Bruce Hawker’s ruminations about bringing in Ministers from outside Parliament reminded me of a couple of things - how forgettable the 2020 Summit proved to be (and not because of the goodwill and expertise a lot of participants brought to it - but because the manipulation of its discussions demonstrated it was basically a stunt) and the fact that Bob Hawke - another summit fan - also called for non-MPs to be appointed to Cabinet in his 1979 Boyer Lectures. [Hawkey, of course, wasn’t at that stage a parliamentarian himself.]
As Lord Downer of Cyprus Alexander Downer prepares to dump on the electors of Mayo less than eight months after they re-elected him, reasonable observers might wonder who exactly is treating the voters with contempt:
“I think they’re treating the people of Mayo with contempt if they’re not prepared to run a candidate when they’re the Government of Australia.”
Except on Planet Janet, there’s probably little interest around about Dolly’s musings, presumably concocted over a cigar or two while dreaming about his Hummer. But there is still some interest around about whether Labor should run a candidate in the Mayo by-election that will result from Downer’s resignation from Parliament.
Tim Watts at Tree of Knowledge thinks not, noting Antony Green’s summary of all the times the Libs eschewed the chance to run in by-elections they couldn’t win while in Government. The Poll Bludger suggests the ALP should:
No doubt their decision will be soundly based on research, but if I were them I’d go for it: the electorate that almost put John Schumann in parliament seems an unlikely candidate for an emissions trading scheme backlash, and a relatively good result would help shake the Gippsland monkey off the government’s back.
The media cycle being what it is, I suspect Gippsland’s now ancient history. I’m not sure if The Poll Bludger’s ever been to the Adelaide Hills, but it’s certainly not fertile territory for Labor. Antony Green’s already got a page up on the by-election contest, and he observes: Continue reading ‘No Mayo with that, please, it doesn’t go with my latte’
Ross Garnaut will be speaking in mainland capital cities next week about the Garnaut Report. Sydney and Perth are already booked out, but if you’re in Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide you can still register. Adelaide’s Tuesday, Melbourne is Wednesday and Brisbane’s Friday. I’ve booked myself a spot for the Brisbane gig.
Beyond the continuing drama of Belinda Neal’s Night of the Iguanas, one other story has hogged the talkback airwaves and tabloid pages this week:
The woman, 28, who moved from Geelong to Adelaide three months ago, was refused bail in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court. She was charged with five counts of criminal neglect, two of acting to endanger life and three of acting in a way likely to cause harm.
The alleged offences took place between February 1 and Monday, when police raided two houses in Adelaide and found up to 21 children living in filth and squalor.
You know the one we mean.
Yeah, it’s all about the kiddies. Mal Brough emotes. And Brendan Nelson’s veins are popping. Crikey tries to take the high moral ground and claim this story - which punches all the buttons (TM !!!!) about the neglect of the children - is more worthy of loud denunciation or on the other hand, more… tabloid crud, but what’s their point? Why are the kiddies neglected? Why isn’t there an intervention into ADELAIDE? Etc. We all know that’s where the weird murders are. Bleh blah. Lordy, let’s not have any actual structural analysis of why such situations might arise. It’s all the individual pathology, stupid. Raise your eyes - just for a second - don’t blink too hard - from the important issue of why Belinda Neal hasn’t yet been burnt as a witch.
There might be a view that we - in the independent blogosphere - might be able to do a little better than this (without the huge financial and human resources that the MSM can leverage) but - based on some hard facts - you - the ejumacated readership of teh independent blogs would rather read about and comment on the SERIOUS ISSUES OF THE DAY. As stipulated by the said MSM. Maybe I’m wrong? (I’m not actually, and I could cite stat after stat to show that)… but….
Some of the tensions in Rudd’s governance and indeed in his Cabinet over climate change issues are discussed by Brian in this post. Brian’s thoughts could usefully be read together with Shaun Carney’s column in yesterday’s Age [via Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion]:
The central tension for contemporary Labor is the need to weave together its disparate supporting tribes and Rudd’s car plan, which co-opts concern about climate change to underpin the ALP’s more traditional working class base, tells us how he wants to do it. When Labor was last in power, under Paul Keating, it managed to hold on to most of its white-collar support base but lost office when parts of its blue-collar base, pummelled by the effects of economic deregulation, concluded it had lost touch. Since then, the white-collar left has coalesced more solidly around the Greens - an effect that has been turbo-charged by the death of the more moderate Democrats. This has two consequences, both of which make it harder for Labor to hold on to power.
Ross Gittins has a great piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today, making the obvious point that:
… households earning $150,000 or more - starting at almost twice the median - are in the top 15 per cent of households.
The top 15 per cent aren’t rich, but they’re certainly not battlers. They’re not even anywhere near the middle; they’re up near the top.
The average earnings of adult full-time employees are now $60,000. So someone on $150,000 is pulling in 2½ times average. And you’re asking the rest of us to feel sorry for you? You reckon the bottom 97 per cent of taxpayers should be paying you special benefits?
The carry-on we’ve seen from people pulling down a paltry $150,000 a year borders on the obscene when put beside the troubles of the people who really do have cause for complaint, single pensioners living it up on $270 a week. That’s a bit over $14,000 a year - less than a 10th of what the well-off whingers are getting.
But how can people living on two or three times the average income genuinely believe they’re middle-income strugglers?
