Australian Politics thread

CJB wrote:

contemptible little fucktard

That nu word works better than its opposite - ruck is already taken.

Do some drinking for me CJBaby. Work is killing me this morning.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

And that Abbott, with his send-the-boats-back plan, will only double their business?

Remember when Howard lost office and there were 4 people in immigration detention and not 40,000?

Good times.

Tony Abbott isn't the same person as John Howard.

In just the same way, Abbott's policy isn't the same as Howard's.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Tony Abbott isn't the same person as John Howard.

Tell that to your Labor mates bleating about WorkCoices.

The very same WorkChoices that Abbott refused to rule out introducing, despite it having been universally-reviled?

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

The very same WorkChoices that Abbott refused to rule out introducing, despite it having been universally-reviled?

He did rule it out. "Dead, buried, cremated.".

How do you feel about 2000 people drowning at sea because of Kevin Rudd?

Wayne Swan: blah blah social justice... when I came to parliament there was 11% unemployment.

Hey, who was in government in 1993 again?

Gillard says if you don't like her you're a misogynist. Reminds me of Wayne County and the Electric Chairs.

Isn't that Jools Holland on the keys? Very New York Dolls arrangement.

I wanted Julia Gillard to stay on as Labor leader. This makes me less of a mysoginist than 55% of the Labor caucus.

I'm a sensitive, New Age man.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result.

Knife an immensely popular first term prime minister and replace him with the first female prime minister. Polls go down. Solution: knife first female prime minister. Brilliant.

I would say that last night the Labor party committed Sepuku, but that implies there was something honorable about it.

They'll be out for a generation now. Mark my words. They've taken a trust issue that could be scapegoated onto Gillard and Swan personally and extended it to the party as a whole. I had called Abbott's line last night years ago. You elected Kevin in 2007, the Labor party gave you Julia. You elected Julia in 2010, the Labor party gave you Kevin. If you elect Kevin in 2013, who are you going to get?

And now, when/if they lose the election, they have to deal with the politics of knifing Rudd again. If they had voted Gillard he would've been gone for good, there would be no more resignations (all his backers quit last time) and they would have clean air for the first time in three years and a clean slate to rebuild once they lose the election.

Gillard was despised and made many, many bad calls, but besides the actual misogynists that are out there most could respect her for her cunning, her determination and her self-belief. You didn't trust that she would follow through on something she'd say one day to the next, but you still had a real sense of what she stood for and what she believed in. It's why her public stance on gay marriage rang so hollow to so many.

Rudd by contrast, is a cipher. What is known about him is that he is a narcissist, that he is reviled within his own party and that he probably has a worse eye for policy than Gillard. Gillard delivered the NDIS, had vision for a national school curiculum, and regardless of whether you felt they were the right changes, came up with a prosecutable industrial relations policy.

Rudd? Good on the broad strokes stuff like the National Apology, but is the mastermind behind: GroceryWatch; FuelWatch; The 2020 summit; The mining tax; the destruction of the border control policy; Pinkbatts in roofs.

And to top it off, last night reminded me exactly why Gillard was more popular by 2010 in the first place. He's a smug little shit who's as sincere as a facebook birthday message.

I loved Peter Beatie on LateLine last night.

"Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan won't sabotage and undermine Kevin Rudd like he has sabotaged and undermined to them"

Great justification for a leadership change to said saboteur. Great lesson for the kiddies. Behave badly enough, and you'll get what you want. Bring others down to make yourself look better. What utter bullshit. This is politics in a Westminster system. At its best it is supposed be about likeminded people uniting to achieve a greater good.  It is not Hollywood. It is not a god damn personality contest. What a great bunch of politicians to have leading the country.

Gillard is going to come out the winner of this sad affair. NDIS and Gonski (even if it really isn't great policy, it is feel good policy) will forever be tied to her. The political misfires: men in blue ties; knitting a kangaroo for the royal baby; the real Julia, will fade in time. If she had ditched McTernan's imported misogyny scripts and been more like she was in her concession speech last night she probably would've have done a lot better.

But I respect her a lot more than any of those who knifed her. And unlike Rudd, she held her shit together and didn't cry.

The overlooked story on this though is how Tony Abbott has now claimed the scalps of two immensely more popular leaders than him despite his own ascendency to the Liberal leadership being treated as a bad joke at the time it occurred.

The reason for this has to be that Labor's rhetoric simply doesn't match up with what is there. He may be an idealogical opponent, a staunch catholic, a social conservative - everything they hate - but the picture people are increasingly seeing the more he remains in the limelight is a service orientated man, whose social conservatism is grounded by the fact that he has a gay sister, three daughters and a wife with a modest career in childcare and a front bench packed with social moderates. The rhetoric that he would outlaw abortion, banish homosexuality and hold a constitutional referendum to replace the Queen with the Pope just doesn't add up with the reality. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Abbott and his policies, but rather than play the ball Labor's loathing of him leads to them just playing the man.  

I said it when he became leader and I suspect over the course of the campaign it will happen again, but the problem with Rudd vs Abbott is that when Rudd takes swipes at Abbott he comes off like the school dweeb bitching about the school captain, and Abbott has the common political sense to not mention his opponent six times in every sentence.  Furthermore, Rudd is a naturally convuluted speaker who occassionally coins a good phrase for a speech. Abbott is naturally concise (probably a result of both his law degree and his career as a journalist) which enables him to cut through even if he only gets three seconds of airplay on the evening news.

