Today’s interview on The Insiders showed us why Kim Beazley is not cut out for the job of opposition leader, let alone PM. From tax cuts, to questionable Ethanol policy, sacrificing Scott Parkin on the alter of wedge avoidance, to making scapegoats of the oil companies rather than addressing the issue of Peak Oil, mix that with a totally meek response regarding a serious security leak on the Parkin case to Chief Dancing Bear Greg Sheridan, and Beazley showed about as much passionate opposition toward this Government as Kate Moss does to a few lines of coke before a catwalk stroll.
Here’s a grab from the transcript, the bold highlights are mine.
KIM BEAZLEY: Yes, there is. I think we have to go down the road of practical measures. One of the problems with this government is it seeks to have a debate on terrorism that gets to an argument about civil liberties. We need a debate that goes around practical measures. We’ve put out one suggestion which is similar to legislation which exists now in NSW, so it’s a bit tougher and we think it should be picked up in the other States in a uniform way and by Canberra, and that is to give the capacity to the Police Commissioner in any jurisdiction to lock down an area from which he believes a terrorist threat may be emerging or where it’s actually occurred. This gives the police substantial powers of search and seizure. For that to be sustained over a period of time, you need some degree of judicial or executive supervision. But nonetheless, it gives the police a practical capacity to get to grips with an emerging situation. We’ve got other suggestions as well on practical measures. It’s shocking, four years in, to get a report like Sir John Wheeler’s. But in the airports that are provincial airports which people transit through to the main airports, there needs to be better security, ports - a whole range of issues we’ve been putting our substantial positions on.
Jesus. Really at this rate we might as well have a one party state, Beazley acts like the Deputy PM for all the opposing this opposition provides, suggesting that you’re a kinder gentler version of this government, or we’ll do it all better or tougher gets you absolutely nowhere as the polls attest, unless of course you really are looking for a leadership position in a grand coalition. Just what is Beazley suggesting here? We lock down Lakemba and turn it into some kind of Warsaw ghetto in the event of a terrorist threat? I suppose that should come as no surprise, Labor is the party that brought us mandatory detention.
A couple of short notes on today’s edition. It was an all News Limited affair today, Kelly, Farr, Bolt and Price. Where was the balance of opinion? It was a good show for bloggers today with Daily Flute’s Paul Batey bringing his toon genius to the Sunday morning sleepyheads, and even if they didn’t mention him by name, a photo of Darp’s exploits with Brendan Nelson at the hockey got a quick look in.
Kim Beazley’s finest moment was the budget reply speech (or campaign launch, I forget the specifics) around about 1998 - apparently the last best chance they had of regaining office. It was a fiery denunciation of the government’s agenda, but since then things have gone downhill. Now I wouldn’t even vote for Beazley. Seriously, from here on in, I act on the assumption that the government does not represent me, nor is it likely to.
Fuck Howard, fuck Beazley, fuck the whole self-satisfied bunch of them. Life’s too short. They truly do not care. And when/if actual bad things hit the fan (peak oil etc), we’ll see how much substance our wonderful ‘way of life’ is based on. I reckon we’re about one major depression away from permanent one-party rule.
Do we really expect that the guy who fluffed Tampa (being frightened to death of being wedged then), should be any different now?
Behold Kim Beazley, invertebrate leader of the ALP. Pathetic to the nth degree.
Meanies.
ALP members do not seem to get the message the ALP, a clone of the Liberal Party, is not electable in its present form. Why vote for a clone when you can have the original?
On issues like mandatory detention, how can the ALP decry the concentration camps when they are responsible for them?
Beazley’s jelly-rollover on Scott Parkin was the final straw for me. I think Beazley just likes getting his tummy tickled by Howard, Abbott and the rest of the evil gang.
Is the ALP electable again? Yes, on two accounts: the Libs become so on-the-nose, the ALP is elected by default. Or the party gets some backbone and regains it social conscience and offers a genuine alternative. Perhaps even a coalition with the Greens will become a necessity for the ALP to form a government.
Would you like me to do Howard instead C.L? How’s this for balance?
“Howard, a venal little man, filled with barley concealed fears, a man afraid of diversity, a man who is only comfortable with other almost dead white males with medals, and subservient females. Ever since he became PM Australia has become a smaller locked down isle of fear as he tries to drag us back to the Earlwood of the 1950’s.
