John Howard lets Ian Campbell resign from the ministry because, according to Campbell, he held a meeting with the West Australian Turf club and Brian Burke was there representing the turf club?
To pick some random examples of ministers who have seemingly committed greater sins, how about Alexander Downer and Mark Vaille who administered a foreign affairs, trade, and intelligence apparatus that had one and only one priority in Iraq – selling wheat – and managed to ignore dozens of warnings from any number of sources that hey, there’s something dodgy going on with AWB’s wheat sales to Iraq? Ruddock and Vanstone presided over a department whose investigative processes ran like the Spanish Inquisition, with massive incompetence highlighted by subsequent reports. And Ian Campbell gets the sack immediately because he walks into a meeting and the otherwise reputable organization (well, assuming you regard anything associated with horse racing as “reputable”) you’re meeting with has hired a dodgy lobbyist?
Maybe it’s a calculated sacrifice to put pressure on Rudd, but if so it looks overdone to me at this instant in time.
heh and Rudds reply to Howard saying Rudds meetings were wose than cambells:
(paraphrased)
“You want an election on character, Bring it On Mr Howard, Bring it on NOW”
very boyz n da hood
Rudd may end up up smelling of roses…or at least slighltly manured ones
As my partner said, it shows how cruel the Libs can be.
Burke conned his way into that meeting with Campbell.
The answer is to be found in delrio’s comments on a previous post. To quote him/her and his quote of Peter Costello.
….So does this make Ian Campbell’s position in Cabinet untenable, particularly after the Treasurer told Parliament on Thursday:
“Anyone who deals with Mr Brian Burke is morally and politically compromised”.
There really was no option but to sacrifice Campbell. He is lower down the food chain than Costello whose face had to be saved after his bloodlust got the better of him.
I agree, the only motive for Campbell’s resignation that I can see is to keep the pressure on Rudd, but it just smacks of panicked hysteria to me, which is never a good look for a government.
Apart from all those other much more serious accountability moments that, as Robert noted, have been ignored by the government, I suspect that if you were to toss out all the MPs who’ve broken bread with people of questionable character then you’d not have many people, from either side, left in politics. I trust that the diaries of all ministers over the term of the government will now be opened to public scrutiny so that we can make sure that none of them have been tainted by osmosis.
On the Burkean attack lines thread, I likened this to a chess move by Howard in sacrificing a piece in order to check the opponent’s king, but I thought this was unlikely. However, I saw Howard on SBS News saying Campbell had fallen on his sword, and now it was up to Rudd to do the right thing (presumably resign as well). Yes, my chess analogy had proven correct, but really, can this succeed? Surely this is a desperate move (at poor old Ian Campbell’s expense) that now defines the end of the Howard dynasty as like a gambler who, having lost most of his money, starts making wild bets to recoup his losses. I’m sure there are many other analogies that fit the occasion.
Ii’s too bad it wasn’t Julie Bishop who fell on her sword, because then we could have called it Howard’s “bishop sacrifice”.
This chess move will go down in infamy as Howard’s “dipsy doodle”.
And to be totally consistent, Howard has to fall on his own sword over the McKew death threats scandal.
Oh, these are difficult times (for some).
You know what we think … Ian Campbell was sacked for corruption, real honest-to-goodness corruption, and Howard and Co are using the current set of events to dimish or distract from that fact.
You’ve all pointed it out here, Campbell has been seemingly sacked for “no good reason”, just to put pressure on Rudd??? That sounds fishy to me. Surely it’s more likely Howard found out about Campbell meeting with Burke and that perhaps Campbell had actually done a deal with Burke regarding some environmental thing and the turf club.
I mean, does anyone seriously believe Howard is going to sack a minister just to prove a point to Rudd??? Either Howard has gone completely off the rails (further of the rails I should say) or Campbell actually did something pretty bad. Either way, watch the commentariat lurch about rapidly over the next few days trying to figure out what this all means as I don’t think anyone can predict how this is going to play out!
The couple of news broadcasts I saw/heard late this afternoon (Nine TV News, Radio National) both suggested that Howard didn’t let him resign so much as oblige him to resign, and that Campbell did not so much fall on his sword as allow himself to be pushed onto it. The fact that both have so elaborately denied any such thing is telling in itself.
It was also reported that Howard hadn’t known of Campbell’s meeting with Burke until it all came out last night, which suggests to me that he probably imploded with rage at having been caught out in ignorance and made to look, if only by association, like a fool. Picture the scene: Ratty incandescent with rage like Rumpelstiltskin in his jarmies in the middle of the night, and Hyacinth scuttling about in her nightie making some soothing hot milk with rum.
But you’ve got to wonder whether he hasn’t completely lost it altogether when he then turns up on the teeve questioning Rudd’s honesty. This from the man known nationwide as the Lying Rodent? Oh, please.
This isn’t a GENUINE sacrifice. Campbell will be brought back to the front bench if the Libs retain govt after the election. Or may be not. it doesn’t matter, he is of little importance. Let’s ask ourselves: would Ratty ask for $weetie’s resignation or Rasputin’s? No, because they are his two attack doberpersons he needs. Campbell is bench material and can be let go for the sake of even slight/dubious tactical advantage. It was not unexpected.
Most punters are bored with this WA thingie already. It does not do anything for them one way or another. Ozstreet is saying the Libs are trying to slip a noose around Kevvie’s delicate pink neck for the crime of doing a spot of schmoozing in the event of Bomber falling by the wayside. Shrug. Wise forward planning. That’s a good quality to have in prime minister.
Whenever I hear the phrase “political morality” uttered by the Tories I reach for my revolver.
Seriously, in spades. Cornered rats always have to prove a point. In Ratty’s case, his political survival.
(Actually rats are know to eat their young, so its not really surprising that Campbell ie well, ratshit.)
Incredible. As pointed out earlier. No one got dumped for AWB, no one gets dumped for anything in the ten years of this Govt, and Ian Campbell gets done just for breathing the same air as Burke? Just to wedge Rudd in a corner. Talk about desperation. He’s now at the point of throwing ballast over board in order to keep the boat afloat.
Howard had better be careful here, there could be a few other nasty surprises in escalating this further, ten years of Govt always brings with it a few skeletons in ministers and MP’s closets, and now he’s established a new benchmark of accountability. I look forward to a resignation for stealing pencils from the cabinet room.
I’m also gonna be looking forward to the media pointing out the obvious facts regarding Howard’s ministerial accountability history. But I’m betting they’ll don their dancing bear hats and follow the Govt script on this.
Bolt has already donned the asshat and is carrying loads of water.
you what i did when i heard the news this afternoon?
laughed.
and laughed.
and i’m laughing now cause it’s sooooo funny
and i don’t even hate Howard!
Seems like a case of invade at will (major decision), but lunch at peril (who cares).
I once had a meal with Peter Foster and it reinforced my view that he was a di*khead. And I also lunched with Doctor D and … there is no need to repeat myself. I have lunched with all types and I have taught all types. So what?
And what PC said.
Howard must have a short memory about meeting criminals
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/14/1076548275777.html
There is even a nice photo of Mr Howard and Mr Afkos
I’m awaiting for Hward to follow Mr Campbell.
Ian’s not dead!
He’s just resting!
‘Surely this is a desperate move (at poor old Ian Campbell’s expense) that now defines the end of the Howard dynasty as like a gambler who, having lost most of his money, starts making wild bets to recoup his losses. I’m sure there are many other analogies that fit the occasion.’
Silkworm, I can’t wait until the next Newspoll comes out. Because if Rudd is still flying high this whole issue will be dead in the water and Howard’s actions will indeed be seen as a desperate, hysterical and possibly senile move. However I bet Howard will be guided by the polls in everything he does until the election. Right now though maybe Howard thinks he’s got a palpable hit, but he can’t really be sure because he doesn’t know exactly what most voters think of this right now. Hence Campbell’s resignation, with all its implications that Rudd should do the decent thing too. It seems to me as though the Coalition has got the same crazy, desperate tempo that the Keating government had when Howard was yapping at his heels – you know looking for that one big king hit and flailing away. But if this is all just wishful thinking on my part and Rudd falls to earth….
You funny guys don’t appear just how important an issue this is in WA.
Frank Calabrese, congratulations on a great historical recall.
Ain’t history wonderful! (With respect to history, Howard did say that history is “interesting but irrelevant” when he was speaking about Iraq.)
Why can’t the MSM have the same recollections?
As for:
“He’s just resting”
Of course. What about a plum appointment to … .
Take your pick, but given global warming is on the agenda, I suspect that something in the climate arena is an obvious choice.
Cripes, Ministers are responsible for something again? I just cant keep up. I need to sign up for SMS updates!
Now, I think Ive got this ministerial code thing straight: lunching with Burke is worse than funding Saddam.
Has Howard ever met convicted felon Harry M Miller? What about former prisoner Derryn Hinch?
The Former, don’t know. The Latter, MANY times, some of those encounters were shown on TV too
, especially on The Midday Show.
I’d be careful about that Harry M Charactor – he manages those evil lefties
http://www.harrymmiller.com.au/Gough_Whitlam.html
Oh dear. Look who’s also been supping with the debbil: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21318995-948,00.html
*WA director-general of health Neale Fong;
*Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest;
*WA Water Corporation chairman Tim Ungar;
*Mining entrepreneur Tony Trevisan;
*Pharmacy Guild of WA president Harry Zafer,
*Australian Hotels Association (WA) executive director Bradley Woods
*Precious Metals Australia managing director Roderick Smith.
They certainly won’t be entering the pearly gates with PopeHo and Co. I think they should just kill themselves now.
This whole thing is becoming a real 3-Ring Circus.
Clearly Campbell’s departure (and resurrection, after a “decent interval” of course, in some plum appointment) is designed to allow Lazarus and the Smirker to attempt to maintain some sort of pressure on Rudd.
These guys just don’t get it. No-one gives a flying f**k whether Rudd met Burke.
Razor says that Brian Burke is an important issue in WA, and I don’t doubt that he is.
So what?
The result in the House or Reps in the next Federal, like the last 3, will be decided in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It won’t be decided in Perth.
The Government can win everything west of Adelaide and will still take it up the kazoo if the outer-suburbans on the Eastern seaboard turn on them, as I believe the polls show they are likley to.
This explains the hysteria and panic of this over-the-top beat-up attack on Rudd.
The Libs know they have to do something to demloish Rudd and Labour, and to turn things around. And they know they have to do it soon. Time is running out.
You can smell their fear.
Seriously now: Howard seems to be eliding a rather obvious point. Rudd is in opposition, and was in 2005. By definition, it rather reduces the scope for conflict of interest. By contrast, the WA cabinet members, and Campbell, were all active Ministers in government. Indeed, the susbtantive charge against Rudd seems not to be that of conflict of interest, but that he was “advancing his political career”.
Well, as Kath and Kim might say, he aint Robinson Crusoe there. Is he, Rodent? Quelle horreur! Hobnobbing with grubby influence men from the state branches. What species of political depravity will we see next? Being in a faction?
Bradley Woods was once touted as a possible future WA Liberal Leader, and we in WA all know that Neal Fong was personally appointed by Gallop as the head of the Health Dept, plus he’s involved with the WA Football Comission and is the Chaplain to the West Coast Eagles, those fine team of honest, upstanding young men – NOT !!
I should add that Mr Millar also represents those of the Right as well.
http://www.harrymmiller.com.au/Kathryn_Greiner.html
This occurence is a further signifier in the semiotic bundle of the sheer importance of Western Australia since the 1980s to the political economy of Australia as a whole.
Both major parties need to be seen to be doing deals in WA and those deals need to have visible fallout.
This occurence is a further signifier in the semiotic bundle of the sheer importance of Western Australia since the 1980s to the political economy of Australia as a whole.
Both major parties need to be seen to be doing deals in WA and those deals need to have visible fallout.
I know Frank. That why I like to refer to him as “The Evil Dr Fong.”
