others how to run their lives as if he knows it all. He believes that somehow he is entitled to preach to us. What extraordinary arrogance! He seems incapable of getting the message that I don’t want his opinions here, you don’t KHTAGH, or you Libbyx33, or you TT, and nor do many, many others who come here for intelligent debate. From now on I will delete everything he posts as soon as I detect them. It seemed this morning as if he wanted to return, and I wrongly thought he might respond to my question about why we should accept him back after his unacceptable behaviour in recent days. He hasn’t, and now I know he won’t. He is banned permanently. As I’m not prepared to sit here all night waiting for his supercilious responses, as I want now to watch the cricket, I’m closing the site until tomorrow morning. Thank you all for your support.

TalkTurkey

19/07/2013Did we ever see this? I haven't read it yet but got other things to do now, might be interesting ... Or help form an opinion of Howes ..?.. Paul Howes ‏@howespaul 14 Jul My tribute to Julia Gillard's Prime Ministership in today's Sunday Telegraph http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/only-in-hindsight-will-we-see-how-good-julia-was/story-fni0cwl5-1226678907434 …

lyn

20/07/2013Today’s Links Indonesia agrees to toughen Iranian visa rules after request from Rudd by Lenore Taylor The Indonesian government has agreed to prime minister Kevin Rudd's request to make it harder for Iranians to enter the country in a move that could slow the transit of asylum seekers planning to board boats bound for Australia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/indonesia-agrees-toughen-iran-visas Explainer: the legality of turning or towing back asylum boats by @ConversationEDU It is not legal to turn back a boat which is unseaworthy and on which the lives of passengers are in danger or at risk. Those kind of operational decisions about the safety of boats will be particularly important in assessing whether a “turn back” is legal. http://theconversation.com/explainer-the-legality-of-turning-or-towing-back-asylum-boats-16201 Manus Island detention centre to be expanded under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's asylum policy by Liam Cochrane The ABC has been able to confirm that the centre's capacity will be increased from 200 people to 3,000. The move is part of a new asylum seeker policy to be announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Brisbane this afternoon. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-19/manus-island-detention-centre-to-be-expanded-under-rudd27s-asy/4830778 Junk Explained: Offshore Detention, Asylum Seekers And Manus Island by James Colley This article is intended as a guide for people who wish to become informed about the conditions asylum seekers face in Australian detention centres, and the consequences of those conditions. http://junkee.com/junk-explained-asylum-seeker-policy-offshore-detention-and-manus-island/9157 A Post of Writing Dangerously About Refugees by @archiearchive OK! I will say it. Subject to deeper thought and to possible convincing arguments from those opposed.Thank you for this solution, Kevin Rudd. http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/a-post-of-writing-dangerously-about-refugees/ PNG by @MigloMT Kevin Rudd’s announcement that any asylum-seeker arriving in Australia by boat will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement. You can read it here on news.com. It’s not worth me repeating what the main features of this announcement are, rather, preferring instead to hear your views. http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/png/ Carbon pricing: a primer by @fakeedbutler a savvy move by the new PM. With a compliant media happily using the phrase ‘scrapping the carbon tax’, the coalition’s three-year framing victory has been negated in one fell swoop. Also, incidentally, we may be entering a golden era where we actually refer to carbon pricing as it is, not how some of us wish it to be http://ausvotes2013.com/2013/07/19/carbon-pricing-a-primer/ Rent-seeking rampant by @JohnQuiggin2 fringe benefit has exposed the hypocrisy and intellectual bankruptcy of the Australian right, notably including supposed bastions of free markets like Catallaxy and the Australian Financial Review. Catallaxy has a string of posts defending this rort, while the Fin gives lots of space to bleating rent-seekers http://johnquiggin.com/2013/07/19/rent-seeking-rampant/ Jacksonville 54: Thomson success met with #MSMfail by @independentaus In keeping with their usual practice, most of Australia’s media initially reported this verdict as being either an effort by Thomson to avoid a longer sentence or as an admission of impropriety, given Thomson’s lawyers argued there would be “little debate” or “dispute” about the facts or the charges. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/jacksonville-54-thomson-success-met-with-msmfail/ Power, politics, populism and principle by @OnLineOpinion Struggling desperately to retain and attract customers and compete in an information-rich environment, the mainstream media has increasingly reverted to sensationalist and alarmist headlines focusing on scandals and personalities http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15250&page=0 Should we be feeling sorry for Tony Abbott? by Charlie Goodman All this might explain why Abbott's demands for Rudd to call the election have suddenly gone a bit quiet. The Coalition would probably be very happy right now to return to Parliament in August and buy some more time for the Rudd honeymoon to wear off http://www.mydailynews.com.au/news/should-we-be-feeling-sorry-tony-abbott/1951577/ Is old media leader or follower in asylum seeker hysteria? by @YaThinkN Seriously? 24 hours after a perfectly reasonable request that people actually prove they deserve the tax break, a company announces sackings… Sorry, I smell bullshit. This company obviously already had a problem http://nofibs.com.au/2013/07/19/is-old-media-leader-or-follower-in-asylum-seeker-hysteria/ ‘’FREE’’ Election Policies Form Guide by @saint13333 Of course the personal character of the opposing leaders will hold some sway with the punters. One is a negative individual and the other sees a positive future for our country. But I do hope policy determines our fate. Hope all this helps you in your decision making. http://theaimn.com/2013/07/19/free-election-policies-form-guide/ Polls and speculation heat up by @benraue The ALP’s caucus will be meeting in Balmain next Monday to consider Kevin Rudd’s proposals for party reform. A scenario has been painted where Rudd would go straight from a successful meeting to call an August 24 election, but Antony Green has pointed out this would be technically difficult. http://www.tallyroom.com.au/15827 The global downturn is a problem for our children too by @GrogsGamut When viewed alongside the Productivity Commission’s working paper it’s clear that long-term unemployment is not merely a problem for the period of that unemployment. The problems can flow through for 15 to 20 years, on to children who currently aren’t so much worried about entering the workforce as entering primary school. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/grogonomics/2013/jul/19/global-downturn-problem-for-children Australia Overview by quandl. Com Australia's economy is predominantly services-based. Agriculture accounts for 2.28% of GDP and employs 3.30% of the population. Manufacturing and industry accounts for 19.81% of GDP and employs 21.10% of the population. Services accounts for 77.91% of the GDP and employs 75.50% of the population. http://www.quandl.com/australia Lemons by @otiose94 Latest LEMONs – (Liberal Endless Mantra Of NO) http://otiose94.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/lemon/ Today’s Front Pages Australian Newspaper Front Pages for 20 July 2013 http://www.thepaperboy.com/australia/front-pages.cfm News headlines http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013I fully support our host's decision to delete all commentary of the banned blogger who's name I will not mention. At one point I thought it possible that psychological profiling based on judicious study of the text of comments might just bring about enough awakening to end the hostility of the saboteur. The disturbing incident reminds us that in civilized societies we must have limits on behaviour if we are to guard against re-barbarization. The Political Sword is a very very civilized locale in virtual reality where many now come for sanctuary and illumination. I know not one more civilized locale in the fifth estate. Saboteurs who don’t respond to commands to cease have to be quarantined. Fortunately that is a simple and non-violent operation on TPS. It is more difficult in our democratic society at large. There is a proliferation of saboteurs of democracy seeking to paralyse parliamentary processes so that the greediest renegades can do as they please with little concern about corrective action by our public tjustice system. They’d privatize that and corrupt it for profit if they could. BTW, the ABC 4th estate vermin showed their colours again last night on Lateline by giving the mad dog Morrison another opportunity to pour out his vile filth of racist misogynist war and hate. And then that criminal Alexander Drowner the ex foreign minister now lobbyist from Huawei. At least Geoff Gallup got to say something supportive of the government actions to save the lives of the desperate passengers forced on to those criminal boats. Morrison seemed pleased to be able to plan to revoke Australia’s long standing embrace of the UN convention on refugees - Howard didn’t honour it and Abbott has consistently violated the spirit of the commitment made so long ago. These primates in wool suits are predators who would dishonour even the wolves in sheeps clothing that early Christians were warned about. We are engaged in a momentous global psychological struggle between the two majoritarian cultural coalitions. One is civilized the other barbaric. Psychological cultural class struggle is a different kind of war brought on by the revolution in warfare due to the invention of nuclear weapons. As we approach the election of who will go back to Canberra after summer holidays it is likely to get even worse than the red box menu, the chaff bags, the witch and bitch misogyny posters etc, - the barbarians respect no boundaries. Civilized humans must have boundaries and we must respect them or we will be indistinguishable from the barbarians - just like the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. We are building a new paradigm - a superparadigm - beyond left and right - the old categories don’t apply in the second decade of the 21st century. The fifth estate leads the way to the knowledge society where knowledge is valued more highly than capital and labour were. We can all make a difference to the results of the federal election coming up soon. My 90 year old mum has already had an impact on one of our LNP sympathizing friends by simply expressing her opinion based on her own observations of the various politicians she sees on Capitol Hill and Question Time etc. Thanks to our host Ad Astra for providing this forum.