His fearful nature manifested by his hanging on to the coattails of the two biggest imperialist powers in history whilst tugging his forelock and the puds of their leaders, the vain rationaliser Tony Blair and the increasingly drunk George Bush into one of the greatest misadventures of recent history”.
Didn’t see the interview, but Beazley’s pre-occupation with all things defence means that this doesn’t come as as surprise. It’s a disappointing stance, and it’d disappointing that one-up’s-manship on terror is what Federal Labor apparently feels as though it needs to stoop to.
On Beazley’s leadership - I’d like to think that conservative Australia doesn’t want a conservative leader. Sadly I don’t think that’s the reality.
Is Australia conservative, Guy? Or is that people in the middle who elect ALP or Liberal govts are only conservative in that they fear and/or have no respect for the current ALP (I can’t call it an Opposition because it isn’t), its lack of differentiating and progressive policies and its ineffectual leader (and almost all the pretenders to the leadership position)?
I think the ALP has to look beyond the personal vitriol in the Latham Diaries and perhaps consider the wider view presented in them.
Bomber’s a particularly flagrant example, but you is there any other ALP figure prepared to say that human rights are crucial and should not be traded away for political gain. Their problem is isolation from the people they represent and immersion in the Byzantine court rituals that pass for policy-making in the ALP.
Labor’s response to Tampa, mandatory detention, and more recently, gay marriage, has seen labor consign themselves to a perpetual opposition (sic)
We have the most divisive and corrosive prime minister in our history, yet Labor can’t muster a decent alternative. Pathetic.
One point about mandatory detention that could be made is that while the ALP started the policy, it was with Howard that the detention policy was used politically and where the minister responsible - Ruddock - seemed to have deliberately created a poisonous culture in DIMIA.
While a strictly limited period of mandatory detention for refugees may be justified, the problem was with a policy of indefinite detention of refugees and relocating to off-shore concentration camps. I do not know the details of the policy over the Keating time, I can not imagine the ALP in government purposefully pursuing a policy of indefinite detention on niggly administrative grounds.
The minister is responsible for reviewing the Department’s actions and the effect of the government’s policies - and adjusting the conditions appropriately. That’s basic stuff, again.
The ALP does not need to be apologetic about initiating the policy in the first place - they would have been able to keep the detention regime humane if they were in government.
As an analogy - imagine if I bought a new car, say, twelve years ago and kept it in good working order until it was sold nine years ago. The new owners decide to trash the car, neglect regular maintenance, run it down into the ground. Now, am I still responsible for the condition of that car after it was sold?
The extreme DIMIA abuse happened with Howard at the wheel. So what if he points out the first page of the log books.
We really need an opposition that at least tries to take up the fight…
Yep point taken Robert, it’s true that the policy hardened with the Libs, but now we have a reverse situation where Labor is claiming that the Libs haven’t gone far enough on national security, and it looks like if they were in office they would build a far more onerous security apparatus on top of the one the Govt. has built, and his flippancy regarding civil rights gives the game away….as he said.
So no initial oversight, the intelligence services and police would have a free hand, just trust us he’s saying.
What we have here is the two tweedles…..dee and dum. Beazley has been bought and sold by the political establishment (Milandra lobbying Labor and Labor changing tack) and the military/intelligence/ANZUS cheerleaders and as such is unable to present a differing policy menu to the electorate because he is captive to the same interests as the PM, and ultimately listens to the same voices.
So in the end he can only parrot the PM. But most damning of all for the Beazley strategy (whatever the hell that is) is Barrie Cassidy’s perceptive question.
Nuff said, Beazley as cover for Howard. That’s what he’s become.
Beazley, huh
What does he stand for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Beazley, huh
What does he stand for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again,
Beazley, huh, good God
What does he stand for
Absolutely nothing
(Apologies to Edwin Starr)
All true, perhaps. Yet this is no time for knee-jerk opposition moves. Let’s face it, whoever is leading Labor at the mo is basically rooted, and all we can discuss is a more or less better style of being rooted, for rooted the opposition will surely remain, whoever is in charge. In such un-sunny circumstances, Kim never embarasses Labor. You can take Kim anywhere. He may not stand for anything, but he’s a big, slow-moving, prolix talking, guns and tanks loving, cuddly bear. Right now, it may be all that those who look to parliamentary opposition can hope to get.
“Beazley‚Äôs jelly-rollover on Scott Parkin was the final straw for me.”