Hey, it works for me.
I wonder if that email ivitation published in the media was sent to Paul Armstrong, editor of The West, whom Burkie brokered a meeting between him and Lilljiana Ravlich over the paper’s personal attack on her ??
Was Armstrong invited, and did he attend ??
If so, this would really discredit the West, not that it had much credability to start with
they dont need credibility in the west..
they have minerals, and the east has pensioners and part time workers
The Rodent Priest tears the still beating heart from the heaving chest of Sacrificial Victim Campbell.
The Rodent Priest holds the bloody offering aloft.
“Oh God of Survival! Accept this sacrifice to your glory. And grant me the privilege of dying in office!”
Dark clouds roll back. A beam of sunlight illumines the Rodent Priest’s still dripping obsidian blade.
“Sorry Ratty. Not enough. Remember Robert Gerard? I want the Smirker’s heart too.”
ABC Just In Sat evening:
“Mr Howard has challenged my honesty, he has challenged my character, and if he wants to turn this into a referendum on character and a referendum on honesty, I say Mr Howard bring it on, bring it on now let’s have an election and let the Australian people decide – I would relish that challenge now,” he said.
“Bring it on now”, how frightfully American.
This means St. Kevvy wore surgical gloves during his good to be with yous with Burke, and will therefore pass any forensic Henderson-Bolt, Ackerman-Albrecht, McGuinness-Devine style DNA scrutiny. Tin-Tin’s upped the ante and is looking at Howard with the rest of us. Will Ratsy blink on Sunday morning telly, stumble at a doorstop? Keep an eye out for efforts to curb the shoulder twitch. Showtime’s come early this year, folks. Must catch a good kip before the weekend media rituals begin.
The Game just got a whole lot more interesting. Pixie should have pulled this in Parliament on Friday while flashing a bit of fang in the process. It would have manoeuvred the Campbell sacrifice into a much sleazier light. The gambit would be seen to have been forced, placing added pressure on The Rat Who Walks (daily).
EC – I reckon Rudds timing is deliberate, and perfect. He dropped this on Saturday which means the earliest the Howard circus gets to comment on it is tomorrow on Meet the Press or Insiders. By then its been in the public mind 24 hours, and Rudd will have round 2 ready to launch. Thus he has the initiative.
Rudd is playing the media game Howards way, and beating him.
Here’s the real reason. It’s taken the McKew death threats off the front page.
Why is everyone assuming that Campbell is innocent? Getting sacked for corruption by this PM is actually a huge story in itself. I think Howard is using Rudd to cover up the seriousnes of it.
Sorry for being slow on the uptake, but can someone please explain to me exactly what this man Burke is supposed to have done? I’ve looked through the umpteen relavent articles in my Sunday Age and can’t find out.
Also, we’re pretty used to seeing politicians brown-nosing with criminals (such as with Richard Cheney, who must have embezzled more dough than your average WA powerbroker). I just don’t think people give a shit – there’s more important issues. This whole thing seems to demonstrate how aloof from reality political debate in this country is.
“Why is everyone assuming that Campbell is innocent?”
…… coz no one believes ratty would get rid of someone for being guilty.
@Razor
I agree that Rudd should not discount the importance of this issue in WA, as he can’t assume the voters will turn on Howard along the Eastern seaboard (@Evan).
In the aftermath of the Campbell sacrifice (or, more likely, blunder), Rudd needs to go firmly on the attack, as the real damage to his aspirations may reside less in the substance of the allegations than in the perceived character of his response.
The ‘referendum on character’ approach isn’t bad, but, now the PM has introduced the topic, let’s have a measured, resolute making of the case – starting with $300 million to Sadam and the PM’s nuclear chat with his mate, Walker. It’s the broader visibility of that case that will win the day.
Silkworm,
Absolutely accurate. The only vector missing from your scenario is that Howard is desparately trying to make Rudd crack as he was able to make Latham so do. Rudd has a stronger moral thread than Howard. Howards tack on this issue merely highlights what he, Howard, would have been into in such a meeting with such a person. Which brings up the issue of his meetings with Robert Mugabe, who is very seriously Satan like. Not just his meetings, but Howard’s subsequent failure to condemn the rolling abuse of Mugabe’s power. I see that as tacit approval by Howard of a fellow neocon. No terrorism involved, that makes it OK. Nothing to condemn here.
Remember some of the pivotal lies that Howard used to retain power at the last election. Noteably the Gold Card suckin. Just a few months after the election he shoved Abbot in front of a microphone to do the public backdown. So how did Abbot handle that? He lied (interviewed on Radio National). First it was we can’t afford the program because of cost blowouts that the government was not aware of before the election. Then just 3 sentences later came, well we did know about the blowouts but we are not going to offer free health to the elderly anyway. In other words we got what WE want, now go away.
That is what you are dealing with in Howard.
I don’t know why people vote for Howard. He is so fickle and opportunistic, yet people continue to give him what he wants…
Bilko, read the context. It wasn’t a private meeting; there were a number of other people there, and it was to discuss what appears to be a legitimate development by a legitimate organization.
Murdoch’s proxies win again, and you’re all helping them win by obediently discussing this latest manufactured non-event in the terms laid out by his tenured espistemological pirates. Style over content. The ‘implications’ of the behaviour over the actual behaviour. And ‘implications’ being an Alice-in-Wonderland word that can mean whatever any ‘analyst’ with a pen and a forum says it means, of course writers prefer to shift the debate onto that turf. It makes us feel clever and important and ‘engaged’. But no analysis on earth can change the fact that neither Campbell nor Rudd did anything remotely wrong in concrete terms. There’s nothing to ‘debate’ if they both refuse to concede they made any mistakes of substance. And there’s nothing to ‘debate’ if we all refuse to ‘debate’ what is the mere downstream impacts of those non-mistakes. And yet somehow a democratically-elected Minister who has done nothing wrong has now resigned anyway. That’s one of ‘our’ players, in the sense that we as a democratic fraternity elected him. A new Opposition leader who by broad bipartisan consensus had no ‘character issue’ to deal with…now has a ‘character issue’ that can and will be resurrected at will at any time in the election. Again, one of ‘our’ players – his approval ratings were and are high. We wanted to give him a fair go. Somehow, our political life just got a little more mediocre and pathetic and hollow. Like Seinfield, it’s fast becoming a self-referential farce about…nothing but itself. It limps along in this half-dead, introspective this only because the TV critics alone are laughing at in-jokes that aren’t actually funny at all anymore, if they ever were.
There’s only one real world story worth discussing here, and that’s this: Who is Chris Mitchell? Who is Denis Shanahan? Who are the singular, wilful men who beat up these stories, until they have attained self-perpetuating critical mass? And who gives them that critical mass, and how? The answer to the last question is clear even on this thread. It’s us. So I’ll say it again. The only proper response to Friday’s/Saturday’s front pages – from both Howard and Rudd – would and should have been to pick up the phone and tell Chris Mitchell and his grubs to go f**k themselves. The only way to deal with this shit is to refuse to surrender to their shitty imposed terms of debate. Or if you must, then at least fully surrender, like Latham did: have the balls to get right down in the gutter with them and go head-to-head. To play a little bit dirtier, even. Like for example to stand up in Parliament waving the relevant copy of The Australian, asking (for the Hansard record) if ‘The ordinary Peepel’ would really think it’s healthy for ‘we politicians, regardless of hue’, to go on allowing our public national morality tale to be overseen by an aging middle-aged anti-Left obsessive so personally morally bankrupt that he’d walk out on his wife and kids to root a younger, prettier work subordinate.
If you just can’t ignore them any longer without them hurting you badly, the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. To fight them, not your fellow victims, which is what Rudd and Campbell (and all of us) are in this latest Murdochian assault on our democratic dignity.
Surely Latham cracked all by himself? My memory is that he imploded with no help from anyone. Howard’s tactical genius showed there in the fact that he sat back and let him, like Bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil.
Is Howard seriously suggesting that Rudd resign over this? As if. Its early daze on the Rocky Road, every cloud has a silver lining and this has been at least very instructive for Rudd on many fronts.
Howard takes the very thing he is being accused of and then quick as wink, projects it back onto his opponent. Its uncanny. And so far it has worked. My incredulity meter completely shot of the dial with the ‘who do you trust’ thing. The guy’s some kind of political savant. But fortunatley he doesn’t realise it, and is at present about as bright as a shark with its kill, kill kill, synapses open.
Now can we look more closely at death threats being made to the lovely Maxine? Who exactly are these people that would threaten murder to keep Howard in power. Gee. I would have thought a story of such base depravity would have easily trumped a dinner date of some time ago with a fallen W.A. Premier. But as far as the MSM goes, apparently not.
“Surely Latham cracked all by himself?”
The other theory is of course that Latham didn’t crack at all. That he is the rational one, and that the only way in which he did ‘crack’ was relative to the irrational terms demanded by politics as it’s currently practised. To read Latham’s own account of his decline is to read all about the anti-triumph of style over substance. But it’s asking too much to expect us to read past the stylistic ugliness of his vitriol to its fundamental truth.
He was right to walk away. We’re all too far gone down the anodyne sanitised path of ‘sounds right’ zombie-hood for there to be place for men like him in public life. What politics used to be has become one of Rumsfeld’s unknown unknown. The Enlightenment in reverse.
JR, you make some good points. If only you didn’t bury them under a tonne of verbiage. Your cyberkinder readership here has all the attention span of blowflies on speed.
Rudd’s “Bring It On” is the ultimate circuitbreaker for Howard’s pantomime of confected outrage.
Every time Howard demands that Rudd does “the decent thing” and resign, Rudd’s metronomic answer should be:
“Why are you afraid to give the Australian people the opportunity to state via the ballot box which of us is more honest and more worthy of the trust of the Australian people?
“Why are you scared to bring it on?”
i read it!!!
though i wasn’t speeding…(*says to self thoughtfully*)
Trouble is, JR, politics is the art of the possible.
Politics happens regardless of whether you are engaged.
Latham spent a lifetime in politics. He understood well enough the rules of politics long before he was elected leader of the ALP.
Latham was prepared to play the game until it got too tough for him.
Latham betrayed the trust of the ALP by indulging in a prolonged egotistical swoon. If he was unprepared to attempt to achieve what was possible, he should have stepped aside.
Instead he burned the credibility of the ALP to fuel his boring mid-life crisis.
I have to agree with Haiku in the other thread.
The tories may be wetting themselves in glee that they have had a circuit-breaker, but there must be some risk to declarations that “the honeymoon is over”.
If the polls do not move in the coming weeks then surely the Government will be left looking even more desperate…
The most important move Rudd could make is to get rid of Anthony Albanesie as Leader of Opposition Business in the House. His performance in question time on thursday was woeful. Labor needs another Mick Young (any suggestions) to take the fight up to the mad monk and smirky.
Asking questions of the PM’s close association and funding from the Exclusive Brethren should be left to the Senate enquiry (supported by Family First) later in the year. Just watch the Tasmanian and NSW Liberals run for cover – like the Tory party did in NZ. This is a much bigger story than WA.
And I wouldn’t count on it. Michelle Grattan (is she losing her touch or what?) in her Sun-Herald column today fails to make any mention of the irony of Howard suddenly discovering ministerial accountability just so he can wedge Rudd. And this after the innumerable scandals over the past decade that have left his ministerial line-up unscathed. It is a sad day when the media – even its most fiercely independent voices – show the same signs of incompetence and laziness as the government. Ask yourself what is the consequence of this Burke business for national leadership, when the country has been quite willing to look the other way when Howard and his gang led us into an illegal war, used asylum seekers as the most cynical political wedge and staged an ideological war on working families. I despair for this country. What an excuse for a democracy.
The liberal democratic notion, and its enforcement, that “politics is the art of the possible” is in large part why we see such a corruption of political practice and community disengagement from the most important issues and truths that jr alludes to in his posts; aside from begging the question of “what is possible”.
