An open thread where, at the mercy of your election-year mania, you may discuss various breaking politicking news that is not on topic for other current threads.
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
I believe house rules are to say…
Frist
Frist
(i’m counting Fibonacci style)
Let me say I’m delighted you’ve provided this post. Thanks heaps.
Now to my topic.
I’m not a psychiatrist, but in years past I have studied a bit of psycho-history. So, has anybody else noticed anything very peculiar about Howard’s behaviour over recent weeks?
It first occured to me that things might be becoming exceedingly strange when Howard accused Premiers Bracks and Beattie of conspiring to plot against him with Kevin Rudd. But almost the very next day, Bracks resigned and soon after Beattie got into a stoush about Local Council Reform that could be bad for Rudd. Some conspiracy! Then it occured to me that the problem might not be Kevin Rudd and the Premiers, but John Howard. He thought Rudd et al were conspiring against him when they weren’t. John Howard was beginning to lose his marbles. But I thought, no, not our eminently sane PM. But the very next week he started talking about taking over Devonport hospital, state ports, railways etc., and coined a new definition for Federal power grabs – aspirational nationalism – now, leaving aside Samuel Johnson’s well known observation that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundral” and the fact that Howard is a scoundrel because at the very least he plays fast and loose with the truth, I began to wonder if aspirational nationalism was another word for megalomamia. And isn’t megalomania a form of madness? So, I ask you, bloggers, Is John Howard losing his marbles? Are we going to the polls to vote for a PM who is bonkers and unfit to govern?
First
(Kevin Andrews style)
Not first, but under a preference deal with Danny et al, my post could still be determined more valid than any that got in before me.
Even though I haven’t actually said anything.
Um…
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
In deference to Micahel “Fibonacci” D’s pointy-headedness:
There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
OK, I had thought that Big Mal was safe coz his margin was falsely reduced thanks to Peter King’s run in 2004.
But will Cousins have an impact? A well orchestrated, high profile anti Pulp Mill campaign could do some serious damage in Wentworth. If I were Mr Turnbull, I’d be getting pretty worried, and from the sounds of things, he is!
AAP has him saying:
Getting onto topic, and speaking of preference deals, I asked Antony Green
“Let’s say, shock horror, greens get serious about extracting environmental care undertakings from PossiblePrimeMinister (PPM) Rudd by flagging their reluctant willingness to exchange preferences with the lib candidate for Griffith. Given 2004 Griffith FF tally was tory, is a Rudd-unseating swing due to a well-funded and executed lib-green local anti-Rudd/labor campaign plausible?”
He said no, darn it, I reckon the Libs would have dug deep to fund the un-seating of Rudd, way better than any number of un-pantings or un-soberings.
Tim, are you my brother?
Just askin’.
Howard will win. Doubt if John would go anywhere near a strip joint even if it had good cheap meal.
If Tim is my brother, then I could make some joke about Family First, that’s all… Hard to tell without surnames, y’know.
Yup, Peter, go ahead and make another silly joke on me!
I don’t think I have to actually make the joke; just mentioning it will do.
Anybody else notice in today’s Crikey that Christian mentioned he voted Labor in 2004 and will do so again this time?
Queensland Morgan Senate Poll here.
Re: Paul Burns’ comment about Howard Losing his marbles…
We are outside the Lib’s inner sanctum – so we only see media spin and not reality. For all I dislike of the Libs, I respect there are some intelligent people in amongst them. They would see the “real” Howard. If we were really into the “losing marbles” zone, I don’t think party unity this close to an election would survive – those Libs would get to the point of fearing Howard would be the one who made THE gaff that was seen as costing them the election.
1)
Why the hell is the conservative party named the liberal party? Can’t we get them on false advertising or something?
2)
What about institutionalised discrimination, especially against transgender people? Our issues tend to get subsumed in the whole ‘GLBT’ caption, but the fact is that the G, the L, and the B tend to do their best to shut us up so we don’t get in the way of ‘their’ progress. For instance, the fact that a transgender person cannot get a passport in the correct gender unless they have both had surgery, and divorced their partner if they have one?
I see Kev has managed to get himself over 15,000 myspace friends.
When they first put the page up, and he only had a cuppla kF (kiloFriends, specially coined unit for myspace superstars), Bill Leak had a go at him, a bleary-eyed TinTin sitting at comp, thinking “I’ve got 17,000 friends and none of them are old enough to vote”.
