Sorry, with school holidays I overlooked putting this up this week!
A weekly 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»
The ALP will lose one to two points over Deathpenaltygate and small-l Liberals who were swinging towards the ALP but swung back because of the reconciliation issue. Shanahan will claim, in some bizarre twist of logic, that the Coalition will romp it home with an increased majority.
Either that or Rudd will continue as Mr Teflon and his 2PP lead will break out to 30 points.
Hi – I’ve started a ‘morning news’ section on the Maleny Times website.
Would love to contribute to your site but it seems comments are the only way.
This morning’s post:
They pass the test
In a stunning about-turn, Prime Minister Howard this morning announced that all Aboriginal people had been found to have ‘real Australian values’. They have, he said “a special but not separate place in our society.’
‘I’m the first to admit that this whole area is one I have struggled with during the entire time that I have been Prime Minister.” he said.”
Immigration Minister Andrews praised the Prime Minister’s bold move, stating ‘Here is a case where people have settled in very well and shown a true desire to be Australian.’
A Macquarie Bank spokesman went further – “We are proud to be a part of the make over of Aboriginal people and are delighted by the Prime Minister’s desire that Indigenous Australians should enjoy the full bounty that this country has to offer. We will be introducing a special ‘Sorry sub prime interest rate’ to communities to ensure that they can take advantage of this opportunity to become truly Australian.”
Labour was not contacted for comment. It is assumed they agree.
Sammy,
I like these revelations politicians like Howard have around election time especially when they’ve been in power for eleven years.
That last line in your comment, “Labour [sic] was not contacted for comment. It is assumed they agree” sums up the ALP today.
Hi, Sammy. Generally, yes, comments threads are how newbies to a blog contribute to it. I’m not really sure how else you would expect it to work. If your comments are on topic, substantive and insightful, people will want to follow the link back to your own blog to see what else you write there.
[excessive early morning crankiness deleted - my sincere apologies] You might like to provide permalinks to specific posts in future e.g. http://www.malenytimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=924&Itemid=110
That said, I agree with Sans Blog that your last line is a pearler.
Have the Howards lived in Kirribilli House long enough yet to claim squatter’s rights?
Phil posted about that a month ago, Sans Blog! Will Hyacinth ever be willing to leave? http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/12/listen-carefully-or-the-country-gets-it/
Today in the Hun:
I have been addicted to watching the fall of Ratty in slow motion, but the media won’t let me think it’s the fall of Ratty for one minute but instead the biggest resurrection since Jesus Christ. As a result my creative juices have been sucked dry and all I can manage is a croaked rasp: Oh God! When is the election date?
All this just proves one thing,Howard would sell his granny if he though there was a vote in it.
The mans a fraud and a charlatan and I hope for the country,s sake they boot the swine,by the way the words core and non core where not mentioned were they.
I predict the ALP will attempt to pull the same preferences stunt as last time. From what I hear even faithful branch members didn’t see the preferences and never guessed that their party would put the reactionary, fundamentalist Family First above the Greens. In my Melbourne electorate Tanner has already launched a policy based on don’t vote for the Greens, on YouTube. So I predict same old, same old – the Libs run an anti ALP campaign and the ALP run an anti Greens campaign. The Greens will attempt to be noble and stick to policies but will be under resources and end up just preaching to the converted.
//Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer cancelled a trip to Indonesia yesterday to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Bali bombings, sending Parliamentary Secretary Greg Hunt instead…//
DOWNER SUPPORTS TERRORISTS, screams The Government Gazette, SNUBS BALI VICTIMS… Do you think we’ll see this headline…?
In seats like Tanner’s where the Greens vote is high, of course the sitting member is going to campaign against them! Are you suggesting that it’s fine for the Greens to run against Labor, but that Labor should just shut up and let them? It’s a campaign.
I believe his election will be decided by the number of votes cast for each party.
I have to admit to having grown tired lately of the constant ‘tips and rumours’ regarding the election date.
Crikey’s rumour section is a particularly bad offender, with lines such as “a well-placed source assures us the election will be called today”, printed in every second edition since early September…
Keep it up and they’ll eventually be right, I guess.
Why not just run with “my goldfish swam around the bowl twice this morning before returning to its plastic castle. This is a sure sign the PM will be returning to Government House today to visit the Governor-General.”
Well, in the seats like Melbourne, Darebin etc. it is a contest between the ALP and the Greens. The Liberals come third, so of course the ALP candidate will run against its main opponent.
My bet is that Ratty won’t call the election this weekend. Parliament will resume on Monday, ostensibly to fix ‘urgent drought legislation’ while he has another look at Newspoll which is due on Monday evening again.
“Well, in the seats like Melbourne, Darebin etc. it is a contest between the ALP and the Greens. The Liberals come third, so of course the ALP candidate will run against its main opponent.”
It is all perfectly understandable/predictable. I just wonder, though, how Labor members in other than inner urban seats, who relied on Green preferences, last time, feel about the more shrill and baseless attacks that come from their city colleagues against The Greens.
