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Tag Archives: election

Sick of hearing about those bloody boat people – Scott Morrison has the answer!

boat

“Australians may never know how many asylum-seeker boats arrive under a Coalition government, with opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison refusing to release details about boat arrivals without the approval of a three-star general.

The Coalition has previously said it would appoint a three-star military officer to command a joint taskforce, which will include some 12 government agencies.” The Age

Some Balance for those complaining that this site doesn’t present the “Right” perspective.

Well, that’s one way of eliminating the problem of “illegal arrivals” – note we kept get into trouble for calling them “illegal immigrants” so we don’t do THAT anymore – we won’t let you know how many there are. That way, you won’t be troubled by them apart from when they cause traffic jams and make hospital waiting times longer because they keep jumping the queue.

From our pamphlet

“We will deliver stronger borders – where the boats are stopped – with tough, proven measures.”

So you see we don’t need to give you actual numbers. We said that this election was about TRUST. And if you vote us in, you can trust us. If you don’t vote us in, we can’t trust you. It’s a contract.

Speaking of contracts, there’s been a scare campaign from Labor saying that we’d re-introduce WorkChoices. Abbott said on a number of occasions that WorkChoices is dead and buried. He doesn’t believe in resurrections, apart from when he’s talking about his Christian beliefs and no-one ever suggested that WorkChoices was Christian. So you won’t hear us mention the name WorkChoices ever again.

Although there is a need for greater productivity in Australia. One of our first acts in Government will be to come up with a name for something that increases productivity which doesn’t sound like WorkChoices or Fightback. Perhaps, we’ll have a competition. We like competition.

Labor’s been using a lot of scare campaigns in this election – things like pointing out that Hockey will be Treasurer or that some of our policies will take money from people. We may cut the Schoolkids Bonus, but ultimately you’ll be better off when your kids quit school to work in the mines. And think of the money they’ll save without a HECS debt!

Our policies are consistent and costed. We have the back of the envelope in Joe’s top pocket for anyone who wants to see it. Our NBN and education policy are pretty much the same – if that’s all Grandpa needed when he was growing up, that’s all we need today.

So make sure you vote for us so that you don’t have to hear about boat arrivals and incompetent government. There won’t be a word of criticism about us in any paper. And everything we farm out to the private sector will be commercial in confidence, while Government departments will all be subject to the official secrets act.

And we’ll stop Labor’s waste. I’m sure that you must have received our advertising material. We sent it to every voter at least four times.

Trust Tony. It’s your choice. For now.

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Careless whispers nothing to dance about

whispers

In my years of being old enough to know what an election campaign is, I cannot recall one so inundated with media tales of what unnamed persons have to say.

The number of stories quoting unnamed Party sources, primarily on Labor’s side of the political coin has been nothing short of staggering – nameless “ministers”, “senior party officials”, “party heavyweights”, “senior sources”, “powerbrokers”, “spokespersons” and the rest of that particular journalistic nomenclature.

It’s been incredible. For my part, I’ve been deeply cynical and skeptical about it. It was much easier to believe that a biased media was just making stuff up. Mind you, in truth, there’s no way to show they are.

Then came the Gillard leadership spill of June 2013, about which there had been whispers aplenty.

On top of that, we’ve come to learn that Kevin Rudd has a weaker bladder than Julian Assange. The journalists were seemingly vindicated.

But that leaves me, as a Labor supporter, with a terrible reality to face: Labor personnel are actively undermining their own party. It beggars belief but it seems to be the only alternative to media mendacity.

Has the relationship between Labor and journalists become too cozy, too personal, too endowed with self-interest and ambition to be tolerable? Or is Labor just politically inept?

Of course, the relationship between politicians and the media is a complex and important one, but I can’t help but think it’s become something corrosive to our political culture and especially dangerous to Labor.

Generally speaking, journalists are supposed to report the news, not be part of it.

Brisbane’s Courier Mail ran a story today posing the question of whether it would have been better for Labor to have gone into the election campaign with Julia Gillard.

Now, the story is pure, tabloid schlock, and goes so far as to use a manipulative photo taken from the funeral of Joan Child (Australia’s first female Federal Speaker), presumably just so they could slip in the Slipper.

It’s not the first time that the Courier Mail, or News Limited generally, have disrespected this sombre occasion in their opinion pieces. But the interesting and pertinent thing about the story is that it contains multiple quotes from unnamed Ministers and “powerbrokers”.

Just two months since the Labor Party dramatically switched its leader, some senior members of the Government are now complaining that Ms Gillard would have performed better than Mr Rudd.

