Author: Kev

LABOR sources have said that Prime Minister Julia Gillard will call an election tomorrow for August 2821. The sources said Ms Gillard will visit the Governor General Quentin Bryce in Canberra tomorrow and request the election date be set, the ABC reported. Game on!

Jesuit Frank Brennan suggests Rudd has suffered enough. I find this statement interesting;

He is usually right to presume that he is the most intelligent person in the room. But as prime minister he probably failed at times to appreciate there were a couple of others in the room who had thought about the issue at hand more deeply than he had.

Being the most intelligent person in the room and believing it would have come over in his dealings with subordinates. I would rather he presumed he was the best leader in the room and it was true. Unfortunately, it was seldom the case. It appears Rudd is now busy white anting Gillard if you think through what must be the source of the question raised by Laurie Oaks at the Press Club yesterday. If there was an ascension deal agreed to by Rudd and Gillard and the only other person present, John Faulkner, is known for being tight lipped, then it is reasonable to assume Rudd is leaking to Oaks. He does have a track record doing this when Latham, the previous looney ALP leader was having trouble with Rudd he wrote;

“I’ve had a suspicion for some time now that Rudd has been feeding material to Oakes,” Latham wrote. “Decided to set him up, telling Kevvie about our focus groups on Iraq.”

No focus groups had been held. All the then-Labor national secretary, Tim Gartrell, had done was quantitative polling. Yet Labor focus group research was cited in Oakes’s column on April 14, 2004.

“Today, right on cue, Jabba has written in the Bulletin: ‘The Labor Party’s polling firm has been busily running focus groups to test the public mood following Latham’s troops-out announcement.”

“Trapped him,” Latham wrote. I note Rudd is in the US acting like the Aussie PM talking to the UN, Clinton and Obama advisors. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall. This is all good stuff. With Hawke, Keating and Rudd all getting media coverage of their egos it certainly isn’t helping Gillard. And that has to be good for the country.

My, Julia is doing well isn’t she? Boaties First she says we are going to process boat people off-shore in East Timor – “I’ve already spoken to the President,” she claims. The media point out she should have spoken to the Prime Minister – speaking to the President is like speaking to our Governor General; neither of them have executive power. “Oh, OK then, I didn’t actually say East Timor!…mumble mumble …PNG and Manus Island” It’s getting good. East Timor has a vote and says no thanks. PNG has a vote and says no thanks. Oh!. Well back to East Timor. I really did say East Timor – why are you doubting my words? – raising the question of what part of NO doesn’t she understand – the N or the bloody O? Nauru puts her hand up. Pick me…we’ll do it. Not interested say Julia. not interested says Foreign Affairs Smith.

Reporter: “Why not consider Nauru” Smith: “Because we are focusing our efforts on East Timor”. Reporter: “Yes, but why not consider Nauru, they have indicated they would sign up to your UN resolution on refugees. ” Smith: “Because we are focusing our efforts on East Timor! ” Reporter: “Yes, but why not consider them. ” Smith: “Because we are….” you get the drift.

Let’s presume East Timor folds and say yes they will have lost face and it doesn’t matter what the final outcome is, Gillard has lost creditability. We now need to spend millions on infrastructure when we could use the already set up Nauru enclosure all because the ALP needs to save face. Having lambasted Howard for years over his inhumane off-shore processing they are now doing the same but on a different island. Tax the rich program. The Minerals Resource Rent Tax cut the percentage from 40% to 22% and yet the receipts only move from $12b to $10.5b. Either my sense of high school maths is failing me or someone is telling lies. A tax designed specifically to fill in the huge hole the ALP have left in our bank balance now looks shakey.

Treasury secretary Ken Henry revealed yesterday that his department relied on modelling provided by the three big resources companies BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata for its estimate that the new tax would deliver $10.5 billion in the first two years.

I wonder how much clever accounting went in that estimate? Next problem…the ETS. I wonder if, on his return from the G20 meeting in Toronto, Kevin Rudd told Julia about the G20 losing interest in apocalyptic global warming Last week’s G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto and its environs confirmed that the world’s leaders accept the demise of global-warming alarmism.

One year ago, the G8 talked tough about cutting global temperatures by two degrees. In Toronto, they neutered that tough talk, replacing it with a nebulous commitment to do their best on climate change — and not to try to outdo each other. The global-warming commitments of the G20 — which now carries more clout than the G8 — went from nebulous to non-existent: The G20’s draft promise going into the meetings of investing in green technologies faded into a mere commitment to “a green economy and to sustainable global growth.”

Let’s summarize the first couple of weeks of Julia’s reign. Aim: Stop people panicking about overpopulation Answer: Change Tony Burke’s title from Minister for Population to the Minister for Sustainable Population. Result: Box ticked. Aim: Stop people worrying about boat people Answer: Change Howard’s off-shore island processing to Gillard’s off-shore processing. Result: Box ticked Aim: Stop people worrying about the huge deficit. Answer: Invent a new tax…oops the miners are complaining and we are bleeding votes….Sack the PM and have the new PM say some different words. $10.5b coming in…stop worrying! Result: Box ticked (penciled in only) Aim: Get back votes lost through ETS backdown Answer: Don’t know but in any case must delay as long as we can…maybe after the election Result: Jury still out. Last word I leave to cartoonist Zeg; Hmmmmm, if elected? let’s see, if we vote for Julia Gillard we will get a mining tax that will go nowhere to settling the massive billions of dollar debt that her Kevvie set up for our children, along with a loss of jobs and industry. We will also get another failed border security policy or the same one that worked when John Howard was PM (as long as it doesn’t look the same and doesn’t involve the introduction of temporary visa) and we can also expect a massive rise in the costs of living due to the feel good tax (ETS) that will be imposed on us all so as not to upset those good folk in the Green Party (who are providing preference votes to the ALP at the election). Seems like a no brainer to me then……. hand me the how to vote Liberal card please.

Gusmao advises Julia Gillard to firm up boatpeople plan before she calls.

He said he had “open mind” on the proposal, but warned that he would need to see the detail of Ms Gillard’s proposal. Even then, he said at a press conference in Dili, the plan would require extensive investigation by his government and lengthy debate in the parliament before the measure could proceed.

That should take it through to the Australian elections which is most probably all she wants anyway. It’s just another thought bubble type plan as in – We need a plan to get all of Burnsides “rednecks” back on side….let’s see…I know, I’ll phone NZ and Timor this arvo and announce the Great New Plan on boat people tomorrow night. There, another of Rudd’s problems fixed. UPDATE: Just in from News.com

JULIA Gillard appears to be backing away from plans for a regional refugee processing centre in Timor, telling 4BC she never committed to a location.

The plot thickens. Should make The Australian an interesting read tomorrow. UPDATE II The ABC’s tag line is Gillard keeping asylum options open. How can they say that after Tony Jones elicited from her last night that there wasn’t a Plan B other than to ring around some more.