Author: Kev

First we have Rudd holding private, undisclosed talks with a Chinese Government minister as reported by Greg Sheridan;

KEVIN Rudd’s semi-secret meeting on Saturday with Li Changchun, the Chinese politburo member in charge of propaganda, media and ideology, is one of the most bizarre episodes of his prime ministership. It is almost certainly more stupid than sinister, but it does raise legitimate questions about Chinese influence in Australia.

And this;

Just as they are telling us Chinalco is not directly related to the Chinese Government, the general manager of Chinalco, Xiao Yaqing, has been appointed to the Chinese cabinet.

Is followed by reports Joel Fitzgibbon is being investigated for his association with a Chinese born Helen Liu

Reports today claim the Defence Department has been spying on the minister, using the Defence Signals Directorate spy agency to tap into computers in Mr Fitzgibbon’s office to gain information about his relationship with a wealthy Chinese-born Sydney business woman, Helen Liu.

KEVIN Rudd says he’ll await the findings of a Defence investigation into claims departmental officials conducted covert inquiries into their minister.

Some observations from Christian Kerr;

Alexander Downer could be coruscating to his public servants. He would tear strips off them in private – but in public they were always “my hard-working department”

The Defence Minister has taken a different approach.

“Have I seen incompetence?” Fitzgibbon asked rhetorically last month as the opposition hammered home its attack on bureaucratic bungling over SAS pay. “Absolutely yes.

“Have I seen attempts to nuance information to cover for mistakes? Yes.

“Have I seen nuanced information in an attempt to produce outcomes that are more favourable to those who are responsible for the issue? Yes.”

And what are we to make of this;

Defence officials also allegedly found Ms Liu’s banking details on the minister’s office IT system.

Was it just her BSB and account number and if so, why report it, or was it more?

If so, what is going on?

I think it unlikely Defence would conduct a security check without cause and I doubt it is all simply based on the fact that Fitzgibbon has a bad habit of blaming his department and calling them incompetent.

I will be interested in the developments.

I’m disappointed but at least there are no Greens elected and the Environment Minister, Andrew McNamara, lost his seat. With the ALP losing between 8 and 10 seats it does bring us closer to power but there is a lot of work to be done.

In a group discussing the election on Friday there was one intelligent, educated young voter who wasn’t sure which way he was going to vote and when I pointed out some of the corruption he countered;

“I don’t know any of the history, I’ll vote on what I see now”

and there is our problem.

We conservatives need to take lessons from the ALP; Federal and State, and the US Democrats, and go to where the young ones socialize and hit them with facts. Facebook springs to mind; use all the resources of the internet and give them no excuse to vote ALP when they know all the facts.

Like Obama or not, you have to respect his campaign on the road to the White House. Go read the article and remember – to win, we need to know the enemy.

Here was a man who was introduced to politics by a member of a group of murders, the Weathermen, but it didn’t matter because not enough voters knew what the hell a Weatheman was…didn’t know the history….. but they recognized someone who spoke their language and he spoke their language where they congregated – on the internet. Here was a man who had never done anything significant but it didn’t matter – he spoke their language.

We need to start campaigning now. We need a new leader, good looking with presence, male or female, educated, articulate, from a metro seat and they must have computer savvy. Not a programmer or hardware mechanic, but someone who understands the basic principles of the internet and its power and someone who is prepared to rewrite the Conservative Campaigning Handbook.

Otherwise…get used to the back benches and more incompetence and corruption. With the ALP totally in control of the media, the law and the Public Service and the young ones not “knowing the history” and voting based on the last 10 second screen bite they saw on telly, it could be a long, cold winter.

The ALP get a caning in todays Opinion page in The Australian with Michael Stutchbury, Economics editor writing on the problems of forcing the restaurants to march in step with hotels

JUST as licensing regulations restrict competition in the hotel industry, working conditions in pubs have long been standardised by the award system and the liquor trades union.

By contrast, the restaurant business is lightly regulated, dynamic and highly competitive. Restaurants used John Howard’s Work Choices and its individual work contracts to more flexibly deploy and reward their waiters and cooks.

Now it’s payback time as the Rudd Government foists the straitjacket of the protected hotel industry on to its restaurant competitors.

Hotels can handle penalty loadings with their markups and large scale operations but restaurants, operating on tiny margins can’t, so I guess anybody thinking of starting a restaurant will, at the moment be thinking otherwise. Uni students who traditionally fill the restaurant jobs will have to look elsewhere.

Just one example is set out in sections 32.1 to 32.4 of the “modernised” Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2010. These impose 25 per cent penalty loadings for working on Saturday, 175 per cent for Sunday work, and 250 per cent for public holidays. Casuals get a hefty 25 per cent loading on top of that, lifting them up to 275 per cent for public holidays.

Why bother going to Uni when you can get $450 a day as a dish pig!

Pretty soon we’ll all be restricted to Maccas and KFC for weekend dining or you’ll be paying a hundred bucks for an eye fillet.

Malcom Colless gets straight to the point under the header ALP Lacks IR Mandate

THE Rudd Government’s industrial relations laws are bad for business, bad for the economy, and bad for democracy and freedom in the workplace. They are designed to get square with employees who dared to enter into private deals with their employers and shut out the prying eyes of the unions.

Colless again;

While the premise underpinning Work Choices was fundamentally sound – to encourage more flexibility and freedom of choice in the workplace – it was managed badly by the Coalition. But even then it was the well crafted and highly emotive union media campaign rather than the shortcomings of the system that drove a stake through the heart of the former government.

That has long been my take on the last election and with the unions now demanding payback for the tens of millions they spent on outing Howard the economy is heading for disaster. Never mind the Global problem, when it is all sorted out we will find business has simply stopped employing people.

Get used to it folks.

Quentin Bryce will leave Australia next week for a nine-nation African visit during which she will canvass support for Australia’s bid for a Security Council seat. She will visit Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Seychelles from next Monday to April 3.

During her meetings with heads of state of each country, the Governor-General will stress the Rudd Government’s goal of forging closer links with Africa and mention the Security Council bid.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith yesterday strongly defended Ms Bryce’s African trip and her promotion of Australia’s UN Security Council credentials.

“When the Governor-General is travelling in foreign countries, of course from time to time, as appropriate, she will make statements that reflect government policy,” he told ABC TV’s Insiders program.

“Australian government policy is that we want to make a substantial engagement with Africa. We see that as being very importantly in our economic and social and foreign policy interests and we reflect our commitment to multilateralism by running for the Security Council. And she will make that point appropriately when she meets with the African leadership.”

What an unmitigated piece of rubbish…Engagement with Africa being very important [to] our economic and social and foreign policy interests.

Since when?

The trip is for one reason and one reason only, the ALP’s desire to have seat on the UN Security Council.

Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said yesterday the Opposition had growing concerns at the strategy Kevin Rudd was pursuing for Security Council membership.

Julie Bishop says;

“Libya and Cuba and Iran are guiding the development of the agenda, which thus far names only Israel, alone among the nations of the world, as guilty of racism,”

If Australia attends the conference, one can only assume it does so to gain votes for the coveted seat on the UN and if that turns out to be the case then how much will we have compromised our reputation.

How could we fly our flag at any conference where Libya, Cuba and Iran have a say in setting the agenda when we know the chances are, once again, Israel will be lambasted as racist and all Arabs as victims.