You may be being a little harsh on the opposition here because they have no doubt been briefed thoroughly over the reasons for his visa cancellation. Let’s face it, if the ALP weren’t satisfied that Parkin was a real threat, rather than just some rentacrowd opponent of the govts, then they would have screamed. Parkin must be the real cahuna, especially when you recall he is a Yank and the govt aren’t in the habit of upsetting Yank tourists. Sorry guys, I just don’t buy the big conspiracy thingy.
Labor should have stuck with Crean for the long haul IMO, but I may be guilty of a bit of hindsight here. Like Howard, who is now an expert at it, I think he would have been a better team collater and manager over the long haul. It takes patience and hard teamwork, which Labor haven’t been prepared to do. They wanted a quick fix, head-kicker, Keating type. They got one alright.
Labor was briefed by ASIO. By the way, here is Mike Carlton on the subject yesterday:
A “nuisance?” Rolling marbles under the hooves of horses is an exceedingly good way to mame the horse and kill anyone in the vicinity of its fall. No wonder Kim Beazley saw the ASIO evidence and assented to the deportation of this violent piece of trash.
None of you will preference the Libs before ALP, so there is no reason to pander to your vote. Compulsory preferential voting baby.
CL,
Accepting for the moment that its true about the marbles, and acknowledging the animal cruelty risk and the threat that a horse will fall and kill one of the marble rolling protesters. How is it a threat to national security?
If marbles do present such a threat, should marbles be removed from sale, and screened for at airports?
So you support the right of Americans to come here and plan people’s deaths? Does that make you a forelock tugger?
Or what!
So it‚Äôs the voting system that is making Labor abandon its true friends? I can‚Äôt say I disagree. But….
I just have to wonder what they’re going to do when Nick Minchin finally achieves his long held dream of abolishing compulsory voting and then employs a whole bag of vote suppression tricks to kill Labor‚Äôs traditional constituencies? Playing to the preferences in this current political climate will signal the death knell for Labor, it‚Äôs hard core supporters will walk away to Green pastures taking their institutional memory with them and adding that experience to someone else‚Äôs. That‚Äôs the problem to begin with, it‚Äôs what machine politics does to you — a blinkered focus on numbers instead of passion and principle, and you lose your good people over time.
You know it’s interesting, since I moved to Australia almost seventeen years ago, I’ve seen the slow decline of Labor as a political force, from holding Govt, to inevitable opposition, and now not just opposition, but no real power in the Senate either. This looks like a real long-term decline to me. Why has this happened? Quite simply the party is now so non-ideological (or should I really say supports the Govt’s ideologies) that the voting public effectively tells pollsters it stands for nothing, and then casts it’s vote accordingly.
And it’s no salve to say that all the State Govt’s are Labor so the party is in pretty good shape everywhere else, the Labor states are all falling over themselves to apply even tougher terrorism laws than the Feds thereby signalling that the rot is at all levels.
Below is a quote that I ripped from an article on the US Democrats similar political decline; I’ve changed Dems to Labor, Repubs to Libs. I think it applies.
Labor stands for numbers, process, and gaining power for powers sake only, not blood sweat and tears, which is the fertile soil of politics.
The last time Labor was in office, we had the worst unemployment since the 1930s. Those were the good ol days.
Beazley is a fool, pure and simple.
Why would you fall into the trick of taking an ASIO briefing on the Parkin issue? Its a sure fire way to gag you.
As for the lockdown plan, well now the Greens will say at the next State Election, “Don’t vote Labor, they want to lock down Brunswick and turn it into a police state”. It opens up a fear camapaign from the Left. WHo would have thought of that.
Just brilliant Kim, just brilliant.
What is the true unemployment figure, CL? It’s certainly not the ‘official’ one of around 5%. There are many commentators who believe it to be double that or even as high as 13%.
Next someone will trot out the tired old interest rates argument. It now takes a greater percentage of the pay packet to service the average mortgage than it did under Keating’s 18% interest rates.
Much of today’s good news items are an illusion.
Shorter CL: Before Parkin got here, Australian protesters had absolutely no idea how to roll marbles under horses’ hooves.
CL,
So I’m just getting this straight, our list of national security threats include, attacks on critical infrastructure, jihadist suicide bombers on our transport systems and marble rolling hippies.
If the guy was advocating this, there might be grounds for his removal. Calling it a national security risk and not even indicating what risk he posed though is ridiculous.
Whenever someone uses the phrase “trot out” it always means they’re raising something that irritatingly debunks their own worldview but they resent being reminded of it.
