Category: Politics

Shades of Whitlam. It now appears Rudd only consulted two other members of his party before he announced spending the future security of the country on an election promise of dubious value. Kevin’s about face on the sale of Telstra may well come up at the impending ALP conference. Has he got the measure of the Left or is it just policy without consultation? Rudd, in his messages to the party Left announces he will now accept the Coalition’s answers to the Indiginous problems. The Left are not going to be happy and I for one, look forward to the ALP conference. Should be more blood on the floor than on the ground on a bad day in Baghdad It commits a Labor government to making a formal apology over the so-called stolen generation. I would like to think it also commits a Labour government to making an formal apology for the years of troubles occassioned by Whitlam, Coombs and Hawke as they spread their socialist ‘Noble Savage Outstation’ answer. Isolate, don’t educate, accept the dole, shut up and exist under separate laws. Oh, and if the dole’s not enough here’s a suitcase with $35, 000 cash per family. Drink it and buy a new Toyota – don’t bother, no need to spend it on the future. Kevin reads the riot act on schools but the Teachers still haven’t got it.

The Australian Education Union, which represents government schools, believes there is still an imbalance in the present funding arrangements, under which public schools receive about 35 per cent of the federal funds while educating about 70 per cent of the students.

Public schools receive 35% of federal funds because education is a state issue and the states pay for the state schools. The Feds only help out. You’ll need more than words Kevin – try baseball bats. I think you will find some still under the squatters chairs on the verandahs of Queensland houses, left over from the last time the ALP screwed the country.

Rudd’s riding a huge wave of media deification and as sure as the waves will hit the shore and breakup the honeymoon is pre-nuptial and thus unreal. Every married person knows the work starts after the honeymoon where couples see each other in a less rosy view. ‘Howard Arrogant’ shouts the Australian – give me a break. Howard may be lots of things but arrogant he aint. Of the two, could I suggest Rudd has the most positive attitude towards his own abilities vis-a-vis the abilities of those around him. The polls say Rudd is more experienced…at what? And this ‘well he would say that wouldn’t he‘ pearler from Bob Hawke

The last Labor leader to enjoy such support, Bob Hawke, yesterday suggested the Howard Government was staggering towards defeat and Kevin Rudd would be invincible by the end of the year. “We’re getting to the stage where it’s time,” Mr Hawke said.

If the Australian went to the trouble of soliciting old politicians opinions why stop at Bob. Keating and Whitlam who between them redefined arrogance would have said the same. Even Hewson and Fraser could be relied upon to dump on Howard but I guess Steve Lewis and Samantha Maiden needed to leave room to list all the perceived visions of an empire falling to bits. Recycled and perceived events such as evoking memories of the 2001 “mean and tricky” memo from then Liberal Party president Shane Stone…government MPs ..sniping at each other during sometimes heated partyroom meetings….criticised the Prime Minister for failure to appoint another Queenslander to the ministry…One Coalition MP said a number of backbenchers were miffed with the Treasurer. If the report of Mark Twain’s death was an egaggeration then so is any suggestion that Howard is dead and it is not in the human conscousness for honeymoons to last forever. The big question is, will it last up to the election? I doubt it

Pundits queue up to write John Howard off. A bit early for me – we still have to hear Labour’s policies and when we do will Rudd be able to shut the Left up. Will the coalminers vote Labour when they fear that given the chance they would close the mines to pay back the Left and garner Green votes. WIll the education unions across Australia accept Rudds policies and if not, how loud will they be. The polls are bad and if the Libs keep on losing MPs and Senators over stupid errors, they won’t be getting any better. However I can’t see that happening and it won’t be long before Howard’s house will have been cleaned of deadwood – what then…the debate has to go back to Rudd’s credibility. Will it stack up? Early signs are that it won’t. Whatever the polls say, there is a thought in the back of a lot of peoples minds that Rudd has been found to be easy with the truth. The Bourke affair, you might reason, is dead and buried but an image has been imprinted on a number of minds and it’s shaky. Some think his mea culpa at the press conference was admirable – could I suggest he called the press conference to say things that were too dangerous to say in the house. Rudd wants it both ways. He accuses Howard and co of personally attacking him yet he was one of the most prolific attack dogs in the house…incompetant…stupid…and othe insults rolling off his toungue but he cries foul when more temperate language flows back. He accuses Howard of taking us to war based on lies yet he himself has said;

There is no debate or dispute as to whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. He does.

Still getting it together, I think. There is still a long way to go before we vote.

I don’t know about you but I find this highly offensive. The S11 Protesters from the 2000 civil riots are to be awarded damages for being treated harshly by the Victorian Police. $700,000 to the protesters and $600,000 legal bill. A group of 47 litigants blamed heavy-handed policing for injuries sustained at a riotous anti-globalisation protest outside the World Economic Forum at Melbourne’s Crown casino in September 2000.

Mr Bracks said the court case had been dragging on for four years and said Victoria Police had settled the claim on the advice of their insurers, who wanted to cut their losses on ballooning legal costs. “(It’s) a good outcome which does not expose the police to further litigation,” Mr Bracks said.

