Category: Politics

Indonesia’s on a roll

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AUSTRALIA might be asked to fund detention centres in Indonesia to help Jakarta deter asylum-seekers from using the nation as a staging point.
Jakarta’s plan, which would lock up all asylum-seekers currently free in the community, comes amid pressure from Julia Gillard for a regional solution to the politically explosive problem.
Jakarta’s plan would also fix all their problems at the expense of us poor tax payers. They have thousands of illegals living in their towns and ports already, all trying to get to Australia. Poor old Indonesia can hardly cope with their own people let alone all visitors clogging up their systems. Let’s talk to Gillard, they say. She’s in trouble, East Timor is not interested even though she is still saying “we are consulting with them” so lets fix our problem and have Australia pay for it. Baik sekali, very good…it’ll work. If they’re stupid enough to vote in Rudd and seriously consider Gillard then the Aussie taxpayer will buy anything. And of course, all the money will go to securing the illegals – won’t it? There has never been a stench of corruption in Indonesia – has there?
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Politics

ALPGreens agenda

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Joe Hockey on the ALPGreens agenda for their second term from last nights 7:30 report
JOE HOCKEY: Well if they are going to fix the problems of the first term, that is their second term agenda. Labor’s second term agenda is to fix up all the problems of its first term. That will keep them occupied, I can tell you.
Good call, Joe.
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Politics

Here’s hoping

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KEVIN Rudd is reportedly being considered by the United Nations for a top-level job as an adviser on climate change. Mr Rudd spent several days in New York last week meeting with UN officials. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is now considering creating a dedicated role for him as a top-level adviser on climate change, according to a “diplomatic source with knowledge of the plan”, News Ltd newspapers reported today. I often thought Kevin Rudd’s Prime Ministership was just a CV filler for his ultimate aim of running the UN so it does make some sense. I wonder how that bit of news effects the voters of Griffith? This would make his recent taxpayer trip to the US to attend a job interview in a different light but I bet that doesn’t get a run in the media. Thérèse might consider paying back the taxpayer for the first class air tickets and accommodation before the question is asked by someone other than me. Please, Kevin, be patriotic and take the job and make Australia a better place. It’ll be much harder for you to damage Australia if you are in the UN.
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Politics

Report to white wash Gillard

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JULIA Gillard promised today that a report into the Building the Education Revolution program will be released before the election. The Prime Minister made the commitment during a radio interview, despite the BER taskforce yesterday refusing to confirm that it would hand over its report to the government before August 21. If she is prepared to make that promise, I’m prepared to believe she already knows it won’t harm her. It’ll be a white wash. Odds on!
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Politics

Look over here – a unicorn!

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JULIA Gillard’s comments yesterday put the issue beyond doubt — she is the first Prime Minister to seek election on the platform of a smaller growing Australia and rejects the current growth model as “irresponsible”.
It seems Gillard’s over-arching election strategy is to slow Australia’s population growth, a populist pitch long available to Australia’s leaders and long resisted.
No, her over-arching election strategy is to get journalists and hence the public, talking about slowing Australia’s population growth. The last thing she wants them talking about is her governments lackluster performance. It’s a red herring, or to quote Baldrick in Blackadder, a dead herring. Better this than people talking about boat people, BER overspends, Garrett’s ceiling disaster, Wong’s ETS (very conspicuous by her absence) or Swan’s rubbery figures.
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Politics

ALPGreens

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Now the ALP has morphed into the ALPGreens I thought readers might like to read Jack the Insiders definitions of the various Green factions. Green Greens (evangelis environmentalis)
are veterans of environmental battles from days of yore. They have spent their youths chained to trees and all own a collection of embarrassing photographs where they’re seen wearing chunky woollen jumpers and those silly beanies with ear flaps. They embody what many people think the Greens really should stand for but their numbers are dwindling and with the retirement of their eco-warrior, Bob Brown looming, their influence within the party will diminish.
Then there are the blue Greens (medicus soccermumus).
The former MLA for Fremantle, Adele Carles – her of the ill-fated love affair with WA Treasurer Troy Buswell – is one such creature. Blue Greens are those of a conservative political bent who have roused politically in something of a mid-life crisis. Known to have voted Liberal in the past, they now furrow their brows and fret over climate change, environmental destruction and what is to be done about the children. Blue Greens are a relatively rare species and have little authority within the party.
Red Greens (rufus hammerandsicklus)
are neither environmentalists nor SUV driving mothers of 3.4 children. They are political refugees from the far left. Not welcome in the Labor Party since the 1970s, these folk wandered the political wilderness until the Green movement appeared on the political stage and they found a home. Ms Rhiannon is a walking exemplar of a red Green.
Simple, isn’t it?
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Politics

More rubbery figures

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Gillard at her best. Labor has promised to provide $200 million funding for local councils in regional areas in an effort to boost stocks of affordable housing. It is estimated that up to 15,000 new homes would be built in regional cities over the next three years under the initiative. Cut and Paste in todays Australian quotes Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy Files:
15,000 houses for a total cost of $200m works out at about $13,333 per house. How much house can you get for about $13,333 when a covered outdoor learning area costs $954,000?
Obviously the projections of housing costs has been calculated by Treasury to be falling dramatically just like the projections on commodity prices has risen sharply to explain their $1.5B versus $7.5B loss to mining. I want the ALPGreens to do my tax return next year.
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Politics

Greens/ALP Deal close

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Well colour me green and give me a tree to hug. Labor and the Greens are on the verge of a comprehensive preference deal that would boost the government’s prospects of holding on to power while helping the Greens achieve the balance of power in the Senate. If you think the Greens achieving balance or power in the Senate is a good thing you don’t read enough. Closing down coal mines and coal powered generators only works when there is an alternative and we’re not quite there yet.
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Politics

General election 21 Aug?

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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!
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Brennan stands up for Rudd

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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.
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