Oz election thread #3 - Rudd's Labour

Sorry, dear, I've said before I'm a total cynic regarding Aussie pollies, and did I not think it all rather sad I would be somewhat amused by the euphoria surrounding the New Utopia government. (Meanwhile, back at the ranch....... interest rates, petrol prices, health scandals, housing chaos, indigenous welfare - just a few, for starters - are all being given the usual lip service.)

I don't often post in this thread, I know my opinion of Mr Rudd is gloomy (I see him as limp celery, a damp squib, whatever) and I don't want to spoil the fun the rest of you seem to have singing his praises; but every now and then something hits me as being worth a comment - and it does seem that he has been out of the country more often than he has been in it since the election. (Actually I did not make a comment, I simply asked a question). :wink:

Funny you should say 'aussie pollies' - are there better ones somewhere else?

Personally I would take almost anyone to get rid of Howard. I think Kev's approach is rooted in public service administration (good public service administration). Laying down KPIs openly so his performance can be measured is smart and wise. You just know if John Howard had been asked what he intended to achieve, say for indigenous people in a 3-year period, he would have been hedging around so that no comment could be dragged up again in 18 months to embarass him (he learnt from 'no GST') so that in effect there were no performance targets.

Those of us with a long memory of Australia's social/political/economic history know that the Howard government rode on the benefits accrued by hard decisions made by labour in the 1980s and 1990s, and that it failed to invest those profits in building Australia's human capital - so we are still China and Japan's hole in the ground. Kev aint perfect but at least long term issues are being raised without business and 'next election' concerns determining responses.

I doubt it, hinge, but that does not excuse ours. They are supposed to be the 'cream' of our society. (This does not mean they should be the richest, prettiest or have private school education, they should just be the best people for the job.) We should not expect them to be anything less nor should we accept them being anything less.


A dangerous idea.


No comment here, hinge, except that I remember that period very well and my memory is even longer than that. I'm just going to pour myself a stiff brandy - not sure whether to laugh or cry at your statement.


Nowhere (that I am aware of) have I held John Howard up to be a great PM or even a good PM. I am not a Liberal Party supporter and my background is Labor. But, I never have and never will, taken my opinions from journalists or party propaganda. I would dearly love to eat my words about Kevin Rudd but I just can't see it happening. :wink:

Ah well, GWB will be gone soon. (Yes! ) So Kevin won't be stuck with any of his labels for long ....

I will read that post again. I'd like to hear what you have to say, too! (Go on! :wink: )

I have made a quite a few criticisms of Kevin Rudd in this thread, lezzles. It hasn't all been singing his praises. (& BTW I didn't vote Labor. I voted for the Greens.)
But like hinge, I'm hugely relieved to see the last of the Howard government. Best thing that could have happened for the country, I reckon.
And you are most welcome to post your thoughts & opinions here any time. We don't all have to agree, ya know!

I wish you would expand on that, lezzles. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say.

I think Rudd has done a great job on his OS trip. He's managed to maintain Australia's important strategic and business relationships, while not making us a pathetic lapdog, as did Howard.

He got the thumbs up from the Guardian and the Independent according to Insiders on sunday. Of course that won't impress anyone on the right.

When you think about it, not much has changed in reality but the mind set and approach seems different.

The opposition seems impotent - but there isn't much to oppose. It's pretty much steady as she goes. It's funny how the razor gangs aren't getting much media coverage - the administrative functions (as opposed to the service delivery arms) of the public service really are getting hammered.

Quoting me....
(How ever, this time i voted for Rudd, not the labour party as such. I have great expectations of him, but will be glad when he's finished the gabfest of mob pleasing-political correct hot air and get down to doing something a little more buisnes like. )

I'm happy with his accomplishments so far.. was sensible informing others in the important (to us)parts of the world and for them to know who and what he's about as a party leader and only hope they see him as he portrays himself, and not as a bag of wind.
Am a little perplexed with his attitude to the global warming religion, unfortunately we are a hole in the ground and commercial vegetable garden and will stay that way for the foreseeable future, so he will have to tread a very delicate path if he want's to appease us peasants and keep the home fires burning.

That's the trick though isn't it - is global warming a religion? Or is it fact? Are you willing to risk your children's children's future so you can leave a light on all night etc.

Personally, at an intellectual level, I'm all for treating it as real, because it results in addressing issues that need to be addressed in any case - like basing your entire economy and lifestyle on a non-renewable resource that degrades the quality of our atmosphere and perverts our geopolitics.