There shouldn’t have been any legal costs; the whole debacle should not have got to court and how can anyone, in their right mind say it’s a good outcome.

In the State of Victoria criminals who suffered injuries whilst resistiing arrest or legal ‘move on’ orders can sue the police for the injuries that they brought on themselves. No wonder thousands of Victorians are flooding into Queensland every month.

The height of the bar has been set.

FEDERAL Human Services minister Ian Campbell today resigned from Cabinet over his meeting last year with disgraced former WA premier Brian Burke.

Will Rudd go under or over the bar?

Meanwhile Kevin Rudd’s story is being attacked;

“I went, as I said the other day in Canberra, as the guest of (Labor MP) Mr Graham Edwards, so what I said the other day stands,” Mr Rudd told reporters in Melbourne.

“I went purely as Mr Graham Edwards’ guest,” he said.

The Weekend Australian quotes a Perth businessman;

…..(who was) one of Mr Burke’s clients (and) who was invited to the dinner, told The Weekend Australian yesterday the dinner was deliberately arranged and paid for by Mr Burke to introduce “a future leader of the Opposition” to West Australian businessmen, who were his clients, and also to state bureaucrats. The guest said the Labor leadership, including the previous leader Mark Latham, then leader Kim Beazley and Mr Rudd as a prospective leader, had been discussed at the dinner.

Labor’s more optimistic souls hope Rudd can ride out this saga. They point to his honesty in fessing up to making a mistake, and hope the cleanskin image has not been too badly tarnished.

Honesty? I thought he said he only went as a guest of Graham Edwards. He didn’t even know Burke was going to be there and now we hear Burke organized the whole dinner for Rudd…….tellng porkies in the House Mr Rudd?

Meanwhile, as if the Rudd/Burke controversy isn’t doing enough damage to Labour’s chances, Kevin Rudd has firmly committed Labor to scrapping the government’s Work Choices legislation, in an address to a party conference.

Mr Rudd vowed that if Labor is elected to office at the election expected late this year, it would “consign these laws to the dustbin of history”.

Small businesses are going to love that one.

Good week for us conservatives.

Burkes influence moves east; Brian Burke, ex Premier of WA, previously charged and goaled for corruption, is shaking the ALP world as the West Australian Corruption and Crimes Commission releases daily reports on Burke’s control of the WA Carpenter government.

The Coalition in Canberra have spent all day attacking Kevin Rudd over his meetings with Burke and all Kevin can come up with is this;

“Would it have been better for me not to have met with Mr Burke, had I known what Mr Burke was up to at the time, of course,” Mr Rudd said.

“Did I have the faintest idea that Mr Burke was engaged in activities which are now the subject of the CCC, of course I did not.

Sorry, don’t believe him,. Burke is a personal friend of Kim Beasley and Graham Edwards; he is entrenched in WA Labour circles and is one of the biggest power brokers in WA. If Rudd didn’t know what was going on then he should be questioned for not having a tab on the ALPs machinations.

“So therefore, with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, of course I would not have met with Mr Burke. I had no knowledge of those matters then.”

One wonders if Rudds 20:20 hindsight goes back as far as WA Inc. You remember Kevin? Paper bags of cash in his office safe..goaled for corruption….yeah that guy.

UPDATE: Maybe I missed this yesterday but it’s worth mentioning. Hidden in the text, halfway down the page is this startling revelation;

Mr Rudd said he was unaware of the ban on contact with Mr Burke imposed by then WA premier Geoff Gallop.

Everybody in Australia who reads newspapers was aware of the ban on contact with Brian Burke imposed by Geoff Gallop except Kevin.

Yeah, I believe that!

Many have joined the “Wish it were so” division as the news that Maxine McKew has nominated for Bennelong hits the media. The ABC managed to extract a statement from former Liberal national president John Valder who tipped John Howard could lose his seat of Bennelong. True, he could but there’s a lot of campaigning between could and did. The ABC’s electoral analyst Antony Green suggests

Prime Minister John Howard should be worried that high-profile media personality Maxine McKew is standing as the ALP candidate in his electorate of Bennelong……

Maybe, but being a talking head high-profile celebrity is a long way from being a believable politician. After all, the other celebrity Garret, isn’t exactly starring. A comment at Matt Price’s blog suggests it leaves Labor open to charges of seeking salvation in celebrity rather than with a battle-hardened, local candidate and he is not a Howard fan. He could be right though. I imagine Peter Costello noticed the nomination with interest but I doubt he’s booked the removalist van to move to the lodge yet. Shaping up to be an interesting battle.

A Labour leader (Latham) can call the sitting US President the most dangerous man ever to hold that office; Bob Brown can insult the same man in Parliament in an extremely churlish manner but the PM can’t criticise an American Junior Senator. Yeah right. No double standards here. Rudd in the house;

To accuse the Democratic Party of the United States of being al-Qaeda’s party of choice, to accuse the Democratic party of being the terrorists’ party of choice, to accuse the party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson of being the terrorists’ party of choice is a most serious charge ….

But it is the al-Qaeda’s party of choice. It’s Democrats and the terrorists talking about withdrawal, not the Republicans. As an aside, Howard, well the media really, sure as hell took Global Scaremongering off the front page with his comments.