It is not just that the media are controlled by entrenched anti-democratic elites. There is no space within modern liberal discourse for the type of debate that is needed because the territory has been both surrendered and captured by those who tell us, over and over, what you wish for is not possible. So go away and leave it to those who know this and are still willing to act, or not, or in ways we sanction, as the case may be.
Tosh.
If that were true, then one could only conclude that what you have just written is a product of the brainwashing that you have suffered from the media, and therefore not the product of independent, critical thought.
Alternatively, are you asserting that you’re the only person to appreciate the “truth”?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/it-is-not-too-late-to-save-the-political-process/2007/02/28/1172338709542.html
“It is not too late to save the political process
Barry Jones
In the 1980s ideology largely dropped out of Australian politics. Politics now offers a choice of management teams, and styles, and elections are about personalities and credentialism………….Oppositions have generally ceased to oppose, or propose an alternative basis for policy, and the concept that “there is no alternative” has been broadly accepted. Parliament has lost much of its moral authority and the public service has adopted the cult of managerialism and been increasingly partisan, committed to promoting the government “line”
…more….
I think Karen may have been reading this article. And I reckon Jack Robertson would agree with its premises. [Do you Jack?]
I do and I wonder how many here would basically agree.
This is how Stephen Smith is spinning it:
A pretty good line I think. Ian Campbell has been a relatively low profile Minister. I doubt the average punter knows who he is, never mind anything about him. This makes it very easy to make Howard look like a bastard who sacrificed him for the benefit of an attack line.
Hannah. I agree with this bit:
There is some truth in the claim that “in the 1980s ideology largely dropped out of Australian politics” although I find the notion that the debates over Iraq and Workchoices, for example, have nothing to do with ideology. Im also not totally convinced that a bit less ideology has been a bad thing.
This I disagree with:
Given that for much of it’s history Australian politics was home to the Deakinite settlement, which involved consensus about the ends if not the means when it came to trade policy, industrial relations, immigration and a few other things that I cant remember of the top of my head I tend to take the view that complaints about to much consensus in the present fail to take into account the amount of consensus that existed in the past.
ABC this morning: “Ian Campbell says his respectability and his integrity is intact – John Howard says he can come back as a Minister potentially in the next Parliament or indeed perhaps an overseas posting like [former immigration minister Senator] Amanda Vanstone,” he said.
All right, so much for sacrifice, falling on the sword and similar hyperbole. Campbell’s, and by corollary, the government’s position was untenable in view of what the $mirker said parliament. It now gives Howard the “moral high ground” to demand Labor has similar standards.
But this is of course just a pea and thimble trick, shills in the crowd and all. Because ministerial and prime ministerial standards have been listing to starboard since Dolly came to the AWB inquiry and her mind went blank, ditto Vaile. Minister after minister and the PM have been caught lying, dissembling or not remembering facts and not ne censure, not one resignation.
Laughably, in the US, Howard hero George Bush met with crooked lobbyist and convicted criminal Jack Abramoff in 2003 some 12 times link.
The man responsible for Kevin stepping into this, Graham Edwards, is by all accounts a man of high integrity and decency. He is also a Vietnam returned soldier, a conscript who was hideously injured by a mine, losing both legs. According to Alan Ramsay in yesterday’s SMH, Brian Burke helped Edwards rebuild his life and sponsored him into politics. There’s no doubt that Edwards owes Burke a moral debt that’s deeper than party political discipline.
Here’s the rub then. Burke is a Lyndonian figure, who has deftly mixed genuine altruism with political cunning and is not squeamish to call in favours.
Poor Ruddster is caught in this potentially tragic imbroglio, which has still some way to go. It is all that Howard has going for him but he has shown that what little he has he’s willing to use all the way.
I say potentially tragic because of Edwards’s role. His position is absolutely wretched and heartbreaking. In its death grip on power, the Grinning Skull does not care who gets destroyed in the process. I just hope Edwards does not harm himself through this.
Jack Robertson on 4 March 2007 at 9:19 am writes:
“Murdoch’s proxies win again, and you’re all helping them win by obediently discussing this latest manufactured non-event in the terms laid out by his tenured espistemological pirates. Style over content.”
I simply cannot agree with this narrow representation of the problem. I do not deny there’s a problem, rather I suggest that the problem extends to cross-sections of the mainstream media, including sections of the Left-leaning mainstream media.
In particular, claims of “this latest Murdochian assault on our democratic dignity” misrepresents that fact The Australian newspaper have a diverse range of views on their opinion pages.
…From Justin
The game being played by Howard appears to confirm that history is not one of his teachers. When Howard was Treasurer he helped to push for the setting up of a Royal Commission that was supposed to take out the Painters and Dockers Union,etc.
What actually came out of the Royal Commission was the Liberal Party and their usual suspect mates being up to their ears in what was termed’ Bottom of the Harbour Schemes.’ This involved Liberal mates stripping assts from Companies and simultaneously claiming tax concessions to which they had no entitlement. Much like what is likely to happen with the sale of QANTAS to big punters, again with Liberal Government approval.
Howard should know better than to allow Costello to open up the credibility debate on Thursday. If we end up by the end of the week with a long list of Tory ministers and Liberal backbench Pollies who have been in the same space as Brian Burke,what then? Do we then have a mass resignation session? How close do you have to be -in the same room,or is same city or same state now near enough to have to resign under the new Liberal Rules?
Don’t feel too sorry for Ian Campbell. “Ol’ blue bags”. His first act as environmant minister was to propose the introduction of blue reusable shopping bags to suplement the green ones. When asked by an incredulous abc reporter what benefit blue shopping bags would have he said something about them having an aquatic theme or somesuch. This guy is seriously c grade material. Liberal ranks seem very thin when Campbell and Bishop are ministers.
As for him having (forced most likely) to resign for breathing the same air as Mr Bourke. What a laugh. He must be bitter.
David Francis on 4 March 2007 at 10:42 am
The most important move Rudd could make is to get rid of Anthony Albanesie as Leader of Opposition Business in the House. His performance in question time on thursday was woeful. Labor needs another Mick Young (any suggestions) to take the fight up to the mad monk and smirky.
Asking questions of the PM’s close association and funding from the Exclusive Brethren should be left to the Senate enquiry (supported by Family First) later in the year. Just watch the Tasmanian and NSW Liberals run for cover – like the Tory party did in NZ. This is a much bigger story than WA.
Before Howard starts taking any high ground ,someone needs to ask him about the meeting he had with Bruce Hales just before the start of the war in Afghanistan ! Bruce met John to give him the blessing of him and the the Brethren to go to war ! over the twin towers.
Someone still really really believe the brethren are wonderful ? and not criminals . They`ve covered up sexual abuse , dodgy deals false addresses .Well documented cases recorded in doctors files of psychological abuse ! members held in contempt of court rulings with suspended sentences .
Yep i agree with David Francis this is a much bigger story .
Megan on 3 March 2007 at 9:34 pm wrote:
“Silkworm, I can’t wait until the next Newspoll comes out. Because if Rudd is still flying high this whole issue will be dead in the water and Howard’s actions will indeed be seen as a desperate, hysterical and possibly senile move.”
At the very least, it will begin to distinguish which questions raised by the Rudd-against-Mudd campaigners are the result of being sceptical and which questions are the result of being hysterical.
…From Justin
Robert Merkel says:
This is shallow, tendentious knee-jerk Howard-hating. Instead of regurgitating Left-wing talking points, or you telling us what you don’t know, why dont you tell us something worth knowing ie a theory with predictive value?
I have argued many times that most of Howard’s lies or foul ups (kids overboard, AWB, reffo argy-bargy) have been been for political, not personal, gain justified in the national interest. That is why the Australian public has not exacted a political price from Howard for these mistakes and misadventures.
On the other hand, any taint of personal corruption in the Howard ministry would lead to instant dismissal. (Of course Howard’s post-ministerial corruption are not so scandalous as that horse has bolted.) This behaviour is consistent with my theory of Howard’s Machiavellian distinction between personal and political hanky-panky: for individual gain = bad, in the national interest = good.
Rudd, on the other hand, showed poor judgement in cosying up to a know political criminal on multiple occasions. He has shown himself to be not the Messiah, just a naughty boy.
Howards’s political ear on this occasion is, as usual, tuned to perfect pitch. He has cleaned house in his own ministry. And jumped on Rudd’s flaw to arrest his momentum.
PS Anyone still game to bet Howard will lose his seat the next election?
“I mean, does anyone seriously believe Howard is going to sack a minister just to prove a point to Rudd??? Either Howard has gone completely off the rails (further of the rails I should say) or Campbell actually did something pretty bad. Either way, watch the commentariat lurch about rapidly over the next few days trying to figure out what this all means as I don’t think anyone can predict how this is going to play out!”
True enough in most respects dodgyville, except there is one obvious alternative you may have missed. If the Govt has access to some corroboration that Rudd had a bit of a deal with Burke a la the Kiribilli agreement between Hawke and Keating, then Campbell’s resignation was absolutely imperative to clear the decks for a well timed attack on Rudd.(The first shots have been fired, but the killer blow might be saved up for closer to the election) We all need to recall how denial of such an agreement eventually led to Hawke’s demise. It is almost tautological that Rudd and Burke were discussing more than the ‘general political scene’ over 3 meetings and the meeja rat pack will know that and be on the scent now. Naturally there may be some well timed briefings from the Govt to assist them in the hunt. Rudd’s ashen face said it all. The most likely scenario is he fibbed about the outcomes of meetings with Burke and he knows that Burke knows that too. If that’s the case, the Sword of Damocles hangs over a future PM’s head. That’s not a good look and the Govt appear as if they can control the timing of its fall to me.
As an aside here, most of us would agree that in the absence of some shonky dealings by Campbell, his meet with Burke was hardly a hanging offence and neither party in office would sack him for that. Why then is he and the Govt fully prepared to adhere to Gallop’s (and Carpenter’s) instant dismissal rule about any dealing with Burke? As many here would openly charge, that is most unlike the Howard Govt, then what conclusion does that leave? Yes there is a lot more to this yet, but unlike Latham’s ambush on pollies’ super, the final act will be much better timed methinks.
Underlying most posts on this subject is the undeniable power of the lobbyists. If politics has become less ideological/more managerial then it is the package deals that lobbyists put together on behalf of clients that must so easily fit the fix for the pollies. As an ex-premier, Burkie must wield immense power in WA. Canberra and possibly other state lobbyists must be anxiously waiting for the axe to potentially fall. What bets on a raft of rule changes for lobbyists as a result of Ruddys embarrassment and Campbell’s fall?
How can giving Saddam Hussein a $300 million bribe, and in contravention of UN sactions, be in the national interest? By going along with it, the Howard Government pretty well trashed AWB as a single-desk marketer of Australian wheat.
Mr Co$tello stands up in parliament and fulminates about political morality but then you are happy to concede on behalf of your heroes that lying was okay because they didn’t actually personally trouser readies, it was simply “lies or foul ups [such as] kids overboard, AWB, reffo argy-bargy” for political advantage?
How is Kevin Rudd meeting Burke an example of personal corruption (by inference, because you say “on the other hand”)?
This a very dopey set of propositions.
I took it as something that had to be done after Costello’s overblown rhetoric if Howard et al were going to be able to keep on trying to go after Rudd.
In the meantime Howard can easily deflect Rudd’s nyar nyar call an election now if you’re game ploy.
Reporter: What do you say to Kevin Rudd’s challenge to sort this out via a snap election PM?
PM: Well many people including those from Mr Rudd’s own party, often call for 4 yearly elections as in some of the States. However I’ve seldom heard them call for two and a half year terms and as you well know Federal Parliament has 3 year terms. Also I want to give the Australian people plenty of time to digest Mr Rudd’s policies for their future, when he gets around to proposing any, but it is interesting to note, he’s a man who believes in calling early elections whenever it suits him.
