Australian Politics (12 Viewers)

[Silver Persian]

To be fair though, Crabbe is there mostly to sneer and poke fun. Her genre is not serious political fortune telling.

 

[spiny norman]

A bit of editting in my story due to recent events. Costello certainly does still want to be king of the castle. He still manages to get more press attention than the treasurer and the shadow treasurer combined which can be interprated as a cleverly veiled way of saying "Don't forget about me, I'm still here!"

The good doctor has thrown it in, I missread that one it seems. After trying for so long to get to the top I'm surprised he gave up so easilly after having lost it. He doesn't seem the type to crave a private life but I guess like Turnbull and Costello, theres only one job in politics he really wants.

Costello plans to wait it out, he was there in the first term of Howard's government when Beazley kept hammering away on message and liberal ministers kept tripping over themselves and he is convinced that if they managed re-election then it would be folly to expect Rudd to lose it here. Instead Costello will try and churn through as many leaders as he can in Rudd's first term. If Rudd serves a full first term than Costello will support the party rooms attempt, successfully attempt I should say to replace Turnbull with Joe. If Joe contests and loses the election then Costello will look very much like the last man standing. Hockey however will probably do alot better than it ever looked like Turnbull or Nelson were going to so he'd probably stay on for a bit after losing the election which is no problem for Costello, he can continue to hang around on the backbenches, courting the favour of factional heavyweights why Joe keeps putting more and more dints in Kevin's fender.

Then lib heavyweights like Minchin start sniping at Hockey, he's too progressive, he's too genial we need someone who will take it too Kevin, he's too fat! Tony Abbott resigns from the frontbench, Chris Pyne blasts the dry libs for disloyalty and Costello smugly watches them destroy each other before entering the fight when Abbott/Hockey/Bishop/Turnbull/Minchin are all exhausted and bloody ala USA in WWI. Andrew Robb makes a bid for the deputy leadership at the same time(a valuable assett but ultimately not one who could run for the leadership in his own right) and the two enjoy something no other liberal leader has enjoyed thus far. Security.

The press go round the bend! "Game on!" writes Crabbe, "Rudd's empire built on sand" writes Switzer, "Gillard the parties only hope" writes Hartcher, "Rudd has the the political fight of a lifetime on his hands" writes Henderson. Whilst all the talk of the liberal party will be that they've finally got the cominbation right, the labor talk will be whether or not Kevin has done his dash, Senator Conroy will be leaking like a sieve, Smith will be licking Rudd's shoes in hope of annointment and Gillard will be dining with Laurrie Ferguson. I believe Rudd will be a two termer and Costello will be the one that topples him.

I love your Aus politics fan fiction.

Do you write any manga too?

 

[Lentern]

I love your Aus politics fan fiction.

Do you write any manga too?

Bolt wrote an article a while ago where he more or less said that considering his tendancy to hedge that perhaps Henderson should forego the right to then make fun of other predictions and gloat post election at the several journalists who got it wrong. Same goes for you, put up or shutup.

 

[whatashotbyseve]

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has sacked right-wing South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi from his junior shadow ministry for attacking frontbencher Christopher Pyne.

Senator Bernardi, shadow parliamentary secretary for disabilities, carers and the voluntary sector, has been thrown off the Coalition front bench for releasing a newsletter in which he claimed an unnamed colleague once told him he would have happily become a Labor MP but chose the Liberal Party because of where he lived.

That colleague has since been identified as Mr Pyne, a moderate whom Senator Bernardi despises.

Mr Pyne flatly rejected Senator Bernardi's assertions. Senator Bernardi has refused to retract his claim so Mr Turnbull has sacked him.

An announcement is imminent.

Just what Turnbull needs. Most people dislike Pyne, but clocking him isn't exactly the answer.

 

[withoutaface]

Back in his university days Pyne was a free education advocate.

 

[Iron]

Lol. I'm loving the shoe on the other foot, but it makes you realise how futile most of politics is

Labor is finished! The talent is dried up! It will never recover! Why even have a federal opposition when all states are Labor!?

 

[withoutaface]

Also RE: Annabel Crabb, she's terrible, even as a satirist.

 

[Lentern]

Just what Turnbull needs. Most people dislike Pyne, but clocking him isn't exactly the answer.

Pyne is a bit like Costello, famous but unknown. I suspect if he can become better known than for his voice and child like appearance he might be a reasonable assett in a Costello leadership.

 

[Lentern]

Oh dear old Swanny. He started out well, holding his own against an inform Hockey but as it wore on he's just dying slowly. Losing the conviction he managed to feign earlier in the show, his jokes were confident, now they are pleading and after he uses the same calls four or five times it becomes clear he's out of his depth. "Tell everyone here" "Just admit it" "Substantial amount" "ease the squeeze" More suited to a ten minute debate methinks but Joe will clearly serve Malcolm well. Right up until he knifes him.

 

[Iron]

Substantial amount"" was v lol
It's an excellent program. Hats off to TJ

 

[Lentern]

Substantial amount"" was v lol
It's an excellent program. Hats off to TJ

Just a small claim to fame, a few months ago I saw a political animation sketch on youtube which was really good. I looked at what else he made and he was really a talent.

I sent him a message asking if he knew about Qanda, suggesting he enter one of his works in the Mashup thing because in my opinion they were much better than most of what I'd seen on thus far.

