98 comments

1. Dora JahnesOctober 12, 2019 at 6:41 am

   I agree with everything you say in this article John, except the hate by the voters of Bill Shorten. Scott Morrison is an ad man….say something loud enough and repeat it over and over and, the tired, the scared, the old will believe it.

2. STUART E ANDERSONOctober 12, 2019 at 6:50 am

   Bill Shorten had many failings in aligning his party with the LNP legislative agenda, particularly on security and border control issues. However the public opposition to Shorten was not based on those failings. Shorten was respected and popular when he emerged into the public stage after Beaconsfield.
   The public dislike of the man is wholly and solely due to the Murdoch campaign against him. Do you remember when Murdoch ran article after article vilifying Gillard and praising Rudd as the new saviour, urging him to challenge and reclaim the Prime Ministership? Then as soon as he did so the vilification of Rudd by Murdoch started almost instantly – “Does this guy ever shut up? ”
   Some suggest Shortens role in taking down Gillard (and Rudd) sealed the public’s distrust in him. However both Turnbull and Morrison did the same thing and the public was largely unmoved.
   Let’s face it. The majority of the Australian public are shallow thinkers, easily misled, easily lied to, largely incapable of understanding a complex issue or following a detailed argument.
   The real problem with Shorten is his embrace of rightwing political pragmatism, but this is a failing shared by the whole party. This is clear enough with the ascension of Albanese, who is worse than Shorten in this respect. Shorten was at least prepared to fight on a reasonably progressive policy agenda, Albanese wants to adopt the Liberal Party platform with only a few minor differences.

3. New England CockyOctober 12, 2019 at 7:24 am

   “I haven’t mentioned the Deputy Prime Minister and his party it is simply because I cannot remember his name nor what he said he would do for our good country folk.”

   The simple answer is “nothing”.

   At present during this 2019 drought that is the worst since 1901, we have National$ at NSW and local government level in Armidale allowing Armidale Regional Council to sell Armidale town drinking water from purpose built Malpas Dam to a foreign owned agri-corporation at Guyra to grow tomatoes for export.

   Presently I am advised that the amount of water consumption by the Tomato Farm is about the same as the daily consumption amount by Armidale Ratepayers. This has put Armidale Ratepayers on Level 5 Water restrictions when ARC’s own policy reportedly shows Level 2-3 to be appropriate.

   Over the past months about 240,000 LITRES of water PER DAY of treated water were trucked from Armidale to the Tomato Farm with the misgovernment paying the transport costs.

   The NSW Gladly-back-flip-I-can Liarbral nat$ misgovernment funded a major $13 MILLION water supply pipeline from Malpas Dam to the Tomato Farm with a spur line to the Guyra town reservoir to give the impression that there was a major community benefit. Then this week announced a second $5.7 MILLION pipeline upgrade for the former minor de-commissioned supply at Puddledock Dam to offset the loss of Armidale water from Malpas Dam used by the Tomato Farm.

   Now we are advised that the Tomato Farm is expanding operations again secure in the knowledge that the local nat$ Minister for Agriculture is a willing conspirator making this dedicated Armidale town water supply at Malpas Dam the principal water storage for the Tomato Farm.

   The Water Wars have started. What amount of political donations to the nat$ party buy this sort of government largesse?

4. Keitha GranvilleOctober 12, 2019 at 7:43 am

   How pathetic – that so many people put our country in the hands of a con artist in charge of a mob of shysters because they didn’t like the other team leader? Pathetic. How dare they !! (apologies to Greta) Actually, can we have Greta Thunberg as leader ? I know she’s a child, but she’d do a better job than anyone we’ve got.
   Labor seems to be hell bent on chasing the LNP to the bottom. I will be jumping ship at the next election if they continue to jettison policy as they go.

5. Diane StampaliaOctober 12, 2019 at 9:11 am

   The last election was a repeat of the previous two.
   Simply put…the Liberals lied continuously and Labor did not refute their lies aggressively enough.
   Labor only lamely tried to take the Liberals to task, which to be fair, is difficult with the Murdoch press against them.
   Next time around keep the message simple. Hammer home the extreme Liberal inadequacies and back them into a corner to admit their lies.
   Be specific with as many of societies individual groups as possible and how the current government has let them down.

6. wamOctober 12, 2019 at 9:19 am

   Funny that the labor members rejected shorten in 2013 but caucus went their own way.
   Some of us waited for billy to show some beaconsfield power but nothing eventuated and he got smacked in braddon and bass.
   The ad with his face and questioning his honesty was awful but effective and complemented by msm bias palmer’s money convinced enough workers to voter against labor and accept more of the same.
   Labor is showing us that it is still not able to compete.
   Your thought:
   The voters have endorsed the policies we find abominable. So their image as a burden and their treatment of welfare, pensioners and Aborigines will race towards ‘food stamp’ economy.

   ps
   you wrote on july 2015
   Has Australia ever, so blindly, elected a man so negatively characterless? So ignorant of truth and transparency. So insensitive to those who cannot help themselves. So willing to endorse and foster inequality. So illiterate of technology and science. So oblivious to the needs of women. So indifferent to diplomacy. So inept at policy formation and its implementation. So prone to the language of absurdity. So pugnacious, so confrontationist, so self-righteous, in his attitude toward others. So dismissive of those who desire equality. And so out of touch with a modern pluralist society. A man so unsophisticated in deep worldly acumen or discernment, yet religiously motivated.
   Still there must be a gough, robert or even another lemon somewhere???
   pps
   Perhaps you could compile a list of “where are you, albo”?

7. Lawrence WinderOctober 12, 2019 at 9:29 am

   Vale Australia.

8. whateverOctober 12, 2019 at 9:44 am

   You people should really stop seeing things which are just not there.
   Scotty is not, or was not an “Ad Man”. He was a Liberal Party salaryman who got some gig with the Tourism Commission and disgraced himself by his involvement with the ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ jiggling tits fiasco.

   The Coalition campaign was a 24/7 Psy-Ops bombardment of fear and loathing.

9. Joseph CarliOctober 12, 2019 at 10:00 am

   Just posted on my article comment page..: The Tancredi Dilemma…I thought those of you too terrified of reading subversive articles of mine would like to peruse it here..

   ” The opinion has been expressed . . . ” ….and THERE is the crux of the arguement…the sole and central logic of the thesis that the voting public is (as Paul Buongiorno expressed it) “disconnected” with the politics…it is the language of divide and rule…: “Queenslanders are stupid!”…”..the uneducated are gullible and easily swayed..”….”The Conversation has an opinion piece that states quite categorically that . . . ”

   I read on Twitter a couple of days ago a poll that claimed that around 70% of Australians (incl’ Labor voters) thought drug testing of people on welfare was ok…the poll, I later read, conducted by The Daily Telegraph..(Google it)…now here is the mechanism of “Divide and Rule”……you don’t divide the rich from the poor, you divide the poor from other poor…using suspicion, fear, jealousy and cynicism….

   How more easy is it to cynically accept that; “Queenslanders are dumb”, “the tertiary uneducated are easily swayed”..etc…it fulfills those long harboured suspicions and vanity gripes that someone …over there…is screwing it all up for you..”they’re stupid, greedy”…”I thought so all along”…….but wait…what if there is another reason why things are not as they ought to be…for instance..how did the banks and financial advisers get away with screwing us over for so long with out scrutiny?…How did the NBN get wasted away to its current state, How does the ABCC get away with hammering the unions without doing the other parts of their responsibilities of checking on the Builders themselves…why is Kathy Jackson still swanning around in the community like a social butterfly when Craig Thomson was in jail as quick as you could say……”Craig Thomson”?

   What does the Australian National Audit Office report on the 2013/ 2016 Fed’ elections on the AEC’s oversight of those elections? (Google it!)…In short, it says : Here is a manual of “How to fix an election”….Just like the ACCC, ASIC…the AFP, NDIS management, NBN management and a host of other agencies that were supposed to be oversighting their respected areas of authority…they failed…and the reason the current Federal Court is looking into the “Chinese Whisper” signs is because the AEC didn’t want to do so…and now, having the thing come out in a civil court case, it intervenes to have it thrown out!??…..: barn – horse – bolted?

   While I wouldn’t discount a percentage of gormless voter intent, I am not willing to lump the loss of Labor in the election to uneducation and incompetency, because as an old gambler, I can sniff out which is a “two horse race” and what horse is best to avoid in such races…as will the most dumb-arsed uneducated peasant when it comes to voting for their own benefit!

   Ezra Pound once wrote a piece on his theories of what came to be known as “Ezra’s funny money principle”…but it’s not on the money subject that I quote him, but rather on the lay-persons capacity to understand complexity..:

   ” France has had two kinds of money for 15 years and they never confused the most dumb and damnblasted frog-eater . . .”

   And I’d say the same for Labor’s policies…they weren’t complex when you looked at the bottom line, they were good, clear and precise…and they benefitted that demographic that most needed them…the only confusion in my book is how those exit polling number went so dramatically backwards…:

   From the SMH at the elections..: “An exit poll of booths across the nation points to Labor claiming the federal election on the back of a sharp fall in primary support for the Coalition across Victoria and NSW.

   The exclusive YouGov Galaxy poll of more than 3300 voters in 33 separate booths showed Labor ahead of the Coalition 52-48 on a two party preferred basis. It is in line with recent Ipsos, Newspoll and Essential opinion polls which all showed Labor leading the Coalition.”