Yes, more “we agree with the policy, but it doesnt far enough [and/or] is poorly administered” from Beazley.
Does this man need a 15% Green vote boot up the arse before he takes a stand on anything? Because that’s whats coming.
He hasnt yet got it. Howard making him dance the “you cant wedge me” twist IS the wedge.
Unelectable. And worse - he is absolutely no use as an opposiiton leader for even putting issues on the agenda. When was the last time Beazley scored a punch? Does he even want the top job? I doubt it. For years ive seen him as the ALPs 47% 2pp go-to man. No chance of government - but boy, will we get more opposition bench real estate or what.
National security is simply the security of the Australian people. Defining that as a threat to 5000, or only to two or three, is an enlightened recognition of the individual citizen’s right to be protected from death or injury at the hands of a Scott Parkin.
Imagine for a moment that Parkin stayed, tutored others on how to bring a police horse down; one of the protesters did so, say, and a person died. Then, let’s say, it was revealed that the government had been told this is what Parkin had been planning.
The left would be screaming for Howard’s resignation. “So Mr Security Howard can’t even protect us from a lone-nut American, eh?” That’s what you’d all be saying.
Is Australia conservative, Guy? Or is that people in the middle who elect ALP or Liberal govts are only conservative in that they fear and/or have no respect for the current ALP (I can’t call it an Opposition because it isn’t), its lack of differentiating and progressive policies and its ineffectual leader (and almost all the pretenders to the leadership position)?
I think the answer to both of those questions is “yes”, Ron, and the former question should not be underestimated. The bottom-line (however unattractive) is that people who aren’t effectively voting Liberal or National in our federal two-party-preferred system are effectively voting Labor. As I’ve argued elsewhere, your average Green voter is not pissed off enough with Labor to preference the Libs before them, so the electoral problem is not there.
Labor needs to win more of what we currently describe as the “conservative” vote. People who are currently voting Liberal need to vote Labor, or people who are voting informally need to start voting Labor. I think the former is sadly much more likely, and thus we on the left should not be surprised when Beazley et. al try taking on some of the territory currently occupied by the Libs.
If Beazley does not make up ground in 2007, he will likely be turfed and we will have Rudd or Gillard. But I believe he will make up ground.
My memory’s a little hazy CL, but haven’t marbles already been used in demos?
And if this was the reason for Parkin’s deportation why can’t the public be told?
Yes they have. The public is already aware of this disgusting tactic.
According to Steve, this is all a big hoot.
ASIO’s brief is, among other things, the protection of the community from politically-motivated violence. Whatever else might have been in the secret level briefing, Parkin’s ‘teachings’ seem to fit the bill.
Phil, I agree with your points [made on the post at 10pm last night]. Defending human rights and our democratic institutions is a valid check on the proposed anti-terror laws. We all know how Ruddock understands the rule of law by the way that he mismanaged DIMIA as Immigration Minister - so having Ruddock in charge as AG with these new anti-terror laws is a real worry. I agree with you - but what more can we say before the ALP starts to stand up for human rights and the rights of every Australian. My point about mandatory detention was just to show that the ALP doesn’t even seem to be trying, or are clueless - what more can we do…
I have put some solid new ideas into the public realm, mainly through my blog, to try to build a credible platform to take on these neo-cons and neo-liberals.
Howard is a radical. He was put in office as a protest against Keating - but what Howard has done since is to accellerate the pace of change. They have chewed through the economy, the public services and now they seem intent on destroying our democratic institutions. This is no longer about partisan Lib or Lab - its about our democratic traditions being trashed beyond repair. If only the ALP would notice…
Has it ever occurred to you that Mr Beazley is not really interested in turning you on? Has it occurred that he is in the difficult position of trying to manouvre the ALP to a middle ground that is way way to the right of you people? To win Government?
Now it is not worth much but as a RWDB, I think Bomber has got a very bad rap from the ALP cheer squad over issues like Tampa, Iraq, Asylum seekers etc etc. He is trying to offer a softer more “compassionate” face to what is essentially a right wing ascendency in this country. Like Robert Duvall in Apocolypse Now (** surveying the smoking ruins “You know, some day this war’s gonna end”), someday (sigh) the pendulum will swing back and the ALP will return to government in Canberra. It will be due to Bomber’s reasonableness not due to David Marr or Margot Kingston.
Rob has a blog! Yay!
I almost feel sorry for the Left. Their insane Labor leader failed, and they hate the sane one for being sane.
