The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Correct.

OK.

Our (Victorian) state government hasn't exactly risen to challenge of responding to our rapidly diminishing water supply has it?

Oh good!

Interesting ... the Julia Gillard interview on Lateline just now. About the Lib's "dirt unit" & their tactics targeting Labor. Any of you see it?

I read that article she mentioned (in the Sunday Age). An Age journalist was invited to a "ministerial suite" to be briefed & supplied with a "dirt file" on Julia G. The journalist then wrote up the story of the incident & dismissed the "dirt" on Julia Gillard as inconsequential. I don't know how the Libs (JH in particular) can keep denying that they're using such tactics when this episode occurred in their parliamentary territory.

This election campaign looks set to become very grubby.
Rudd's response in parliament today (over the leaked revelations of his heart surgery 14 years ago.) was the angriest I've ever seen him! Unplugged! He was quite impressive!

At least all the karfuffle (sp?) proves Kevin has a heart.

bonzai and co don't have hearts.
Just look at their IR laws. Why do you need to cut wages and conditions when we are supposed to be in an economic boom ?
Why aren't ordinary people sharing in this prosperity ?
Why are massive profits leaving the country ?
Why does the Singapore Government own more Of Australia than our own Government ?
How is it that a foreign power owns more of Australia than our own Government does ?
Something is seriously amiss here and needs to be addressed.
I will be doing my bit to address it at the ballot box and I hope millions of others do the same.

Somebodies been reading my mind and stolen my ideas !

Hmmm...or should that be

Water shapes as key poll battleground

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22457735-601,00.html

Well...tragically they still say it's a state issue, so I don't know why they are bothering blabbing about it.

UGH! :

Accusations fly about 'dirt unit'
September 23, 2007 - 10:56AM
SMH

Veteran political journalist Laurie Oakes says the Liberal Party is behind a "fact sheet" about a Howard Government minister who visits gay bathhouses and harasses other men.

A report in News Ltd papers today says the fact sheet claims the unnamed minister, who is married with children, sexually harasses other males in political circles and is rumoured to be sleeping with one of his staff members in Canberra.

It follows accusations last week that government operatives were digging up Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's medical records, after confirmation Mr Rudd had a heart procedure 14 years ago.

News Ltd journalist Glenn Milne's report on the gay accusations today says the fact sheet on the minister was not being circulated by the Labor Party.

While interviewing deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard today about the personal smears tarnishing federal politics, Mr Oakes revealed he, too, had been fed the material about the minister.

And he pointed the finger at the Liberal Party.

"I'm interested in this, you see, because I've been fed the same allegations about this minister, and they were fed to me by a Liberal," Mr Oakes said.

Ms Gillard said Labor was not behind the smears.

"I've never heard anyone in Labor refer to this supposed fact sheet," she told the Nine Network.

Ms Gillard maintained the government runs a dirt unit, citing a recent episode involving a Howard minister trying to peddle a dirt file about her to Fairfax journalist Jason Koutsoukis.

"We know on the public record that there are references to forensic accountants looking at people's financial records, there's a reference to a dirt file being peddled to a journalist - a dirt file about me and a journalist being invited to a ministerial suite to receive it," she said.

"Their denials that they've never thought of being in the smear business simply aren't credible and can't be believed.

"We know they've been in the smear business."

Prime Minister John Howard has denied running a dirt unit, and launched a sustained assault on Mr Rudd in parliament on Thursday after Labor asked whether government operatives had been trawling through Mr Rudd's medical history.

Ms Gillard said Labor monitored coalition MPs' public statements for contradictions and hypocrisy.

"(But) what I think is inappropriate is the dirt-digging," she said.

"The private investigators, the going through garbage bins, all of those kind of things which aren't about policy, aren't about the public debate, but are a naked attempt to try and dig up something usable and grubby and dirty which will then be put into the public debate."

AAP

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/accusations-fly-about-dirt-unit/2007/09/23/1190486116109.html

Good for Laurie Oakes!

This is very crass, twisted stuff!

So who are the Liberals behind this?

(I reckon Oakes & Gillard & heaps of other journalists know. I wish they could name names! Disgusting!)

First Water, now Electricity....now I'm certain Howard stole my ideas !



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22469554-5013404,00.html

" Workchoices" has opened a can of worms....

Government 'not embarrassed' by IR ads

AAP

23 September 2007

THE Federal Government says it is not embarrassed by revelations that a pro-WorkChoices advertisement campaign featured two actors with criminal records.

The advertisement was pulled off air last night after Fairfax newspapers revealed two of three men featured in it as "union thugs" - Brendan Piper and Mark Lesser - had been convicted of serious drug and dishonesty charges.

The ad withdrawal came as the Workplace Ombudsman today announced he would prosecute another actor in a government-funded Work Choices commercial for allegedly underpaying workers in his other role as a house painting contractor.