The minister said Ms Gillard would have slowly improved Labor’s vote, while under Mr Rudd it soared and then plummeted.

“One of the questions that will be asked is would Gillard have met Rudd on the way down? In the end, we’ll never know,” the source said.

“She made mistakes, no doubt, and she made mistakes under pressure. But she was much cooler under pressure and she coped with a greater intensity.”

If based on recent history, we’re forced to accept that these quotes are real, one has to wonder out loud: what the hell is going on?

Why would senior Party figures be speaking to members of the Murdoch press in such a fashion at a time when Labor is busily pushing the idea that News Limited is out to get them?

Why would they be saying things to journalists that they know will result in damaging “news” stories? Are they mad? I simply cannot fathom it.

I invite readers to offer their speculations and theories. Heaven knows I could use a theory that doesn’t have me catching flies, mouth agape.

 

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Joe Hockey Manages to Smear Himself

The Courier Mail today ran a story revealing that would-be Treasurer Joe Hockey failed to declare a family interest for most of the duration of his Parliamentary life.

Mr Hockey declared the directorship of Steel Harbour Pty Ltd held by his wife, Melissa Babbage, in May last year among a series of “new positions” under spouse declaration rules. But business records show Ms Babbage was appointed to the role in 1998. Pecuniary interest register declarations are supposed to be made within a month.

What was even more interesting than the seeming disregard for public accountability, was Mr Hockey’s response to the story …

“As I become aware of my wife’s commercial interests I declare them, as is appropriate,” Mr Hockey said.

No, Sir, that’s not good enough. Setting aside the question of what it implies about a relationship that one can go over a decade without knowing about one’s spouses’ Directorships, the rules pertaining to the register of pecuniary interests are such that you have an obligation to ask your wife about them. But what’s most extraordinary about Mr Hockey’s response was his utter petulance, nay arrogance in declaring the revelation to be a Labor “smear campaign”.

Mr Hockey said: “The Labor Party has previously engaged in this type of muckraking and then been forced to correct such unsubstantiated assertions. It is a desperate action from a desperate government.”

No go, Joe. I mean, what “smear”? There’s no indication from you the story is incorrect. There’s no concession from you – at least none reported that I can find – that you erred significantly. No apology. No “oops”. Just a pathetic attempt to pass the buck to those who are simply pointing out that you have failed in an important area of public accountability. Is it too much to ask that you acknowledge the failure and offer at least a smidgen of contrition? It’s not the Labor Party asking this of you, Joe, it’s the Australian public (or at least those that think such things matter).

Earlier this year when Liberal heavyweight Arthur Sinodinos was forced to apologise to the Senate for failing to declare a bunch of Directorships, he at least showed some character. Can you, Mr Hockey, match that? Do you share a similar level of concern and regard for the principle of transparency in Government? It would appear not.

Even if were to come to light that you had expressed some sort of penitence it wouldn’t matter, as trying to make the issue about Labor and “smear campaigns” is a pathetic and cowardly way to attempt to abrogate your personal responsibilities. And you want us to support you as a future Federal Treasurer?

What’s also somewhat tangentially interesting about the Courier Mail’s story, is that despite the fact they were revealing a not insignificant failure on Joe Hockey’s part, they nevertheless saw fit to litter the story with photos clearly intended to show him in a positive way. Happy snaps of him and his wife, culminating in a fantastically irrelevant-to-the-story family shot of the couple and their children.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer my news services, when reporting actual news, to not attempt to emotionally manipulate me, and how else is such a thing to be interpreted?

 

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People told me to read between the lines, but I didn’t see anything written there!

people

“Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says a Coalition policy to pay long-term unemployed young people who find a job up to $15,500 is “a sensible investment”.

 

Mr Abbott has released a policy, similar to one he took to the 2010 election, to pay a bonus to those under 30 years old who have been on unemployment benefits for more than a year and then find work.

 

If the employee stays in a job for 12 months, they would receive an initial $2,000 bonus; if they stay in the job for two years, a Coalition government would pay them another $4,500″ (The ABC).

As someone who taught Drama, I often find it necessary to teach kids about subtext. What’s implicit, but not actually said. “But if it’s not actually said, how do you know it’s there?”

Some want to know but that’s not always easy to answer without providing an example.

Fortunately, Tony Abbott is giving us heaps of examples over the past few weeks. His policy on the unemployed reeks of subtext.

“We’ll pay you lazy bastards a bonus if you get off your spotty backsides, find a job and keep it for twelve months,” says the subtext, “because we know that you’re just not trying.”