Sue Lowe, 33, was atop the gentle 14-year-old former racehorse when he lost his footing on marbles thrown by the protesters in Clarence Street, and dropped from under her.
She landed on her left shoulder and instinctively rolled up into the foetal position so as not to be trampled by the other horses.
I guess those other horses weren’t as gentle as Hollywood.
…but what more can we say before the ALP starts to stand up for human rights and the rights of every Australian.”
When Beazley does stand up for the rights of every Australian, the left protests that an American violence-advocate was deported - for encouraging acts that could have mamed or killed people in our streets.
This is no longer about partisan Lib or Lab - its about our democratic traditions being trashed beyond repair. If only the ALP would notice…
Where was this level of profound concern when Hawke and Keating were selling off everything the government owned; when Gareth Evans was dispatching fighter jets to spy on Tasmania; when Labor was boasting about how low wages were; when unemployment was 11 per cent; when a forelock-tugging Keating secretly signed a security treaty with a nation then committing genocide in East Timor (and calling its leader “father”); when - for the first time in history - a PM, Keating, refused to attend Question Time; when he and Hawke lied about their arrangement for the prime ministership; when they inaugurated the compulsory detention of women and children behind razor wire; when they were doing nothing to assist Aborigines beyond reading speeches by Don Watson??
For good reason, what Robert dismisses as a “protest against Keating” has now lasted a decade.
Darryl blames the horse. Gee, I wonder why the left is a laughing stock to the public.
James, the middle ground is conservative in the sense of keeping our democratic institutions and traditions. Howard is not a conservative, and Beazley is giving him a free run. The Libs are moving to the far right under Howard - seen especially with the NSW or Sydney Liberals. For the ALP to tag along is not a case of trying to find the centre or middle ground in Australian politics. What the ALP is doing is narrowing the distance to the Libs [on the political spectrum] and this has appeared to distort the polls through a lack of choice, but a wish in the electorate for a moderate alternative. You could nearly say, looking in from the outside, that the Libs are pulling the strings of the Lab machine - for its own advantage of course.
EP, if I were ever to receive any kind of applause from you then I know that I am walking on thin ice…
By the way, I consider myself to be more from the Centre of the political spectrum than of the Left…
The neo-conservatives seem to think that they can make any silly idea a reality if only it were repeated often enough and by enough people [and if they get rid of dissent or critical voices]. Sanity doesn’t work that way.
True neo-conservatism was introduced as a everyday governing principle by the Labor Party.
The neo-conservatives seem to think that they can make any silly idea a reality if only it were repeated often enough and by enough…
“This is the recession we had to have.”
CL, the point I was making about the protest vote against Keating is that Howard deceived the electorate. He was not a conservate - he is a radical. And he has continued with a radical agenda over the last ten years. Howard’s guiding image of a ever-receeding finishing line is not what you would expect from a responsible and considered leader. Reform for reform’s sake does not neccessarily improve conditions for Australians.
My point was not one in defense of Keating - it was the point that Howard is a Keating in overdrive, and by stealth…
Robert, many leftists such as yourself erroneously believe themselves to be centrists.
They then wonder why the fringe ideas they support are rejected by the real centrists — the majority of voters who elect the government.
Finally got hold of last Thursday’s Oz today:
The Australian has learned there are a variety of tactics that are more frequently seen in major demonstrations, which ASIO and other federal agencies believe increasingly put the police involved at serious risk of injury and even death.
…
It is believed [by who?] that ASIO had learned that at the training workshops Mr Parkin was planning to organise, such tactics were going to be canvassed. [again, by who? Parkin, some nuff-nuffs from the Spartacist League, or ASIO’s own plants at the workshops? Oops, slipped over the line into conspiracy theory there]
[One] … such tactic involves attempting to bring down police horses by throwing marbles on the ground …
“It is believed that ASIO had learned”; that’s some really convincing hearsay there.
You’re wrong, Robert. Howard’s IR and social ideas were well-known - dating back to the 70s. Stealth? Wouldn’t that be a Labor Party that, when it was last in office, ratted on its constituency and boasted about keeping wages at record lows? Wouldn’t signing a security treaty with a regime committing genocide - without reference to Parliament - constitute stealth also?
Gummo defends arrogant American, advocates the naming of ASIO sources. It’s all so very weird.
I don’t believe that Beasley has ever really regained his health. He looks a sick, tired old man at times. I don’t suppose we’ll ever be told the truth until he folds up like Latham.
