Albo in The Lion’s Den: The Sky Interview, Part Two
We pick up with Mr. Albanese and the trained monkey already in progress
Interview, Part Five: Albo Stumbles
Asked if his policy would involve a higher reduction target than the government (itself a nonspecific question – reduction from what year’s levels?), Mr Albanese offered the following non-answer
We will take climate change seriously
Nope – not good enough, Mr. Opposition Leader. Stick to your guns if you hope to be taken seriously. He then made the following extraordinary statement
I’m trying to be generous to them [the Morrison government]. Hopefully, they’ll wake up tomorrow and go, ‘There could be something in this climate change thing’ and take action.
Yes – and hell might freeze over too. The Tories will never take action on this issue because they are paid not to. Money talks, Mr. Albanese, and everything else walks. This is, I suspect, part of the reason people see you as weak. You speak of hope that these bought and paid for streetwalkers for corporate Australia will see the light because – what – one of them read something? The only way to get a Tory to care about an issue is for it to affect them personally! Until one of their (many) houses burns down, they will not care a fig for this issue! Play hard politics, Sir. Take their arrogant inaction on this global threat and break them with it!
Interview, Part Six: The Recovery
Asked about his support for the Adani mining project, Mr. Albanese said that it was a project by a private company and not the government. In other words, politicians’ opinions are irrelevant. An artful dodge, but in response to the trained monkey’s question about Labor losing support in Queensland for being ‘wishy-washy on supporting our [Queensland’s] coal industry’, Alabo did offer this very useful piece of insight
People in Queensland and everywhere else who are involved in the industry know that the industry…continues to provide. The questions that you had before about our target, be it our emissions reduction target or renewable energy target. If you have got a 50 per cent renewable energy target, by definition, there’s 50 per cent coming from fossil fuels. So, let’s be realistic there about what the framework is domestically and internationally. Of course, there will continue to be coal exports.
Right. This is a good retort to the strawman that climate policy seeks to eliminate coal by Thursday. The point is transition rather than immediate, radical action. The jobs that are connected to the coal industry would be phased out over time as the industry is phased out. Retraining and income support for those no longer employed in the industry would be a necessary element of the transition policy. But full credit to Mr. Albanese here: he reframed the issue, confronted the strawman and gave a truthful, punchy response.
Interview, Part Seven: International Influence
The next question concerned international influence in Australian domestic politics, with a focus on China. Albanese noted the carious difficulties that the Tories have had with gifts from Chinese representatives, specifically the infamous gold watches. He then said it was a ‘both sides of politics’ issue. Respectfully, Sir, there is a difference between Sam Dastyari and a minor incident involving paid travel (which he repaid but was forced to resign anyway because Labor exists) and Gladys Liu and the scandal around her. Degrees matter, Mr. Albanese. Attempts to influence Australian politics may impact both sides, but it is misleading (and overly generous to your opponents) to say ‘both sides do it’.
Conclusion: Labor Rebuilds
The last political question was about Labor’s rebuilding after the election loss in May of 2019, which Mr. Albanese dealt with in suitably lofty terms. It was not a bad answer, just the standard ‘we took a hard look at ourselves’ line that you hear from many parties rebuilding after an election loss. No mention of the media. No mention of the complete snowjob that they did on Bill Shorten. It was an entirely internal assessment. Sad, really.
Overall, a terrible series of loaded, misleading and horribly framed questions which the Sky website mined for soundbites to quote out of context. This propaganda outlet has no place in Australian political discourse.
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
13 comments
Login here Register here-
Aortic -
Phil -
wam -
Trish Corry -
Josephus -
Lambchop Simnel -
New England Cocky -
Keitha Granville -
Matters Not -
Jexpat -
Jexpat -
Trevor -
paul walter
Return to home pageMark Dreyfus.
Labor will win by default despite Albanese. He should be given the Spanish Archer. Elbow. Yesterday if not sooner.
Albanese is a Liberal light and it sticks out like the proverbial dogs bollox.
He done me and my friends with the ‘ I’ll defend Morrison and his holiday ‘ Laughable.
That Spiv Keating would have Morrison speaking in tongues in public. Give me strength.
albo can only deal with idiots like simple sam and karl baby by answering any questions with a question.and SETTING questions for them to ask smirko’s mob
ps
what labor needs is another lawyer? Pig’s arse.
Good Job Tim. It’s important for Labor to go on as much right wing media as possible. It’s the only media we have in QLD besides ABC. I wrote an article not long ago about Albo’s jobs and the future speech. If you get a chance, try to read Michael Pascoe’s article about how Albo has reframed the debate in his way forward. It is quite good.