Ad astra

20/07/2013LYN'S DAILY LINKS updated: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/LYNS-DAILY-LINKS.aspx

Ad astra

20/07/2013Mal Kukura Thank you for your thoughtful comment and your insightful analysis of the effects of unwanted behaviour in civilized societies. I know that many who regard [i]TPS[/i] as their online home share your anguish about the hostility of the blogger who thinks he entitled to come here to demean others here whenever he likes. I see it as a home invasion by someone who seems unwilling to behave acceptably in another’s home. I appreciate your words of support.

jaycee

20/07/2013Oh jeesus, Mal...go easy on the Bolshies!..they wern't so bad!

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013Jaycee I should have said "Stalinists" or is that just as objectionable? Lenin is not usually listed with Stalin Hitler and Mao as world record holders in the mass murder sweep stakes. Trotsky too was a more Leninist inclination toward I recently viewed "Reilly Ace of Spies" again and even though Georgi Rosenblum was a ruthless murderer recruited by British intelligence like Marx before him and Lenin and Trotsky after him, Sam Neil made him look even better than Sean Connery ever did so I was traumatized by the shot in the back - if only Kerensky and Sorokin's more democratic White revolutionaries could have prevailed but the Russias had to gear up for the fascist counter-revolution and the Whites would have been more like a Russian version of Weimar - no match for the murderous brown shirts

2353

20/07/2013AA - without mentioning "the war" I support your actions. There has been sufficient time allowed for certain people to state their positions using logic & reason. More power to your sword (pun intended).

nasking

20/07/2013 ALEXANDER DOWNER GAVE THE COALITION GAME AWAY LAST NIGHT ON LATELINE WHEN HE TALKED ABOUT PNG RESISTANCE TO THE RUDD SOLUTION "GROWING". YES, I BET THE FORCES OF THE MURDOCH RIGHT WILL BE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STIR SH*T UP. REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY SAY, YOU CAN SEE THE COALITION ARE DESPERATE TO KEEP THE BOATS COMING DURING THIS ELECTION. POLITICAL LIARS AND OPPORTUNISTS. DOWNER FARTS ON ABOUT THE PNG POPULATION BEING AGRO ABOUT BEING USED AS "A DUMPING GROUND"...YET HE AGREES WITH MANUS BEING USED. WTF? AND WHAT ABOUT NAURU OR ANY PLACE THE COALITION USE FOR OFFSHORE DETENTION...AREN'T THEY THEN 'DUMPING GROUNDS' TOO. SINCE WHEN DID PNG BECOME SO PRECIOUS FOR THE COALITION? N'

jaycee

20/07/2013Mal....I've always said..."Joe Stalin was too soft". But seriously, I won't pick you up on your stereotyping and lumping so many diverse personalities and situations and population demographics together in a crude paste, but just protest that some situations and people have been crueled by an unrelenting media propaganda machine. I'd prefer serious primary sources for MY interpretations.

Ken

20/07/2013re references to Bolshies and Nazis and the former "contributor" from Melbourne (as in Aboriginal tradition one should not mention the deceased by name!) I find the exchange on these issues interesting because it reminds me of English literature post WW2, i.e. 1950s and early 60s. One overarching theme in that time was how a small "L" liberal deals with "evil". Almost by definition a "liberal" approach should encompass, or allow, all forms of opinion and action, but when that becomes "evil" the "liberal" has a contradiction of their of values to deal with. Society operates generally on liberal-democratic values and faces the same contradiction. Generally it is addressed by taking the view, as in the debate about individual rights,that people are free to do as they wish as long as it does not encroach on others being able to do the same (and that is where legislation steps in and defines the limits). But when "evil" encroaches, the liberal, or the liberal-democratic society, has to amend its liberal values to deal with the problem, which almost always leads to feelings of guilt at having to abandon liberal principles. Some say this, effectively, means that the "evil" has won but, unfortunately, as the English writers discovered, it is sometimes necessary - otherwise, there may never have been a war against Hitler's evil regime.

TalkTurkey

20/07/2013Mal Kukura I don't think I've addressed you before: welcome to The Political Sword, and may I say how your last post resonates with me and no doubt the other Swordsfolks. Civilization or barbarism: that's the stark choice. As you say, "The Political Sword is a very very civilized locale in virtual reality where many now come for sanctuary and illumination." And like you, "I know not one more civilized locale in the fifth estate." The disappearing dirtmouth is typical of the sneering jeering spoilers of the extreme Right. We can't delete them from the society unfortunately, but the most civilized person I know has the right, and now the resolve, to delete them from this precious intellectual resource. It makes us all very proud to read your complimentary words. I'm sure Ad astra will be delighted to see confirmation that his site - our site - affords such comforting sanctuary, and such a satisfying forum, to civilized people. And like many, I'm pleased to see the few creeps getting the bum's rush. Your input here is most appreciated Mal, do keep coming back.

