It must be all giggles in
The Australian headquarters as Fairfax journalists and staff eat their own entrails.
Mike Carlton has just been sacked for not filing his column during a strike by the journalists and other media staff in Sydney and Melbourne.
While Fairfax plummets further into obscurity
The Australian will surely pick up the slack in circulation and all the better for the country, I might add.
The story is replete with
strikes, the mandatory
strike breakers and a
hero although Jaspan could only be a hero in a left-wing rag.
I wonder if any are thinking…maybe if we hadn’t drifted so far left in a centrist country…..
Julia Gillard on ABC has trouble convincing Lyndal Curtis the the ALP education policy is original.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But you’re introducing the same element of compulsion that the Howard government proposed on transparency.
JULIA GILLARD: No, we’re introducing a very different system. And the important difference, the most important difference to understand is this. The Howard government went to State and Territory Governments and said, we want transparency in order to hold you up to public ridicule and to play a political blame game. We want transparency to help batter Labor Governments around the country.
A few points, Julia
1 The Howard government didn’t say that,
2. It wasn’t their intent, and
3 They were trying to do what you say you are trying to do.
There is no question that what Rudd and Gillard are trying to do has some merit, as most Coalition policies have merit, but the telling point is will the states and territories roll over for the Feds?
The local ALP boys run the education systems and the teacher’s unions and members are a part of their power base thus it’ll take a lot of beating over their respective heads with baseball bats before they come to the party. Transparency is not a natural policy of the Left and the Left lead the state’s debate on education.
Once again, just because Rudd has said it will happen, that it is his plan, doesn’t make it so.
Good idea, good luck!
I listened to the ABC report on the
Democrat Convention in Denver. Michelle Obama spoke but her earlier comment “
…first time in my life I’m really been proud to be an American” didn’t get a rerun. Ted Kennedy spoke emotionally and eloquently about the achievements of others – his brother Jack and quoted Martin Luther King’s
I have a dream but he didn’t mention
Chappaquiddick
Understandable too, but some people have long memories and if I was Obama I would just as soon not have Ted’s support.
I wonder if the ABC will give the
Republican Convention to be held next week, the same sort of coverage.
Shoppers have shunned the Federal Government’s
grocery pricing website, prompting industry experts to label it a waste of taxpayers money.
After being branded a “basket case” because it only listed once-a-month grocery prices, the $13 million website recorded a drop of 2.1 million visitors in its second week.
Opposition finance spokesman Peter Dutton said considering the website’s total cost of $13 million over four years, the number of hits from the past fortnight roughly worked out to about $10 a user, per year.
“It would be cheaper for Wayne Swan to stand outside Coles with gift vouchers,” he said.
Another pointless initiative that will soon be forgotten.
An embarrassed Australia has
apologised to Prime Minister Helen Clark over the circulation of a briefing note outlining her “tight control” and saying her leftwing beliefs & foreign policy outlook was shaped by her anti-Vietnam war views.
It might not be diplomatic but it’s on the money.
I always remember her as the one who
scrapped the New Zealand Airforce.
Says it all really.
Just heard on National radio
Wayne Swan accuses the opposition of being economically irresponsible for threatening to block the alcopop tax.
Economically irresponsible? I thought the tax was aimed at socially engineering young girls away from alcopops.
In a speech to the National Press Club, Mr Swan said the measure had been introduced to target teenage consumption of the drinks. “And all of the medical evidence and all of the scientific evidence and all of the behavioural evidence indicates that they are responsive to price,” Mr Swan said.
And all the rest of the evidence, including Swan’s words, indicates that the tax was just that, a tax with revenue in mind.
BENNELONG community groups and constituents have accused
Maxine McKew of turning her back on the electorate since the federal election.
You voted for her, now wear it!
PRIME Minister
Kevin Rudd witnessed a heated discussion between US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over Russia’s invasion of a tiny neighbouring country as athletes paraded before them in the Opening Ceremony on Friday night.
And then told the press about it …the little
lickspittle.
How embarrassing!
The Government will this morning launch its grocery price watch scheme,
GroceryChoice. Similar to the controversial FuelWatch scheme, the website will allow people to compare prices for a basket of goods, including meat, vegetables and milk, to find the cheapest supermarket in their area. The prices will be updated monthly through a survey of 600 supermarkets across the nation.
the website will allow people to compare prices for a basket of goods, including meat, vegetables and milk, to find the cheapest supermarket in their area.
Sorry, it’s not going to help the housewife or husband plan their shopping trip. Monthly updates will never beat the weekly brochures stores drop in their letterbox for free. As the site is only updated on the first business day of the month then unless one shops that day or the next the prices will be out of whack.
I can’t see the major players responding to, or being frightened of, a government website that will have neither currency nor item prices. They are already competing with each other on a more frequent rotation and advertise this regularly with letter box drops and TV adds.
Time will tell but it’s typical of this government to set up monitoring websites when there are practical steps they can take. As groceries are delivered by trucks then it might be a good idea to give the
bona fide small truck operators a fuel discount like the major companies receive. Now that has a good chance of lowering grocery costs.
GroceryChoice
PAUL Keating has called Peter Costello a “slow acting dope”, and has slammed the Liberal Party for reconsidering him as leader.
Looking better for Peter all the time – anyone Keating dislikes has to be good for the country.
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