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Sun 8 Sep, 2013 12:04 am
Bleah
Abbott: from ‘unelectable’ to Australia’s 28th prime minister
by Bethanie Blanchard crikey
Tony Abbott’s path to the Lodge has been characterised by aggression, but also a willingness to abandon the ideological and personal issues that once had him labelled “unelectable”.
When Tony Abbott secured the Liberal leadership in late 2009 he had nothing to work with; he’d won the leadership by a single vote, his party was hopelessly divided over the issue of climate change, he was facing a popular prime minister who’d seen off John Howard, Brendan Nelson and then Malcolm Turnbull.
The Senate looks like it will a mess - Abbott's calls for a vote in both houses for stability has fallen on deaf ears apparently.
I hope, but doubt, he will take the senate vote as a dismissal of his mandate. Will be interesting to see how his negotiation skills stack up - I think he will need more than his arse.
Excuse my childish delight
Derp derp.
Back to being sensible
This site received over 400,000 Facebook likes, and its message reached millions of Australian voters before election day 2013. The aim of the site was to get swinging voters on‑side through humour and engagement, and hopefully it had some positive effect doing that.
I'd like to take this opportunity to write:
AN OPEN LETTER FROM
THE GUY WHO DID
THAT SWEARY WEBSITE
Like pretty much anyone on the progressive side of politics, I'm bitterly disappointed that Australian voters chose the LNP, and Tony Abbott as their Prime Minister. However, I think it's important to acknowledge people's right and choice in doing so. Some of my dearest friends vote conservative, and they are categorically not ******* idiots. They are, in my opinion, utterly and completely wrong in their views, their arguments are based on false premises, and their conclusions are post-hoc rationalised non-sequiturs and incoherent nonsense, but this does not diminish their humanity. The language of the dontbeafuckingidiot.com site was intended as a persuasive joke not a personal attack.
I believe strongly that our society should be a marketplace of ideas; that we should be free to challenge and exchange our thoughts and beliefs with others. Too often people avoid the subject matter of politics out of fear that it will create conflict, and so we settle for non-confrontational niceties. Or worse, we invoke the safe rhetoric of political disengagement in which we hold all politicians and political ideas to be equivalent: 'They're all as bad as each other', we say. This is a mistake, and it has an insidious and destructive effect.
The strength of our democracy depends on our ability and will to engage with each other's ideas. A culture of political disengagement, and tacit contempt for political ideas, actively inhibits progress and understanding. We roundly ignore politics and then wonder why political messaging becomes a tabloid circus of desperately simplistic soundbites and sensationalism. Well, it's our own damned fault.
Politicians necessarily have to respond to the attitudes and beliefs of their constituency. What drives the vast majority of people into political life, on both sides, is a genuine belief in their ideals; and most of them despise having to compromise their idealism and passion for the sake of what will win the votes of people who are politically disengaged.
So, we need to be brave. We need to ignore the social convention that it is taboo to challenge other people's ideas, or that questioning things is adversarial and rude. We need to be vulnerable enough to put our thoughts out there and engage with people honestly. We need to call out things we believe to be wrong. We need to stand up for what we believe to be right.
These next three years are going to be difficult for people on the progressive side of politics in Australia, but I implore you to not descend into personal attacks and hate. This may seem somewhat hypocritical for me to say in light of my sweary rant, but what I'm saying is that we should continue to have sweary rants about the government and politics, but when we're talking to actual people, we need to convince them, not turn them off. We need to connect with them and persuade them that a progressive Australia is better than a conservative one. We need to make them believe that it would be ******* idiotic to vote for the LNP next time around.
I believe that the truth is on our side, but we need to have the courage to stand up for it.
Jesse Richardson, Brisbane.
Published under a creative commons CC BY-ND licence.
The HuffPost offers this
Tony Abbott: Top Ten Quotes From Australia's New Prime Minister
The Huffington Post UK | By Charlotte Meredith
Posted: 07/09/2013 12:42 BST | Updated: 09/09/2013 16:07 BST
SEE ALSO: 10 pictures of Tony Abbott in eye-wateringly tight sportswear with appropriately sarcastic commentary
Tony Abbott has enjoyed a landslide victory at the Australian Federal Election, but some of his rather outspoken views have raised eyebrows and sparked concerns.
Here, we researched some of the new prime minister's most memorable quotes produced over the years:
“Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.” March 17th, 2004
“While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework.” 2010
“The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.” March 17th 2004
“We just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice.” February 11th, 2010
“Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” April 5th, 2010
“Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?” March 17th, 2004
“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.” February 8th, 2010
“The climate change argument is absolute crap, however the politics are tough for us because 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” February 2nd, 2010
“I won't be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that's because I'm a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won't be.” November 9th, 2006
“I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question... [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don't give it to someone lightly, that's what I would say.” January 27th 2010
@hingehead,
hingehead wrote:
his party was hopelessly divided over the issue of climate change
Are they still hopelessly divided or has darkness prevailed?
@Kolyo,
United in darkness - even found a way to give business money to window dress on carbon emissions.
11 seats still too close to call.
Still a chance Eden-Monaro will remain a bellwether seat, as the LNP guy is just ahead of Mike Kelly. Clive Palmer still a chance too.
Cathy McGowan, independent in Indi, looks like toppling LNP's Sophie Mirabella. Delicious irony, given Tony Windsor (former independent and thorn in the LNP's side) nominated Mirabella as his most disliked parliamentarian when he announced his retirement.
The uncertainty of Mirabella's position means the frontbench can't be named (she was sleighted to be Industry & Innovation minister) so much jostling as the bloated former shadow cabinet jostles for actual ministries.
Meanwhile the ALP is in even more of a schemozzle. With no clear indication of the path to a new leader, but quite a few putting the boot into themselves. Conroy and Emerson (now retired) have been publicly pretty scathing of Rudd's performance.
Some knob (a rep but I can't remember his name) thinks the ALP should let Tony get what he wants re no price on Carbon because of the mandate (?) arguing that if they let him do what and it fucks up then they can use it kick him out. Don't think the future of the planet is a great gamble just to say 'I told you so'.
No official word from Shorten (who will run) and Albo (hasn't made up mind) and lots of people saying the Rudd reforms to leadership ballots mean they won't have an answer for months.
Some commentators keen on Plibersek (I like her) but others concerned that the overt misogyny Gillard was subject to hasn't gone away.
Just some images from this article:
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbott-brings-back-the-boys-way/
That's his wife Margie.
PS when asked if his daughter's would move into the lodge he said, "Yes, they won't leave home until they're married".
Quite a bit of fallout because Tony's cabinet has one woman and 19 men.
It's been observed that the afghan cabinet has more women, and that there are more Riverview (private school) old boys than women.
An argument for LNP women who do have merit
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/18/women-abbott-cabinet
Including former ministers with less embarrassing track records than Kevin Andrews (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhamed_Haneef )
Implying that in fact the lack of women in cabinet is not about the lack of suitably qualified women - it is in fact about the personal preferences (i.e. misogyny) of Tony Abbott.
@hingehead,
sadly, there's two ways to read that.
@dlowan,
Heh. Particularly given an arch-catholic's position on women and original sin....
STOP reporting THE BOATS
It's official, Australia's new government is Orwellian. Contrary to the normal, open, practice of the past, authorities are no longer providing the public with information on the arrival of refugee boats.
Next we will stop publishing the public accounts figures, the unemployment rate, homelessness, poverty and indigenous health.
Ignorance is bliss, baby.
For the record 7 boats have arrived since election day.
@hingehead,
Ah. This so sucks so very fast.
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