And, of course, when in spite of this generous incentive, some people still haven’t found work, it’ll be because they just aren’t trying. After all, didn’t we offer them a bonus. And, like performance pay for teachers, that should be all that’s needed.

Someone did suggest that it might be more effective to pay the bonus to employers to encourage them to actually take on workers, but there’s a problem with that – it might actually work! This is far better.

Of course, one could also ask where the money’s coming from, but that just seems petty. And it’s Labor that’s sent the country broke, we’re the ones committing to a surplus, but not for ten years. So what if the budget doesn’t balance in our first term.

Besides, we haven’t made many “promises”, we’ve stated our “aspirations”, we’ve only said we “intend”, we only say whatever the situation it’d be worse under Labor, we have “plans” and we support motherhood – look at our Parental Leave Scheme. And anyway, most of it we didn’t write down, and we told you that it’s only the written stuff that counts.

What have we written down? It’s all in our booklet. For example, we have a whole page on Health, including a whole paragraph on Mental Health, where we say we will work with people to make it better.

Ah, yes, subtext is a wonderful thing!

 

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A Parable

Once upon a time in a country where most people lived on subsistence farms, there was a village where everyone lived on a subsistence farm. Let’s call this village “Present”.

One day, one of the villagers said that a traveler had told him that if they took some of the trinkets that the mothers made to The Capital, they could exchange them for better seeds. At first, the villagers were sceptical but eventually, the Chief said that he gave his approval. and so this villager – let’s call him “George” – was given permission to take a handful of trinkets to The Capital and exchange them.

Sure enough, the seeds he came back with were better, so every year he went to The Capital and every year he came back with interesting things.

Then, one day, he came back and said that a “machine” was coming. This “machine” could be used by the whole village and it would mean that the women needed to spend less time in the fields so that they’d have more time to make the trinkets which sold so well in The Capital.

People were impressed, but The Chief said this was challenging “the order of things”, and one must never do that. George suggested that they put it to a vote – a radical concept – but only after the “machine” gave a demonstration of what it could do.

Once people saw what the “machine” could do, they liked it. They had time to make more trinkets. Their yields were better than ever, and they had so much food they started to trade their excess food with other villages for more trinkets which they sold in The Capital.

This worked well for several years until, one day, The Chief walked into the village.

“I have some terrible news,” said The Chief. The villagers gathered around. “To have this machine we have gone into DEBT!” The villagers were confused they didn’t understand debt. “This means,” continued The Chief, “that many of your trinkets go toward paying off a thing called interest, and that it will take a long time before we pay off this machine. I demand a new vote.”

“Some of what you say is true,” spoke up George, “but haven’t things been better since we got this machine? Don’t we have more food? Are we not creating more things to sell in The Capital? Don’t people have more time? Are we not spending more time helping our children to learn skills that other villages don’t have?”

“We are in debt!” yelled The Chief. “It is bad magic. We must sell this machine and get out of debt. And you all must work longer hours. There will be no more trips to The Capital.”

“No-one even knew we were in debt until you told them,” argued George. “And we’ve been able to pay it off without a problem. Future generations will be better off because we produce more, because of what we’re doing now. A small debt doesn’t matter.”

“I demand a fresh election,” said The Chief. “I went to The Capital and there was a man named Rupert Murdoch who said that you should all get rid of this machine and put me in charge.”

“All right, let’s vote,” said George.

So the people voted. But because they were ignorant villagers, they all said why should we listen a man who is not from here – this “Rupert Murdoch” – tell us how bad things are. We are better off than we have ever been. We seem to be able to manage this debt. We wouldn’t have even known if it wasn’t for The Chief. And he’s just bitter because he lost the election.

Thank God that here in Australia we’re not ignorant, and understand that it’s good that Rupert Murdoch should be able to tell us who to vote for.

 

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Abbott v Rudd in the Education Debate

TONY ABBOTT: Leigh, I think the education debate, the school education debate shouldn’t be about funding, it should be about quality, and that’s what we’re on about. We’re on about higher-quality schools. We want to see better teachers, we want to see better teaching, we want to see more parental engagement, more community engagement.

7-30, August 15th 2013

Perhaps, it’s just that I’ve grown too cynical, but whenever politicians make statements like that I interpret them as code for, “We can cut education and it won’t make any difference, because it’s the teacher that makes all the difference.”

And yes, there’s no denying that a great teacher is better than an average teacher, and that an average teacher is better than a bad one. It’s just that frequently the person making the statement seems to then conclude that resources make no difference whatsoever, while arguing that any cuts to private schools would be devastating. While some people have the idea that technology is just for surfing the net or babysitting kids, the reality is that the best education isn’t some teacher holding students spellbound with sheer charisma, while he or she fills their empty heads with everything they’ll ever need to know. Students DO need access to technology at least some of the time. But more than that, they need rooms that don’t leak, heaters that work and spaces that suit the particular learning activity.

