Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

...& please someone, tell me that this poor little Iranian boy (orphaned when both parents were killed in the Christmas Island/asylum seeker boat tragedy) is not about to be sent back into detention.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/human-rights-bid-to-block-orphans-return-to-detention-20110216-1awnh.html

Fully fledged (Liberal Party) ****-up.

They're stuffing up really badly, aren't they? (Even Ruddock objects!)
I thought, last night when I posted the article about the One Nation connection, that it was just some sort of a beat-up.
(Though that's not exactly the ABC news way..)

And today there's more of the same. (Still haven't found the Fairfax article.)

It's sounding very much like Morrison was suggesting that the "Muslim issue" should be exploited in the electorate for the Liberal's gain. Extremely ugly, lowest common denominator stuff.

I'm thinking the sooner Abbott goes & they get some decent leadership & discipline in the Liberal Party, the better for us all.
I am sick and tired of these completely unethical attempts to exploit ignorance & bigotry in the community for electoral gain.
They have dragged the politics to this country to the far right for far too long.
Get rid of them, lets have same real issues & some real policy discussions so we can actually address far more important issues .... enough of being side-tracked by this absolute garbage!

Idiots!!!

I was thinking, how could they forget the pamphlet scandal of 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_pamphlet_scandal

Then I looked it up - Morrison came in at that election in Bruce Baird's old seat of Cook. A South Sydney boy... Should know freaking better. I wouldn't be surprised if he was directed to make that stand, but you never know.

<sigh>

Hinge, it would not surprise me at all if Morrison had agreed to play his part in some Liberal back room "grand strategy" to undermine the current government.

If so, he was pretty stupid & has sold his soul (& possibly his future political prospects) for dubious short term gains, with minimal gain.

Vision:

Where is the long term vision in the Liberal Party?

Where is the vision in the Labor Party?

Sometimes you just despair.

A bit of comic relief from Clarke & Dawe.
(And not a moment too soon!):



http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/02/17/3141872.htm

Gawd, that made me cry more than laugh...

Sorry!
I did my best.

OK, I'll try a cartoon then, hinge ...

See if this does the trick.



Senior Lib tries to defuse row :
http://www.theage.com.au/national/senior-lib-tries-to-defuse-row-20110217-1ay6u.html

Nah. That's not funny either.

A good week for labor, I guess, if the libs are getting the print inches.

Well .... there does appear to be a bit of an internal Labor Party skirmish going on, too ... :



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142127.htm

But not nearly as big or as exciting as the Liberal Party's internal skirmishes, though.

Solar program saved:

http://blog.getup.org.au/2011/02/18/saving-solar/?dc=1548,714359,3

Something related to Oz politics to smile about today, at last!
Thanks, hinge.
Good on you, GetUp!
Go Greens!

This is a pretty late reply to you as it is now Feb 2011, but I certainly don't believe it was for the best. I think Julia Gillard is conniving, not to be trusted, incompetent, cannot think of one thing she has done other than to spend and overspend tax payers money on ridiculously failed projects. And yet, she remains locked into helping everybody else but the Australians who need help with the floods and fires. Stupid woman. Best thing can happen is for this mishmash government to be voted out .. and soon before we lose everything.

Hello, WendyLou & welcome to the thread.
You're thinking that the Liberal Party do better than Labor at the moment?
I'd be interested to hear why you think they'd be better, especially for those affected by the floods & fire .

In the interests of fomenting a discussion Wendy it would be nice if you gave actual examples of:

(it's hard to be incompetent and conniving simultaneously)

Uh, as PM she hasn't been able to launch any new projects without convincing a majority of the parliament (in which Labour does not have majority in either house) that the projects aren't ridiculously failed.

I'm pretty sure the opposition was against her solution to raise money to help flood and fire victims, without coming up with a solution they could agree on.

Just sayin.

I'm sure you've got great examples of each of these points, it would be nice if you shared them.

It's obvious msolga, if there was a liberal government, there would have been no floods or fires to start with. It's all labor's fault. The man in the budgie smugglers will tell you.

Boy, I would need a book to answer this one. Frankly, I think more should be done and said by both sides on the flood issue. More particularly I think they i.e. the current Government in power, should have shone a spotlight on the insurance companies, who are dragging the chain, "inspecting" the relevant houses using someone commissioned by them. The Opposition is purely that, the opposition. They are at the mercy of the independents voting in a block with their party. So there's not much effectively they can do from where they sit. I think the current government has wasted heaps of money and money that is ours. With no accountablity whatsoever. I also think Gillard is a back stabber, I think she coerced, bribed and talked her way into government despite the stalled election result. She has given money to overseas schools instead of floodvictims and she has given money for the funerals of asylum seekers. (I don't have a problem with compassion and doing that, just this once). But the blood is on her hands regarding their deaths because she with her ego had a perfect solution, Nauru, for processing. She just doesn't want to admit it. I hate people smugglers, taking money under false pretences and risking the lives of people who have been spun b.s. to get here. I really do.

Oh yeah, because the Liberals would definitely come out against big business.