It looks like Kev will actually make a mockery of the mockery by soon passing that 17 kF mark, which is pretty extraordinary.
Back when there were 5 kF or so, a statistically valid sample size, I got my team of web-monkeys to work out what the spread of the declared ages of KevsFriends was. It seems only 20% are under 18. Of course there’s a high degree of unreliability to that data, ( you wouldn’t believe how many 101 year old MySpace addicts there are), but nonetheless, to a first approximation, I reckon that Leak got it wrong, and most KevFriends are actually enfranchised, and it would seem from their comments, seriously politicised, seriously KevFriendly.
The web monkeys are on strike, ( I’m gonna offer them a banana loading, they’ll be back) but I can confidently say that by now, the integrated # of kev’s (friends) + (friends of friends) means he is one degree of separation from over a million myspacers.
So when his blog there exorts his friends to ” SPREAD THE WORD Please forward this link to your friends …”, we’re talking serious inroads into the catchment of australia’s yoof.
So my election speculation is:
Waddaya reckon about Kev’s 2.0 campaign, operating on myspace, facebook ( where he’s exceeded the allowable # of friends), Kev07, and youtube fronts, with yahoo answers to come, will it have a significant impact in this election?
I have it on good authority that someone very close to Howard believes that with each birthday birth trauma is re-enacted i.e. a month before and a month after your birthday things are rough for the birthdayee.
Howard is now out of this period and Rudd is just starting his so I would expect Howard in these circumstances to have the election before Oct 20.
I would expect Ratty to method act his confidence from now on and at the same time fling mud at Rudd expecting him to be vulnerable .
Reply to Paul Burns. Is John Howard losing it? Yes, it is more than possible. There are instances of marked lack of insight and perspective. The Federal Cabinet and Liberal Party will not admit to this and risk a change of leadership this close to the election.
I rather suspect from some of the public behaviours displayed, that there are episodes of irrational rage in private that are being hushed up. Possible that a small stroke has occurred.
Heh!
Is Nancy Reagan’s astrologer still round the traps to offer a view?
That’s hilarious since JHo foisted him on the Telstra board.
Possum works out interest rate rise change in opinion polls
I have my nose in the air sniffing the smell of lead in the hands of those that really count come the day to pencil in who will make the laws for the next 3 yrs.
Ive placed my bet and am looking real hard at what block of units I’L buy with my winnings.
Must mention Aldi have a chainsaw come tomorrow for $169 now that’s a bargain when it comes to chopping things down.
Thread topic is “Election Speculation”.
Well, the sitzkreig is over. The the surplus pork barrell is rolled out and costello is piping up about tax cuts. As per usual.
Money horded from aboriginal affairs, public broadcasting, CSIRO, R and D, education, health and a raft of other necessities often tended to by funding-starved states, is instead dangled as a big bribe before the mortage belt and you’ll know it’s peaking when the cuts are “leaked”.
Walter, sitzkreig, that has a ring about it I think!
Well, since it’s an open thread …
I well understand the arguments for and against compulsory voting, and have no wish to see them regurgitated here.
But lately I’ve got to wondering about who it is in the electorate that Howard is appealing to. How many traditional Liberal voters must be mightily disaffected by his increasingly irrational and transparently crass antics? It doesn’t seem that he’s talking to them at all. Maybe he complacently believes that they’ll stick with him no matter what. Maybe he’s right.
Those who he does seem to be pitching to are those who would not normally be engaged in politics at all, but through ignorance or worse, whose attention might be grabbed by stunts like taking over hospitals and picking fights with State governments over local government.
Given that we’re talking about people who probably wouldn’t vote if they had the choice, is there a renewed argument to tell them not to bother? And given that Howard would have less incentive to pander to them, just maybe we’d see a bit less of the type of behaviour we’ve seen from him in recent weeks?
Gotterdamerung awaits the unwary, Sandy.
Ps just watching Malcom Turncow trying to alibi himself from his failure to approach honestly the Gunns Dioxin pulp mill issue as part of his environment portfolio responsibilites, on 7 30 Report.
Why do politicians turn my stomach so much just now?
The AFP has attacked the release of the “confidential” Haneef transcript, by his legal team, as “unprofessional”.
The AFP accusing others of being unprofessional? the AFP? – now we’ve heard it all!!
walter and sandy: methinks it lacks an ‘h’. This is still phony war until September where Howard launches his last gamble in
the ArdennesSydney, and Rudd crosses the policy Rubicon. At the moment it’s All Quiet apart from the odd Angry Shot.…I’ll get me coat.