Of course, one never hears the same argument when talking about areas like Health or Defence. “It’s the quality of the doctor that counts, I don’t see why the hospital needs all these expensive machines. When I was born, the doctor managed with just a set of forceps and a stethoscope, so why can’t modern doctors do the same?”

And we’ll certainly never hear that it’s the quality of the soldier that counts, so why spend money upgrading the equipment or the weapons? David managed with just a slingshot and he was fighting Goliath.

But that’s what happens in education. Teachers are frequently asked to manage with just a slingshot. Goliath, by the way, was a Philistine. Of course, when it comes to education, he’s not the only one.

 

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Rope A Dope – Is Rudd Ali to Abbott’s Foreman?

Briefly, a recap on history. Muhammad Ali was almost invincible, but he was stripped of his medal for his refusal to be conscripted into the army. He fought the decision in the courts, and – after four years – was allowed to return to the ring. The time out of the ring meant that he was past his peak, and after losing to Frazier, he eventually defeated George Foreman, regaining his heavyweight title. I won’t go through all the fights, but I want to briefly mention the “Rope-A-Dope”.

Ali taunted Foreman in the lead-up, and Foreman fought the first few rounds as though he wanted to hurt Ali. Boxing, I know, is like politics – you are meant to hurt your opponent – but this seemed personal. And for much of the fight, Ali looked beaten. He wasn’t laying a glove on his opponent and he was absorbing punches to his body, but protecting his head and face, which is the scoring area. I can’t remember if it was Round 7 or later, but Ali danced out and started to fight back. Foreman was exhausted from all the body punches. It took a few simple blows, but Foreman went down. Ali had won.

I can’t help but think about this fight in the context of the current political situation. Rudd has been resting; Abbott has been trying to knock out his opponent, but he hasn’t succeeded. Abbott may have appeared to be great while on the attack, but does he have a defence against a fresh opponent?

Yes, there are things that trouble me about Rudd – I do think that he is a “whatever it takes” sort of man – such men are dangerous. But in terms of just looking at the “match”, I feel that he is dancing round the ring while Abbott asks the referee to make him stand still. Rudd’s latest asylum seeker move is designed to appeal to a particular part of the electorate – which it will. It will, of course, annoy another part. But I suspect most of us who aren’t sure that PNG is the answer will feel that it’s Abbott who’s mainly responsible for the politicisation of the issue. Abbott’s response: It’s a good idea, but it won’t work because we’re not the ones doing it! … Strangely, I don’t see that as a vote-winner whatever you think of the issue. If you think that boats are a bigger threat to Australia than almost anything you can name, well, you probably already vote for Abbott. If you don’t, and feel that this is obscene, then Abbott hasn’t won your vote back from the Labor Party, and when allocating preferences you’ll hardly preference a Cory Bernardi type ahead of a Doug Cameron.

” Ali’s theme this fight was to hang a nickname on Frazier as he had done to many of his opponents throughout the years. The name he chose was “The Gorilla”, and he rhymed out the singsong chant “It will be a Killa and a Thrilla and a Chilla when I get The Gorilla in Manila.” while punching an action-figure sized gorilla doll. “

“Debate me,” taunts Kevin, “you’re the boxer.” Abbott insists that he won’t get in the ring with Kevin until an election is called. Perhaps, he’s worried. Or maybe he’s just saving his energy for the next round.

Will the election be called on Monday? Or is this part of the Rope-a-Dope? “Let’s keep Abbott punching to the body, wearing himself out, but doing no real damage.”

Whatever – Abbott looks tired and devoid of strategy. Rudd looks ready for the main bout!

 

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Why I always sing along to David Crosby’s “Almost Cut My Hair”

A few weeks ago someone on the Internet accused me of engaging in the “politics of envy” and class warfare, and I began to wonder what would have happened if it’d been prepared to get a haircut. The second time.

It amuses me that I’m considered left wing by anyone. And it certainly amuses any genuine left wingers. I’m in my fifties, living in one of the most conservative, middle class areas in Melbourne. I own property, and, because most of my money is in Super, I really hope the share market does well. As for my resentment of private school funding coming from some sort of envy, well, I should point out that I did go to a private school – one of the more expensive ones. They made me cut my hair. Very short. I didn’t rebel. I was pleased that I was being given the opportunity. After all, back then, you had very little chance of succeeding at Year 12 unless you went to a private school. I wasn’t on a scholarship; my parents made sacrifices. My brothers were all older and had left school at the minimum age, but I was “academic” so I had a chance to go to University. So when the principal said he’d take me – on the condition that I cut my hair – I didn’t fight.