   There is something rotten in “Denmark”…

10. Jeanne HartOctober 12, 2019 at 10:11 am

    John, I largely agree with your take on the election but I think you haven’t taken into consideration the coalition’s long term demonisation of Shorten. Most voters don’t know much about what’s going on in the political world, so when it comes down to it they’ve been fed a constant negative trashing of him, beginning with the Royal Commission. They found nothing anyway, but the Murdoch press used their power to suggest otherwise. Albanese is their next target, probably casting him as weak and a ‘do nothing’ leader.

11. Andrew SmithOctober 12, 2019 at 10:18 am

    Morrison and LNP did what conservatives do well, i.e. offer nothing concrete but attack everything else including the messenger in Shorten.

    While our media of NewsCorp, 9Fairfax etc. have consolidated it’s precluded an informed electorate when the LNP is able to blather and bluster, unchallenged.

    Further, Australians have become conditioned to engage with neither policy nor expertise in favour of pathos, PR and dog whistling, while seemingly unable to go beyond witty and/or glib one liners to attack and/or shut down discussion.

    Past decades ageing, socially conservative and less educated electorates, especially regions, are prone to overtures made by LNP, Crosby Textor, NewsCorp etc. ‘complex’ playing to conservative christian cultural issues (immigration, nationalism, materialism, security etc.) vs. educated, urban, multicultural elites.

    Labor’s problem is their cultural similarity to LNP (especially internally) which will hopefully change with increasing diversity on electoral rolls, but how to increase media diversity and number of informed citizens?

12. DCOctober 12, 2019 at 10:38 am

    The ALP should have focused more on holding the LNP to account on two of its core 2013 promises;

    1) To have a surplus in its first year and every year after (fail – deficits every year under 3 PMs which doubled gross debt without any GFC

    2) To reduce power prices by $500 by scapping the carbon tax (fail – prices and emissions went up after they scrapped the carbon tax, emissions were falling under the carbon tax, industry have been screaming for energy policy certainty, economists and businesses including BHP and Woodside all argue a return to carbon pricing would spur investment create jobs and lower power bills while the LNPs socialist approach to supporting uncompetitive new coal would increase prices)

    They could have also focused on what happened to the Murray Darling river system on the LNPs watch.

13. George TheodoridisOctober 12, 2019 at 11:14 am

    Well, I don’t know about all the others who voted “not for Shorten” but I was violently ill every time the man opened his mouth and uttered the words, “The Coalition and the ALP are on the same page…” which he did so often and on so many issues -issues too horrifying to be in agreement with- that I had to turn the TV off every time his head popped up.

    We can romanticised the issue of this ALP loss all we want but the fact remains that Labor was absent or in cahoots with these thugs when it came to important issues: Refugees, the climate (remember all that endless waffle about Adani?) their love for zionism, for everything that the yanks wanted us to do, for Assange -I can still hear Gillard’s moronic shrill voice, screaming at the top of her voice, “Assange is guilty” even though she was told by the feds he was not; that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” and “no, I don’t agree with equal rights in marriage for gays coz mum is a conservative politician.”

    Shorten -and his ALP- was a snivelling non-entity. A coward. One whose moral muscle has been ripped out of him. One who stood in front of the Oz public and said, “even though we don’t agree with the opposition, we agree with everything they say and do!” Even Morrison’s many tongues couldn’t do better than that.

    His mates, Tanya and Penny and Albo and now Keneally have only added to this sickening picture.

    Sure, the likes of Palmer and the savage machinations of the media didn’t help but they would be far less effective if the ALP had not been so utterly meaningless when it came to significant issues.

    ALP? What the fck does the “L” stand for, “Lazy?”

14. Phil PryorOctober 12, 2019 at 11:15 am

    Depressing it is, reading comments infused with disappointment and frustration. Australian voters, notoriously undereducated, unaware, gullible, superficial, easily persuaded, always take a reserve position of brainless conservatism if in doubt, and elections have swung on the day itself before this past one. The ruling class of self appointed anointed leaders, mostly egotistical dills with an arse full of overconfidence, the P M being a leading example, relies on subliminal things, fantasy, superstition, paranoia, emptiness. Office bumboys like the Morrison or O’Farrell types abound, lacking any known personal viture of positive quality. This country has poor management at every level in and out of office. ALP policy and philosophy was fine, but people want a cartoon figure, melodratic stuff, lippy and rouge shitheads (if you scrubbed them for honesty). Local media is loaded with maggots, misfits, mouths and mischief, orchestrated by an uncivilised yankee arsehole, an ex-patriate tax dodging, thieving and self rewarding wart. Where do we go from here? What price some improvement for a more sensible, fair future? The outlook is for more corporate control, lying, thieving, asserting, domineereing, propaganda, dogma, with sluts for money and notice being keen to queue up for a share in the greedy spoils.

15. George TheodoridisOctober 12, 2019 at 11:16 am

    Bugger! Sorry, not “politician” but “christian.”

16. Lee GHOctober 12, 2019 at 11:27 am

    Labor lost control on social media, the money the govt spends on its trolls was put to good use. Any undecided voter going to Shorten’s page & reading the comments was blasted with negativity & chaos. You try that tactic on any senior Liberal pollie its delete & block. If Labor doesn’t clean up their act in places like Facebook & take control they can kiss the next election goodbye as well. I know money is an issue, but there are plenty of supporters who would be willing to wield troll hammers voluntarily.

17. Joseph CarliOctober 12, 2019 at 11:37 am

    Et tu, George?…..Though I doubt very much that you were a Labor person for a loooong time…many of us welded ons knew the Labor “pollliespeak” for what it was…music to calm the savage beast of the MSM..and even if we blanched at Shorten or any of the other members…of which many of us did!….we held our noses and voted The Party card…after all, any other logic would inform that there was no other REALISTIC choice to get at least a socially conscious rep’ in Parliament…; The Greens!!…give over…you might as well vote for a cucumber!

18. george theodoridisOctober 12, 2019 at 12:04 pm

    You did, Joseph! You have turned the ALP into a cucumber, identical to the cucumber on the other side of the veg patch!
    Enjoy!

19. Joseph CarliOctober 12, 2019 at 12:37 pm

    In a nation of slaves, George, what would you expect from a political party….Joe Stalin dancing a Rumba with Chairman Mao!?….Your Ancient Greeks must have taught you the fine art of diplomacy..after all, wasn’t Ulysses a compromising sort of hero?..coward but cunning….I have no heros in politics…it is a very pragmatic game…real politik…brutal…but at least we ought to be armed with similar weapons for a “fair fight”…

20. Stephen TardrewOctober 12, 2019 at 12:59 pm

    Spot on John exactly what many of us were saying pre-election. The toxicity of Shorten and his duplicitous changing of leaders left a bad state in may peoples mouth which he never overcame.

    Morrison just stepped all over Shorten whom a lot of us had regularly noted was a wet rag. Even when we were right we continue to receive abuse from Labor supporters who cannot see the wood for the trees.

    We wanted Labor to win and reform economic policy and were well aware of the failings of Labor.

    Now we are in deep shit.

    No more excuses Labor get back on the progressive bandwagon you will never pick up L-NP voters so stop trying.

    Be courageous and ethical and stop the snivelling compromises.

    The neoliberal right are your Achilles heel because all they do is undermine true progressives.

21. AorticOctober 12, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    And the wonderful Gerard Henderson opines in the OZ that Australians are inherently conservative and the ALP better get used to it. What utter bullshit. The majority as has been well expressed by other contributors are self interested, shallow vessels easily influenced by the Murdoch allies as it saves them the time and effort to really think logically about the critical big picture issues. Far easier to be concerned about your franking negative gearing worries than lifting your head out of your arse and ponder the climate change disaster which will actually affect generations other than themselves. I have not many years left to me, but I worry endlessly about the future will be like for our kids and grandkids if these utter clowns are allowed to continue to circumvent the real problems with wafflle intended to placate the mindless. Wake up people before it is too late!

22. georgetheodoridisOctober 12, 2019 at 1:45 pm

    Aortic, when was Henderson ever right about anything?
    If you told the idiot a rose smells sweet, he’d tell you, no it smells like his bum!

    He still believes that if you tell a lie often enough, morons, like him, would believe it.
    Alas, the ALP has been picking up his every syllable, rolled it in their mouths long enough to believe that it was baklava and began to try and make its followers to believe it also.

    What remnants of this party the Keating-Hawke era walked into, it has been trampled upon by them and by every subsequent knob that lead it.

23. PatriciaOctober 12, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    I liked Bill Shorten, I think he would have made a fine PM, much better than Albanese, whom I think will never be one.

    If the LNP and the Murdoch media tore down an ordinary citizen to the same extent that Shorten was torn down by them there would be defamation actions galore, and rightly so. Why should anyone doing their job be subject to the kind of character assassination that a he was and not have the ability to fight back. Just because he is a politician should not mean that he is fair game for all the lies that anyone wants to print or say.

    My neighbours, nice people, liberal voters but I won’t hold that against them, hated Bill Shorten, could not tell me why, just hated him, thought he was devious, a liar, a cheat, probably thought he molested little children too. None of which is true but that is what has been planted in the minds of those who read and believe what they see and hear from the media.