Ad astra

20/07/20132353 Thank you for your support. Talk Turkey Your words are much appreciated. Mal Kukura has set us thinking this morning with his comments. Like you, I laud his contribution. Thank you too for your unwavering support for this website, our website, which to use your words: “[i]…affords such comforting sanctuary, and such a satisfying forum, to civilized people.”[/i]

cuppa

20/07/2013[i]From now on I will delete everything he posts as soon as I detect them.[/i] A welcome move. Thank you.

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013The resonance expressed by Tall Turkey and Ad Astra is really gratifying. What can I say - you demonstrate in action here the very civility and respect that we jointly espouse as a primary value that unifies the TPS extended "family". I started out responding to Ken then before I posted I noticed the responses expressing appreciation and a request to continue coming back. I accept and hope to avoid the pretence of knowledge that is the downfall of many intellectuals and literati. Ken had some interesting insights into the complexities of how to deal with evil in liberal polities like TPS and the greater national society of the Australian nation. I hope he will elaborate on the discourse mentioned in post WW2 English literature. What you say Ken about how post WW2 English literature dealt with evil in liberal societies is of great interest and would if you care to elaborate be much appreciated. Is the contradiction derivative of dualistic rather than pluralistic thinking? Did English literature of 1950s and early 60s resolve the conflict between an absolutist interpretation of liberty and the interpretation that we might associate with constitutional democracy with its essential limitations of liberty which contradicts the absolutist interpretation but not a relativist interpretation which allows some but not all liberties? Is this conflict not also the same one that arises between: absolute anarchists who demand absolute liberty in the form of eradication of the state and state oriented socialists like Einstein and Chomsky who's socialism was libertarian and constitutional and therefore not anarchic in the sense of pure anarchy – by which I mean perhaps the Hobbesian state of nature – the war of all against all. I bring this up only because I would’ve thought the constitutional limitations of absolute liberty is by now established as a fixed principle of the types of social systems in which the rule of law is respected. Back in the late nineties while on a long retreat meditating in the mountains of Colorado, I found comfort in the idea of what I named “equal-liberty” or equiliberation – a process by which social systems approach a state of greater equality of liberty – a state that must necessarily impose limitations by laws but limitations that are applied equally. I discovered that the World Systems sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein had quite independently arrived at a similar idea and term - equaliberty. That too can be interpreted dualistically of relativistically. A society in which all enjoy equal liberty is imaginary and all really existing societies will be more or less equal with regard to liberty. That doesn’t obviate the greater stability and well being that a civilized society will enjoy in a social system which is evolving towards less inequality since extreme inequality necessarily breeds less (not more) instability. I think Australia is probably one of the most equaliberated nations of the planet.

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013Correction That should have been more (not less) instability There it is - another humbling reminder of the delusional pretences of hubris

42 long

20/07/2013As a principle one may say "ALL are welcome in my house". IF some come there to muck it up and insult the owner, why would one not react? If there had been an individual HIDE button I would have activated it in this case. (and I have NEVER used one before even when they are available). "Free speech" is cried by many who abuse it. Murdoch sees the BBC as the "greatest enemy of FREE speech" yet seeks to monopolise and control it for his own power play. We all owe a debt to AD AS and this site and I regard it as a privilege and not a right to come here. It is a tranquil respectful place for discourse where personal insults don't replace good analysis and fact. Politics, sex and religion are taboo they say. Amongst well intentioned folk nothing is

Ad astra

20/07/2013cuppa Thank you for your support. Mal Kukura You are an asset to [i]TPS[/i] and a welcome member of the family. Thank you for your additional explanatory comments. Clearly, you read widely. 42long Thank you too for your supportive words. Your analogy is apt about those who scream ‘free speech’ loudest being the ones who abuse it most. Murdoch is a gross contemporary example.

Truth Seeker

20/07/2013Hey swordsters, have just posted my thoughts on the PNG solution :-) [b]"So Tony, where do you go from here?'[/b] :-) http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/so-tony-where-do-you-go-from-here/ Cheers ;-)

jaycee

20/07/2013While on the subject of asylum seekers....: Personally, I didn't think the old system of onshore processing was broken, just that there were more coming and if we can't handle 25, 50, 100 thousand boat reffos then there is something wrong with our priorities! Also, I can't believe that redneck Oz' would favour "queue'd" dark-skinned refugees from Somalia over Iranians, when they can't even tolerate the "home-grown" variety!...give us a break! So they get on boats, so they come by plane...anyone mad enough to risk such a voyage (how many of those know how to tread water let alone to swim!) with their loved ones deserve to at least have their case heard and if valid...come in...if not, see you later..what's wrong with the system?...if it aint broke...? I'm concerned the talk is starting to come around to us persuading ourselves to drink the cool-aid!

Curi-Oz

20/07/2013You know, after reading the article in the Sunshine Daily (http://tinyurl.com/lne47nk) I would love to ask some soldiers who had Brough as a commanding officer what they thought of him. He may be a "man's man", but he sure shows little real evidence of being a 'leader of men'... And most 'leaders' who are so rudely dismissive of those who disagree with them are usually not respected by the rank and file anyway (at least talking to service-types I have known)

nasking

20/07/2013 [b]Blogs aren’t “homes”, political discussion isn’t being carried out around Ad Astra’s dinner table and they aren’t clubs where (exclusive) invitations to join are issued. [/b] ToM, EVEN THO I DISAGREE WITH BLACKLISTING...I HAVE NO PROBS WITH MODERATORS BANNING POSTERS WHO ADD NOTHING BUT BLASTS AT THE BLOGMASTER...AND REPEAT AD NAUSEUM THE SAME OLD CRAP. I THINK WE GET WHERE YER COMING FROM. YOU HATED SWAN YOU HATED GILLARD YOU HATE UNIONS YOU THINK RUDD WASTED MONEY YOU GET ANNOYED WITH AD ASTRA YOU THINK THE ALP SUPPORTERS ARE OPPORTUNISTIC AND INCONSISTENT HYPOCRITES GOT IT. NOW FIND ANOTHER BLOG. PLEASE. N'

Ad astra

20/07/2013nasking Well said. Thank you.