He goes on to answer his own question, and in doing so, makes the point that people usually have a poor perception of what others’ incomes actually are, and that they tend to compare up rather than down. There are oodles of studies that make that point.
I have no idea what that means. [I think I’m channelling Letterman.]
The point of this post, of course, is to register and share my excitement that Adelaide’s favourite, The Audreys have a new album out, When the Flood Comes. Available now.
It’s hard to resist taking potshots at Brendan Nelson’s listening tour diary, and the GrodsCorp crew haven’t been resisting. I plead guilty too.
But there are some interesting questions raised by his Adelaide despatches. Part of Nelson’s aim on this tour is obviously to reinforce his image as “consultative”, and he’s making a virtue of personally writing up his peregrinations. He’s also obviously trying to embed his compassion thing, perhaps because the Liberal Party is so deficient in the “vision thing” department right now.
I started the day at the Adelaide Central Markets and saw my becoming good friend now, Ross Savos, who runs the Central Deli at the markets, and then went on to have the opportunity to speak to a number of the stallholders.
Yikes!
This guy used to make pronouncements about literacy and standards when he was Education Minister. On one hand, maybe we should be grateful that a pollie is actually writing this thing in his own words (unless his staffers are sub-literate). On the other… ? And, then, there’s this:
I’ve mentioned this before, but the renovations to the blog and something that’s on tomorrow night have got me thinking about it again. From time to time, I’ve been inviting people to events I think LP folks would find interesting via the blog’s Facebook group - most recently, the Anna Haebich book launch and this week, a forum tomorrow night featuring John Quiggin on the way forward for the labour movement. Just because of where I live, these events have had a tendency to be in Brisbane! I’d be really keen to see people use LP and the Facebook interface to promote things on all over the shop that would appeal to people this blog appeals to. So I’d encourage people to let me know of anything that might fall into that category.
I also think that it might be a spiffy idea to run some of our own - I’m thinking more forums with speakers and discussion than grogblogs - not everyone’s into the latter, but those who are could of course combine the socialising with a bit of politicising. What do folks think? I’d be very keen to have some feedback, ideas, suggestions.
Incidentally, if you’re on Facebook, please consider joining the blog’s group. And feel free to add me as a friend!
I’m normally a fairly quick reader. But it took me about two weeks before I went to Adelaide to read my way through Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s magnum opus - A Secular Age. It’s a whopping 880 odd pages, but it repays careful and considered reading. It’s a very important book indeed - with the potential to completely reframe how sociologists see secularity and secularisation, how we understand the long term contributions of Latin Christianity to our contemporary culture and ideas, and indeed how we think about politics in the West. I’ll have to set aside the pleasure of writing a review until after the election’s done and dusted, but I was forwarded an email today (thanks Michael!) pointing to a dedicated blog about the book and the issues it raises hosted by the Social Science Research Council.
I think that’s a great initiative, and Taylor himself has been blogging there. I’d suggest a look at the introductory post to get some idea of the context (and for links to reviews) and a read of Robert Bellah’s post. The comments threads can be a tad academic, but one of the beauties of Taylor’s work is how accessibly and clearly he writes - perhaps something of an irony for a scholar who cut his teeth on a groundbreaking reintrepretation of Hegel. The blog is well worth a look both as an example of good practice in the dissemination and discussion of academic work, and also for anyone concerned with the very crucial issues around the intersection of history, religion, culture and politics. That’s all of us, right?
Yes, folks, it’s true. Wayne Swan will hold his seat and even get a swing of 10%, according to fascinating Galaxy polling in the Brisbane Sunday Mail today. There’s a lot of speculation over on The Poll Bludger’s thread as to the motivations for News Ltd tabloid polling in Labor seats (Kate Ellis is also romping it in in Adelaide, according to Galaxy) - are they trying to suggest that all the swing is tied up in Labor territory? Who knows? The Galaxy poll in Queensland taken in the first week led to a media narrative that Labor weren’t doing fabulously in the Sunshine State - based on the completely invalid extrapolation of the swing in that poll to the state as a whole. Somehow, I doubt we’ll see the same leap made in commentary on this one - though if it were, they’d have to be reporting that Labor would win 13 seats in Queensland.
Anyway, as several commenters at The Poll Bludger have realised, it’s probably more interesting to discuss the musical merits of Swannie’s daughter Erinn’s band, Nina May. Not bad at all, I reckon!
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I’m visiting Adelaide at the moment - down here for my sister’s wedding yesterday. We took a road trip to the Clare Valley on Friday and stopped at the excellent Jesuit Sevenhill winery, yesterday was the wedding and the reception and today’s been lazy!
Mr Downer said he played a pivotal role in securing the pandas so that they could breed in Australia as part of a global survival program.
“I love animals and I think the giant panda is one of the truly great animals of the world - they’re an endangered species,” Mr Downer told the Nine Network.
“It is true that I’ve been working with the Chinese in my position not only as an Adelaide MP, but also as the Foreign Minister, to try to get them to lend to us, an Australian zoo, two giant pandas.
“And they’ve agreed to do it to my own home zoo which my own grandfather was once the president of, so I’m kind of excited about it.”
It’s a win win. What will be the next big deal announced?
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It’s hard to resist taking potshots at Brendan Nelson’s listening tour diary, and the 
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