I loved the news clip of Hawkie and Barrie Jones squawking like proud parrots- ‘See-Kevin is different, he’s made a mistake, but he’s honest about it and admits it.’
The $64000 question now is, is he really honest? A week’s a long time in politics and all it took last time round was that feral handshake by Lithium. If Howard can make this fib stick, he may yet save the election, particularly in the West. When push comes to shove, enough punters in enough marginals may just decide, better a polished, experienced, lying bastard, than an awkward, inexperienced one. Game on!
“JR, you make some good points. If only you didn’t bury them under a tonne of verbiage.”
Ta, Sir Henry. I know I’m verbose writer. Or I know that those who know about these things generally regard my writing as verbose. Oh well. Luckily, the internet is sooooo big and the keyboard’s down arrow so handy that if the cyberkindies you speak of (a tad harshly I feel) want to avoid Jack’s blather like the plague, they are joyously free to scroll. It’s not, however, my fault if they do, and so miss the good points of which you speak. Just as it’s not Patrick White’s fault if no-one reads Voss nowadays, nor Wagner’s if we MTV-ers can’t sit through the Ring Cycle, and so on. By all means feel free to get specific with my cluttered prose. Which notes exactly would you like me to take out, Sire?
Katz, you talk about the ‘art of the possible’ as if it’s somehow beyond the control of our elected politicians to define what the ‘possible’ is to be. I’d argue that this falls into exactly the trap that has me tearing my hair out. Inadvertently helping legitimise and solidify Murdoch’s effective (perceived) mastery of those limits by mistaking Murdoch’s current power as an argument in favour of not taking it on. It’s a common fight-sidestepping tactic of those weakies who like to wander about PH with a wholly-unearned ‘worldweary’ air, shrugging ironically and drawling (these days often in voices that have barely broken): “Ah well, what do you do, mate? Politics is a tough old game and the reality is you’ve got to get in bed with Rupert, one way or another, now.”
Well, says fucking who? Says fucking who? Says Murdoch and his lackies, and all those who HAVE already got into bed with him. Which is pretty much everyone. Gee, now there’s a objective chorus of political advisors, eh.
Katz, bullies always rely on perception for their power. Rupert’s like any bully. Stand up to the fucker and he’ll roll over as fast as any other grub streeter. Suddenly, the ‘art of the possible’ gets a whole lot easier. That’s why Rupert and his goons are so ferocious in their bullying – one landed counter-punch and the whole bullying facade is exposed as empty bravado. It’s certainly why Latham had to go. Latham used to WRITE for Murdoch. They knew that he knew exactly how tawdry, how mundane, how banal, how hollow…is their supposed power to shape events. Our pollies are jumping at a Murdoch mirage, and they knew that Latham knew it. And he knew that that if you have the guts as a polly to mock the men with the pens publicly – the Shanahans, the Matt Prices, the Sheridans, the Paul Kellys, all of them who look and sound so untouchily important and solemn on the page – then the public will likely side with you, not the press.
Deep down Rupert Murdoch and his empiristas are smart enough to recognise the profound illegitimacy and moral bankruptness of how he/they has corrupted and compromised democratic processes (and journalism, btw) worldwide for decades. RM’s getting old, information technology is trumping his ‘power’, and his high profile agit-prop on Iraq and his laughable backflip on global change are fast stripping the Emporer’s ubermensch clothes away, too. He’s becoming a dated old man who’s long overstepped his ‘art of the possible’ bounds. Murdoch is vulnerable. As his tabloids get evermore puerile and nasty in their daily dumbing down – chasing Reality TV and Everyone’s-A-Celeb tosh into the gutter – even the only arguably valid source of Rupert’s supposed ‘power’ (‘ordinary Australians’ who buy his ‘anti-elitist’ guff, and of course his redtops) is starting to peer mighty dirtily his way. Half of white trash America knows some dirt-poor kid blown to shit in Iraq for dubious reasons. They are fast learing how culpable Rupert and his gang was. When the penny fully drops, they will turn on Fox faster than Bill O’Reilly can admit to his audience: ‘Actually, I’m a aspiran-fucked multi-millionaire who hates your white trash guts, fellah.”
The sooner our pollies take the silly old c**t on head-to-head here, the sooner the scary mirage of Rupert Murdoch’s bully-boy power, which fake as it is does indeed still make our elected Reps dance and dance and dance, will evaporate like cat’s piss on hot galvanised iron.
(By the way, Sir Henry. Ranting and raging at great length and in nasty language becomes a moral and ethical stylistic imperative when ‘nice’ ‘good’ ‘non-verbose’ public language has effectively come to serve no purpose whatsoever beyond painting pretty pastel flowers over the daily discourse of lies. That’s how I see it, anyway. LP-ers don’t have to read me. And yawning moderators can simply delete me if they prefer, too. Thanks for the space.)
Hannah: I hope this asnwers your query re: Katz.
Justin: Yeah, faor call. I do go hard on Murdoch, becasue his empire is the most blatant, but it’s true to say that I see the problem more in terms of the unelected and unaccountable media as a whole. I think that my view transcends this issue, politcs, certainly any given politcal hue…actually, I see this is as the espistemological struggle of our age. The human story is now effectively written entirely through the prism of the Mass media, because all other forums have essentially ceded primacy to it. (If it’s not on TV, it didn’t happen, etc). Meaning we have surrendered so much of how we are to define ourselves and our humanity to what are unaccountable, usually very narrowly defined and generally utterly banal imperatives. Circulation. The news cycle. Who looks good on TV. Who can write 800 words reliably and fast. Who can handle an autocue. Who’s skinny. Who’s doesn’t write verbose. As I say on the other Burke thread, style has gazzumped substance so thoroughly that we don’t even really know the difference any more.
“How can giving Saddam Hussein a $300 million bribe, and in contravention of UN sactions, be in the national interest?”
It’s not and the AWB and certain officials of it have paid the price for doing that and the Govt was cleared of any complicity as you’ll recall from that independent enquiry? Still, don’t let me stop you serving up more plastic turkeys here turkey.
Sir Henry Casingbroke on 4 March 2007 at 3:58 pm
The sanctions were nurgatory as Saddam had no WMDs. Aussie wheat got sold and Iraqi kids got fed. Process and accountability was dodgy, admittedly.
Yes. The LN/P’s political advantage was, in these cases, consistent with the national interest.
I did not say Rudd was corrupt. I said that his serial Burke dealings showed he had poor political judgement. This has tarnished his “golden boy” image, much to Howard’s political advantage.
I suggested that Campbell was sacked by Howard merely for associating with Burke because he was fouled with Burke’s taint of personal corruption.
My “Machiavellian Howard” model predicts that he makes a strong distinction between political and personal dodginess, so longer as the latter is in the national interest. It also predicts that his policies will tend to be almost completely at odds with his politics, again in the national interest.
Most Australians intuitively grasp this. But political commentators, both Right and Left, continue to take Howard’s words and ideology at face value, with much many acres of html darkened bytedious “gotchas” on the Left and “Huh’s?” on the Right. Silly people.
Rudd knows Howard won’t take him up on his election challenge because any election held before the 6th of August would have to be a House of Reps only election because you can’t have a double dissolution when there are no triggers. You’d have to wonder what formal advice to the G-G would be tendered to justify an early House only election too.
Then you’ve misunderstood me JR.
Everyone is capable of deciding for themselves what’s possible.
The challenge is then to make the possible happen.
Latham threw his pinafore up over his head and declared that nothing was possible. He then fled the scene with maximum indignity.
Latham was in fact blaming the voters for timidity and for being “brainwashed”.
Effective progressive politicians have to be patient and to be dedicated to achieving their program incrementally. There may be many a misstep and many a reverse. But in the long run history is on the side of progressives (or at least my kind of progressive.)
The only alternative is a dictator on a horse. And those adventures always end badly.
Rudd calling for an election is just bluster and trying to change the subject Mark. You get the feeling he’s in serious trouble here. Has he been caught red handed telling fibs about meetings with Burkey? Campbell rolled over far too easily for mine. The bigger prize is a fifth term and he knows it. You can smell the blood.
Tomorrow, according to the PM, we will be introduced to the third Howard cabinet in as many months.
Digest that, and then tell me that this government is not in crisis.
Rudd can trust Burke implicitly for the obvious, but can he trust some Beazley backer or disinterested businessman at those meetings? There aint no rat like a Labor rat and they could already have ratted on Rudd. You know how these things go. An article here and there purporting to be from a ‘trusted source’ and the accused daren’t sue for libel because he knows it’s the bloody truth. All the time his cred is bleeding away despite – “How many times do I have to tell you, I did not have a deal with that man!”
Agreed Aussie, for some time the Howard Govt has been down and out, but suddenly Rudd has double faulted on set point. Now it’s game on!
Pavlovs cat
As I recall (my memory is not very good on this sort of detail…where is the replay button) Latham unravelled after there were some person attacks that affected his family. He may well have melted internally before then but that was the final stress trigger. …I think.
Rudd’s family appear to be a little more robust. The key variant in this flashpoint is that Rudd has a strong moral core. If he believes that his Burke encounters were entirely incidental then he will have the ability to slough off all of Howards venom. And that attack is totally viscious, from the clips that I have seen. Rudd handled the tirade of abuse beautifully by simply turning his back on Howard’s leaping and ranting animals (“feeding time at the Zoo” by one press report) facing the other way, exactly as Howard had done many times before. This just drove Howard beserk, he hated it.
I think that it is time to ask what is really acceptible in politics. Howard has brought Australian government to an all time low. Direct lies to the public, obfuscations, unimaginably biased reports, total abandonment of responsibility, corrupt dealings (AWB), and so much more.
I cannot talk about these things with my children and proudly say that this is the government of the people, this is how it is done, you should follow this example.
Surely, you’re not serious? The triumphalism of you trolling reactionaries is in direct proportion to your desperation. Your gutless weasel walked away from every single opportunity to exercise ministerial responsibility for a decade. And now, he chooses to play the high-minded one on this occasion – because IT SUITS HIM. Because it SUITS HIM!. What amoral universe do you people live on to think this is some kind of gotcha moment from an administration for whom the end justifying the means is the extent of their political principles? The gall of you people
Look here Observa, I wasn’t talking to you pal, so just butt out. I was responding directly to this.
Callling me offensive names because I have a different opinion to you sounds like you don’t have a much of an argument and are trying to bolster it by this sort of verbal bullying. Unfortunately, this tends to intimidate SOME people from fully stating their opinions and makes blogging less than enjoyable. In the end we could end up only with opinions and theories from people like you.
As far as I am concerned I doubt whether you would have the courage to call me a turkey to my face. I would love very much to test this proposition. Any time, any place.
Guys, Rudd is not the one in trouble over this, Howard is.
Whos the one losing members off his front bench again?
Mark
Oh wise one. You’re no doubt correct. More I believe that Howard is not the folding type, and he has manipulations in play (Hicks for instance, media consolidation) that give him scope for improvement of his position. But your rationale does raise the possiblity of the Coalition loosing EVERYTHING. All of the States the House AND the Senate, and Howard himself. I wonder if all of his back benchers are up for that. Howard is a high roller, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he pushed the red button and folded at the last minute to avoid a double election.
Obby sez
Exactly what were the terms of reference, as to who would actually be investigated?
Cole had access to ALL the government emails, documents? Of course not. “National security”
Obby, a euphemism these days for liberal party protection, (and keeping halal meat pies out of your smoko room undoubtedly)
Sir Henry, Obby will meet you outside the smoko room at dawn. You choice of weapons is dead turkeys, (but as your second, I will arrange to have yours frozen and wedged shaped for easy insertion.)
Firstly, if I see the words “game on” from Observa one more time, I swear Slanderyou will have him kneecapped for copyright infringement. :-p
Secondly, from this morning’s ABC piece on the hypocracy of Howard’s attack comes this piece of gold:
Surely that’s got to be up there with Barack Obama’s rebuttal of Howard on troop withdrawals for a guaranteed arse-on-canvas smackdown.