He said he had not heard of Qanda but would look into it and would be really happy if he was able to get one of his animations broadcast on the ABC. I'm fairly sure tonights was made by this bloke.

 

[Iron]

lol cool
tbh that segment is always the let-down of the show. They should scrap it.

 

[Lentern]

lol cool
tbh that segment is always the let-down of the show. They should scrap it.

Yeah...I liked the montages of politicians supporting the program at the begining. Tony Abbott's finest moment "Don't be bashful now."

 

[flaganarchy]

Greens policy sounded childish.

 

[Iron]

Yeah...I liked the montages of politicians supporting the program at the begining. Tony Abbott's finest moment "Don't be bashful now."

Lol that was great. I liked Bishops "Uh, it's YOUR choice" /randomly points to the left

 

[Lentern]

Lol that was great. I liked Bishops "Uh, it's YOUR choice" /randomly points to the left

Wilson Tuckey I remember said it so emphatically and proudly, looked like such a goose. Greg Hunt doing his walking out of an elevator and saying it to the camera as he walked past. Kate Ellis with the newspaper.

 

[Iron]

Conroy found it very, VERY funny

 

[Lentern]

YouTube - Q&A Pollies

Ahh sweet nostaglia. Swanny "oh sorry you wanted me to use the same word." But Abbott reigns supreme, "this is what you've been waiting for"

 

[whatashotbyseve]

John Howard speech last night - SMH

The legacy of the former Liberal government is one that we should all want to own. Australia was a stronger, prouder and more prosperous nation in November 2007 than it had been in March 1996. Yet attempts have been made to discount the contributions of competitive capitalism and more open markets to the remarkable economic growth, in many nations, during these past 30 years.

Too right. Kevin Rudd is hell bent on removing any Liberal legacy, David Irving style.

In 1980 our nation needed five great reforms. We needed to deregulate our financial system, fundamentally change our taxation system, make our labour markets freer, reduce excessively high tariffs and rid the government of ownership of commercial enterprises that would be better run privately. By 2007 these five great reforms had been achieved.

Controversial, but tough and fair. Howard had the Port Arthur gun control debate, the Waterfront dispute and the GST to sell by the end of his first term. What major policy moves will the Rudd governments first term be remembered for? A hollow apology to Aborigines? The two economic stimulus packages that cost a fortune but had no discernible impact?

If, as appears certain, the Rudd Government proceeds with its plans to dismantle the industrial relations reforms of the Howard government, it will be the first time in a quarter of a century that an Australian prime minister had rolled back a major economic reform.

We will never really know how 'bad' Workchoices would have been. The unions and Labor ran a great bloodbath campaign though.

One of the greatest compliments paid to the former government was the campaign approach in 2007 by the now Prime Minister. With the exception of his stance on climate change and industrial relations, he sought at every turn to diminish the differences between himself and the Coalition.

Rudd is pretty much the chameleon PM - he adapts his policies to suit his political position.

However, it is not plausible for the Rudd Government to argue on the one hand that Australia has entered the financial crisis in better shape than just about any other nation, and yet declare my government guilty of the extreme neo-liberalism which has allegedly brought about the crisis. The strength of the Australian banking system is a direct result of a sensible balance between market forces and prudential regulation adopted by my government not long after it came to office.

It is false to claim that our side of politics has pursued a policy of total deregulation and the unrestrained operation of market forces. In government our policy was to give preference to the operation of market forces. That did not mean that there was no supervision or no insistence on standards.

Likewise, it is wrong to argue that the Coalition, in government, pursued total deregulation of the labour market. We wanted a freer labour market and we delivered it, with manifest benefits in much lower unemployment. A total deregulation of the labour market would have involved no fixed hours of work, no minimum standards, no minimum wage and the complete absence of other protections.

Could the Howard govt have done more with the effective economic mandate they received? They had unprecedented economic fortune, after all.

The construct of Rudd's essay in The Monthly is clear. The wicked neo-liberal governments of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and John Howard pursued policies of total deregulation that let the market rip, yet the more benign social democratic administrations such as the Hawke government, the British Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and the American Democrats under Bill Clinton followed a different path and got the balance right. It now falls, according to Rudd, to the social democrats to unite to save capitalism.

Yet three of the most prominent features of Thatcher's economic program - industrial relations reform, a deference to monetarism as an economic doctrine, and privatisation of government assets - were embraced by the Blair government, with Brown as chancellor of the exchequer.

Howard goes for the jugular. The Monthly article could come back to bite Rudd.

The inevitable realities of government will soon confront Rudd and his colleagues. The Labor Party's majority in the Federal Parliament now is roughly similar to that of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972. Rudd does not have the buffer of seats of the type enjoyed by Malcolm Fraser in 1975, my newly elected government in 1996 or indeed the Hawke government in 1983. The task for Malcolm Turnbull and his colleagues, although immense, is not unattainable.

Immense but not unattainable sums it up. Leadership tension needs to be sorted out though.

 

[Lentern]

I seem to recall some time during Howard's premiership Keating went on a spiel basically saying if he John reall thought he was a better economic manager than would he pleace fix the dollar, ban all foreign banks etc, see how much growth Australia gets without his reforms. Howard's response was Keating had his go in governmen, he lost, now it was Howard's and that Keating be quiet and that it was sad he couldn't get on with life.

Do as I say...