Today was a very interesting comparison between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott that tells a lot about what their respective Governments would be like, and what type of campaign they’re running.

Both were in Melbourne, both made policy announcements. Both parties made policy announcements on crime, both mentioned knives. The ALP put out their policy through an announcement by Brendan O’Connor. You all know Brendan O’Connor right? Well if you’re his family and friends you do, the rest of us? Nup he’s effectively a nobody – sand that says a fair bit about how much importance the ALP is giving the issue. During campaigns many things are announced, but only the big ticket item get the leader’s stamp. Read more »

Well today we witnessed what happens when the supposedly leading newspaper in the country decides to act in concert with the Liberal Party. The Australian decided all this news about Tony Abbott having a problem with women was obviously hurting their man’s chances of a win and so they did what any scum-bucket, shit sheet would do – it ran a front page story about how Julia has a problem with men.

Now Julia hits man trouble

TONY Abbott's problem with women is well known. But as the campaign enters its second week - and the nation grapples with gender muscling its way into an election for the first time - it's becoming clear that Julia Gillard may have an equally big problem with men. Read more »

Today the media was full of the debate – how it was a tie how it was boring etc etc. Much was made of how no one made any gaffes. Little was made of what I think was a very stupid and pretty condescending remark by Abbott in his final address:

So this election will determine whether the Prime Minister is to be elected by the people or by the powerbrokers, whether Prime Ministers are to be chosen on the basis of the job they’ve done or gender…

Yep he actually thinks this election is about males versus females. Just imagine if John McCain during the 2008 Presidential election had said:

So this election will determine whether the President is to be elected by the people or by the powerbrokers, whether Presidents are to be chosen on the basis of the job they’ve done or race… Read more »

Off the back of a truck, I have, on the hush hush and deeply off the record, come into possession of the first draft of Julia Gillard’s speech on climate change that she was gave at the University of Queensland. She chose not to give it when she realised we don’t live in the world of make believe. But oh well it’s nice to dream. (It’s also 800 words shorter than the final version she gave, and we all know less is more!)

Speech: Julia Gillard, "Moving forward together on Climate Change"

Julia Gillard

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Read more »

Today both Julia and Tony had a day off the campaign to attend the funeral of Private Bewes, who died in Afghanistan.

In lieu of any real election news today, the opposition and the media got itself into a lather about Julia Gillard’s sustainable population argument. They all got up in arms about the fact that she has refused to put a number on the level of population or the level of immigration that would be required. Here’s Peter Hartcher getting all excited about his own prose at the SMH:

Julia Gillard says she wants a population policy, but it's sounding more like a population placebo.

Her opening position is that she does not want a ''big Australia''. She tells us that ''hurtling towards a big Australia is not only undesirable. It is irresponsible. Read more »

A couple adverts have come out recently – one from the AWU, the other from the Liberal Party.

The AWU one is a cheaply done parody of The Addams Family (now The Abbott Family). It’s obviously a YouTube only ad because the Photoshop work is pretty bad and also they didn’t bother to do a grammar check and thus “their sneaky” got through instead of “they’re sneaky”.

Other than that it’s a pretty good online ad because the tune is catchy (wonder if the publishers are interested in their copyright…) and because Joe Hockey as Pugsley is just spot on (but really how amateur was it that they didn’t spot the error?) : Read more »

Elections quite often are not actually about new policies – rarely will a whiz bang new policy win you an election – in fact more often a policy (if it is dopey enough) can lose you the election. If you are hoping to win an election on the back of one policy you are stuffed. You need a suite of measures; you need a package; you need a story.

And thus elections are not so much about policies but about talking about the things you want to talk about. The policies are therefore just signs put up to ensure that everyone talks about the issues you want them to talk about. Read more »

Tonight Channel 9 breathlessly told us Laurie Oakes had a bombshell poll that would turn the election on its head. It was a Galaxy poll done on Saturday that showed the two party preferred was 50:50. This was a drop from the Galaxy poll that was in today’s News ltd papers conducted on Friday that had the ALP up 52-48. So I guess 260,000 people changed their minds in one day… or that actually nothing has really changed but Nine has to sell the poll it paid a fair bit of money for.