From Jack Robertson
Peter Kemp:
Peter, that was the terms of reference: that the government get cleared of any complicity. Pretty neat,huh?
Obby, Isn’t it typical of Liberals to cut and run as Campell has done just before the ‘Game On’ signal is sounded. What are these whimps made of? Tell him to come back and fight.
Hey Obeserva,
In case you haven’t realised it yet, the AWB Enquiry was a whitewash.
The Commission was never asked to investigate the whether the Govermnment had acted properly. Merely whether it had been aware of the payment of the bribes.
You will recall certain ministers positively glowing when giving evidence to the effect: “Didn’t know…no-one told me….didn’t have a clue….asked them if they were paying bribes and believed their denial….no, I didn’t get that Memo…etc etc etc.”
All were cleared, of course, of having any foreknowledge of the bribes.
What their own testimony clearly demonstrated them guilty of, however, was incompetence on a Galactic scale.
Here were Ministers of the Crown, charged with enforcing both Australian and International Law who, when asked by the UN to look into allegations of bribery and shonky payments to Saddam in breach of binding UN Resolutions, conducted an investigation that consisted of phoning the AWB (the suspect) and asking if the allegations were true.
Conduct worthy of Sgt Schultz, wouldn’t you say?
Certainly not what one would expect of a Minister doing his job, or even of a local copper looking into, lets say, a car theft.
And then they had the hide to instruct our diplomats in Washington to confirm to the UN and to the Yanks that we’d looked into it, and that after a proper investiugation there “is absolutely no evidence of any bribery (and we’re really, really hurt by the mere suggestion)”.
The Government’s entire defence before the AWB enguiry was based, accordingly, on its own ignorance and ham-fisted incompetence.
Now we have the spectacle of the former blue-bags Environment Minister forced to resign for the sin of being in the same room as a convicted felon (who, as others have pointed-out, has already paid his debt to society), all so that Lazarus and The Smirker can run the Mudd on Rudd line in Parliament.
Alan Ramsey was right. Lazarus really does treat the place like his own personal pissoir.
And, judging from your comments, there appears to be no shortage of Libs out here in the blogosphere happy to hold the dunny-roll for him.
Trouble is, I think the punters are becoming a little tired of being urinated upon.
“Latham threw his pinafore up over his head and declared that nothing was possible.”
Not quite fair, Katz. ALmost on day one he made clear the kind of have-a-go leader he was going to try to be: even stuck in Opposition, he forced change to the polly’s MP entitlement almost overnight, something that had supposedly been beyond the ‘art of the possible’ for governments of both stripes for decades. He did so by clambering upright in PH and crotch-thrustingly declaring: Here we stand. Waddayagunna do about it, JH? Howard folded, whether out of ‘political pragmatism’ or ‘basic decency’ is moot. Our world was made a little better and a little fairer by our pollies – not through the graft and slog and compromise which you (rightly I guess) say is more usual – but boldly. Even Murdoch’s anti-democratic bovver boys were forced to applaud that one (although not without many of them trying to belittle it as ‘gesture’ politics first.)
Because it also scared the shit out of them. Latham did it all by himself, y’see. He didn’t need to be Rupert’s boy to get it done. He effectively appealed straight to us – his and every other MP’s real constituency – untempered by the self-appointed straighteners and punishers of the (non-elected) political classes, so wise and pompous and arrogant (and invariably self-serving, and so usually dead wrong) when it comes to declaring what ‘is and is not’ possible in our democracy. He blindsided them all: the Paul Kellys, the Laurie Oakeses, the backroom number crunchers of his and the other parties, the tenured cynics, the by-rote pundits who have all collectively deigned to appoint themselves wholly-unrequested and wholly redundant ‘facilitators’ of our democratic franchise. He also unsubtly reminded us that if there’s anyone who ought to be rightly despised for being self-serving and greedy, it’s the Murdochs of the non-public sector, not our modestly paid MP’s. He made a few lights switch on in people’s brains. Memories stirred about what was politically possible in the days before Rupert started telling us what was possible, and destroying any would-be leader who disagreed and tried to show otherwise. Latham, like Whitlam and Keating (eventually) – and Gore, and Dean, and Kerry, and Clinton, and John Major, and God knows how many more fundamentally decent and strong potential leaders-we-never-got over the decades – wasn’t going to be terribly biddable. Had to go, Katz. Not only that, ML’s memory still has to be re-trashed every so often now, lest we allow ourselves to re-consider what actually happened in that heady brief moment. Nope: Latham ‘cracked’, is all. He was a thug and a nut and a foul-mouthed oaf and a sooky wimp.
Well, I don’t buy it. Read his book. If you can look honestly past the vitriolic style (or if you like that sort of thing, as I do) and so recognise that what is making your bile rise is not that style at all but what the content makes so achingly clear about the current state of politics and the political media…you will feel ashamed for helping gang-trash a very gutsy and smart Rep who almost pulled something special off. I think so, anyway. I was always a fan and remain one now, only more so. I do take to heart your acute general points about democratic slog and compromise and careful grind, Katz. And I do think you’re wildly wrong in trusting in the inevitable progress of progress. History suggests otherwise, unless we’re to be temporal narcissists. And even this doesn’t help much, to be honest: as far as progress’s progress in our current icky times…Katz, where shall you have me start in the list of Enlightenment ideals that have been abandoned since 9/11…?
Thank you for your time and thoughts, Katz. Hannah: Thank you, too. Generosity like that means a lot. You’re very kind.
“polly’s MP entitlement” = Super, obv. Sorry. Me done.
Peacock, Hewson, Downer, Keating, Crean, Latham and Beazely. Now it’s game on with Rudd and you guys know it. If Rudd blows the unprecedented lead Labor has now over the Coalition, largely due to Iraq, his demise will be uglier than Lathos.
This is what makes or breaks PMs- The crucible of the national spotlight and may the devil take the hindmost. Game on, game on, game on, mwahahahahahaha!
“The crucible of the national spotlight”??
Observa, you’re a tragic mixer of metaphors, dude.
Now It’s Bill Shorten’s Turn.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/shortens-burke-ties-draw-liberal-attention/2007/03/04/1172943276233.html
And who did Mr Keenan replace ???
I’ll give you a clue
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/03/03/ian-campbell-resigns-wtf/#comment-351696
Everyone:
Good or bad, Campbell should not have been made to resign.
The “Liberals”(??) have got it all wrong again …… it was “Chairman Mao” himself and his promised successor “Lin Biao” who should have resigned.
Menzies must be turning in his grave over all these recent blunders..
Exactly Brendon, and neatly explained by Evan.
A bit like Jo Bjelke:
Obby sez “game on” and goes on to say “This is what makes or breaks PMs”
Smear, fear, personal attacks and the ends always justify the means–anything to cling on to power. What I find the most nauseating is Abbott’s religious attacks on Rudd. And all of this from a bunch of “holier than thou” hypocrites whose record in war crimes and crimes against humanity will be determined if not by the voters, by a future legal process.
(I predict some interesting submissions to a future Labor attorney general re his accession to certain prosecutions based on the Criminal Code Cth.)
Ratty is not looking foward to his “Piggery Pokery” experience, and that’s why he’s indulging in a last desperate gamble to bring Kev down. The manufacture of mud for Rudd will probably get much worse as the Howardista scum force themselves to the bottom of the sewer, against all the forces of gravity and decency.
Or as Peter Hartcher in the SMAge put it:
Sir Henry Casingbroke:
Its the Junior Minister Overboard Scandal!!!
Interesting change of editorial slant in the Oz. Did they decide on the weekend that Kevvie is a goer?
Saturday:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21314801-7583,00.html
Monday:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21323522-601,00.html
rodent is still trying to stretch it out. Now its revealed one of his business mates was at THAT dinner.
The fallout will now be: oh no Rudd is a politician …
There is a lesson here. Rudd was Goss’ advisor and Goss was a good flat-track bully against a dying govt in 1989, just as Beazley looked in early 2001. But Goss didn’t handle the unexpected well unlike Beattie. Goss should have been in for ever but lost ground at his second election and lost the third clealry on 2PP.
Does the Department of the Prime Minister have a list of the convicted criminals whom The Right Honourable Mr John Winston Howard has met during the period of his prime ministership?
If not, why not?
Dr. Cat: “â??The crucible of the national spotlightâ???? Observa, youâ??re a tragic mixer of metaphors, dude.”
While I certainly appreciate your alarm, upon reflection I think that one may actually manage to dance under the limbo bar, and qualify as proper usage.
Think about it a second. Most people (aside from technicians) do not use actual crucibles, and probably don’t even know what they are. Outside of the technical world, the word exists purely as metaphor; in fact, it’s passed beyond metaphor, and has basically become the go-to noun for something like “a highly stressful, trying predicament.” In those terms, observa’s phrase seems like fair game. At worst, I’d say it is a nest or ladder of metaphors, rather than a clumsy mixing of them.
Acid test #2: we all know what he means. Especially in the blogosphere, where people write quickly and densely and don’t edit, and even try to save space by, well, mixing metaphors, I think the court should judge lightly.
Mr Strocchi I am happy to accept that a certain amount of lies told by a politician can be in the national interest, however I would like to see you define national interest. If John Howard considers the national interest to be identical to his ideological program then his formulation is utterly worthless since all (or almost all) politicians consider their program to be in the national interest.
John Howard regularly met with people who will be convicted criminals in the near future.
Nope j_p_z,
I disagree, I often hear “crucible” as a metaphor for “interesting environment”, e.g. “formed in the crucible of 18th century science”. Please don’t straightjacket one of my fave metaphors.
T.
‘The crucible of the national spotlight’ is maybe not such a bad nested metaphor j_p_z, in so much as it alludes to Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ which is performed under spotlights.
How far will this witchhunt go?
Keating called the Rodent a dessicated little coconut on Australian
biasedbalanced Corp’s ‘World Today’. Keating must be polishing his Empire Clocks with a touch more verve at the prospect of his remaining nemesis’ undoing.Hannah, as far as being a pessimist goes guilty as charged, though I am not sure I would consider myself a cynic. I am someone who has faith in our system of Government, despite its many flaws. Those who throw their hands in the air and declare â??a pox on both your housesâ?? (and I know that isnâ??t what Barry is saying) are much more cynical as far as I am concern.
I donâ??t think the amount of consensus that historically and presently exists in Australian politics â??implies a pretty low level of democratic debate then and nowâ??. Rather I see it as a product of democracy. Put simply any MP who wantâ??s to be elected will have to connect with the majority of their constituents on most issues and/or the most important issues.
Does “in the spotlight of the national crucible” make less sense?
I would say no.
Which means it’s not nested, merely misbegotten.
j_p_z makes a good fist of advocacy but in Oberva’s indecent haste – in which he either does or does not commit metaphorical atrocities – he stumbles through a self-sown minefield of solecisms and finally blows himself up on the anti-personnel fragmentation boobie-hypothesis in the home stretch.
“Peacock, Hewson, Downer, Keating, Crean, Latham and Beazely (sic). If Rudd blows the unprecedented lead Labor has now over the Coalition…” which one of the contenders had unprecedented leads? Everyone? Hewson? Downer? Crean?
The only way to understand Observa’s hubristic partisanship is as a song telling us in his shrill falsetto that tomorrow belongs to him.
“The only way to understand Observa’s hubristic partisanship is as a song telling us in his shrill falsetto that tomorrow belongs to him.”
The fact that his side has been in power in Canberra for the last 11 years and actually increased their majority at the last election and took the Senate when so many predicted a loss also helps one understand his hubristic partisanship. I’m at a loss though to figure out where the fuck yours could possibly have come from. Planet Luvvie is my best attempt.