By the way you do know there is a govt insurance ombudsman, don't you? There are mechanisms in place - the insurance companies aren't showering themselves in glory but to think a public spray from elected politicians is going to have an impact is somewhat naive, given that it hasn't worked against the banks over the years by both parties.



Say what? Independents don't have a party. The only thing they've agreed not to block is the supply bill, and not particpate in spurious no-confidence motions. There's a ton the opposition can do - for the first time for ages they can introduce private members bills with reasonable chance of success - in fact I'm sure there's at least one in the works now.


Yet you still give no examples.



And I think Tony Abbott is borderline psychotic control freak who wants to punch people who don't agree with him because he doesn't know how to negotiate. Our opinions are just opinions.

The simple fact is that the independents made a call based on what they were presented with by both sides and they made a decision, that I think was the right one, they knew they could trust Tony as far as they could spit a rat, and that Julia and the ALP would be far more likely to play nicely in a hung parliament, so that there was more chance of the interests of the country coming first rather than the interests of the two parties.

I have no doubt Julia wanted to be PM, but I guarantee you she didn't want it this soon in those circumstances.



You vote One Nation, don't you - even the coalition have distanced themselves from those strained ideas. Use your brain. We were funding Indonesian schools before the floods. An investement in a secular education for the underclass of the largest muslim democracy on earth, and our second closest neighbour, is a damn fine investment - better than pulling the money out and giving them a substandard education in a madrasah that may or may not have an extreme islamist agenda.




Nauru isn't a perfect solution - the boat would have still had to land on Christmas island for the refugees to get to Nauru, it would have still sunk. A Nauru detention isn't a deterrent to desparate people. Families of the drowned who are now Australian residents warned them against trying because it was too dangerous, but they were desperate - nothing short of bombing the boats is going to stop them coming.

You know what would save more asylum seekers lives, if that's really what you're concerned about? Accepting more asylum seekers from UNCR camps, say, in something like the proportions other countries like the US accept them. I'm guessing you won't go for that.

I'm guessing you read a Murdoch paper. Sadly I'm guessing you are representative of a large part of the Australian electorate.

Hello again, Wendy

Thanks for responding to my question.


The hold-up, of course, was disagreement between the government & the opposition on where the funds for the flood reparations should come from. The government's position being that a (pretty small) levy be imposed on those who could pay, while Tony Abbott argued that the funds should come from "savings" to government's budget (as outlined in his pre-election statements), rather than any new taxes. A position which the government found unacceptable. So this impasse held things up for quite some time!

Following developments over the last couple of days, it sounds as though the government now has the necessary support in parliament (independents/Greens) for the flood levy. :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142621.htm

Could I ask (without being too nosy, I hope) if you've been affected by the hold-up? Don't respond to that question if you'd rather not, OK?


I thought they actually had tried to do that, going by media reports. But it doesn't sound like they had all that much impact on the insurance companies.
They, of course aren't obliged to heed the government's advice.
But I agree with you on this, some of the reasons given by the insurance companies for the rejection of claims seemed pretty outrageous to me, too.


Well, it was a pretty close election, Wendy.
Labor just got in by a nose ... with the support of the Greens & the independents.
So I'd say the Liberals were in a pretty good position to put up alternative policies & to promote an alternative "vision" to that of the Labor Party in the circumstances. I honestly haven't seen much of that, which I think is a squandered opportunity, one which they've failed to capitalize on ....up to this point, anyway.
From the Labor Party's point of view, with such a small minority government, they've hardly had the opportunity to shine, either. It sounds like Julia spends a heck of a lot of her time consulting the Greens & the independents, to persuade them to support government policies. She probably spends more time with them than anyone!


I agree with you about some of the wastage, but I think most of that stemmed from the previous (Rudd) government's rush to inject money into the economy to keep it afloat during the recession. It was argued at the time that the money needed to be spent immediately to avert, or minimize, the damage to the economy. I understood that & also think that this strategy achieved the desired effect ... but, I was also very concerned about wastage of money at the time. (especially to schools. State schools will probably never again see such a huge injection of funds - or any time soon - and a lot of it was wasted, or the schools had little say in how it was spent. I recall (as a teacher) being very upset about this at the time. Still am, actually.)


So you're not a fan of Julia's, then?
Amazing how much polarization of opinion there is about her & Tony Abbott, too.
People seem to either love em or hate em! Depending which side of the fence they're on.
I'd be interested to know if you'd feel differently about a Labor government today, Wendy, if Rudd was still prime minister?
Would that affect your vote in anyway?

As to the asylum seeker funeral's. You probably already know what my attitude to that is. We've talked about it for pages now.
How do you feel the government could have handled the funerals better?
I don't know that spending money to fly relatives could be avoided, if you accept that relatives have every right to attend the funerals of their loved ones. I think too, there would have been public outrage, if arrangements for them to attend weren't made.

But, on the "asylum seeker issue" my position is that I very disappointed with both major parties policies during the last election campaign ... for entirely different reasons to yours, I'd say.

But I'll leave this here at this point ...
This post has gotten way too long already.
Please feel free to disagree with anything I've said, OK?
No problem.