Carefully verballed more like it
In a further embarrassment for the Coalition over costings the National Centre for Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra distanced itself from claims it had helped model the policies.
"We never spoke to the Coalition," said NATSEM director Alan Duncan. "We did work for the Parliamentary Library that the Coalition may have asked for, but we had no relationship with the Coalition itself." Read more »
My title may be a bit misleading, given the amount of content The Australian has devoted to concern trolling about the Labor-Greens agreement: Read more »
Tony Abbott, the conservative politician on the verge of becoming Australia's next Prime Minister has confessed that people should not believe something just because he said it. The only truths of his that are to be believed are those promises that he has actually written down.
And today we learn that the Australian Tony is not the only Tony who feels no guilt about telling porky pies. The long serving British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, like Mr Abbott a man who calls himself a devout and practising Roman Catholic, has a similar attitude towards the truth. Read more »
And Tasmania suddenly recognises same-sex marriages registered in other states or countries.
Excellent news! One more stupid, pointless barrier against equality falls.
Remind me again why we have to drag this whole thing out? Full equality is inevitable, you know – and I bet the advocates for discrimination know it, too. But it’s like they just want to make gay people suffer for as long as they can possibly get away with it, even knowing they’re going to lose in the end. Spiteful, really.
ELSEWHERE: NSW debates same-sex adoption, as if there were actually any rational arguments against it. Read more »
The Greens have come out of this election mess smelling sweeter than the rest. The ALP pulled at least two wrong reins: not standing on their principles and calling a double dissolution over the emission trading scheme, and then axing their leader and replacing him with another slice of milk toast on climate change. How [...]
In my article for The Drum on Monday, I observed:
What will be most interesting over the next few days and weeks will be whether the Australian commentary machine’s momentum finally switches – an actual event has occurred, but the minute by minute “analysis” powers on, and the perpetual tweeting favours noise over signal.
There’s still a lot of noise and not much signal, I think, because literally nothing much is happening (publicly).
Bernard Keane wrote a neat piece for Crikey today, which I’ve excerpted over the fold. He could have added that elements in the media are laying the foundations for a vicious campaign against The Greens, and the rural independents should they align with Labor on confidence and supply. Read more »
When the government lost its majority it also lost its legitimacy.
Tony Abbott 22 August 2010
The people have spoken and it’s going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said.
Julia Gillard 21 August 2010
Or at least to put an interpretation on it that will suit.
So as it turned out, we didn’t have to wait very long at all for the electorate to deliver the real verdict on the political class. With neither side having sought a mandate, it seems fair enough that neither side was given it. Read more »
One of the things that occurred to me very forcefully several times during the nightmare morning I spent a few years ago in the Assemblies of God stronghold in the Adelaide suburb of (wait for it) Paradise, researching this piece [update: they seem to have put it behind a paywall, sorry!], was that many of the less, how you say, cerebral people among Christians tend to use Jesus (Assemblies of God are very very big on Jesus) as a sort of all-purpose blank screen onto which to project their desires, fantasies and fears. So while I didn't see Q and A last night, the telly still being borked and me still being too disorganised busy to get and set up a new one (new antenna, furniture-moving, nine-yard logistics narrative), it comes as no surprise to read this morning a particularly stupid and indeed mildly offensive remark made last night by Mr Rabbit in answer to a question about asylum seekers:
"Jesus didn't say yes to everyone, Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it is not necessarily everyone's place to come to Australia." Read more »
The recent University of Queensland survey of more than 300 federal, state and local government politicians found that:
more than 40 per cent of those questioned said they believed it would be safe for the planet to warm by 4 degrees Celsius, despite scientific warnings that a global temperature increase of 2 degrees or more could be dangerous.
Indeed:
Nearly 7 per cent of politicians believe a rise of up to 6 degrees would be safe.
At 6C we are in ‘the end of civilisation as we know it’ territory. At 4C we can look forward to a new world, but not, I’m afraid, a better one. Read more »
News Limited Sunday papers are this morning reporting a 'monster' poll of 4,000 voters by Galaxy. Galaxy has polled 200 voters in four key marginals in each state. The following table summarises the result. Read more »
I thought it was time to pick up a theme on the National Broadband Network that has been going around for sometime; the lack of a clear cost-benefit analysis.
First, it is never going to happen. Put simply, the political rationale for the NBN is a combination of two things. First, that a big push on broadband was not going to happen without a big push from Government given the virtual monopoly held by Telstra and the ineffectiveness of regulation to manage that. Second, there is the Yes Prime Minister Trident/Hollowmen/GFC Big Ticket/Shiny things rationale that is wonderfully captured by this piece in The Onion. You only want a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis if it is going to change your decision. The political rationale is so strong that that is not going to happen and so there is no point to attempts at quantification. Read more »
The ABC's Annabel Crabb published a long, informative, entertaining piece at The Drum the other day, characteristically witty and meaty, in defence of journalists and their current behaviour and reportage on the campaign trail.