Read Jared Diamond's 'Collapse'. It's not about global warming, but it is an interesting exploration of once robust societies that became extinct and why (Greenland norse, the Anasi indians, and Easter islanders for example). As well as why other societies did survive.

Hello all

One thing about politics has always bemused me - how many people believe they can judge a PM's performance when he has just entered govt....well, I noticed lots were doing it before he entered office too.

For me, I think it will be around the 2 year mark before I start seeing things that indicate whether or not he's making a good PM.

In the short term, he's talking the talk, and the talk seems very effective.

I personally have no issues with overseas trips by PM's, and given Rudd's background in Foreign Policy, such is even more understandable. Further, given the internation climate, I expect that this PM, and future PM's will have a higher percentage of overseas trips than past PM's.

The 2020 summitt, which no doubt produced a lot of hot air, a lot of bad ideas, a lot of expensive ideas, and perhaps some good idea's, is still a worthy concept.

As for holding Politicians to greater accountability, I've been pleasantly surprised with a number of things Rudd has done to increase accountability, though hopefully more is still to come. The secrecy of the Howard Govt wasn't healthy (and neither is the secrecy of the Labor Govt in Qld).

I'm perplexed.. Most posts still seem to be saying that they are so happy that Howard has been dumped as leader of this country, it's repeated time and time again, I recognized Howard's faults and only when I felt their was more good to be gained to us all, that I felt a change in a leader was warranted. ( hence my little vote for Kevin not the labor party as such )But, bringing up the faults of a past leader is of no consequence as to the superiority of the new leader, I'm sure he will make many mistakes and more than likely the unions will eventually be his downfall ( well that's my guess anyway )
For the time being it's going to be easy to point out that past actions caused todays ills, but how Kevin rectifies these ill's will be the proving ground for future handling the country as a whole.
In other words excessive wind has been known to produce a lot of s-hit.

To clear up my comment on the Global Warming Religion bit... A cut and paste from the GW thread, that FoxsFyre inserted.

Username writes
Quote:
The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognise IPCC as the world's most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus. Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified.[

I think they've got Inhofe's phony "400" faroutnumbered.


In rebuttal:

IPCC Scientists Challenge Al Gore''s View of Global Warming Consensus
By Noel Sheppard
June 29, 2007

The chinks in the armor that is a supposed scientific consensus regarding man''s role in global warming continued to grow this week when it was identified that many of the folks involved in the most recent report from the United Nations'' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were not in agreement with the study''s findings.

Didn't hear about this? Well, how could you? Nobody reported it!
In fact, what you also didn't hear or read due to the media's universal eschewing of this information was that many of the views expressed in the IPCC''s report go quite contrary to assertions regularly being made by the very press outlets not covering this new revelation and the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore.

Think maybe that's why it's not being reported?

Regardless of the answer, the Heartland Institute, a non-profit social and economic think tank, issued the following press release concerning this matter Friday (emphasis added throughout):

On June 28, in an historic move the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the expert review comments and responses to its latest assessment of the science of climate change. The IPCC report is the primary source of data for Al Gore's movie and book titled "An Inconvenient Truth."

Many of the comments by the reviewers are strongly critical of claims contained in the final report, and they are directly at odds with the so-called "scientific consensus" touted by Gore and others calling for immediate government action. For example, the following comment by Eric Steig appears in Second Order Draft Comments, Chapter 6; section 6-42:

In general, the certainty with which this chapter presents our understanding of abrupt climate change is overstated. There is confusion between hypothesis and evidence throughout the chapter, and a great deal of confusion on the differences between an abrupt "climate change" and possible, hypothetical causes of such climate changes.

"It is now abundantly clear why Al Gore will not accept our debate challenge. The supposed scientific consensus on global warming is pure fiction. Hopefully, the public release of comments and responses will enable the debate over global warming to turn to facts and less fiction," stated Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit think tank based in Chicago.

The Heartland Institute has been running ads in national newspapers calling on Al Gore to debate Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent global warming "skeptic." Starting today, the institute says it is now including Dennis Avery, an economist and coauthor of a book on global warming that is on the New York Times nonfiction best seller list, who Gore has also refused to debate.

Gore has also not responded to a debate challenge from Wharton Business School Professor Scott Armstrong, or a similar challenge from Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

Makes one wonder how the media can continue to support a man who isn''t willing to debate anyone concerning this matter. Furthermore, given the press focus on the IPCC any time it releases a new report, one also has to question why this new information which actually came out on Wednesday went totally ignored.

In fact, according to LexisNexis and Google News searches, not one American press outlet covered this new revelation out of the IPCC. And, though the Heartland Institute's press release was first published by the U.S. Newswire at 5:15 PM EST Thursday, nobody reported it either.