With a sample size of 800 for both polls the movement is not statistically significant – meaning, well meaning it was hardly a bombshell. Read more »

And so it has been called, which we all knew because it was leaked yesterday that it would be called today.

And it is for 21 August, which we all knew because it was leaked yesterday that it would be 21 August.

Hmm… ok now to what issues that will determine the result of the election. Firstly Julia Gillard stepped up to deliver her address:

My fellow Australians. As a young girl, I dreamed of being a cricketball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

Tony Abbott took a more direct approach: Read more »

Is there anything else more fun for political tragics than Paul Keating and Bob Hawke going toe to toe like a pair of aging, punch-drunk heavyweights long past their prime but still wanting to go fifteen rounds to prove who is the dope and who is “The Greatest”?  It’s like Rocky VI, only with better acting and writing. Julia Gillard when asked about the Keating-Hawke history-biff spoke for all of us when she said she found it “entertaining” and that she “was loving it”. Read more »

I’ve hit a bit of a dead spot in the blog – things are happening in my personal life that have got me thinking about things other than politics (nothing too serious, but geez selling a house is not exactly stress-free).

And also this time is actually a bit of a political dead-spot. Sure Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are already on an election footing, and we are all just waiting for the date to be called – August 28 or September 5 looking like being the date – but really look at the news – it’s pretty dull on the politics front. And so we twiddle our thumbs, make sure the coffee pot is ready for the long days of the election (where every night will only end with Lateline), try to cope with the fact that Eden-Monaro will not be a bellwether seat (and most likely neither will be Lindsay) and wait… and wait…. Read more »

No sooner had today’s unemployment figures come out showing that unemployment was steady at 5.1% than there was talk in the media of interest rates rising. This is because all media types are grumble bums who just can’t cope giving an ALP Government any credit at all… and well, also because it is logical to link the two. The market certainly has. Here’s the table of the money market’s likelihood of an interest rate rise: Read more »

To my regular reader (oh ok, I’ll show some hubris and admit there is a plural number, and say “readers”), I’m off on holidays for a week. Unless something amazing happens – you know a PM is rolled or something – I’ll won’t be back till Monday or Tuesday next week. 

Alas I have failed to offer a fulsome critique of the Liberal's 12 point action contract. But, seriously if you were a political strategist would you come up with a 12 point plan to win an election? Twelve steps to an election win? I’m guessing the first one is to admit you have a problem. I can’t wait for them to get to Step 8 where they have to make amends for all past wrongs… (we really need a Jon Stewart, this stuff is like shooting fish in a barrel, and the fish are slow moving and have a target painted on their scales saying ‘shoot me here’) Read more »

It’s all downhill from here…

The big game brought a big comeback and a threw the whole Premiership race open… well open for two teams at least.

At least this weekend we get back to 8 games. The split round might be nice for players resting injuries, but it is bloody boring for the fans.

With 9 rounds to go and a theoretical 12 Games plus percentage to make the finals, it means “theoretically” everyone can make it. But in theory winning 6 out of your last 9 would be doing pretty good (that return would average 14 wins in a season). That means all those teams with less than 6 wins now really would need to pull something out of the box to make it from here. This means it is probably down to 9 teams to decide the top 8, but I’ll give Essendon another week because their percentage is much better than North’s.

Either way, I don’t see there being much excitement in Round 22 to see who makes the finals – it’ll all be about where the sides within the 8 finish. Read more »

On Wednesday night I wrote when I heard that Julia Gillard was challenging Rudd that it was a dumb thing to do because the ALP was in front in the polls on a 2 Party Preferred basis and Rudd also led on a Preferred PM basis.

However, having made the challenge I did think there was no alternative but to dump Rudd.

The basis for the challenge all seems to be the ALP internal polling which showed the ALP losing pretty much every marginal seat – including seats like Adelaide (held by Kate Ellis with around 10%). Read more »

Today’s Question Time was as the same as all the ones this week: Kevin Rudd completely untroubled, the ALP front bench looking quite happy, sand the opposition punching away without any force or reason. The oppositions asked lame questions about the RSPT, and Rudd dealt with them easily (not as easily as a better performer could, but still easily). The Government was obviously not worried about the RPT too greatly because it asked a couple Dorothy Dixers on the issue, with a few other ones – such as health thrown in for good measure. It very much had the end of parliamentary sitting period fell about it. 