Labor approved fracking and conventional fossil derived gas projects all over Queensland . On line there is a map cross crossing vast areas of Queensland and NT. So much for water conservation and purity. Towns out of water due to mines sucking it up and poisoning it so it is no use to life.
My town is competing water post fires , while a nearby mine has a huge water allocation. A miner told me how he had seen a mine arrive in town with nine pumps. The bores emptied and the town died. Post hoc enlightenment is
a bit late.
Labour is beholden to reactionary unions and is pathetic.
Josephus, I’d say fair enough except that you seem to miss the role the LNP and its backers in the destruction of the ecology of our country.
That Labor is in the state it is in really points to how much of a power imbalance operates in this country and how impotent Australians have become in tackling the iron grip of the sort of overarching grouping that Dr Jones describes.
It is really about Morlocks and Eloi.
Oh dear, it seems there are too many political animals unable or unwilling to get a proper job who are waving power in Labor when what is needed is some front-line shop floor advocacy. Think newly retired former NSW Senator Jim Cameron (Labor).
Perhaps the optimal solution is the back to the future strategy used by AP in Queensland to oust the ideologically and economically destructive Nazional$ Liarbrals of Campbell Newman. Get out on the hustings, door knocking door-to-door, telling Australian voters what Labor will do to clean up the climate change, control the banks and other foreign owned multinational corporations that profit strip with the assistance of the many present taxation concessions and why their kids will have a better life under a Labor government. Then keep the political promises after the successful election.
@Josephus: I understand your frustration. In NSW Transport Minister Michael Costa (Labor) closed the Great Northern Railway (GNR) north of Armidale, to cross-subsidise the Sydney metropolitan rail network that has very low fares and a very large workforce that favours Labor. This decision stopped passenger and freight services to towns on about 220 km of line, Guyra, Glen Innes, Deepwater, Tenterfield and Jennings/Wallangarra, the last on the Queensland border.
Now in the worst drought in living memory those towns are unable to be supplied drinking water by rail because the track is dilapidated and successive Sydney governments are unwilling to spend the about $40 MILLION to renovate the line. However, Sydney politicians are quite happy rebuilding the Randwick tram line for a mere about $3 BILLION after “interesting” financial management.
Moreover, NSW Railways runs water trains to local mines, and the Gladly-back-flip-I-can Liarbral Nazional$ misgovernment spends about $13 MILLION of taxpayer monies to build pipeline taking Armidale drinking water directly from Malpas Dam into the Guyra Tomato Farm every night to protect the profits of the about 50% foreign owned corporation presently running at about a $170 MILLION loss.
Water theft for political donations not only occurs in the MDB.
And in one fell swoop Albo completely disses all the voters that nearly put Bill into the Lodge. Thanks for nothing.
Labor lost because of lies, misinformation, cheating – all the things that the LNP do with their eyes shut.
Now we have a choice between Tweedeldum and Tweedeldee.
Give Albo a break, he’s wanting a policy suite that enables winning. Unlike Bill, who thought he’d already won (I did too) with the policies to match. No voter should be surprised because it’s now whatever it takes time. Never gonna let his chance go by. Predictable and predicted.
Labor’s dirty fingerprints are all over Siemans’ decision to do business (a paltry 18 Million Euro deal for signalling that no other company will provide).
You can see it right there in the language CEO Joe Kaeser used about the sanctity of contracts, blah, blah, blah.
Lines that could have been taken straight out Penny Wong’s rants on “sovereign risk.”
As to Sky “news”
Probably the single stupidest, shortsighted and self defeating thing Labor can to is to enable, legitimise and promote promote far right, serially dishonest media.
It’s a mistake that the US Democrats have made repeatedly- for decades, and it nearly always does harm to their electoral prospects and policy outcomes.
Labor is owned by the PISSANTS Whitlam derided
Jexpat, I weep tears of frustration .
That is what they have done for a generation now, you grind your teeth and ask them silently, “why don’t you take them on on issues involving bunkum when they occur instead of just following the LNP/ Murdoch line/ meme”. Rightist stuff is only ever self serving. Yet worse happens,when they try to outdo the conservatives on some of the junk, as people above have tried to point out.
There IS more to life than border security, efficiency dividends and surpluses, but you only get to see the consequences when some thing like the bushfires finally hits after years of neglect.
I mean, tax cuts for the wealthy, when a few million might have made the difference as to what has happened over the last couple of months?