Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Little Hodiaki said quietly, 'The Australian people, 2011 When Julia Gillard was elected.'

Msolga, I shudder to think what things could be like under the mad monk, but I'm currently of the opinion that it really doesn't matter who, or what party is "in control". It's an oxymoron.

Like the protesters in OWS, it's becoming clearer to me by the day that politics is like our faux news; just a front for what is happening behind the scene

“These comments are abhorrent and offensive and Tony Abbott as leader should clarify whether the Senator’s opinion reflects that of his Party, or demand Senator McDonald apologise to the hundreds of thousands of GetUp members across Australia who he insulted by comparing them with a movement of unparalleled hatred,” GetUp National Director Simon Sheikh said.

“GetUp members are active participants in our democracy and they are more than half a million people who don’t accept that leaving everything to our politicians to deal with is enough, a point proven by Senator McDonald today.”

Revealed: secret plan to cut nurse numbers
Michael Bachelard
November 6, 2011/Sunday AGE

THE Baillieu government has developed a secret plan to goad the state's nurses into industrial action so it can force them into arbitration, cut nurse numbers and replace them at hospital bedsides with low-skilled ''health assistants''.

....Negotiations for the new agreement began in September, and on Friday nurses voted to give themselves the ability to take legally protected industrial action from Thursday. ...



The secret government document outlines an aggressive approach to achieving its policy - by deliberately frustrating pay negotiations - prompting claims from the nurses' union secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick of ''duplicity''....

Govt terminates Ausnet contract and police called in over leaks
Updated November 07, 2011 19:00:00/Radio interview/PM, ABC radio

After months of speculation about who will get the contract to be the voice of Australia overseas, the Communications Minister has announced the tender process has been terminated. The ABC currently holds the contract, but Sky News has been bidding strongly for it. News Corporation papers have published a series of leaks about the tender. Now the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the Government has received legal advice that leaks have compromised the process.

Australia Network tender delayed
November 7, 2011 - 6:05PM/the AGE

THE ABC will keep hold of its overseas television network service into 2012, with the Gillard Government moving to cancel a leak-prone $223 million tender hotly contested by Sky News.

The government is poised tonight to cancel the Australia Network contract, effectively reserving the service for the national broadcaster until August 2012.

A formal announcement is expected shortly.

The Age understands Cabinet has resolved to make a final decision on who will run the service — the ABC, or Sky News — by the first quarter of 2012.

The ABC and pay television broadcaster Sky News, part owned by Rupert Murdoch, have been locked in a vigorous competition to run the international television service.

The decision — or lack thereof — has heightened sensitivities in the government's already strained relationship with Mr Murdoch's company, News Limited.

The Australia Network tender has been plagued by leaks, exposing a fault-line of internal tension between Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and several of his Cabinet colleagues.

Mr Rudd — the original designated decision-maker for the tender — was sidelined by his colleagues in June.

The government resolved the final decision should be taken by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, and the Cabinet.

The cancellation of the tender imposes yet another delay in the process, which is unlikely to be welcomed by the players.

......It is partly about a battle between Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd, who is once again cosying up to News Limited powerbrokers, and Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy, a street-fighter in the ABC’s corner. But as well, the battle over the 10-year, $223 million contract has framed a great deal of the debate over the role of the public broadcaster and pay television over the last five years. That is an important debate in itself, and the political shenanigans are stuffing it up.

Today’s Fairfax broadsheets carry a story clearly based on a leak out of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade — and insiders suspect Rudd himself — alleging the Gillard government has interfered in the tender process for the Australia Network because it didn’t like the probable result, which was to take the gig away from the ABC and give it to Sky News.

Rudd announced the contract would be up for competitive tender in November last year. That was no surprise; Sky News had been lobbying for a competitive process for years. A panel of public servants was meant to make a recommendation, that would be signed off on by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade chief Denis Richardson.

But late last month it was announced the decision would be made by Cabinet instead — meaning, effectively, Stephen Conroy. Strange enough.

Not that the idea of having the process decided within Conroy’s portfolio is in itself stupid. Historically, DFAT has shown little interest and less enthusiasm for Australia Network. And the funding for Radio Australia used to reside with the Communications portfolio, before being rolled into ABC recurrent funding. So why should TV be different?

Because now, someone in DFAT — perhaps Rudd himself — apparently cares. That’s new. ......