Rudd won after maybe two years in the public limelight because he was seen as non-threatening to everyone against an old buffoonish man in John Howard. Abbott is blokey. He is athletic. He is square jawed. He still has colour in his hair and only wears glasses for reading. He is not the old man Howard was and fits the superficial idea of a leader better than Rudd. He is very much in the mold of Bob Hawke, who gets a lot more accolades for holding the world record for skulling a yard glass with the younger set, particularly blue collar young men (who probably traditionally vote Labor) than he does for his political achievements. His modesty, in so far that he doesn't seem to brag about much, will probably neutralise any tall poppy syndrome. Rudd will never win young women after knifing Gillard. They will vote Green. His push for 'young people' again (which is basically what he did in Kevin '07) probably won't work. Young people are a lot more cynical these days. There's no "Rove". And against Abbott instead of Howard he is the one that comes off as uncool.

Finally, Rudd has now had a high profile in public life for eight years. Not two.Those in politics who've known him for longer, and more intimately, believe he is a chameleon, a psychopath, who changes depending whichever direction the camera points. Even without their statements on the record for Liberal party advertising to exploit with relish, the electorate is soon enough going to crack on to it. They're not idiots and there probably lies the root of Labor's problems.

Rudd's first answer in QT: Familiar whishy-washy non-answer in which he refuses to name an election date.

My loathing for the git is renewed.

Excellent write-up, Vesper. I'm however not as optimistic as you about the electorate's sanity. Rudd will likely do well in the Western Sydney marginals despite the residents' concerns about carbon tax-driven electricity price rises and asylum seeker boats. They'll bitch and moan about the boatmen and boatwomen coming to take their jerbs but will vote for Kevin Rudd - the best friend the people smugglers of the Asia-Pacific have ever had - because he has a loveable fat face or whatever the reason for his popularity is (and it truly eludes me).

His rhetoric in Question Time today was beyond laughable. The guy claims to want an era of "new politics" free of personal abuse. This came after snatching the prime ministership for the purposes of "physically stopping" a man he basically labelled a Fascist (unless "right-wing extremist" has a different connotation I'm not aware of).

I think it's also worth a mention that Chris Bowen is Treasurer of Australia. This is the saddest comedy I've ever witnessed.

The nicest thing I can say about Chris Bowen is that he must be an incredibly nice guy because despite being responsible for three of the biggest policy failures of the past four years the press gallery and Labor all seem to think he's some great talent.

I trust the electorate but I don't trust the press gallery, particularly the hack journalists who are cleaning up hardcore by the expansion of both Sky and ABC News into effective 18 hour political coverage. They're already acting like this is a new government that had just won an election, not a stumbling carcass of a government.

Well, I guess that if I want my fix of predictable melodrama now, I'm going to have to watch "The Block".

CJB wrote:

Rudd's first answer in QT: Familiar whishy-washy non-answer in which he refuses to name an election date.

My loathing for the git is renewed.

If you had just taken the reins of the party and a third of your predecessor's cabinet had quit, would you have decided on an election date within twelve hours or do you think you would have had more-pressing priorities?

There's been a change of prime minister, not a change of government. Labor has been telling us it'll be 14 September for six months now. I'd like to think that the pig trough we call the ALP can keep at least one promise.

KRudd: Abbott will start a war with Indonesia.

24 hours on the job and Rudd has lived up to his promise to end the politics of negativity and fearmongering. He's also demonstrated his foreign policy nous with this helpful message to our neighbours up north.

God help us.

Worse, the media are still jizzing their pants over the whole thing - at least on Sky.

Could've sworn that in 2007 there was a bloke called Kevin Michael Rudd who promised to tow boats back to Indonesia if he was elected.

As for the media, Our ABC has basically had zero dissenting voices on Rudd's messianity in the past 24 hours, a feat even by its usual conservative-free standards.

This is what passes for reporting on politics in Australia:

Quote :

Tony Abbott's gaffe: credits Malcolm Turnbull for 'inventing the internet'

http://www.news.com.au/national-news/tony-abbott8217s-gaffe-credits-malcolm-turnbull-for-8216inventing-the-internet8217/story-fncynjr2-1226671568832

Yes, Tony Abbott literally credited Malcolm Turnbull for inventing the interent. What a gaffe. Thank fuck Rudd is back to save us.

CJB wrote:

Could've sworn that in 2007 there was a bloke called Kevin Michael Rudd who promised to tow boats back to Indonesia if he was elected.

And I could have sworn that, in 2007, I had opinions on things that have since changed.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

CJB wrote:

Could've sworn that in 2007 there was a bloke called Kevin Michael Rudd who promised to tow boats back to Indonesia if he was elected.

And I could have sworn that, in 2007, I had opinions on things that have since changed.

In Monkeystan, Labor politicians are permitted to change their minds as often as they fart.

Rudd's opinion changed the instant he came to office. The result of his "change of mind" is a death toll several times higher than Australia's casualty rate in Vietnam.

In the People's Democratic Republic of Ceejaybeeia, people are born with one opinion and are never allowed to change it under any circumstances. Assuming they are allowed to express it in the first place. After all, Tony Abbott refuses to allow coalition members to hold a conscience vote on gay marriage, even though most of the public supports the idea. So all those coalition MPs who might agree with the idea have their opinions quashed under the heel of a father-knows-best attitude from an insecure politician who won't allow others to voice their own opinions because he might be made to feel uncomfortable by it.

Interesting how gay marriage has overtaken republicanism as Australian leftists' red herring of choice.

I suppose it's because they both relate to queens.

With straw-man arguments like that, I'm suprised you aren't actually a sitting member of the coalition.

It's straw-people.