Much of what she is says is fair enough. But nothing she says can possibly excuse what I've just heard on the radio.
I got into the car and turned on the radio and there was Julia Gillard in Queensland, mid-speech, announcing the Government's seniors policy, after what I imagine was a somewhat stressful morning meeting Kevin Rudd for the first time since she became Prime Minister. The seniors stuff sounded pretty good, mainly the improvements to the pension situation but also several other things. Jenny Macklin followed up. And then it was time for questions. Read more »
During the election campaign, LP will be cross-posting selected items from the Centre for Policy Development’s discussion of policy issues, Thinking Points. Readers may also be interested in the CPD’s collection of policy ideas and priorities for the next term, More Than Luck.
Jennifer Doggett writes:
For a party that professes to support efficiency and aims to reduce bureaucracy, the Coalition’s policy to establish local hospital boards for every public hospital is curious.
There are 737 public acute hospitals in Australia. Tony Abbott’s proposal will create 737 new local hospital boards. This means the creation of 737 Board secretariats, 737 sets of meeting papers to be prepared every time the Boards meet, 737 sets of resolutions to be recorded and monitored and reported against and 737 separate bodies fighting each other for a share of the health resource pie. Read more »
A guest post by Conrad Perry:
It looks like the new Julia being the real Julia campaign has kicked off with a bit of good old fashioned teacher bashing. This reminds me of one of the things that seems really ingrained in many people’s minds, and an assumption which a lot of this teacher bashing is based on, which is that there is a horde of teachers out there who are bored, can’t teach well and are too lazy to get another job that they might actually enjoy. Read more »
This is an edited for corrections version of a transcript originally posted at Australia.to News. The interview took place on Channel 9 on Sunday morning (August 1st). Oakes showed Abbott up as the lightweight he is, and (surprise!)the interview has hardly made a blip in the MSM, so I’m signal-boosting.
Good morning, Mr Abbott, welcome to the program.
LO: In light of that latest poll, have you started measuring the curtains at the Lodge?
TA: Look, Laurie, this isn’t about me and my chances. It’s about our country and its future. That’s why I keep saying that we’ve got to end the waste; we’ve got to pay back the debt; we’ve got to stop the big new taxes and stop the boats.
LO: And stay on message. Which you’re doing there, I notice. Read more »
from Crikey .....
A key element of Bob Katter's regional development wish-list presented to the major parties will directly benefit companies owned or controlled by Katter's brother-in-law, and was spruiked by the Member for Kennedy for months in 2009 before Katter acknowledged the conflict of interest.
Well, we know why Tony Abbott didn’t want independent costings of his policies before the election, before punters were asked to judge him as a potential PM, or even after the election – because there’s an $11 billion hole in them. (Or $10 billion, if you’re News Ltd and incorrectly round $600 million down.)
Look, there’s some complicated smoke-and-mirrors bullshit justification for how this isn’t really as bad as it looks, but I’m not all that good with economics. Ask Robb or Joe. Read more »
The world’s most inscrutable man?
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I’m probably completely wrong about this, so please help me improve on the analysis.
1. Windsor, Oakeshott and Katter do not want another election. They mean to enjoy the leverage the election outcome has given them.
2. They have consistently invoked ‘stability’ as their main objective in deciding which side to support.
3. Stability means one side having at least 77 votes in the House of Representatives. A government with only 76 votes would be just a single by-election away from losing its majority, a state of affairs that most people would regard as too precarious.
4. Given that Labor now has the formal support of the the Greens member Adam Bandt, both sides currently have 73 votes.
5. Therefore, a stable arrangement requires that all four independents choose the same side. Read more »
You know that I don’t have a huge amount of regard for this particular News Ltd columnist, but even I couldn’t have anticipated this attack on our aid to Pakistan:
If they spent less on bombs and more on levees…
That’s Andrew Bolt, there, seemingly suggesting that if a country has a military budget of some size, its people somehow deserve whatever nature hands out.
Just think about what that headline is saying. It’s repugnant.
The Herald Sun’s Compassion Ambassador is responding to this story revealing that (gasp) some Australian aid to Pakistan “is being distributed at a camp funded by a banned Pakistani terrorist organisation”. Food aid, to be precise. Of which the Australian contribution is “containers of cooking oil”. Read more »
Over the past ten years or so, governments have engaged in a curious practice. Maybe they did it before, but that’s when I began to notice. Government has expanded activity outside of its own territory but argued that domestic courts of law don’t bind that activity. I’m sure we can all think of several examples, but I’m thinking of Australian government refugee practices.
