You’ve been dudded!

So says Brisbane’s Courier Mail

EVERY 10cm of the Ipswich Motorway will cost taxpayers more than $17,000 to upgrade but the Rudd Government denies ever committing to fix the entire route.

The link is only a one paragraph article but there’s more and it’s all on the front page in huge font and says a lot about the papers changing attitude to the spin and empty promises of the Rudd government. As Rudd lectures about whales and focuses on meaningless gestures the Japanese worry about the Chinese and Rudd’s sinocentric, mandarin speaking personae. As Hugh White says in the Australian Rudd flubs Tokyo chance;

…. his visit focused on two strangely meaningless Big Initiatives: his idea of an EU for Asia, and the new crusade to rid the world of nuclear weapons. No one could disagree with these noble objectives, but no one seriously believes that such ill-considered and under-prepared announcements offer any hope of achieving them. They simply confirm that Australia’s Government has not yet found its feet in foreign policy, and still fails to understand the difference between a real policy and a press release.

If anyone believes there will be an outcome from these ‘big initiatives’ then sometime down the track they too will fell dudded. I wonder if the voters in NSW central coast seat of Robertson feel dudded yet? Belinda Neal, a former Labor senator and staff member who had fought bitter preselection ballots in the NSW central coast seat of Robertson, was endorsed with the backing of the NSW Right but not expected to win. Unfortunately for the electorate and the ALP she did win. Since the election it transpires she is a foul mouthed, temper raging loose canon. As Denis Shanahan reports in a ‘Cautionary Tale;

She is caught up in a swirl of allegations and reports of having misled parliament over telling pregnant Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella her baby would turn into a demon, of police being called to the family home because of loud domestic disputes and the contested content of sworn statements being investigated by police.

The contested contents of sworn statements relate to an incident at a restaurant where she went ballistic over staff wanting to move her and her husband so diners could dance. She was accused of threating the livelihood of the staff and the establishments licence using language that most would find inappropriate in public The staff submitted sworn statements and then withdrew them under, and I’m guessing here, pressure from above. She denies the incident and the language but Rudd, after trying to laugh it off, has gone into damage control and demands she seek counseling. Voters of Robertson, you too have been dudded. Who else one wonders?