It appears that information from the IPCC is only newsworthy when it supports anthropogenic global warming theories. How disgraceful.
For those interested, the comments of IPCC scientists are available in a rather lengthy PDF document HERE
?-?-Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
http://newsbusters.org/node/13833

IPCC must come clean on real numbers of scientist supporters
The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax
By Tom Harris: John McLean
Friday, December 14, 2007

It''s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over -- ?'?'2,500 scientists of the United Nation''s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis''.

But it''s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it''s a whopper. Here''s the real situation.

Like the three IPCC ?'?'assessment reports'' before it, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released during 2007 (upon which the UN climate conference in Bali was based) includes the reports of the IPCC''s three working groups. Working Group I (WG I) is assigned to report on the extent and possible causes of past climate change as well as future ?'?'projections''. Its report is titled ""The Physical Science Basis"".

The reports from working groups II and II are titled ""Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"" and ""Mitigation of Climate Change"" respectively, and since these are based on the results of WG I, it is crucially important that the WG I report stands up to close scrutiny.
There is, of course serious debate among scientists about the actual technical content of the roughly 1,000-page WG I report, especially its politically motivated Summary for Policymakers which is often the only part read by politicians and non-scientists. The technical content can be difficult for non-scientists to follow and so most people simply assume that if that large numbers of scientists agree, they must be right.

Consensus never proves the truth of a scientific claim, but is somehow widely believed to do so for the IPCC reports, so we need to ask how many scientists really did agree with the most important IPCC conclusion, namely that humans are causing significant climate change--in other words the key parts of WG I?

The numbers of scientist reviewers involved in WG I is actually less than a quarter of the whole, a little over 600 in total. The other 1,900 reviewers assessed the other working group reports. They had nothing to say about the causes of climate change or its future trajectory. Still, 600 ""scientific expert reviewers"" sounds pretty impressive. After all, they submitted their comments to the IPCC editors who assure us that ""all substantive government and expert review comments received appropriate consideration."" And since these experts reviewers are all listed in Annex III of the report, they must have endorsed it, right?
Wrong.

For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors'' responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by ""hockey-stick"" co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the U.S. and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released.

An examination of reviewers'' comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the ?'?'Second Order Revision'' or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here''s the reality.

A total of 308 reviewers commented on the SOR, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. Only about half the reviewers commented more than one chapter. It is logical that reviewers would generally limit their comments to their areas of expertise but it''s a far cry from the idea of thousands of scientists agreeing to anything.

Compounding this is the fact that IPCC editors could, and often did, ignore reviewers'' comments. Some editor responses were banal and others showed inconsistencies with other comments. Reviewers had to justify their requested changes but the responding editors appear to have been under no such obligation. Reviewers were sometimes flatly told they were wrong but no reasons or reliable references were provided. In other cases reviewers tried to dilute the certainty being expressed and they often provided supporting evidence, but their comments were often flatly rejected. Some comments were rejected on the basis of a lack of space -- an incredible assertion in such an important document. The attitude of the editors seemed to be that simple corrections were accepted, requests for improved clarity tolerated but the assertions and interpretations that appear in the text were to be defended against any challenge.

An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that ?'?'hundreds of IPCC scientists'' are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely ""Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.""

In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, ""Understanding and Attributing Climate Change"".

Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60% of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.

Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article - Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the ""Greenhouse gas forcing ……"" statement above, Professor McKitrick explained ""A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.""

Dr. Gray labeled the WG I statement as ""Typical IPCC doubletalk"" asserting ""The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model.""

Determining the level of support expressed by reviewers'' comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report. The claim that 2,500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.

""The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don''t,"" says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball. ""Otherwise, their credibility, and the public''s trust of science in general, will be even further eroded.""

That the IPCC have let this deception continue for so long is a disgrace. Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon must instruct the UN climate body to either completely revise their operating procedures, welcoming dissenting input from scientist reviewers and indicating if reviewers have vested interests, or close the agency down completely. Until then, their conclusions, and any reached at the Bali conference based on IPCC conclusions, should be ignored entirely as politically skewed and dishonest.

John McLean is climate data analyst based in Melbourne, Australia. Tom Harris is the Ottawa-based Executive Director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (nrsp.com).
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968

anton bonnier wrote :-


Its interesting to note that many years ago, an editorial in a local paper complained
about the excessive demands of unions in their log of claims. What the editor failed to
realize at the time, was that it was the law to submit an ambit claim. This meant that
once all the claims had been met, no further negotiations could take place.
This is the reason the claims were ridiculous, so as to allow room for negotiations in the future.