Of course, it was a bit of a culture shock. At my high school, we had one turf wicket on the oval. We juniors played on a concrete one just beside it; the turf was for “special” matches. At my new school, the practice wickets were turf. My old high school had just purchased a machine that could record television; my new school had three. Anything that was relevant was recorded and shown to students. Politicians spoke to us at assemblies.

Politics of envy? In the end, I felt that far too many of the people at the private school were living some sort of deprived existence. “I could never go out with someone who didn’t go to a private school,” someone once said to me, “They wouldn’t understand so much.” I smiled, of course, and went on drinking tea.

“X will be retiring soon, and I think you’d make a good politician,” said a close relative when I was in my thirties, “but you’d have to cut your hair.” I smiled. “Why on earth would the National Party endorse me?” I asked, only to be told that my relative was on the selection committee and that there was no obvious candidate. “I’ve already cut my hair once,” I said.

A few weeks later, my relative told me that a family friend had been asked. And endorsed. So, I’d missed my chance.

The next week I cut my hair. It was covering my eyes – that seemed like a good reason to do it.

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Accurate predictions for election result, Melbourne Cup and the stock market

More than 90% of everything is predictable; most predictions are wrong.

How do I reconcile those two things. Well, quite simply, people don’t bother to make predictions about the predictable things, and if they do, the prediction won’t get much oxygen. If I predict that Monday will be followed by Tuesday, then no-one’s really going to be interested. Nor, when I tell people that this years Melbourne Cup will be run on the first Tuesday in November and won be a jockey riding a horse, is anyone likely to contact me for my amazing prognostications.

To raise interest, predictions have to be outrageous and unexpected, which is why they’re so often wrong. If I predict that Turnbull will challenge Abbott for the leadership, then people will want to know when and what basis I have for my belief. Unless, of course, I say something like next Thursday week at 3pm. And happen to be right.

Philip Tetlock did a study on expert prediction, and, apart from finding that they were little better than a monkey with a dartboard, he concluded that he could divide them into “foxes” and “hedgehogs”. The “hedgehogs” were good at one thing, and they knew they were right. Their predictions tended to be specific and clear. (“The GFC is far from over – the market will crash again in 2011, 2012 at the latest.”) The “foxes” were able to consider a number of things and couched their predictions in generalities and qualifiers. They could take into account a number of possible scenarios, using “if/then” phrases.

An example of a “hedgehog” would be someone like Andrew Bolt or Tim Flannery. (Some of Flannery’s statements are far too specific and don’t help in the attempt to educate the general public on the difference between weather and climate.) I can’t think of a good example of a “fox” because generally they don’t get much air time. They don’t make for good headlines, so who wants to talk to them? Might as well talk to me about my prediction for the Melbourne Cup. (“Don’t forget I told you that it would be on a Tuesday and won by a horse.”)

The only trouble is that the “foxes” are the ones who actually frame the discussion in terms of intelligent questions. And they have more success in their actual predictions than the “hedgehogs”. The interesting thing is that success doesn’t seem to matter. People who get things wrong over and over again are still asked for their thoughts in the media.

How is this possible? Well, it’s easy to explain away why you were wrong. You can say that your timing was out, but that what you predict will still happen. (“I know I said 2012 for the stock market crash, but because of the way Obama has propped up the economy, he’s delayed the inevitable.”) Or you can cling to the part of your prediction that was correct. (“I know that I said that the Cup would be won by an imported horse, well, the winner’s sire was imported, so I was on the right track.”)

So, I’m tempted to go out on a limb here and to be a “hedgehog” and say that Labor has this election in the bag now. Rudd’s return will throw Abbott out of stride, and the pressure will get to him, leading to some Liberals speculating privately about whether it’s too late to go back to Turnbull. Of course, I don’t actually believe that, but it’d sound more impressive than what I actually think will happen. I think Abbott may well be rattled. He’s been cruising to a victory, but the latest polls make it close. And, just like a sporting team that’s given up a large lead, they often try to hang on, change their strategy and end up choking, there’s a genuine possibility that Abbott will repeat his: “Of course, I read the report” fiasco.