But its all irrelevant, because this evening it was reported that moves were underway to oust Kevin Rudd as PM and replace him with Julia Gillard. The word is that the Victoria and SA rightwing factions are behind the move, and the AWU: namely Stephen Conroy, Bill Shorten, David Feeney, Fitzgibbon (and throw in Mark Arbib from NSW). The only problem of course is that Julia Gillard doesn't want to challenge. This is because she is not an idiot. Read more »

On the weekend a couple new trailers for two highly anticipated Aussie films came out. The first is the second trailer for Tomorrow, When the War Began. The film, based on John Marsden’s huge selling young-adult book, looks absolutely brilliant. After watching the trailer, I can’t see how any teenager would not be lining up now to go see it. Girls will love it because the female characters look strong (and the guys are not exactly ugly), and the guys will love it because it’s got heaps of action (and the girls are not exactly ugly). Plus what teenager wouldn’t love the whole “us against the enemy” plot?

It really looks impressive – the type of film that Australians have never really made – an action film targeted squarely at the major film going age bracket of the 15-25 year olds. It should do great business here. How well it will do in America is more problematical, mainly because the accents are Australian, and we all know Americans only like listening to their own people talk (and they really only like movies set in America – hell even Avatar had to assume America is still the world power in the future). Read more »

This week’s Flick of the Week takes us with Tim Robbins from his break out role as minor league pitcher Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham to his role as Hollywood exec, Griffin Mill, in Robert Altman’s brilliant Hollywood satire, The Player. Read more »

Today’s Question Time was an odd affair. Firstly it was the day after the Press Gallery’s midwinter ball, and thus everyone was feeling a bit seedy and the mood was a tad subdued as the day after the night before usually are. Secondly it was a Thursday and such days always lead to pretty pointless QT’s as half the house are already on the way to Canberra airport in their mind. And thirdly both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott were absent today due to their attendance at the funeral of Sapper Jacob Moerland who was killed in action in Afghanistan, and so it was Julia Gillard versus Julie Bishop. Read more »

June 16 is Bloomsday, that day when all things James Joycean are celebrated and the great novel Ulysses is enjoyed by many in between a few pints of Guinness. I am one of those who believe it is the greatest novel of the 20th Century, and for my thoughts on Ulysses itself see my Bloomsday post of last year. But for this year I have decided to go a much more self-indulgent route. Read more »

With half the season over, it’s time to sort through the 16 teams and see who’s where.

By my reckoning five teams should feel pretty sure they’ll play in the finals, three that look safeish – mostly because of good percentages, and four more are on the precipice (the other four can start thinking about the footy trip at the end of the year).

Next week is the split round, so there won’t be a power ranking till the 28th (keep your applause to a minimum, please) Read more »

I think it’s pretty clear that Geelong will play in the Grand Final. But who is most likely to be their opponent? Who will make the finals?

Back after Round 2 I wrote that Melbourne, Adelaide, North,  Richmond, West Coast were no chance and that Essendon and Port were unlikely. Of those seven I’ll move North in to the unlikely category, but really no one is in the “will play in the finals” list. The problem is with seven teams on either 5 or 6 wins, it is still very much up for grabs. The top 5 look safe (though Freo wouldn’t want its match against Adelaide to be an arbiter of things to come).

But then you have 3 spots and seven teams on 5 or 6 wins fighting to get it.

With just over half the season still to go, there’s still a long way to go before we find out which three will make it – at this stage it’s hard to even pick the favourites. Read more »

A few week’s back I suggested the Government get out Bill Hunter to do the advertising for the RSPT. Since then they’ve apparently spent $38.5m on adverts. I say apparently because I still haven’t seen an advert. On Fox Sports the Mining Council’s ad is running on high rotation, but as I don’t watch much Free TV, I don’t know if the Government has a TV ad or not.

If they do, they should shelve it (a good phrase to use when talking about the RSPT), and instead let the CFMEU’s advert do the work for them. They haven’t got Bill Hunter, but instead have made use of Charles Firth (of The Chaser, now of Manic Studios). Wisely, given all the bull being sprouted by the mining companies of late, they’ve gone the humour route. And they have found there is plenty to laugh at: Read more »