My money is on December the 3rd because someone told me who is close to the trainer and has slept with the horse.
A Morgan is out. 57.5-42.5 2PP.
Well that surely settles it, Phil. The horses are definitely moving towards the barrier, this weekend, for a longer than usual track. Flu or no flu.
This extraordinary bounce shows that the ‘honeymoon is more over’ , with every, latest, bold John Howard move, foremost in peoples’ minds. Rudd is looking more ineffectual, gay, indecisive , socialist and overly capitalist every day. Any unbiased observer would have to say.
Thanks Joe2, you bet my response to Anna and Guido re Tanner. Perhaps you’d like to check out the video (sorry am on a slow connection today, go to anonymouslefty for the link last week) – it is the most convoluted argument. Didn’t Julia G knock the libs a few weeks ago for basing their campaign on anti-ALP rather than on policies? So isn’t thisa case of the pot calling the kettle a rather dark colour here?
I’ve heard the Greens have offered ALP a preference swap again. I’m sad to think that Tanner would prefer Family First or the Libs to represent me once more. That is really being out of touch with the electorate he represents.
Ther will be an internet debate from Eden Monaro on Sunday.
Betting plunge on November 24 [link]
And as a prelude to the campaign launch Howard frames his campaign around these five issues:
Growth and opportunity
The economic management credential claim (ignoring the fact that climate change risks are going to blow us out of the water and a price on carbon will kill off coal exports).
Stronger communities
By slashing more government spending on social welfare presumably?
Securing Australia
What a surprise! More money on defence, anti terrorism and fighting ill-considered foreign wars without end. Another furphy – Howard has made Australia less secure with his adventurism.
Sustainable country
Now this is a rabbit. How exactly? More inaction on drought and climate change? Or maybe more handouts? After years of denial and prevarication, what exactly are his plans for this?
National unity
By teaching school kids how to salute properly and writing the history they read? Next Howard will e making them all wear the same coloured shirts. By more inaction on reconciliation? By dill Ministers like Andrews fanning the fires of racism?
And Rudd reponds: [link]
Full moon in Taurus on November 24th. Helluva night for a party.
Hey, I dont normally like to personalise my rants, but Ive just founf out my 3yo daughter didnt get a kindy place.
Wtf!!! She didnt get one? what is this, Bangladesh? Sierra Leone?
Im sorry – let me make this pefectly clear.
I demand, as of right, a freakin kindy place for my daughter. Ok?
Bring on the education revolution. This place is going to the dogs.
So much for Andrews claims about secret evidence that was going to prove Haneef guilty. DPP now says Haneef should never have been charged. I’d expect HC will soon be here to apologise for his attacks on LP over the case.
Thank God it’ll be before December. My travel schedule transitions from crazy to insane in December, at least this way I can now plan to be in London to cast my vote.
Sham-I-am has rolled out the rose coloured glasses. the master class rehash and then finds it frustrating that the voting public do not believe his analysis.
mick,
Lucky you to be out of the country for a least some of the election campaign.
Don’t know how the rest of us will cope, with the phoney campaign having contributed to one of the longest bouts of Federal election propaganda I can remember.
Shanahan’s piece is weird for so many reasons, but here’s just one:
Speculate no more, El Rodente is going to call the election tomorrow.
But Australia training the Burmese junta’s secret police may be the fly in the ointment used to massage the media.
Hopefully, questions will be asked.
See more on this here…
I haven’t heard anyone else say it:
John H. doesn’t have the ticker to call the election.
Mark: ended a faux campaign on a roll is just bizarre, though I guess at least it wasn’t a sausage roll. With Shanners you’ve got to be thankful for small mercies…
24 November
Hope so.
a heavily pregnant nation waits impatiently to give birth.
the last couple of offspring were definitely sub-normal, but if it’s the same father this time, we are looking at a profoundly delayed national soul.
surely, people want to swim in a fresh gene pool? (this is where rudd’s me-tooism, becomes positively milk-manlike.)
howard flew to canberra tonight, seems its happening tomorrow…..so excited!
sorry for off-thread comment:
lefty e,
you can always pull ‘govt regulations’ on them and question them about their waiting list/placement priorities, if it’s a LDC – long day centre (not a kindy) – LDC’s must provide a ‘kindy program’ for 4 years old btw. but they open from 7-6 rather than 9-3 etc.
but LDC’s must give priority to both working/studying parents/carers. often LDC’s like to have stay-at-home mums in the place, cause they can charge the same day rate, but the mums drop off later, and pick them up way earlier than working stiffs. understandable, but not kosher.
these are the regulations from the Child Care Service Handbook 2006-2007 from Centrelink for operators:
Go Maxine. Watch out for those Exclusive Brethren.
is jeffrey at yarralumla tomorrow?