Gummo,
‘Believed’ by The Australian, it would seem. Almost every word printed in every newspaper is hearsay.
To see how far right the right has defined the centre you only have to look at how the emerging POV amongst the RW crazies is to define Bush as big spending democrat type and that the American left should be happy with him. The modern right is so far out to lunch that they have no idea where the centre really lies.
It’s a sad world they occupy when classic liberalism, noblesse oblige, rule of law, civil rights and social democracies are seen as radical fringe ideas.
But then I have to keep remembering, with this lot there is no such thing as society….only markets.
EP, I consider myself a centrist because I view the political spectrum from another angle. Instead of the traditional Left and Right, I think that another important distinction is between the Centre and the Extremes. I understand the Extremes, on both the Left and Right, to be about ‘experts’, or ‘elites’ if you like, trying to impose what they think is correct on the rest of the population. At the extremes you have social engineering and guiding Grand-Narratives.
The Centre, by contrast, is about people living their own lives as they choose - and speaking with their own voices. The narratives of the centre are personal stories. The political emphasis at the centre is similar to the traditional American ‘liberal’ - but more about democratic institutions that people are free to participate in. This is not a free-for-all attitude - because the modern state and modern society is of a level of complexity now that individuals left to their own devises probably could not survive without recourse to public services. Rather than the market being the sole feedback mechanism for efficient services, a public space and civil society provides a forum where policies can be discussed and debated.
I consider this to be a centricist position. That the majority of voters don’t know about this more ‘traditional’ politics, doesn’t mean that people would not vote for it - if they were given a choice. The ALP now does not offer the public a choice to the current govenment…
It’s a sad world they occupy when classic liberalism, noblesse oblige, rule of law, civil rights and social democracies are seen as radical fringe ideas.
But then I have to keep remembering, with this lot there is no such thing as society….only markets.
Who are these awful people on the fringe of the Right? Name names.
“Gummo defends arrogant american, advocates the naming of ASIO sources …”
Nice one, CL. Sometimes, your reading comprehensin skills are a match for the Strockster’s. Now, howabout addressing may actual point; that the entire case the Oz has made against Parkin (and Iain Murray, a ‘co-trainer’ named in Friday’s Oz) is nothing more than hearsay and innuendo. Which you, apparently have accepted as fact. Way to win respect for your position, money boy.
Nah, not the fringe EP, the mainstream of the right, John Howard for example. Feel better now?
Noblesse oblige: 11 per cent unemployment, WA Inc.
Rule of law: scrambling a fighter jet to Tasmania, signing treaties with genocidal regimes, refusing to attend Question Time.
Civil rights: Reading Don Watson speeches, inaugurating compulsory detention of women and children behind razor wire, the Australia Card, supporting an American’s right to train youngsters to mame or kill animals and people in our streets.
I apologise for my “comprehensin skills” Gummo.
‘Keating secretly signed a security treaty with a nation then committing genocide in East Timor (and calling its leader “father”)’
CL it’s only a minor point but in Bahasa Indonesia, it is a cultural thing to call someone older than oneself (and male) ”Bapak”, literally meaning father but (if) said by Keating, it would have been a totally correct cultural form of address. Try looking up the use of the word ‘you’ Indonesian—it’s a minefield. It’s all about face too, but that’s another story.
Likewise ‘Ibu’ and mother—neither represent a lap dog cringe as you imply.
Oh,and ‘ Bapak’ has an equal meaning of ‘Mr’. Shortened form ‘Pak.’
Never said it was a hoot CL, it can be dangerous certainly, but I would question that talking about something that is already being done, is a national security risk. I doubt it requires much training by foreign experts. To me calling this a just a way stiffle debate by using the scary words of “national security”.
If the marble rolling is true and the reason behind the deportation, why couldn’t we hear about it officially? Hearing it unofficially risks the confidential sources just as badly. Was the government worried that revealing this reason wouldn’t be received well?
So you want to swing dicks on who is more bereft of morality?
Cozying up to China, signing up for an illegal war, rolling out more razor wire building a massive detention centre on Christmas Island without proper scrutiny, Shutting QT and parliament three days early gutting debate on Telstra, implementing CIS policy papers, floating the idea of an even more comprehensive identity card, and taking Govt. spin as fact on civil rights issues….etc.
As I said tweedle dee and dum, that’s the problem with Labor.
Greetings oh Bapak, liquidated any villagers lately?