BSA Bob

20/07/2013Nasking @ 9.15 am From what I've seen, admittedly not much, the usual suspects are trying to drum up negative comment & attitude toward this latest boats issue from Labor. It really is standard practice on their part & goes to a larger point. That a government has to govern, to do things. This makes it easy prey for an opposition such as this one with its uncritical media support. They'd simply do it all better, no need to ask how or at what cost.

lyn

20/07/2013Hi Ad, You are not to worry Ad, you have made an honest, genuine well thoughtout decision. One of your many fine attributes, certainly not a snap decision, the particular person has been annoying readers for far too long. This seems strange to have a people smuggler interview, what do you think? [quote]Indonesian people smuggler says PNG Solution will reduce boat arrivals 'for a while'[/quote] he said that as far as people smugglers went, he thought this would actually stop the trade, and he even joked with me that that gave people smugglers a chance to take a holiday. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-20/indonesian-people-smuggler-says-png-solution-will/4832746 This is funny too the grown Abbott can hear election drums:- [b]Abbott can 'hear the drums' of election Saturday, July 20, 2013 » 12:53pm [/b]'We don't know when the election will be but we can hear the drums beating. We can hear the drums beating, calling us, calling us to the campaign, which will make such a difference. And I know we're ready.' http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2013/07/20/Abbott_can_hear_the_drums_of_election_889483.html Tweet:- Greg Jericho ‏ Abbott: "Can you hear the drum Fernando?".. ok that might not be verbatim. :):):)

Austin 3:16

20/07/2013 [quote]YOU THINK THE ALP SUPPORTERS ARE OPPORTUNISTIC AND INCONSISTENT [/quote] That's not true - well not for all of us at least.

nasking

20/07/2013 KEN, I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE LIBERAL PARTY IN ITS PRESENT FORM IS 'EVIL'. WHEN POLITICIANS KNOW THAT INDUSTRIES AND PRODUCTS ARE UNDERMINING THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT AND YET CONTINUE TO PURSUE POLICIES THAT WILL ENSURE THEIR CONTINUED USE...OR REINTRODUCTION...YOU KNOW THEY ARE UNPRINCIPLED EVIL ROTTEN SACKS OF CRAP. AS FOR THE PRESENT ALP...MY WIFE SAID SHE FEELS LIKE HOWARD IS BACK IN. SHE'S NOT HAPPY ABOUT OUR POLITICS BEING DRAGGED TO THE FAR-RIGHT BY MURDOCH AND THE SHOCK JOCKS AND THE POLLS. THE INCREASE IN LIVE EXPORTS AND CATERING TO COAL COMPANIES AGAIN AND FRACKERS AT THE EXPENSE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY COMBINED WITH THIS SUCKING UP TO BIG BUSINESS AND THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS HAS GOT HER PRETTY DEPRESSED. SHE TOLD ME THAT SHE DOESN'T TRUST RUDD ANYMORE BECAUSE OF HIS CONNECTION TO MURDOCH'S LOT... AND SHE THINKS SHORTEN WILL JUST DO WHATEVER THE CATHOLICS AND CORPORATIONS WANT WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION...AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS WILL COME LAST. HER MOOD IS LOW. SHE FEELS AUSTRALIA HAS BECOME UGLIER TODAY. UNMOTIVATING. UNINSPIRING. I WON'T TELL YOU WHAT SHE THINKS OF ABBOTT AND HIS MOB. AND NEWMAN AFTER HIS COMMENTS TODAY. SUFFICE TO SAY, THEY HAVE HELPED DRAG THIS COUNTRY INTO DARK DAYS. PUPPETS OF THE GREEDSTERS AT THE TOP. N'

nasking

20/07/2013 Should be: WHEN POLITICIANS KNOW THAT INDUSTRIES AND PRODUCTS ARE UNDERMINING THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT AND YET CONTINUE TO PURSUE POLICIES THAT WILL ENSURE THERE CONTINUED USE...OR REINTRODUCTION...YOU KNOW THEY ARE EVIL ROTTEN UNPRINCIPLED SACKS OF CRAP.

nasking

20/07/2013 [b] It really is standard practice on their part & goes to a larger point. That a government has to govern, to do things. This makes it easy prey for an opposition such as this one with its uncritical media support. They'd simply do it all better, no need to ask how or at what cost. [/b] BSA BOB, I AGREE. EVEN THO I DETEST THIS LATEST 'SOLUTION' I CAN SEE WHY THE RUDD CAMP HAS COME UP WITH IT. THE COALITION ARE JUST A BUNCH OF BULLSH*TERS HOPING THE BOATS STILL KEEP COMING...HOPING THE ECONOMY FAILS...HOPING INTEREST RATES GO UP...HOPING COMPANIES LAY OFF WORKERS... ALL SO THEY CAN BENEFIT POLITICALLY. THEY AND THEIR ALLIES WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET BACK POWER. ANYTHING. INCLUDING MEDDLING IN PNG AFFAIRS. N'

Ad astra

20/07/2013Hi Lyn Thank you for your support and encouragement. Our home invader has been back a few times today, but soon deleted. I hope he can find another home, one more to his liking and closer to his point of view.

42 long

20/07/2013The latest decision is quite dramatic and bold. One has to admit that. It could also be effective. Wouldn't that cut the abbott off at the pass? Not everything went well for Howard. We have selective memories Phoney. Wasnpt there an incident where a boat retirned to Indonesia and the passengers had to be forcibly removed? Wasn't the Manoura was turned into the "manure a ". It's all very well to be totally academic and purist like the Groans but real people ARE dying. A really bad scene is eating away at people who can't find answers because it suits the Morescum and rabidt duo to politicise the whole thing. They are still smarting over the "nose rubbed in the catshit" by Rudd, wayback. I sympathise with them and to some extent understand but People ARE dying . Real people who are NOT criminals. Strangely (or perhaps NOT so) Morrison and the abbott are Christians who probably think they are behaving OK but they are a NASTY pair, by any measure on this matter. IF Rudd makes this work THAT will be a plus. He is prepared to up the intake total where Phoney wants to reduce it.. In todays world there isn't a real excuse for a reduction. It's just capitalising on votes of the worst "thinkers" in this affair. The least charitable and fair minded section of our society who have had racial fears whipped up deliberately. That should be an indication of the character of those who practice it. Curiously they at every opportunity impugn the character of others while oblivious of their own deficiencies. Nothing if not hypocrites.

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013DNasking - I wonder if they meddled in East Timorese Affairs with brown paper bags like the ones the Brethren passed to Howards bagmen? Do they meddle in the affairs of the boat owners.