    Seemingly intelligent people were fed a diet of garbage and they ate it up as though it was caviar and champagne, why? who knows, human beings are such crappy creatures at times and at other times they are wonderful (not that often though), they love negativity, they will believe it every time over facts that are positive.

    Go figure.

24. Joseph CarliOctober 12, 2019 at 2:09 pm

    Jacta alia est.

    Jacta alia est..; The die it is cast.
    Caesar quietly mumbles the words;
    His own secret intent
    Mixed with the tumbling Rubicon’s waters,
    And when he whispers this secret,
    Who does he direct his knowledge to?
    What lines do the poets place on page
    To enlighten the knowledgeable?
    Is there those who will like the rhyme,
    But curse the metre?
    Will like the notion,
    But curse the action?
    Jacta alia est..; The die is cast.
    But there is no-one left
    Who knows what chance is.
    None want to take the risk.
    Caesar knows the hazard,
    So he says it quietly..under-breath,
    And leads the dumb and blind
    On to their deserved death.

25. George TheodoridisOctober 12, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    Patricia, some of us -intelligent or not- saw much more clearly than you what Shorten and his gang were really like and they didn’t see it from the media. They saw it directly from his own performance and from the performances of almost every other member of the ALP.
    And what they saw was a disintegration, a dissolution of a once fine political party, a party they no longer recognised nor liked, a party that forgot what its values are, a party that shed its moral values and its purpose, a party that has betrayed the very people it should be working for, a party that walked over to the other side and shook hands with them, a party they began to hate. A party I doubt they’ll ever vote for again.

    “My neighbours… thought he was devious, a liar, a cheat…” validly so, as well as a right wing weed in a garden that should be full of great fruit.

26. DrakeNOctober 12, 2019 at 4:53 pm

    George Theodoridis: “And what they saw was a disintegration, a dissolution of a once fine political party, a party they no longer recognised nor liked, a party that forgot what its values are, a party that shed its moral values and its purpose, a party that has betrayed the very people it should be working for, a party that walked over to the other side and shook hands with them, a party they began to hate.”

    Self interest, George, is what drove the decline of the ALP leadership after the demise of the Whitlam years.
    There was always a modicum of that within the rank and file of the Unions which created the Party, but that was tempered by a well educated, mainly autodidactic, core of solidly socially conscious individuals who, extant within the less educated general workforce were able to convince them of their own best interests as part of a more egalitarian community.
    This clearly evaporated under the career ambitions of R.J. Hawke who relished lionisation by the masses and felt that it was his due to accept the wages and trappings of the PrimeMinistership, and P.J. Keating for whom the rank and file were generally considered culturally inferior; well suited for manipulation for his own benefit and vainglory.
    Neither of them had the best interests of the less fortunate in society as their priorities nor the interests of the community as a whole.
    They laid solid foundations for the evil works of the “lying little rodent”, and his successors.

27. guestOctober 12, 2019 at 5:33 pm

    George,

    you have had a great rant. What you have omitted is the fact that for weeks, months and years Labor was clearly ahead in the polls. Even Morrison did not expect to win.

    So you tell us Shorten was hated all along and that Labor was a disintegrated rabble. Really? Shed its moral values? Really? The policies patiently explained by Shorten (who gave the best public speeches I have heard in the past 6 years) are clearly Labor policies and presented solutions to problems the Coalition would never understand.

    Joseph Carli for one has explained the failures of the Coalition – failures for which they have not been made to take account. They are getting away with murder.

    I will give one short account of what the Coalition represents. A women dealing with social matters told us that the poor should consider social payments only as a hand up, not a career choice. This in a situation where the poor, unemployed people are regarded as drug addicts, drunkards and gamblers. Poor people are given non cashable cards to control their lives, whether they need it or not.

    This kind of paternalist attitude and behaviour is especially galling when we have hundreds of thousands of people looking for work when there are not the numbers of jobs available.

    The Coalition claims to have created so many jobs, yet so many jobs taken up by job seekers are jobs like delivery boys riding bicycles who are not employees but are ‘contractors’ in slavery conditions. Many people engage in more than one job if they can get them in order to survive.

    The Coalition, on the other hand, hands out millions of dollars to its pals with no public contracts. Hangers on use the Government as a cash cow. A list of Coalition false claims and bloopers and failures to amend injustices is horrendous.

    Fortunately, industry itself is defying Government policy and, for example, is proceeding with tackling climate change in a more effective way, while the Government languishes and dithers in indecision.

    Your rant sounds more like Murdoch ideological drivel than the thoughts of a well-informed voter.

28. Joseph CarliOctober 12, 2019 at 5:33 pm

    I cannot for the life of me comprehend those of us posting on this thread who cannot seem to understand the difference between the private person / politican and the public persona / politican who has to present a generic face to the masses…Do we really believe the confected image portrayed on our screens in interview or debate is the “real” person inside?…Do we expect this representative we vote for to be “everyman honest John” that we could hand our kids tuck-shop money to and expect them to arange the lunches?…that simplistic?…are we adults in a world of real politik politics who look to party policy for our consideration?…for if it is the man and the man only that we vote for, then Jesus Christ would have been Emperor of Rome rather than that screaming queen Augustus or his demented, killer of a stepson Tiberius!…

    This is a better explanation of where I see many posters stationed in this reality of politics..: Malcolm X on “the House Negor and the Field negro.” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf7rsCAfQCo

29. andy56October 12, 2019 at 5:43 pm

    I was pretty pissed off but not surprised by the election result. Talking to my brother confirmed what i always suspect of the australian electorate, its fcking dumb.
    Labor policies are more in tune with what the country needs, not perfect but in the right direction. Bill has proven himself to be an astute negotiator who gets things done. Thats what union officials are trained to do. So where the fck did this ” shorten is untrustworthy ” come from? And its a refrain i keep hearing. Fck me if i know why it resonates with the stupid class.

30. Andrew MoranOctober 12, 2019 at 6:11 pm

    A recent reported study summed it up.
    A rich country, dumb and getting dumber.

31. DrakeNOctober 12, 2019 at 6:14 pm

    Guest @ 5:33

    You’ve demonstrated a classic case of “missing the point” of George’s comment.

    WHat you say of the essential evil that is the present Party in Government is correct, but that does not confer sainthood on a Political Party which is failing its supposed constituents on so many fronts.

    The ALP is but a shadow of the Labour Party of origin – a ghost of the past and the spectre of a future tied to capitalism in all its unfettered and inherent evil.

    I must now quit these discussions – a have a little life to get on with living.

32. Florence HowarthOctober 13, 2019 at 12:44 am

    We have heard for many years that Shorten is despised by all. We never seem to hear what he is despised for.

33. Regional ElderOctober 13, 2019 at 7:33 am

    Shorten was the first Prime Ministerial aspirant in decades who chose not to ‘genuflect’ and pay homage to the man who wishes to re-make Australia such that it continues to grow in its subservience to his own commercial interests, and become more congruent with his own grand ideological position. That man is Rupert Murdoch.

    Shorten made a point of saying he would travel to New York for this purpose, but could meet with the local executives of NewsCorp. as necessary. Shorten’s snub of the self-appointed great media man invited a particularly virulent campaign against him. Clive Palmer’s $60 millions did the rest.

    What is amazing is that despite this tsunami of invective against him, complemented by the shameless lies of the marketing man Morrison, is that Shorten and Labor did so well. The fact of the matter is that this e shambles of a would-be Government that we are now saddled with, was pushed over the line by mining, money and Murdoch interests.

    Poor fellow my country !

34. Bruce WhiteOctober 13, 2019 at 8:23 am

    Of course most of what we say about the reasons for the ALPs election loss will be wrong.
    The opinion polls were completely wrong.
    The opinion,very much pushed by the Murdoch media, that Shorten was not likeable (and hence untrustworthy), was wrong, but it was also believed by too many people on the left.
    The fact that Morrison picked 4 or 5 issues to attacked labor on relentlessly and lied big time and repeatedly,but wasn’t called to account for it.
    These were the factors, along with the coalition getting the benefit of Palmers money and preferences in Queensland.
    That’s how Morrison and co scraped in.
    But I could be wrong.

35. Peter FOctober 13, 2019 at 8:49 am

    @Regional Elder: I agree wholeheartedly. For the ALP to consider changing the policies which they took to the electorate shows a total lack of leadership. We had a team which took hope to the electorate and lost out to fear.

36. guestOctober 13, 2019 at 11:00 am

    Drake

    DrakeN @6:14,

    you have tried a classic false argument tactic – to accuse me of ‘missing the point’ but you yourself are not saying what that point is exactly.

    George claimed that Labor before the election was a complete shambles. And you, DrakeN @4:53pm go back to post-Whitlam Labor to slag on Hawke and Keating.

    You mention an anonymous “well-educated, mainly autodidactic, core of socially conscious individuals” spruiking a “more egalitarian community”.

    But you forget that most of Oz is tied to “capitalism in all its unfettered and inherent evil” (your comment @6:14).

    Labor’s policy, explained over a couple of years, was clearly intended to confront the issue of creating an “egalitarian community” but it was brought down by the dream of self-interest promulgated and pursued by Murdoch and Palmer and the likes of Morrison.

    So all they had to say was You can’t trust Shorten and he is coming for your money. End of story.