Damn this kybord!
Speaking of Beazley, Glenn Milne tries to suggest in today’s Oz that the ALP is violently anti-Israel and anti-American. Ludicrous, of course. How often must be say this: Questioning America and its government is legitimate and indeed vital.
The ALP’s policy on Israel is virtually identical to the Libs and always has been. In fact, I think a few things need to be said about all this:
http://antonyloewenstein.blogspot.com/2005/09/same-old-story-rehashed.html
Beazleys specific anti terror recommendations are now posted up on the ALP site.
How far back into history do you want to go on secret deals, CL?
“Let me give you a short history lesson to remind you about the illustrious Sir Robert Menzies.
Eight days after WW11 was declared, Menzies wrote to Stanley Bruce (Former Australian Prime Minister)then the High Commissioner to Britain telling him that Britian should negotiate with Hitler after the fall of Poland. Bob expected that it would lead to “a resettlement of the map of Europe with joint and several guarantees all round” It was not then clear to the people that Britain and France had no intention of actually trying to stop Hitler from conquering Poland. As Bob said to Bruce “Nobody really cares a damn about Poland”
Robert Menzies shared the same class admiration for the for the Nazis as the ruling class of Britain, France and the USA, rejoicing in every new development in Nazi Germany that enhanced the likelihood of war. Menzies returned from a visit to Germany in the mid ’30s full of praise for Hitler and what he had supposedly done for Germany - I quote his own words “There’s today a really spiritual quality in the willingness of Germans to devote themselves to the well-being of the state” Later, he went out of his way to please the German ambassador in his efforts to “get” the visiting anti-facist Czech writer Egon Kisch. Quite unlike the treatment given Count Felix von Luckner who was fawned over by Sydney’s rich and powerful during his visit as ” Hitler’s emissary to the youth of the world”. von Luckner made propaganda tours for Hitler.
Menzies’ partiality for fascist regimes was not limited to Germany. His notorious nickname of Pig Iron Bob stemmed from his shameful use of legislation to force waterside workers to load pig iton for shipment to Japan at a time when Japan had actually invaded China. The pig iron was wanted by the Japanese for the making of shells and other weapons to be used against the Chinese people. (sound familiar?) In early 1939 the Japanese Government publicly thanked Menzies for his help in keeping them supplied woth pig iron for their war effort. Menzies is also irrevocably associated with the plan to appease Japan by giving her the northern part of Australia down as far as Brisbane. Labor MHR Mahoney told the House (referring to Menzies) that Menzies had told him that “I have great admiration for the Nazi organisation of Germany” Mahoney said that at heart Menzies was a Nazi.
You’ll remember Keith that it was Pig Iron Bob who set the precedence of lying to the Australian people to support US illegal invasions of unarmed civilians to prop up corrupt US puppet governments when he took us into Viet Nam.
The hypocrit Menzies trotted out his long suffering wife as his base for family values for election purposes and publicity photographs while he indulged for many years in an extra marital affair.”
The Canberra Times
I consider defending fundamental democratic liberties - such as habeas corpus, no detention without charge, and the rule of law - to be a centrist position. Does anyone here seriosuly suggest it is otherwise?
Howard and Ruddock are courting authoritarianism with unseemly haste in the face of very small risks, ALL of which are easily dealt with within the framework of existing criminal law. They are in full surrender mode - a gutless betrayal of our traditions and values.
Beazley is, in my view, abandoning the centrist ground and travelling out to the post-democratic nether-lands with his coalition opponents. I see nothing meritorious in this, nor do I think it in any way indicative of ‘centrism’.
I dare any ALP member to read those recommendations of Beazley’s and not feel some twinge of horror at where the ALP stands today.
Gough Whitlam inaugurated the relationship with China.
Keating looked the other way vis-a-vis a war on East Timorese villagers. Howard helped remove a man who gassed, bombed, disappeared and murdered an estimated half-million of his own people. The war was not illegal because the warrant, so to speak, was in the hands of what we now know to have been the most corruption-riden body in history. For that reason and others, its authority was void.
The Howard government destroyed the people smuggling industry. The left believes Asian mafiosi should be able to continue their trade and that brown people have the right to drown at sea.
Guillotining debates is a parliamentary tactic used by both sides and has been for the past 104 years.
The Labor Party was the one to CIS-ize government.
The Labor Party inaugurated the liquidation of public utilities.
Thanks for that link to a mad woman’s rant in a newspaper, Ron.