Go Carps !!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1863024.htm
Expect THe West to run another “Don’t Blame The Messenger” Attack on Carpenter tomorrow.
That is because you are interested in mocking, not analysis.
I would suggest that Sir Henry’s and others’ pro-Labor hubris largely comes from a lack of understanding of the prejudices of the majority of Australians, and a lack of understanding as to why they hold those prejudices.
If those prejudices were better understood, I suspect a more productive reaction from ALP supporters to, say the SIEV X affair might have emerged. The most common response projected into the mass media was ‘But Howard lied!!’.
I assume that Campbell was sacked because his actions directly contradicted and cruelled a planned line of attack. I’d be surprised if Howard or a minon had not already demanded to know if any ministers had had contact with Burke. If true,
To suggest that any government sacks ministers for merely following a morally corrupt strategy is so naive as to be analytically useless.
EG:
1) AWB – this had to be done to keep the National Party onside.
2) Centenary House (ALP-owned building that an ALP government took out a 15-year binding lease on) – feathering one’s own nest.
If only these guys had gone into the catering business instead of lobbying. Something like ‘Burkes bar and Grill’.
On second thoughts, it’s hard to imagine they didn’t have that angle covered.
â??The fact that his side has been in power in Canberra for the last 11 years and actually increased their majority at the last election and took the Senate when so many predicted a loss also helps one understand his hubristic partisanship.â??
Given that governments tend to get on the nose as they age an objective commentator would consider being in power for 11 years a reason for less hubris, not more. An ideologue in the grips of the good old born to rule mentality, on the other handâ?¦
I also disagree that Rudd’s lead over Howard is mostly due to Iraq. Some of it is honeymoon, of course. Aside from that there is Iraq, yes, but also climate change. The latest Newspoll has 93% of voters considering a problem and Industrial Relations (would Labor really be running on it in NSW if the internal polling didn’t say it was a big issue).
Is Mr Howard going to stand by his mate, Ian Campbell, for what doesn’t appear to be an indiscretion at all?
Mr Strocchi … your view of lies in the national interest sounds like a bit of post modernist relativist spin to me.
I don’t see any of the lies as being in the national interest.
Ratty has spun a web which has already trapped Campbell, but it appears Ratty himself is getting tangled in his own mess. Rudd of course will fly free – he is teflon-coated.
“To suggest that any government sacks ministers for merely following a morally corrupt strategy is so naive as to be analytically useless”
Guilty as charged. I believe that people do act out of moral conviction. In Government and in Opposition. We do not have consensus as to what is moral and what isn’t.
When you constructively and practically make attempts to understand the prejudices of the greater Australian public, don’t forget to consider that they might just be borne out of experience both individual and collective and don’t forget that they might exist because in the balance they will be proved right as far as they are concerned. I am not accusing you of doing this, on the contrary…If pre-judging does save time is it an entirely bad thing?
I actually find your contributions to be enlightening and respect the way you engage with those you disagree with. Some people here and of the left in general don’t actually like Teh Poor. Me, I would agree with you in the vast majority of points you raise in any thread but I don’t because we very simply and very purely have a different opposing moral framework. Different mountaintop and a different light.
Mug Punter,
We are all post modernists now. It is simply a matter of time before the editorial team at the Molonglo Pravda makes official what has hitherto merely been conveyed by spectacle and textual hybridity. Meanwhile we live with the denunciations and learn to parse the pars. Lol. Where did all those maoists go I wonder? Obs, Jack Strocchi, what to do while we wait for the official pronouncement?
Nothing some deracinated french intellectual ever wrote, could quite beat the thrill of following the discursive strategies employed by cultural conservatives, faced with political radicals they admire. It has been a revelation, and a ‘learning situation’ as they used to say.
Sir Henry Casingbroke wrote ” John Howard REGULARLY met with people who will be convicted criminals in the near future ”
So true in fact some of his Exclusive Brethren friends are being convicted for child sexual abuse ! bomb threats ,false election details . In future it will include massive tax fraud , widespread sexual and psychological abuse ,disregard for court judgements etc .
All sorts of stuff will come out including that Howard and his so called religious friends did everything possible to get us involved in this mess of war over seas .Such is their religious convictions that any body with differnt beliefs they will try and find and propagate any small reason into a large one ! in the hope of mounting an attack .
But who foots the bill in the end ?
Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1.
Three witches stand around a crucible, stirring, stirring.
First witch (Howard): With this brew a potion we make to cause our enemy to slip.
Second witch (Abbott): I can no longer brew, this craft offends my catholic religion…
Third witch (Costello): Mine too, if truth be known, though it be hillsong.
First witch: Hold tight, the brew is close to finishing.
Second witch: I am faint. Its fumes doth overcome me.
Third witch: I also feel faint, but ’tis from loss of blood which you made me shed into the brew.
First witch: Now the brewing’s done. Oh curses, the spell has been reversed.
All three witches fall as faint into the brew. A vile green fog arises from the crucible.
The limelight fades. The curtains close. The audience applauds.
So Noel Chrichton-Browne attended the Wedding of a Federal Liberal MP and the Mad Monk was there >
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21325817-948,00.html
I wonder if Sophie Mirabella will be asked to leave the party and will Minister Abbott will also get the chop ??
Somehow I doubt it.
I understand that nine MPs from Western Australia voted in the last leadership contest. Rudd received two(2)votes from WA. If Burke is so influential and supposedly committed to the Rudd camp, then the numbers don’t add up.
All together now boys:
The sun on the meadow is summery warm.
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The branch of the linden is leafy and green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee.
But soon, says a whisper
Arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to meeeee!
link
OK, I’m a simple bloke and take things mostly at face value unless my bull shit senses are aroused, so could someone please answer for me the following;
Did Rudd meeting Bourke cause or was a crime or a threat to Australia ?
Did Campbell meeting Bourke cause or was a crime or a threat to Australia?
I must be missing out somewhere, but exactly what is the bloody fuss all about, apart from the Rodents panic and trying to smear and then tossing his own to the wind, what is it all about?.
Hi Lang
There are a lot of people asking the same thing. The best we can do is find out who those people are and vote against them. Burke is a corrupt venal man. He was a corrupt Premier and re-commenced practising corruption after he got out of jail where he was sent, for corruption. Vast chunks of his own party think he is filth, which is encouraging at least.
f you don’t live in WA you have an excuse for not knowing this. Kevin Rudd and Ian Campbell do not have this excuse.
Ian Campbell deserved what he got and by all means seek out name and shame his corporate clients.
here’s a LINK to the PJK interview – made me chuckle a bit, I must say
But that’s not why Howard purportedly declared Burke off-limits, causing the sacking of Campbell.
The purported reason is that Burke was a convicted criminal.
So the questions remain:
1. which crimes render a person unfit to be in conversation with an elected representative of the people?
2. Who promulgated this list, and when?
3. Where does one get a copy of this list?
4. Where is the list of the criminals with whom Howard has conversed?
“purportedly ”
I missed the purporting so I can’t assist you. I would say/guess whatever the language that he used and however lazy it might have been, he meant that Burke was a corrupt and venal man who was off limits.
I am sure Howard has met with convicted felons both knowingly and unknowingly. I doubt he would declare all of them off-limits. It would be a hard one not to get caught out on. Especially out here in the west…
Are you trying to trip him up on semantics? Why? Do you think a ban on meeting with Brian Burke coming from Gallop/Carpenter/Howard is inappropriate? Do you think Rudd was wrong to be ashen and Edwards wrong to be regretful?
Hello James, thank you for your reply, you have left me a little confused “find out who these people are and vote against them” The only people to vote against,in the main, are the Liberals and labor at the next election, that I know, and from what I read and hear that Bourke is not a person I would want to know, but , what crimes have either Rudd or Campbell done to warrant me considering them as to be punished. I just don’t get it, were they being seditious , plotting to rob banks, in a drug cartel,,,, what is the complaint against these two meeting/being in the same room as Bourke. Can anyone tell me exactly why these two should be hounded the way they are, without bringing in, at the moment, the underhand crap that Howard is doing..
Yes, but was’nt the House of Un-American Activities some sort of crucible too?
Notwithstanding the vexed question of the aptness or otherwise of Observa’s turn of phrase in the spontaneous literary fireworks(the ooh-aah kind) of the spotlight/ crucible imbroglio, it seems the Ruddster’s ring of confidence has been forged anew today.
If The Right Honourable Leader of the Opposition can’t take heat like this(the last few days), then he should stay out of the crucible. Forget about the spotties.
thanks Pterosaur,
JPK always has a few good lines in him…..
*****
How the ALP have missed having just ONE person who can take it – roll it into comedy gold, and launch it straight back – right at their fat heads.
“Wrong” is such a promiscuous word.
Howard is saying it is morally “wrong” for politicians to meet an as yet undefined category of felons. (Perhaps that category contains only Brian Burke). How would anyone discover whether this suspicion is true or not?
Kevin Rudd might indeed have concluded that it was politically “wrong” to be caught associating with Brian Burke (again perhaps in contradistinction to conversing with every other human being on the planet).
Now JH, unless you are one of these very pure chappies who cannot concede the difference between something that is morally wrong and something that is simply an error of fact, tact or taste, you must concede that your conflation of these two meanings of “wrong” has muddied the waters of this discussion.
You really can’t go past Paul Keating, can you? Puts it all in perspective: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1863256.htm
I don’t think anybody realistically expects anything more from Rudd. Try and avoid judging the message based on the messenger when I quote Costello “Anyone who deals with Brian Burke is morally and politically compromised”. Peter Costello is not the only person who thinks so. Alan Carpenter agrees (belatedly) and Gallop thought so too.
I think the point that the Fed Govt is trying to push is that Rudd went weasling round Burke as part of his plan to set up a network in the west and to see the lay of the land even if he was not overtly plotting his run at Beasley. It is a very bad look but not terminal. He has been busted and he is still not telling the whole truth about it but he will brazen it out and escape. I doubt that it will even effect the way the marginals play out – it might have if this was all nearer to the election but not this far out.
So, no one can answer my question?, for heavens sake, don’t you know, or there is no answer, if so , again what are these two being punished for , apart from association, and a new lowering of standards in the Rodents book of tricks.
Dear Lang Mack
I never thought I’s say this, but get yourself over to the
People’s PravdaThe Australian and read today’s main editorial.I don’t know how to use the link function but if you scroll up this thread, you’ll find a link there.
Alternatively, read Keating’s take on the little dessicated coconut’s
witchhuntpolitical strategy, and weep.I can answer your question no problem Mack Lang. Rudd hasn’t committed any crime and neither has Campbell. The Government has openly endorsed the principle of guilt by association (see the Costello quote above) and implicitly endorsed the principle of presumption of guilt, it being the case that there is no proof that Rudd or Campbell did any deal with Burke.
No,Miss Keeler, you really can’t go past Paulie’s unabashed savagery towards the Rat Who Walks and his deft theatre of the mind imagery. He could come in handy this year if his special guest appearances are timed as well as this. Then, of course there will always be those important future ambassadorships that require the top people, know wot ah mean?
Let’s see now. Dublin ? Nah, Vince Gair cruelled that. London? Not after waisting Brenda. Rome? Maybe, might get to hang with Placido.
No, bugger it, Kev, make it Paris, mate, French clock capital of the world.
Thank you AG and Chris, it’s what I thought, this is a sad turn of events, even I thought there may have been some level where you stop for the good of the people, any respect I had for the Nats/libs has been washed away, I do feel irate about this.
I live 100 klm from town, but I’ll make an effort to get the Australian, I go to town to get the SMH and the Aus; on a Saturday, the Aus has good book reviews, and the National Party wonder why we vote in independants, look to the company you keep, Nats; (and I was a member ) and my Cocky friends are also pissed off.
I’m not sure that this applies here, however I think it may in a vague way, ” when the neighbors find religion, it’s time to brand the calves”. Well, with the Lyons Forum and Abbot etc;,now this bull shit, I just hope that enough of us will get rid of this lot. The economy aside, comes a time when principal must take a stand, if it wont, then what have we left?.