But I’m more circumspect than that. I’m going to predict – with certainity – that what happens now is uncertain. There are so many variables going into the election that only a “hedgehog” would try to call it. Rudd has taken the wind out of the sails of the simplistic “Juliar” campaigners. No-one will accuse him of lying, in spite of his promise not to challenge. But he does come with his own baggage. And if you go on any social media, you’ll be able to find disaffected Gillard supporters who swear that they won’t vote Labor now. What happens when it becomes a choice between Rudd and Abbott, or when they actually consider voting for the Opposition candidate in their electorate is anyone’s guess. If the Liberals actually start trying to articulate their policies, will it turn voters off? If they try to attack Rudd, in the same way they attacked Gillard, will it just make them look negative? Will Katter’s party affect how the Liberals go in Queensland? Will Palmer have any effect? Could it be another hung Parliament with Abbott having to negotiate with Katter?

Like I said, only a “hedgehog” would be definite about the coming months.

As for the Melbourne Cup, that’s easy – take Bart’s horse and the French one with your grandmother’s tip for the trifecta!

 

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An invitation to Tony Abbott

Three months out from the federal election Tony Abbott must be very frustrated. He has only three months to tell us what he will do as Prime Minister but the mainstream media (MSM) cruelly refuse to hand him the microphone. He must be wondering why they’re not interested in asking him those little things about policies, plans, visions. I’m sure he has many. I’m sure he wants to tell us what they are.

If the MSM refuse to show him some courtesy then he has one alternative: the independent media. We would love to accommodate him. We’d love to ask him those questions that the MSM so rudely ignore.

Tony, we’re here to your rescue. Among the social and independent media your policies, plans and visions will reach an audience of hundreds of thousands of news hungry readers. At least those readers will be privileged to hear first hand what to expect from Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

So we invite you to speak to us.

I know that political parties keep a very sharp eye on political blog sites so I know that someone in the Coalition will be alerted to this post. Could that person please inform Tony Abbott that we want to speak to him? He could always get in touch with us here at The AIMN and following on from that we can arrange an interview with the independent media groups. It will provide Tony with the best opportunity to proudly announce what he has, to date, been robbed from doing: answering questions.

We, and only we, are interested in revealing Prime Minister Abbott to the electorate prior to the election. And I’m sure that Tony Abbott is desperate for the electorate to know more about him. How can he hope to promote himself through a lazy, uninterested, incompetent mainstream media?

By talking to our keen ears we can hear of – and propagate – the election-winning policies that are currently being stifled by the media. At last he’ll find an audience to hear him out.

Hence, Mr Abbott, we offer this invitation to you to come and talk to us.

Allay the fears of many undecided voters who have not had the opportunity to learn what you stand for, especially given there is a possibility that you might control both houses of Parliament. Some people are petrified at this prospect and the devastation you might create because of your inane personality, your reliance on Catholicism and the simplistic minds of your shadow cabinet. You can dispel those fears, which is something the MSM have not given you the opportunity to do.

Your vision is worthless without public support and yes, we are here to support you.

But let’s cut to the chase. Talk to us, on more than anything, about the Institute of Public Affairs; that free market right wing think tank that is funded by some of Australia’s major companies and closely aligned to the Liberal Party. There are rumours in the electorate that every one of your policies, plans or visions has been generated from the influence this think tank has over your party. And while the MSM are not interested to discuss this issue with you, we are.

In an article by the IPA titled Be like Gough: 75 radical ideas to transform Australia the authors suggest that:

“If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he’d probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don’t believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigour when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.”

It is the essence of that last sentence that particularly grates people and the following list gives people the wrong impression of the havoc you might cause. Here’s your chance to undo it. A chance denied by the MSM.

1. Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.
2. Abolish the Department of Climate Change
3. Abolish the Clean Energy Fund
4. Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
5. Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council
6. Repeal the renewable energy target
7. Return income taxing powers to the states
8. Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission
9. Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
10. Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
11. Introduce fee competition to Australian universities
12. Repeal the National Curriculum
13. Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums
14. Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
15. Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’
16. Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law
17. End local content requirements for Australian television stations
18. Eliminate family tax benefits
19. Abandon the paid parental leave scheme
20. Means-test Medicare
21. End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
22. Introduce voluntary voting
23. End mandatory disclosures on political donations
24. End media blackout in final days of election campaigns
25. End public funding to political parties
26. Remove anti-dumping laws
27. Eliminate media ownership restrictions
28. Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board
29. Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
30. Cease subsidising the car industry
31. Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
32. Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books
34. End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws
35. Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP
36. Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit
37. Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database
38. Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food
39. Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities
40. Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools
41. Repeal the alcopops tax
42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:

a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43. Repeal the mining tax
44. Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states
45. Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold
46. Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent
47. Cease funding the Australia Network
48. Privatise Australia Post
49. Privatise Medibank
50. Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
51. Privatise SBS
52. Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784
53. Repeal the Fair Work Act
54. Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
55. Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
56. Abolish the Baby Bonus
57. Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant
58. Allow the Northern Territory to become a state
59. Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
60. Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
61. Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States
62. End all public subsidies to sport and the arts
63. Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport
64. End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering
65. Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification
66. Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship
67. Means test tertiary student loans
68. Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement
69. Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built
70. End all government funded Nanny State advertising
71. Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling
72. Privatise the CSIRO
73. Defund Harmony Day
74. Close the Office for Youth
75. Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