Dear Fozzy,
I’m probably teaching you all to suck eggs here but when the Liberal Party was founded in 1946 (I think) it was a liberal party not a conservative party. The Labor Party was a Socialist Party and would shortly attempt (unsuccessfully)to nationalize the banks. Menzies won in 1949 by ending wartime petrol rationing. Nowadays he’d be on the right wing of the ALP (except he would for the most part be too gentlemanly)
And, Judith, I’ll bet there are some major dummy spits going in Kirribilli House, if not in the party room. Howard last went like this during the Howard Peacock challenge in the 1980a but then it was only paranoia, not megalomania. I think Paul Kelly wrote about it in the Hawke Ascendancy.
I keep waiting foir the major public embarassment to happen.
The thought of JWH coming back is unbearable.
Face the unbearable,for if you dont give way to Howards Sainthood he will deposit its suffering with you,if Saint John wins.And Nelson of ear-ring fame got to be where the buck ends today,but some time in the last month.Defense Chief rang the political dad,so all protocols of weapons use could follow.It seems the Minister has the say at points of engagement..the same quality of purpose will be found in the other arms of Gov. like Security needs at APEC, we can be sure.All we need is the return of the long haired bludging unemployed poofta protestor..to be stated clearly from the affronted and back to the days of the mythicalizing of the political man.
Gordon Moyes is an interesting character. He’s the socially and economically right-wing side of the NSW Christian Democrats Party and (at least technically) a blogger.
This is well worth reading for anyone interested in how one very well-mobilised Christian representative actually looks at Christianity and political views:
Oh dear, Rudd has threatened a wholesale takeover of hospitals by 2009 if his demands are not met by the States. Is there no end to the ALP’s lust for power? Does the ALP’s hatred of democracy know no bounds?
Cheers
BBB
I suppose that the words ‘planned and co-ordinated’ as opposed to ‘ad-hoc pork barrelling’ mean nothing to you, BBB?
Yes, yes. The ALP’s hospital plan will be politically pure. What planet are you on, adrian?
But look, the Rudd plan at least has the virtue of including referenda for the referral of powers. He is basically saying that if the States do not agree, he will go the people. He ought to be given full marks for that.
Cheers
BBB
You are very good at deliberately misinterpreting what other’s say, BBB.
Did I say politically pure? No. I hope to never use such a pointless oxymoron.
The other benefit of Rudd’s plan appears to be the fact that it allows for intervention only when a set of pre-determined criteria or standards have not been met. Unlike Howard’s where the only criteria appear to involve the words ‘marginal’ and ‘electorate’.
Shit – others’ say. PHOOP
Christ you are dense, adrian. I believe it was on this blog that I was accused of being a self-styled cynic who had lost his cynicism. I think it’s now time to pass the mantle over to you.
Cheers
BBB
Thanks BBB, looks like I can depend on you for pointless insults as well.
Kev moves to front foot and throws an EB hand grenade.
Follows with a bit of hospital policy that makes sense, in a sea of merde.
Nice work, methinks.
My tea leaves suggest election day 27 October and a lot of walking in the two weeks before. At the worst result, I will have lost weight.
Play nice, please, folks.
No problem, Mark. It’s just that he keeps hurting my feelings when he uses the word ‘pointless’.
Cheers
BBB
Kev is bang on the money with his hospitals policy. There is way too much duplication in the provision of health services and anything that gives more bang for the health dollar is a good thing, and despite the inane ramblings of the SA Opposition Health Minister and the local AMA (who have a huge vested interest in things remaining the way they are), this will particularly be a good thing for the smaller states (especially those with ageing populations) who have had struggling public health systems, partly because of the stress being put on them by older people who should be in high-dependency aged care facilities (that don’t exist) instead of public hospital beds.
Sorry for being long-winded, but I wanted to make the point that the Commonwealth have so badly neglected the aged care system that there are too many older people currently clogging the public hospital system because they have no aged care place to go to, and this has a knock-on effect for the rest of the community via bed/nursing shortages in hospital system. Any Government worth its salt would have recognised that aged care is an area that was in need of urgent attention (anyone who doesn’t know we have an increasingly ageing population doesn’t deserve to be in any policy-making position) and would have been making serious plans for the future. But after 11 years of conservative rule, they haven’t even managed to properly assist its own natural constituency – the over 60s. That neglect is probably part of the reason why the over 60 vote has turned away from the Coalition like never before.
