Oz election thread #3 - Rudd's Labour

Men and Women of Australia!

The decision we will make for our country on 2 December is a choice between the past and the future, between the habits and fears of the past, and the demands and opportunities of the future. There are moments in history when the whole fate and future of nations can be decided by a single decision. For Australia, this is such a time. It's time for a new team, a new program, a new drive for equality of opportunities: it's time to create new opportunities for Australians, time for a new vision of what we can achieve in this generation for our nation and the region in which we live. It's time for a new government - a Labor Government.

My fellow citizens -

I put these questions to you:

Do you believe that Australia can afford another three years like the last twenty months? Are you prepared to maintain at the head of your affairs a coalition which has lurched into crisis after crisis, embarrassment piled on embarrassment week after week? Will you accept another three years of waiting for next week's crisis, next week's blunder? Will you again entrust the nation's economy to the men who deliberately, but needlessly, created Australia's worst unemployment for ten years? Or to the same men who have presided over the worst inflation for twenty years? Can you trust the last-minute promises of men who stood against these very same proposals for twenty-three years? Would you trust your international affairs again to the men who gave you Vietnam? Will you trust your defences to the men who haven't even yet given you the F-111?

We have a new chance for our nation. We can recreate this nation. We have a new chance for our region. We can help recreate this region.

The war of intervention in Vietnam is ending. The great powers are rethinking and remoulding their relationships and their obligations. Australia cannot stand still at such a time. We cannot afford to limp along with men whose attitudes are rooted in the slogans of the 1950s - the slogans of fear and hate. If we made such a mistake, we would make Australia a backwater in our region and a back number in history. The Australian Labor Party - vindicated as we have been on all the great issues of the past - stands ready to take Australia forward to her rightful, proud, secure and independent place in the future of our region.

And we are determined that the Australian people shall be restored to their rightful place in their own country - as participants and partners in government, as the owners and keepers of the national estate and the nation's resources, as fair and equal sharers in the wealth and opportunities that this nation should offer in abundance to all its people. We will put Australians back into the business of running Australia and owning Australia. We will revive in this nation the spirit of national cooperation and national self-respect, mutual respect between government and people.....[/b] (etc, etc, etc!)

Most of that pressure seems to be coming from the Liberal party. The same party that was in power when Schappelle Corby was facing somewhat dubious charges. I don't remember a lot of pressure being applied in that case.

Let's not forget the Bali Seven, that federal force let leave the country knowing they drug mules and then told the indonesian police so that their punishment would massively more severe - and not their problem. Classy.

It is understood the detainees in question are six Uighurs, who are Muslims from north-western China. Australia refused in January to accept them after a similar request from the Bush administration in December - the second time a Bush administation request about Guantanamo inmates was rebuffed.

The hackers broke into the festival's website early yesterday, just hours after Premier John Brumby officially opened the 2009 festival at the Arts Centre.

The hackers replaced festival information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans and were last night continuing to disrupt the site by spamming.

"We like film but we hate Rebiya Kadeer," one message says and calls for an apology to the Chinese people.

Festival director Richard Moore said staff had been bombarded with abusive emails since it was disclosed that the festival had rejected Chinese Government demands to withdraw the film about Ms Kadeer, The 10 Conditions of Love, and cancel her invitation to the festival.

"The language has been vile," Mr Moore said. "It is obviously a concerted campaign to get us because we've refused to comply with the Chinese Government's demands."

He said the festival had reported the attacks, which appear to be coming from a Chinese IP address, and was discussing security concerns with Victoria Police. He said private security guards would be hired to protect Ms Kadeer and patrons at the film's screening on August 8.

Victorian police are monitoring developments and federal police will probe the hacking claims. The State Government last night backed festival organisers.

Last week, three Chinese directors withdrew films, with two denying they were forced to do so by Chinese authorities. Director Tang Xiaobai, who withdrew her film Perfect Life after being phoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said it was her decision to boycott the festival.

"I do not want to see my film screened on the same platform as a film about Kadeer," Tang told the official English-language newspaper China Daily. .....

.................The Kadeer film, made by Melbourne director Jeff Daniels and partly financed by Film Victoria and Screen Australia, is about the impact on Kadeer's family of her campaign for greater autonomy and improved rights for China's estimated 10 million Uighurs.

Beijing accuses Ms Kadeer of masterminding the riots on July 5 in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, in which almost 200 people died. She denies the claim.

Bruce Jacobs, professor of Asian languages and studies at Monash University, said Beijing was clearly behind the campaign against the film festival and was villifying Ms Kadeer in the same way it targeted the Dalai Lama. "It's bullying. It's clearly the (Chinese) Government because they've made that clear when the consulate rang the festival. I think they need to be faced down. You don't give in to bullies," he said

I hope the film is the most popular as a result.

In response to the report, Mr Rudd said the Government would consider its recommendations for six months while consulting with the public and health professionals on the recommendations.

He will then take a reform package to a COAG meeting late this year for consideration by the states and territories.

Prior to the 2007 federal election, Mr Rudd said if the states did agree to a hospital reform program by mid-2009 the Government would consider taking them over.

Federal Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton has criticised Mr Rudd for putting off any reform decision for another six months.

"The Prime Minister knew what was wrong with hospitals at the last election and that's why he promised to fix them, and if they weren't fixed that he'd take them over, and now we're seeing he's just pushing this further out to try and use it as an election issue," he said.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding says Mr Rudd should get on with fixing the health system now, rather than embarking on another review.

"The first opportunity, he's baulked at it rather than actually getting in there, rolling up his sleeves and doing something," he said.

"Doing another review is just basically trying to hide the fact he's not prepared to make the tough decisions."

But Mr Rudd has defended his decision, saying time is needed to consider what action should be taken.

"All Australians have a huge stake in this," he said.

"Australians want to make sure that we get these decisions right, therefore the ability of Australians to participate in this debate based on concrete proposals for reform as outlined in the commission's report the is the right way to go."

Mr Rudd has warned the states and territories that if they do not agree to his reform package that he will consider taking the issue of a takeover to a referendum at the next election.

The report, which took 16 months to consider its findings, made 123 recommendations to the health system, with a particular emphasis on preventative health and better access for all, especially Indigenous Australians and those who live in rural areas.

The commission said the country's health system was unsustainable, fractured and inefficient.

It has stopped short of recommending a full federal takeover of public hospitals but says the Government should be responsible for all primary healthcare and outpatient services.

It also wants the Government to fund a public dental system and 40 per cent of the cost of acute care of patients in hospitals.

The commission has called for all state and territory leaders to agree to a Healthy Australia accord, which would implement a partial takeover.

And it wants National Access Targets to stipulate how long a patient should wait before receiving treatment or elective surgery.

It has estimated the cost of the changes at between $2.8 billion and $5.7 billion each year, with a capital injection needed of between $4.3 billion and $7.3 billion. ...<cont>

Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun told Mr Raby that Australia must ‘‘immediately correct its wrongdoings’’ and cancel Ms Kadeer’s visa, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The demand came as the second cyber-attack in a week shut down online ticket sales for the festival, causing chaos as patrons were forced to queue outside venues to pick up tickets booked over the phone.

The festival has been targeted by Chinese hackers since deciding to screen the documentary The 10 Conditions of Love, about Ms Kadeer, and refusing a Chinese Government request to withdraw the film.... <cont>