Of course, some of those have very little bearing on the electorate. But some have a massive impact. You have been denied the opportunity to discuss these issues with the MSM while we in the independent media have been screaming for you to have a say. So come along and meet with us. Let us be the microphone that blasts your message across Australia. I doubt you’ll never get another chance.

We’d love to chat with you about the above, plus much more. You might even take this as an opportunity to re-affirm that WorkChoices is dead in the water. Put our minds at ease. You can only do this through bypassing the MSM.

My thanks go to John Lord whose article “Public apathy and 75 ideas to make you shudder” inspired this invitation to Tony Abbott.

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Predicting the future is hard, but predicting the past is an oxymoron

“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” Donald Rumsfeld

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Yogi Berra

Ok, the future is a strange country which we presume looks just like now apart from the different bits. Now that the Mayan Calendar didn’t accurately predict the end of the world we can all get back to normal, and leave prediction to the experts.

Of course, one wonders why, in a supposedly rational age, that the Mayan Calendar received so much attention. I don’t recall reading about the Mayans special relationship with soothsaying. There was no list of amazing accurate Mayan prophecies of the Nostradamus variety. Yet, here we were in the the 21st Century, being asked to consider that 2012 might just be the end of it all.

Some of you are probably smugly sipping your coffee and saying, well, there are still superstitious people in this world who read the horoscopes and such nonsense. And you’re right, there is still a great deal of superstition out there. But it’s not the beliefs of the people who find their futures in their tea leaves or the entrails of chickens that bother me. When it comes to the prediction, one superstitious method is as good as another. No, what bothers me is the serious lack of accountability for people being wrong.

I’m not too concerned about the daily horoscopes, and I don’t suggest that we be given the right to sue the “astrologers” because Gemini did not have a good day, and this enormous rash demonstrates that it was clearly wrong to “try new experiences”. My concern is more to do with the supposed rational thinkers that use their capacity to argue that they weren’t really wrong, but there was just an event they didn’t quite predict which stopped their perfectly accurate prediction from being perfectly accurate. Someone once said that an economist is a person who is paid a large amount of money to explain why they were wrong. But I don’t just want to pick on economists here. I want to pick on everyone who enters the area of making definitive statements about the future, only to argue that, in fact, while the world didn’t end in 2012, that was only because they misread the calendar, or certain events happened in a slightly different order.

Of course, I’ve spent enough times on racetracks and in TABs to know that no punter ever gets it wrong. The horse just needed one more run. That jockey must have backed the winner because he rode mount – the one they backed – so badly, and that was why it didn’t win.It didn’t get a clear run at them. Yep, Black Caviar isn’t really a 1000 metre horse – this thing will be too speedy for it. After we’re wrong there’s always an intelligent explanation, and we can re-write history any way we like.

I’m not going to predict that Julia Gillard will win the next election. However, I would like to remind everyone who keeps talking about the impending Abbott victory that not a single vote has been cast yet. This is not like GP motor racing where drivers rack up points and then of them may draw away to an unbeatable lead. This is more like the final of a tennis match where all the points are decided on one day. (Or a couple of days in the case of a rain interruption – in case any pedants out there want to comment on a minor inaccuracy which has little to do with the overall blog). It’s highly unlikely that I’d be able to beat Bernard Tomic in the final, but I will start on the same score, and who knows, he might have a bad day. Or be disqualified for his behaviour when I make a comment about using his head for that point…

Yes, I’ve seen the opinion polls, but as I said to my wife after I heard on the radio that Labor would be wiped out if an election was held today, “If an election was held today, they wouldn’t have any of the ballot papers printed.” I then went on to say that opinion polls are a bit like asking a man if I’d leave his wife for Scarlett Johansson – lots of men would say yes without thinking but when the actual reality hit, they may not be so keen on a Hollywood lifestyle. Or, it’s like asking who you’ll support in the AFL Grand Final – apart from actual supporters of a club a lot of people will change their mind at the last minute. I started to explain that historically people can drift back toward a Government when the Opposition starts actually releasing policies, but at this point, my wife said that Scarlet was welcome to me.