Mal Kukura

20/07/2013NASKING LET ME TRY THAT AGAIN - I WONDER IF THEY MEDDLED IN EAST TIMORESE AFFAIRS WITH BROWN PAPER BAGS LIKE THE ONES THE BRETHREN PASSED TO HOWARDS BAGMEN? DO THEY MEDDLE IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE BOAT OWNERS.

nasking

20/07/2013 MAL, IT WOULDN'T SURPRISE ME. I RECKON THE COALITION AND THEIR MEDIA ALLIES HAVE BEEN SH *T STIRRING AND UNDERMINING ALP EFFORTS RELATED TO ASYLUM SEEKERS FOR A LONG TIME. IT USED TO BE A BI-PARTISAN ISSUE...BACK IN THE HAWKE/KEATING ERA. THE MAJOR REASON PEOPLE ON THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT GOT UPSET WITH THE HOWARD GOVT ON THIS ISSUE BECAUSE HOWARD CHANGED THE RULES OF THE GAME...BY USING THE TAMPA ISSUE AND FEAR-MONGERING TO GET CHEAP VOTES. HOWARD AND HIS ADVISORS AND ALLIED MEDIA ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS ISSUE BECOMING SO PARTISAN AND UGLY. ABBOTT NO BETTER. UGLY CHARACTERS. I HAVE DECIDED TO VOTE ALP IN THE REPS MYSELF...EVEN THO MY WIFE WILL GO GREEN AND THEN ALP. I THINK THE ALP ARE BEING NECESSARILY PRAGMATIC...AND HAVE DEMONSTRATED THEY TAKE THE 'DROWNINGS' AND THE NEED FOR A SOLUTION SERIOUSLY. FREE OF STUPID SLOGANS. N'

nasking

20/07/2013 HOWARD CHANGED THE RULES OF THE GAME... DESPERATE TO WIN AN ELECTION: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_affair LEST WE FORGET N'

nasking

20/07/2013 THIS FROM TRUTH SEEKER'S POST: With K Rudd’s new, hard line, asylum seeker policy still ringing in his ears, the Abbott must be spitting chips, as all he can claim now is that his airy fairy “Turn back the boats” alleged policy, and TPV’s are a better option than a policy that might actually work, or that we can’t trust Rudd to implement it. Now I can already hear some screaming FOUL, and I’m sure that Abbott will be seething. [b]The problem that he has is that his “policy” is based on “We did it before, so we can do it again!”, completely ignoring the facts: Howard tried to turn around approximately 11 boats, and was “successful on 4 occasions, at a time when the numbers of refugees around the world were falling, to very low levels. [/b] Since then, there has been a large number of major conflicts, including Iraq, which Howard and the coalition of the willing were responsible for, all of which have added millions of displaced people to the numbers seeking asylum. [b]As we saw only a few days ago, even with two vessels in close proximity, these overloaded fishing boats can easily capsize, with the resultant loss of life. We have also seen boats set on fire, scuttled, and disabled, as well as women and children in the water and needing to be rescued.[/b] [b]Even supposing that he can get a boat back near Indonesian territorial waters, the “Out of sight out of mind” mentality won’t wash, as if the asylum seekers or the crew head back towards Australia, or just sit there refusing to use the fuel provided to take them back, how long do we tie up an Australian vessel to watch one small boat in a vast ocean? And how much will that cost? And if said boat does slip back out into international waters and then runs out of fuel, or starts to sink, aren’t we back to square one, where we have an obligation to go to help a boat in distress How many Naval and Customs boats do we tie up looking for, chasing and trying to turn around the myriad of potential asylum seeker boats? [/b] [b]Then there are the TPV’s, which most experts agree were an abject failure, due to the fact that they encourage women and children to get on boats as a result of the no family reunion clause attached to them.[/b] So now we come to Rudd’s PNG solution, which in many ways is a bigger, better version of the Malaysian Solution, with no swap arrangement to criticise, and no restriction on the number to be taken by PNG. [b]The one thing that it does have, is a major deterrent factor for those considering the people smugglers option, as there is no option now for settlement in Australia if you come via the Indonesian people smugglers. [/b] The greens are already outraged, which was always going to be the case, but IMHO they failed the test of being a responsible and conciliatory mainstream party, when they voted with Abbott to deny the Malaysian Solution a chance, and in so doing, became complicit and culpable along with Abbott in causing the extreme situation that we now find ourselves in. http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/so-tony-where-do-you-go-from-here/ I HAVE TO SAY...HE MAKES MANY VALID POINTS. I STILL BLAME HOWARD FOR CHANGING THE RULES OF THE GAME. N'

Austin 3:16

20/07/2013Hey Curi-Oz From memory I think that the swing to Labor in 2007 was a bit over 5% - the swing against Brough was about 11%. That kinda said it all.

Ad astra

20/07/2013Truth Seeker That is very good piece on the asylum seeker issue. Everyone should read it. [i]So Tony, where do you go from here?[/i] http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/so-tony-where-do-you-go-from-here/

Truth Seeker

20/07/2013Ad, thanks for that :-) it means a lot. It is a subject that I feel very passionate about, as I think that the whole issue has been hijacked by political expediency and hysteria, ignoring the realities of the situation. Cheers :-)

42 long

20/07/2013HE IS NOT REALLY A GREAT SPEAKER IS HE?Caps stuck. I can't feel sorry for him. If he goes down I can't imagine how he would wear it. That's his problem. He cares not for those he does in. Nasty person. The refugees probably know everything as soon as we do. They would be in contact with lawyers and urgers and some of their own here. There was definitely a pull factor for the tamils. The huzzaras have a dismal future in Afghanistan as do the Coptic Christians in Iraq. If Egypt goes feral expect more and Syria is a tragedy of enormous dimension with no obvious end. We live on in blissful ignorance buying more luxury cars ( as if that matters a fig. (

Truth Seeker

20/07/2013Nas, thanks mate, I appreciate your support and feedback :-) and it's good to see you in full flight again. :-) Your contributions are always good value :-) Cheers :-)

Ken

20/07/2013Mal Kukura You dazzle me with philosophy. Even though I went to uni I am still a western suburbs (of Sydney) lad at heart. As best I recall, the novels of C P Snow and Angus Wilson (to a lesser extent) dealt with this issue of "liberal" dealing with "evil". There were others, but those two spring to mind. It was dealt with in fiction, often in relatively simple stories of conflict between individuals, but that issue remained the underlying theme. The question being how far does one go as a "liberal" in accepting behaviour that is inherently "evil" - there obviously comes a point where one cannot, even though it may be to the cost of the liberal values. It could be seen in terms of "dualism" but, in a sense, that is what they had faced between 1933 and 1945. Chamberlain's "relativism" (relatively speaking!!) didn't work in 1938. The issue is that there comes a point where dualism is so blatently obvious that a choice has to be made. I am a relativist myself largely as a result of my training in social anthropology. So I am well aware of different values in different cultures and that each are valid for their circumstances. But we still run into issues when cultures clash - and perhaps in our globalised world that is happening more often. While in our liberal-democratic system we do have limits on freedoms, the conflict still exists, as exhibited by the frequent objections to government interventions that are seen to deny our "liberties" and, of course, the gun lobby in the USA. A dualistic or relativistic approach may explain this but does not nothing to stop it happening - the inherent contradiction remains.

