Category: Politics

Former Liberal prime minister Robert Menzies, in a letter to the NSW Liberal premier Robert Askin, on August 24, 1973:

LABOR needs no public relations men so long as it has the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

A good call….the electorate needs to be frightened into realitiy. If the polls are any indication then the voters are either not thinking it through or have simply been scammed. Rudd has got his polls in the cheapest manner possibly….no new policies to speak of other than the unions get back in power. I still believe that come polling day the voters will rethink their acceptance of the new kid on the block. He’s new and glib but should we really trust him with the keys to the treasury? And why shouldn’t Howard counter the ACTU/ALP advertising so full of half truths and isolated single incidences that try and prove a trend. There are people out there who may actually believe the ACTU adds that fly in the face of contrary evidence and Howard needs to counter that and educate the voters about the realities of the IR laws. Rudd is busy convincing the electorate that Australia’s booming economy is due soley to the mineral boom and has nothing to do with economic management. Rubbish! It has everything to do with economic management and a lot to do with the IR Laws that allowed the big companies to be competitive in the world economy. Going backwards to Union control will quickly prove the case as the emphasis shifts from production and a happy workforce to central control of wages and conditions; union power plays and strikes over inconsequential matters. Shake up the troops John. The MPs and electorate need to face reality…make the wrong call on polling day and the country will stall.

THOUSANDS of litres of water lost every year through leaky pipes and crumbing infrastructure will be targeted under Kevin Rudd’s water plan. So talk to the state Labour governments, it’s their problem to fix but then so is water storage and look how Queensland has managed that. Can’t go for new dams when you want the greenie vote so for over a decade nothing gets done and we are about to be drinking muddy bottom water. Rudd’s answer to the water problem is to open the bandaide package and apply liberally. He devines that the water crisis can be fixed by bandaiding pipes and signing Kyoto – could I suggest build more dams and wait for the droubt to end would be more practical. Solar energy? Still has a way to go yet. People I know solar powered their homestead at the cost of $72,000 and it still doesn’t handle the load. Putting money into solar power and clean coal research is fine; addressing climate change and producing a cleaner and leaner ecology is necessary but these options are all long term plans and we need an answer now. I seem to recall, a few years ago when Howard started the campaign on education he mentioned trade training and the ALP went on ad nauseum about how Howard was kicking kids out of school at fifteen and denying them a uni degree. A few years late but now they agree it’s necessary…good. I note one of Kevin’s three core challenges is making sure ‘fair go’ has a future and not just a past. If you substitute ‘Unions’ for ‘fair go’ I think you’ll get his drift. All in all, a sermon of platitudes. The true believers and the left will love it but I don’t see it stamping the ALP as a reasonable alternative. Honeymooon turning to roller coaster soon.

Bill Heffernan’s comment about Julia Gillard was uncalled for but let’s not get carried away like a letter writer to the Australian who says he was leaning towards voting for the coalition but wont now due to Heffernan’s comments. How shallow is that? One can only wonder if he went the other way when Latham called Albrechtson a whore (‘shanky ho’) and what about Rudds repetitive over-the -top accusations against Downer and Howard over the AWB affair. As writer Randy Rose from Tasmania says Greg Combet was on the front page yesterday referring to his opponents within the union movement as “arseholes” No furore over that this mornng.

THERE I was, a swinging voter, intensely interested in the emerging strengths of the Opposition. However, the industrial relations policy announcements over the weekend had me leaning back to the Coalition. Now my mind’s made up. Any party that tolerates the repeated and most recent offensiveness of Australia’s Most Disgraced Senator won’t get my vote later this year. David Taylor Sydney, NSW

It’s cut and thrust of politics you silly, shallow man. The party you should vote for is the one, that in your opinion, offers the best economic, defence and social policies for Australia.

Julia still doesn’t get it.

Ms Gillard, the Opposition’s workplace relations spokeswoman, warned business it could be “injured” if it chose to become a propagandist for John Howard on industrial relations.

Despite her threat, Australia’s peak business bodies are considering fast-tracking advertising campaigns in support of Australian Workplace Agreements, which are at the centre of the Prime Minister’s Work Choices laws.

Business isn’t acting as a propagandist for Howard, they are acting in their own interests which in fact coincides with the nations interests. If the businesses are doing well, the workers are doing well and the reverse applies; and if they are all doing well then the country is doing well. It’s not rocket science Julia. Both have to do well or it doesn’t work. Julia Gillard, the best thing for conservatives since Latham.

An indicator of the peak of Rudd’s poll blitz; Whitlam on stage and the faithful chanting “We want Gough”. Please, please Rudd drag out Keating as well; the voters need to be reminded regularly what the ALP have done to the country. Having handed the reigns of his industrial policy to Julia of the Left, his claim to leadership pales.