Lang Mack,
It’s simple. The ALP via Gallop and subsequently Carpenter set the rules about contact with Burke. Do so and you’re as corrupt as he is and you’re sacked. The Howard Govt has simply played by their rules with Campbell and now say what about Rudd fellers? Now Rudd has said I made a mistake talking to Burke, but I’m not going to tell you what we discussed (it was merely political chit chat)and I’ll let the Australian people judge my honesty and integrity in this against Howard any day. In other words, forget about any honesty or integrity and we’ll let the punters decide who is the least worst liar and scumbag. And with that outlook now, the party faithful now know Rudd’s a bloody clone of the evil one, which is why his polls are so good at the moment. You see Lang Mack it’s like Sir Henry’s snipe about Howard and the AWB (or WMD in Iraq). Doesn’t matter how many enquiries find the Govt didn’t sanction the kickbacks, the opposition faithful are still gunna continue to believe in their plastic turkey conspiracies. Truth has nothing to do with it as Rudd has so aptly demonstrated to us all now. Bye bye Mr Squeaky. It’s all about winning and who’s King Rat.
It’s probably all academic now anyway Lang Mack. With the stock market going south, the world economy has tanked and the central banks’ money supply chickens around the world have finally come home to roost. Howard’s clone will romp in under severe recessionary circumstances and have to give the unions the bad news on enterprise bargaining. Basically there won’t be anything to bargain for.
Obs has conceded.
See. Guilt by association, at least when it comes to Howard and the smirking jerkâ??s position on this. Obby isnâ??t representing the WA Governments practices entirely accurately.
Those who have been found to have breached cabinet rules in dealing with Burke have been forced to resign, not everybody who met with him. The current ludicrous witch hunt is all Howard and Costelloâ??s doing.
Bah, Rudd just needs to release a interesting policy tomorrow and this will blow over tomorrow in our fishbowl media culture. Play Howard’s game.
And wouldn’t it be quite nice if the “desiccated coconut” fessed up, concerning his conversation with Mr Walker?
Funny how the really important stuff gets forgotten.
Obby, “their rules”: would those rules be consistent with ministerial responsibility over the last decade, or do you think they may have been made up more recently?
Remember what you said at a piss-up in the smoko room 18months/2 years ago Obby?
On the contrary, the party faithful and an increasing number of non party voters probably recognise Rudd as a saint, compared to Ratty.
Typical observa. Comes in to stiffen morale.
String a few nooses over a few lamp posts and it does the cause a power of good.
But you’re right, Silkworm. He has conceded.
For an Observa you are not very observant Observa.
I tried to point out to you that it was your little tag-team mate, Jack Strocchi that brought up the subject of AWB and the Coconut’s role in it.
I even provided an anchor link for you so you wouldn’t have to scroll up.
Now, seeing as you are having another uninformed lash, I hereby publicly, WITH ALL THE POWERS VESTED IN ME AS A LARVATUS PRODEO BLOGGER DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO WHAT STROCCHI ACTUALLY SAID:
I was trying to quietly get to Jack to explain what appeared a seemingly self-contradictory position, but instead I got you on my case. What are you? His spokesman?
Calling OBSERVA, come in OBSERVA, breaker breaker, how do you copy, good buddy? (I wonder if he’s on the same channel).
The Age tonight:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-says-attacks-polldriven/2007/03/05/1172943315318.html
In response, “All Tip, No Iceberg” with the usual selective amnesia redolent of Howardista ministers said he doesn’t have his minions constantly looking for mud to sling.
Of course you would have Cozzie, of course: with the benefit of a crystal ball in 2006 showing Rudd’s popularity in the stratosphere in 2007.
Methinks the issue is becoming a fizzer.
I want Keating back, fuckit.
Respect, dude, fucking respect.
That Keating interview is pure gold.
“araldited to the seat”. Hehe.
I tell ya; approximately 10 minutes after Ratty bows out in disgrace, curses and blaming everyone but himself, the Keating revival beginneth.
Add another bungle to the Tories lists of great economic achievments while they have been mudslinging.
Today the unpreferred PrimeMinister flew to Brisbane to announce that his Ipswich Motorway upgrade will swing straight though the unpreferred route through the guts of the unpreferred (by the Queensland people’s) Queensland Liberal Leader’s electorate of Moggill!
All this at just over double the cost of the preferred upgrade route. Well done Ratty, with state parliament sitting tomorrow, I’m sure you will find out how popular this decision will be among Liberal voters in the western suburbs. The more you sling mud the more incompetent are your decisions.
Fyodor, I think that Rudd will have to learn how to do a Keatingesque put down, but what is surprising is that one blog, at the flagship of that bordello of Murdoch newspapers, does not seem to be censoring the 90/10 ratio of passionate pisstaking, insulting comments directed at Ratty.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_hypocrisy_after_awb_is_disgraceful/
But yeah, bring back Keating even for 10 minutes in the Reps, to make mincemeat of this issue.
Tony Jones on Lateline, if I heard it correctly, Labour 57%, LNP 43%. A slide of 3% by the LNP.
1200 people: Newspoll.
LeftyE, how about this for a revival. Keating for Governor General, and a salary double Ratty’s pension?
Muchos apologies Sir Henry and you are exempted (for now at least) from the plastic turkey, we wuz robbed, conspiracist mob I was generally referring to.
No Peter, the issue isn’t a fizzer, although electorally it won’t impact much, UNLESS it can subsequently be shown Rudd was lying through his teeth about a deal with Burke. Why it is important is for the meeja (a la Red Kerry tonight)who now realise Rudd as PM will be completely like Howard. Basically that there’s only one poll that counts in terms of a test of honesty and integrity. In between is about feeding the chooks appropriately. Rudd’s a clone of Howard and lo and behold Labor are now onto a winner with the punters. Fancy that eh? The fun part is already listening to the faithful here prattle on about how he’s got a lot of catching up to do to match Howard. It’s called time and incumbency guys and he’s off to a flying start as contender already. Does anyone remember ditching Rollback? Was that a giant lie? Well err no because um err..because of a lack of incumbency. Oppositions don’t lie, only Govts do, or so the story goes.
Ubfortunately for Rudd (or fortunatsly as the case may be)I think he’s going to inherit a recession. Bit of a poisoned chalice for the union types and public spenders wouldn’t you say? You wait patiently a decade or so after the recession you had to have and lo and behold you have to have another one when you get your hands on the levers. And you know what? Govts don’t even get a say anymore about how their central banks print money and eventually create all those malinvestments that only recessions can cure. The stockmarket is now foretelling the correction to the malinvestments like these
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21328735-1246,00.html?from=public_rss
Obby that is exactly what we have been trying to tell you for years. The Howard Government while crowing about their economic credentials have been the most disappointing waste for 11 years now and have not set Australia up to handle bad times well.
What a hide they have to be slinging mud at a time when the current account deficit is running away from them. The tax cuts of the past few years targetted at the rich are very inflationary.
The inflation rate is still outside the Reserve Bank’s target range. Interest rates have risen steadily throughout this term despite the desparate lies of the last election campaign. Nothing has been done to haul bank fees into line and ditto for petrol prices.
In short there is no reason to keep the Howard government in power because they have been an unmitigated failure on all economic criteria except in mudslinging where they canibalise their own on a daily basis at great cost to themselves but who cares?
Now, there’s a reception worth undercooking the chicken for!
As for Keating’s insights, jeez we really miss having someone who can throw not just insults but rolled-gold barbed witticisms at the Tories. That reminds me: must book tickets to Keating! very bloody soonish!
And finally, I had the neighbours telling me to keep it down when I heard the Newspoll figures on Lateline. Proof that smearing only gives yourself the shits, Ratty!
Yes Lefty, that’s exactly what this is about. But no-one must know the true agenda. I’ve had Burkie and Julian on the job for quite a bit now and apart from a couple of hiccups everything is going exactly to plan.
Of course by the time the punters wake up to our evil schemes to lumber them with 1000% interest rates and 64000% inflation it will all be too late.
Yep, Ive got my three-volume Manning Clark loaded, and draft 3Rs curriculum, ready to pounce. The second empire clocks are synchronised.
We’ll disinterr the Keating legacy from its shallow grave, and unleash a veritable Franklin Dam of wetness on Howard’s legacy!
We are the Black Armbands of the night!
…so don’t try and fuck with us people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKIiNl9cKzE
They shall not pass!
And we demand you choose: your history or your geography!
And the chickens came home to roost.
See latest Newspoll.
“Nothing has been done to haul bank fees into line and ditto for petrol prices.”
Surely you’re not suggesting price controls are you Steve?
This govt’s economic cred is OK after reining in Keating’s deficit and running surpluses and scrapping a ubiquitous WST in favour of a GST, which has paid handsome dividends economically. Current account deficits are not down to Govt deficit spending. This Govt is not responsible for monetary policy as central banks are a law unto themselves nowadays. Consequently they print money and that inevitably leads to recessions(I agree with Brookesnews evaluation here) It’s time Govts were directly responsible for monetary policy. I agree they’re too much the pork barrellers, but what choice do we small govt types get nowadays?
Laura Tingle said tonight that half the press gallery at least were combing the archives to see when Howard had associated with a felon. I wonder what will show up in the morning.
Christian Kerr said Costello had become completely ridiculous in the language he used (he always was, as far as I can see).
Their collective wisdom seemed to be that the whole thing had become so ridiculous that everyone would have to back off.
I think the Libs have discovered that Rudd is not a street fighter, so they don’t mind getting down in the dirt. When all politicians are discredited, then all they need is a hip-pocket or security scare campaign and Bob’s your uncle.
Remember this time in 2001, Howard was a dead man walking and Gary Morgan advised him to start a war. Maybe Lazarus can rise a second time!
And Dennis Shemaham (Italian play on the words Stupid Ham), is desperatly trying to spin Newspoll as a negative.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/dennisshanahan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/alps_strength_also_its_weakness/
As If……
Newspoll: Read ‘em and weep http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,21331079-17281,00.html
Primaries – Coalition 37%, ALP 47% (Labour up by 1%, Coalition down 5%)
2PP – Coalition 43%, ALP 57% (Labour up 3%, Coalition down 3%)
Costello said much the same in his ludicrous interview.
The Newspoll sure hit $weetie in the breadbasket on Lateline. Burke and Grill broke Thursday, The Newspoll was conducted on Sat. and Sun. Yet still a 3% slide in 2PP. OUCH.
Was it just me, or did our beloved Treasurer seem a teensy weeny bit pissy wissy? Not for one moment do I wish to moralise, far from it, a little settler after a stressful day at work has prooved eminently efficacious for many a hard-working parliamentarian over the years. His heavy arrhymic breathing, jerky and inappropriate body gestures and loathesome leer were quite carnivale. Costello had only four channels of rhetorical response operable during Tony Jones’s interview. There were telling pauses and umpteen textbook non sequitur replys. Sure, they all do it but this time it was noticeable.
OK I’m biased, but $weets looked as if he was feeling the strain. The antithesis of comfortable and relaxed. The polls said “who gives a stuff”, however, $weetie was fortified, wound up and pointed.
“He was goin’ down,
To the Dirty Boulevarde”.
I do believe you’re right EC. Just watched the interview again, and I’d say he’s definitely been on the sauce http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/
Quelle surprise. 10 years of Ratty, and the public no longer cares about politicians integrity.
Rat: meet petard.
This govt’s economic cred is OK is it Observa?
Perhaps the reason nobody is driving around with a truck showing Australia’s current account deficit these days is that they’d need a dozen B doubles, and with the price of diesel these days…
Observa – the reason for our “prosperity” is because we are riding on the back of the Chinese workforce. The one-party police state is able to force people to work in any industry it deems appropriate for the amount it determines is a fair enough. Hence, as you can appreciate there’s still a way to go in making Australia “more competitive”. We’d have to bring back executions on a massive scale, of course. And ban trade unions. And make people go where the jobs are. You’ll just lurve WA.