When I started work, annual leave was 15 days per year, sick leave 4 days.
Every year, we had to negotiate a new agreement. In every single instance, the employer
opposed every wage claim in the commission.
Believe me, conditions we have today were not given willingly by any employer I worked for.
People like to bash unions, but we all benefit from their struggle to improve living standards
and safety in the work place. One thing I did notice, was that when the union movement won
some gains, non-union members were there with their hands to receive the same.

Just my 2 cents worth.

There's plenty of weasels in the Australian community benefiting from the gains made by unions on the one hand while criticizing them on the other.

Quote..
When I started work, annual leave was 15 days per year, sick leave 4 days.
Every year, we had to negotiate a new agreement. In every single instance, the employer
Opposed every wage claim in the commission.
Believe me, conditions we have today were not given willingly by any employer I worked for.
People like to bash unions, but we all benefit from their struggle to improve living standards
And safety in the work place. One thing I did notice, was that when the union movement won
Some gains, non-union members were there with their hands to receive the same.

Just my 2 cents worth. End of quote

I started work when I was 14.. No need to remind me of the past "good" deeds of unions. I never saw a union go on strike for workers who had no unions (because they were to small a work force) but did notice that the biggest of the unions and the one's in industries most necessary to everyone... Were the one's who managed to get the higher wages whilst the one's on minimum pay the (majority) stayed the same and only got a increase when the cost of living rose.. ( if you pay more for labor you charge more for your product which causes inflation ) so the unionist standard of living went up and the others didn't till long after.. This scenario still continues today )
That's my 99 cents worth

I reckon that would be a good reason to belong to a union eh anton ?

Some years back, the government of the day imposed a wage freeze. Low and behold, when the next cpi figures came out, there was next to no difference to the previous figures. The business sector just kept increasing prices anyway. It made the argument that freezing wages would control prices very shallow. I did notice that it was only a "wage freeze" and not a "price freeze" as well. (the government of the day was anti-union)
Once you could buy the same items at two different shops and the prices would be almost identical, as they worked on a set formula as a reasonable markup. Now they seem to charge what ever they think you will be prepared to pay regardless of the wholesale price.

What's that old saying ? Capitalism will never fail while the workers are there to pay their taxes to prop it up.
I always thought that to be pretty true.

Just my ramblings.

Thanks to my membership of a union, I've got a 4% pay rise this year, 5% next year, 5% the year after, and 4.5% the year after that. The way I figure it, if our company is going well enough to pay our directors several million dollars in bonuses, then they can easily afford our rises. It only took 5 weeks of negotiation, which means the company obviously agrees with me. As for the non-unionists who don't like it, you scum sucking pr!cks can suck hind tit for all I care. The worthless f@cking weasels are only too happy to work a 38 hour week, take 4 weeks of annual leave and take paid sick leave when they don't feel well, while trying to destroy the very organisations that won it all for them. Hypocrasy personified.

That's my two cents worth.

Just want to say how sorry I am about the demise of the Democrats. For quite a few years they were a positive force in the Senate & it's sad that they won't be around any more.

Too bad about their problems: Cheryl losing her head (over Gareth! ) & defecting to Labour, then Meg ( ) & her deal with the devil over the GST. All really unfortunate, as the party never recovered from both those episodes.

So now it's just the Greens & some independents left in the Senate, along with the BIG 2.
Sad, really sad. <sigh>

I hadn't seen the news - did they kark it? Proves I'm a political analyst par excellence. Back when Meg did the GST deal I took the unusual step, for me, of writing to her expressing my disappointment and stating that she had signed the death warrant for her party.

In retrospect the GST is a regressive tax but hasn't changed the face of Australia particularly (although I am not living on the poverty line). And Lees might argue that the resulting furore was clearly unwarranted. But my recollection of my anger was my sense of betrayal that the 'keep the bastards honest' party had bent over to a radical policy change and not received any concession for 'battlers'. I remember Natasha fighting for an exemption on books (partly becaused HECSed to death students already struggle with text book fees) and being slapped down by Lees.

Back to my bodgy political analysis. The real reason the democrats are gone is because they positioned themselves between the right (Liberals) and the left (Labor). The political landscape has changed a lot since Don Chipp formed them - there is no space between Labor and Liberal any more (certainly not in terms of economic management) there are differences in approaches but not really in substance. So the minor parties are either far left (Green) or far right (family first).

In short, their ecological niche disappeared.

You'll have to excuse my metaphors, I'm getting into Jared Diamond's 'Collapse'.