The opinion polls have helped divide Labor, creating the impression that nothing of note is being done. They’ve given Abbott momentum, and made him look like a winner. He’s been able to lose some of his negativity, because Labor politicians and supporters themselves have been critics of Gillard. Every achievement – for example, dragging Abbott onboard with the NDIS – is viewed cynically, as though everything is poll driven. It’s possible that Gillard may see these last few months before the election as perhaps Labor’s last chance to actually put in place some things that will be – like Medicare (Medibank) in the 70s – hard for the Conservatives to completely dismantle. Just as it’s possible that she may play “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John every morning and convince herself that she’s a winner no matter how many times she’s been written off.

Whatever the faults of this Government, whether Gillard lied or not (no Liberal lied about Children Overboard, of course, that was just a factual inaccuracy), I find the rhetoric about “the worst government ever” ridiculous. We can despair about the mainstream media seemingly singing in chorus, or we can start to fight back. And belief is a powerful weapon. Optimism can create momentum.

Perhaps Abbott will be Prime Minister come September. But if one looks at past predictions that is no certainty. In 2010, Sportsbet had Gillard at long odds to last till 2013. Of course, they may have looked at the Mayan Calendar and factored in the end of the world in 2012.

 

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A trustworthy source just sent this …

A trustworthy source just gave this to me, claiming that Tony has already written his acceptance speech. No, I don’t have to tell you the trustworthy source, but let’s just say it’s someone who’s very credible. Very, very credible. And you can trust me! Just ask my trustworthy source.

Good evening, ladies and gentleman.

I realize that there are some people out there who didn’t vote for me, but I’d like to assure them that we intend to govern all Australians!

Now that I’m Prime Minister, I’d like to say about bloody time. I should have been Prime Minister three years ago, but those stupid independents don’t understand the way democracy is meant to work. Anyway, that’s been rectified now, and I can get on with the business of correcting the mistakes of the Labor Government, starting with the one where they had Julia Gillard as Prime Minister. Now, I don’t say that because she’s a woman, so before any of you shrill feminists accuse me of being sexist, let me just point out that I have a wife and daughters and if I were to say anything sexist, they’d soon nag me back into line. And don’t forget that my chief of staff was allowed to keep her IVF injections in my fridge, right next to Malcolm’s testicles.

All right, so we can agree that I’ve already fixed that one about Australia having the wrong leader, so no-one can accuse me of not keeping my two most important, fundamental promises, which were to be Prime Minister and to be a better Government, which, of course, we are.

As for some of my other statements – I’m sure that the Opposition will want to call them “promises” but did I ever put them in writing? No, and I was very clear about that! You can only take notice of what I put in writing- a lot gets said in the course of political debate and people should be free to clarify their position. When, on Monday, I discover that budget position is far worse than I could have possibly imagined when I said that we were an economic basket case, I’ll have to make some changes to these “aspirations”.

For example, my position on the NBN is that it’s a gigantic waste of money and that we’ll stop it just as soon as the contract is fulfilled. We’d like to stop it sooner, but we can’t, but you can blame Labor for that one. And, of course, the logical flow-on is that we WILL have to scale back my direct action on Climate Change, because of all the money wasted on the NBN. But we will deliver a more efficient direct action policy: It consists of me cycling to Parliament instead of being driven, and paying Gina and Clive $2,000,000 to plant trees in their backyards.

As for the Carbon Tax, well, we may still have a hostile Senate, so we’d have to go to an election to get that repealed, which would be costly. And it would risk me breaking my two fundamental promises, to install me as Prime Minister and to have a better Government, so we may just have to live with that one for the time being.

There are a number of people I should thank. I’ll start with that wonderful woman without whom I wouldn’t be here: Gina, you’ve been great. And Kevin, that job with the UN is definitely yours, you’ve done far more for me than most people realize. As for the media, well, I notice a number of ex-journalists suggested that we had no policies, but those who managed to keep their jobs had an understanding of the greater good. Theirs, ours, and, of course, the country’s. And finally, a big special thank you to that great Australian, our most famous US citizen, Rupert Murdoch. I know I’m alleged to have offered to sell my arse, by one of the independents, but Rupert, you had me at: “I’ll make you PM!”

Finally, we intend to deliver a budget surplus and to cut taxes. In that order! For the next two years, we’ll deliver a budget surplus by cutting services and shutting down Canberra completely. As I’ll be making all the decisions, there doesn’t seem much need for Parliament to sit, so the money we save there, should enable us to deliver the promised tax cuts in about two and half years. Just before the next election!

 

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