Ah, I apologised before for being long-winded and then I added to it
Spot on Lynda Hopgood.
One level of government needs to take on full responsibilty. The Feds have the big bucks and refuse to look after the elderly, with limited means. Poor, older folks are clogging up the system, for everbody else, because Howard refuses to look after them with dignity; with the inadequate Christopher Pine moving from one stuff up to the next.
In the game of pre-election poker Rudd and seen Howard and raised him double, in the “hospital intervention” part of Howard’s “trample on States” strategy.
Downer & Abbott both commenting on this, attacking Rudd predictably – which means he is getting (or will get some traction on this one). Good to see him have a go at last. It makes a change from incessantly whimpering “me too John”.
The health system does need rationalisation – a recent example being State (NSW & Vic) inaction on merging Albury Wodong services -both of which are duplicating services and having trouble getting staff.
Clever of Rudd to stump up the 2b cash and forward date a possible Federal takeover if the States don’t get it right.
BBB ever heard of sticks and stones? I think pointless is one of the more unobjectionable terms used to offend.
Rudd appears to have changed tactics. Time to stick the neck out a little.
Now just watch the piranhas circle. They now have something to latch onto and while the general hospital idea – rather than cherry picked marginal relief package- is well needed, the forces that be will attack it big time. Indeed, Howard and co will be so pissed off about it, they will probably adopt the policy.
Then you will see who the REAL “me too’ whimperer, that the press have managed to portray Rudd as, is , Peterc.
According to Poll Bludger the Liberals have doubled the number of seats they consider marginal. Hope the ACTU puts in an effort and doubles the number of organisers that they have in marginal seats too. That would go a long way towards neutralising any anti union scare campaign during the election.
joe2 – the hospital plan being attacked by the AMA – isn’t the new Prez close to Tony Abbott?
I don’t know Kim. Is she his mistress? Probably a bit old to be one of his missing offspring.
Several days ago JWH said in Parliament he would not, repeat not, have local referenda on where nuclear power plants would be built, and, in any case the decision was up to big business, ie. Liberal and National party cronies. Yesterday he said he would have binding local plebiscites on where to build these proposed nuclear power plants, but it wouldn’t happen for 20 or 30 years.
This raises some interesting questions:
1. Is he lying to Parliament or to the electorate? He’s got to be lying to some-one because the statements are contradictory.
2. Is the promise to have binding plebescites a core or non-core promise?
3. If he’s not going to start building the nuclear power plants for 20 or 30 years (and he repeated that several times)what on earth has the building of nuclear power plants got to do with fighting global warming?
Or does paranoid megalomaniac Johnny have plans for us having a nuclear arsenal. With the sensitivities of the Indonesians and Chinese being what they are, that would be just more madness.
1. Howard is backflipping due to heat on the nuclear issue. His story is changing, so technically he is not lying (but he still may be)
2. Howard only makes non-core promises.
3. I don’t think Australia will build nuclear power. Certainly Howard won’t. It is too expensive, too dangerous, would be too late to address immediate concerns on climate change, and would not be supported by local plebiscites (assuming they actually occur).
I think Howard has put nuclear power into the mix to:
* try and wedge Labor
* as a red herring & to frame the debate away from energy conservation, renewables and other options which are available here and now.
* to protect uranium exports – not so many people are currently addressing Australia’s responsibility for contributing to the nuclear fuel and waste cycle by these exports – including Labor who have just gone for a NIMBY policy.
He hasn’t achieved the first, but is doing OK on the other two counts. And the power plant location, waste and safety issues are backfiring for him, hence the backflips.
John Howard will get in again for sure with or without the exclusive brethren money.
What do you all think.
Not so sure Margo. They slippped up this week.On past history, the budget surplus should have been their big week, but this was drowned out by Andrews-Spender, Kostikidis, Brough caught out on rorts again and the Brethren.
There was a priceless window of opportunity, instead seized by Rudd, in his inverting of the potentially problematic health discourse.
Now people are asking why Howard plays silly and disruptive games, instead of properly funding the states so they can get on with the job. Less pork barrelling and yuppie welfare; more infrastructure maintainence!
re Kim et al concerning AMA.
That’s amazing if true. Watching SBS Insight this week, a studio full of professors and doctors caned the howard government severely and seemed closer to what Rudd and Roxon have proposed.
You are all Satan’s spawn!
“You are all Satan’s spawn”?
God, I hope so
I’d be more worried about imprecations from people who can spell “brethren”.