Prime Minister John Howard today was dismissive of the latest revelation.

"These people are engaged by an agency, it is not an embarrassment," he said.

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey also brushed it off.

"These are actors but, of course, there has to be some element of truth to this since you have union officials that have criminal records ... perhaps it's a case of method acting," Mr Hockey said.

But Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard said there had been problems with many adverts supporting the Government's industrial relations regime.

"Whatever one thinks of all of this, I think the central message is that a lot of the advertising (that) people are seeing on these things on screen isn't to be believed," Ms Gillard said on Channel 9.

The ACTU said the decision to pull the ad was a further embarrassment for the pro-WorkChoices campaign.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow accused the Government of delaying calling the federal election so it could spend more taxpayer funds on "dishonest and blatantly political industrial relations advertisements".

The Business Coalition for Workplace Reform, which funded the ad, released a statement about two hours after the commercial was pulled off air, saying it had planned to end the series yesterday anyway.

The latest ad woes came as ombudsman Nicholas Wilson said he would prosecute another actor in a government-funded Work Choices ad for allegedly underpaying two of his young employees by more than $13,000.

Melbourne painter Damien Richardson acted as a concerned father in the Government's Know Where You Stand ad.

Mr Wilson said Mr Richardson was accused of underpaying two young workers Erin Gebert and Phillip Graham $12,238 and $1792 respectively when they worked for him in his painting business.

Mr Gebert worked for Mr Richardson from the age of 17 to 19, while Mr Graham was 18.

Mr Wilson said Mr Richardson had consistently refused to acknowledge any underpayments, accept responsibility for rectifying them or express any remorse.

He said his office wanted to send a clear message to employers.

"The alleged underpayments are huge amounts for most people but especially for workers of this age."

Meanwhile, the Australian Greens today launched a new advertising campaign saying WorkChoices should be put "through the shredder".

The television ad has also been posted on popular internet site YouTube.

http://extras.townsvillebulletin.com.au/rss_article.php?news_id=174730

Power produced by"clean coal technology" will be included in the mandatory targets. I assume there will also be some government largess.

Bet he didn't even acknowledge it, either!
Typical!

Ya gotta laugh. Criminals!
And before that, the "caring employer" of young people!
Jinxed, these WorkChoices ads are jinxed! :

Crikey! on those Liberal smears, so-called "fact sheets", diet units, sleaze & the whole nasty deal.

Yes! Hear hear!

Journalist with integrity, that's what I'd like to see more of! (Take a bow Jason K, and even Laurie Oakes (yesterday), for that matter!:


Dear Squatters,

Two weeks ago, a respected Canberra political reporter did something bizarre, unusual and brave. He wrote a story about the truth behind sleaze in Australian politics. This is how Jason Koutsoukis started his column in The Sunday Age:

The phone rang one evening last week and a familiar voice at the other end said: "I've got something for you. It's hot." So hot, I thought I could hear it sizzling. Come down for a "chat", the man suggested. All very hush-hush and strictly on the QT.

Walking through the corridors of power to meet my trusted source, dreaming of Watergate, I half wished we were meeting in a dingy car park and not the plush ministerial suite where I was headed.

Into the meeting room I waltzed and there was my source beaming behind two glasses of red and a fat manila folder with the most misunderstood noun in the Coalition lexicon scrawled across the front: Gillard.

So this was the rumoured dirt file on Labor's deputy leader Julia Gillard that was being hawked around the press gallery, and that I'd heard so much about.

My heart sank. I had a vague idea of its contents and believed there wasn't enough to sustain two paragraphs, let alone a whole story.

Koutsoukis's story about the peddling of political dirt was in stark contrast to the wink-wink-nudge-nudge dirt peddling stories that proliferate in the Australian media. Like the one by Paul Sheehan in today's Sydney Morning Herald about how Julia Gillard has allegedly "air-brushed her past" by excluding from her Who's Who entry the fact that between 1984 and 1986 she worked full-time for Socialist Forum -- "a group that formed after another schism in the Communist Party of Australia, with the aim of advancing the socialist agenda in Australia." Or the story by Glenn Milne in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph about a "fact" sheet on a married Federal Government minister "which alleges he has s-xually harassed other men in political circles" and says: "Witness has seen him go to a bath house in Sydney on several occasions. Rumored that he is sleeping with one of his staff members in Canberra."

Sleaze and dirt are component parts of the fabric of Australian political reportage ...... But if a few more journalists had the guts to reveal the dirt behind the dirt, as Jason Koutsoukis did two weeks ago, rather than acting as the conduit for smear and innuendo, as Paul Sheehan and Glenn Milne did over the past two days, a lot more politicians would be a lot more reticent to spread the muck.

`