The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

But you made me smile,anyway, dadpad!:

"fat rats clacker"!






(I'm feeling sick AND frightened & very, very angry!)

Just to hark back to those IR commercials.

Have you seen the one about 'to create the 270,000 jobs we need to each year...'

In DEWR (that's the dept charged with implementing the IR reforms - led by hypermedia-sensitive Kevin Andrews, MP) a recurring theme when policy is delivered to staff is that Australia is actually suffering from a lack of labour ie there are too many jobs and no-one skilled enough to take them. The policy line is we need more workers, not more jobs, and that's the underpinning of the mutual obligation stuff. We need the disabled, indigenous, housewives, street people, ex-cons etc, to join the workforce because our population just isn't growing fast enough, there aren't enough youth entering the work force to replace those retiring (courtesy of the baby boom).

But the ads feed on a fear based on a lie.

It is clear to me that Howard is trying desparately to undermine the power of the worker before workers realise how much power they have in the supply/demand equation. J wants market forces to determine price only when it suits the big end of town.

Yet he squeezes the life out of the education budget when that's where our salvation lies in a flat world

Come the revolution he's first against the wall.

dadpad you must live in a lovely area - Leunig described it brilliantly in the interview.

Back to the point at hand. JWH is owned by business. The battlers - and others voted for his party and must now be feeling like mugs but when you consider that Howard's mates control the media and therefore what info gets to the "mob" as Howard famous described the electorate, it's not a surprise.

No blindfold for him.

hinge

I couldn't access that link. Wasn't working for some reason.

Yesterday a friend mentioned that she'd heard a report on the ABC that some large companies were considering the option of breaking their employee numbers down into separate units of 100 .... to make it easier to use the IR regulations to hire & fire. <sigh>

Oh look, here's Mungo! What a sight for sore eyes!
With yet another November 11 anniversary dawning, here's what he had to say in this morning's AGE. Connections between now & then.
He's right, you know! Always was! :

...... And these days we see the other side of the coin: the Right in full and untrammelled flight, the Right relieved of the need to play Mr Nice Guy to minorities in the Senate.

Now the ugly side of capitalism can be reintroduced, the states overridden, the public service - and even the armed forces and the intelligence services - politicised, ministerial standards trashed, account-ability abandoned, civil liberties ground underfoot, the public good sacrificed to private profit, dissent ridiculed and even criminalised.

Now we will see the triumph of fear and greed over rational idealism, and the utter ruthlessness that lurks behind the avuncular hypocrisy of the professed conservatives. This is the real lesson of the Dismissal, and it is still valid after 30 years.

And if we are ever tempted to forgive and forget, we only need to pick up the papers or turn on the news to remember why we maintain the rage.

<complete article> Reasons to maintain the rage:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/reasons-to-maintain-the-rage/2005/11/06/1131211942329.html?oneclick=true

Gosh! This is pretty incredible! :

Ex-chief slams Libs as cruel, scary
By Jason Koutsoukis and Jewel Topsfield
November 7, 2005/the AGE

FORMER federal Liberal Party president John Valder has launched a blistering attack on the Howard Government which, he said, had betrayed the principles it once stood for.

His attack came as Defence Minister Robert Hill yesterday announced plans to strengthen laws before the Commonwealth Games that enable troops to help police protect the streets if a terrorist attack or threat occurred, and give troops the power to shoot to kill, search and seize and detain people.

Mr Valder, who was one of Prime Minister John Howard's closest political allies during the 1980s, has attacked the Howard Government as "cruel" and "scary", and warned Mr Howard that many Australians were now "questioning your honesty and integrity".

"What has happened to the Liberal Party principles you and Mr Ruddock used to espouse so righteously 20 years ago when you were in opposition and I was Liberal Party president?" Mr Valder said.

"Where are those principles of personal freedoms, a 'fair go' for everyone, fair trials where citizens are presumed innocent until proved guilty?

"And don't forget, Mr Howard, that if ever there is a terrorist attack in Australia it is you personally who must take the lion's share of the blame for it as a result of your reckless participation in the Iraq war."

Mr Valder, who stood against Mr Howard in his Sydney seat of Bennelong at last year's election, said the Prime Minister had committed Australia to an "absolutely brutal, aggressive and totally illegitimate war" in Iraq. ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/exchief-slams-libs-as-cruel-scary/2005/11/06/1131211945767.html

WOW!!!!! Speak out!



On a lighter note, did you hear Gough commenting on where he will be buried:

"It hardly matters, really. I'll only be there for three days."

Hi Olgs

The link was to Thomas Friedman's 'The world is flat' which has been giving me some food for thought lately - even if it is very US-centric.

G'day, hinge!

Wanna another try at a link? I'm interested to know more.

I suppose we should mention the raids today, but I'm too depressed by the whole thing, really ..... What can you say?

Here you are, if you're interested:

'Australia's biggest counter-terror operation'

Today's terror raids which netted 17 arrests were the biggest counter-terrorist police operation Australia has ever seen, police say.... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/terror-charge-attracts-25year-penalty/2005/11/08/1131407609902.html

I note that dlowan has posted in another thread a great deal of information about this so I'll just use my own comments here.

1. I have to say this - Howard has, in political terms, the Devil's own luck. I think it was Matt Price in today's (9 Nov) Australian noted that nothing Howard does is not politically calculated.
2. The Greens and Dems have - sadly - shot themselves in the foot over this. The suggestion by the Dems leader that Howard may have ordered this is risible. More like he knew it was on the way and carefully crafted his public utterances around it.
3. It's trite to say this but these people are innocent until proven guilty. But on balance it is probably a good thing that they have been arrested and are in custody. I say that without reference to their guilt or innocence.
4. It's necessary to reiterate that not all Muslims are terrorist. More triteness but it sometimes helps to keep reinforcing the obvious.
5. The courts will sort out the facts and they will be tried fairly.

In addition to GF's comments I'd like to add:

6. In all likelihood these arrests did not require Howard's legislative changes (if they did why were police investigating people for things that weren't illegal?).

7. It behooves all Australians to pay attention to GF's point 4.

8. I hope point 5 is true, and I hope we are actually allowed to read about the trial in the papers - or will it contravene the new legislation?

9. Just because legislation is useful in one context does not mean it can't completely unjust in another....

1. The police had been investigating this for 18 months and began the investigation as chop shop (cars) sting.

2. the (new) legislation was not required to persue the arrests but didnt hurt.

3. The police had to move because of Howards announcement, at a politically convinient time for Howard

4. i dont want to read about it in the papers because it may predjudice a fair trial and i wish the newspaper editors would use some good sense.

5. Ya dont have to be one to be one.
Terrorism is a state of mind not a religion group or sect.

Local constabulary was attempting to subdue felon with caps spray ...............the nozzel was pointed the wrong way..... pssst all over himself. Backup arrived to see felon hoofing it in distance and said member rolling on footpath.

Hes actually a friend of mine/ours. we are rotfl. poor basta