Tag Archive for 'national press club'

The Great Health Debate

Published
by
Mark
3 days, 21 hours ago
in Health and Politics
. 70 Comments

Today’s Question Time saw some interesting tactics from the government; suspending standing orders to allow Tony Abbott to talk about health and hospitals policy. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who saw the debate, but from what I heard on the tv, it looked like Abbott was mostly in bluster mode, and Rudd quite assured. Clearly Labor believes that Abbott wants to talk about anything but health, and that his lack of command of the detail, and lack of any substantive alternative policy will work to the ALP’s credit.

So, the debate Rudd challenged him to on Tuesday will be interesting. It’ll also keep the media focus squarely where the government wants it to be for the next little while.

Elsewhere: Bernard Keane.

Elsewhere: Tigtog at Hoyden.

Update: The commentariat seems to be impressed by Abbott’s performance. By way of example, Samantha Maiden:

But the egg ended up all over Labor’s face as the Opposition Leader rose to the challenge, hurling abuse at Kevin Rudd.

Righteo, then.

Update: Bernard Keane in Crikey today:

If Abbott could spend Tuesday’s debate repeating yesterday’s dose and bagging the Government and explaining that he didn’t cut health funding, it’d be fine, but there’s now an expectation he must do more than criticise Rudd, that he must offer something positive. It obviously wasn’t in the Coalition’s planning to be producing a full-blown health policy at this stage. Rudd himself will presumably use the debate to make yet another of the many announcements about health funding that he promised back when he kicked off the health debate. If so, Abbott’s failure to produce something of substance will look particularly poor.

All of which is why, despite the alleged risks of debating your opponent, Rudd is happy to be doing just that.

Joyce and Monckton: Singing from the same hymn book

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change
. 98 Comments

Peter Hartcher on Barnaby Joyce’s address to the Press Club:

”Because we represent the alternative government in Australia, that does not mean that we are omnipotent and that our views permeate to become the views of everyone else. We have to provide an outcome that represents the aspirations of the Australian people.”

In other words, we’re doing it because we have to pander to the electorate’s views, even if we think they’ve been gulled by a giant fraud.

And he made plain that he thinks this is exactly what it is.

Christopher Monckton:

Speaking to The Age before his speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, Lord Monckton said he had noted that Mr Abbott was very engaged by climate issues.

Lord Monckton said he told Mr Abbott his $3.2 billion policy to reduce carbon emissions by 5 per cent was unnecessary because carbon affected the atmosphere only one-seventh of what the United Nations said it did.

But Lord Monckton added that Mr Abbott’s policies to encourage tree planting and to help industry save energy would help address ”genuine” environmental problems.

”It is indeed better to have a policy which nods to the issue of climate change for those who still believe, and there are some diehards who still believe, that fixes some of the genuine environment issues that are a lot cheaper than the enormous amounts diverted to this ridiculous climate thing,” Lord Monckton said.

Later Monckton told the National Press Club that human-emitted carbon emissions were not warming the planet, that increased sun activity accounted for recent higher temperatures, and that the draft negotiating text at December UN climate talks had proposed setting up a world government.

Greens’ climate vision

Published
by
Brian
9 months ago
in Climate change
. 46 Comments

Christine Milne gave a very fine speech at the National Press Club the other day, very fine indeed. She quotes Gandhi and Kofi Annan up front, then Machiavelli and John Kennedy, finishing with Thoreau. There are many fine rhetorical flourishes and quotable lines.

But what of the substance?

My bottom line is that when we see the policies fleshed out in full it could comprise something of a benchmark for policy ambition in the political context.

Continue reading ‘Greens’ climate vision’

Forget political narratives, here’s a media narrative

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 6 months ago
in Education, Media and Politics
. 43 Comments

Kevin Rudd’s address to the National Press Club yesterday (you can read it here) was notable as much for what he didn’t say as for what he did. I’d be very surprised indeed if the expectation that he would spell out a “narrative” wasn’t created by Labor types themselves. It’s not the sort of thing that journos just make up. But with his tick a box recital of what the government had done on education, he’s signalling that he’s not going to play that particular game – pragmatism rather than oratory is his weapon of choice. But like a lot of what Rudd has announced as PM, there’s very little detail to back up his various initiatives in the latest “chapter” of the “education revolution”. That’s ok, though, apparently for a usually sceptical media, because he’s representing himself as taking on the teachers’ unions.

As Bismarck commented on this thread, it’s an old trick. As old as Bill Clinton actually – who first trialled it in Arkansas when he wanted to demonstrate that he wasn’t a “traditional” Democrat. And, as we all know, Arkansas now has a school system that’s the envy of the world (ahem)…

Continue reading ‘Forget political narratives, here’s a media narrative’