The Australian government expends taxpayer dollars, and exercises authority over individuals including making decisions about those individuals subject to Australian law, yet argues that Australian courts cannot review those decisions or hear cases based on those decisions. This is a troubling argument; the rule of (Australian) law must always and everywhere bind the Australian executive. Australian courts are established by the same mechanism that establishes executive power and I cannot understand how and why the executive has managed to avoid that issue.
So I’m pleased to see that two High Court judges are raised this very issue. Read more »
Today The Australian claims to have evidence that the three current independent MPs will face a backlash from their electorates if they support Labor in forming a minority government. The headline warns:
Reject Labor: voters’ message to independent MPs
But is that the message? It’s pretty hard to know from this article, because they don’t bother showing us anything beyond the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence.
We get a few quotes from around the traps — like this one:
“Tony [Windsor]’s problem is that while he has campaigned heavily on issues such as broadband and health, his support base is very conservative,” said Mr Jarratt, the Tamworth region chairman of the NSW Farmers Association. Read more »
During the election campaign, LP will be cross-posting selected items from the Centre for Policy Development’s discussion of policy issues, Thinking Points. Readers may also be interested in the CPD’s collection of policy ideas and priorities for the next term, More Than Luck.
Ian McAuley writes:
At about the mid-point of the election campaign I was at the Australian Economic Forum – a gathering of professional economists from corporations, government departments and universities.
We heard Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, heap praise on the Australian Government’s response to the financial crisis. He reminded us that we have come through with very low public debt (about 6 per cent of GDP, compared with 40 to 120 per cent in other countries), low inflation and strong employment. Read more »
Today the ALP launched its campaign. It didn’t of course – campaign launches are no such thing. The ALP’s launch was a pared-back affair, in great contrast to the hubris and self-congratulation of the Liberal launch last week. There were less jokes than the Liberal affair – this was a good thing, unless it was the Liberal Party’s intention for Warren Truss to be more memorable than Tony Abbott. It had the air at the start of more like a wedding reception than a political event.
It started with Anna Bligh as the matron of honour – she was off the stage quickly so as to not overshadow the bride. Wayne Swan played the role of Best Man. His speech had a bit of humour but mostly focussed on how good a sort was the bride. And then Bob Hawke stepped up to give the father of the bride speech. Read more »
Above: Renowned Economist, Joseph Stiglitz
In this article Joseph Stiglitz praises the efforts of the Australian Labor government in warding away recession as a consequence of the Global Financial Crisis. (GFC) Stiglitz is one of the most respected economists in the world; and his endorsement ought mean a lot for Australian voters considering economic management as a key issue in deciding their vote. Read more »
David Biello in Scientific American:
Outside a grocery store in Langdon, N.D., two ecologists spotted a yellow canola plant growing on the margins of a parking lot this summer. They plucked it, ground it up and, using a chemical stick similar to those in home pregnancy kits, identified proteins that were made by artificially introduced genes. The plant was GM—genetically modified. Read more »
Mark down today as the day coverage of elections in Australian reached a record level of stupid.
Julia Gillard first met with Kevin Rudd – it was pretty stage managed; just one TV camera in to get the footage of the two of them with John Faulkner and a couple others looking at a map and discussing how they’ll go about campaigning. The media obviously wanted a joint press conference, but that wasn’t going to happen, and so they bitched as they are want to do. Fair enough. 
Read more »
One again the election has been turned on it’s head, and many have been left still going the way it was 12 hours ago not realising that things have changed. Really changed.
Last night Kevin Rudd appeared on Late Night Live with Phillip Adams. It was his first media appearance since his operation and really since his defeat as PM (one appearance at a school not withstanding). In the interview he declared he was not the leaker of stories to Laurie Oakes and that he was fully committed to helping Labor defeat Tony Abbott. Read more »
The biggest failing of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister was that he never really got rid of the old man smell of the Howard Government. The Monday after the 2007 election Paul Keating said:
The reaction for me was, as I said in a piece in the Herald this morning, was not one of happiness. Some people said, "oh you must be happy". I said no, I was just so relieved that the toxicity of this government had gone, you know? That this dreadful, vicious show, which had been around for all these years, you know, the active disparagement of particular classes and groups.
You know, John Howard said to Miranda Devine in the Sun Herald a week ago that his great achievement he said was to, you know, turn over political correctness. In other words what he thought was really good was to be politically incorrect, you know, to be able to sling off at someone's colour or their religion, you know. And in a country of immigrants, this is poison for this society, poison for us. Read more »
As Kent Brockman would say “Treason season started early this year”, as we had the rather bizarre sight on twitter of David Speers informing us:
Julia Gillard autographed an Australian flag today. Woops. Breach of official govt protocols. Full details at 3pm on Sky News.
Oh gosh, would Julia be spending election day in stir? Or would she be sent to the bloody tower ala Mary Queen of Scots? Read more »
Some of the most spectacular contradictions of the campaign so far:
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