    So now you exit the discussion because you “have a little life to go on with living”.

    But remind you that for weeks, month and years Labor was ahead in the polls. That hardly suggests Shorten was hated and the party was a shambles.

    Then you go on to say that post-election Labor is a shambles now. Too early to say. We have not seen the whole story yet.

    Don’t go away.

37. george theodoridisOctober 13, 2019 at 1:54 pm

    For goodness’ sake, Guest! Read my and Drake’s post again; and this time keep your eyes open!

38. guestOctober 13, 2019 at 3:51 pm

    Listen, George. I have quoted you and Drake in my comments. I am looking at your words.

    What I see is a lot of ranting which is not true.

    If you were going to criticise me, it is a waste of time to direct me back to your words as if I would see them any differently. Perhaps you need to read my words again. And yours.

    Just take yourself back to your comment to Joseph Carli that Labor and Greens are identical cucumbers. Or do you also refer to the Coalition in the veggie patch as well?

    Or your suggestion that Labor followed Gerard Henderson, the arch rightist.

    What are you on about? What do you really want?

39. paul walterOctober 13, 2019 at 3:59 pm

    George Theodoridis, do not worry about the anonymous “guest”.

    You must patiently and slowly explain over and over to them, like little children, until the light shines through.

    Maybe it will take decades; maybe centuries but the didactic process is an underlyingly noble one.

    FloHo, you ask why people have become sceptical of Bill Shorten and the right faction he serves? Would this be since his role in the shafting of Kevin Rudd or some of the union activities before involving his right faction union earlier?

    There was always his seeming refusal to stand up and be counted against countless horrific security/surveillance/ DR/arbitrary detention/press censorship pieces of legislation in the name of the cringing “bipartisan” lock in.

    This came to head involving the wilfully obstruction of information release blindsiding the public involving the dedemocratising FTA’s, but that would require a chapter in itself.

    He wasn’t the instigator of these strange laws also come to think of it, involving the slandering and brutalising of asylum seekers and the acceding to of ROBO debt, but we do recall him saying just before the election that there would be no increase for the unemployed on the dole.

40. guestOctober 13, 2019 at 7:31 pm

    Asked to look at George’s words again, I will. What is it George is so angry about?

    He claims Shorten said: “The Coalition and the ALP are on the same page…” – ‘horrifying issues’, says George. But he does not say what they were. A bit of hyperbole?

    Refugees. With the drownings, Labor was pilloried viciously. The island incarcerations are supposed to have stopped that. But already refugees had been demonised into being illegal, criminal, terrorists, job takers…etc. Labor’s attempts to achieve a regional solution were thwarted legally. Labor’s Malaysia was not allowed, but the Coalition’s Cambodia was allowed. Labor did not see endless incarceration to be a solution – and said so.

    Climate Change. Labor was always far ahead in this. Turnbull, for his understanding of Climate Change was accused of being a closet leftie. But Adani was a wedge The Qld Labor government was approving of Adani, the carrot being jobs which do not exist. Shorten had to avoid commitment to Adani, not always a good scene.

    Zionism. Gillard was right: Israel has a right to defend itself. You might not like its actions, but that is another story.

    “Everything that the Yanks wanted us to do.” There is the alliance with the US. It is an old alliance. We had US aerodromes in the NT and electronic tracking towers in WA. We had military operations overseas. We have had protests, but they happened.

    Assange. Guilty, said Gillard, as did the US. Did the Feds tell Gillard Assange was not guilty? I don’t know. Who should she believe?

    Equal rights in marriage. So Gillard followed her mother’s opinion. But then Gillard did not believe in marriage at all.

    Shorten supposedly said: “even though we don’t agree with the opposition, we agree with everything they say and do.” A brazen contradiction. Why would anyone say such a thing? Not even Shorten.

    I am not a real fan of politics, but I understand it is a matter of compromise at times. But I can read weasel words and vague generalisations and the flavour of bias.

    How anyone in the early 21st century could hope that Labor should go back to its origins in the 19th century is beyond me.

    The angry posts I have critiqued come across to me as rants, especially when for so long Labor was ahead in the polls until the election. Where were all the critics in those years before?

41. Joseph CarliOctober 13, 2019 at 7:59 pm

    What “guest” said….

42. Wayne TurnerOctober 13, 2019 at 8:46 pm

    The Labor loss had nothing to do with the leader. WHOEVER the Labor leader is,if they have NOT sucked up and cut a deal with Murdoch.The media will hound them,and alot of the easily led gullible ignorant public will blindly follow,and dislike them.

    Labor lost because all of the MSM,and the coalition campaigned against Labor,with out right LIES on Labor’s policies. Plus,Clive Palmer.

    Sadly,Labor did NOT combat the LIES enough.

    The coalition,their MSM’s,and Clive Palmer’s LIES campaign against Labor won the coalition the election.

    The Labor leader had nothing to do with it – Remember: No point saying Shorten was unpopular in the polls. The polls are meaningless. Remember it’s the same polls that said Labor were going to win.. for years.

43. DrakeNOctober 13, 2019 at 9:01 pm

    Guest @ 7:31 pm.

    “How anyone in the early 21st century could hope that Labor should go back to its origins in the 19th century is beyond me.”

    So very much seems to be beyond you, just as with Joseph Carli who is so absorbed in his own imaginations that he is unable to comprehend the fundamentals of the origins of the class wars which he continues to insist still exist in the form in which they originated.

    The origins of which I wrote are those of equinamity, not merely ‘workers versus bosses’ which still clouds the minds of those who are unable, or unwilling, to address society in Australia as it now exists.

    The rest of your post is merely indicative of a mind which sees matters in which the world and its affairs can be understood in simple terms, whereas it is extremely complex and, more often than not, deliberately hidden from those who would wish to find some form of enlightenment in terms of factual information on which to base their daily existences.

    Why you bring up furphies like the situation of Israel’s rights or otherwise simply indicates to me a mind which will never brook any discussion which casts doubt on pre-existing opinion.
    In fact you sound, or write, like a first year student at a University debating society whose only interest is in winning the debate and not the substance of the topic under discussion.

    As for “angry”, much of that is in your own perception, not the writing of the poster.

    George says “…keep your eyes open!’ – I’d say open your rather closed mind.

44. Joseph CarliOctober 13, 2019 at 9:15 pm

    “John Bellamy Foster noted that it was a lack of class analysis that has stifled left discourse over the last twenty years. And I have noted that when one does engage in class analysis the first response, very often, is to be called a conspiracy theorist. Now, this is largely because any class dissection will tend to unearth connections that have been hidden, consciously, by Capital — that those hidden forces and histories are experienced by the liberal left and faux left as somehow impossible. Class analysis means that the non-marxist liberal left is going to be faced with the malevolence of the ruling class, and in the U.S. certainly, the ruling class tends to be adored, secretly or otherwise, by the bourgeoisie.”

    “When the U.S.S.R. dissolved the West intensified its propaganda onslaught immediately. And a good part of this propaganda was focused on the denial of class. On the right, the FOX News right, “class warfare” became a term of derision and also humour. And among liberal and educated bourgeoisie the avoidance of class was the result of a focus on, and validations of, rights for marginalized groups — even if that meant inventing new groups on occasion. Class was conspicuously missing in most identity rights discourse.”

    Taken from a copied post on another blog..but from this source..https://off-guardian.org/2019/10/07/no-class/

    You insult both our intelligence and our honesty, DrakeN…you could at least apologise to guest…I don’t need you contrition.

45. guestOctober 14, 2019 at 10:50 am

    DrakeN,

    thank you for condescending to reply to me, who you say is merely like a first year debating student intent only on winning the debate, not the substance of the topic.

    And as for “anger”, I see it in your attack on me as a person and the flimsiness of your response. As well, I see anger in George’s posts, especially @12/10 11:14 am.

    Let us go back to that post. The reason why I brought in the issue of Zionism is because George mentions it and goes on to say that their love of Zionism indicates Labor is in “cahoots with these thugs”, the Coalition. He then quotes Gillard as saying, “Israel has a right to defend itself”.

    I agreed with that right, but I went on to say that we might not agree with Israel’s methods. Elsewhere at another time I discussed Murdoch’s connection with wealthy Jews who were investing in fossil fuels in the Golan Heights which have been taken by Israel from Syria.

    You see, I am interested in complexity, at least a little bit.

    Yet you seem to take the idea of complexity as a screen for your lack of complexity in your last reply.

    This claim of lack of complexity in others is applied to Labor, too, when George says (also @12/10 11:14am) that Palmer and the media “would have been less effective if the ALP had not been so utterly meaningless when it came to significant issues”.

    So we see it is not just Bill who is at fault for George, but all of the ALP. He says, “His mates, Tanya and Penny and Albo and now Keneally, have only added to this sickening picture’.

    Hyperbole? I would say so. But do not take my word for it, DrakeN. Go back to George’s early post and read it.

    It is a confected “anger”. You claim to stand by him with the claim “The world and its affairs…is extremely complex…deliberately hidden…” and the implication seems to be that only you and George really understand that complexity.

    What I see is not so much complexity in your comments, so much as simple bias.

46. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    You see, DrakeN…you see what you and George have done?….You’ve got guest REALLY riled up…REALLY cheesed off!…you can tell she is fuming with anger from her patient and polite response to you both….that’s how it is with the academic/educated class..the more you piss them off the politer they get..until it gets to the point of…; “WELL!!….exCUSE ME!!….Personally, if I thought you worthy of the effort, I would take the piss out on you…but you’re not worth a spit in a piss-pot to me…but you have really cheesed guest off…I doubt she will have any respect for your opinion again!….an’ it’ll serve you right…

47. Kaye LeeOctober 14, 2019 at 3:19 pm

    As is always the case, the argument degenerates when people get personal. Not being personally abusive has more to do with manners and communication skills than academia. Oh and the fact that some of us prefer to discuss the topic than each other.

48. guestOctober 14, 2019 at 3:36 pm

    Thank you, Joseph. I appreciate your comments, always elegant and to the point.

    But I am not angry so much as disappointed that we see the attitude of some people who claim to be concerned about the condition of Labor, not only now but in decades past. When I look at the posts closely, I ask what exactly they mean and where they are coming from. Some of these posts are creating things which do not exist or are merely exaggerations.

    So I quietly ask them questions and refer to their actual words. We soon find out what they are up to.

    They think their opinions are unassailable and pure. It is a way to tackle climate change deniers as well. They soon drop out of the discussion when their statements are seen to be indefensible.

    If there are other people who think like the negative posters here, then all they have achieved is to lump us with the present incompetent government in power now. And we give them no thanks for that. That is why I want to question them closely, not accept what they say as if it is gospel.

    Thanks again, Joseph. Keep up the good work.

49. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 3:52 pm

    But that’s how it is with many of those people, guest…they come across so forcefully and with what sounds like sincere conviction, but when you dig down a bit, it is all “sound and fury signifying nothing”…nothing but a frustration of the failings of their own expectations…I agree with a point you made above..(13th 7.31) : “How anyone in the early 21st century could hope that Labor should go back to its origins in the 19th century is beyond me.”

    Personally, in some way I can concur with George that Labor has lost its mojo a bit since it has been taken over by a coterie of middle-class career politicians…there’s not enough “hunger for the political kill” in their bones…not enough memory of the crimes commited against their own kin..there’s not enough anger for retribution against that class of exploiters that are the conservatives.

50. Kaye LeeOctober 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    For starters, NO politician is middle class. If you make $330,000 a year you are very much in the elite 1%ers. The base pay for a backbencher is $211,000 before we get to electorate allowances, the top-ups for committee work, and the eye-watering expenses claims where it seems we pay for absolutely everything including their parking tickets. Then add on their rental properties, and their shares, and their trusts, and their businesses.

    I don’t want a government bent on revenge against their political opponents. That’s what the last ten years has been full of and it has dragged us down. I want politicians who accept advice from experts, and have the courage to act on it. I want people with the intelligence to understand what must be done and the communication skills to explain why. I want politicians who don’t pretend everything is hunky dory because they are in power – I want the truth about the challenges we face and people capable of prioritising how we deal with them.

    I am sick to death of politicians who are out for revenge.

51. John LordOctober 14, 2019 at 4:29 pm

    I was enjoying it all up to now.

    ”Debate is not of necessity about winning or taking down ones opponent. It is an exchange of facts, ideas and principles. Or in its purist form it is simply the art of persuasion”

52. paul walterOctober 14, 2019 at 5:07 pm

    Sadly the Tories are no cop, as the Guardian fact check on the governments leaked dot points today demonstrated.

53. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 5:17 pm

    “I am sick to death of politicians who are out for revenge.”….then let us hope it is not a terminal sickness, for I suspect that will be the modus operandi for quite a while yet!

    John Lord…: ” Or in its purist form it is simply the art of persuasion”……..yeah but you can bang on about something too long….(not YOU personally, John..the generic “you”).

54. Kaye LeeOctober 14, 2019 at 5:57 pm

    paul,

    That fact check is very interesting

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/14/the-prime-ministers-office-accidentally-sent-out-its-talking-points-we-fact-checked-them

55. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 6:11 pm

    I’ll take the road to “Vendetta” any day over the confessional!…..but hey!..that’s just me…

56. Kaye LeeOctober 14, 2019 at 6:33 pm

    Vendetta or confessional may both be personally gratifying but neither should be a consideration when your job is to make decisions in the best interests of the country and the global community. We don’t have time for self-indulgence.

57. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm

    Yeah but, what you say is pertinent to those that make decisions, K-L…but really, you and I are not in that league…we are but a Autumn leaf on shedding tree…soon to join our like as forest-floor litter..of no account to anybody..save a small child to playfully scatter as they run laughing through the understory…
    Here, Kaye Lee…per lei..

    The Tide.
    Like a sailor old, who watches the tide,
    Life’s many moods I do abide…and still I watch,
    For there comes a wash of the river flow,
    That carries the ebb, what comes and goes.
    That “tide in men’s lives” that carries their thoughts,
    Like flotsam swept before a wave wild wrought
    By wind and storm or by deceiving calm they be brought,
    To wreck upon Charybdis rocks or wash up on rugged tor.

    Fortune for that sailor who with astute eye,
    Will risk the temper of mood and tide,
    And call the exact moment makes best to ride.
    He casts the ropes that hold him belay,
    All wind and storm be no delay.
    Yet I and thee, chained to life’s fickle destiny,
    Can but watch as the vessel sails away from we,
    While idly biding…
    Like empty shells scattered on a wide, broad shore,
    Awaiting tide and waves also, to move us ever-more…”

58. paul walterOctober 14, 2019 at 7:19 pm

    It is saddening actually, Kaye Lee.

59. GeorgetheodoridisOctober 14, 2019 at 10:06 pm

    So what do we do next?
    If I understand Josef and the guest correctly, we are going to sit back down, lift our cans up to our mouths, say cheers and let the ALP continue with their mealy mouthed, waffling, their mumbling, their do nothing ways, their obsequy to -boy, didn’t guest put it well? “The Americans also thought Assange is guilty and that’s why Gillard thought he was guilty too”- (or words to the effect) the American War Corporations who run that sewer and are trying to turn every other acre of the planet into a similar sewer?
    Or are we going to remind them of their duties -in no mealy mouthed nor waffling, nor mumbling words?

    There is nothing more harmful to your loved ones than to keep praising them even when they err. The ALP has done very little that was not an error for many -far too many!- years. It has done little to earn praise, the sort of praise one who does his job well, or at all, deserves.

    I remember many, many years ago, an Italian dignitary came to Oz, looked around and on his way back to Italy, at the airport, some journo asked him what he thought of this country. He said words to the effect that he thought Australians lived in a box the space of which is constantly diminished by someone putting a nail from top to bottom. The Australians keep getting “used to” every new restriction of their space, without any argument.

    I have never forgotten that story and I have always tried to contradict it. I was never ever convincing!

60. Matters NotOctober 14, 2019 at 10:58 pm

    RE:

    … your job is to make decisions in the best interests of the country and the global community

    That might be a desirable job description – common sense and all that – but (as I understand it) each and every politician is free to do what they want after an election provided they don’t legally transgress.

    As an aside – common sense (on closer inspection) isn’t necessarily very common and in many instances – not even sensible.

61. Joseph CarliOctober 14, 2019 at 11:01 pm

    George…while I appreciate your enthusiasm for a completely independent Labor Party, entirely removed from any economic influencers and social persuaders that continually come into contact with everyone of us in this country…I have to ask..How many of us have the luxury of isolating ourselves from such influences in our work and play…we all try to find a balance with our friends and relatives so as to keep a reasonably balanced social commitment in our lives?….We all compromise in our relationships as we acknowledge the wants of those around us…”no man is an island”…and I would say that The ALP is trying to find that balance in a swiftly social changing community.

    But, having said those placating words, there are many here who can witness my continued attacks of what I call a “consciousness of kind” servility in our political class grown from a network of private-schooled education into the political class…that has made both major parties act and look like acting in a coordinated manner…I blame an infiltration of a decaying ethical base of the middle-class for this situation. I have written numerous articles on the subject…probably at a time, George, when your colourful contributions had disappeared form these pages for some time…which had me cursed and banished into exile from the site …hounded by a cabal of folk from that very class! The list of those articles where I curse the corruption of the depraved middle-class in ALL spheres of our society ..NOT EXCLUDING..the Left Wing…and the Labor Party heirarchy…: “Too much white-collar and not enough Blue collar” has been my catch-cry…is a looooong one!…I could supply a list if you so desire..

    So no, I do not believe in keeping silent, but to curse to your dying days; Labor as “betraying the social ideal” is to isolate just one fraction of a society that has, in effect, betrayed itself…to curse Labor for its indolence in holding it’s creed of justice for the poor and vulnerable high, is to curse the cowardice of the populace as a whole, because we must be reminded that for all its failings, Labor is not the preffered party at this time in charge of governance.

    Me personally, I only back Labor as it is the better(socially speaking) of a bad bunch…and serves as a stop-gap until we can get a solid communist government in situ in Canberra…I have even written on that too..: https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/is-it-time-to-reconsider-a-communist-political-agenda-for-australia/

    So George..as a fellow traveller in at least enthusiasm if not expertise in the world of ancient history..please give me a wider berth when you wish to curse those of us do not share your cussing and vitriol of a party we chivvy on.

