Q&A was pretty average again this week. The tweets are more worthwhile it seems. Gutman was a bad choice of guest. Surely they could have found a pro-Israeli spokesperson who didn't have an inbuilt need to be the centre of attention.
Hot on twitter at the moment is the alleged Alan Jones assertion on 2GB that "India will capitalise on our ban on Indonesia live export of cows, cause they don't care how animals are slaughtered"
I read an article recently about following people on twitter and facebook you don't like so you can be upset by them and froth up on righteous indignation. I sense that a lot of these tweeps listen to Jones just so they can tweet about what an idiot he is.
I wonder how prevalent that sort of thing is on A2K ? Does H20Man follow or ignore FarmerMan? Does Finn follow anyone? I must be old school - I follow the interesting ones and ignore the dills.
Faulkner slams Labor's 'anaemic' culture
ABC online
Updated 7 hours 36 minutes ago
Senator Faulkner took aim at Labor's attitude to focus groups while delivering the Wran Lecture in Sydney. (file photo) (AAP: Alan Porritt)
Veteran Labor Senator John Faulkner has lashed out at his "anaemic" party, which he warns risks losing a generation of voters unless it overhauls its culture.
Senator Faulkner took aim at what he called the ALP's reliance on focus groups while delivering the Wran Lecture in Sydney on Thursday night.
"We commission focus groups to find out not just what people think of what we say, but all too often, what we should be saying at all," he said.
"The party has now become so reliant on focus groups that it listens more to those who don't belong to it than to those who do."
He said there was nothing wrong with using focus groups to test advertising strategies or explore understandings of policies.
"There is, however, something deeply wrong when we use polling to determine our party's policies, and even our values," he said.
"Labor must never forget that you do not earn the right to lead by perfecting the art of following."
Senator Faulkner warned the policy debate that was once the backbone of his party risks being "stifled" by "factional fixes, log-rolling and back-room deals".
"It has meant that our members feel the only roles for Labor's loyalists are as rubber stamps for decisions already made behind closed doors and as polling-booth fodder on election day," he said.
"In our desperation to avoid bad headlines, we have closed off the avenues for debate that are the lifeblood of our party.
"Our own members, our supporters and the broader community are blindsided when hotly-contested internal debates become public only after their resolution and when, apparently, there is unanimous agreement."
Citing activist organisation GetUp! as an example, Senator Faulkner said many Australians find political debate "richly rewarding".
But he said the Labor Party shies away from the unpredictable nature of community debate.
"I see it rather as a symptom of the anaemia that is draining the life from the Australian Labor Party - an apparent aversion to the unpredictability of democracy," he said.
"We have lost a generation of activists from Labor and, if we do not face the challenges and opportunities of reform in both structure and culture, we will risk losing a generation of voters as well."
He also criticised the party for giving power to a few people among Labor's factions.
"Those who believe in a policy not supported by the party's public voices quietly sit down to avoid causing embarrassment," he said.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd said he agreed with Senator Faulkner's view.
"Fundamental reform is necessary for the Australian Labor Party as John has said quite rightly," he said.
"It's not just a question of Labor Party members being listened to, but Labor Party members being heard, and this is the beginning of the reforms which are necessary.
"And that I believe is the task that lies ahead for the National Party Conference of the party at the end of this year."
However, Mr Rudd's intervention sparked an angry response from AWU national secretary and Labor powerbroker Paul Howes.
"It's probably more of a case of 'Do as I say, not as I did'," Mr Howes said.
"Party members should be heard and should be taken into account. That hasn't happened, and it certainly didn't happen under his leadership."
I find it hard to see anything good about Chris Pyne - he always look like a weasel to me - and that Downerish SA accent grates. All I can remember is him interrupting to say he never interrupts.
Have we just lost interest in a right that does nothing but kneejerk obstruction and a left that flops around on the floor like a goldfish out of its bowl?
In a catastrophic result for the government, the latest Age-Nielsen poll shows the Coalition leading Labor by a massive 59-41 per cent on a two-party basis.
....Tony Abbott has also tied with Ms Gillard for the first time as preferred prime minister.
Ms Gillard's approval rating has slumped 6 points to 37 per cent and her disapproval has increased by 7 points to 59 per cent in a month. This is her lowest approval and highest disapproval since she became PM. ....
Sceptic Lord under fire, but speech to go ahead
Tom Arup
June 24, 2011/the AGE
Lord Monckton last month.
CONTROVERSIAL UK climate sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton has apologised for his comments likening the Labor's climate change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut to a Nazi.
In a yet-to-be-published article, Lord Monckton says ''let me begin with an unreserved apology''.
''In a recent lecture, I should not have described the opinions of Professor Ross Garnaut, the Australian Government's climate economist, as fascist. I apologise humbly.''
But he goes on to say: ''Will there be similar apologies from those who have called us 'climate deniers' or 'denialists', or who say we should be tattooed with our opinions, or imprisoned, or barred from Australia, or tried for 'high crimes against humanity'?"
Lord Monckton - who is in Australia for a speaking tour - was derided by politicians on both sides yesterday for a speech he made last month at which he displayed a swastika next to a quote from Professor Garnaut and said ''Heil Hitler, on we go'' in a fake German accent.
The Age understands Lord Monckton also sent an apology to Professor Garnaut. Professor Garnaut said most Australians would judge his use of Nazi symbols as ''outside the boundaries of civilised discourse''.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who will speak two days before Lord Monckton at a conference held by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies next week, described the comments as ''offensive and over the top and I repudiate them''. He said he still intended to speak at the conference despite Lord Monckton's presence.
Mr Abbott met Lord Monckton on his last Australian tour early last year, but said he had no plans to meet him this time.
Victorian Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg told The Age he found Lord Monckton's comments deeply offensive. Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull described him as ''increasingly a rather sick, vaudeville character who makes more and more outlandish charges in order to get attention''.
In question time, the government attacked Mr Abbott for his association with Lord Monckton. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said he had ''previously stated that climate change is a global communist conspiracy, hatched in the UN, for the purposes of establishing world government''. ''It is unbefitting of a political leader in this country to hold these views and these associations,'' he said.
The mining association chief executive, Simon Bennison, said Lord Monckton had been booked to speak because a number of his members wanted to hear what he had to say. AMEC did not condone his comments, but would not censor anyone.
In his article, Lord Monckton said the cost of carbon reduction schemes ''exceeds that of the imagined [and largely imaginary] damage from unmitigated warming''. ''The Planet was triumphantly Saved 2000 years ago by a carpenter's son from Galilee. It does not need Saving again,'' he writes.