Mr Rudd, who appeared uneasy when challenged over some of the details of the workplace policy, admitted that Ms Gillard had negotiated much of the fine detail. “I have total confidence in her ability to deliver the best balanced outcome in both her discussions with the trade unions and business,” he said.

Julia had negotiated much of the fine detail with whom? Ah yes, let me guess, the unions. Thus an organization that represents less than 20% of the workers is setting IR Policy for a 100% of them. Julia admits her IR Policy hasn’t been endorsed by the Shadow Cabinet and Rudd’s new Industrial advisor, Rodd Eddington, didn’t get a look in either. So Julia Gillard, representing the dopey Left or the party, in cahoots with the Unions, sets policy for what Rudd has claimed is his major policy attack for the upcoming election. Loose control of the Left and loose the election. I said much earlier, when Rudd was elected ALP Leader, that one day the rent would fall due…he would have to pay back the Left for their support and the rent bill arrived on the weekend. He’s paid it but he’s paid more than he knows. Over the last couple of weeks Business leaders gave him a chance. They listened, they went to dinner with him, but this weekend the detail came out and now he’s lost them.

LABOR’S workplace reforms have provoked an unprecedented corporate backlash with some of Australia’s largest companies preparing a concerted campaign against Kevin Rudd’s industrial agenda.

Watch the polls now that Rudd has been forced to lay his cards on the table. Pretty boy looks and a glib tongue will account for little over the coming months.

Why are GetUp and Go worried about new electoral laws that require a voter to provide proof of identity when enrolling? Are they supporting fraud or just against it because it’s a Howard government initiative?

A poll commissioned by the political movement GetUp! shows that only 3 per cent of voters agree with the new laws that make it more difficult to enrol to vote.

That has to be an out and out lie or only GetUp! supporters were polled. GetUp executive director Brett Solomon said there was overwhelming opposition to the new laws in the poll of 612 voters last week by Roy Morgan Research.

“Ninety-five per cent of the population are not aware that the Government has passed legislation that only 3 per cent of the population are in support of,” Mr Solomon said.

I think what he means to say there is that only 3% of Getup readers support the proposal which sounds about right, although, might I add, that those three percent might look at what the hell they are doing wasting their energies and ethical standing by being associated with GetUp. Personaly, I don’t think the laws go far enough. Voters should be required to take proof of identity with them to the booths to stop even the thought of fraud.

People wishing to enrol to vote will now have to complete a new voter enrolment form which has a complicated series of “proof of identity” tests. Anyone who doesn’t have a driver’s licence or a passport will have to get a “prescribed person” to authenticate their identity.

Can’t see the problem yet. The federal member for Melbourne Ports, Labor’s Michael Danby raises more non-issues.

“They will mainly be 17- and 18-year-old first-time enrollers, and also people who have recently become citizens. “Many of these people do not have a driver’s licence or passport. In my electorate, the change will also affect the 53 per cent of residents who live in flats or apartments and who frequently change addresses.”

It’s simply a part of becoming and adult or citizen. If these people can’t iID themselves then they can’t have a bank account as the same requirement exists to open one. Where do they have their dole payments deposited? How do they claim on Medicare? Absolute rubbish…….I wish they would get up and go.

The Federal Government is secretly planning tougher workplace laws if it wins the upcoming election, Labor’s deputy leader Julia Gillard claims. Maybe research is telling Julia and her union bosses that people aren’t copping the lies being pedalled by the Unions. Her panic attack is based on a statement by Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey, who said there was a need for further workplace reform to maintain a strong economy. Joe Hockey told the Nine Network the Government had no plans to further toughen up workplace relations laws. But he minister added:

“Any government that rests on its laurels in terms of economic reform, be it tax reform, be it workplace relations reform or any reform, is going to see the economy dip. “We want the economy to remain strong.”

I can understand the ALP not understanding that.

Peter Beattie now thinks uranium is OK. I guess that’s in reaction to a call from his mate Kevin.

A STAUNCH critic of the Labor Party’s move to lift a ban on new uranium mines, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has sensationally backed down, allowing for the development of up to $3.2billion in uranium deposits in the state.

His rationalization of this astounding ‘about face’;

…. Mr Beattie told The Australian he had reluctantly accepted independent advice that increased uranium mining would not threaten Queensland’s coal industry.

Threaten our coal industry…rubbish. I can just see our coal buyers saying ” Beattie says uranium is OK after all. Let’s change from coal to uranium overnight”. “What’s that? It take a decade to build a nuclear reactor..ah well lets just stop buying coal anyway and not have power until the reactors are on-line” The No New Mines policy does have to change but can we have some honesty in the debate.