Couodn’t believe my eyes – Exclusive Bretheren – satan’s spawns- have you got spelling wright!?
PeterC, the reason Howard wants nuclear power on the table is simpler than the ones you give (although you’re right about the red herring):
Before you can generate one watt of nuclear powered electricity you need to spend ten or so years…
(a) Establishing a domestic uranium enrichment industry.
(b) Establishing a domestic nuclear waste disposal industry.
We will never see nuclear power stations, but we WILL see both (a) and (b) above.
When it becomes clear there won’t be nuclear power stations built on Australian soil, there will be a collective shrug of the shoulders among “connected” business people (guess who… Howard’s mates – and their mates – from Australian Nuclear Power Ltd. and similar greenfields firms) and we will be told we may as well use the pre-nuclear facilities we’ve got to process other countries’ fuel and other countries’ waste.
Shame to waste two already (by then) established industries, right?
That is Howard Red Herring. The prospect of power stations is simply brought up to confuse the issue and get the punters arguing amongst themselves.
Exclusive Bretheren,
You’re officially shunned.
And if there are any other Exclusive Brethren out there reading this, turn yourselves in immediately.
Yours in Christ,
EV.
Do the exclusive brethren have computers?
Not if I can help it.
YIC
EV
Have often wondered where the cash comes from. You will find they do have computers-its like don’t touch (but a stick can)
Oh the smug arrogance!
Overheard from a Labor candidate from Brisbane’s outer north -
“Why bother campaigning – when the swing is on, the swing is on everywhere.”
http://www.alp.org.au/people/?task=qs&seat=longman
Yes, maozze, obviously he has read possum pollytics and can understand publicly released polling. How does Brough think he is doing in that seat?
maozze,
I’m outing myself here but you are engaging in dirty politics – no such statement
â??Why bother campaigning – when the swing is on, the swing is on everywhere.â??
has ever been made by me.
True, I have often talked about swings – I was elected to State Parliament in one in 1989 and then defeated in one in 1998 – but I have continually asserted that Labor has been in this Polling position previously, and lost.
So now you know who I am, how about letting us know who you are, and where you allege you overheard the comment.
Jon Sullivan
Steve,
my information is that he believes he’ll hang on (now for an attempt at irony) despite the swing
I think you will find that a wayward tory has stumbled across this, hit the panic button and reached for the old dirt file.
Those 3 articles make good reading but don’t give too much comfort – as one colleague says ‘at the moment it’s nil-all’. Thanks
I think in the end it all depends how much wok has been done in the community but at least now that Brough would rather spend his time in the NT he can surely be undermined in his own electorate.
Are you running the campaign with the same military precision we have come to expect from Captain Brough?
The best I can be without having the resources available to him – I don’t underestimate incumbency, it worked for me in the past. Brough may be in the NT but there’s a tele in just about every lounge room in Longman.
I’ve heard there is a good printing firm called willprint at the Gabba perhaps they can be of service to one of you?
Good one – nice chatting but I’ve got to go now – there are (more irony) campaign activities awaiting. Cheers
Looks like the economic credentials are shifting now.
Lefty E has already announced the results of the latest Galaxy Poll on Saturday Salon, but for the full breakdown of figures it’s here
Methinks Howard will have a bit more time on hischands to help babysit the new grandkiddie.
Looks like Howard and Costello’s slashing of funding and standards of the Quarantine services have been the failure he was warned about in 1996.
Kevin Andrews and CV veracity?
Looks like a major announcement on IR is about to be made.
Sack him. Using prime minisiterial discretion – as he “is not the sort of person we who should be in parliament, let alone a minister”.
There are now two grounds for his dismissal:
1. Rank incompetence as a minister and political interference in the Haneef case – as the courts have now indicated.
2. Dishonesty – misleading the Australian people about his literary/academic credentials.
Something very odd is happening withe the Bush APEC visit. At first I though GWB was coming early because JWH had told him he was pulling troops out of Iraq before the election and Bush was trying to talk him out of it. But now I think it might have a lot more to do with American realpolitick. Could it just be the US Ambassador has told Bush JWH might not win the election/ Is this the real reason Laura Bush isn’t going to Marie-Antoinette’s bash at Bondi? Has it suddenly dawned on the Republicans in the White House that they might have to deal with an ALP Government by the end of the year, so Bush is distancing himself from his ideological soulmate? But JWH is too vain to see it.
Mumble has details of a Poll tipping competition worth $1000, it closes in a month.