ASTOUNDING comments from Amanda Vanstone ridiculing federal airline security measures and questioning increased spending on national security warranted an apology and the Immigration Minister’s resignation, Labor frontbenchers said last night.

I have literally made similar observations to Amanda Vanstone except I use a ball point as an example. A ball point pen can be a weapon in the hands of anyone capable of stabbing another human and this fact simply demonstrates how hard total security is.

Amand’s comments are relevant but should be made outside of the public arena lest politicians and journalists devoted to the destabilisation of the Howard government get to sing and dance about every utterance she makes.

Still, it gives ammo for Matt Price and Glen Milne to bolster their attack on Howard and I now wonder how Milne will include the event in his monthly Howard threatened by Costello article.

On a positive note Amanda has managed to get IR off the front page all by herself.

Well done!

According to this report, nation-wide, approximately 130,000 people have answered the ACTU call for workers to march in protest of the IR bill. The Union movement will say the figure is much larger of course so let’s give them the benefit of doubt and call it 200,000.

That’s about 1% of the population. If you subtract the rentacrowd dreadlocked adorned and body pierced anti-everything crowd the percentage would be even less. 1%…5%…doesn’t matter. It will still look good on TV tonight.

Transport workers in Sydney blockaded the M4 motorway. Good call guys. You now have the whole peak-hour population pissed off. I don’t know how many use the M4 to get to work but reckon the figure might match the people peeing in the wind at Martin Place.

We now undergo the application of the Law of Exagerated Attendance whereby the ACTU, ALP and ABC/SBS exagerate the number of people running in the streets protesting about Howard’s IR laws.

Rports from Melbourne….

…..In wet and windy weather conditions, estimates around 9am suggested crowd numbers had reached at least 60,000.

….Unions had predicted that 100,000 would attend.

….Sky News later broadcast aerial shots showing packed Melbourne city streets, estimating 175,000 had taken part.

Lets see what the figures are come news time tonight given ABC/SBS journo’s have 5 or 6 hours to work on it.

Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett justified the stopwork during the sensitive VCE period by saying: “This (the industrial relations legislation) is not the legacy we want to leave our children.”

More than 50 government schools, 40 non-government schools and up to 50 kindergartens are expected to close across the state when up to 20,000 teachers join the rally, which begins at Federation Square at 9am. Working parents who cannot obtain or afford child care are expected to take carer’s leave.

It’s bad enough that the kids of 50 schools are denied education during the sensitive VCE period but surely there is something wrong with unions expecting parents to take carers leave to cover for them.

Of course none of this really matters. The IR changes will come into place, things will improve in the market place and the country will get on with life knowing that the Howard government has taken another positive step.

Despite all the spin the sky wont fall in.

UPDATE: The ABC have raised the bar to 200,000

The ABC also report three Maritime Union members in McKay have been sacked despite Adsteam Maritime Corporate Communications Manager Paula Wilson stating clearly they had not been sacked. They will undergo disciplinary action and being sacked is one option but no, they haven’t been sacked. It was amusing to hear the journalist almost plead with Paula to say they were sacked It was as if the journo had been told by her Editor to go find a ‘sacked because they attended a rally’ story and it wasn’t panning out that way.

Great stuff on an otherwise no news day.

Update II: ABC news, the ALP/ACTUTV has the figures at 540,000 nation wide and 250,000 in Melbourne. Wow. I’m impressed