62. Matters NotOctober 14, 2019 at 11:23 pm

    Re:

    NO politician is middle class. If you make $330,000 a year you are very much in the elite …

    So class location is defined by income? Pauline Hanson, Jacqui Lambie are best viewed as being in the same class as Mark Dreyfus for example – elites one and all. So how should one classify that gentleman from Queensland who spends a lazy $60 million on an election? Does he defy class classification?

    Perhaps we could develop a more sophisticated (and useful) class classification that takes more variables into account? Then again … what could be more simple than black and white categories? You know like – working class and middle class? O r maybe – good class and bad class?

    Perhaps we could use State residency to explain … everything?

63. RoswellOctober 14, 2019 at 11:50 pm

    Perhaps it’s not a good time to mention that I’m an upper-class snob.

64. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 7:44 am

    ” Perhaps it’s not a good time to mention that I’m an upper-class snob.”….Oh, we already knew THAT ONE Ross…

65. george theodoridisOctober 15, 2019 at 10:04 am

    Joseph, you’re behaving like guest (and not surprising) by misunderstanding the whole tone of my complaint. I am not “cursing Labor to my dying days; Labor as “betraying the social ideal” .
    I am watching them, being hurt by them and I am criticising them. Tomorrow they might change, though the odds of a fully corrupted party to do a thing like that are as close to zero as Pythagoras would allow it to get.

    “No man is an island!” Shit, is this your argument? That a political party is a man and not an entity that man is paying to serve its needs?
    Yes, of course we have to interact with the rest of the planet but to do so the way these sellouts in our Parliament are doing it, by obeying bastards and war mongering mongrels, bankers and shysters (are these separate species?) to bow down our head to one lot and extend our bum to the other?

    Prometheus made Man and got Zeus pissed off because he wouldn’t tell Man to unquestioningly obey and serve the gods (authority by greater power) and Prometheus ended up chained on a rock where an eagle dug at his liver during the day… but you know the myth.

    Prometheus didn’t make us bereft of will, of mind, of imagination, of purpose, of self respect, of dignity, of power.
    Yet, here we are obeying the power of thugs everywhichway we can and you excuse all that by chucking your hands in the air and effectively saying nothing more thank what guest is saying, “Oh, well, we must compromise…” There are brave men and women who are getting slaughtered because they disagree. And we play a huge part in their slaughter!

    Let the Morrisons and the Duttons, the Frydenbergs, the Hansons, and all the ALP wood puppets stay on, play on, party on?

    I don’t think so.

66. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 10:25 am

    You know, George..I think the problem with this country lies in the fact that we..as a nation..really have no uniform cultural base…there is still a “cultural cringe” in place..oh, we have many ethnic cultures incl’ the indigenous culture in-situ..but the “greater power” that is Anglo based..at least in philosophy, does not seem to want to develope the evolution of a multi-cultural culture…Heavens knows how many multi-cultural stories I have put up on here and my own blog, delivering situations encountered by migrants to these shores..just recently, George, I put up a 3 act what I call a “reading opera” about the Italian charcoal burners out here in the Mallee during the war years…I got but little comment on that effort…but hey..if you go onto Twitter and put up a clip of cute cats or dogs, it can go viral!…No..regardless of the quality of one’s efforts to deliver culture to the educated or otherwise middle-class masses, unless one has “authorised verification” of one’s integrity from a “recognised authority”, there is little chance, NOT of personal recognition. but of cultural acceptance of the reported item itself…
    So, yes…in effect, that gives permission. via an “elected authority” for ..: ” the Morrisons and the Duttons, the Frydenbergs, the Hansons, and all the ALP wood puppets stay on, play on, party on?” …and you have to ask..: Would the Australian public want it any other way?

    And stop connecting guest and myself into the one excuse..she can perfectly talk for herself as can I and so should you… horiatis!…….. 🙂

67. guestOctober 15, 2019 at 1:54 pm

    There has been so much discussion here, but in the end not much pragmatic advice. All I can say in the end is that a lot of belly-aching about Labor is not going to solve anything.

    In the past 20-odd years, Labor was the best government, despite the failings. We cannot allow the present rabble to drag the country into the gutter.

    Yes, there will be more licking of wounds and soul searching, but Labor is the only practical solution. Anything else is dreams and fantasy.

    Let us have less of the bagging and hyberbolic criticism. It does not achieve anything. It makes us look like rheumy oldies crying in our beer in the front bar.

68. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 2:22 pm

    I agree guest but it seems like Labor don’t like suggestions or advice. (I could be misjudging that by the online abuse I receive if I ever dare suggest that Labor could improve.)

69. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    Oh stop being so disingenously obliging, K-L…you really couldn’t give a rat’s about Labor improving…as a matter of fact, I’d go so far as suggest that most of your “suggestions or advice” are as about as useful as a bag of magic beans!

70. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    You are absolutely entitled to disagree with the suggestions I make, though reasons why might be more helpful to the discussion than some “magic beans” line. But you are NOT entitled to tell me what I “give a rat’s about”. You continually try to tell me who I am, what I think, what I really mean, what I am actually trying to say, what my motivation really is – despite the fact that you have never met me, never spoken to me, and know absolutely nothing about me. I am filtering the adjectives I would use to describe that behaviour….vascillating between presumptuous and insufferably arrogant.

71. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 3:26 pm

    Kaye Lee..at 68 years of age and having been permantly employed in an industry that demands contact, communication, conversation, conciliation and many times commiseration with the general public over all those years, one gets to recognise patterns of speech, behavioural speech, disingenous speech and excusing speech that is indelibly connected to a type of personality outcome…The only arrogance I see is to blithly presume one can continually inflict sanctimonious platitudes and pontification upon a servile audience without even considering any need to or when to give it best!

72. Paul DavisOctober 15, 2019 at 3:44 pm

    Yes, the bottom line is that no matter how disappointed some of us (ok, me) are with Labor, there is at present no other party or consortium of like minded pollies capable of wresting government from the gangsters. Yes, every Labor government since federation has made a better fist of governing for everyone and delivering nation building legislation etc than any Liberal or conservative or right wing or capitalist class government.

    So for the present i think we have no one else to vote for. Greens? Yeah, nar.

    Yes we can wring our hands with grief at the recent lost (or stolen) opportunity and continue to stare in disbelief as all those fairminded decent policies are dumped in favour of some “let’s move to the right and be popular” nonsense while being forever wedged. Someone’s lord Jesus Christ allegedly said something along the lines of “you must be hot or cold, for me or against me, not like tasteless tepid water that i spit out”. Our Labor party today is tepid, tasteless, neither refreshing nor invigorating. We can try to beseech the party to “grow a vagina” (tougher than those delicate manthings) and start to actually stand for something thus becoming a genuine opposition and alternative…. or we can keep on whining and sniping.

    Labor needs the youngsters, the kids who want fairness, equity, a future, who want leadership on the big issues of climate, environment, sustainability, peace and cooperation, etc etc. We old fogies marched against apartheid and the Vietnam war. Was whacked on the head and wrist by a baton, got bandaged up at Wayside Chapel…. Labor should be clearly supporting the Greta and the Extinction crowds, promoting people’s right to demonstrate not tut tutting about laura norder. Get out there and physically stop habitat destruction etc. Labor will no doubt condemn the Crown casino workers if they strike this week.

    Fossils like Fitzgibbon and those other orangutans who think economic growth is always the answer need to go join the LNP. Fat Tony and his Sussex St crew are yesterday’s men. Somewhere there are young Whitlams, go find them, please.

    Joseph, i once said i would never ever comment about your blogging, but jeeze i wish you would pull your head in fellah.

73. georgetheodoridisOctober 15, 2019 at 4:16 pm

    guest, what we simply cannot allow is the ALP also turning into a rabble and it seems to be doing it at a great pace. Too great a pace because there is only a feeble attempt to stop it by those who can see it, too feeble to fight the enormous army of sycophantic adulators and rusted ons who encourage it to empty all the ethics and morals and values it once carried in its saddle and… just go faster, go for the money, go for the votes, go for the finishing line and to hell what you’re left with as a servant and a representative of the people.

74. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 4:22 pm

    Yes Joseph. I am sure it was hard building things for people. I know what a crucial role good tradesmen play and I know how difficult customers can be.

    I too am in my sixties. My main occupation was a high school maths teacher – permanent to start with and then casual after I had kids. It ain’t no walk in the park and requires all of the skills you mentioned and many more. I was also a barmaid, a waitress, a bookmakers clerk, a factory production line worker, an electoral officer, a retail salesperson, an office clerk…and those are just the part-time or fill in jobs that I can remember. Perhaps my most challenging job was on the management committee of a homeless youth refuge but that was a volunteer position.

    But by all means, enlighten me about who I am because no doubt your experience is far greater than mine and enables you to judge people you have never met with laser like precision.

    Actually, justifying myself to you is degrading.

    Troddly off, there’s a good chap. Discuss the topic but leave your judgement of me personally out of it.

75. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    ” Joseph, i once said i would never ever comment about your blogging, but jeeze i wish you would pull your head in fellah.”….Perhaps YOU, Paul Davis, would be better served in pulling your head out!

76. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 4:40 pm

    Do you get off on confrontation Joe? Does it make you feel like a winner to belittle people?

    I, of course, would not know, having never met you but apparently “behavioural speech is indelibly connected to a type of personality outcome”….

77. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 4:44 pm

    But THIS is what’s the problem with the political impasse in the nation at this point in time..this is the crux of what bloody George is raging against..the “comfortable status quo of the beholden”…this pleasing somnolence of the confected social media rage..a false radicalism that really is little more than a whinge against the political stalemate of our Parliament…
    It’s not ME attacking YOU K-L…in reality it is YOU attacking Me for daring to unsettle you and yours from that comfortable sleep, where only dream and undisturbed slumber exist. It reminds me of those old American sitcoms from the early sixties like “My Three Sons” or “Father knows best”…a sugary confection of social reality where there is no other reality than the one delivered on a silver platter for a comfort-food like consumption!
    THIS is where we find ourselves with a political situation that disallows coarse accusations.. aggressive confrontation..everything has to be kept nice and clean for general consumption..it’s bloody pathetic..I want to see fight, not fold!
    You know..after my exchange with George just recently, I had the idea of writing a piece on the perverted skewing of that old cultural cringe that has tormented this nation for so long…A piece that would explore the many possible facets of a multi-cultural culture, rather than this blanc-mange Anglo one we appear to be stuck with…but I couldn’t get the energy up to go on with it…I just couldn’t be bothered…it all seemed so pointless..like a raging into a void as the situation is such that any controversial post that has not the “approval” of “The Cabal” gets swiftly moved on with minimal commentary..But OH Dear!…let us whinge and whine about “Dirty Dutton” or “Supercillious Scotty” or those “numpty-lumpty LNP’s” and you got a avalanche of opinion on your hands…Again I have to ask..Just WHO controls the Left-wing conversation??? https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/just-who-controls-the-conversation-of-left-wing-politics/

78. RoswellOctober 15, 2019 at 4:55 pm

    It’s not ME attacking YOU K-L…in reality it is YOU attacking Me for daring to unsettle you and yours from that comfortable sleep

    I see no evidence of this.

79. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 4:55 pm

    “It’s not ME attacking YOU K-L…in reality it is YOU attacking Me for daring to unsettle you and yours from that comfortable sleep, where only dream and undisturbed slumber exist. ”

    Of course. Sorry. Please, enlighten me.

    “any controversial post that has not the “approval” of “The Cabal” gets swiftly moved on with minimal commentary.”

    Or could it be that people just weren’t interested in what you wrote?

    Paul Davis, I will adopt your advice.

80. guestOctober 15, 2019 at 5:04 pm

    Paul Davis,

    you have succeeded in giving us more bagging and hyperbolic criticism. I was not going to say any more. I was accused of misinterpreting comments. Am I wrong here as well?

    You say: “Our Labor party today is tepid, tasteless, neither refreshing nor invigorating. We can only beseech the party to ‘grow a vagina’…and to actually stand up for something thus becoming a genuine opposition and alternative…”

    Am I reading this correctly? It is a statement full of weirdly expressed criticism – and might I say, misogyny? Certainly crude, and nowhere near the truth.

    It reminds me of comments made by George in his first post @12/10 11:14am.

    “His [Bill’s] mates, Tanya and Penny and Albo and now Keneally have only added to this sickening picture” [“a snivelling non-entity…A coward. One whose moral muscle has been ripped out of him…etc]..

    This after seeing all of the ALP as “utterly meaningless”, and pillorying Gillard as well.

    As I say, I have been accused of misinterpreting comments made. I have quoted actual words in my comments. But I think I am safe in saying these comments are exaggerated criticisms with more than a little misogyny.

    George, for example, has criticised three of the best women in Parliament as well as the leader of the party. And Paul, what can I say?

    Clearly, these critics have got themselves into a lather over perceived faults, but the expressions and points made are inappropriately expressed – as well as being overblown and inaccurate.

    They need a cooler, wider approach. The Oz voters have been dudded. The lies of the Murdoch media and of the Coalition (Have you seen the latest leak on media questions?) were highly influential, as were individual inputs (Thank you, Tim).
    Palmer’s millions out of nowhere reinforced the Murdoch line (Investigation pending?)

    Some want to blame Bob Brown, who has been telling the nation since the Greens began, that coal had to go eventually. But they do not listen in Qld. Coal is a staple diet, apparently, and while they say they need coal jobs for their families, they fail to see that climate change due to burning fossil fuels harms the rest of Oz and the world – and themselves! What is the matter with them?

    So the comments I have brought to attention here are not helpful. They do not at all help Labor to attend to the needs of the country which are being badly neglected by the Coalition and the business-as-usual hangers-on.

    We have to do it better.

81. paul walterOctober 15, 2019 at 5:35 pm

    It is a shame a derail seems to be happening, when John Lords sober assessment deserves better treatment.

    Taking my lead from JL’s into, I would say I agree that it was an election the LNP deserved to lose and Labor would have won it, I think, on a far better platform that would have addressed some of our nations problems. But for the interference of Palmer the coal magnate, who sabotaged Australian democracy for the most base of reasons, that is.

    Regarding Palmer, how could a man who claimed he was too poor to pay his workers have come up with 60-70 $ million to ran a saturation campaign that operated well in a strangely well and coordinated way with the LNP and tabloid media efforts?

    Was Palmer backed by others unknown or is he indeed a billionaire as he boasted later.

    Beyond that we could mention the oft-cited suspicion inflamed by msm involving the right faction in particular and observe that the conservative elements within Labor did little to differentiate the ALP from its rivals on a number of key issues, while NSW and Qld remain black holes for the party.

82. Joseph CarliOctober 15, 2019 at 5:42 pm

    Since in all probability NONE will go to the trouble of reading the above article, here is a taste..: From “Just WHO controls the conversation . . .” ..

    “. . . now we have those corporate banking institutions in charge of the economic direction of the nation and the monetary system has become : “The hand that giveth – credit” .. and bankruptcies have never looked better, and white-collar crime has never been more profitable … and respectful … so respectful, in fact that now it even appears to have the tick of Government approval!

    So why has it come to this?

    Simple .. : The education of a middle-class that has been indoctrinated to believe that the only way to a civilised and functioning society is to have that class of “institutionally trained” devotees managing both the treasury and the political direction. For it is no accident that such institutions of education have been lauded and funded and held to the highest esteem of the pinnacle of learning and cultural sophistication, let alone that of intellectual and academic brilliance so that after all the glittering prizes have been distributed to them and them only, the churned-out products of these “ruling-class machines” speak the same “language”, see the same “horizons”, and hear the same “cry of needs of the people” that they perceive it is THEIR duty to govern … after all, was it not written : “Father Knows Best”. So that even those women who graduate from such institutions may believe they are “calling the shots” of liberation from a patriarchal tyranny, they are only doing what is within what could be called a “perimeter of containment” that allows those of the middle-class to “rip-it-up” so far and then the nurtured indoctrination of “trigger comforts” pulls them back to gaze more closely and sentimentally on the treasures and possibilities accumulated by their parents and social kind and to reassess if they REALLY want to go to that radical “bridge too far” …

    So then the “soft-soaping” of their more radical vocabulary begins and quickly fades from an “WE MUST” to a gentrified ; “ There ought to be some consideration toward … ” and the conversation that was entrusted by the working classes to those who had persuasive command of language and “learned” politics now becomes a light-headed whine and whinge of the bleedin’ obvious … Because all that time while we of the half-educated working class deferred trust and voice to those better educated to speak on our behalf, they have instead fallen back on their social status blood-line and do not want to lose out on the better things in their life for nothing more than what they have been told is a futile fight for liberty and equality with the great, stinking, out-of-tune song singing ungrateful unwashed.”

    There you go George…suck it up!

83. paul walterOctober 15, 2019 at 7:12 pm

    Yes, Joe. It is a mandarinate.

84. Kaye LeeOctober 15, 2019 at 8:15 pm

    I think one thing we can all agree on is the frustration felt by we progressives.

    We must find a way to better communicate, with each other and with conservatives and with those who are too busy surviving to give a toss about politics.

    Start with priorities. Focus the message.

    We must have real emissions reduction.
    We must increase Newstart.
    We must build more affordable public housing.
    We must decrease hospital waiting times.
    We must continually evolve our education system to prepare students for the world they will inherit.
    We must overhaul the aged care system so the emphasis gets back to care in front of profit.
    We must enable people with a disability and support carers.
    We must give Indigenous people a say in policies that directly affect them.
    We must assist people to find secure employment and protect hard won workplace entitlements.

    Ok….I am maybe getting past the concentrated focus level. So many things that could be changed if we had a government with any courage and compassion.

85. guestOctober 15, 2019 at 8:42 pm

    Paul Walter,

    so you could not tell the difference between Labor and its rivals. It is “an oft-cited suspicion”, you say, “inflamed by msm”.

    And who are the culprits? Why, the “right faction in particular” and the “conservative elements”.

    So that would include Bill Shorten, of course. You know what they said; he is a social climber, hobnobbing with the upper class. You know, he should know his place – and keep to it!

    Nice one, Paul. So you took notice of msm “suspicions” and came to the conclusion that Labor could not be differentiated from its rivals – not from the Coalition, not from the Greens, not from One Nation or any of them.

    And “on a number of key issues”.

    But you do not say what they are.

    Not a deep, well considered study, Paul.

86. DrakeNOctober 15, 2019 at 9:26 pm

    Joseph Carli October 14, 2019 at 5:17 pm

    “..yeah but you can bang on about something too long…”

    Christ, the hypocrisy runs deep.