nasking

20/07/2013 CHEERS TS. YOU'RE IN FINE FORM. [b]HE IS NOT REALLY A GREAT SPEAKER IS HE?[/b] 42 long, ABBOTT IS A NASTY PIECE OF WORK. FOR SUCH AN UGLY PARTY HE DOESN'T NEED TO BE ANYTHING ELSE. I THINK I WILL SUBSCRIBE TO CRIKEY AT THE END OF THE YEAR AGAIN. I WOULD MISS [b]FIRST DOG ON THE MOON[/b] AND I DO READ THE ARTICLES...UNLIKE WHEN I USED TO LEAF THRU PENTHOUSE. AS A LAD. THINKING ABOUT GETTING A NY TIMES SUBSCRIPTION FOR XMAS TOO. WE JUST WATCHED [b]MOONRISE KINGDOM[/b] I ASKED STACE: [quote]IF WE HAD KNOWN EACH OTHER AS TEENS DO YOU THINK WE WOULD HAVE DONE THAT[/quote]? SHE REPLIED: [quote]YES[/quote] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N8wkVA4_8s&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7N8wkVA4_8s I WAS A SCOUT. NOW LISTENING TO BOWIE. HER FAVE ALBUM IS [b]ZIGGY[/b]... N'

jane

20/07/2013Ad astra, I appreciate how difficult it must have been for you to ban ToM, but you made the right decision, I believe. His only contribution was to carp, criticise and not only try to derail every thread, but TPS as a whole. If he'd had anything of value to say, it would have been different. He didn't. I know I wouldn't have had your patience and perseverance. BSA Bob @12.53pm, agree. That a government has to govern is a vital point that has been ignored by the msm in their, or rather Murdoch's, sinister desire to install the current shallow, empty headed opposition on the Treasury benches. NAS' @3.08PM, I AGREE AND SHARE S' DESPAIR WITH THE CURRENT POLITICAL SITUATION. EVEN THOUGH I DESPISE RUDD FOR HIS ACTIONS OVER THE LAST 3 YEARS, I DO THINK THAT HIS ATTITUDE TO ASYLUM SEEKERS IS ONE OF SYMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING. BUT IN THE CURRENT POISONOUS POLITICAL SITUATION, HE HAS HAD TO COME UP WITH A SOLUTION WHICH WILL GIVE THE OPPOSITION THE LEAST AMMUNITION. AND AT LEAST IT MAY CALL A HALT ON THE LIFE THREATENING EMBARKATIONS IN THE HOPE OF REACHING AUSTRALIA. I SINCERELY HOPE THAT RUDD DOES MANAGE TO PULL OFF A MAJORITY GOVERNMENT. A CLEAR MAJORITY WILL HOPEFULLY STOP THE LIARS IN THEIR TRACKS AND MAY FORCE THEM TO ADOPT A MORE BIPARTISAN APPROACH TO ASYLUM SEEKERS, CLIMATE CHANGE, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION. IT MAY ALSO FORCE THE GREENS TO REALISE THAT IN POLITICS, AS IN OTHER AREAS, YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET ALL YOU WANT AND HAVE TO NEGOTIATE AN ACCEPTABLE OUTCOME. YOUR ASSESSMENT OF ToM'S "CONTRIBUTION" TO TPS, IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY, BTW. Truthie, it does seem that Rudd has overcome his Liealot paralysis and has taken back the initiative wrt asylum seekers arriving by boat. Now all they can do is bleat that they would have thought of it.......eventually.

Ad astra

20/07/2013jane Thank you of your support.

Truth Seeker

20/07/2013Jane, yes it certainly seems that way :-) Ad, it looks like some spammers have snuck through :-O Cheers :-)

nasking

20/07/2013 JUST WATCHED A RECORDING OF THE FIRST EPISODE OF 'FIRST FOOTPRINTS'...MARVELLOUS...SHOULD BE VIEWED AROUND THE GLOBE: Reverence for the land and for the spirits that inhabit it can no longer be dismissed as trivial superstitions or primitive thinking. Not if we are to survive the fast approaching climatic crossroads. Indigenous Australians figured out the neo-Pagan Gaia theory way way before James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis and it’s that combination of ancient knowledge and modern archeology that illuminates the series. The sight of Jawoyn elder, Margaret Katherine, learning factual details at an amazing rock art gallery near Kakadu from anthropologists and archeological experts is profoundly moving. You can feel her joy as she realises the stories she is custodian of not only have authenticity but are verified by tangible evidence thousands of years old. Her gratitude is as palpable as her dignity. Narrated by Ernie Dingo, who is himself involved in a project to preserve the traditional language of his tribal group, the series resonates with humility and a sense of long-overdue awe for the complex tapestry against which contemporary Australia can be viewed with clearer focus. Culture is a survival tool itself - clearly and forcefully illuminated in rock galleries, carvings and caves across the continent. Television, for all its sleight of hand and visual, cross-cultural conjuring remains a valuable means of reinforcing simple wonder in our world while evoking respect for its inhabitants. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/australia-culture-blog/2013/jul/14/first-footprints-broadchurch-abc RESPECT N'

nasking

20/07/2013 [b]I SINCERELY HOPE THAT RUDD DOES MANAGE TO PULL OFF A MAJORITY GOVERNMENT. A CLEAR MAJORITY WILL HOPEFULLY STOP THE LIARS IN THEIR TRACKS AND MAY FORCE THEM TO ADOPT A MORE BIPARTISAN APPROACH TO ASYLUM SEEKERS, CLIMATE CHANGE, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION.[/b] INDEED JANE, LET'S HOPE THE VOTERS MAKE IT HAPPEN. THE LAST THING WE NEED IS ANOTHER RIGHT-WING GOVT UNDERMINING THE MORALE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE... USING THE ABC AS A NASTY PROPAGANDA TOOL TO TRY AND SHIFT THE INDIGINEOUS PEOPLE OFF THE LAND SO THEIR MINING, CATTLE AND CASINO MASTERS CAN RAPE AND EXPLOIT IT AT WILL N'