Now that Holden is following the industry exodus to manufacturing gulags in Shenzhen, and the arse falling out of the stock market and interest rates about to zoom up, it seems that if economic credibility is to be the determinant at the next general election, you may find the next Liberal parliamentary party meeting in a telephone box (if they can find one that is).
No, I think Coconut and Tip will fight the next election on political morality. It’s their only hope. Mwwwwaahhhhhaaaahaaahahahahahaha.
CK,
If the polls are a vindication, does that mean that everything and anything Howard may have done while his poll numbers were up were OK?
Personally, I do not think this is a strong line of argument.
Oh Sir Henry, where did it all go so wrong.
Zen and the Art of Political Power Maintenace.
A lone, high ranking rodent shelters from the hot sun* beneath the fronds of palms, ponderous with nature’s supply-side abundance. Rattus Maximus is patiently awaiting gravity to provide him with sustenance. A wayward zepher toys tantalisingly with the grandest of a lovely bunch of coconuts. He feels as one with the largest coconut. The King Coconut. It’s husk is knarled and weather-beaten. He is the coconut.
Then it hits him.
It’s not just a dessicated old coconut at all. For him, it goes way beyond that. Properly shredded the coconut’s destiny could merge with his. Come election day, those battling uppity aspirants:
“Why, let them eat lamingtons!”.
* Crucibles and spotlights were unavailable for this skit.
Oops I didn’t see this thread.
As you have already probably gathered I am quite a cynical and sceptical observer of politics. I have never in my life gotten really mad over anything in Australian politics. But this whole Burke to-do has seen me flip my wig! You say it is becoming â??a little over the top.â?? I think it is the grubbiest, most desperate and brazen flaunting of the Liberalsâ?? front bench venality in their 10 years of government!
As I was placing baby-powder to soother my back, sack and crack depilation, I switched on the tele just in time for the ABC News. My jaw dropped on hearing that Campbell had resigned. At the Mardi Gras I was running up to people all night sharing my horror.
Last nightâ??s performance by Costello was the worst of his career. Not a smirk, not a quip. He looked more ashen more than Ruddâ??s press conference last week!
This is the last straw for me with the Rodent and his mutant litter. The cynical and fascist way these cunts (sorry for any offence, but the word is apt) have tortuted David Hicks and now this storm in a tea-cup combine with far too much mendacity for us to conclude anything other than John Howard (and that snake Lady Macbeth who slithers in his background) are the vilest Australians ever to draw breath.
They have to go! If you are connected in such circles and could do with my assistance do not hesitate to ask!
Obby, sorry for doubting the economic credentials of the Libs, their credentials are of course impeccable.
Does Howard have a death wish or what in promoting Senator Johnston into cabinet ?
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21334332-948,00.html
Perhaps it’s just an advanced stage of somed coconut disease?
I wonder which one it is:
Nut fall?
Powdery mildew?
Red ring (Bursaphelenchus cocophilus)?
Root rot?
Stem bleeding?
Thread blight? (Fair amount of that going around on LP).
As the PM is in Queensland would you slip on a pair of surgical gloves and check it out, please EC? The nation needs to know if Mr. Howard is fit to hold this high office.
Perfect time for a frontbencher to be under suspicion of fingering the till..
Those whom the Gods would destroy….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1864046.htm
I’m a bit confused about how this terrifying Burkeola Virus works:
a) Does it become more diluted the further it transmits from the original source?
b) Will it infect everyone it comes in contact with, much in the manner of the Black Death?
c) I have heard that potential carriers like business folk and Liberal Party donors are completely immune. Is this true?
d) Are its ravages limited to those with the KRudd gene disorder?
e) Is there some sort of injection we can get?
Surely there must be medical types out there who can help. People are in a state of panic.
“your little tag-team mate”
Sir Henry, are you channelling Lionel Murphy?
This issue already has run out of legs. I blame Paul Keating’s comic intervention, together with the newspoll. Evidently no one east of the Nullarbor Plain could give a stuff about it and not too many west of it could either.
If it serves to make Rudd more alert to the dirt that is about to the dished in his direction between now and the election, so much the better.
Next.
No, Spiros, Morgan. Get it right.
Re: The Three MP’s thang, Lefty E – things must be really biting in brissy…..
you could understand Ross Vasta in Bonner, with a measley .5% margin – going hard at it – but Andrew Laming has 9% in Bowman….(& Gary Hargrave is in between on 4.2%…….)
if 9% is looking shaky……
(FTR: I emailed about 20 of the most marginal coalition MPs, including Ross and Gary…. just after they passed Workchoices in Nov 05, and suggested that neither their staff, nor they, should sign leases in Canberra longer that 2 years ….and hoped that they hadn’t sold the shop/farm/biz etc ………mwwwwhhhahahahahaha!!)
Jo – for more detail check out pages 581 and 591 here.
It’s happening here in WA.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21334778-5005361,00.html
What is not mentioned in this article, but was mentioned in The West Australian is that Dr Fong also attended a Fundraising Lunch for Howard when he was in town a couple of weeks back.
And Omedei is a bloody hypocrite
so, it’s a “help out your dud state mates thang” – sort of keeping with the Burke B-type influenza theme that’s raging in the west. The AFP dont bend their backs for nothing – so a QLD-wide outbreak of flegg-vasta-laming disease – just what the doctor ordered.
Dr Death that is….mwwwwhahahahaha
(sorry, can’t stop doing it now – I blame Sir Henry!!!!)
thanks steve.
The Rodent and the bunch of excuses for human beings he calls a government, are no doubt the biggest bunch of cretins to grace the floors of parliament house.Most of them are that low they could easily parachute out of a snakes arse,I have no doubt that Abbot and Downer could still free fall another 1000ft after the Rodent has pulled the rip cord.
However,anyone who thinks their goose is cooked had better take a deep breath, it’s not over until the fat lady sings.One should never under estimate the stupidity of the Australian electorate,we have been here before.
I partly agree with Obs,the economy is headed south, and depending on who you read we are in for a recession.Maybe,just maybe, the conservatives are going to bail out and let Rudd take the can for the shit about to go down.
Howard’s greatest hope of victory is for them to bring that dopey bint Jenny MacKlin back!
If he is Rattus Maximus, EC, then when does he get to say ‘At my signal, unleash hell’?
… Oh, wait.
“As the PM is in Queensland would you slip on a pair of surgical gloves and check it out, please EC? The nation needs to know if Mr. Howard is fit to hold this high office.”
Sir Henry,
Thank you for your referral. Under normal circumstances I would be more than happy to be of service in assessing the fitness of Rodentus Maximus to hold our country’s highest office. Unfortunately, his handlers have placed him in quarantine and he, being of the genus Rattus Peripateticus, is presently being examined by the best veterinarians in the land.
Eager as I am by way of my Hippocratic Oath to be of service to all humans, great and small, there are certain professional boundaries which I shall not breach.
With Deep Regrets,
Dr. Rudi Encon, (F.R.A.C.S.)
Geoffrey Edelsten Memorial Clinic,
Cavill Ave, Surfers Paradise, Qld.
(Please feel free to enquire about our no obligation, tatoo removal quotations. Our clinic has the latest in Zap-Scan technology, as seen on TV.)
Sir Henry,
I agree with your summation of how the Chinese have funded our runaway money supply without inflation, but that’s not the Govt’s fault here.(they are not alone in the Western world in that respect) They are not responsible for private debt and can only remain debt free themselves, which they have done. Also they are not responsible for money supply, like most govts nowadays who also rely upon independent central banks. I personally think that should change and Treasury should be responsible for setting money supply. Add in a bold reform of the WST against all the pundits of doom and as I said, their economic cred is OK. I didn’t say fantastic just OK.(I’d prefer much smaller govt and less tax churning)
Well, you may get your wish soon Obby: it will be a very small government indeed as all the Government ministers who have ever met anyone ever convicted of fraud or dishonestly have to resign.
Now have a very careful listen to the Treasurer, the Hon. Noah Iceberg, the member for Stolly-on-the-Rocks, as he explains the Government’s position on the wireless. Click on this LINK here…
And now WA Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoor has been enjoined, as it were, with Burke & Grill. Lightfoot bought options in Precious Metals Australia, which benefitted greatly after Burke & Grill doctored a parliamentary report into the company.
Well, Lightfoot is only a backbencher.
But his former live-in squeeze, Julie Bishop, is a cabinet minister. I wonder what she’s got to say about the matter.
“But his former live-in squeeze, Julie Bishop, is a cabinet minister. I wonder what she’s got to say about the matter.”
Whatever it is, she better be very careful.
Then again, she’s on Costello’s GravyInDebtedNessTruck.
Howard’s 2nd or 3rd greatest delight as parting gesture would be to stiff Costello, via a “hey, I did what you asked, your EnoughRopeOops”…”
Now that I’ve got that ponce all but sorted, Moving right along,
“Ladies and gentleman, I’d like to introduce the NextButOne, (probably, after all Rudd is no Calwell, and for all I care Costello can go down and pull a wave over his head like Mingies loyal long suffering treasurer did) Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull.
He’s like family to me, (better even, Janette’s not been very happy about Timmy getting a french gentleman’s magazine bikini centrefold lined up for the Easter family lunch, and maybe more. Nettie reckons I went over all funny like when I saw the photo spread. Who said there’s not life after politics. I like Sarah, she makes me feel all young and frisky, and says she likes big eyebrows, I don’t care what Janette says…what was I thinking about, oh yeh, Malkers..)
Don’t you dolts get it yet, why I own The Party? Mingie gave it to me, and I get to give it to whom and when I like. Why did Mingie give it to me to look after?
For those of you born yesterday,
In the 1961 credit-squeeze election he only got a 2 seats majority, I could see it was unworkable and talked him into the snap one in 1963, told him to go hard with tv and pay professionals for the advertising.
Lots in the party said I was full of myself, and they thought they had me by the short and curlies setting me up for a fall by giving me the job of getting Tom Hughes up in Parkes. You whippersnappers won’t remember but Les Haylen had held that for 20 years, even Tom thought it was a joke.
But I got him up, and my media campaign strategy ideas got us in across the board and Mingie could retire on a high note. Who do you think organised the pic of the 36 faceless men? Yep you guessed it, yours truly.
Worked a treat then, and it would have worked a treat now, but HisClownship had to go an overplay his hand didn’t he. Good thing I’d had him rehearse the Campbell plan, the hacks thought I was caught by surprise ha ha ha.
Just like “He’s a bit full of himself” made me double-take. Yeh, right…What part of “Timing is everything” don’t youse understand. Wanna see my tapdance routine? It’s an old softshoe with a kick in the guts on the side, don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
But back to the son I never had, Malkers, you must have joined the dots by now surely, let me hum a few bars ( whistles Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,)…. Not yet?
Look, me and Tom Hughes were like that, right? The brother I never had, the one that didn’t say I was a dickhead, and he owed me bigtime, even better.
So that makes his daughter like a niece to me right, and her hubby like…Well let’s just say I like to keep things in the family.
Pete? He can sit on his secateurs and spin, call me a liar will he.
I’ll get out of your way…when I feel like it, but I gotta say I’m getting a bit bored. Not really sure I wanna eat any more funny food with foreigners, or ASEAN, or whatever they call it.
I’ll see what Lucy and Malkers think, “How about I, surprise, surprise , pull my own plug, we dump PoorOldPete in it, just like he wants, let that other guy, who might as well be playing on our team anyway he looks like us, and plays like us, have a bit of a turn, you and Lucy consolidate a few investments, do a bit of bargain hunting during the downturn, ole Rudders cops the flack, and I’ll give you the call when the time is right. It worked for Me and Mingie. Patience my son.”
YoursTruly, Freddy