87. Matters NotOctober 15, 2019 at 10:05 pm

    Re:

    … evolve our education system to prepare students for the world they will inherit

    Perhaps those few words reveal an unconscious (and unintended) mindset that might be at the heart of the problem? Do students have to be prepared – like bricks have to be made? Cakes that have to be baked? With students seen as passive recipients and not active creators.

    Further, the notion that the world will be there to be inherited seems problematic as well. Put simply – do we want students who are architects or worker bees? Creators or inheritors? With the ought being the default position.

88. Kaye LeeOctober 16, 2019 at 8:01 am

    It is strange that you think preparing students means making them passive recipients. No teacher worth their salt would ever have such a view.

    We prepare students by encouraging curiosity and a love of learning, by making them confident enough to have a go and resilient enough to try again if that approach doesn’t work, by giving them the skills to research, question and critically analyse, by providing an environment where creativity can flourish, by developing communication skills and leadership qualities, by guiding their emotional development….and so much more.

    Teachers have to be continually learning and developing curricula to be relevant to students and the wider community’s needs.

    I also don’t understand your objection to the notion that our children will inherit the world we leave them. Passing them the baton in no way implies that they will just sit there and passively hold it.

89. GeorgetheodoridisOctober 16, 2019 at 3:30 pm

    Guest, I laugh all day long. Deep, heartfelt laughs particularly when my sweet little grand kids are around. My daughters too make me laugh.
    But mate, it’s a long time since I had a laugh as sonorous and belly friendly as the one you gave me in this concatenation of silliness.

    And it would take a huge and arduous work to go over it all and point out it’s errors, the end result of which would of no consequence so far as your understanding is concerned.
    Don’t take it too seriously, after all, I’m a misogynist!
    Except, of course for Jacinda Adern, Mary Kistakudis, Greta Thurman, some other great women commentators here and some women politicians in the states.

    Joseph, Emily Wilson gave Odysseus an adjective which better fits you. In her translation of Homer’s Odyssey (the only shit job I’ve ever seen in this task) she translates the word “polytropos” as “complicated”.
    “Sing muse of the complicated man!”
    I won’t go on with Emily for I fear the Guest’s wrath, more fearsome than that of Achilles, I feel, but you have confused me.
    I’m trying as I write to understand the full gamut of your views regarding politics and, in that context, the politics of wood puppets whose noses grow exponentially occupying all the seats in that rat warren they call parliament.

    Thank you all -most certainly John L- for a great little coffee break.

90. Joseph CarliOctober 16, 2019 at 5:52 pm

    George…I have written widely on the subject of a decadent middle class screwing over the whole of The West…and I still maintain that once that class gains control of the economics and the politics of a nation, it spells the decline and certain end of that nation…and I look to the Oligarchs in Athens, The Equestrian Order in Rome, the Captains of Industry in the British Empire and lately, the “Masters of the Universe” in Wall Street…

    On the subject of mythical translations, I too have had a go at “translating Penelope” and her trysts with her suitors and the tiring wait for Ulysses…I have always suspected and indeed thought that Penelope deserved a better story than the one of the long-suffering patient wife waiting for the wandering husband to return whilst being besieged by a mob of randy suitors…I have always wanted to give her the luxury of choosing her own lover…and so I have…You may tell me if I have blasphemed…but really…I and Penelope just don’t care!:

    I recollect a poem (I have it somewhere around here) of Penelope (of Ulysses myth) saying goodbye to her secret lover as it was rumoured Ulysses was returning to the island. Her lover, a rugged but handsome young fisherman who travelled with the seasonal schools of fish for his livelihood.

    She met him as he brought his catch to the house for purchase, his strong young body stripped to his fisher’s apron and his muscles a glimmer with the virile strength of his years. Aphrodite indeed did on this occasion bless his form with an inviting allure so that Penelope shivered with desire. Penelope would sneak out at night disguised as her faithful servant Eurycleia, to make love to Tomas (for that was his name) on warm sheep-skin rugs in the prow of his ketch, while Eurycleia would sit at the loom disguised as Penelope weaving the shroud…But then all fine things must end, and now there was a whisper that her husband was returning, and the lowly-born Tomas was in no position to claim affection for Penelope.

    The young fishermen who was then moored at the wharf in Ithaca, asked Penelope for a token to take with him when he sailed that day as a keep sake, a talisman.. and (if I clumsily recall.from memory ) she spoke from her balcony to him below..:

    “There sir, by your hand..a white Athens rose,
    Throw it to me that I may grant your desire.”
    Tomas plucked the flower and did as she sought.
    Penelope pressed the stem to her bared breast,

    So a thorn pricked her milk-white flesh.
    A noiseless cry shaped her red lips and,
    A drop of her blood rose upon the place,
    As she pressed the white blossom upon it,
    So a single petal held her blood token there.

    She cast her loving eyes to Tomas,
    And returned the flower which he cupped
    In his hand ..then raising it to his lips,
    He plucked out that single petal upon his tongue,

    And took it into his body as a sign
    Of his endearing affection for Penelope..
    “Addio..( he softly whispered)…addio my sweet lady..”

    I have that whole poem around here somewhere..I’ll have to search it out one of these days..

91. george theodoridisOctober 16, 2019 at 6:33 pm

    Joseph, you haven’t responded to my conundrum about you but don’t bother because I think we’ve both overstayed our welcome and most probably bored the crap out of everyone here.

    I’ve no idea what you mean by the “elite in Athens” and all the other situations you’ve mentioned.
    You have “translated” Penelope. You mean that, like Margaret Atwood (“Penelopiad”) you have written your own version of her story, casting the greatest ever story teller’s epic The Odyssey to give her another version with the trappings of our era.
    Nah, I prefer Homer. Atwood is amusing but she’s not Homer and I’d accept my instincts and say yours will also be amusing but not so commendable.

    There is a huge number of retellings of the ancient myths. I’ve probably read too many of them and now am thoroughly jaded. The better of them stay in my mind, that by Malouf, for example (Ransom) and Madeleine Miller’s Circe. There are others still floating about my library but most I’ve given away.

    Translating is the art of rewriting the original using another language, not another fantasy. I have translated all of the extant ancient Greek plays, much ancient Greek Lyric poetry, including that of Sappho, some Plato etc, into English and put them up on the net. (see link below).

    I’m not gloating but since you brought the issue up, I’m in the working group of the classics library of six Spanish Universities, three American and three UK. Check this link: (Scroll right down to the bottom)

    Equipo

    These works are now studied by all sorts of educational institutions and staged by thespians all around the planet.
    And I’m in relentless skype contact by people concerned with these arts: language, literature, theatre and translating.

    That’s what translating is.

92. Joseph CarliOctober 16, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    George…to your renowned skills and achievements in that world of Greek Theatre…I dips my lid….But I reserve the right, as does the mythical cat, even to smile at a king!

    I am teasing…but I do believe you are correct in your first sentence of the above post…so let us say Andio sus (if I have that correct!)…and the pleasure has been all mine..

93. guestOctober 17, 2019 at 11:59 am

    George @3:30pm

    You can laugh all you like, but I cannot hear you.

    You should cry for your country, which has slipped lower than Greece in its economic standing. The Coalition is wrecking the place.

    And why? Because at the last minute the voters were conned.

    You say that my responses to your comments is a “concatenation of silliness”, whereas I see so much silliness in your comments and said so.

    Yet you claim my silliness is so great that you could not take up the huge task of pointing out “it’s [sic] errors”. Not even a little bit, George?

    Yet the polls said for weeks, months and years that the Coalition was on the nose. The “meaningless” (your word) Labor Party was ahead. No one could see the “sickening picture” (your words, George)

    So laugh all you like, George. For you, it is all just theatre?

94. paul walterOctober 18, 2019 at 3:24 pm

    Couldnt resist including this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/17/union-anger-at-labor-for-siding-with-coalition-on-new-free-trade-deals

    As a sort of epilogue to this noble thread.

    “Jobs first” we were told.

95. guestOctober 18, 2019 at 4:09 pm

    But Paul, don’t the Unions rule the Labor Party?

    Oh wait, the Labor Party should oppose FTAs? Won’t they ask for concessions to protect Oz workers?

    Oh dear, is that a wedge?

    Is this an example of what Shorten is supposed to have said: “We oppose the Coalition, but we support whatever they do or say”? Weird, eh?

96. paul walterOctober 19, 2019 at 8:34 pm

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/18/queensland-claims-cabinet-confidentiality-to-block-release-of-climate-protest-details?CMP=share_btn_tw

    Trust us? We don’t hide things.

    We do they hide information like this?

97. guestOctober 21, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Paul Walter,

    you are right. Why try to hide what cannot be hidden?

    Palaszuczk was a stumbling block for Shorten all along. How she could be persuaded that Adani was necessary to provide jobs is completely beyond me. Especially just a decade out from the IPCC deadline – and knowing what we know about Adani.

    Those people who think they need coal jobs to support their families are another mystery, especially when it is coal jobs which aid Climate Change and threaten disaster for them and their children.

    Then we have this weird notion that no one, not Bob Brown nor the rest of Oz, can tell Qld what to do about a matter which concerns all of Oz and the rest of the world!

    Blind parochial stubbornness!

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