nasking

20/07/2013 CHECK THIS OUT: [b]David Cameron under attack over fracking firm links to Lynton Crosby George Osborne announces tax breaks for shale gas as prime minister accused of evasion over top election adviser[/b] Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent The Guardian, Saturday 20 July 2013 05.51 AEST David Cameron was accused on Friday of giving evasive answers about the Tories' chief election strategist as the Labour party highlighted Lynton Crosby's role in promoting shale gas companies in his native Australia. As a cross-party committee of MPs accused the government of "utterly unacceptable" behaviour over the preparation of a new bill on lobbyists, Labour warned of a "lobbying scandal" in Downing Street after George Osborne unveiled tax breaks for the fracking industry championed by Crosby. Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, pointed out that the lobbyist's firm Crosby Textor represents the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association. One of its members, Dart Energy, has a UK subsidiary, Dart Europe Limited, which has an interest in the Bowland Shale site in Lancashire and Yorkshire, which contains 1,300tn cubic feet of gas. The chancellor announced on Friday that the government would set a 30% tax rate for onshore shale gas production, compared with the top rate of 62% for North Sea oil operations. Andrew Pendleton, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said it was a "disgrace" to offer tax breaks to "polluting energy firms that threaten our communities and environment". http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/19/david-cameron-fracking-lynton-crosby CROSBY GETS AROUND: In July 2013, following the government's rejection of a plan to remove branding from cigarette packets, British prime minister David Cameron was urged by Liberal Democrat members of the governing Coalition to sack Crosby as his chief election strategist because of Crosby's connection to the tobacco industry.[13] Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow was quoted as saying: "Lynton Crosby cannot remain at the heart of government while he is also serving the interests of the tobacco industry. If he does not go the prime minister should sack him." Tactics Crosby is described as favouring what is called a [b]wedge strategy[/b], [b]whereby the party he advises introduces a divisive or controversial social issue into a campaign, aligning its own stance with the dissenting faction of its opponent party, with the goal of causing vitriolic debate inside the opposing party, defection of its supporters, and the legitimising of sentiment which had previously been considered inappropriate. This is also described as "below the radar" campaigning, with the targeting of marginal constituencies with highly localised campaigning, latching on to local issues and personalities. [/b] To find such issues, [b]Crosby's business partner Mark Textor runs focus groups to find which groups to target with what questions.[/b] Crosby is said to run a tight ship, [b]focus on simple messages, target marginal constituencies and use lots of polls.[/b] [b]His tactics have included: During the 2001 Australian federal elections, Howard government ministers falsely claimed that seafaring asylum seekers had thrown children overboard in a presumed ploy to secure rescue and passage to Australia, and Howard, in the final days of the campaign, launched a slogan that later grew notorious: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come".[/b] WIKIPEDIA LOW DESPERATE POLITICS. N'

TalkTurkey

20/07/2013So sad; you never miss the water till the well runs dry. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-julia-i-know-and-love-but-you-never-really-met/story-fni0cwl5-1226682428462

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey Talk Turkey, Interesting article, reminds me a lot of similar sentiment expressed about former president George W Bush.

TalkTurkey

21/07/2013Austin 3:16 I take it that your comment above is supposed to be smart-arse and provocative. Unless and until you explain what I perceive as a deliberately offensive comparison I shall treat you as an unperson. Got that? Happy Sunday to everyone else. Nasking I saw part of that First Footprints show, it was a goose-bumpy experience to see the Aboriginal elder glowing with the new knowledge the anthropologist was imparting to her of the ancient artwork and astounding land-sculpting of her people.

Patriciawa

21/07/2013Talk Turkey, thanks for the links to those articles about FPM Julia. Much appreciated.

jaycee

21/07/2013Dead right TT. this moment in Aust' political history was one of the dumbest moves we have ever made.....perhaps THE dumbest!

jaycee

21/07/2013Austin...take a tip from Mr. McMahon ('The Monument' : Irwin Shaw)...."...you are a dumb bastard".

Ken

21/07/2013I have been reading some of the coverage of the PNG refugee plan and some commentators (e.g. ABC's Sean Dorney) are pointing to the problems the plan may create for PNG and Manus Island in particular. But I think they are missing the point. In this case, the announcement is more important than the plan. If it works (and there are already signs that it may) then there will never be 3000 asylum seekers on Manus, there will never be thousands of boat people to be resettled in PNG. And I think that is why PNG agreed to the plan: they get increased aid in health and education from Australia merely to support an "announcement" knowing that the quantum of the "plan" is unlikely ever to happen.

John Bloomfield

21/07/2013Thanks TT Jul 20 11:52pm, What a wonderful, gracious and intelligent lady we have had the privilege to witness as our first female prime minister. An old harlot like the Tele will only publish truth when there is no likelihood of disadvantage to their corporate interests or IPA/LNP mates. Trash media. Glad I haven't bought it for decades now!

jaycee

21/07/2013Just watched Tony Burke on Insiders...he looked and sounded very good.

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey TT, Iv'e read a few articles that suggested George W Bush excelled at interpersonal communication. That one-on-one or in a small group he was in his element. There are comments from returned soldiers that speak highly of Bush as a very warm, caring and personable man. Yet his public persona is completely at odds with that private one. In many ways quite similar to Ms Gillard. ( Except of course that Bush was able to win his re-election ;) )

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey Jaycee [quote]Dead right TT. this moment in Aust' political history was one of the dumbest moves we have ever made.....perhaps THE dumbest![/quote] Why because it might cost Abbott his chance of victory ? Personally I don't see that as a bad thing. The dumbest move was the rolling of Rudd. At the start of 2010 Rudd and Gillard were the best things that the ALP had going for them. Now ?

jaycee

21/07/2013Austin..I think you have been bedazzled by all things "hollywood" for too long! What we are seeing in politics at the moment and what is seen as "dazzling policy" is like those movie sets...all facade with no depth....in short ; "Bill-board" politics...and like those Hollywood stes, all will go well until we see "behind the scenes"...But Hey!, Austin.....isn't all that "Razzamatazz" just what the public wants? And I still think Julia Gillard had Slabbott's measure.

TalkTurkey

21/07/2013Jaycee, & Swordsfolks generally, I would not like to misperceive Austin 3:16's intent in that comment relating *J*U*L*I*A* to George Bush, but if it was indeed a snide insult to her as I think, I shan't be acknowledging or even reading anything s/he/it has to say in future. She's a person I hold in highest esteem, GWB is down at the Abborrrtt end, and Austin is a zero to me. So am I right do you think? I'm giving (it) a chance to explain, but it better be good. In the present climate of opinion about the nasties on this site, and if (it) wants to go on writing here, it'd be careful about snide insults I reckon. Please Goodwillians, do you too think (it) was being deliberately insulting? I want to know.

bob macalba

21/07/2013NASKING...A TUNE WITH A FAIR DINKUM MESSAGE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOWTM5R2DA CHEERS Talk Turkey...best to ignore austin, he's not here for good reasons,he keeps slipping up because he cant help himself, im guessing that theres more than one austin, one might consider him to be the new ToM but a little bit more shifty,not quite cunning or sly, just shifty, an amateur really

TalkTurkey

21/07/2013Austin, I just read your explanation at 10.31 AM. Okay. I've said it before here: one side of me is Brucie the Bilby, softest animal you never touched. The other is Prickles the Echidna. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that, it's just a fact. But I'm sensitive about insults to *J*U*L*I*A*, and I am free personally to make up my mind whom (or what) I read &/or acknowledge. I still don't think much of your comparison Austin, but I'll accept it.