Cripes, that settles that.
Has Antony Lowenstein ever made a comment that doesn’t link to a post on his own blog?
Just wonderin’
Does this man need a 15% Green vote boot up the arse before he takes a stand on anything? Because that’s whats coming.
You don’t get it. Green preferences will go to the ALP. Liberal preferences will not. So it is the Liberal votes that the ALP must get to win.
And Phil — references to Bush as a democrat are supposed to highlight the fact that he is the biggest-spending President in the history of the US. Much like calling Howard a socialist is an attempt to highlight that he is the biggest-spending, highest-taxing PM Australia has had and he spends more (in real per capita terms) on welfare, health and education than Whitlam or any other leftie.
The “centre” is not a fixed position. Given the incentive of politics, both major parties are likely to gravitate towards the centre. If you find a point of agreement between the ALP and Liberals — that is probably a central position.
As for: But then I have to keep remembering, with this lot there is no such thing as society… only markets
That is not the position of the right. The left have been intentionally misuneratnding that point for years in what can only be described as wilful misrepresentation, stupidity, or an unwillingness to even try and understand their ideological enemy. Hardly a good set of options.
‘Twas a nice little segway by Antony and tangentially relevant to this discussion but I do have to say it….HTML Antony, HTML. Milne is probably still smarting from Latham’s characterisation of him as the poisoned dwarf, and today’s column just proves it as accurate. But back to the topic at hand, Beazleys utter capitulation to, and acceptance of, Liberal policy. Now where was I before the Crikey e-mail arrived in my inbox. Oh, here’s Tony Kevin on Beazley.
I couldn’t agree more.
Well said John, though I think in some cases it’s the Left misrepresenting the Right, rather than misunderstanding them.
The example before us is Phil Gomes’ statement, which he says refers to John Howard:
It’s a sad world they occupy when classic liberalism, noblesse oblige, rule of law, civil rights and social democracies are seen as radical fringe ideas.
But then I have to keep remembering, with this lot there is no such thing as society….only markets.
Clearly none of these assertions are true in Howard’s case — they are transparently obvious misrepresentations. Nobody believes stuff like that outside the Left’s cliquey little echo-chamber.
The voters are smarter than the radical Left, which is why the support for fringe-Left parties like The Greens remains below 10%.
So now Tony Kevin says Beazley is Hitler?
Watching the Left spiral into madness is so entertaining!
“You don‚Äôt get it. Green preferences will go to the ALP. Liberal preferences will not. So it is the Liberal votes that the ALP must get to win. ”
With respect, 85-90% of Green prefs go ALP. There are also some optional pref jurisdictions eg QLD. Then there’s electoral funding which only come with 1st pref. Then, with a significnt green vote, there’s the very real possibility of inner-city electorates being lost by the ALP.
ie this really matters to the ALP.
“If you find a point of agreement between the ALP and Liberals ‚Äî that is probably a central position.” Too pomo for me. Voters impressions of the centre will lag. Things like “remember that legal system we had last week” will cut ice as the concensus centre moves outide inot the post-democratic spectrum.
Incidentally - the ALP has been taking city-based small l liberal voters off the coalition for years.
Fair enough John, maybe we can meet in the centre. And I’ll admit to playing to the caricature. I know this is slightly off topic but there is the point you made about big spending by Howard and Bush, it’s not my area of expertise, not much is except bicycles, but I’m willing to bet that both are way bigger tax and program cutters than big spenders, and I’m willing to bet that the difference is massive, so the big spending math has to be seen relative to that. We could do so much more with the cash rather than have it frittered away on that extra pizza, or tank of petrol.
Here is the Canadian POV on that. It points to what we should be doing with the money. (Hope the link works)
Anyone got any numbers? C.L. this is your thing isn’t it?
“I dare any ALP member to read those recommendations of Beazley‚Äôs and not feel some twinge of horror at where the ALP stands today.”
I am an ALP member.
I have read the recommendations of Beazley’s and very much like what he says.
If the government has a budget surplus, what is wrong with returning the unneeded money to the people they took it from?
Taxation is a privilege afforded to the government because there is a social consensus that some things are so important that it is acceptable to forcibly expropriate people’s money for the purpose of doing them.
Tax money is not the government’s natural property, to do with as it pleases. It’s a burden that taxpayers tolerate for the good of society.
“You don‚Äôt get it. Green preferences will go to the ALP.”
This Greens voter’s preferences don’t.