Thanks Jo. I want to learn more about it, and I dont personally feel its off thread. This is a big issue. Childcare, and particularly kindergarten, is an absolute policy schmozzle if you ask me. Totally rooted up by letting private providers in, and then starving the community to ensure big profits.
I bet that ABC Private Childcare a*sehole is a major coalition donor.
Believe me, Ill be making some calls. AS far as Im concerned, kinder is part of a public schooling program, and I dont regard it as acceptable that some children ‘miss out’.
I do hope Ruddster offers some direction on this question. Placement issues aside, its really a pile of crap for ye olde ‘working families’. Most of it is 9am-1pm, which is about as useful as a hole in the head.
Hello, 21st century calling.
lefty e,
ask away, i been on committees of management of community based long day care and out of school care centres. : )
‘ABC Learning Centres’ is a national disgrace. they raked in $143 million in after tax profit in 2007 mostly from govt. subsidies.
but a confidential survey of child care workers from big commercial operators dished the dirt – crap toys, programs & food, not meeting ratios etc, children left without carers etc.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/childcare-chains-damned–by-insiders/2006/03/31/1143441340459.html
Larry Anthony went straight onto the board after losing his seat, and Sally Anne Atkinson is another board member.
this mob have also tried to open for ‘for-profit’ infants and primary schools. QLD had to change the laws to stop them getting funding.
imo, a labor govt should stop raising the CCB, as the commercial operators just increase their fees and hit the collect button from centrelink. any rise should only come after a change in the award wage for child care workers and along with CPI… community based operators used to set the fee benchmark once, and many small owner-operators used to use the same formulas.
More of the same from the bumbling Andrews.
It was a loneliest flight to Canberra ever, taken by loneliest man in Australia.
Why am I feeling vaguely sorry for him? As I reflect for a nanosecond on the things I admired about John Howard, I can find only one–he went for a walk every morning.
Only six more weeks to go.(sigh). The knives are out and sharpened. Let the bloodbath begin. Speaking of which, the AFP connection with the Burmese military is absolutely disgraceful. How could this ever possibly ever be considered humanitarian ‘aid’?
Fortunately its a pretty quick flight together. 45mins? That’ll do for the reflecting, (he probably tried to read all the way. Anything to avoid thinking about the inevitable. Doubt that the silly man ever reflects on anything. Introspection, clearly not a strong suit.
. . .together? where did that come from? Freudian slip. Although now that I think about it wouldn’t be surprised if Janette went with his and held his hand the whole way.
Latest polls have revealed the Howard Liberals are almost friendless.
“I do hope Ruddster offers some direction on this question. Placement issues aside, its really a pile of crap for ye olde ‘working families’. Most of it is 9am-1pm, which is about as useful as a hole in the head.”
Hope this gives you the idea Left E-
Dated January 29th from the ALP website-
Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin today launched Chapter One of Federal Labor’s Education Revolution – New Directions for Early Childhood Education.
A Rudd Labor Government will give all Australian four year olds the right to early childhood education. This announcement follows Kevin Rudd’s first Shadow Cabinet meeting as Leader in Brisbane today.
With a Commonwealth investment of $450 million, Labor will give all four year olds an entitlement to 15 hours of preschool or early learning per week, for a minimum of forty weeks per year, delivered by a qualified teacher.
Labor’s investment will be made in both the public and private sectors – we are concerned about the quality of learning, not whether it takes place in a preschool or childcare centre.
If anyone wants to be able to follow betting markets during the campaign. The link is here.
Childcare subsidies are paid to the to the parents via Childcare service, [ via initial upfront fee reduction to the parents] , for the care of children. This is a very specific stream of funding.
However, education is another funding stream altogether- and that addtional funding stream needs to come from the Education Department. Canada is having a big debate over this issue of putting pressure on the care sector.
higher quality and education , equals higher costs to the parents.
NZ is having a crisis over their 15/20 hours of free kindy – because the Govt is not paying enough subsidy to maintain financial/educational sustainability – and the parents have to pay a top up fee. their subsidy is not much more than the Aus CCB – so it does not cover Teachers Wages [4 Yr Degree Trained].
this has been going on for almost 2 years – and given time it will implode, as the care providers and families were offered the dangling carrot – but tit seems hey did not do a SWOT or financial analysis for long term sustainability.
The whole industry needs a review – not just sections at a time, as every change impacts on other areas, creating compromises and difficulties.
Issawn, mawfuz.
Yeah, I remember that one Murph. Its a very good plan. Current arrangements are a dog’s breakfast.
Yep, Sir Henry’s informants seem to have picked it. Bang a gong, get it on.
In six weeks minus a couple of hours I’ll be either drunk and crying or drunk and crowing: you heard it here first.
Enjoying your comments Jo. Will read up some more…
Lefy E does email a lot of crap regarding Childcare Benefits re ABC Learnings centres the money is paid to the centres from Centrelink on behalf of the parent/child going to ALL LDC including Community Centres – I not defending ABC except when Lefty E emails crap!!