bob macalba

21/07/2013We are being manipulated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pajKfN9VP8 one more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMIh4yucVUc

TalkTurkey

21/07/2013C@tmomma ( = Hillbilly/Feral Skeleton) has penned a major expose re relative education policies on [i]The Pub.[/i] http://pbxmastragics.com/2013/07/20/for-whom-the-liberal-school-bell-tolls/

bob macalba

21/07/2013Couple more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rqdtZlec0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJIV4f4ZQ0

jaycee

21/07/2013Welll...TT. I think Austin has a perception that he is just that tad bit smarter than the folk who frequent this site and he thinks his 'play-on-words" is a clever reflection of his intelligence.....but, to use a medium HE would be familiar with..; Mork-from-Ork to Min who had applied a mud-pack to her face "...it's to make me look beautiful, Mork!"....a pause and wry grimmace from Mork(Robin Williams).."Bad news Min!". Bad news Austin...

Pappinbarra Fox

21/07/2013Actually Papua New Guinea is a grand place to live the people are friendly and kind to others less fortunate. 75% are subsistence farmers and fishers. Better people you not meet. I am incensed about all the talk of "hellholes". Of course the press is not good for PNG but once outside POM you meet the real people of the countryside you will be amazed at our understanding of life, the outside world and our generosity of spirit. I doubt that there will ever be 3000 people on Manus seeking refuge but if there were I could only think of a couple of nicer places to be - the islands of Milne Bay.

nasking

21/07/2013 CAUGHT THE END OF THAT LOSER BOLT'S SHOW...MORE BS AND ATTEMPT TO MANIPULATE VOTER PERCEPTION... BOLT STATING VIRGINIA TRIOLI, TONY JONES, LEIGH SALES, BARRIE CASSIDY OF THE ABC ON "THE LEFT". I THINK MOST BLOGGERS I KNOW WILL LAUGH AT SUCH AN ASSERTION. JONES COMES ACROSS MORE AS A TURNBULL LIBERAL. SALES HELPED GET MURDOCH'S THE PUNCH BLOG OFF THE GROUND AND HAS DONE LITTLE BUT ATTACK THE GOVT. CASSIDY AND HIS SHOW INSIDERS WERE INSTRUMENTAL IN BRINGING DOWN RUDD ORIGINALLY AND GILLARD. VIRGINIA TRIOLI HAS DUMPED ON THIS GOVT MANY TIMES...AND I FIND IT INTERESTING THAT BOLT SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT UP HER RIDICULING OF BARNABY JOYCE BECAUSE IT WAS RIGHT AFTER THAT VERY OBVIOUS RIDICULE SHE WENT AFTER THE GOVT FULLBORE...SO NOW SHE HAS DONE SIMILAR WITH GREG HUNT I IMAGINE WE CAN EXPECT SAME. I IMAGINE SHE IS A LIBERAL PLANT. REMEMBER WHEN KEVIN RUDD WAS GIVEN 'AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR' BY THE AUSTRALIAN...AND THEN THEY SENT THEIR BOMBERS OUT TO DO CARPET BOMBING OF RUDD? IT ALSO WAS PRECEDED BY SAMANTHA MAIDEN AND OTHERS TALKING ABOUT "SUGAR HITS". EXPECT HELLCLONE...AND BE WELL PREPARED...THIS TIME. N'

Ad astra

21/07/2013Folks I have just now posted [i]Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott: two gentlemen politicians[/i]. http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2013/07/21/Tony-Windsor-and-Rob-Oakeshott-two-gentlemen-politicians.aspx

nasking

21/07/2013 [b]I saw part of that First Footprints show, it was a goose-bumpy experience to see the Aboriginal elder glowing with the new knowledge the anthropologist was imparting to her of the ancient artwork and astounding land-sculpting of her people[/b] TT, SO WONDERFUL TO SEE ABORIGINAL ELDERS IMPARTING VALUED INFO AND ALSO THINGS THEY HAD SUSPECTED FOR YONKS BEING CONFIRMED...BUT I AGREE, THE NEW INFO BEING PROVIDED BY THE ANTHROPOLOGIST YOU COULD SEE REALLY MOVED THAT INDIGINEOUS WOMAN...THE TEARS OF AWE AND JOY WERE SOMETHING TO OBSERVE...GOOSEBUMPS AND A SHED TEAR WERE EXPERIENCED BY THIS FELLA TOO. IT BRINGS A FEELING OF SATISFACTION TO SEE THE FIRST PEOPLE'S CULTURE AND HISTORY BEING EXPLORED AND UNEARTHED IN SUCH A POSITIVE MANNER... SO UNLIKE THE BARRAGE OF NEGATIVE VIEWS AND IMAGES WE WOULD GET FROM THE LIKES OF TONY JONES ON LATELINE ETC DURING THE HOWARD YEARS. NOT TO MENTION SOME WHO LIKED TO REFER CONSTANTLY TO THE 'BLACK ARMBAND' VIEW OF HISTORY. TREATING A DISPOSSESSED PEOPLE WITH RESPECT CAN DO A LOT FOR MORALE...AND FUTURE ENDEAVOURS...UNITY...AND RECONCILIATION...AS OPPOSED TO AN HYPOCRITICAL PATERNALISTIC, HALF-GLASS FULL APPROACH. N'.

nasking

21/07/2013 Sorry, should be: TREATING A DISPOSSESSED PEOPLE WITH RESPECT CAN DO A LOT FOR MORALE...AND FUTURE ENDEAVOURS...UNITY...AND RECONCILIATION...AS OPPOSED TO AN HYPOCRITICAL PATERNALISTIC, HALF-GLASS [b]EMPTY[/b] APPROACH. Really struggling to read now.

nasking

21/07/2013 Or is it: GLASS HALF EMPTY?

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey Talk Turkey, It's a valid comparison on the face of it - two politicians who's public and personal images were so vastly different. I'd imagine though for vastly different reasons. George W Bush - white, male, privileged - had a lot of advantages that Ms Gillard didn't. Still it's an interesting phenom - Rudd seems to be the reverse.

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey Jaycee, [quote]And I still think Julia Gillard had Slabbott's measure.[/quote] Maybe - what's that based on? It certainly doesn't seem to be the view of the voting public. On (my interpretation of) the history between the two of them I think it was the reverse.

Austin 3:16

21/07/2013Hey Bob, If you ever get the chance have a read of "Don't Get Fooled Again: A Sceptic's Handbook" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Get-Fooled-Again-Sceptics/dp/1848310528 There's an excellent section on "pseudo-news" as it's described.
How many Rabbits do I have if I have 3 Oranges?